Focused - 151: The Bento Method, with Francesco D'Alessio

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

Francesco D'Alessio joins us to talk about the state of productivity apps, picking the right tools, and his new app, Bento.

Welcome to Focus, the productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm Mike Schmitz. I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. David Sparks. Hey, David. Hey, Mike. How are you today? I'm doing great. How about yourself? I am looking forward to continuing the conversation about focus and task management. And we have a special guest today. Yes. Welcome to the show, Francesco D'Alessio.

Thank you very much, guys, for having me. Great to be here. Absolutely. I jumped in there, David, because Francesco's name has caused me to stumble more than once. So I was trying to save you a little bit there. Yeah, I was definitely getting myself... You know, sometimes you've got to take a step back and prepare for it. like getting myself you know sometimes you gotta like take a step back and like prepare for it francesco i have been following you and your youtube career for a long time you're a very popular productivity youtuber and i have to ask you delessio it doesn't sound like a british name but your voice sounds very much like a British person.

That was through me, you know? Yeah, no, I bet. Yeah, it's actually Italian. On my dad's side, all of my family are Italian. So yeah, it's a nice name to go around with. But I live in like a really rural part of the UK. So it takes ages to order anything like they're like the yeah but it's good fun yeah i just when i go to like places i just say

sparky now because there's there's often another david but but there's never another sparky that just makes it easy i want your name francesco you've been your name. Francesco, you've been, but I'm serious, you've been a leading voice on productivity on the YouTube. And what I really like about you is you often get in early when there's some new app or service out and kind of have a take on it, which kind of helps as a filter for me and people like me that want to see stuff that's worth our time. And you have a lot of thoughts about focus and productivity. So we're going to be talking about

that today. You also have a new app. We're going to talk about that as well. But thank you so much for coming on. No, my absolute pleasure. And I can't wait to chat with you both. So Francesco, you do a lot of different things here. I want to give you an opportunity at the beginning to define what is it that you do? Who are you? Yeah, that's like a really hard question. I can't even explain it to my mother-in-law these days. It's one of those things. But the weirdest way that I explain it is I'd say I'm like a car dealership man for productivity apps where I'm like helping people choose the right one. Um, but not trying to sell it too much. Um, so yeah, it's, it's really good fun because I can, um, understand where people are struggling or what areas that they need help with. And I can go, you know, there's an app for you out there

and hopefully match them perfectly and then just watch them sail off into the sunset with a brand new productivity app that suits them. So yeah, that's really what I do from a sort of a zoom out perspective. Mike and I have talked on this show about this this problem of productivity where so often new apps or new books or some new productivity principle comes out and and the community as a whole says oh this is it this is the one if you get this all your problems go away and we always try to be really careful about that

because I feel like that's, you know, the problem and the solution is with you, not, not with an app or a book or an idea. And I really just want to endorse you because I feel like that you kind of take the same approach. You're not telling people, this is the one thing you do this and all your problems are solved. But, but it is, I would imagine for the one thing, you do this, and all your problems are solved. But it is, I would imagine, for the kind of work you do, difficult because every week you're getting app developers and web service providers telling you, hey, man, we have the answer to all of your problems. You need to tell your listeners about it or your viewers.

Yeah, oh, my goodness. Yeah, like every week it's uh it's that i get probably get about 50 new requests for app reviews a week uh just on productivity and i normally turn 99 of them away um but it's yeah it's it's it's just about like sort of filtering about which ones are sort of credible which ones are good but like as like you said, it's not about the app. The app is a lovely opportunity for you to organize all of that. But without foundations and frameworks, you'll change app all the time, and that's not the goal.

So having a strong core is the important thing, right? Yeah. I mean, we had, we often on the show tell our listeners, hey, we don't have all the answers for you. We're going to hopefully give you a journey where you can find your answers. And we actually had someone write us recently and say, well, you say you don't have all the answers, but I do. So you should make me a guest on your show. I couldn't believe it. But either way, what I would say is that given that there is no one solution for everyone,

that you have been in this business long enough and seen enough and interacted with your viewers, what are some good rules of thumb people should be thinking about when they're watching your content or looking at new productivity apps and services? Yeah, it's a good question. I think the thing there's sort of like a underrated like sort of hack, I think as well to picking a productivity app. And I think as well, it's about the company ethos. There are so many apps and companies out there.

And to be honest, there's like thousands of apps that do very similar things minus two or three features. And sometimes it actually might come down to what you think about the company, whether they follow the values that you believe in and whether you believe their their approach whether you like it and the way that they're sort of treating their staff the people they work with and and sort of guiding the road um so i always i would say like don't necessarily when you're picking an app always make it so clinical you can make it

quite emotional as well um and and sometimes ethos and company values is something that actually um can be that sway between one app and another yeah i would add to that delight you know this you're doing hard work using these apps. If something brings you delight, even though maybe they don't have every checkbox that you're looking for, sometimes the mere delight of using an application is enough to make you actually use it. Whereas you pick on a checkbox, a lot of times you find you don't open the app after a week or two. Yeah, that's it.

I think sometimes people need to view productivity apps like cars. I keep going back to car recommendation. But, you know, like, let's be fair. A Ford Fiesta is going to get you to the local petrol station the same way that a Ferrari is. But sometimes it's nice inside of a Ferrari.

It looks good on the outside and it feels nice. So you have to sometimes look at that aspect and go, all right, yeah, I'm going to have a sort of, you know, that's why people go for different cars. We all know they go from A to B, but we choose them because they make us feel things. They make us have a different experience so yeah i think it's nice to have a good old look around isn't it that's a couple times you've

mentioned the the emotional part or the feeling based part of these decisions i want to lean into that a little bit i also heard somebody say one time that in business, you don't invest in companies. You invest or you deal with the people who run those companies. And I feel that approach also applies to the tools that you use to get your work done. David, you mentioned checking the boxes, right? So that's kind of assuming that you have a checklist of things that you're looking for as you are putting different apps through the paces and test driving them, if you will.

I'm curious, do you have any sort of process for that? Or is it more just you're going to engage with these apps and your services probably too, and you're going to engage with these apps and your services probably too. And you're going to see how it feels. Or is it, do you have like a clear decision tree that you go through and you're looking for X, Y, and Z as you try these things out? Yeah. I say for myself, it's probably a similar experience, but what I recommend people do is go for a sort of three-part process, and it's research, trial, and optimization.

And very briefly, research is making sure that the tool you go with matches your needs. The trial aspect is, okay, I've got one or two of these options. I like them. trial aspect is, okay, I've got one or two of these options. I like them. Let's trial it for 90 days and see if it works and how I feel with it at the end of them. And then the third stage is optimization. It's like, right, I've got this app. It's gone through the trial period. Let's make it the best it can be so that I can stay with it for the longest period as possible. it can be so that I can stay with it for the longest period as possible. So I always try and like push people towards like systematizing their selection, um, just because it helps them to, um, be a bit more, obviously there's that, there's that emotional element, but sometimes it's also important to go right. Like, you know, it does have to be at some point choosing what you need

and hitting the mark because else you'll just keep switching, which is not necessarily a good thing. Yeah, and you know, an interesting element on that that I would add is I think that the relative stickiness of an app you're trying should get bigger with time. So the more you use it, the less willing you should be to throw it over. But the inverse of that is the less time you've been using it, the more willing you should be to throw it overboard.

And like, I'm going through that right now. I'm looking for some management tools. I've got a few people working on team Mac Sparky, and I want to do a better job of communicating with them and, and having project planning and stuff together. And so I've been looking at some of these web services for that. And like yesterday, I spent an hour with one and I'm like, oh, this just, it's just not feeling right for me.

It's not, you know what I mean? It's just for whatever reason. And I'm only an hour in. This is a really easy breakup for me, you know? Whereas if I had spent a week on it, I would feel more inclined to stick with it. So I do think that's kind of another piece of it, at least for me, is, you know, if you don't get the warm, fuzzy feelings pretty quickly, there are a lot of other options yeah definitely yeah it's it's sort of like dating isn't it yeah or test driving let's just go with that yeah i'll test driving with the cars yeah let's keep the car analogy yeah yeah yeah it is it is It's it's mad how much the productivity space is just exploded in the last few years.

Like when Notion came along, it just went mass market. And it's so weird to have opened up like TikTok and Instagram and all these apps that you don't relate to productivity. And then suddenly somebody's talking about Notion. You're like, what? It's so strange. Yeah, I mean, let's talk about that, too, because there are definite trends in productivity software that have happened in the last few years. Two that come to my mind.

One is kind of the Not notion explosion and related apps like notion for like cloud-based collaboration is kind of the way i look at that and then the other is the back linking notes apps you know roam obsidian craft all the all the usual characters plus more what kind of trends are you noticing now as you you know kind of work in this day-to-day yeah um like you said like that sort of like um linking experience and the sort of notion wave is sort of been big over the last two three years um i would say notion is like that sort of mass market app that's gaining a lot of attention. And I would say more than linking it, I don't want to offend anyone, but I always say it's a hobbyist experience because it's not as say mass market as like Notion, not like in a bad way.

But I think I always like to keep on top of the trends and I think that in the next sort of three years we're going to move from no code building like in notion to structured AI again where we want our apps structured again and we want them to do things for us in the background um and that's where we'll probably move away from actually going into our productivity apps. Like it will be productivity apps will be like the best productivity apps will be the ones you spend the least time with, the ones you touch the least, and the ones that do the most for you. So I think we're transitioning from that slowly. But I think that's going to be the next big big trend i was laughing the other day reading about google's attempt to have auto replies to your emails for you but someone sent you an email and then it says oh i think i know what this person wants and it replies

for you and i was thinking how long will it be before a substantial portion of the internet bandwidth is spent with robots writing each other email and just going back and forth? Yeah, that's what it will be. But quite scary, right? Yeah, I mean, I feel like we got some weird roads ahead of us, gang. But no, I like what you were thinking, though. I think AI naturally is a part of the future. I think a lot of stuff that we take for granted that AI can't do, it can in the not-too-distant future.

Yeah, it would be a nicer world because we can focus on the sort of life-work aspect versus the work work life aspect um and that would be a nicer problem to have i think yeah so you and i can our email our robots can have conversations with each other and you and i can actually work that'll be great yeah lots in a while well hey wait a second i want to get a word in yeah and then the robots have some sort of argument. I don't know why. We just have to control them. Hey, Dave, your robot is in a fight with my robot. Can you please tell it to be nice? Yeah, that's what it'll be, yeah.

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That's K-O-L-I-D-E dot com slash focused. And if you enter your email when prompted, you'll get a free Collide gift bundle after trial activation. Our thanks to Collide for their support of the Focused podcast and all of RelayFM. Well, and we were talking about applications and how to pick them, but I really do think there is always a challenge. The reason this show is called Focused is because we don't want to focus on productivity. We want to focus on the concept of focus and how do you get your most important work done? And I guess that's a question I have for you. With all of these people trying to get you to make videos

and you getting in the app development business, how do you find time yourself to be focused and what does that mean to you? Yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, focus is one of those things where, for me, I have a fair few ideas across the day and it's stressful because I want to get them all like done because they're really exciting and fun things to do um which I'm very lucky to have um but the way that I I try and focus is is trying to be sort of as intentional with my time as possible.

So I'm trying to work out the value of each task versus the quantity of them, just because I want to do as much of my day that allows me to switch off at 4 p.m. and spend time with my new little boy. So it's actually changed over the last few years. Whereas I like used to have like a never ending battery with my focus. Uh, but now I'm like, I've entered the world of like this area in my life where I'm like, I need to, I just need to calm down, slow down and, and focus more on, on, on family.

How did you learn that lesson? I i mean how do you get to the point where you say it's not the number of tasks it's doing the right tasks reading a lot of books has helped um not my own wisdom um i think just like seeing um there's always some good concepts out there which go like, how do you increase output whilst reducing time? And that's always a really nice concept of productivity because you can see how it affects your relaxation inside of stuff. And I really like to get time off and go on a walk and things like that. So I guess it's appealing enough for me to want to stop work, if that makes sense. So that sort of like helped me to like work out. All right. Like how do I, um, I keep

intentional about what I do a bit more. How do you pick in the morning or the day before or the week before? What, what are the big rocks for you? How do you pick which are the things you're going to actually do? I think it's about like working out what are the sort of the, the medium to longterm objectives. And then I go like, what are the things that are going to move the needle the

most? Um, I think in Tim Ferriss writes about like the sort of domino effects, like what's the one domino that you can knock over that produces more dominoes to fall over to continue that. Um, and I think that concept always sticks up with me as like a, okay, if I'm able to nudge a few things what moves it forward so one thing I tried to stop doing as much as I could recently was um was trying not to do it as much like planning because I used to do I used to have like tasks where I'd be like, plan this. And it was like, is that a task? Like, sometimes that can be like, not a task. It's like a sort of fake task. I love the analogy of the dominoes. I'm gonna mention a book where I heard that. And that is The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, I believe. And that's a really powerful analogy that the short

version of that story for people who are unfamiliar with it is that when you tip over a domino, it can actually knock over another domino 50% larger. And so you pick the right things and then you start the motion and then pretty soon you've got some momentum going towards your objective that you were talking about. But it's not how many dominoes can I knock over? It's what are the right dominoes? Kind of the quality over the quantity, if I'm hearing you right. I'm kind of curious how you think that fits with something that we had touched on a little bit at previous segment of the the automation it seems to me that is the problem that most people face and i'd love to hear

your personal perspective on how you overcome that but it's uh figuring out what are the right things to do not how do i get more things done. Yeah. I guess it's like in the future, in the sort of medium to long term, we'll be focusing so much on doing more life stuff outside of work that it will be about when you're at work because the artificial intelligence does the small meaning meaning meaningless not meaningless um the small sort of like chunky tasks that are like administration sort of medium tasks potentially it's like okay the okay, the goal is for you then to do all the creative stuff that a human will thrive at. So long-term, it will be that's where focusing will become

an even better skill because we'll be doing stuff that the artificial intelligence can't do and that we'll be really sort of doing the stuff that makes it more interesting in terms of moving the needle forward with a lot of stuff. So yeah, I think a lot of the sort of thoughts are on that, that sort of future feeling around apps and the way that we're sort of viewing the world with tasks as well. So how do you do that? And I guess more generally, how does one do that without having a child?

Yeah, I think the thing is, like, I'm very, very lucky to work for myself and to have a flexible schedule. But, you know, let's look at the majority of the population who are in maybe potentially full-time jobs, or maybe even, you know, with a much heavier schedule base. You have to look at that and go, how is this possible with other people sort of forcing their potential agenda or their incoming tasks onto your lap. And it's a difficult thing because you have to balance your priorities versus somebody else's priorities. But I think it's all about trying to adapt your schedule as much as you can um by taking sort of uh an example like like if for example before the whole pandemic thing people were negotiating remote work agreements um by uh like basically pitching their jobs so were, for example, they were going to their boss and saying,

if you allow me to work from home, I think that I'll get 25% more done and I'll feel 25% more happier and more sort of free. And I think in the future, at least now, what you could do is look at how your focus can change as well and that's what we're always looking for within companies anyways is that reshuffle of focus um but it's looking about okay if i if i move my intention a little bit this way um how much impact can that make and sort of convincing the other people that you work with around you to think like that, but also to try and sort of almost pitch your focus like you pitch remote work, if that makes sense. I'm going on a bit of a tangent here. But Francesco, it's interesting to hear your thoughts on this because I feel like you're at the front line of it. Because of all the people I follow, I think you look at the most productivity apps.

So you're seeing the trends. And the pandemic has changed the dialogue, not only around working from home, but also what is a productivity app and what is productive now. and what is productive now. I feel like one, I mean, if there is a silver lining to this dark, dark cloud of COVID is that we were on autopilot beforehand in terms of productivity. People went to work every day and they churned email or whatever it was that they thought they needed to do. And this whole way that Apple cart got turned upside down was a ray of sunshine to

people were like, well, what really matters for my job? What is the thing that I'm actually doing? And I think it has made a lot of people rethink things. Oh, yeah, the pandemic was a really good thing for productivity. Some ways ways it was negative for remote work because I think people were like thrown in the deep end and companies didn't really know what they were doing with remote work because it was so like new they weren't like endorsing healthy practices and sort of like helping people out they were well something I'm not saying all were but a lot of them were just sort of right your commute turns into work time you know you don't you have a flexible schedule so feel free to carry on past five there's no sort of healthy breaks and things like that especially when people were going through

such uh upheaval in their life um so they didn't really understand it from that perspective but for productivity i think a lot of like you're right david like the the whole world got an opportunity to pause and for a lot of people that was really healthy and a good chance and and so many i don't know whether it was the same in the us but so many people in the UK here started new businesses and took their time. I don't know whether it was the same thing with their furlough money that was like money from their employer that you can take. And they started their own businesses and worked on their own projects. And it spawned a lot of sort of innovation, which is good. I mean, the US were calling it the Great Resignation.

I mean, I was part of it, actually, when I think about it. Yeah. And people are rethinking a lot of things. But that is an opportunity for people who want to make useful productivity software to try and fit new needs. Yeah, oh, definitely. Yeah. This episode of the focus podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

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And when you decide to sign up, use the offer code focus to get that 10% off your first purchase and show your support for the Focus podcast. Our thanks to Squarespace for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. All right, so we were talking about the opportunity to shift productivity apps towards optimizing for focus. And that's the real reason that I wanted to have you on the show here today, Francesco, is that you have created a new app. And just, I'll be honest here. Like I've known you for a while and I've watched your

YouTube for a while. And my expectation of Bento was that this was going to probably have some cool things in it, but was going to kind of be a passing thing for you. Just kind of like, I'll try this and maybe it'll go well. Maybe I'll learn some things about it, but this wasn't going to be the thing. Instead, what happened was this thing took off and it's number four in the US app store. And congratulations. It's a phenomenal app. It's really, really, really beautiful. But I want to know the story behind this. But before we even get there, can you talk to us a little bit about the bento method yeah sure yeah no thanks thanks for um thanks for your faith in me

no the uh i it was it was really weird because uh it must have been about a year and half ago i had like this you know when you review so many apps, it becomes sort of like, I almost joke about it. Like I, you know, there doesn't need to be more productivity apps. And then I had sort of an idea. I was like, you know, like, aha, I think I was, I don't know where I was at, but like, I was like, there's no real like limits on productivity apps. Like you can just add as much as you want. And then I think I was in like a shop and I saw this like bento box and I was like, that's pretty cool. And then the sort of two connected up and I was like, what would an app be like if it was designed like a bento box? Japanese feel, I love that sort of

culture. And I thought thought like what happens if you could sort of combine three tasks inside of a box and i was like oh that's quite a cool idea um then basically i texted one of my university friends who's a developer and i said um i think i started like hey crafts ios app is built pretty stunningly how do you go about building something like that started like uh sort of asking him and he was like oh it could be fairly easy to do like what's the idea and things like this and it sort of kicked off from there and and carl who's another university friend who's a developer uh came along into the gang and we built it from there and then about a month in I was like this is a methodology and I went no don't like this is this can't be like a methodology because

I was like uh what is a methodology and I guess how what warrants it to be a methodology. So it's sort of as a, as a zoom out point, the bento method is basically number one packing. So you pack your bento box with three tasks, a large one, a medium and a small one. And, uh, and then that's the packing process. And you're allowed up to seven boxes, no more, no less. And that's the sort of limitations aspect. And then the second stage of it is flow, where we want you to balance your energy levels during the day. So it's basically the order in which you do your tasks. Like, do you want to start with your small one? Do you want to move to your medium one and finish with your large one or do you want it the other way around so we created three energy workflows that basically allow you to apply it to each of your box and then before number three it

was simply how do we focus better so that we don't see the other tasks in our day. And we simply just created some more mindful ways to do that inside of the app. So and then very weirdly, about two or three months down the line from then I went, why does this need to be just in our app? Why can't this be applied to every single app out there um so basically we launched the app on ios um but we'll be launching a course with templates very soon so you can apply the methodology to every single app out there um obviously mainly task management yeah um and and basically from there it's a layer on top of your productivity it's not actually replacing anything. It's not replacing your to-do list experience. It's just allowing you to bring more clarity to what is really meaningful in your day.

So the thing that surprised me about this is that methodology layer that you just described. Because I've followed you for a long time. I've bought some of the courses that you've made. And one of the things like David was talking about that in my mind, like what is Francesco? You're going to try all this stuff and you're going to explain what's good about things, what's bad about things. So I can decide for myself what's the right one to use. And when you think about these methodologies, this is probably totally wrong. But in my mind, the story I'm telling myself is that the people who share these methodologies, this is something that they have done since infancy. But the realistic journey is probably

for everybody, not just you, is exactly what you're sharing with us here today is like, I'm trying all these different things and I'm keeping my feelers out. I'm paying attention to what's working and what's not and being willing to pivot and change directions. That is the real path to success here for people. But I 100% think that you kind of knocked it out of the park with this app. And I'm excited to hear about the methodology being applied to other apps. But I think that's the thing that's surprising to me. And I just wanted to call it out because reflecting on it, I guess it shouldn't be. This is normal for most people who embrace that growth mindset you know this is

what we want to have happen not that we're gonna all launch our own apps and be number four in the us app store but congratulations yeah i mean i like the thing is like i wouldn't have been ever been able to do this without the developers carl and Robin, like they're the brains behind this. Like I'm just, I'm just a Wally trying to, you know, put ideas together and put it into the market. But it's,

yeah, I mean, it's, it's one of those things that when I look back on everything that's happened, it was very natural in a way because I saw a problem and we sort of pulled it together into an experience but like the thing is like it's it's a classic sort of problem problem uh fix thing isn't it you find a problem and then you see if there is a fix to it and um and I do

think it's a real world problem that's probably going to become more prevalent in the next year or two years just because of the nature of working from home the nature of uh the some of the biggest statistics in the us and the uk at least are all around high workloads and stress uh in your work day and it's all about like how can we bring that down to a a level where you feel like you've finished a day and you feel like you've achieved something without having to press overdue overdue overdue on everything you know it's funny because i was talking to you francesco before we recorded today and your app i've been using it for three or four days now as we prep for recording. And like Mike, I'm very impressed because I feel like it is different. I look at a lot of task apps too.

And I, you know, I am always trying the latest and greatest for the same reason you are. People are, a lot of people are asking what I, what I'm interested in and, and what, you know, might be useful to them. So I want to know, but the thing about your app is it really isn't in my opinion, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't feel like a task manager. It feels like a focus manager. And the idea is like when you there's so as, as Francesco explained, you get a bento box in this, in this app, and then you pick a big, a small, and a medium thing.

And at the time you put it in, the app prompts you, how long will this take? And anybody who's been listening to Focus knows how passionately I feel about the idea of block scheduling and making time for the things that are truly important. Well, the app kind of forces you into that hole. You are looking at your time debt at the moment you're declaring these areas of focus. And I think that is missing from a lot of people's workflows. You get a task manager, you wake up, you see 30 things in there, and you do your best to make sense of it and pick the ones you think can get done today. But are you asking yourself, well, what am I doing here that's going to move the needle

and how long is it going to take? And the focus element of Bento, to me, is why I think this is an interesting app. Not only, I guess it could be a task manager of limited scope, which is an intentional decision, but I think it could be a focus manager in conjunction with a task manager too. I don't know. Were you thinking about that at all when you made it as like something as an in-betweener or whatever you would call it? Oh yeah.

A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, we mainly think of it as a layer, but like, for example, like my, um,

my sister downloaded it the other week and she was like, Oh, this is perfect. Cause I, I typically don't have a task manager before, so it's ideal. That's why we call it like the do less to do list because that's like the way that we frame it. But it's nice because it doesn't really compete

with the other apps. It is, like you said, it's a focus manager. It's like it's a layer it's it's a way to really zone in clarity and i could see people using this like your sister exclusively i mean when i was in law school yeah and i've said this on the show i had an my morning tea napkin was my task list every day i'd write two or three things on it and that's all i needed my life was very simple i wasn't married i didn't have. I didn't have mortgages. I only, I didn't have clients, you know, so three things was enough. And I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who, for whom this could be everything, but,

but for people who have a lot of things, I actually like the element of this for me of saying, okay, you're going to choose three areas of focus in the morning and you're going to actually, you know, the rubber meets the road. See how I did that? morning and you're going to actually you know the rubber meets the road see how i did that yeah we're gonna yeah we're gonna be uh sparky you're gonna be picking something and you're gonna be committing two hours to it today so make it make it worth it yeah that's it yeah i think i think the thing is as well, like when we designed it around that whole bento box and having your compartments is very similar to sort of the way that people go about packing their lunchbox before the night before. You're very like intentional about separating your food and you pack it and it's ready in the fridge for you in the morning. That's at least how we do it over here and probably

in the us um but it's it's like we we when we thought we'd go down the japanese theme route we fell in love with how each of the themes work inside of the app everything is designed around relaxation and everything's designed around just feeling a sense of mindfulness around each box that you create. But ironically, we always get messages saying like, when I use this app, I feel starving. And that's something we can't solve. Well, and we didn't mention that.

But when you kick off a a timer and you could just check off the three items as you finish the day but if you'd like you know the app has a timer for each one and you can kick off the timer and guess what you've got a pretty image on your screen and a timer and you don't have twitter facebook Facebook, email, or anything else, your phone turns into a brick that is a timer. And it says, right now you should be recording focused. At least that's what mine says at this moment. Yeah, oh, that's good. That's good.

I'm not kidding. I'm going to show you guys. See right there, there it is. Oh, lovely, yeah. So that's a good idea too. I think if you are struggling with um with the distractions the app does that as well but to me i i really think that where this landed for me was the idea of choosing focus and whatever tricks you gotta

use gang to do that um you should use them and this this, this app, I feel like is a, it's a good one. Yeah. I mean, so much coming from you too, like seriously, honest, um, like it's so, um,

it's so nice to hear that. Cause, uh, like, I think it's, it's one of those things where I was like really worried when we released it, that everyone was like, like,

it does nothing. And it's like, that's the point. That's the beauty of it. But thankfully people have got it the beauty of it people have got it yeah thankfully people have got it which is good i'm kind of curious um because the as i'm thinking about all the different task managers that you've tried and made videos on like i don't know that this is necessarily the intention behind the task managers but this is the trap I feel a lot of people fall into and I love to get your perspective is when you optimize for speed and the ability to quickly add things you know this feels kind of like an anti-task

manager like all the other things all the projects, the moment that you start one of those timers don't matter. And you could argue that if you put things in the right context and set up the dates the right way that, yes, a task manager will do that for you. It'll do the heavy lifting and it'll surface only the things that you should be thinking about. But you combine the human element and there's always going to be a whole bunch of things that you should, using air quotes there, be thinking about at any given moment. And this is basically saying, giving you force constraints, force boundaries. It's like, no, you pick one. You get one, nothing else. Is that kind of what you were trying to do? Yeah. Oh yeah oh yeah like midway through we were like

do we add a description do we add subtasks do we add it and then we're like we're just deviating from the concept and we were like people should add as little as they possibly can and then we'll just make everything else around the experience like and and that was nice because as soon as we made the methodology concrete what we now do is whenever we go into the app we go how do we with this next update how do we make the the app more closer to the methodology um and that was nice because it gives us like a foundation to work on, at least. Yeah, I mean, there's not a lot to it, but I think it definitely scratches an itch. Now, we're talking about your sister and like the people like her who will want this app to be their task manager.

But I am guessing you're hearing from a lot of people that are using it kind of in that other role that we were talking about, where they may have a more complex system, but they're using this to kind of bring order to the chaos. What kind of stories are you hearing now that the app's out in the wild? Yeah, one of the most interesting things we've heard is from the ADHD and the autism community. So we've had a couple of people already starting to use it that suffer from ADHD. And there was also a father who started using it with his daughter who has autism. And apparently, we didn't know this.

I mean, like, we just put an app out and we expect the productivity world to focus in on it, you know, ones who are sort of used to apps and all that. But then it turned out that he said that his daughter was focusing a lot more when she picked her three tasks to start the day. And apparently the timer aspects is something, although apparently it's meant to be more visual,

apparently that was an aspect that they they found particularly helpful for her um to focus in on the tasks so it was really strange where we sort of launched this and then we got like a bit of feedback from people in those areas and apparently it's the nature of the simple simplisticness simplicity of the app um and the flexibility that actually like made it appealing to those sort of um those individuals um so that was really nice to hear like and that's like i was just on a podcast sort of like talking with um uh pete who was who runs a podcast about adhd and he was saying about the different aspects

of it and how it's helpful and i was like oh my god like it that's insane that is so good um isn't it great when you put something in the world and you get stories like that doesn't that just make your day oh yeah like oh my god yeah like i thought, like when I help people find apps, I'm like, oh my God, that's cool. I found help. Somebody found an app, but like when people find the app and it helps them, I'm I it's even more of a kick, I think. Um, but yeah, like, I think the thing is it, it appeals to a lot of markets because the productivity, the hardcore productivity market might want it to be able to have that layer of intentionalism over the top of it. But then it also appeals, like you said, to the people that don't have to-do lists.

So we're finding it really interesting these last couple of weeks since we launched, like almost a month now, that people are just finding it for all different types of scenarios in their life. It's very cool. Okay, can I give you some friendly advice? Please. I'm sure you're getting tons of advice from people now that you have an app out and it's okay. Cause no, nobody's listening.

Right. Everybody just put your fingers in this for a minute. Francesco, you need to, whoever this person, this artist is that did the background art for this app. Yeah. You need to find that person and lock them down for like a lot more art because

the art is gorgeous yeah i know i'm gonna write it down like uh yeah we we tried i think i think uh i'll send her this episode and like put this as a like a plea um we tried and she's like uh she's still into her freelancing which is fair enough yeah but um yeah we'll try and lock her down she's she's brilliant uh yeah she does it oh like it's gorgeous stunning yeah although here's my app request i would like it to switch from light and dark mode with the phone you got to throw a switch right now it's coming all right you winked at me. That's good. Adaptive mode. Yeah, it's next update. Well, either way, I mean, congratulations on getting this app together. I mean, I think your instincts were right on with the way you did this.

And there are a lot of apps out there that do a lot more complicated than this one, a lot that are simpler than this one. But I think you did the Goldilocks move here. And I think a lot of people are going to really like what you've made. This episode of Focus is brought to you by Indeed. Even if your hiring goals would be considered aggressive, you know, you don't need a miracle to make them happen. You just need Indeed. Indeed is the hiring platform where you can attract, interview, and hire all in one place. So instead of spending hours on multiple job sites searching for candidates with the right skills, Indeed is a powerful hiring partner that can help you do it all. Find great talent faster through time-saving tools like Indeed's Instant Match, assessments,

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Need to hire? You need Indeed. Our thanks to Indeed for their support of the Focus podcast and all of RelayFM. So Francesco, I mean, you started out making YouTube videos. videos i mean that's kind of where this began this journey began for you that grew into something very successful and now you've turned it into an app development business i mean uh share some of your wisdom with us what

have you learned along this path i i would say it's about the friendships and relationships you make along the way. Because I wouldn't have had any idea of how to do all this, any idea. But it's just about the people you connect with. We're so lucky online these days to be connected with so many people through Twitter, through YouTube, through different platforms. Like I would say that's probably something I really is so undervalued. But like that's something that has helped along the way massively. I wouldn't be able to do the app without amazing developers like Carl and Robin and all the people I've worked with on YouTube beforehand as well. So yeah, I would credit everything to everyone else, for sure.

Well, that's good to say. It sounds to me like you're also telling me don't let your ego take over as you start to be getting a success. Yeah, I mean, that's helpful. Yeah. But, you know, obviously, all of this wasn't rosy for you i'm sure that you had challenges along the way what were some of the the bigger challenges you faced that you were able to get through on this journey i think like like like mike said right when we did the when we did

bento like it was like whether it was going to be sort of a success or sort of relative success and i've had a lot of like mini projects that i started that haven't necessarily been successful um like for example i started a side channel called keep focused like keep productive but it was about keep focused right um would have been a competitor to you guys but it was in hindsight i jumped in too early and it didn't have like the structure that i wanted but looking back at it it actually made sort of some of the path for bento um for the future because obviously keep focused it kept like kept me on the idea path to creating bento with the other chaps um so at the same time it's like um it's like sometimes the failures are just a a hint of what's coming in the future um and i'm sure i've gone out plenty more of them,

which is going to be fun. Let's lean into that a little bit, because the moment that you fail at something, the last thing you want to do is figure out what you could have done better. If you're like me, you just want to go completely the other direction, be like, I don't even want to think about that for a while. How do you personally do that? Is there some sort of process as you go through and unpack, what did I learn from this thing? What am I going to take from this going forward? Or is that just kind of happens subconsciously and you're just looking for the next step? I don't think I think about it too much. I'll probably uh say to my wife I did this didn't work today and then just have a like a nice meal and then just watch some telly in the evening

so probably I don't overthink it too much but yeah and then at least I come in the next day and go like oh yeah I should change this but it's about work I think it's about working out when things go wrong or when things like are at their point where they need to change. And that was probably sometimes you can wait too long. Sometimes you can catch it too early. So I guess. I'm a big fan of journaling. And one of the things I like to do when I have success or failure is journal it.

But one of my favorite questions I ask myself when I have a success is, what are the failures that made this possible? Because every time I have a success, there are definitely failures in my past that helped lay the path for that success. You know, and if you can get yourself used to thinking in those terms, then the failures don't feel so bad because, you know, it's just one more step in the journey. Yeah, that's good advice, David. Have you guys ever heard the parable of the Chinese farmer?

It's an Alan Watts Zen story. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's a great story about a farmer who has a son. I'm just going to put it in the link. You guys go watch it. If that's of interest to you. I like that sort of stuff. Yeah.

Lessons. Yeah. Send me that. I'll just, you know, extend your perspective. I think that's the failure is a slice in time. I don't know,

man. I'm now I'm turning into a Zen, uh, story here. That's easier, easier said than done though, right? To say, oh, just learn from your failures. That's the kind of thing that you hear podcasters say like us, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's really smart. And then you have to deal with a failure and you get all emotional about it. Yeah, exactly. So any tips for sorting through all that as you've encountered some of this stuff yourself? To David or me? To you, Francesco. I mean, David, feel free to chime in, but I'm kind of curious. You're the

star here, Francesco. So we're going to talk about your failures for right now. Mine are well-documented. let's just put it that way yeah i think um i think like as well like i think what uh youtube does as well is it gives you uh a chance to be in front of people and sort of sometimes have that accountability um so I I'm quite lucky because if I ever do sort of a failure I can record it on YouTube and then say sorry for it not so like not so much that it's a YouTube apology video but if I make a mistake I normally try and rectify it um and that's normally, I guess it's probably the equivalent to my own journaling. I do journal, but I don't really talk about failures too much. But whenever I make a mistake or something like that, then I can just turn the camera on and look like a silly. But

it's a good idea. How do you go from chronicling the failure to, okay, now I'm going to let this go and embrace the new thing. Is it simply like if you're journaling, you can write it down and then today, then tomorrow you've got a new day, right? You're not publishing a YouTube video every day.

So what's kind of your trigger point for, okay, I'm going to let that go and move forward now. Um, I never really thought about it. It's got deep thinking guys. Sorry to put you on the spot there. Yeah.

I think I normally just, uh, think about it like in the back of my mind. Um, like, uh, on walks and things like that on runs and like exercise and then basically i'll just sort of like deconst deconstruct it as best i can and say right um what sort of led me to make this mistake and then I'll go okay just don't do it again sort of thing I'm sure it's hard to explain no that's okay and I think this is kind of the takeaway

your response is kind of what I expected because people have their ways of dealing with these things but they don't typically think through the specifics of how it works. For me, I've found it's really valuable. Like you, I tend to go for a run when I've reached, you know, that's all I can stand and I can't stand no more. You know, I'll go for a run and then that's when my brain sorts through it. By the time I get back, there's a path forward. That's the thing that kind of allows me to let that go. But I think it's valuable for people to think about that stuff because kind of like task management apps or productivity apps, right? You got to find the one that clicks for you.

And if you know what sort of things are in your bag that you can use strategically, you know, that can help you emotionally sort through all that stuff. And just put your, you know, at the moment that you have a big failure, that you don't get the promotion or, you know, worse, you know, at the moment that you have a big failure, that you don't get the promotion or, you know, worse, you know, you don't have the ability to logically think through, how do I get through this stuff? Like knowing that, like, I'm Mike Schmitz and I go on a run and I feel better and it works out, you know, knowing that means that you put your running shoes on when you find yourself in that spot. You don't have to think your way through it. I remember reading the Colin Powell book a few years ago. Colin Powell was a famous general and a politician in the United States.

And he talked about how throughout his career, every time he had terrible news or something went really wrong, he would go to bed. He'd be like, well, whatever it is, I'm going to go to bed and sleep. And tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to feel better about it. And every time I do. And that was like his, he had his response, you know, and I think all of us need to think that through in advance, you know, because, you know, I got news for you. We're all going to have bad days, you know, so how are you going to deal with that? If you figure it out in advance, I think it helps you out. But, but I want to talk about good days.

Cause I think we're, we're, we're dragging Francesco down in his moment of victory here. You've got a successful YouTube. You've got a successful app. Are you starting to think about what's next? I mean, it's hard not to, right? app are you starting to think about what's next i mean it's hard not to right um i think i'll buy twitter next right oh i'm sorry it's sold already too late i heard they got new management i'm not sure what that is about some some guy i've never heard of yeah but the yeah i don't know um i think it's i think it's mainly the sort of the short-term um goals are the course and the templates um and then the sort of long-term goals is i think like i want to go carry on with the sort of same, uh, I think I said it when I was quite young,

I was like, I want to make a suite of productivity apps. That would be lovely. Um, but I don't want them to intrude in the market and I want them to have their place. So, um,

I've already come up with the second app idea. Um, so I think a sort of nice set of apps would be lovely within the next two years. So, um, but let's see how bento goes right yeah well i think you're on the right track yeah should be lovely well uh francesco di alessio did i get it right di alessio all right what did i get wrong? Tell me now. D'Alessio. D'Alessio. There we go. One time I,

one time I guessed it on the Connected podcast and I tried to say goodbye in Italian as Federico does. And I think that he has never forgiven me, honestly. But anyway, so where do people go to learn more about Bento and your and your YouTube channel and all the great stuff you're making? Well, first off, guys, thanks so much for having me. And you gave me a good, healthy grilling on topics.

So that got my mind working, which is good. Thank you. We'll kind of mean that way. Sorry. Good. It's good. It's good. If people want to find Bento, it's on iOS.

You just have to search the app still for Bento. And we are looking to launch the Android version. I can't really give you a date, but it's going to start soon with development, which is good fun, but not a small task. It's definitely a large task. But if you want to find the YouTube channel, it's just keep productive into YouTube if you're looking for some advice on some apps. But thank you for both for having me, honestly. It's been a good laugh. I forgot to ask you now, as an old Mac nerd, are you familiar with the original

Bento app for the Mac? Have you heard about this? I do, yeah. Yeah, I remember the old one, yeah. The database app from FileMaker, yeah. Yeah, that's what we were worried about when we launched. We were like, are we going to be called after the same app? And then we were like, oh, thank God, no. Yeah, very different.

Yeah, thankfully, yeah. But the thing is, with Bentoo app logos they look so nice so it's uh so relaxing yeah and and bento boxes makes everybody happy how how can you not be happy with that little box with things just organized just so i i love the idea too yeah thanks for both having me anyway appreciate it thank you francesco we are the focus podcast you can find us on relay.fm focused thank you to our sponsors collide squarespace and indeed also thank you to our supporters we've got our bonus episode today we've got some interesting content we're going to be talking about right after this otherwise we'll see you next time