- Hey friends, welcome back to the vlog.
Today's gonna be a super productive day in social isolation,
basically just sitting on my own
and trying to get a load of stuff done.
The day starts at 8:30 a.m.
when I wake up and proceed to grab my phone,
and then lie in bed
watching Yes Theory videos for half an hour.
At 9:00 a.m. I negotiate myself out of bed,
being fully inspired, have a shower, get changed
and make my morning coffee with the AeroPress.
(chilled music)
I don't know.
I still can't make coffee taste nice.
It still just tastes quite bad, and I don't know why,
but I sort of ugh, ah.
I need to figure out a way of doing this properly.
Apparently if you have a kettle that heats it up
to a certain temperature, not 100 degrees Celsius, it works,
and apparently you have to
actually measure out the coffee grounds.
Maybe that'll work?
I kinda just do it by ear, by eye right now,
which is why it tastes so crap.
I wanna try one of these as well.
My editor got this for me as a Christmas present.
Thank you Christian, that's very kind of you.
I haven't used it yet, but one of these days I will.
I feel like this is better for making large,
like lots of coffee though,
and with all this social distancing stuff going on
we don't have many people who come to the house,
and my housemate Molly doesn't drink tea or coffee,
so I usually just end up making coffee for myself,
in which case it makes sense to use the AeroPress
that makes a single cup.
So yeah, definitely I will be using that at some point.
By 9:30 I'm ready to sit at my desk and do something useful,
but of course I have to procrastinate by cleaning the desk
so that I feel more inspired
to actually do something productive.
Finally, when the desk's clean,
I start the day by doing my morning dump,
which I talk more about in my "Five Productivity Tips" video
that'll be linked in the top corner of the screen,
and I'm using my favourite notebook,
the Leuchtturm1917 Dot Grid notebook
with the Uni-ball Air pen.
I've talked in-depth about both
of these in previous monthly favourites videos
that you'll find linked in the video description
if you care about watching me wax lyrical
about random bits of stationery.
As usual I'm writing down my highlight of the day,
i.e. something to focus on, something to be grateful for
and something to let go of.
I also write out a quick list of things
that I wanna get done during the day,
along with a rough calendar of events.
This takes a few minutes each morning,
but it really gives me some clarity,
and actually last night I wrote out some things
that I wanted to do today.
So I flick back to that page to remind myself.
By 10:00 a.m. everything is organised
and I've got my life planned out,
so I spend a solid two hours firstly chatting
to Angus and Christian, my lovely team members on Slack,
secondly writing out some more ideas
for future videos and projects,
and finally, for some reason,
kicking a tennis ball around the kitchen,
because I'm feeling like a total waste man.
So all this ends at 12:30
when I start filming the "Five Productivity Tips" video
that we released on the channel a few weeks ago,
and which did quite well.
So thank you if you watched that video.
You're incredibly kind.
I'm trying to get a minimalistic sort of
vlogging type setup that I can just kinda take anywhere
without having to worry about setting up
a whole, big external microphone.
'Cause one thing I'm trying to do
with this YouTube channel is to be less
you know when you're like less concerned
about production value.
'Cause I know production value is important
but there are more important things.
It does kinda look weird.
If I talk with this microphone
it looks significantly more weird
than if I talk without the microphone,
but we'll try it out.
We'll try it out anyway.
Oh, it just doesn't look as pro.
God damn it.
It just does not look as pro
when you have a mic sticking out.
♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪
You hear some sort of clothing rustle.
I don't know.
It sounds all right to me.
Let's now actually film the video
that I was meant to film, rather than filming this vlog.
I get most of the video done by 2:30 p.m.
when I decide to take a break
by watching Peter McKinnon's latest video
and ordering some food.
Ugh.
Right, that was about 15 minutes of procrastinating
by watching Peter McKinnon's latest video
and ordering some takeaway for food,
'cause I haven't had lunch yet and it's about half past two.
Now to film the final segment of this video.
Let's go.
By 3:00 p.m. the video is all wrapped up
and so I head back to my desk to check out a video edit
that my lovely editor Christian kindly sent me
on Frame.io, which is a video collaboration platform.
At 3:20 takeaway arrives,
and while eating I spend 25 minutes watching
"E.D.I.T.H. - The Framing of Tony Stark",
a documentary about the history of the glasses
that Tony Stark wears in the Marvel movies.
The documentary was actually made by my friend
and fellow creator Dave Wiskus,
and it's a pretty riveting story
that you can find on Nebula, the streaming platform
that me and a load of other creatives are helping to build.
Another really great Nebula documentary series
I'd recommend is called "Money"
by one of my favourite YouTubers, Tom Scott,
and did you know, on Nebula I've actually got a load
of exclusive videos that you won't find on YouTube,
like my "Workflow" series,
where I talk in-depth about my favourite productivity apps
and another series called "Deep Dive",
that has long-form, mostly unedited interviews
that I've done with friends and other creators,
about things like productivity, motivation, money,
happiness and a load of other topics.
The best way to access Nebula is by signing up
for a subscription of CuriosityStream,
the world's biggest documentary streaming platform
who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
By signing up to CuriosityStream for $3 a month
or $20 a year, you get access to thousands
of high quality documentaries
but you also get free access to everything on Nebula,
making this the single best deal in the streaming world.
Anyway, at 3:45 p.m. I review another edit on Frame.io
and then I watch an absolutely incredible video
by Kurzgesagt on what we know about the coronavirus so far
and what we can do about it.
I'll put a link in the video description.
If you haven't seen it yet, it's a masterpiece.
A few more things to do now.
So, just chatted to my grandma,
so I can tick that off the to-do list.
Now I'm gonna review some scripts
that me and my team have written for various videos
that are coming up.
Don't know if we're gonna release those videos
because of all the coronavirus stuff going on.
It seems a bit silly to release some.
I don't know if we should be releasing just like,
and continue releasing,
sort of business as usual type videos.
Gotta review some scripts,
tick these things off,
and then I'm gonna try and record some voiceover.
So I need to record a voiceover
for the "Day in the Life of The Doctor" video
and for the vlog that I made of VidCon, which was ages ago.
But both of those need voiceovers so
that's next on the agenda.
Let's go.
I spend the next hour filming some more quick intro videos
for the Skillshare class about how to study for exams.
I then intend to do some exercise,
but I get distracted by my friend Hannah Witton's
latest upload on her second channel
about ageing gracefully on YouTube,
which is something I think about literally every day.
By the time I finished watching that video
it's 5:52 p.m.
Daylight is quickly dwindling and I decide
that I actually need to do some exercise.
So I change into some gym shorts and leggings,
because they make me feel more pro,
put on my bright orange trainers,
and head over to the balcony.
(chilled music)
At 7:00 p.m. I decide that enough's enough
and I get back to my natural habitat, the computer screen.
I spend 10 minutes getting inspired
by watching yet another Yes Theory video,
and then, with tears in my eyes
at the wholesome happy ending,
I continue to get through the items on my to-do list.
I start by recording a voiceover for an upcoming
"Day in the Life as a Gynaecology Junior Doctor" video
or something like that,
and then once that's uploaded to Google Drive,
I have a stab at the VidCon vlog.
I get through all these bits by 8:00 p.m.
and then, to take a quick break, my housemate Molly and I
record an acoustic cover of "You Raise Me Up",
with her harmonising on the chorus.
After uploading that monstrosity to Instagram,
I make myself a cheeky cup of Peppermint tea
to rejuvenate my bones,
and get back on the computer to write the voiceover
for another Day in the Life vlog.
God, I've been doing way too many of those recently.
It ends up taking around an hour
to scrub through the footage
and write the voiceover segments,
and then at 10:00 p.m. the final job of the day
is to actually record it.
All right, so,
that's it.
Recorded the voiceover.
I think that's all the work I'll do for the day.
Now, I'm gonna head to bed.
And yeah, it's been a long day.
It's been a productive day, doing social distancing,
apart from when Molly came over,
because she and I live together.
But yeah, basically stuck in the house all day,
but actually not that bad.
Got a lot done.
I'm pretty good.
So, that's the end of the day.
I'll leave you with the cover that Molly and I did
of "You Raise Me Up", which I posted to my Instagram,
which you should definitely follow.
Thanks so much for watching.
Stay safe, stay healthy
and I'll hopefully see you in the next video.
Good night.
♪ When I am down, and, oh, my soul, so weary ♪
♪ When troubles come, and my heart burdened be ♪
♪ Then, I am still and wait here in the silence ♪
♪ Until you come and stay awhile with me ♪
♪ You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains ♪
♪ You raise me up to walk on stormy seas ♪
♪ I am strong when I am on your shoulders ♪
♪ You raise me up to more than I can be ♪