Hey, what is going on guys?
It is Labor Day as I record this.
I just knocked out a 25 mile bike ride,
and I thought it would be a cool idea
to answer some of your questions.
A few days ago, I asked for questions over on Twitter.
A lot of you guys responded,
and I'm going to crank through
a bunch of them in this video.
Now, if you want to get your questions answered
in future Q&A videos, because I think this may be
a fun thing to do in the future,
you can follow me on Twitter over at TomFrankly.
With that being said, let's get into the first question.
"Do you have any tips on creating a creative,
"yet productive work area?"
I thought this might be a good question to start out with,
because you might have noticed that the work station
in the background has changed a bit since
maybe two videos ago,
and I'm going to do an updated
work station video pretty soon.
I promise you guys,
but I did want to give you a few pointers
that I have discovered through my own
multiple, multiple work station iterations.
What I found works really well for me
is to create a balance of having access
to all the things I need to be creative
and to get work done,
but to also have everything that isn't related
to my current task at least out of sight,
and preferably out of hand or out of access.
What I mean by that, is I have a lot of tools
in this little spinning drawer thing over here.
I've got books behind me.
I've got all my camera gear within easy reach,
and I usually have my overhead shooting set-up
over in the other room
if my friends don't need to use the table,
but when I'm working, I also try to shut down
all my other tabs, all my other apps,
and I put everything away,
and I try to keep the desk as clear as possible,
and I also use a Pomodoro App called Tomighty,
which basically keeps me focused on the task at hand.
Remember, a balance between access
to your creative and productive tools,
but also focus and lack of distraction.
"How did you decide to start a YouTube channel?"
That's a bit of an interesting story actually,
because my channel has been on YouTube sine 2006,
and back when my brother and I created it,
we shared it, and it was just a place
for us to dump all of our dumb home videos
and ninja fights and all sorts of really dumb stuff
that I've since pulled off for good reason,
but the reason I started making educational videos
is because I was an educational blogger in college,
and then I moved onto being a podcaster,
and I realized in about 2014, the middle 2014 I think
that I was watching a lot of YouTube videos,
and I was having more fun watching videos
than I was reading blogs.
Naturally I thought to myself,
"Why don't I start making videos as well,"
and the rest is a two year history.
Now, if that's not enough detail for you,
I did make an entire YouTube story video
which explained my entire journey to becoming a YouTuber,
and you can find that by clicking the box right there,
or finding the link down below the Like button,
and that's about ten minutes and my full high school story
and everything that led up to this point.
"When and why did you decide to become super-productive?"
I like to tell myself
that I'm a naturally productive person,
and in truth, I do get antsy
if I haven't done much for awhile,
and if I haven't accomplished anything
for a span of a few days.
In fact, when I travel to places like San Diego,
recently, for example, I could only make it about four days
before I started working again.
Maybe it's a little bit in my DNA.
That being said, there is one catalyst from my past
that made me work even harder
than I probably would have worked by default,
and that was the 2008 stock market
and housing collapse crisis.
Alien invasion basically.
This was really traumatic for me, basically,
because I was scheduled to graduate in 2009,
and when this happened in 2008,
there were all these articles and news reports
and people, like talking heads on the TV, saying,
"College graduates of this year are completely screwed.
"They're not going to be able to find a job,"
and I was scared by that,
and I was even more scared,
because there were adults that I knew personally in my life
who got laid off from their jobs,
or whose entire companies went under,
and I was thinking to myself,
"Am I going to go into college and have to deal with that
four years from now?"
I don't want to make it sound like
fear was the only motivator,
because I do really have a lot of passion for what I do,
but when that happened,
there was this switch flipped in my brain.
I never want to have that happen to me.
I never want to be in a situation where
an economic downturn, or a company going over or under,
or basically, anybody just saying,
"Hey, we don't want you anymore."
I never wanted external events like that
to be able to totally throw me out on the street.
When I went into college, I had this mindset of,
"I'm going to get ahead,
"and I'm going to collect as many skills as I can.
"I'm going to have a really versatile skill set,
"so that way if one thing doesn't work,
"I can move right into something else
"and I'll always be employable."
Today, I don't even want to be employed by anybody else,
at least not for the foreseeable future,
but that was at least part of the motivation
for working really, really hard when I started college.
"How do you study efficiently when you're sleep deprived?"
Stop trying to work and get some sleep.
"Who do you main in Super Smash Brothers 4 and Overwatch?
Some of you guys might hate me for this,
but my main character in Super Smash Brother 4
has always been Diddy Kong,
and yes, I know he is the top tier character,
and you could just say I'm picking him
so I can win as many matches as possible,
but I really, truly did enjoy playing him.
That being said, ever since Bayonetta got released
as a DLC character, she is my new favorite,
because her movement, like the speed,
and the agility, and her skill set, it's just sick.
I love it.
I'm going to be practicing with her.
With Overwatch, I do actually make an attempt
to play every single character, other than a few
that I just don't like,
and I also spend a lot of time
in each of the four classes,
so I can be a very versatile player.
That being said, my mains right now
are Reaper, Mei, Junkrat, Zenyatta,
and sometimes Winston if I'm feeling like I want to go tank.
"When do you think is the right time
"to start applying for scholarships?"
Believe it or not, you can start applying for scholarships
as early as your freshman year in high school,
and in fact, there are probably
private organizations out there
that cater to even younger people.
If you are a future-minded person
who is even in sixth grade or something,
you could start,
but I would say that you want to start
getting serious about it when you are in eleventh grade.
That gives you two full years
to start making sure your resume is how you want it to be,
and let's you start thinking about clubs,
and it let's you apply for a decent number of scholarships.
Also, don't stop applying for scholarships
after you graduate from high school,
because the majority of the scholarships I won
came after I had started college.
I probably won five or six scholarships in college,
and I won one scholarship in high school,
so keep applying throughout the entirety
of your educational career.
"When you're feeling lazy, how do you personally
"muster that last bit of energy
"and focus on what is at hand?"
Okay, I'm going to share a few different tips here
that really help me, but please,
please listen to me on this first one,
because I have learned through personal experience
that no matter how tired I am,
no matter how much I think the day is wasted,
no matter how much I think this particular tip
is not going to help me,
it always helps, at least to some degree.
That tip is to take a walk and to do it outside,
because the sunlight exposure and the little bit of exercise
is really going to rejuvenate you
and sunlight actually does help us
to suppress the sleep urge,
which contributes to that afternoon slump
and a lot of those tired feelings you get
when you're studying.
Go for a walk.
Do it for just 15 minutes, 10 minutes even,
make it outside, and then when you come back
choose one task, clear off your work space,
and do a Pomodoro Session.
This is basically a 25 minute work session
where you focus only on one task.
You have an external timer, either an egg timer,
or your phone, of the app that I like to use,
which is for both Mac and Windows and is free.
It's called Tomighty,
and basically, this external timer
is going to help you to one, put the task in perspective.
It's just 25 minutes of work.
You don't have to worry about finishing it,
and number two, put everything else out of your mind.
"Tell us everything.
"All of the knowledge."
Dude, it's like you don't even know
that all of the knowledge in the universe
becomes unlocked once you purchase 42 Lamborghinis.
I thought everyone knew that.
"What is your favorite YouTube channel?
"Besides yours of course."
All right, number one,
my channel is not my favorite channel,
though I am quite proud of animations
like the one you're about to see in a second,
and number two, I don't have a favorite channel,
because my interests really do change
on a pretty quick basis,
so instead of giving you a favorite one,
which will change two seconds from now,
I'm going to give you a bunch of them,
and definitely go check these channels out.
CrashCourse, Vsauce3, LinusTechTips, Satchell Drakes
Caddicarus, Jon Tron, I Like to Make Stuff,
Gary Vaynerchuk, the NerdWriter, Anna Akana,
h3h3, MowtenDoo, Tom Scott, CGP Grey,
Geography Now, Casey Neistat, Comics Explained,
Regular Car Reviews, BrainCraft, Caleb Wojcik,
Alpha M., The School of Life, Colin Furze (whoops mispronounced it),
Yungtown, SeaNanners, Smarter Every Day,
Did You Know Gaming, and Smooth McGroove.
"How can you develop discipline instead of motivation?"
I think the main contributing factor
for going from fleeting motivation
over to regular and reliable discipline
is the habitualization of your work.
Basically, showing up every single day,
sitting down and getting it done,
without needing inspiration, and doing it on a schedule.
That is actually the main idea
of a book I've been reading recently
called, "The War of Art."
Now, this book mainly for writers, and creative people,
and people who feel like they have a calling in their lives,
but I think this is actually an essential read
for anyone who struggles with procrastination.
One of the big concepts in this book
is this idea of going from amateur over to professional,
and I want to share with you
a couple of sentences from the book
about this idea of what a professional is.
I think this particular paragraph
in the Professional section sums it up pretty clearly.
"Someone once asked Somerset Maugham
"if he wrote on a schedule
"or only when struck by inspiration.
"'I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied.
"'Fortunately, it strikes every morning at 9:00 sharp,'"
and that's a pro.
"Which is your favorite One Piece Arc?"
I guess this is another confession time,
because I only watched about the first 200 episodes
of One Piece before I gave the show up.
Now, I love the show.
I love the characters.
I have bought stuff, like One Piece stuff in Japan,
like a ship and a t-shirt,
but there's just too much.
There's 700 episodes at this point,
and I had to move on with my life,
and I think they pad out the anime way too much,
so the manga and the wiki is good enough for me,
and the films are pretty cool too.
That being said, within the first 200 episodes,
my favorite arc is Alabasta, which I have on DVD,
and I think I like this one more than the Skypiea arc,
just because the setting is cooler,
and I think the villains are a bit more compelling as well.
"Is there any video making equipment
"that you would recommend?"
Oh yes there is.
It's right here.
Okay, just kidding.
I'm not Casey Neistat,
though I do think there is something to be said
for caring way more about the story
and the content than the gear
if you're a beginning YouTuber,
or you're somebody who has any aspirations
and dreams for making video of any sort,
because those are way more important.
Take for example, Jenny Nicholson's channel.
Now, I think she literally is filming these things
on a potato, but one of them has over 2,000,000 views,
and she's funny.
Her stuff is compelling,
but I know you guys don't want to hear just that,
so here are some quick recommendations
if you are a beginner.
Number one, I would start by filming on a smart phone.
This is an iPhone 6S.
This can film in 4K.
The quality is just bananas.
It's nuts,
so you don't need to worry too much about a camera,
but audio is much more important than video
for the pleasure of a viewer.
This thing has on okay mic.
It's not that great.
I'm filming on a shotgun mic which is right above me,
but if you're just starting out,
I would recommend a cheap lav mic,
like this one from Royal Voice.
I got this on Amazon for I think 16 bucks.
It's just a wired mic.
You can put it into your phone,
and I use an app called Rode Rec
to record my audio recordings,
and I actually tape it to the inside of my shirt
just using masking tape,
and that really helps to cut down on any wind noise.
Now, if you guys want gear recommendations beyond that,
I'll probably make an updated gear video
about my own set-up in the near future,
but until then, you should definitely go over
to my friend Caleb Wojcik's channel
and subscribe to him, because he makes excellent videos
about video gear, video techniques,
and he's the guy who taught me a lot of what I know
about how to make good videos.
"Favorite fictional books?"
I did make a video on my top ten favorite fictional books
a little while ago, and you can check it out right there,
because my picks have not really changed.
That being said, I'm currently reading a book called,
"a Darker Shade of Magic," and this is highly enjoyable,
so I can give it a recommendation
even though I haven't finished it yet,
but I'm getting there.
That about does it for the questions
I'm going to answer in this video.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed this new Q&A format,
and if you did, I would love it
if you went down into the comments and let me know,
and if enough people did, I'll probably make this
an ongoing Q&A format that will sprinkle in
with the regular videos.
Also, if you want to ask me your own question,
something that you just need to know,
you can follow me over on Twitter @TomFrankly
and sometimes, periodically I will put out a tweet
asking for questions, which I will pull from
for these videos.
Also, if you want to get my free book
on earning better grades,
you can click the link right there
and get it delivered right to your email address,
and you can subscribe to this channel
for more tips on being a more effective student
every single week, right down there.
If you missed last week's video,
we talked about a habit that can keep you
motivated and organized all semester,
so check it out right there
and if you want to connect with me, send a raven.