Episode transcription

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Transcript


Fabrice Neuman
Hi everyone, welcome to the Human Pulse podcast, where we talk about living well with technology. I’m FabrIce Neuman, a tech consultant for small businesses.

Anne Trager (00:08)
And I'm Anne Trager, a human potential coach.

Fabrice Neuman (00:11)
We're recording this on May 4th, 2025.

Anne Trager (00:14)
Human Pulse is never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

Fabrice Neuman (00:18)
So, Anne as we just said, we are here about how we can live well with technology, right? And we talk about it over and over and it can take many shapes. We thought this time we could focus on how we are using tech specifically to be more efficient, you know, using maybe time trackers, AI for daily schedules, whatever. So what's working for you, for example?

Anne Trager (00:41)
Before I answer that question, I would like us to ask the question, what is efficiency? I'll tell you why, because...

I hear a lot of people being confused, myself included, between efficiency and doing more. I don't think efficiency is about doing more. Actually, productivity is about the output, doing more, and efficiency is about how you use your resources. And all of this gets confused, at least in my clients. They want to ⁓ be more efficient, but actually what they want is to do more.

And I don't know if doing more is actually the goal that we're all after. My experience coaching people at least is that before we can even talk about doing things efficiently, we need to make this distinction. Do we want to do more or do we want to do what we're doing better? And usually, like I said, it's not really about doing more. It's about figuring out how to do the right things.

Fabrice Neuman (01:44)
Hmph.

Anne Trager (01:45)
Which is actually more about saying no than it is about any tech. It's about getting really clear about where you add value and what in any specific thing you're doing adds value and then focusing on those things.

You know, it's like with all the... I love wearable tech, you know that. I'm really fascinated by it. And all the cool wearable biohacking tech and all the supplements that we can take to, you know, improve our health and our thinking and our cognitive whatever doesn't really work if you don't have the basics of lifestyle down first.

And then you can start playing with being more efficient. So for me, this whole idea of figuring out what you really want to focus on is more important than actually getting efficient at it, or at least it's the first step. And then you can get efficient at it. So if I go back to my example of the basics of biohacking, is if you're not sleeping, well, there is, in the long run, no amount of caffeine that it will help you in the long haul. Okay. It's a short-term solution and it will help you get through the morning, but it's having such a negative effect on your overall cognitive ability and your endurance that ultimately it is not a long-term solution. And yes, coffee is a biohack. It is one of the most prevalent biohacks ever.

Fabrice Neuman (03:15)
No joke.

Anne Trager (03:20)
So again, if you're not your work, figuring out where you add value and what you really need to be doing, well then even if you get more efficient at what you're doing, you're still gonna be overwhelmed and you're still gonna be doing more than you need to be doing and you're still not gonna be efficient.

I don't know, what are your thoughts on that?

Fabrice Neuman (03:38)
Well, a few things. I agree with you that we shouldn't compare and mix being efficient and being productive. And sometimes, you know, we hear a lot and we do it ourselves. I can speak for myself. So sometimes, you know, you want to be more productive and what you gain from being more productive is not more time to do something else, but more time to do just to do more.

And it seems that there's a misunderstanding sometimes of what productivity is or can be. So the two notions are pretty close and being more efficient can lead to be more productive, but it doesn't mean that you have to do more. And I agree with that. I think it's even more relevant these days.

When we talk about AI and generative AI and stuff like that because it's been like two and a half years we've been talking about it a lot and so it's like yeah so it helps me being more productive so I can do more and then we reel back a bit because it's actually not that efficient and we'll talk a bit more about that so I don't know about you but GenAI is not very efficient for me but so that's one thing and then

Anne Trager (04:49)
Mm-hmm

Fabrice Neuman (04:59)
It made me think of something else which is a quote by Voltaire. In French it goes this way: "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien", which can be translated into two things which are a bit different. The best is the enemy of the good or the perfect is the enemy of the good. So it's not exactly the same thing, but I guess everybody can hear the idea in that, which is to say when you have something that works, sometimes trying to make it better doesn't work better or then you lose something. And I'm the victim of that. I've been the victim of that several times because...

Anne Trager (05:32)
So it's like, if it works, don't fix it.

Fabrice Neuman (05:44)
…That's exactly right, yes. And so I'm my own victim of that because what you just said, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And I'm telling this, I'm saying that I'm my own victim because this is what I do basically. So I put something together, a whole system that works. And after a couple of weeks, I guess it's maybe out of boredom or out of my willing to try something new because this is who I am.

Anne Trager (06:34)
Yeah, let's be positive about it. It's out of curiosity.

Fabrice Neuman (06:38)
Yes, exactly.

So I tried something new. And so the latest for me, you were also partly a victim of. tried. know, so, OK, people who've been listening to us know that we are basically an Apple family. So we have iPhones and we have Macs and we also have an Apple TV box connected to our TV set and so on and so forth.

Anne Trager (06:48)
Yes.

Fabrice Neuman (07:07)
And for my job and also because I wanted to try something new, I tried again to switch from an iPhone to an Android phone. And it was painful. First of all, it was painful for me. But then that comes with the territory, which is to transfer all the data and all the apps and what have you.

But then, because we are an Apple family, that's why I wanted to emphasize that, then it meant that you would have, for example, to change some of your tools in order to be able to keep communicating to me, with me. For example, we used the Messages app, you know, those blue bubble - green bubble thing. Okay, so we use that. But then I wouldn't have that on the Android phone. So I told you, can you please switch to WhatsApp? You have WhatsApp, you don't use it that much. But so it would have been better to use WhatsApp for certain reasons. But then I was hurt by the WhatsApp problem, which is in order to transfer from one phone to the next, it's a pain. And even more so when you want to switch from iPhone to Android and back.

And so it was, it didn't work basically. And I can hear some say already, yeah, so you went back to Apple's prison. Okay, maybe it's a prison. It's quite comfortable for a prison. And there's also really, once again, a positive use of that. It's comfortable because it works.

Anne Trager (08:50)
No shit.

Fabrice Neuman (08:50)
And not everything works all the time, but anyway.

Anne Trager (08:55)
Well, and we've made it work. So it's interesting because what's coming to me right now as you're speaking is this kind of process. OK, so if we look at efficiency in a higher level.

Fabrice Neuman (08:56)
Yes.

Anne Trager (09:07)
We're going to be looking at first of all looking at the processes that are in place figuring out what works figuring out what adds value and Simplifying it but also taking into consideration the entire ecosystem. So, you know your idea if you were to actually switch over permanently would have an impact on your entire ecosystem. Not only in our family situation, but also in your workplace and so on and so forth. So we actually have to take these things into consideration when we are talking about becoming more efficient.

Fabrice Neuman (09:32)
Hmm.

True, and I think it applies to everyone. That's the point of it, right? So in the example I just talked about, I could probably have made it work for me if I was alone in that situation, but I'm not. you're right, it goes further and...

It's not only about family, it's also about work relationships and how you can share information and so on. basically this recent adventure made me realize once again, because I do that regularly, that a lot of the efficiency comes from using tools without having to think about them. And you're efficient when you can use the tools that come naturally to you.

So of course, when you change things, there's an adjustment period, so you can work on that. But there's a moment, and it happened to me this time again, when you have to realize that the effort might not be worth it. And so I guess a lot of the efficiency can come from habits, or at least good habits. Would you agree with that? Yes.

Anne Trager (10:33)
Hmm. Mmm.

Well, you know that I agree with habits. Habit formation is one... I would say it is the most human of all efficiency tools. We are made for habits. We have this incredible ability to build habits up to the point where we stop thinking about what we're doing. I mean, imagine if you had to think about opening a door every time you opened a door. It would be exhausting.

So that is one of those examples of all of these things we do by so it's a fabulous tool that we have, and it's based on our own human technology. And it takes about, the thing is, that habit formation, like any investment in inefficiency, takes time.

It can take between 18 and 254 days to build a habit, depending on the habit and who you are and so on and so forth. That's an investment of time and energy.

So again, before investing that time and energy, you really want to make sure you're focusing on the right things. You want to make sure you're building good habits or good efficiency tools, the right efficiency tools. And only then can you actually, if it's the right thing, can you actually think about how you're going to make them more efficient.

Before actually applying tech to becoming efficient, I would really start with optimizing my own sort of operating system. That is making sure that I'm doing the right habits at the right time with the right amount of energy being put into it and the right amount of not being efficient so that I can recover from all that expenditure of energy and on focus.

Does that make sense? Should I say that again? That there's a process here. We figure out where do I add value in, you know, or where is value added here? How can I make it as simple as possible? Then before I even think about integrating tech, I'm going to say, well, when, I'm going, am I going to do it?

Fabrice Neuman (12:44)
Hmm

Anne Trager (13:02)
And then when am I going to rest from doing it? Because that's the way we as human beings are operating system functions is that we work and focus and we rest. Otherwise it just doesn't work.

Fabrice Neuman (13:04)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (13:14)
You know, we do love to get distracted. That's why also why we rest. mean, you described it yourself. You talked about getting very curious about novelty, for example. So I think we have to work that into our efficiency equation, whatever that is. So once we have that down, then we can actually start looking at the tech and the tech can allow us to do things faster, potentially better, depending on what it is. We can automate tasks, which is cool. Although.

Fabrice Neuman (13:22)
Mm-hmm.

Anne Trager (13:42)
I don't ever really have the patience to get through the automation process, but that's me. Then we have like Gen. AI, which is wonderful, like for summaries and presentations, for things that used to take a long time, and it's not so good for other things.

Fabrice Neuman (13:44)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (13:59)
So tell me what tech, if we could talk about the actual tech, are you using to be more efficient?

Fabrice Neuman (14:05)
Yeah, just to reel back a bit, so you talked about something, I think it's very interesting and to connect it to the story I told before.

There's a balance to find between trying new tech or new habits or whatever and the time it involves to try. And at some point you need to tell yourself, okay, I tried enough and it didn't work. This is very important and this is, I think it relates also to decision making. And in order to be efficient, at some point you also have to be able to make a decision, whether it's yes, I keep that tech or no, I don't keep that.

Try something else or I go back to what I was previously doing. To me, it's really about this big part about decision making. As far as the tech is concerned, so and for example, it relates to the story. My efficiency, I guess, relies a lot on synchronization.

Being able to go from one device to another and be sure that the data I need will be available. So this is where, for example, the Apple environment can be very efficient if you adopt all their tools.

So you take a note on your phone, you can read it and edit it on your Mac, and reminders and all that you have. You can do that, for example, with also the Google environment, but there's always something missing. For example.

If you want to go with the Google environment, obviously Google is way... they can do synchronization and they're way better than Apple in making sure that synchronization works efficiently. No pun intended. The idea of making sure that when you put something in some place, it will be available everywhere else. But they're not very good at apps.

So you want to use Google Tasks, for example. All right? So you have the Google Tasks app on your phone, but there's no app on computers, whether it's a Mac or a Windows PC, which means that in order to be able to use the task, you need to be connected to the internet. So you could say, well, that's all right. I'm always connected.

Well, the thing is we are always connected until we're not exactly so sometimes you're ⁓ in a train so I am somewhat often ⁓ take the train from Toulouse to Paris, right? It's in France. It's a pretty well advanced country blah blah blah and then still there are big areas where the connection is sketchy at best and and then it's annoying because this is

Anne Trager (16:30)
Until you're not.

Fabrice Neuman (16:58)
quote unquote, obviously when you need it, that it doesn't work, which means that you notice it when it doesn't work. Otherwise it's okay. Right. But then, well, that's the thing. But so you want to, the idea of having an app that can work offline is very, very important if you want to be able to access your data. And that's one of the reasons why I went back because that happened to me a couple of times and it didn't work as

Anne Trager (17:04)
Right.

Fabrice Neuman (17:26)
I wanted, so I didn't want to use that anymore.

Anne Trager (17:29)
Yeah, we lose trust. We've talked about trust before. very quick to trust the tech when it works and then to not trust it at all as soon as it doesn't work. It's just like with people, actually.

Fabrice Neuman (17:33)
Yeah.

I guess so, but so, it can be very disappointing, just like with people, I suppose so as well. But then so, and it was a decision to make, okay, so that didn't work a couple of times. So, okay, so that will not work. And, you know, and the idea is to find a ⁓ mix of systems there and tools that work.

for you, so it might not be as important for somebody else, but it is for me. So I made the decision to go back with the frustration of knowing after all these years that Google has not improved in making apps, actually. Google obviously has mastered the online ways, but proposing apps everywhere, that's something they don't do.

The other tool obviously that we have to talk about and I mentioned this earlier is Gen.ai, generative AI tools. it might surprise you, but for me the jury is still out as far as efficiency is concerned. Once again, so I want to relate to the idea of reducing the number of tools. So I kind of stopped trying all the Gen.ai tools. out there to focus on just one, which is ChatGPT. So that was once again a conscious decision to say, I can spend all my time trying so ChatGPT, and Claude and Perplexity and Manus AI and whatever AI and everything AI, right? But after a while, first of all, I could see all the time I had lost trying all those tools. Plus, I came to the conclusion that they were not that different from one another. okay, focusing on one could maybe give me more better results because this tool could learn from me. It was, it's a mixed result. But what I do like with the...

Anne Trager (19:39)
Hmm.

Fabrice Neuman (19:43)
Basically, the thing I like the best with the chat GPT is the vocal conversations, actually. So because this is promise of having an AI assistant, or an assistant, which is AI or not, that you can talk to and that can help you when you have a question. And we'll see if Apple can do that with the new Siri that they've been promising for so long now, right?

Anne Trager (20:04)
Yeah, just to put this into context, I still remember having a conversation a number of years back in a car between Paris and Burgundy somewhere with some friends and we had a question about a site, one of our friends said, wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a tool that we could have in our pocket that would answer that question.

Fabrice Neuman (20:34)
Hmm, yeah.

Anne Trager (20:35)
And this was, so obviously this was quite some time ago because it was before the cell phone, before the smartphone. And now we have more than that. We have a conversational assistant in our pocket. It's very amazing. Okay. That's just my little perspective moment.

Fabrice Neuman (20:38)
Yeah

Exactly. It is amazing, absolutely. No, you're right.

And this is what works best for me as far as so efficiency because so you have a question. Obviously, so I'm pushing like open doors here. not I'm probably mixing metaphors or whatever, but that's OK. Which is.

It's way better than Google search or DuckDuckGo search or internet search because you get an answer and you can even like ask ⁓ some precision and what have you. This is incredibly great. But the rest of the tools like ChatGPT on a whole, I tried several times for example to use it to help me write articles. I write articles and you know reviews, product reviews and stuff like that.

It never worked for me. Like ever. I tried to give it all the things I can. ⁓ data, examples of other articles I wrote, and I asked it, so can you at least give me, ⁓ not an outline, I mean, I don't want it to write the whole article, but help me so it can help me when I don't know how to start, for example, the blank page syndrome, whatever. And it never works. ⁓

⁓ I always end up dumping everything and starting from scratch. And so I lose time. The only thing I find it somewhat efficient is when I use chat GPT to... ⁓ And as you mentioned it, basically, it's like a summary or something. And so I ask it to write LinkedIn posts or Bluesky And so it's I like the results.

or they're okay, they're good enough. And so that makes it efficient once again if you make the decision to accept what the results are and you don't go for perfection. That's my way of seeing it. What about you?

Anne Trager (22:37)
Hmm, hmm. Yeah, good enough.

Well, what you're saying brings up a lot of things for me. is, ⁓ one of the issues with with Gen.ai is garbage in, garbage out. And it's not necessarily the garbage you were putting in. It's the back end garbage that is in the large language models that is coming out. And sometimes stuff comes out and it all sounds the same. It's so...

Fabrice Neuman (23:10)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (23:18)
unbelievably sounds the same. It really dumbs things down and sounds the same. And I'm using some pretty advanced prompts at times. It's not as if I were just being superficial about it. So I agree with you. The jury is still out on that. So I'd like to circle back to this idea of efficiency and what you're saying. And when you talked about synchronization, I was like, ⁓ yeah.

That's amazing because that really does. That has been a huge efficiency jump for everybody, the synchronization. We don't even think about it anymore, but what an incredible, incredible thing. And then it got me thinking about, uh-oh, yeah, about one of the most efficient ways that I am efficient with technology, which isn't synchronization, is delegation. And I have delegated all of the back office stuff to you so that all of my synchronization tools work. It all syncs with the right tools with those I need and what for what I want to do. And when it doesn't work, I don't have to expend any energy on it because I delegate the fixing to somebody else. Now, that is what I call being efficient as far as I'm concerned.

Fabrice Neuman (24:17)
Yeah.

Anne Trager (24:37)
Okay, that's just my little thing. About tech in general, there are a lot of studies that are out there showing that increases in productivity, we already made that distinction using GenAI. Okay, I am sure that in certain circumstances used appropriately and in, you know... specific contextualization where you've actually gone through the process of simplifying the process and knowing where it can add value and setting up whatever you need to set up that you can really increase productivity and efficiency.

Mostly from the reading that I did from time savings and that's where I save time. I mean, save time, I can save time. can take notes and have that summarized into something that is coherent rather than just my not very coherent notes. It can bring ideas together. It can summarize and texts that I'm not going to take the time to read.

I even use it to summarize, for example, there's the Andrew Huberman's podcast, which I love and I think is fascinating and absolutely abhor the fact that it is three hours long sometimes because three hours is way too long. Even when I listen to it at triple speed, that is something I do to be more efficient is I will listen to things really quickly or at least to be more productive.

Fabrice Neuman (25:50)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah. I'm always amazed by that actually. I would just add something to that because it makes me think of this question of trust. You know, we've been very gung-ho about this the GEN.ai tools ability to summarize things, right? But then I think you and I had some experiences where the summaries were not that good.

Anne Trager (26:29)
Yeah.

Fabrice Neuman (26:29)
tool leaving out some big ideas or stuff like that. And so there's still this question of trust. So obviously, you know, getting some key elements from a three hour long podcast. OK, if it misses something, that's OK. but it can't really go further, really further than that. And so this is where, you know, using it for efficiency is, I think, still not there.

Anne Trager (26:55)
Well, so then we come back to that distinction, using it for productivity, just like the way I use tech to listen to podcasts at triple speed. It is not really most efficient because I don't necessarily remember all the details. However, I'm really productive and I get to skim over in a way that I'm fine with. It is really good enough. A lot of different podcasts and it keeps me on my toes and I have these little touch points. Again, not efficient but very productive. Good enough for what I want it to do. And I think this is when we start thinking about our tech is, is it…

Fabrice Neuman (27:09)
Hmm.

Anne Trager (27:32)
…going to provide good enough for what we want to do. So anyway, that's where figuring out how you customize it, think with using GEN.AI, it's important you have to figure out really how to customize it and where it's going to where it's going to fit into your process with the proper checks and balances.

Again, in order to have an outcome that is what you're looking for or what you need. are other kinds of tech that we haven't really talked a lot about like time trackers and things like that. I know people who will use these time trackers and it really helps them eliminate ⁓ you know things that they're doing or to become aware of things that they're doing with their time that they didn't know they were aware of which allows them to be more efficient with their time with time tracking tools. That's interesting. I've never really used them. I've tried. I get bored so immediately I look at my day and I'm like I can't even like use the information doesn't work with the kind of thinking that I find I like to do. There are schedules out there that will schedule things automatically for you whenever you have a hole in your calendar. They sync with your calendars, which for me is a fascinating idea. I find it really attractive as an idea and then I'm kind of a control freak so I don't actually want to try it. I just want to think about it.

Fabrice Neuman (28:53)
Hmph.

Anne Trager (28:58)
Anyway, so there you go. ⁓

Fabrice Neuman (29:00)
Well, this goes back to the automation. ⁓ That would be, ⁓ I guess, my conclusion for that, which is when you try to automate things, and I'm ⁓ amazed by efforts people can... go through to try to automate everything so it seems. But then when you automate, it's once again a question of trust. Can you make, are you sure that the automation works? And so as far as I'm concerned, if I do that, then I keep checking if the automation works, which defeats the purpose. ⁓ But then I don't think you can automate that many things actually, because you automate based on the time of day or the...

the day of the week or something. But then you hit vacation time or there's a change in habit or something like that. And not everything in life, and I would even argue that not that many things in life can be automated because you always change something, or at least I do. So I don't know. So

I guess I'd like to hear from our listeners whether they were able to automate many things and if they have, you know, thoughts about what we just talked about.

Anne Trager (30:17)
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think there are things that we can automate. Again, it's like habits. There are things that we have already automated which we don't think about anymore. So we think that there's nothing left to automate, but we actually have automated it. I have kind of automated my tooth brushing in the morning. I don't ever think about it. Again, habits. And with the tech as well.

And the time it takes to actually automate something is so off-putting to me. So it really has to be worth it. So we go back to this little process that we built as we were going along. Where is the real value add here? How can I make it as simple as possible?

Fabrice Neuman (30:46)
Yes, I so agree with that.

Anne Trager (31:00)
Is it necessary? I think that's that. Is it necessary? I mean, if it's already working, do I really need to do anything? Is the gain in efficiency going to be significant enough? And I'm pretty sure that there are some things with GenAI that we're not seeing yet that are going to allow these gains in efficiency and some that we're already seeing. So it's an exciting future ahead of us, ultimately.

Fabrice Neuman (31:02)
Hmm

And we'll keep on talking about it. On that note, that's it for episode 16. Thank you all for joining us. Visit humanpulsepodcast.com for links in past episodes.

Anne Trager (31:35)
Thank you also for subscribing and reviewing the podcast. Wherever you listen to your podcast, it really helps other people find us and we really appreciate it. And please share this with one person around you who wants to be more efficient or more productive. And we will see you in two weeks.

Fabrice Neuman (31:54)
Bye everyone.