Overcoming Technical Issues

[00:00:04] Are you on DT&S today?

[00:00:06] I'm on DT&S today again, so I'm hosting today.

[00:00:09] All right.

[00:00:09] Again.

[00:00:10] By the way, you're killing it in the lead spot.

[00:00:13] Oh, appreciate that, man.

[00:00:15] I noticed.

[00:00:15] I was like, that guy.

[00:00:18] He's in charge.

[00:00:21] Okay.

[00:00:22] So, Robb, on today's Behind the Post episode, I was thinking that you and I could talk about

[00:00:28] technical difficulties because I had a ton last week.

[00:00:32] And how to deal with them and kind of how that affects the rest of your week and your

[00:00:40] family life and all the other stuff that goes with that.

[00:00:42] You cool with that?

[00:00:44] Oh, absolutely, man.

[00:00:45] Okay.

[00:00:46] Technically, this is not one of those things to where you can just, you can do things to

[00:00:50] mitigate them and try to make them less horrible, but they're going to happen as long as you

[00:00:57] do this long enough.

[00:00:59] Yeah.

[00:01:00] So, it's funny.

[00:01:02] Last week, we did not post a Behind the Post episode because I lost the episode.

[00:01:08] I had it recorded.

[00:01:10] It was the one where you and I got to know each other a little bit more because for everybody,

[00:01:14] Robb and I have never seen each other in person.

[00:01:16] We're going to see each other in January, but we've never seen each other in person.

[00:01:20] So, every now and again, we break into like little conversations just getting to know each

[00:01:24] other.

[00:01:25] And we thought that would be nice to share with everybody else.

[00:01:27] I lost that episode.

[00:01:29] And you know why I lost that episode?

[00:01:31] Because I labeled it something that I don't normally label.

[00:01:34] It's usually it's BTP, Beyond the Post, Patreon, Season 3 Prep, Episode blank, right?

[00:01:44] I didn't label it that because I was at work when I edited it.

[00:01:49] I was in the middle of doing a bunch of things for work.

[00:01:52] And then I foolishly just saved it as something in a folder somewhere.

[00:01:59] And then about a week later, two weeks later, because we recorded this a couple weeks ago,

[00:02:04] I was like, man, what are all these stupid folders doing here?

[00:02:07] And I deleted a bunch of stuff with a bunch of stuff in it because I didn't recognize what

[00:02:12] it was and I needed space for some other things.

[00:02:15] And then when I went to post our episode, there was nothing there.

[00:02:20] To make matters worse, I had nothing but lately I've been having a lot of internet issues at my

[00:02:27] house.

[00:02:28] I replaced my routers, but I didn't replace my modem.

[00:02:31] So, I was like, man, Friday morning, last Friday morning, I was like, you know what?

[00:02:37] I'm going to replace the modem today.

[00:02:39] Go out.

[00:02:39] I spent $200 on this sucker.

[00:02:42] I get home, try to get it up and going.

[00:02:46] No dice.

[00:02:48] It won't connect.

[00:02:49] And I was like, I'll call.

[00:02:50] I'm going to go have lunch with my wife and then I will call Cox later.

[00:02:55] Cox, I talked to four different representatives, three on the phone, one through text or messaging.

[00:03:02] And the fourth guy at three o'clock in the afternoon after I spent, this started at 630 in the morning

[00:03:08] when I was having internet problems at 330, four o'clock in the afternoon.

[00:03:13] He goes, sir, you have an internet outage in your area.

[00:03:15] Are you aware of that?

[00:03:16] I was like, I was not aware of that.

[00:03:18] So, I spent $200 for an internet outage and I turned in my old modem for $15 to get off the $200 modem.

[00:03:28] So, I spent $185.

[00:03:31] And then they couldn't provision my modem and I had to go back at 8 o'clock at night, Rob, when the internet outage was done.

[00:03:37] And I went back to Best Buy at 8 o'clock at night and I swapped it out for another one.

[00:03:43] And by 930, we're good to go.

[00:03:45] And then I had computer problems.

[00:03:48] And then I had, in between the time, but between now and then, I had to go back to work.

[00:03:54] And we had internet problems at work, which I suspect there's also a modem issue there at work.

[00:03:59] So, we have our own little private internet there.

[00:04:03] Yeah, so long story short.

[00:04:05] I've got a question for you.

[00:04:06] Yeah.

[00:04:06] I have a question for you.

[00:04:08] Did one of your twins bring what you thought was a hamster home?

[00:04:13] And you fed that joker after midnight?

[00:04:16] Because you had the gremlins, man.

[00:04:19] It was cute.

[00:04:20] That thing was cute.

[00:04:21] And you know what?

[00:04:22] One of my twins might be a gremlin.

[00:04:23] And it might be my daughter, if I'm being honest.

[00:04:28] Yeah.

[00:04:28] It was...

[00:04:34] Yesterday was the first day that I was able to get a handle on all of my friends.

[00:04:37] All of the things I'm behind on.

[00:04:39] I got behind on my other podcast.

[00:04:41] I got behind on things I'm supposed to do for work.

[00:04:43] I got behind on...

[00:04:45] And when you have a...

[00:04:47] The second chief in charge of the fire department calling you up and being like, hey, where are we at on this project?

[00:04:52] And you have to say, oh, I let my personal projects, which are more important, take over.

[00:05:00] And I didn't do anything on your project.

[00:05:02] When you have to explain that.

[00:05:04] I didn't explain it quite that way.

[00:05:05] I said, I had internet problems at home.

[00:05:08] And I couldn't get to it.

[00:05:10] But yeah, it was a rough week.

[00:05:14] Rough week.

[00:05:15] I'm glad you're through it.

[00:05:16] I hope this week is going better for you.

[00:05:19] But as far as what we're talking to our patrons about today, what do you do when you have tech snafus, when you actually have issues?

[00:05:29] And there are going to be things that are just out of your control.

[00:05:34] You just can't help it.

[00:05:35] Power goes out.

[00:05:37] You can't help.

[00:05:38] Well, actually, I don't...

[00:05:39] Let me rephrase.

[00:05:40] You helped it.

[00:05:41] I have now actually gotten a battery bank so that if my power goes out, I at least can gracefully bow out of a show.

[00:05:50] I couldn't go for three hours, but I could probably go for another 20 to 30 before I have to worry about that battery getting sucked down.

[00:05:57] Because I didn't get one of those big, giant, industrial ones.

[00:06:01] I got one that is a little better than the UPS that gives you 30 seconds.

[00:06:05] This is going to give me, with all the stuff I've plugged into it, probably a half hour to get done.

[00:06:11] So you can even mitigate that.

[00:06:13] But there's going to be times when you just, you know, a tech snafus, like you named something the wrong thing and then you accidentally deleted it.

[00:06:21] So what kind of things can you do just for something like that to just mitigate that?

[00:06:26] And the answer is consistency.

[00:06:29] Consistently name the same stuff, the same thing every single time and put it in the same place.

[00:06:34] And even if you're in a hurry, just do the thing that you always do.

[00:06:40] Because when you're in a hurry, you're probably going to forget the fact that you hurried and did it a different way.

[00:06:44] And like you said, like you said, came back and what's all this crap?

[00:06:47] And you just get rid of it.

[00:06:49] And it's not until you actually go to try to find your show that you realize that crap, I should have just named it like I always do.

[00:06:56] And we wouldn't have this issue.

[00:07:03] Doing a, at least from an audio standpoint, a backup recording.

[00:07:06] It is just a habit for me that on my mixer, I have a three by five card that says press record in big, bold letters.

[00:07:16] Because when I look over at it, it's like even if I didn't start at the beginning of the show, I'll do it.

[00:07:21] If I don't see that thing is red, I will hit the button just to make sure that I'm getting, you know, a backup recording.

[00:07:30] Why do I do these things?

[00:07:32] Because I've had enough times where I've done the cloud recording and the cloud recording was corrupted or you couldn't do it.

[00:07:38] And you just missed an entire show.

[00:07:39] There's times when I've actually done a cloud recording and forgot to hit record.

[00:07:44] So I'm looking at you, you're looking at me and we're talking, but nothing is being recorded because the record button was never hit.

[00:07:49] And if it wasn't for the fact that I had a backup recording, there would have been not even audio because we never actually hit the record button.

[00:07:57] So there's things like that you can do to just mitigate problems.

[00:08:02] And it's going to happen.

[00:08:03] I guarantee you, if you podcast long enough, you will forget to hit the record button.

[00:08:07] If you podcast long enough, you're going to have an Internet outage right in the middle of your show.

[00:08:10] If you podcast long enough, you're going to, you know, have a power outage and your lights go out.

[00:08:16] And, you know, you lose everything except for potentially maybe your Internet and your if you're on a laptop, maybe you still have it.

[00:08:22] But your camera is not working.

[00:08:24] You're you know, nothing else is working.

[00:08:26] So there's there's a there's a lot of things that can happen.

[00:08:29] And we just have to do the little things we can do to mitigate them.

[00:08:32] So you want to go over some of those things that you did you do, Bodhi, as far as just trying to mitigate technical issues that could happen during the show?

[00:08:38] Well, before we do that, Rob, what are because I use in some of my recordings, I don't I rely way too much on Riverside for doing our backups.

[00:08:48] Like I was I'm able to go back and reedit that episode simply because Riverside stores our backups up there, which is great.

[00:08:56] Sometimes you have to if it's long enough in the past, you have to go out and request it.

[00:09:02] And it takes about 24 hours for them to get it to you.

[00:09:04] But we have we we those episodes aren't lost, even though I deleted it.

[00:09:11] Those episodes are simply the edits are lost, but the the raw files are still there.

[00:09:16] But what are you using for a Mac?

[00:09:19] Because you're in a Windows.

[00:09:20] I'm on Mac for Mac.

[00:09:21] I use loopback and I use audio hijack.

[00:09:25] What are you using to record that backup?

[00:09:29] I'm just using my physical mixer.

[00:09:33] I have a Rodecaster Pro mixer.

[00:09:36] OK, so it records on to was it an SD card in the back?

[00:09:39] So it records it records into an SD card so I can record locally.

[00:09:42] So I've got a I've got a physical piece of hardware that if I hit the record button, whatever is coming through my microphone and whatever I decide that is coming back to me will be recorded on this device.

[00:09:53] Man.

[00:09:54] Physically, locally.

[00:09:55] I didn't know it could do that.

[00:09:56] I knew it could do like if you just took it somewhere and you had two mics plugged in, it would record.

[00:10:01] I did not know it would send the feedback.

[00:10:05] Oh, yeah.

[00:10:06] So so so yeah, like right now the record button is going.

[00:10:09] It is getting your audio.

[00:10:11] It is getting my audio.

[00:10:12] So on this device, I have four inputs that I physically can plug into it.

[00:10:18] I have where I can use USB where that's where you're coming in.

[00:10:24] So USB coming from the computer is going into this Bluetooth, a couple other things.

[00:10:28] But yeah, I can record your side of the conversation and my side of the conversation locally on my piece of hardware.

[00:10:35] Before I had this piece of hardware, I was using a piece of software called Voice Meter Banana, which allows is similar to Audio Hijack.

[00:10:44] Probably not as pretty as open source piece of software where you can actually route where you want audio to go.

[00:10:52] So that would give me the ability to say that I want to bring your audio in.

[00:10:57] I want to take my audio and I want to route them both into this particular application.

[00:11:02] Let's say that the application I'm just using like a voice recorder or just using a recording application or my machine.

[00:11:08] I'm using some DAW.

[00:11:10] You know, it could be something like Audacity.

[00:11:12] I could literally just take that audio and route it into that application.

[00:11:16] Hit record on that application and it will record what was sent to it from Voice Meter Banana.

[00:11:22] Hmm.

[00:11:23] Yeah, that's OK.

[00:11:26] So you're unpacking a couple of different things here.

[00:11:28] One is Audio Hijack, I think, is like 50 bucks and Loopback is 70.

[00:11:33] So open source, free and open source and can do all of that.

[00:11:37] You just saved yourself 120 bucks if it's available for the Mac.

[00:11:43] Loopback and Audio Hijack are really great programs and they keep them updated.

[00:11:47] But, you know, if you're trying to do this on the cheap, what was it called again?

[00:11:54] So Audacity is what I use.

[00:11:56] I've been using Audacity for like 20 years.

[00:11:59] I use Audacity as my DAW probably 70 percent of the time because it just works.

[00:12:03] And I'm usually not doing significant multitrack stuff.

[00:12:06] It's just usually me and a guest and it's good enough for that.

[00:12:09] So I use Audacity, which is open source.

[00:12:11] It's free.

[00:12:12] Now, you can donate to them if you want to.

[00:12:14] But, you know, you can go and download the latest update of Audacity for free.

[00:12:18] And then I use an application called Voice Meter Banana.

[00:12:21] And it is also open source.

[00:12:24] Once again, you can you can donate and it'll unlock some additional features where you can have multiple, multiple routes and stuff like that.

[00:12:33] But the software for just recording, you know, both sides of a conversation that is happening over some type of telesoftware like what we're using Riverside or it could be over Zoom call.

[00:12:45] It could be over Skype or what have you.

[00:12:48] Voice Meter Banana is great for doing those type of things.

[00:12:51] And once again, it is 100 percent free unless you want to upgrade it and get, you know, some of the additional features that are built into it.

[00:12:57] Nice.

[00:12:57] And this looks like a really well thought out program.

[00:13:01] Like it's not the slickest I've ever seen, but for free, this is really nice looking.

[00:13:07] And Meter is M-E-E-T-E-R.

[00:13:10] Yeah, it's a it's it's great software and, you know, like open source software.

[00:13:17] I know some people are saying I don't want to use open source and I understand why some people wouldn't want to.

[00:13:21] But I have used both of these applications.

[00:13:25] Audacity I've used for two decades.

[00:13:27] I've used Voice Meter Banana for probably at least 15 years.

[00:13:31] At least 15 years.

[00:13:33] This is nice.

[00:13:34] It looks like it's got its own mixer with the potato and.

[00:13:41] Oh, yeah, there's there's there's different flavors of it.

[00:13:43] So, yeah, there's banana is the one that I use.

[00:13:46] You've got Voice Meter Potato.

[00:13:47] You know, there are different forks of it that you can do different things with.

[00:13:51] But it is it is excellent software.

[00:13:53] I mean, it does what you need it to do.

[00:13:55] And it looks like they have at least for some of the Mac support and Windows support for some of the programs that they have in here.

[00:14:04] Wow.

[00:14:05] That's a this is a this is something I have never heard of, Rob.

[00:14:10] This is cool.

[00:14:11] Yeah, you're you're you're well, they do have it for Mac.

[00:14:15] But my gut tells me that most people who are using Voice Meter are probably on a PC or Linux.

[00:14:22] Yeah, that's what my gut would probably tell me.

[00:14:25] It looks like most of their stuff is is PC Windows only.

[00:14:29] But when you go through some of the different packages that they have, like the the virtual cabling has a Mac download meter doesn't meter looks like it's Windows only XP to Windows 11.

[00:14:47] I don't see any OS 10 on here.

[00:14:49] But yeah, I mean, shoot, if you can if you can use it, why not?

[00:14:55] But yeah, and like I know I've actually had people say, oh, that's so technical.

[00:14:59] And yes, it is.

[00:15:01] But if you're trying to mitigate some other issues that you would have, for example, you and I are recording.

[00:15:07] If we if you would have forgotten to have hit the record button and we see a countdown, there is no recording.

[00:15:14] There is nothing for you to go back to right now.

[00:15:16] You and I are just having a telephone call where we can see each other and nothing is actively being recorded.

[00:15:22] But if you're using, you know, you know, various tools, we can make sure that we're recording the screen on your side.

[00:15:29] I'm recording the screen on my side and send it up to the cloud somewhere where it's getting stitched back together.

[00:15:32] There's all kind of tools that just allow you to mitigate little recording things.

[00:15:37] Now, I would say that trying to do a local recording for video, usually you're not doing it because you forgot to hit record.

[00:15:47] Usually you want to do it just because it's a significantly higher quality of video.

[00:15:53] One of the things that I do, my camera, my camera can shoot in a quality higher than my monitors are capable of putting information back to me.

[00:16:03] So I never need to be above 4K, but they can shoot above 4K.

[00:16:07] But 4K files are ginormous when you're sending that stuff over the Internet.

[00:16:12] If you're doing a long live stream or something like that.

[00:16:14] So some people will do things like they will actually use if they're using the right type of camera, if they're using a DSLR,

[00:16:20] they'll actually record locally on their camera while they are also doing the live stream or or doing the podcast or what have you.

[00:16:28] So regardless of what happens with the live stream, you still at least have your side of the conversation on your SD card that you can take and use it to make clips with and super high fidelity.

[00:16:39] Or if there is a problem and and the editor needs, hey, do you have a local copy?

[00:16:44] Is there any way you can send that to me?

[00:16:45] You could throw it up in Dropbox or or, you know, OneDrive or what have you.

[00:16:49] And you're able to recover.

[00:16:51] So there's a lot of little things that you can do to try to just mitigate issues that happen when you record, particularly when you're doing it over the Internet.

[00:16:59] No, that's good.

[00:17:00] That's good.

[00:17:01] I have a question on the road in your your recording that you're doing now is does that spit it out as one file or is it individual tracks?

[00:17:09] So what I want it depends on what I want.

[00:17:11] So normally I have it spit out as just one track because it's just in case.

[00:17:20] I feel pretty confident that Riverside is going to work and it's going to give us the multiple the multi tracks.

[00:17:26] So since I'm doing this as a backup, I generally only have it in single track mode, which means let's say it wasn't just you and I as you and I and Allison Sheridan and Lamar, you know, Lamar.

[00:17:38] We're all on the same time.

[00:17:40] That file that it would create would be everyone on one track.

[00:17:43] So, you know, if you're trying to isolate and stuff like that, it becomes a little bit more difficult to do.

[00:17:49] But for as a backup, it's absolutely great.

[00:17:52] The roadcaster, however, does give me the ability to record in multiple in multi track.

[00:17:57] So I could actually have you coming in on one track, me on a different track.

[00:18:03] If I'm doing any sound beds or anything like that, they come up on a third track and I can then go and edit each one of those individually without having any bleed over from the other tracks.

[00:18:14] Nice. Nice. That's nice.

[00:18:18] Just another reason why I should upgrade my mixer, my audio interface.

[00:18:22] OK, so that was that's that was good.

[00:18:27] That was the man I learned something today.

[00:18:29] So hopefully everybody else learned something on that as well.

[00:18:31] In terms of consistency, Rob, the secret to consistency is being consistent.

[00:18:39] You know, it's not been I haven't had I haven't ever I've oh, man, I don't have any wood nearby, but I've never not hit record on a.

[00:18:52] On an interview or something, right?

[00:18:55] Never had that happen.

[00:18:56] I know. I know.

[00:18:58] Shush, shush. Let's not make a big deal out of it.

[00:19:03] But it is a fear that I have.

[00:19:05] And I've I've talked to somebody, you know, like just kind of getting to know them.

[00:19:10] And I'm like, oh, man, the interview hasn't started yet.

[00:19:12] But I definitely know the feeling of, oh, this isn't recording yet.

[00:19:17] But I do have a habit of looking at the record time.

[00:19:19] But there are some things you can do to mitigate that.

[00:19:22] And maybe this is just one of the things you do mentally.

[00:19:25] Go ahead.

[00:19:25] Like I got this from Allison Sheridan.

[00:19:29] She always before she starts is going to check everyone's levels to make sure that she's hitting the record button.

[00:19:38] Getting a sample recording, stopping the recording, going back and listening to it, making sure that everybody sounds good and then hitting it again when she's done.

[00:19:48] She does.

[00:19:49] It's just it's just a habit.

[00:19:50] So my gut would tell me that it's probably very rare if she's ever.

[00:19:55] Or at least since she's had this process in place, it's very rare that she would ever forget to actually hit record because she's actually got a process that kind of eliminates the possibility from that happening.

[00:20:06] So I am a big fan and becoming even more so a fan of standard operating procedures to where you literally are going to have a list.

[00:20:18] Do this.

[00:20:19] Do this.

[00:20:19] Do this.

[00:20:20] Do that.

[00:20:21] Do the other.

[00:20:21] Do this.

[00:20:25] Do this.

[00:20:39] Do this.

[00:20:43] Do this.

[00:20:45] Do this.

[00:20:46] Do bit.

[00:20:53] it, all those T's are crossed, that launch can't happen unless all those things are done.

[00:20:58] And I know some people will think, well, that's way overkill for a podcast. That's way overkill

[00:21:03] for a YouTube video or any type of video. But if you get into the process of where you've got

[00:21:10] a standard operating procedure, where you are making sure that you hit the record button,

[00:21:14] you're making sure that you have your lights turned on, you're making sure that you've done

[00:21:18] a level check to make sure that everybody's mic sounds good and you don't have one person that's

[00:21:23] blasting and everyone else is super low. If you do those things every single time,

[00:21:27] then almost every single time, you know that, well, you've mitigated any one of those individual

[00:21:32] things from being a problem in your recording. Yeah, no, that's good advice. And there's a

[00:21:37] reason why they don't launch or pilots don't fly until they've done their checklist for sure.

[00:21:43] And like you and I, if I didn't record this episode, right, I forgot and we had this whole

[00:21:48] conversation. That's annoying. And you might be a little annoyed with me, but then we can have the

[00:21:53] conversation over again. Not a big deal. But like I've had on my other show, like CEOs and vice

[00:22:01] presidents of certain divisions at Siemens, which is an enormous company. Those people don't necessarily

[00:22:07] have a lot of time to go be like, can we reschedule this so that we could do this again? Thank you.

[00:22:14] But probably not going to do it. And you might have a really cool interview that no one ever gets to see.

[00:22:21] Yeah, I was just thinking something that we have started doing now. You know, I go to a relatively

[00:22:26] small church. It's not a big church. It's a church plant. And, you know, my pastor likes to use a

[00:22:32] wireless microphone that he basically has attached to his belt and has the headset and all that kind

[00:22:38] of thing. But one of the things we do is we just make sure that we have another handheld wireless

[00:22:42] mic on his on his podium, on his pulpit, just in case he needs it. Because if his, you know, it's

[00:22:50] we've actually had this happen. The wireless that he normally uses went out. So he literally had to

[00:22:57] stop and somebody had to think, oh, let's go hand him another microphone. Whereas now it's just

[00:23:02] sitting there so he can literally just grab it and keep it pushing without even you wouldn't even

[00:23:07] notice it if you didn't notice it. It's one of those type of things. It's just kind of there.

[00:23:11] So it's just like, well, yeah, we know from history that microphones can go out. So let's make sure

[00:23:16] we've got another one that's sitting there as a backup. You will notice that when you get into

[00:23:21] television production, the looking like, man, why do they look like they have so many battery packs

[00:23:27] that they're wearing the anchors and stuff like that? Because they don't just have one microphone on.

[00:23:31] They sometimes don't even have two. Sometimes they will literally have three different microphones

[00:23:35] on. So two things have to fail before or three things would have to fail before they would have an issue.

[00:23:40] Why? Because if you're doing live television, you can't really have somebody come up and hand

[00:23:44] someone a new microphone and get them wired up for it. You kind of have to have that already ready.

[00:23:49] So a lot of things you can do to mitigate problems in a podcast or any type of any type of

[00:23:55] presentation that you're recording. You simply can just do things up front to take care of it.

[00:24:00] Okay. So we talked about that. Let's hit, uh, we can't do anything about the internet. That's just

[00:24:06] the way that things are going to go in terms of my example, but let's, let's, let's hit on

[00:24:12] how you, I've talked a little bit about how I save files. Like, uh, if it's kilowatt,

[00:24:17] it's kilowatt and it goes in the kilowatt folder. And then I, it's kilowatt. I name it. I create another

[00:24:24] folder in the kilowatt folder, kilowatt four 49, which is the episode number. And then every single one of the

[00:24:29] files for that episode, including the logic file, uh, the logic project file goes in that folder.

[00:24:36] So it's all together. Um, I don't know that that's a hundred percent necessary, but for me,

[00:24:43] I've, I've never told me if you've ever had this happen before, especially in the past when, uh,

[00:24:47] software, um, was a little bit more content, uh, janky, we'll call it janky. If you move a file

[00:24:54] from one folder to another, now all of a sudden it's lost that fault, that file. Right. And your,

[00:24:59] your program will be like your dog or your video editor will be like, Hey, can't find this file.

[00:25:05] So I just keep everything in one folder to keep it easy. And with beyond the post,

[00:25:10] it's something similar, but because we have seasons, it's BTP, the season number I'll put

[00:25:16] Patreon, if it's a Patreon exclusive or not. And then I'll put, uh, the, the episode and I'll in

[00:25:23] there, I will include all of the same thing, the video files, the, and these get quite big,

[00:25:29] but the project file for final cut, the whole thing, it all goes in that one folder transcripts,

[00:25:34] everything. So when I need to go back and find it, it's there. How do you do it?

[00:25:39] I have a shortcut on my desktop called podcast production. Ooh. When I open that shortcut up,

[00:25:46] it takes me to a folder called podcast production inside of there. I've got the tech, John, SMR

[00:25:51] purpose, power, and peace podcaster spaces, daily tech headlines beyond the post five minute reels.

[00:26:00] And, uh, you know, a few, a few other, when I say a few other, like 16, 17 other, uh, folders in there,

[00:26:06] because I have a lot of podcasts. I put all my podcasts in the same place because I'm doing

[00:26:12] basically the same things to them. And in each of those directories, I then for like, if I were to

[00:26:18] go to just purpose or let's, let's go to, uh, beyond the post inside of beyond the post, I have episodes

[00:26:24] by number. So episode one, episode two, episode three, episode four, I just create a directory for

[00:26:29] every single episode that we do. And also in that directory, I have things for like artwork,

[00:26:36] uh, show our, you know, individual short work and everything just gets thrown into whatever

[00:26:41] episode that we're working on. Now, what happens to each of these directories is that this is local

[00:26:46] on my hard drive. I automatically back it up to a, uh, USB, not USB, but to a SSE D drive,

[00:26:55] where there's just a, whatever is on the hard drive gets backed up to this. And then both, um,

[00:27:01] or I should say this, this entire, uh, podcast directory or podcast production directory is also

[00:27:07] uploaded to Dropbox and uploaded to one drive. So I should have four copies of everything,

[00:27:14] one in Dropbox, one in one drive, one locally on my machine, and then one on my, uh, you know,

[00:27:22] my SSD that I, whenever I plug this in, it's just going to go back up whatever's in that folder,

[00:27:26] you know, by default. So just to make sure that someone will say, is that overkill could be,

[00:27:31] but here's why I do it. Uh, if, if I ever have a problem with Dropbox, well, I know that it's also

[00:27:37] in one drive. If I ever have a problem with one drive, I know that it's also in Dropbox. If I ever

[00:27:41] have a problem with my hard disc on my computer, I know that it's on this SSD. If I ever have a

[00:27:45] problem with this SSD, I know it is one of those other three places. So whenever I record something,

[00:27:50] it's going to go four places and I can always get to it. The other thing is that I can also give

[00:27:55] other people access to both one drive and Dropbox. So let's say that I've got an editor that's going

[00:28:00] to be working on something. They now have a directory where they can go and work and do what they need

[00:28:05] to do and put it there. And then eventually it'll all be synced back to me and I have it in four

[00:28:11] places. So it, I'm kind of anal with it, but for me, Bodhi, this is what I do for a living. So making

[00:28:18] sure I've got access to these files is pretty important. So it is not really for backups, but

[00:28:26] I've got four places where I am keeping access to the data that I can get to, whether it be two

[00:28:32] places online or two places physically. Good. Yeah. So in the same, in the same respect, right? I have

[00:28:39] a hard drive that every time I'm at this desk, my computer connects into this because it's just

[00:28:45] a laptop with them. And then I have an external monitor. I have a time machine backup that goes

[00:28:50] directly to an SSD, just like you. Um, and then I have my stuff synced with iCloud. I pay for a decent

[00:28:59] amount of iCloud storage and then any computer in my house that I log into, I have my stuff there.

[00:29:06] So I have access to it. It's not always downloaded onto it and that's fine. I don't really care about

[00:29:10] that part. I just need access to it if I, if I want it. And then I have black backblaze for like the

[00:29:17] actual, um, the actual, um, you know, backup backup. And when I was telling Allison about my problem last

[00:29:27] week, she said, well, why don't you just go to your, your time machine backup? It's like, that's great.

[00:29:34] I have no idea what I called the file. Like it'll take me less time to actually re-edit the episode

[00:29:42] and send it out. Then it would for me to comb through the mountains and mountains of data that

[00:29:48] I have just stored on, on iCloud. And then I have to go back. What day did I record this on? What day

[00:29:55] did I edit it on? It would just be less time for me to go back. And if I used my normal, uh, naming

[00:30:01] convention, boom, we're done, but I didn't. And here, here's another thing that helps me with that.

[00:30:09] Um, I am not one of those personal productivity people that says, well, because it works for me,

[00:30:14] it'll work for everybody and everybody should do the things the way that I should do them.

[00:30:18] But here's something that works for me. I, you, I am a, uh, you know, I take copious notes. I take

[00:30:25] notes on everything and that also create tax for everything. So if there's something that I need to do,

[00:30:31] I just create a task for it. So I know that I can go look at my calendar and you see what,

[00:30:38] what data Bodie and I record because it's in my calendar. I can just go look. And I know that,

[00:30:43] well, if Bodie and I record it, we did it for beyond the post, everything that we, you and I do

[00:30:49] for beyond the post has BTP on the front of it, every single thing that we do. So even if I can't

[00:30:56] remember the name of it, if I can just approximate the date of when it happened, and I know that it's

[00:31:01] going to have BTP, it makes it very easy to find. And I'll give you some examples of this. I've

[00:31:07] actually had, um, like I do, you know, audio visual stuff at my church and there'll be times when we

[00:31:15] will sing a song that we haven't sung in like 18 months or something like that. And it's like,

[00:31:20] crap, do I have to go do, you know, just do I have to get myself or another volunteer to do the

[00:31:26] lyrics for that song? Or can I go back and find, I know we've sung this before. Can I go and find

[00:31:31] the lyrics somewhere? And we're talking about 18 months ago, we're doing, um, you know, two sermons,

[00:31:38] you know, a week. Yeah. I got to go through, uh, you know, something that happened a year and a half

[00:31:42] ago. There's a lot of stuff that I've got to look at and I can't remember what sermon it was in.

[00:31:46] I just, I just know that, uh, it was roughly 18 months ago. Here's the name of the song.

[00:31:52] See if you can go find it. So because I do everything in task, I can just go look through

[00:31:57] my task and do a search for whatever songs I actually created. It'll come up and it's like,

[00:32:03] I'll try to match it up. It's like, Oh, this one happened 19 months ago. Might be the same song.

[00:32:08] Let's go look. Oh yeah, we found it. So that little search that takes me all of 20, 30 seconds to do

[00:32:15] could save me literally 20, 30 minutes of having to go redo the lyrics for an entire song.

[00:32:22] So it is just being consistent. Um, you know, I consistently, you know, name files the same way.

[00:32:28] I put everything into my task for anything that I've got to do that I ever would want to remember

[00:32:33] that I need to do it. I just put it in a task and I've had people say to me, man, it's like,

[00:32:37] do you feel like you're like beholden to your, uh, your, your calendar? Do you feel like you're,

[00:32:42] uh, I don't like using the word slave to it, but like, do you feel like you are,

[00:32:46] that you, you would be lost without it? And the answer for me is yes, I would be. The reason I

[00:32:50] write stuff down is so that I don't have to remember it. And the reason that I put it in

[00:32:54] this task application is like, why do I have to remember that I did something 18 months ago?

[00:32:59] This thing can tell me that I did something 18 months ago. I just have to remember that I did

[00:33:03] stuff 18 months ago and go look and see what it was.

[00:33:06] Yeah. And through, okay. So I do not have an organized mind. I think we've talked about this,

[00:33:13] Rob. I am, I am putting Windex in the refrigerator. Like this is, this is a real thing that happens in

[00:33:18] my way. It drives my wife crazy. That's, that's where my brain is. Like she'll find things in the

[00:33:24] weirdest places. I lost, I lost my coffee cup this morning and, uh, I couldn't find it. And it was

[00:33:30] literally by my coffee maker. So this is, this is like my brain does not, it is not an organized

[00:33:38] brain. Like if you look at, uh, Alison Sheridan, for instance, one of the most organized people that

[00:33:44] I've ever met. And I know that when she comes on to help me with a problem, uh, it, my, my methodology

[00:33:51] of things, like if, if we're just talking on the phone, the way I do things apps must absolutely

[00:33:58] drive her nutty. Like, and I love that she's my friend and I know that this is not, she's,

[00:34:05] I was typing in my wifi pass. She was helping me with a problem with my wifi a couple of weeks before

[00:34:10] this. I was typing in my wife, five password. And she goes, why don't you just put in, you know,

[00:34:15] you got one password right there. Just have one password type it in. Why do you type it in every

[00:34:20] time? And I was like, Hmm, I don't know. I don't know. That's that seems very logical.

[00:34:28] Not to me though. I am not anal on this stuff. Well, some things I am, I, I, anything that I

[00:34:35] intend to remember, we've talked about this before on other shows, anything that I need

[00:34:39] to remember, I put it in my notes because I think it's a, is it, uh, who wrote, uh, atomic

[00:34:45] habits? I can't think of this. Oh, I don't know, but I just came across that book when I was cleaning

[00:34:50] out my closet. Um, you know, so it's, it's either from atomic habit habits or about, or, or the

[00:34:56] person who wrote getting things done. I can't remember which one of these people said this,

[00:35:00] but one of them did, but it's like, your brain is not intended to, um, you know, remember things

[00:35:05] it's intended to think. So I'm probably pair. I'm not probably, I'm definitely paraphrasing

[00:35:10] this a lot, but it's like, you know, write things down that you intend to remember to free your

[00:35:15] brain up, to do what it's best at thinking about the things that you've already written down.

[00:35:19] I never have to remember what I've done or what I need to do because everything that I intend to do,

[00:35:26] I just take five minutes, you know, five minutes every night before I go to bed. Here's what I got

[00:35:31] to do tomorrow, make tasks for it. Um, and it gets, it gets more complex than that for me because I

[00:35:37] just kind of geek out on this stuff. But you know, when I first got into productivity, I first got into

[00:35:41] doing tasks, it was literally sit down the night before, you know what you need to do tomorrow,

[00:35:46] make a tax for everything so that you can just track whether or not you're getting the things done.

[00:35:52] And, um, that, that has worked, you know, I will say it's, it's been a wonderful, wonderful thing for

[00:35:58] me. And like I said, I don't, I don't really preach it. It's just something that works for me.

[00:36:02] And I'll go back to something that I say, it's like successfully is clues, man. I've seen other

[00:36:06] people be successful with it. So it's like, well, what are they doing? And you know, that is working

[00:36:11] for them. And here's where it really became real for me in 2017. When I truly started working

[00:36:16] for myself, I was like, wait a minute. I don't have anybody that telling me that it's time to,

[00:36:22] you know, to go do this. I don't have anyone who's telling me that, Hey, these things need

[00:36:25] to get done. It's like, if you need to do payroll, you need to do payroll. If you, if I need to go and

[00:36:29] pay taxes, I need to go do that. So I need to make sure that I've got that stuff marked down. When do I

[00:36:35] need to go meet with my accountant? When do I need to go do these things? I put all the stuff into

[00:36:39] a calendar. So I don't have to remember it. A perfect example. I had a repair guy. I might just

[00:36:46] not even repair. It's just service. People came to check my, my furnace this past Monday. I forgot

[00:36:51] they were coming, but when they knocked on the door, I'm like, Oh yeah, I looked at my phone. I

[00:36:57] had the, the you know, the notification to let me know that they were going to be here. It's like,

[00:37:02] Oh, that just jogged my memory and reminded me that they needed to be here. I had already

[00:37:06] prepared for it because I had tax to make sure you clean up the, you know, the area in front of the

[00:37:10] furnace so they can go check it. So I did that. I just forgot that they were coming. I was like,

[00:37:14] well, I don't have to remember it. I had it in my calendar. So I knew that I was going to be home.

[00:37:17] I knew that I wasn't going to be doing anything at that time. I just didn't remember in real time

[00:37:22] that they were coming until they knocked on the door to jog my memory. So I am a fan and we do like

[00:37:29] we always do. We have taken this onto a tangent that is, you know, far diverged from what we

[00:37:32] initially started to talk about. But for me, one of the things that allows me to be consistent is

[00:37:38] simply just writing everything down. So I don't have to remember it and then checking it off on

[00:37:43] it, on a task list. Same thing can be said for doing a rundown. Same thing can be said for doing

[00:37:48] a standard operating procedure before you start your show. All those little things help me get through

[00:37:53] doing content for multiple different shows daily without having the major mistakes of, Oh crap,

[00:37:59] I can't remember where I put this file or I accidentally deleted a file because it was named

[00:38:03] something different. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And as somebody who is 100% a scatterbrained fool,

[00:38:13] if you don't learn what Rob is teaching you today, in two years, if you continue doing this,

[00:38:20] you're going to learn. Like my calendar is way more active today than it was two years ago.

[00:38:26] And it was non-existent two and a half years ago, if you know what I mean.

[00:38:32] So just kind of wrap things up here. Be consistent with whatever you're doing,

[00:38:37] whether it's naming files or recording your show. But when technical problems come up,

[00:38:43] work through the technical problems and give yourself some grace because most of us are doing

[00:38:47] this as a hobby. It's not made. Most of us aren't making money at this. So if you are not able,

[00:38:55] you shouldn't be skipping episodes on a regular basis, but if you're not able to get something

[00:38:58] out on time because you had a technical problem and then now you got your kids play recital and then

[00:39:05] you got their, their this, their that. And you know, you gotta, you gotta keep your family up at the top,

[00:39:12] give yourself a little grace, catch up. And you know, eventually you'll, you'll get to where you

[00:39:19] need to be. It might feel stressful when you're there, but well, while you're in it,

[00:39:23] but you'll get to where you need to be in your, if you explain to your audience and ask for,

[00:39:27] you know, ask them to give you a little bit of grace, they will, they understand.

[00:39:31] I'll, I'll leave the audience with this and we'll talk about this. We've talked about it before.

[00:39:36] We'll talk about it again on, on future episodes. Systems make a world of difference. If you just

[00:39:42] get into the habit of just creating systems for the things that you do repeatedly, you don't need

[00:39:47] to build a system for something you're going to do once or twice a year. But if you're doing

[00:39:51] something every week, make a system so that it's just repeatable. You do the same things the same

[00:39:55] way every time. Now you can, you can modify it. You can, you can make it better. You can say,

[00:40:01] this is a little bit extra. I don't need all these steps. You can do those things, but just have a

[00:40:05] system so that you can almost, you know, without having to think about it, go through and just have

[00:40:10] a checklist of, okay, you know, hit recording, turn the lights on, do all these things to make sure

[00:40:15] you are giving yourself the best case scenario for not having something go wrong. And then you even

[00:40:21] have a system in place for when things do you and I right now, for whatever reason, if, if StreamYard,

[00:40:26] we're not even on StreamYard, but if we, you know, we were using Riverside, if Riverside had a problem

[00:40:31] right now where it shut down, you and I could both be back up and running within probably 30 seconds

[00:40:36] on StreamYard. Why? Because we have, we have multiple things. Why do we have multiple things?

[00:40:41] Because things go wrong. If you only have one thing and the thing goes wrong with the one thing

[00:40:46] you have, you kind of have a problem. So, uh, you know, when, you know, if you're getting really

[00:40:50] serious about your content creation, you might think about having a backup recording program.

[00:40:55] You might want to think about, uh, you know, maybe not just plugging USB directly into your computer.

[00:41:00] You might want to think about a mixer to where you can record locally. There's all these other

[00:41:03] things you can do to mitigate some of the issues that you may have. So systems is what I would need.

[00:41:09] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not going to extend this program any longer, but I have thoughts on the

[00:41:13] backup recording programs just recently. So, but we'll, we'll, it was like an episode, man.

[00:41:19] That'll be a different episode, different episode. All right, Rob. Uh, I want to thank everybody for

[00:41:23] being patient with me for sure. Uh, and, uh, season three is clicking along. So, uh, stay tuned. Uh,

[00:41:31] should have some more to announce on that soon. Take care folks.