Keeping Track of Trading Ideas
Okay, everyone. Welcome back to Line Your Own Pockets. Last episode, we started talking about how to generate ideas for systems and some good ways to do that. In this episode, we're gonna hop into how do we record those ideas because I don't know about you, Dave. I find that the ideas come, a, where I least expect them, and, b, I'm I always tell myself I'll remember that later.
Michael:And then 30 seconds later, I completely forgot about what I was talking about. So, first of all, how was your week so far? Yeah.
Dave:It's been great. I was just thinking about this topic the other morning. Some of you know that I'm a runner, and very often before the market opens, I'll be out on a run, making sure I get back exactly at 9:20 or at the latest and be ready to trade up at the time the open comes. I was running the other morning, and it was actually interesting morning. I was it had just rained a lot and the sun but the sun had come out.
Dave:It was really bright. And I was running through this stretch of woods where it was really dark. There was a big canopy overhead. And sort of a gnarly trail, which I love running through. And so it's kinda dark in here, you know, in the woods, like, outside the woods.
Dave:And all of a sudden, there's this huge flash of light coming from below, like, down this hill. I said, what is that? Like, it almost blinded me. And it just so happened that the light was flashing through onto the the creek that was near the trail, and the sunlight was just beaming up right in my face. And I thought, man, if I was a photographer I'm not a photographer.
Dave:But if I was, this exact moment, I would wanna capture. And I couldn't capture it. I just had to remember it in my mind's eye. But it was this perfect moment that just came and went, and it's those kind of ideas that creating ideas that I come up with that I have to have a system for capturing because I do not wanna forget those. And I have in the past, and I know I just have to have a system for capturing.
Michael:Well, and it's funny you don't you'll never know what you've already forgotten. Right? So it's it's it's a bit of a conundrum. But, yeah, the your best idea that you may have had that would be one of your best systems or a complement to the system you already run, you may have forgotten that you forgot about it. Right?
Michael:And it's it's the same thing. And I noticed I'm not quite a runner, but I like to go to the gym every morning before the market opens and and do all that. And it's the same thing. I don't know if there's been any science done behind it, but it's the whole change of environment, do something physical as opposed to mental. Just forget about the thing that you're you're trying to work on and thinking about.
Michael:It. Sometimes that just leads to the the best ideas out there. And, you know, I've heard all these stories about great minds, you know, sleeping with notepads next to their beds and and all of this stuff back in time. I, for 1, am grateful that we live in the age of technology. So I think this conversation, we're gonna be sharing a lot of, commonalities even though we haven't really talked about what we end up doing, because we're so big into technology.
Michael:Right? I'm looking here, and I've got all of the things that I need to record, ideas, including I think this is probably one of the best ones out there. Just the Apple Watch is is phenomenal. But how do you so when you have those moments, you're out on the run, you're you're doing whatever, and you get that idea, what is the first thing that you go to right away to make sure you don't forget it?
Dave:So I have, right now, settled on the Notion app. So I have one page in Notion where I keep all my trading ideas, and I'm constantly adding to that list. I think it's important that you have one thing you go to
Michael:Mhmm.
Dave:Where you're you know, it's one increasing list of ideas. And, also, that it's as easy as possible for you to add things to it wherever you happen to be. Very it has to be something you can do on your phone. That and when you put something in on your phone, it has to be the same list that you look at on your computer when you get there. So I think that's critically important that you remove all barriers to, make that idea capture as easy as possible for yourself.
Michael:Yeah. And I'm different apps, but the the same idea. So I'm an Apple fanboy. I've got, right, everything. They they owe me 1,000,000 of dollars at this point.
Michael:But, a couple things right away. One is the Apple Notes app. I have it's it's basic, but it works. I have a folder that says trading ideas, and then inside those, just a bunch of notes, based on on what's happening there. The thing I like about that is, like, I talked about with the Apple Watch.
Michael:I'm if I'm walking, I usually have my AirPods in and all of that. I can just, actually remind at certain times and then also at certain locations, which I absolutely love. Because like you mentioned, I'm usually out before the market opens, and then I wanna get home by the time the market opens. So I can actually set a reminder to say, hey. Let me know when I get home about this thing.
Michael:You know, I I want to write this down. So that goes from the reminders app that's in your iPhone or or your Apple Watch or whatever. And then as soon as I get that reminder that comes up, I know that I'm gonna get reminded the moment I get home it knows creepily enough exactly where I live so I pull in the driveway it pops up and then I can open my phone or, I can actually use my iPad which I I never go anywhere without this thing you just tap the pencil right to the screen and it starts writing you a note. So I I'm one that I really like the the tactile feel of writing things down, and then I can write them down and they can transcribe it into into text after that. But for me, it's that ability to remind me later.
Michael:I think it is a huge thing because then it's not on your mind.
Dave:Here's a question for you then. Let me make sure I understand. So you set a reminder for yourself to add something later. Why don't you just add it right then instead of doing the reminder to add that?
Michael:Well, a, the idea might be complicated. Right? So it might be something that I wanna sit down. I wanna actually think about and write about. And, you know, if I'm at the gym, I don't wanna be hogging the machine.
Michael:Right? Maybe I'm under a whole bunch of weight on the bench press or something like that, and it just comes to me quick. And because I already have the AirPods in my ear, I won't say it because it might trigger a bunch of people's devices, but I can I can trigger the assistant and say, remind me when I get home to do this, that, or the other thing? And I can do it mid set. I can do it whenever, and then I just it's completely out of my brain, and it's the same thing, as much as it might employ the wife sometimes when she's you know, how wives work sometime they when they say, hey.
Michael:Can you remember to do this later? They actually mean they want you to stop what you're doing and do it now, but I can always just set a reminder for later knowing that it's completely out of my brain. And it might just be the way I work in my mental capacity is I want it gone. Right? When I am when I think about a thing, I want it completely out because I'm usually if I'm at the gym, I'm concentrating on something.
Michael:Right? If I'm if I'm out for a walk, I'm usually listening to something or or doing whatever. And, yeah, I just want it I want it gone. I want it somewhere else, but then I want it reminded enough with some sort of a trigger that then I can sit down. I can devote the time that I think it needs to really flush out the idea.
Dave:Okay. Yeah. So same sort of concept because, I would I would just put it directly into this doc with an abbreviation or something that would remind me to essentially, the reminders is is included in what I'm putting into that Notion doc. So, yeah, I think it's the same sort of concept. I like your I like your system, though, for, for your assistant that will go unnamed.
Dave:Yes.
Michael:I
Dave:think that's good. Yeah. So one one thing that this reminds me of that, I think it's important to draw a distinction between, these are not to do items that I have. These are just ideas. I keep to dos separate.
Dave:So how do you think about those differently too, Michael?
Michael:Yeah. And I actually use a completely separate app for that, and it's funny as much as I'm a, Apple guy and I'm not a big Microsoft guy. I actually find the Microsoft To Do app phenomenal because it's just so simple, and it has, it prioritizes things by day. It doesn't have anything fancy, not like Notion where you can build all these amazing templates that I I keep separate, and that is you know, these are the things that I have to do to not get fired, and, you know, answer emails and this, that, and the other thing. But, yeah, that goes somewhere completely different because, you know, as we're gonna talk about in a future episode, sometimes you have a really good idea for a strategy, but it might not be really good right now.
Michael:Right? Maybe, you know, it's not gonna be the market for it or maybe you don't have the capital allocated for it or something, and but you want to keep that kind of separate. So the way I look at it is that I have, the stuff that I have to do each and every day, and that goes in this one app that's surface. It's got a widget on my phone, so every time I open my phone, it's there, all that kind of stuff. And then the the notes and everything is for deeper things.
Michael:So, you know I write a substack so if I come on idea and I say I should write a substack about this that will go you know in in more of a deeper mind or deeper note and same with trading ideas and this I got I I have to give a credit before I forget about it There's a book, Building a Second Brain. I'm trying to find the author here. And it's it's talking about this because it's it is kind of a newer, phenomenon by Tango Forte, I think, is his name or I put you that part.
Dave:Part of the book. Yeah.
Michael:And the idea is that, you know, the the brain should be used to create, not to store, and not really to even recall. Right? It it's why would you ever do that? It's like, you know, back in I remember in school, they make you learn your times table. And I remember the whole teachers, you never have a calculator in your pocket.
Michael:And then sometimes, right, I'm I'm talking to my parents, and they're like, well, what if, you know, you lose the Internet and you can't retrieve information the way you were? My argument is if we ever lose the Internet, I wish you taught me how to grow potatoes instead of like, because nothing else everything's gone, right, if we lose the Internet. So the way I look at it and the way this author looks at it is that we now have the ability to have 2 brains. We have the brain that should be focused, and this, I think, has a lot of parallels to to trading that we can touch on, where the brain should be creating ideas. It should be absorbing information and just kind of, you know, spinning that around and and doing creative work.
Michael:But when it comes to recording ideas, building things to recall later, all that kind of stuff, We're past the point kind of as a civilization where that's important. Right? I I will never care in a business meeting if I ask someone, you know, the financials of their company, and they go hold on a second. They go look that up. Like, why why would I care if that's right in the person's brain as long as it's retrievable?
Michael:So that's kind of how I'm thinking a lot about work and trading and all of this is that my job should be to create, and then it's the computer's job to store and to retrieve and and to do all that kind of stuff.
Dave:Yeah. It reminds me of a book I read years ago, Getting Things Done by David Allen. Classic book for this kind of thing, like creating your trusted system. And the trusted system is something outside of your brain that you know you can trust, that when you put something in there, there's a system for you not to forget that, and it's keeping track of that. And, you know, a lot of this is a process of building your trusted system that works for you so that you don't have to have that open loop in your brain of, okay, what am I forgetting?
Dave:I need to keep track of that. This lets you it's totally freeing when you create that system for yourself where you don't have to keep track of that stuff in your head. And you have this trusted system that you know is gonna keep track of it for you. That's really kind of an amazing it was really eye opening and, I would say, life changing moment for me when I when I made that leap.
Michael:Well and, right, we talk about systemizing your trading and the benefits from it that it, right, removes emotion. You you can test things and that, right, you're not staring at the screen all day long looking for this one minute candle, fancy candle to occur to to place a trade, like, all the benefits of systematic trading. But it you know, there's no reason why it all that doesn't apply to your normal life. Right? I don't ever wanna have to wake up and go, okay.
Michael:What am I doing today? Because part of my routine is that at the end of every day, I write down tomorrow's to do list. I go through and I say these are the things I need to conquer, and then I can just shut that off and then also, you know, shut off that part of my brain because I don't want to be spending the time, doing that. And, you know, you talked about the same thing, recalling the same idea over and over again, and and trying to, you know, keep that in memory and how harmful that can be. My example there is, another book that I I don't know if you've read this one, but it's Deep Work by I'll find the author.
Michael:But the idea is there's there's 2 types of work that a human can do. There's deep work, and that's your you're sitting and you're concentrating your focus, and and no one better bug you because it's gonna take you an hour to get back to where you were. And that's the important stuff. Then there's shallow work, which is answering emails, and you could have enough clicks on while you're doing that, and, really, who cares? And the way I look at it is that if I am doing something that's really deep and and in the trading for me now, that's either, you know, going through charts to do my my macro analysis or actually creating the strategy itself, you know, yes, it sucks to get interrupted by, you know, a kid or or, you know, whatever.
Michael:But, sometimes it can be that thought of, oh, I have to do this thing tomorrow, where, you know, the same is when we're storing a trading idea. I can also push that to my second brain. Right? That thought can come up and say, oh, you know, you gotta respond to this guy's email, and then I can just throw that away at the same time and go immediately back to what I'm doing where, you know, if you let things go, then you're just never you're never able to concentrate on anything.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I think that you use the term deep work, and I think that book is Cal Newport, I believe. The way I think about it is it's not just deep work. It's what are the things what are the very important things that you're the best at that you can't outsource to somebody else?
Dave:You can't get a virtual assistant to help you do something. Mhmm. What are the important things that only you can do? And that's what you should really focus on, prioritizing that kind of work. And that's what you should be, you know, carving out time for yourself to mull over those ideas, to, to really think a lot about what, you know, what you what you uniquely are talented and,
Michael:have the most important, skills to be able to create that. 100% agree. And that's that's the technological side of things, but let's let's go a little bit deeper on, what do you record. Right? And I'll I'll use an example, from my life that actually just happened, I think, yesterday.
Michael:And this is kind of my process that I wanna figure out is that, I was listening to a podcast or something. I mentioned in the last episode the way I generate ideas. I absorb content. You know, I go for walks. I do whatever.
Michael:I absorb a lot of podcasts and audiobooks, whatever. And, these people on this podcast were talking with this phenomenon that's been well observed that and you can back test this simple. If you buy the S and P 500 on the open and you sell it on the close, your returns are actually negative over time. And if you buy the S and P 500 on the close and you sell it on the next open, then you're you get all of those positive returns, which makes sense, you know, you're being rewarded for the excess risk you're taking by holding overnight, and that actually got me thinking that I have this, prop type account that I'm working on, and I have a certain amount of intraday buying power and a certain amount of overnight buying power. So the overnight buying power is right now unused.
Michael:So instantly, when I heard that, and and these kinda connections got put together, that's what I talked about. I set a reminder that when I get home, I want to start exploring this this idea or this opportunity. But, you know, getting into the nitty gritty of what to record, for me, it's just an initial headline of, right, what if, you know, look to create a strategy that buys at the close and and sells the next open. But then what do you write after that? Is it just like a free form brain dump?
Michael:Is it a a list of tasks that you think you'd have to do to get the strategy working? Like, what does that look like?
Dave:So that's why I keep, those original ideas in Notion, which is a free form thing. You could type whatever you want. There's no form, you know, no fields I have to fill out. It's totally free form. And and that's because these ideas, there's not necessarily to dos associated with them yet.
Dave:Right right now is not necessarily the time to do something on them. So a lot of times, those ideas just need to stare at you in the face for a while, and you mull, just mull over them for some period of time. I mean, maybe forever, maybe months. And it's and, you know, you have to be okay with that. You know, it's it's okay that that doesn't become a to do right now.
Dave:It's not about getting something done. It's about coming up with big ideas that you can turn into strategies and could be life changing. So, yeah. And so as I'm all over those ideas, slowly, I will come up with to dos for them. And it may be it may be to think about some tangential thing.
Dave:It might be, you know, write some script to test something to gather some data that, you know, won't necessarily have the answer, but it'll, be a step forward and might generate other ideas or help the idea come into, come into form more quickly. So it all depends. You had to be kinda comfortable with that. You know, there's not a to do yet for this thing.
Michael:Yeah. And and mine's the same way. It it's right away a a headline that when I'm looking through the notes later, it will capture, you know, what it is I wanna do, and then it's immediately just a brain dump. Right? So, you know, I've got about 2 paragraphs in there because I got this idea about yesterday saying, you know, I have this unused buying power.
Michael:It's not even my buying power, so I'd like to utilize it off something. Right? This is the idea that I have, and then it ends up being kind of a beacon sometimes for, you know, if I have a few seconds, maybe I I look up some things, and I'll just dump some links. But it just becomes like a a brain, like an absolute mess. And then sometime, like you mentioned, in the future, when I have the time, now I can go to this note that's just a complete and utter mess.
Michael:Like, I can read through it. I can start to, you know, finalize things. I can I can put things in in in sections and to do lists and start testing and and all this kind of stuff? But, yeah, for now, it has to be the main purpose is I don't wanna forget it. I wanna understand why I built this thing, and then I want a repository for it just because, you know, 6 months from now, I might still have not gotten to it, but maybe I come across a form post or an article or something about this phenomenon of this, You know, someone claims they have this strategy that they can predict gaps the next day, which is essentially what you're doing if you're buying the the closed and selling the open.
Michael:And I'll just take that, and I'll just paste it in there and, you know, read this later. And then, eventually, when it's, you know, a page or too long and I have the time to do it, then we can go to that kind of deep work mode where I read through everything I do. I do all the research that I have set up. I start testing. I start doing.
Michael:But, yeah, I think just having a a brain dump. Because, you know, one of the benefits of of what I get to do and what you get to do too, Dave, is that we we talk to traders a lot. Right? So it made us come up in conversation one day, and I'm like, oh, I've got all this resource. So, yeah, it's the same way.
Michael:Just just dump what's in your brain down there so it doesn't escape you later.
Dave:Yeah. It so this reminds me. A couple weeks ago, my oldest daughter got married.
Michael:Oh, congratulations.
Dave:And she asked me to give a toast to the rehearsal dinner the night before. So, so I gave this toast. And afterwards, after the wedding, everything's kind of, the dust is settling. Mhmm. She asks, hey.
Dave:Can you guys the people that gave toast, my wife did too, can you send your notes for the for the toast? I'd like to, you know, have those as a keepsake. So I sent my notes, and there were 3 words. That was it. There's just 3 bullets.
Michael:Mhmm.
Dave:They were they were cracking up because I I kinda I take notes that way, like, in college. Yep. My wife would make fun of me because I would sit through the whole lecture, and there'd be, like, 2 words written on my page for the notes. So, it it I think people do it differently. And in preparing for that toast, all I needed were those 3 words because I had really flushed out those ideas that I wanted to talk about so well over the course of, many runs and and rides, and I had just those 3 words that were gonna remind me.
Dave:So
Michael:And, again, yeah, it's just whatever your your brain could think of. Now one thing I've started to experiment with, and I wanted to ask you about this, because I I I feel like you're not as excited about AIs as I am in our conversations. This is something I've actually been using ChatGPT a lot for. I I have this thing open 247, 365 on, and I actually just tried it a couple days ago on another idea that I was working on where I just took that brain dump that I had. I pasted it in, and I said, you know, formalize this into bullet points.
Michael:And then I also had to do a bunch of research and pull a bunch of articles up to be put in. And I think that there's something there where it can streamline that process of just the random guck that I threw on the page and something that's nice and presentable. And then, also, here's all the research from it that I can then take. You experiment with these at all, or have you been playing with them?
Dave:So I use chat g p t for various tasks, but that's not one of them. And I specifically don't use it to come up with ideas like that. I think that, like, I I kinda don't want it to pollute the way I think. And, you know, I want the ideas to come from me. Maybe there's some part of my workflow where I can work it in for idea generation, but I haven't found it yet.
Dave:And the ideas that come up it comes up with I mean, part of the problem I have with this is it's so easy to spot when somebody writes something with gbt that it's embarrassing and they don't realize it. And I never wanna be seen that way. The stuff I write on the in my newsletter, I want it to be very obvious that all I'm the only person in the world that could've written that.
Michael:And I I think hard about that. And just just to clarify, I'm talking about, right, I come up with the idea. Right? I write it down in my notes. It's just got a a 3 paragraphs of brain dump.
Michael:And instead of going through and bullet pointing those myself and then going to Google and doing all the research, what I found is that I can skip both of those by just taking that brain dump, throwing it in, saying put these into points, and then find me. So for example, what I'll have it do is I'll say, find me everything that you can look up on the Internet for, this buy the close, sell the open idea and what it can do, and just present me that. And then I I can I can hone in because that's something, again, that I've been finding more and more I'm interested? Again, we've been talking a lot about technologies that Apple is actually building chat gpt into, the assistant that will not be named. So Mhmm.
Michael:Potentially, I could actually, cut out some of that as well where I could be at the gym under the bench press and say, instead of remind me when I get home, just talk to it and say, this is what I'm looking for. Is there any, you know, research out there on that? If so, put it in a notepad and write this in your ID. I because I think, again, it's about using technology to close that gap from the idea generated by you to having a a research point that you can go back to, an idea when it comes to this is what I'm trying to accomplish. And then, again, any research that's already existed there.
Michael:Because my idea is that I don't wanna reinvent the wheel. You know? I if there's somebody out there who has come up with some ideas, I want to start with those and then kinda tweak them on my own.
Dave:Yeah. I think that's a a great use for it, and there's there's just gonna continue to be better uses for it, for that. What I don't like is when I it's it's really obvious when I see people that are using it in a lazy way, and they don't realize it. And it it it sticks out of me like a sore thumb, and it just gives such a bad impression of what they're doing.
Michael:It, yeah, it will be a double edged sword. It's gonna be weird, for sure, for for a long time. But, yeah, I'm I'm with you where I think there are some target uses that I wanna play with. And, Yeah. As we go on with this podcast, I'm sure we'll we'll find some as well.
Michael:But I'm with you where I I think I've did done what every trader has done where you go in there and you say, what's a really good trading strategy? And what it comes up with is just, you know, the handful of things that it pulled from, like, someone's blog or website
Dave:Yeah.
Michael:Or something. So maybe as if you didn't have any ideas at all, maybe a way that you could start. But all you're doing is you're going to someone's vlog, and you're reading what they did and and just starting to test it yourself, which Yeah. You know, mix There
Dave:is so so there is one other thing I wanna bring up about this whole workflow thing that we're talking about in capturing ideas. There's a tendency sometimes to overcomplicate or over systematize things. Like, you you create to dos for creating to dos.
Michael:Mhmm.
Dave:And I think it's important to kind of take a step back and figure out what the easiest workflow is gonna be and to not make it too complex. To do you really need to use this other app that just was released and is a cool to do app or whatever that you're that that people are using and you heard about? How is that gonna make your workflow more complicated than it needs to be? So, do you think about that, and what are your thoughts?
Michael:That's why I use Apple Notes and Apple Reminders and right? Because it's all just it's it's in there. It's all built in. It's all ready to go. It syncs.
Michael:It cannot be I just feel like I'm Apple fanboying the whole time, but it syncs to everything else. Like, I can attach notes to emails. I can have, right, calendars reference this, that, and the other thing. And, yeah, I'm with you. That 90 it's like most things.
Michael:99% of of what can be done is probably fine in its built in state, And then anything else after that is kinda tweaking. So, you know, I would also say, when I was using Microsoft stuff at school, I used their it's called, OneNote, I think. Microsoft OneNote. It's for most cases, that's what I actually use for pretty much all of my schooling to to keep, you know, track of everything as well. So, yeah.
Michael:For in most cases, I think the built in thing's fine. I think you use the simple thing until you come up against a wall and and say, if it, you know, if it didn't, it needs to do this thing in order to, to do what I need to do and and hit that wall first before you start going out and looking. So I actually fell victim to this the other day. I saw a buddy of mine I was talking. He uses a program called Obsidian, and it's supposed to be, like, the ultimate brain second brain tool.
Michael:I think it was actually talked about in this book as well. And I just Googled it myself. Let me check this out. And the tutorials on YouTube for using Obsidian were Obsidian were 3 to 6 hours long, and that was when I just kinda tapped out. I said, okay.
Michael:Could this make my process 1% better? Yes. But if I'm gonna need to watch a 6 hour long tutorial how to do it, I'll just stick to my notes, and it'll be a little bit messier and everything will be fine.
Dave:Yeah. As nerds like us, there is a tendency to try to overcomplicate things. So it's always good to to keep that in the back of your mind that, about that. You know, I've heard I've seen, people keep track of stuff just in Gmail drafts. Just create a Gmail draft.
Dave:That's right. The nice thing about that is super simple. It's on your phone. It synced everywhere. Okay.
Dave:Very easy. You know, it's sort of a creative way to use, Gmail in a way that you wouldn't perhaps thought of.
Michael:Yeah. Well, in going even lower tech than that, I used to. And when I build my new office, I will as well. I had one wall painted with you can get, whiteboard paint. Or Mhmm.
Michael:So, like, it's dry erase, whatever, and I painted a whole wall of dry erase board. And I just had a a couple notes or or, writing tools on my desk. And then, yeah, when I come home, if I got that reminder from Apple or something, I just go and actually write it on the board. If you watch some of my old videos, you can kinda see it a a little bit behind me, but that's, you know yeah. It's it's not about being super fancy, although, you know, use technology, obviously, to your advantage.
Michael:But, yeah, it's just about making sure that you have that ability to say, you know, okay. I have this idea. Let me lock it away. Let me be able to add to it or tinker with it over time. And then when I get the time, which is a I think what we're planning on talking about in the next episode is how to prioritize which one.
Michael:When it comes time to surface it, you'll be glad that you've taken as much detail notes as as you can at the time because you'll forget. And I I've done this before too where you look at a note, and you go, what what was I even what was I trying to, you know, communicate to my future self here? Yeah. So make sure it's not complicated, but it's detailed enough that if 6 months from now, you go back to it, you go, oh, I know exactly what past Michael was trying to say here.
Dave:Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Anything else before we wrap it up? I I've got 2 book recommendations.
Dave:1 is the one we mentioned earlier, Getting Things Done by David Allen. That's a good one.
Michael:Mhmm.
Dave:The other one is atomic habits by James Clear. Not exactly related to what we're talking about, but I just gave that recommended that to one of my trading students this week, and they he's he was in the perfect situation to be reading that book, and he's getting a really a lot out of it. So it's highly recommended.
Michael:Yeah. I I I I was actually gonna be one of mine on top of the, the second brain book. Atomic Habits is phenomenal for those don't know. It's just about, like, what's the bare minimum thing you can do to develop good habits and destroy bad habits. And the perfect example that I think applies to this that I I I remember in the book was, you know, if you wanna learn guitar, make sure your guitar is right next to wherever it is that you're sitting and hanging out that that leg of even, you know, 30 seconds to a minute from, you know, I have this in bout of inspiration or something that I wanna do to being able to do that thing can be enough resistance to kinda stop people.
Michael:So same kind of thing that we were talking about that if you get the idea, you don't wanna have to go, okay. Let me store that in my head and then go home and have a place to write it down. You always wanna have something on you, a watch or phone or whatever that you can just go, right, let me know later and and remove that resistance.
Dave:Yeah. I've at least once a week, you'll see me. I'll be riding my bike, and I'll stop on the side of the road to record an idea I have in my phone. So it's it it I can't tell you how important that is to be able to do that and to have a system for doing that. It's your memory is not as good as you think it is, or at least that's what I've learned over the years.
Michael:Well and I guess we we've we've talked with this the whole time without really talking about it is that, physical activity. Right? In in whatever it is that you enjoy doing. I know I've heard about this pickleball thing. I don't know what it is, but I guess a lot of people are doing it.
Michael:Running, lifting, right, walking the dogs, doing whatever. You know, our n of 2 study with me and Dave, that's generally speaking when my best ideas come. And, this deep workbook that I was talking about, he gives a lot of examples of, writers and creative people dedicating time to just isolationist, just going, right, again, walking or doing whatever, you know, to help surface whatever their their brains working on. It's the whole, you know, consciously focusing on something versus just letting your unconscious that we know is way more powerful, sort out things in the background, and just kinda spit that information. So, you know, not really a fitness podcast, but I guess we kinda got there in a roundabout way.
Dave:Yeah. I bet we could do a whole episode on that. I mean, I've got a lot to say about it. I think it's it's such an important part of my edge, I think. And, I mean, I I mean, I believe that deeply.
Michael:Well, maybe for a future episode. But Yeah. Alright, guys. This was a great one. Again, as things go on, I'm loving this more and more as things get, you know, we get more comfortable with it, and we we get into the into the nitty gritty.
Michael:So and as we mentioned, we're gonna talk about more about strategy development, about, you know, prioritizing ideas and all that kind of stuff. So way more to come, and I'll talk to everyone next week.
Dave:Alright. See you next week.
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