Scotty Jackson: Getting Things Done with ADHD

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Scotty Jackson

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Transcript

Scotty Jackson: I'm the type of person who will think about one thing that I have to do 10 times and mistakenly have the impression that I have 10 things to do and then get stressed out.

Jesse: Hey, my name is Jesse J. Anderson, host of the ADHD Nerds podcast. The show where we talk about living with ADHD, and have some fun along the way.

Jesse: This is episode six. Today, I'm talking with Scotty Jackson. Scotty is a self-described productivityist, a digital communications manager, and cohost of the Nested Folders podcast. Nested Folders is a podcast all about productivity and the good and bad of getting things done.

Jesse: But first.

Jesse: I'm excited to announce my Refocus Your ADHD Brain course coming in early August. This cohort-based course is based on my upcoming book, Refocus. And will help you build the tools and strategies to make the most of your unique brain. You'll work alongside a like-minded community of others with ADHD to become an ADHD pro and build your brain strategy playbook. Sign up now to get the early bird pricing at adhd.courses. That's A D H D dot C O U R S E S. I can't wait to see you there. Now, let's get to the show.

Jesse: Scotty, it is great to have you here today.

Scotty Jackson: Uh, Jesse, it is great to see you or hear you. Um, I'll, I'll, uh, in the audience's shoes, I am hearing you and it's fantastic to connect.

Jesse: Awesome. Well, I've been a fan of your podcast, Nested Folders, for a while now. And then I reached out to, or you reach out to me. I don't remember. We connected sometime last year and it's been great to kind of get to know each other since then. And, uh, yeah, I'd love to start though and find out about your origin story with ADHD.

Jesse: When did you first start to think maybe you had it, did you get diagnosed? What did that all kind of look like growing up?

Scotty Jackson: I mean, I've probably told some jokes, like the old haha my ADHD brain, haha uh, like throughout, throughout um, my life. But it didn't occur to me in any kind of real concrete form until, you know, I started seeing, a psychologist in late 2019, because I had like an out of nowhere sort of, well, I thought out of nowhere anyway, panic attack. And it was something I hadn't experienced before.

Scotty Jackson: You know, even in my first meeting with her, uh, I sat down and started talking about all the things that you know, are going on in my life and you know, all the things that may have contributed to this. And then as you know, we're, we're talking at the end, I said, you know what? I kind of wouldn't be too surprised if it turns out I have ADHD.

Scotty Jackson: And she said, well, do you realize how fast you've been talking? I said, no, I didn't. I did, I did not. Is that fast? And, and then just sort of explored it from there.

Scotty Jackson: And then that became, and this is me and my adulthood, right? So that's, this is 2019 that's that's um, what, 10 years ago, so, it feels like.

Scotty Jackson: I'm, I'm now like in this position where I've got like this sort of Kobayashi moment, where, where all of a sudden, like the cup drops and breaks and you see like this, you look back on all of the things in your life that have led to that moment and you replay them through this whole other lens and you say, oh boy, like, that's why I was maybe struggling with depression as a child.

Scotty Jackson: Oh boy, that's why I was hyper focusing on that project that no one else even seemed to care about or, oh, that's why I can't do all of those things. That's why I can't do that stuff. Um, and, and it was maybe the first big time when I thought like, holy smokes, you mean, you mean, everybody doesn't think like this and I, and I, and I, and intuitively, you know, you know, you know, you're an ADHD too.

Scotty Jackson: Um, that, that clearly my brain works differently than other peoples. I th th that kind of became apparent to me. But at the same time I was holding this, paradoxically, I was holding the, um, the knowledge that I thought differently than other people, while also having the belief that other people must surely be thinking the way that I'm thinking. Um, and, and that is a very, stressful and dissonant place to live. And yet that was what I called home inside my brain for a very, very long time.

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that is totally true. It's it is such a weird paradox where you feel like, you, you know, something's different about your brain? Like you, you feel like either you're broken or you're different, or like there's weird quirks, like something's going on and you can't really define it, but you're right.

Jesse: It's, there's that other feeling of surely other people are also struggling with this and somehow they're just getting over it better than I am, or they're dealing with it better somehow. And you realize that there's this whole, like no other people aren't dealing with a lot of these, these issues that we've got going.

Jesse: And so there's this kind of strange realization, you know, when you first discover that, oh, there's like this whole other class of brain that I didn't know I had and that other people have too, but most people don't have, and don't kind of relate with all of that at all.

Scotty Jackson: And then, and then I go through this realization, I guess, that the air quote really, really hard things for a brain to do are actually the really, really easy things for me. And the quote, unquote, easy things to do, are the really, really hard things for me. So like, um, yeah, Scotty is very, very good with complex mathematics, like, uh, but still has trouble with buttons.

Scotty Jackson: Like my, my preschool report card is like always going to be my favorite, like plays well with others. Still has trouble with buttons. And I feel like that should actually kind of be my epitaph. I want to go out the way I started, but, but thematically that's, that's kind of true, right? Like I can, I can see complex patterns and I can figure out, weird relationships and creative connections between things that other people don't see.

Scotty Jackson: But, oh my god. Try and get me to like file my admin report. Oh, that's going to take me a month of agony and it's and it's going to hurt. Inside and out, it is going to truly hurt because for whatever reason, like filling in the blanks, I know where the blank is, I know what has to go into the blank. But actually getting myself to do that is incredibly hard.

Jesse: Yeah. It's torture. Yeah.

Scotty Jackson: Honestly. Honestly,

Jesse: Yeah. I, I recently discovered a, an old box in, uh, in the attic that had my name on it and a bunch of old, you know, old school papers and stuff. And I found some of my old report cards in there and oh man, it was, it was quite, you know, with the knowledge of my ADHD, like going back through, it's just like, so obvious.

Jesse: Like every single one of them talking about, you know, like he's not reaching his true potential and doesn't do his homework. And this project was amazing that he did, but then he just didn't do these other ones at all. And there there's so much of that. And then the other stuff like that is common, the like, yeah, joy to having class, gets along with others, really funny, and all those sorts of things kind of coming along with it. And just like, somehow they knew there was that I had this great potential and I wasn't reaching it, but they didn't really have any advice for me how I could actually get there.

Scotty Jackson: See, I, I kind of had a bit of an inverse problem because I, um, this is not comparative, but I'm just using language that I was given by some other people, which is that I, I, I, as a child, I was a, a very high functioning ADHD in school, which meant that from 8:45 AM until 3:30 PM, I could hold my business together. And I could be a rock star, straight A student at school who is a genius. After 3:30 PM, the wheels kind of fell off and I was a little bit of a disaster.

Scotty Jackson: So, so if you were to go to any teacher, whoever taught me probably until grade, you know, 10 or 11 and said, you know, Scotty has ADHD. They would say, uh uh. No way, no way, um, because I could hide it, then you get to a point where you can no longer hide it because, the volume of activity in my brain is so large.

Scotty Jackson: And the complexity of my life is now getting bigger and bigger as you progress through the grades. Right. You know, when start to discover, um, romantic and sexual interests, you start to, uh, personal, uh, hobbies. You start to become who you're going to be a little bit more and you start taking on, I mean, at least for me, I was taking on jobs.

Scotty Jackson: I started working when I was, when I was in, uh, grade 10 and I started working. Like, uh, you know, uh, a part to half-time job, and your life just gets bigger that way. And then, for me, I came to a couple of points where yeah, there was a breaking moment where, you know, you know, here shalt thou come, but no further. Like this, this,

Jesse: Right.

Scotty Jackson: This is the end of the line pal.

Scotty Jackson: You don't get any more stuff in the shopping cart. It is full. And so, so there's, there's that bit, which is that like, I could, I could hide it for a period of time early or manage it or whatever, whatever you want to call that. But then in my adulthood, After I got my diagnosis, you know, I, I started, you know, I, I started sort of, playtesting talking about it a little bit more and more, you know, outside my family.

Scotty Jackson: And I went to an associate of mine at work, uh, who I'm very close with and who I admire very much. Uh, his work is fantastic and we're, we're really close. And I said, so I, you know, I need to tell you, um, you know, I've been going through this process and I've been diagnosed with ADHD, pause. Well, Yeah.

Jesse: Right.

Scotty Jackson: Oh, okay.

Scotty Jackson: Okay. So that, so that's how it is. All right. So, so, um, so which kind of tells me that, a in, in my adult life, it probably shines a lot more obviously than, as, than as a child, but I think that that's also because in my adult life, I am probably harnessing it a lot more. And Using it as my superpower. Um, but I mean like every force has a light side and a dark side.

Scotty Jackson: Right. So, I mean, like you can't, uh, you can't go all, you know, full tilt or you run out of, uh, uh, nitrous at some point, Vin Diesel said that.

Jesse: Right. Exactly.

Scotty Jackson: So, so to me, what I was like having a hard time coming to maybe coming to grips with at first, um, was seen by those around me is like perfectly natural and possibly even patently obvious.

Scotty Jackson: So, and so now I'm the last person to know. And thanks a lot, friends, maybe you shoulda said something.

Jesse: Yeah, I have that kind of similar experience where once I knew there was some people that didn't know at all, but there is others I talked to and they're yeah. They were like, well, yeah, it's seems obvious. Like, would you, how did you not know?

Scotty Jackson: That's like everyone's catchphrase, well, yeah.

Jesse: Yeah. And you talked about like it not showing up in school, like when you were a kid and stuff, and I've heard of others having that experience too, where they kind of like, they learn to mask it in certain environments. So they, they seem like, I don't know. Some people think like say that high functioning is kind of a problematic way to say it, but whatever it is, it's like where those symptoms aren't showing up.

Jesse: And you're kind of just disappearing in the crowd of school and not being, you know, you're not being that typical, you know, stereotypical like problem child that jumps, that's running all over the place and not doing anything and getting into trouble. And that is, you know, that boy's usually the one that gets that label, ADHD young, whereas other people that aren't so obvious and, or hype, outwardly hyperactive, skate by, and don't get that don't find out until much later when the, the edges start to crack or whatever the metaphor is, and then you kind of can't contain it anymore.

Scotty Jackson: Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, because you see the kid who's like running all over the classroom. They're like, do you have that boy Ritalin. Um, whereas, whereas I'm not doing that. I'm, I'm sitting perfectly still, but I'm doing all of that sort of activity in my mind. And many, a pediatrician will also say, well, if the behavior isn't exhibited in more than one environment, then it's probably not ADHD.

Scotty Jackson: Which, you know, like from my own personal experience, I will, um, reach for the buzzer and cry baloney because, because I can attest to the fact that I can, that I can, that it can be done. It could absolutely, it can absolutely be hidden and managed, but then, but then you run out of gas.

Scotty Jackson: Because that takes a lot of mental fortitude to be able to do, which means that you're going to be a disaster in that other environment. So it can be, it can be tricky too, to get that diagnosis, even when you pursue it, at a young age, uh, because there's, there's sort of a preestablished, framework for what ADHD desirably looks like. it's just a desirable, uh, and presentation of this.

Scotty Jackson: Well, that ADHD is a lot more attractive than this other one. But that becomes problematic and it becomes hard to diagnose. So, I mean, you know, advocacy is, is key and to keep exploring and keep, keep mapping and, and, and pursue working with, you know, whatever medical professionals around you, you have access to .

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely hear that a lot, where people, again, similar to you, like having that history as a child where they felt it, but they covered it up at school and then having trouble later when they're seeing their doctor, whoever trying to get their official diagnosis and not being able to provide these examples of like. Well, I didn't do that as a kid in school because I kept it in.

Jesse: And so I don't have the example that the doctor's looking for to say, like, here's another environment kind of like what you were saying. and then people struggled to get that diagnosis because of it. It's not an easy problem to solve, but it's definitely a problem. The diagnosis, it's just so hard to get diagnosed, especially for people that are, you know, underprivileged,

Scotty Jackson: There's a lot of privilege that goes along with being able to be successfully diagnosed.

Scotty Jackson: I get, I get that. I'm very grateful for the amount of medical support that I've been able to, access because, uh, without it, I mean, I wouldn't be able to have this conversation properly at all.

Jesse: Right, right. Yeah. So back to like, when you got diagnosed, which I was just a couple of years ago, how so you're you have this podcast where you talk about like Getting Things Done and that whole methodology, and I know you're a, you know, an internet old hat. Like I am like back in the days of Merlin Mann, 43 folders, and like back when David Allen's book Getting Things Done first came out. And how, so finding out about your ADHD, how did that affect what it was like kind of applying those common productivity, you know, axioms to your life

Scotty Jackson: It made my affection for GTD make, make so much sense. So, so first, uh, first, uh, a little bit of backdrop for those who are new, getting to the, Getting Things Done, methodology is essentially a personal productivity, approach, which says that you approach your work in five stages.

Scotty Jackson: You capture all the things that have your attention. One.

Scotty Jackson: You clarify all of those things that you have captured. Two. In terms of what they mean to you and what they are and what action you will take because of them.

Scotty Jackson: Three. You will organize that, which you have clarified into some sort of trusted system so that you have externalized and organized all of the commitments and actions that you've got.

Scotty Jackson: Four, you will review that trusted system into which you have organized your stuff.

Scotty Jackson: And five, you will then engage and do things based on where you are, what you have at your disposal in terms of tools and technology, energy available, and any other kind of resource constraints.

Jesse: Right, right.

Scotty Jackson: That's GTD and 30 seconds. Go enjoy your fixed life now, listener.

Jesse: Right. So I did a, I did a video late last year that I called toxic productivity. Uh, and it basically was about how for so long, I've tried to make, like, that system work for me and other kinds of productivity system.

Jesse: You know, you listen to the productivity gurus or whatever you want to call them. And then you hear their advice and like, that's like you said, that's the solution. That's going to fix everything for me.

Jesse: And then you go to try to apply it. And, uh, for me, like the review in GTD, like, I, I, I think I've done a weekly review, like once in the, all the years that I've tried to make it happen. It just never really comes together for me. So yeah. What, what parts of GTD have worked for you?

Jesse: You know, cause you're, you're really in it and like what, what's the stuff that you just sort of like throw it to the side that doesn't work with your brain and yeah. How do you make that, uh, manage that and make it work?

Scotty Jackson: I mean those thematic five steps work, but more as like guiding spiritual themes than actually like a workable process. So thematically, so what I really truly adopt and what I really swear by is my own kind of implementation of, of bullet journal method. If you're not familiar with bullet journal method, Go check it out.

Scotty Jackson: Uh, it's fantastic work. Uh, Ryder, Ryder Carroll, uh, also ADHD, up top, uh.

Jesse: I'll put a link to all that stuff with the bullet journal.

Scotty Jackson: That's fantastic. Um, get him on your show. Can I meet him too? Um, he sounds like delightful guy. Uh, that really works for me. Because what that means is that I am, capturing. In in, in GTD parlance, now I am capturing. Because everything is just rapid logging. Right, as it comes up, a thing is happening.

Scotty Jackson: Oh, here's an idea that I had write it down. Here's a, uh, here's an action. I needed to take, write it down. Here's a, here's a thing I need an event I need to think, think about and write it down. Cool. So I've just got like this sort of thought stream and then, you know, On a regular basis. I will go back and clarify.

Scotty Jackson: GTD like, have I written down this action in a way that when I read it tomorrow, it's going to make any sense, right? Like call bill 48. Cool. Who's who's Bill, what is the 48? Um, my favorite sort of touchstone moment was, was that, um, I wrote down the word Once on an index card and put it in inbox. So when you look at that five days later. It took me so long.

Scotty Jackson: I mean, I'm really glad that I deciphered what I meant because it was in reference to the movie Once that I really wanted to see, because someone mentioned it somewhere. Uh, and I thought that it would be really good and I'm glad I watched it cause it was really good. I loved it. Um, but it, it took an awful lot of work to decipher.

Scotty Jackson: What on earth Once meant later? So.

Jesse: I find that I have, I have so much faith in future Jesse, that's he, that he's always going to know exactly what I'm thinking the moment.

Scotty Jackson: That's right. I care about this so much right now. Certainly I will always care about it, um, because why wouldn't I always care about it? Um, yeah. Okay. So I'm bullet journaling. That's capturing, I'm going back and I'm clarifying. So that there's a sense of future me. And I'm also because I'm kind of doing this digitally, using tags uh, that will help me organize things later.

Scotty Jackson: So that, you know, if there are things that relate to my boss or a particular project, whatever I can drop in little, little tags, that's my organizing. Reviewing, yeah, I'm basically looking for anything that doesn't have a check mark next to it, but that looks like an action.

Scotty Jackson: Um, and then I am doing based on, based on that. So I am not using like a GTD inbox and then picking everything up and then clarifying it and then filing it and organizing it. I am not following that methodology. In terms of practical work steps, but I am following it as an internal process to say, am I capturing things?

Scotty Jackson: Are they clarified enough that I will understand what they mean? Have I signified them in some way that they are, organized, even if it's like putting an icon next to them. Like to me, that that's organized because now I can just look for everything with that icon, all the things that I need to look at together, I can find that's what organized is.

Scotty Jackson: And then, and then, and then review means, yeah. Am I looking back at. And not letting things fall by the wayside. Uh, and then, and then I might actually doing that, which I said I would do. So, so yes, I follow GTD as a, as a methodology. I do not follow it as a practice or, or process because I can't keep up and my, my, my brain won't, let me, however, I will say that.

Scotty Jackson: Um, it was in, in 2005. I got my very first Mac. Came preloaded with Omni Outliner on it. Uh, in 2006, someone gave me the GTD book as a gift. and so then it wasn't very long until I discovered Ethan Schoonover's work. I sure hope I pronounced his name correctly. Uh, who created these scripts for Omni Outliner

Scotty Jackson: called Kinkless GTD or K GTD for short. That product was so cool that Omni basically bought it and turned it into OmniFocus, from Omni Outliner into OmniFocus. And I really liked it, and then I really didn't. And I adopted a paper system index cards. Um, you mentioned a certain Merlin Mann, who, who, index cards, a a, a space pen in a, in a, in a binder clip. That's my life now.

Scotty Jackson: But what I really found was that by externalizing, My thoughts and just making lists that did everything. And, and, and it's funny because, uh, that was how we planned our wedding, which is still one of the favorite projects that I've ever project managed is our wedding planning, which is in 2006 is, you know, us going in to see the wedding planner me with a stack of color-coded index cards.

Scotty Jackson: And that was, that was how we ran this. So I had a huge pension encouraged by my wife. Uh, Scotty, write this down and make lists. And the more I did that, the more relief I felt and the more I felt like I had a sense of what was actually going on because I'm the type of person who will think about one thing that I have to do 10 times and mistakenly have the impression that I have 10 things to do and then get stressed out.

Scotty Jackson: So, so by externalizing, I, I have an actual, now I can look at it and say, ah, that's weird. I was very strung out five minutes ago thinking I had all these things to do. I actually only have three and one of them's done. So, uh, so it was very clear that internally I was punishing myself and externalizing was a big tool, uh, into, you know, giving myself relief.

Scotty Jackson: So.

Scotty Jackson: So GTD in that regard was, was, you know, like a lifesaver. I don't think there's anything that could have gotten me from 2005 to 2019 more so than GTD did. Uh, and then from 2019 to present, uh, the diagnosis and the, the clarified sense of, oh, I am this way because, and which, which gives me a lot more context for.

Scotty Jackson: Uh, how to solve for special moments that I endure in, in my life.

Jesse: Yeah. I find that that whole, externalizing your brain is so important. Like I said before, I, my instinct is to trust future me, or, or even just to trust my own memory. I always think my memory is better than it is even though I've, I've seen the studies on ADHD that show the deficits in working memory and stuff like that.

Jesse: But in the moment I still, like, I find myself believing, like, I, I know there's a problem with my memory, but I'm probably going to remember these because I think it's really important.

Jesse: Um, and so, trying to like, get to that default of maybe I should just write it down anyway and that really, yeah, getting it out of my brain really helps those visual tools, like whiteboards index cards. I have, I don't know. I probably have like 300 index cards on my desk. They're not super organized, but I know that they're there and I

Scotty Jackson: But they're

Jesse: things they're there yeah. I find those external tools so helpful for, uh, yeah,

Jesse: making that sort of stuff get done. Um, Speaking of your diagnosis, you know, a couple of years ago, did that change a lot of your like perspective on your systems and how you were doing things? Like, did you adapt new things or did it just sort of give a general understanding of why you had already made those changes?

Scotty Jackson: More the latter. I would say, I'd say give a lot more context as to why. Uh, it, it, but it really allowed me to go back and revisit a lot of like, sort of watershed moments in my life and like, oh my god, that's what was happening. Um, so that was, that was really cool. And you, you know, you and I were talking a little bit earlier, like, I mean the symptoms are the symptoms and the way I am is the way I am.

Scotty Jackson: Diagnosis or not, I still, the diagnosis changes nothing. Except that it lets me know where I am in relation to the rest of the universe. So I still have all the same symptoms. That's cool. But now I have a much better sense of what I can do with that, what I shouldn't do with that. And what I should maybe think about changing about that. And, that was really empowering.

Scotty Jackson: Um, I mean, I mean, so was medication.

Jesse: Right.

Scotty Jackson: Big ups to big pharma. Uh, I, that, that, that changed a lot of things because, um, I, the, the metaphor that I used a lot was that I would be able to generate a million ideas that were like red balloons with greasy strings. I could not hang on to a single one.

Jesse: Mmm, right.

Scotty Jackson: And so I can, I could generate it and I could experience it for a moment, but I couldn't like stay with it long enough to carry through with the work that I would have to do about that.

Scotty Jackson: Or the decisions that I would have to make about that. And, and in trying to hang onto one and letting it go, I'm instantly grabbing for another one and not, and then all of a sudden it's like some weird version of like that old, black and white movie metropolis and like people running around manipulating clocks in order to keep time.

Scotty Jackson: And it felt so, uh, everything just felt kind of futile. And because, because of sheer volume, like I can manage my internal ADHD to a point. But then there's a comedian, I can't remember I'll have to look this up, who had four kids and it says, what is it like to have four kids? And he says, imagine you're drowning.

Scotty Jackson: And then someone hands you a baby. It's kind of like that, right? Like I can manage my thoughts to a point, but now insert increasingly complex levels of responsibility at work. Oh. And three children who are aging into different ages and stages of their life. And how about, and how about some hobbies? You know, what, start a podcast.

Scotty Jackson: How about some side gigs and how about like, and then,

Jesse: No need to call me out.

Scotty Jackson: Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, this, this is my own lived experience. Um, you can do you on your monologue show. But yeah. And then, and then it's again. Here shalt thou come, but no further. So now I, so now I know kind of what to do about that.

Scotty Jackson: I know what I'm, when I'm getting close to full, I know how to manage, so now I can see it coming. Um, and I've gotten meds that degrease the, a balloon strings so I can hang on to it and I can also, you know, choose which ones I hang on to a little bit more. Um, and choose which ones I let go of. So I feel like I have a lot more internal agency.

Scotty Jackson: Um, and I feel like I have a lot more external agency as well because, I know what I'm working with. Right. Um, when you know what materials you have at hand, you know, what you can and cannot build. I suppose. No, but, but truly, I think that that has been the biggest difference.

Scotty Jackson: Is it didn't, it didn't change who I am or what I am. Uh, but it gave me, um, some belts and braces to help me navigate my own self.

Jesse: Awesome. So let's talk about some shiny objects, and this is a time of the show, just to talk about something that has grabbed your interest lately, something you want to share that maybe other people you think will enjoy. So, yeah. What's your shiny object of this week?

Scotty Jackson: I hope so. I hope so. I, I'm a Lego enthusiast is what I am. And Lego has a series of sets that are called Botanical and I have the Lego bonsai tree and I have the Lego birds of paradise. These are like, they look, they look kind of like plants. They look kind of like trees. They're adorable. And I, today I just, pre-ordered the Lego orchid set, and the Lego succulents set.

Scotty Jackson: And, uh, these are like the perfect things to adorn my desk. My wife and I have this running gag of like, you have enough plants because she never has enough plants. There are so many plants upstairs, Jesse. There are so many plants.

Scotty Jackson: But one of our most favorites, is, our orchids. She had orchids, uh, part of our deal at our, at our wedding and she has a big orchid, uh, tattooed on her ankle, in, in, in with a nod to that. So when LEGO showed off a set of orchids that I'm like, that needs to be on my desk right now. So I, I'm very excited to order that and, and, um, succulents are sorta like the low maintenance. We have a whole bunch of them around upstairs. So I thought like this is the perfect way to bring our, some of our favorite things and some of our sense of decor to my workspace without invoking any actual more plants

Jesse: Right. That, that sounds awesome. I keep seeing those in Instagram. I don't know if they're ads or I think I follow, LEGO so they must be promoting those.

Scotty Jackson: Probably.

Jesse: And, I haven't, I haven't bought any yet, but I keep thinking about it. Cause I, who I like who doesn't love Lego. Lego is just such a, such a great, great brand, toy.

Jesse: Like I I'll be, I'll be 80 years old and still want to be building something in Lego. It's just so much fun. There's some, there's something so satisfying about it and the way.

Scotty Jackson: Totally.

Jesse: The way they add all. I think my favorite part is all the little, like Easter eggs when you're building like, oh, this thing that I'm building right here, it's going to be hidden when I'm done.

Jesse: You aren't going to be able to look at the thing and know that the engine inside this star wars ship looks this way, but I built it. And so I know that inside this. Yeah, I know it's there and I love, I love those little like delightful secrets like that. Um, so for my shiny object, I'm going to talk about last year, I got to the Remarkable tablet.

Jesse: Um, I don't know if you've seen this before, but it.

Scotty Jackson: Yeah, I, I think you know that I have like a long standing envy of your Remarkable tablet.

Jesse: Yeah. So it's like, it's kind of like a really big Kindle in a way. It's super thin, and it it's e-ink so there's no, it, it doesn't really, it looks like an iPad, but it's thinner than an iPad and it doesn't have a real, like, it doesn't have a digital screen, so there's no backlight is just ink. But it feels so nice to write on like the way that, just the, the stylus that that looks like a pencil. It feels, I think about as close as it could feel to writing on paper, but because it's a digital device, it's saving everything and you can sync it online.

Jesse: And I actually, because it's so thin and light, I it's my favorite way way to read. So it doesn't have a Kindle app so you can't read Kindle books.

Jesse: But any other books you have that are like PDF. I'm transferring PDFs to it all the time, because it just feels so nice to read. Like, I feel like I'm in Star Trek or something with this really thin device reading and then highlighting right on there. Oh, it's, it's great.

Jesse: It's it's way too expensive for what it is. It's definitely like an indulgence. Yeah, it's

Scotty Jackson: It's beautiful. I like, I have been eyeing them for awhile. Like even pre Remarkable 2 which like it's Remarkable 2 right? Uh, I've been eyeing them for a while. I just thought, I like if one of those fell from the sky and landed on my I know that I would use the heck out of that and I would probably get a ton of value out of it.

Scotty Jackson: I can, I can't, I can't bring myself to do just, it's, that's a, that's a, that's a wonderful, that's a wonderful gift to self. I'm glad, I'm glad you're able to get over the hump. I went through that with my headphones though. It says the guy sitting here wearing AirPods Max. Right? Like I, I, I agonized over that for so long.

Scotty Jackson: Cause they're so expensive. It's so dumb, but I, but in trying to find, to find a headphone that I would be like super happy with that did noise canceling and transparency and all those sorts of things. I like the amount of research and like comparing I was doing. I'm like, you know what? You know, just forget it. I don't want to think about it anymore.

Scotty Jackson: I'm buying my way out of having to think about it anymore. And. So that like a second, sorry, shiny thing that I spend all day on these because I, I, I, um, telecommute, I am in, I'm in, you know, a webcam and, and, uh, audio meetings all day long. Uh, and I love them and they're comfortable. And I have like left the house and gotten into the car, still wearing them because I, because I forget and they're comfy and the transparency mode is just that good. Um,

Jesse: I'm that's I I'm jealous of those. I've I've added them to my cart a couple of times, and then remembered that the conversation I'd have to have with my wife when that showed up. And so I ha I haven't pulled the trigger. Um, thankfully for my marriage, but it's something definitely considered several times.

Jesse: Cause yeah, I'm jealous of those as well. I do have, I do have the little AirPods and the, yeah, the transparency mode is great that, those as well. So I really love being able to kind of listen to stuff, but still, you know, hear the kids or whatever is going on around me. And so I don't, I don't miss stuff.

Jesse: Um, but yeah, and then I can turn, turn them off with the silence mode, uh, which is great.

Scotty Jackson: I actually used them to find my kid one time. because in, in accessibility settings, on my iPhone, I didn't know this until I liked did a little search while I was at the park and I completely lost sight of where he was. Um, in accessibility settings you can like turn up the volume and use them as like quasi hearing aids.

Scotty Jackson: So I like, cause like there was like no one in the park. So I just like cranked the volume and I was able to like find them were like a hundred meters away, which in American is like 300 feet, uh, away, like in like in a, in a little grove of trees. Um, and, and thanks to like the over listening, um, feature. I was able to like locate him and quickly turned down the volume so that he'd no one accidentally like screamed and blew my eardrums apart.

Jesse: Right, right. Wow. That's awesome. Cool. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. It was a great to great to chat with you today. Where can people go to follow the things that you're doing.

Scotty Jackson: Uh, the things that we've mentioned, the Nested Folders podcast, you can find that at nestedfolderspodcast.com. That's uh, co-hosted hosted by myself and Rosemary Orchard, who is absolutely delightful. Uh, and then you can find me at heyscottyj.com on the internet or by the same name @heyscottyj on Twitter, which is where I'm more reliably found.

Jesse: Awesome. And we'll have links to all those in the show notes. This was awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

Scotty Jackson: Thanks so much for having me, Jesse. It's a, it's a delight as always.

Jesse: That's our show. Thank you so much for listening.

Jesse: I especially want to thank our VIP patrons, Erich Tompkins, Luce Carter, Richard Stephens, Todd Barnett, and Dan Ott. It helps me do this show and the other work I do, so thank you so much for the support.

Jesse: If you want to support the show, you can go to patreon.com/jessej that's J E S S E J. You can always support the show for free by leaving a review in Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or the podcast player of your choice. Full show notes and transcripts are available at adhdnerds.com.