95: Face Man of the Empire  ## Metadata - Author: [[Mostly Technical]] - Full Title: 95: Face Man of the Empire - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/e89213b0-99bc-4cef-b3de-aeb8d3f2601c ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Early Sleep Experiment** - Ian tried an early-sleep routine and tracked it with Eight Sleep, which reported much better sleep scores. - He still felt subjectively tired even while being more productive during the day. Transcript: Ian Landsman Been on a sleep routine okay i. I was like, you know, everybody was sick on vacation, exhausted, all the stuff. I was like, I'm going to actually do the sleep thing, which, you know, you always say you're going to do sleep thing. Sure. Aaron Francis Yeah. Always dream big about doing a sleep thing. Never happens, but keep going. Ian Landsman So for the past week, I have gone to bed every night before midnight and most nights like 11, 15, 11 by 1130, I'm asleep, which is pretty early for me. Aaron Francis Yeah. Tell me how to feel about this. Is this is this good? Am I proud of you? Because that's insanely late. OK, I'm proud of you. Wow. Amazing. You're an early sleep guy. Oh, dude, dude. I am in bed. I am in bed by nine zero zero p.m. Ian Landsman In bed is different than sleeping. Are you in bed on your laptop working? Are you in bed, tucked in? Yeah, I'm in bed. Aaron Francis The laptop is on me and I'm working. Ian Landsman Yeah, that's not in bed. I mean, you can do that. That's anywhere. When time do you go to sleep? It's not much later than 10. I would have to guess. So still early sleep. Still early. Yeah. Okay. Oh, 11.15 is amazing for me. So, and then I've been sleeping through. I got the eight sleep. The eight sleep's like your numbers are off the charts, you know? It's like you're a superhuman. You're chilling. Yeah, but I don't know. You know, and it's weird because I don't feel rested. Like, right? Today, I feel the least rested I've felt in days. ([Time 0:01:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f175fb54-112d-4c9d-9e11-6be28c72cbb4)) - **Gain Time By Shifting Earlier** - Steal morning hours by waking earlier instead of pushing late-night work; mornings are often more productive. - Test 5:30–6:00 AM starts but avoid schedules that collapse once you must handle morning child routines. Transcript: Aaron Francis Okay, you're trying to go the other way. Ian Landsman No, there's not enough time. There's not enough time. Aaron Francis What do I do? Do I just become a DGEN? Ian Landsman Yeah. Well, first of all, poker would definitely help because definitely the best poker is after 11 p.m. For sure. Aaron Francis I'm trying to stay up later to get more done, and then I'm just going to start playing poker instead. And so it's going to net out being a negative. Ian Landsman But yes, carry on. No, it's positive. You need mental rest time from the stresses of your day. Aaron Francis No, there's only work. There's no rest. It's just work, work, work, work. Yeah, I don't know. You should probably stick with your rest. Ian Landsman You're doing okay. You're being productive. You should probably not push it to 11 or 12. I feel like you should stay with the 10. Maybe you should get earlier. Become early. Aaron Francis Now that is probably the answer. Yeah. That is probably the answer. Instead of pushing the tired hours, just grabbing more energy hours and then just letting the tired hours be tired still at the end of the day yeah because i imagine if i got up at even six Or 5 30 i don't imagine i'm then going to bed at 8 p.m like that's not gonna happen probably not you just have too much to do you're not gonna be able to get away with that like no yeah it's still Gonna be 9 ([Time 0:05:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b326c269-2e70-4067-87d1-96b8cd1880ef)) - **Outsource To Improve Focus** - Hire contractors for focused tasks like branding and video editing instead of hiring full-time staff. - Use a technical researcher/scriptwriter to do first-pass research so you can spend more time on camera. Transcript: Aaron Francis I'm working on branding for Database School, and I've found some people that I think I'm going to engage with to get that done. So the thought there is I need something cohesive across database school.com, which will be the education platform, database school, the podcast, and database school, the YouTube Channel. So I need something like enough direction assets, stuff that I can use across those three properties. And this is like, this is my next 12 to 18 months and so i want to make sure that i have like give it the best odds of success here and so that that is that is uh somebody that is i have outsourced Work to i have also um found somebody that is going to help with the youtube channel slash filming um filming and editing so it's somebody local in dallas um that has grown a couple youtube Channels around here um like grew a plumber's channel to like 400 000 and so it's it's not like he's not in our space but he's very youtube which is what i need so this person's going to help Me with editing and thumbnails and content calendar and maybe some light scripting, but they're not, they're not like a technical person. So probably not. Um, but they can also come to the studio, help me set up cameras and angles and maybe do extra B roll and stuff like that. Um, so that'll be an hourly basis. And then I just put out a call for a technical researcher slash script writer um oh i saw that that was a little yeah no that was recently that was just on like friday or something really Okay well i did see that no um because i need to like i need to be spending more time front of the camera and not, you know, 50 to 70% of my time researching. So I still need to spend, you know, some time researching, but I need to be able to say like, hey, go do the first pass on this. Like, let's say I want to do, you know, a video on bee trees, just go. I know bee trees, but you go research, come up with a good outline, a good script, and then we can take it from there. So I am trying to fill in around me people who are experts at, you know, just a few things. ([Time 0:11:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/04e7a188-9804-42db-9a39-893aaa1c596d)) - **Brand Focus Beats Personal Umbrella** - Aaron prefers Database School as a focused brand rather than the broad 'Aaron Francis' brand. - A niche, product-focused brand reaches people who need database training beyond Aaron's personal audience. Transcript: Ian Landsman So is this a strategic transition here? This is. Aaron Francis So there is no more try-hard brand. There never really was. You know, I think in casual conversation, that's great. But as a brand, that one just doesn't exist. That's just an LLC. Yeah. So we are going with database school is the destination for database education. That is, that is the plan. And of course, right now, and probably for the next year, 18 months, it is very tied to Aaron Francis, the brand. And I won't shy away from that. Like, you know, I'll be front and center on the landing page. You know, my name will be all over it. It's not going to be like, you know, we do this or, you know, whatever it's going to be. I teach this. It's me. That's the deal. But in terms of long term, both for the education platform, but also for like the social like YouTube stuff, I think database school is a better and more focused. And that's the thing I'm after, something that's more focused in terms of a brand. I'm happy for people to know me and follow me, but I also, the bigger pool of people in the world is people that don't know me and don't care about me and want to know databases. That's what I got to get to. I think it's bigger. It is. I think so. For now, for now, at some point, yeah. I like that. I think that makes sense. And then that's good. Ian Landsman Like if you do bring in other people at some point for parts or whatever, it makes more sense and all that. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. All right. So that's the Aaron Francis update. Any other stuff in the Aaron Francis empire that we need to know about? Aaron Francis I do feel like I have regressed a little bit in the business journey. And I feel like I'm kind of just a guy who's piecing together income streams, less of like, this is the business. These are the lines of business. This is the product mix. And we can expect it to move around by five or 10% between the product mix. But this is our business. I don't feel like that at all. I feel like I'm doing this one-off project. I'm getting these one-off sponsors. I'm selling this course. I'm getting some residual from that course. And it would be nice. It would be nice. I just like as a internal feeling, but probably also for stability to just have one, two, three things that are like lines of business that are pretty sustainable. I'm happy to keep like scratching and clawing for now. ([Time 0:15:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1d402a13-0e24-462f-98f8-86a50634964a)) - **Short Courses Fit Learners' Habits** - Short, focused courses (1–3 hours) fit modern consumption patterns better than multi-hour monoliths. - Breaking big courses into small modules supports subscription and repeat engagement. Transcript: Aaron Francis Unclear. So I think so part of, part of this move to database school, some of it does require a little bit of like maintenance and reassessing existing properties. So what's coming in October is introduction to Postgres. So it's like Postgres for beginners, early stage, two to three hours, easy stuff. I think that is the model going forward, which is like one to three hour courses which is part of why i'm thinking subscription is going to be the move because we're going to have you know A one to three hour course on i don't know light stream which is a sqlite you know adjunct thing nobody's going to pay 179 or 99 maybe for like a two-hour course on light stream but if you Were paying to like have access to all this stuff that's an interesting product and you might want to know about it and so you would watch that and so i think um i think at some point and i Won't do this to start because it won't make any money but at some point i need to break down the the sequel course, the mastering Postgres course, the MySQL course, break it down into Their component parts and put those out as separate, you know, individual, like, quick hits, basically. Yeah. Because you've said it many times. Like, I'd watch a two-hour course on vectors and Postgres. I'm not watching a 12-hour course on Postgres. Like, it's just not gonna happen yeah um and as uh as like uh as stubborn what's a nicer word for stubborn as resolute as i am about certain things yeah as resolute as i am about certain things I do think that one is is correct and i am wrong on that one. Like my, I want to produce the like comprehensive course. That's what I want to do. The O'Reilly book. Yes. But I think you're correct that people want to consume differently than I want to produce. And I'm willing, I'm willing to bend on that. I don't feel like that's a problem at all. ([Time 0:19:48](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c8971e1d-473a-401f-8e9a-3cba4cbc1d3d)) - **Be The Face, Delegate The Teaching** - Make Aaron the public face for marketing while outsourcing course instruction to experts under the Database School umbrella. - Keep marketing/brand work central and delegate detailed course teaching to skilled instructors to scale faster. Transcript: Ian Landsman I like this plan. I have a couple thoughts here on like, where is Aaron Francis most valuable? Aaron Francis That's what Aaron Francis wants to know. So tell me. Ian Landsman I feel like it's pretty clear to me that Aaron Francis is most valuable. The peak in terms of the Aaron Francis business and empire, Aaron Francis is most valuable as the face man of the empire. Face Okay. Okay. Deal. I buy it. I feel like we want to get people on subscriptions. Okay. All right. So, and I feel like we want to avoid the death march. Yeah. I feel like build a hundred courses, even if they're small, feels like a death march. That's going to be hard. A hundred feels like a lot. Hard to motivate yourself on, right? Okay, carry on. Whereas the big courses are like, hey, you got a sponsor who's paying you 50 grand. You got the one thing and it's hard, but then you're done in three or four months, right? And then you move on to the next thing. A death march of its own, but it's finite. It's closer. It's like, okay, I will be done with this in three months, even though I'm going to work 12 hours a day. The death march versus the death treadmill. Yes. The death treadmill, right. It's like, boy, I really need a hundred courses, more than a hundred courses. And even though it's maybe only three or four giant courses worth of content, I feel like that's still going to be, there's going to be interruptions. Like you're not gonna be able to keep that pace for a year to, to grind through that right now. So this is why i'm just wondering if it's like okay hire someone to break up the current things you have right and right instantly we can get a bunch of course now i don't know i'm hoping That those work that way i mean maybe you have to do a little massaging and some intro outro stuff i don't know but for your for your uh uh consideration re-recording a course is very, very Aaron Francis Easy. Okay. Intriguing. So once the material is written, vetted, recorded, going back and doing it again with a slight twist or in a different place or whatever, like 10% is hard. So for your consideration, keep going. Ian Landsman Man, I still think that's going to be – it's just a lot of work though to sit down and actually do those hours. Do you know what I mean? I agree. Even if it's way easier, of course, than like re-conceptualizing and all that stuff. And it still has to be re-edited. So maybe it's 30%. That's what I was going to say. It has to be re-edited. Now you don't have just Steve there to do the editing. You got to hire someone, which is fine. You're going to need that person anyway, but it's still a different process, whatever. So ideally you can use what you have, but if you can't, you have to be recorded fine. But there, okay, there's a chunk we could do quick, hopefully without that much work from you, either no work or not much work. Right. Um, and then do we just try to bring in a person or two in the fold and just have other people building other courses and then you focus on the database school. Aaron Francis Okay. Help me understand other people building other courses. Does that mean writing material? Does that mean recording? Does that mean non-database? Like, what does that mean? Ian Landsman That mean database, all database. Okay. But them doing the whole thing, I assume, or maybe there's a writer and a on-air person. But they're the face. They're the face of that course. Because it's not about the course anymore, right? It's not about, I need to get you to buy this course on Postgres and you want to see my face on that course. I feel like this could now be a little bit higher level. You are the face of database school. You are on YouTube doing database content. You are doing live stream Q&As. You are doing interviews with famous database people. You are doing all that stuff, right? You are the marketing. What people get when they come in doesn't necessarily have to be you, I don't think. I think it could potentially not be you on all the courses. Aaron Francis Highest and best use of Aaron's time is to be the face of database school. But now we're bringing in guest instructors. So as the face of database school, mean the external marketing and brand and not necessarily the instructor of everything yes okay i mean this ties in directly with what you started Ian Landsman The show with which is like you want to run a business i want to run a business right so i feel like that is getting you closer to i am the person running this business which is you're kind Of inexorably tied to the marketing, I think, at least for now. But I don't think so much with the courses like you can pay people to do those. You can find good people to do them. And people want that information. They're not watching. That's not what they're watching for entertainment. There's like the marketing is entertainment. You're going to try to entertain people on the marketing end. That needs Aaron Francis' style. Once they want, just give me the details on how this stupid B-tree index works, right? Like that doesn't need Aaron Francis anymore. That is somebody who has to be able to convey good ideas in your style, I think with your tutelage, but doesn't need to literally be you teaching them. ([Time 0:26:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3ca76a51-63ea-4f0a-8f32-e7197d3741cc)) - **Re-recording Is Low Effort** - Aaron finds re-recording existing course material much easier than building from scratch and sees re-editing as a small lift. - He views reusing vetted material as a quick way to expand product catalog. Transcript: Aaron Francis Your for your uh uh consideration re-recording a course is very, very easy. Okay. Intriguing. So once the material is written, vetted, recorded, going back and doing it again with a slight twist or in a different place or whatever, like 10% is hard. So for your consideration, keep going. Ian Landsman Man, I still think that's going to be – it's just a lot of work though to sit down and actually do those hours. Do you know what I mean? I agree. Even if it's way easier, of course, than like re-conceptualizing and all that stuff. And it still has to be re-edited. So maybe it's 30%. That's what I was going to say. It has to be re-edited. Now you don't have just Steve there to do the editing. You got to hire someone, which is fine. You're going to need that person anyway, but it's still a different process, whatever. So ideally you can use what you have, but if you can't, you have to be recorded fine. But there, okay, there's a chunk we could do quick, hopefully without that much work from you, either no work or not much work. Right. Um, and then do we just try to bring in a person or two in the fold and just have other people building other courses and then you focus on the database school. Aaron Francis Okay. Help me understand other people building other courses. Does that mean writing material? Does that mean recording? Does that mean non-database? Like, what does that mean? Ian Landsman That mean database, all database. Okay. But them doing the whole thing, I assume, or maybe there's a writer and a on-air person. ([Time 0:28:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ac5d244c-2741-4e31-863a-b4733eb7bc3d)) - **YouTube Could Be A Core Revenue Arm** - A large, focused YouTube presence can itself become a revenue-generating business through sponsorships and owned products. - Database School's niche audience could be more valuable to sponsors than raw subscriber numbers. Transcript: Ian Landsman Other big youtube channel right like hey it's got half a million viewers. And those are like not just half a million viewers. Like you get on all these other channels, which are just kids and randos. It's like half a million professional web developers are going to be super valuable to all these database platforms and all that stuff. So something may be there too. And then it's like whatever. Like the Ryan Trahan guy, like he has a candy brand after he gets a big YouTube platform, right? So it's coming after that. You have stuff, your own stuff you sell into the YouTube channel after it becomes a certain size, in addition to taking sponsorships, of course. Could be something there. That is interesting. I would be open to that. I'd be totally open to that. Aaron Francis I think that would have to be much later i think we would have to see such great success on the youtube channel to start like attracting those bigger sponsors um that we could then decide All right let's take all the content that we have and just put it on YouTube and shut down the dot com. I'd be totally open. Well, no, I'm not saying that. Ian Landsman I'm saying you might cannibalize some of your content potentially. Right. Because you're like just doing it on the YouTube channel. But I don't even know if the things that are in the course are good as YouTube videos for building. Probably not. Yeah. Right. Right. That's what I'm saying. So like so it's more that like I think it's not that dissimilar from what you'll just do for the marketing anyway. But it's like make interesting viral videos. Right. Like this is the goal of the YouTube channel. Now, right now it's being thought about as as a funnel to these courses. But maybe it is a goal in and of itself because you can build the sponsorship up sufficiently that then it either doesn't matter about the courses or B, it's like a more traditional YouTube Influencer route of like the channel got big. And then once the channel is big, I can sell all kinds of stuff into the channel, right? Like we have courses and we have other stuff, whatever it is like. Candy. So candy, we have a Karen Francis candy brand. And I mean, for you, I think it doesn't have to be 20 million. Like when you're, when it's the general public, you need a big, you need millions to make it worth people to advertise. I don't think that's true of this because your audience is very, extremely valuable compared to a generic sample YouTube audience. So, you know, even on a hundred thousand, it's probably extremely valuable. Aaron Francis So this is, this is the Red Bull strategy. Our marketing is so good that the marketing for the energy drink makes a bunch of money. Our marketing is profitable. Ian Landsman Yeah, exactly. Aaron Francis Yeah. Ian Landsman All right. I know you thought about doing sponsorships already and stuff, but I think just the idea, maybe that's even the business or a large part of the business or whatever, you know, like it's Not just mostly marketing and extra money. It's actually what you do. Aaron Francis Potentially. Ian Landsman I don't know. That seems reasonable to me. Could be. It's possible. How many subscribers does it have already? Aaron Francis The Aaron Francis channel. Ian Landsman Is that what it's like? Does database school have its own channel yet or no? Not yet. Aaron Francis Okay. But the Aaron Francis channel has like 55,000. Right. Yeah. So, and I imagine, this may be optimistic, I imagine the database school channel is going to grow a lot more consistently just because it's going to be so focused that it'll be easier To find that audience versus like, hey, I'm a developer who does random stuff. Follow me. Ian Landsman The I'll go, we'll get you. Aaron Francis Yeah, exactly. So I can see YouTube being a big leg of the stool in terms of revenue. That would include the Database School podcast, which we talked about last week. We'll start taking sponsors. And then the learning platform, obviously being a big part of it as well. Yeah. ([Time 0:40:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/82446d1d-dadf-4645-bb65-9beb9e741d34)) - **AI-Written Spec For Fake Data** - Ian used an iterative AI-driven spec process to build a Laravel command that generates realistic fake data for screenshots. - The AI-produced a thousand-line spec quickly, cutting manual spec time to about an hour of human oversight. Transcript: Aaron Francis I got a couple of things. Ian Landsman First, I want a little quick shout out to a friend of the show, Aaron. Adrian. Best friend of the show. Who emailed me. So last week, I said, hey, if you have been inspired in poker because of me and this podcast, let me know. Adrian, let me know. Inspired by the pod. Inspired by me. You've been seeing poker come up in a few spots and decided to take the plunge and is into it. Goes to the local pub where they have a poker night. Been playing there. Been doing well. Sent them some books. So, thank you for reaching out, Adrian. Aaron Francis Inspiring people to pick up new vices. Yes, poker. That is just great inspiration. Ian Landsman I'm going to get you eventually here, too. I'm going to come down to Texas. I'm going to scoop you up. We're going to go to the card house. That would be fun. Yeah. And you know how to play. I know how to play. We're going to sit down and we're going to play. It's going to be great. And if we're both there, it's a write-off. If I just go to Texas, it's a write-off. For any reason, I'll be like, Aaron's there. I'm in Texas. He's in Texas. Write-off. Aaron Francis Same disclaimer as always. This is financial advice. This is clearly financial advice. Take this to the bank. Ian Landsman So the other thing is my weekend project was, you know, I was in with AI. And I've been working on no outro stuff this weekend. Do any outro stuff. I know. I know. It's a side project. Sometimes a side project has to be put to the side for the main project, which is unfortunate reality. Aaron Francis We hate that. Ian Landsman Doing some, you know, website stuff, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to get to that part of it, but need to do screenshots, which is the worst part of any software product. The screenshots are just so incredibly painful. It's like you don't even want to do them because you know you're going to have to redo them at some point, and that's all painful. The whole thing's terrible. So I don't have a total solution, but I was working on a partial solution, which is the worst part about the screenshots is like the fake data. It's like, how do you make the fake data be kind of real enough? So that's not just stupidly fake and blah, blah. Right now in Helpspot, we have a very fake, fake data set up with Faker that I use for demos and stuff. And it's okay for that, but it uses like Alice in Wonderland to put fake data and just have like masses of data so there can be like sufficient quantity of like ticket history and whatever. So worked with the AI on building a new fake data builder thingy for HelpSpot so I could build out both for demos but also for screenshots different sort of types of help desks, because There's different, there's like B2B support, there's B2C support, there's HR help desks, there's whatever, maintenance departments, there's several different types of use cases For Help Spot. And, you know, so this way you can have custom data for each, have the AI build the whole thing out with proper tickets for each type of support, with categories that make sense, with ticket Entry that makes sense, all that stuff. And so, yeah, so it got pretty far. I'm not even done yet. I just mostly worked on this yesterday. But I use a new AI process, which is similar to my old process, but not exactly. I read this article by Rans. And if you follow Rans, Rans in Repose. Rans Fishkin or somebody else? No, not Rans Fishkin. Rans, what the hell is the guy? Rans with an S? Michael Lops. Yeah, if you go Rans in Repose. You're saying so many words. Aaron Francis Rans Michael Lops in Repose. All right, here's a link. Here's a link. Rans in Repose. So is the person's name ranz no his name's michael i believe right isn't michael loop loop loop ranz okay you click about and it says this is where i write who does that tell me your name He's wrote in a bunch of the books that doesn't't matter. I've never heard of him. Michael Lopp. I'm looking on the sidebar. I'm looking on the sidebar to find a picture of a book he's written to read the author name off of it. Yes. All right, Michael. Rule number one, put your name on your website somewhere because I think your name is Rand. Listen, Rand is huge, man. Ian Landsman Rand is huge. So I don't know. He's got- So is Seth Godin, but I know his name. That's true. He's not as big as Seth Godin. But, you know. Aaron Francis Because nobody knows his name. Ian Landsman That's why. No. Everybody thinks his name is Ranz. It's like Patio 11. Nobody knows Patio 11's real name. Right. Same with Ranz. Patrick McKenzie. You know it. But you know it. Aaron Francis All right. Tell me about Ranz in Repose. What does Ranz say? Rans. Ian Landsman I wasn't throwing me off. I didn't think you would know Rans. Nobody knows Rans, for the record. Rans is huge. I may be the guy that has never seen a movie, but nobody has heard of Rans. Aaron Francis I'm not alone. I'm not alone in this one. Ian Landsman Comment if you've heard of Rans or read someone's articles. Aaron Francis Comment if you haven't heard of Rans. Ian Landsman These books have sold like of copies and stuff. People know about Rand's, man. All right. What did Rand's teach you? All right. So I don't know about millions of copies, but a lot of copies. Aaron Francis His guilty conscious got to him. All right. I said millions. I didn't mean millions. I didn't mean it. Ian Landsman I mean, his latest book has whatever, 4,200 ratings on Goodreads. So I don't know. How do you extrapolate that up? You know, it's a good amount. Aaron Francis At least 10x of readers. Yeah, at least 10x, right? Yeah. Ian Landsman So and then he's written like four books or something or whatever. Some of them are revisions of the same book. Anyway, he wrote this article about how he's been coding with AI. And it's similar to what I've been doing and I think other people are doing, which is like you kind of need to write a file to keep like the context organized for the AI, right? And like to give you like basically writing a spec. But, you know, he just does, he kind of works in the document with the AI. What I've been mostly doing is like have the AI write a document. I will then tweak the document manually and then I will have the AI read the document again and produce the code. So what I did for this project was I didn't tweak really anything manually at all. We just built the whole spec by interactively going through it. So not in planning mode in Cloud Code, so in the regular mode, but not with auto accepting commits either. And then have it write some stuff, have it tweak it, then say, yes, you can commit that, then go through, have it keep a to-do list, then have it reread the document, be like, what did we Miss? What's unclear? Go iterate back through that over and over. So now we're at like this thousand line spec document for this laravel command that will do the data population um thousand line spec which i would never write a thousand line spec for This right like um i wouldn't even read a thousand lines but yes i'd be there right and so this is the kind of beauty of it is it's like it it wrote it though and probably i spent between ([Time 0:45:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b14d1e01-da50-4468-ab08-0f5a76ade7e2)) - **Persist AI Context Per Project** - Save AI session context to disk or a temporary working directory so you can resume work across machines. - Avoid long-lived shared context files that confuse the agent later; use per-agent isolated contexts. Transcript: Ian Landsman I think would be interesting. Aaron Francis They just need, they need cloud code cloud. Like they just need to run it. They just need to run it somewhere else. I mean, that's codex. Ian Landsman Yeah. Yeah. Or even just, I mean, even just like, Hey, here's a dump command. Let me dump this to a markdown, whatever your internal story or binary file, whatever it is, like it's obviously just data inside it somewhere, right. That's feeding to the the prompt every time and so like just take that put it on the disk somewhere um the other thing is i feel like there needs to be a system for this where to write these Files like it's like dude you know it's like i just put them in the root but it's kind of weird but i don't want to just put them somewhere where the AI can access it forever either, because I feel like that might confuse it. Probably. You know, it gets some old spec that now it's diverged from, and now it's confused by that. So, like, I don't know. I feel like there needs to be some standard or whatever, something that we all agree to that's like, this is where these files go and how they should be formatted. Aaron Francis Yeah, and, like, each instance, it's like a temporary isolated working directory of context for each agent you know so one one can be working on this thing and another can be working On something different and there the twain shall meet they're you know they're not gonna overlap in their in their context yeah there's something there where there's something there We have not we have not on the best system for any of this yet. It is so janky still. Ian Landsman Very early still. Still early. ([Time 0:55:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a6786bc6-8723-4aa8-89a7-77d2ba9ec282)) - **Try The Low-Effort 'Fake Date'** - Try the 'fake date': a short, low-effort outing after kids' bedtime by asking the nanny to stay one hour late. - Keep it casual—no dressing up, short trip, bar or nearby restaurant, then return home. Transcript: Aaron Francis Okay. So the line is the fake date. Yes. Okay. Ian Landsman Intriguing. Aaron Francis Intriguing. It's a good line. The fake date. So everybody's always like, you know, parents, you got to go on a date. Although, you know, husband and wife got to go on a date once a week easily. And I'm just like, that sounds awesome. There's no chance I have the energy to do that. And neither does Jennifer. Yeah. And so like we have done maybe once a month, like, you get a babysitter, go out to dinner. Even that is very hard because it's like that has to happen on a Friday, a Saturday, not usually a Sunday. We don't really go out on Sunday nights because it's like I got work in the morning. So Friday or Saturday, which means we got to get a babysitter, which means it's the end of the work week and I come home, put the kids to bed and then the babysitter comes and we both got to Get dressed up and go out. Or it's the end of a Saturday, which is worse than the end of a work week. The end of a Saturday, you've just been punched in the face all day long and you're like, I would I would love to sit down on the couch next to you. That sounds awesome. So we have this problem where we've got four kids, four and under. It comes time for date night and we're both like, oh, dude, we're exhausted. Okay. So this whole go out once a week thing and ain't going to work. Here is the fake date. So we did this last week or maybe the week before. I don't remember. I think it was last week where on like one of the week, one of the weekday nights, you know, I come home, help with, you know, bath time, bedtime. Kids are in their in their beds by 715. Not asleep. They stay up and talk. Nobody cares. It's fine. Immediately after we walk out of putting the kids down i put down the big kids she puts down the little kids immediately after that uh we leave the house okay now the nanny who works you Know nine to five or whatever actually it's like uh she has a break in the middle of the day so she doesn't leave till seven typically so like we put the kids down she walks out. We come downstairs. She's gone for the day. Except on this day where we asked the nanny, can you stay one hour late? That's it. Just one hour. And we're going to leave the house wearing, you know, wearing our athleisure and our hats. We're going to leave the house. We're going to go up the street to this little restaurant me cocina we're gonna sit at the bar have some dinner maybe have a margarita and then we're gone we're out of there we're back home It's that's not a fake date that's a fake date that's a fake date nobody's dressed up there's no pressure there's not let's try a new restaurant there's no valet there's no like let me Take a shower and do my hair. Right. Same for me. I don't have to take a shower and do my hair. It's just, all right, go, let's go. What are you wearing? That's great. Let's get out the door. Let's go have some dinner. Let's sit at the bar if we have to. And then we'll go home. It's perfect. It's the fake date. It's not a real date. That doesn't count. I think that doesn't count. That doesn't count as a real date. That counts as going to dinner, but that's not a real date, but it's perfect. And exactly the amount of activation energy that we have left in us at that point. Ian Landsman I actually thought this was going to be about dates and date time. So I love that it's nothing to do with dates or calendars at all. Not computers. Talking about dating. Interpersonal dating. Yeah. I love this idea. Okay. I might steal this idea. I don't know if, I still don't know if I consider it a fake date, but it's like a low threshold real date. It's like you're out of the house, no kids, doesn't have to be kid friendly, although it sounds like the place probably is kid friendly maybe. It's not. I don't know. Okay, it's not. Oh, beautiful. So that's definitely a real date. If you go somewhere and you have dinner at a place kids can't go, that's real. Aaron Francis Well, kids can go, but it's not kid-friendly. Ian Landsman It's not, yeah, it's not like a kid joint. No, it's not a kid joint. Especially for little kids, it sounds like it's not. You don't want to use the high chair at this place. Like, if they have one there, it's going to be wild, yeah. I like this idea because I actually think we used to be better about the dates back when our kids were little, actually. Like, I don't know, but then it's almost like it's more tiring now that they're bigger. Jamie gets really worn down by the running them around places and driving, chauffeuring, and all the stuff that has to go on now. It's about the end of the day. Everybody's just kind of cooked. But this might be a low threshold way. Don't have to decide. Let's just pick a place we go every time or most times. Yeah, no getting prettied up. Just get out the door and we can just leave our kids. See, that's great. We still don't do it. Aaron Francis For us, the benefit is we don't have to find a babysitter. We just keep the same person one hour extra. Yeah, that's easy. We don't have to like coordinate. Nobody's going to back out on us. But you, you can just go. You can just leave. Ian Landsman One thing we have done more recently fairly often is the date lunch do you ever do the day lunch lunch we don't do the lunch so you have i don't know it sounds like maybe she leaves but like Uh if you have the nanny there at lunchtime like you leave at lunchtime you go to lunch at a restaurant whatever you still don't get like fancied up like a date date, but you know, you just Go and have a nice lunch. You sit there, you order a nice meal. That sounds nice. Midday, a little break, a little siesta in the middle of the day, kind of reset. That sounds nice too. Yeah, consider a date lunch. Maybe throw one of those in every couple of weeks. Aaron Francis Yeah, okay. ([Time 0:57:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e70efe06-9f6f-4f44-8767-e07eff38ec0b)) - **Hiring Help Changed Daily Life** - Aaron hired a cook through TaskRabbit years ago to grocery shop and prep meals, which saved time and improved diet. - He recommends hiring organizers and helpers as high-value purchases for busy families. Transcript: Ian Landsman Well, yeah, if you're rich, that's different. But I'm saying even for now, like, hey, random person who's good at cooking, but not, you know, a professional chef. It's intriguing. Aaron Francis Another another uh thing that i have hired for that you might not consider as hireable and i sent this one out in the newsletter on friday is an organizer you can just hire an organizer To come to your house fix your pantry fix your drawers fix your closet and they're like all right well i'm gonna go to target and container store i'm gonna get all this stuff and i'll come Back and i'll organize it and then I'll show you how it works. It's like, dude, that's easily the best couple hundred bucks we've ever spent. Ian Landsman I've been trying. It's now going to be a pitch. It's a pitch to one person, one listener of the show. Okay. Whose anniversary is on Sunday. That's right. Yeah. You see where I'm going with this. I see where you're going. Tread lightly. I've been trying to get her to do this forever because I'm like, she's super insanely organized our house is like you know everything's organized it's all tip top and I'm like but you Know she wants to work but doesn't necessarily want like job because she likes doing all the stuff she does with the kids all that stuff so always trying to balance those things I'm like This is perfect because like you could charge a lot of money for it yes you'd like to do it you can stop doing it or do more of it like kind of randomly as you have totally time right you can Aaron Francis Scale it up and down but jamie and highly highly valued yes we i told some friends about this and one of my friends got this for his wife for like it was either like a new present or just got Promoted or so there was some kind of occasion and he was like hey i i got you a full day with an organizer for our house and she like freaking loved it and so you come into this house and you're The hero you're getting paid and you're the hero like it's so it's great did he hire the same person you hired? Ian Landsman Yep. That's what I'm saying. I feel like there's such a viral component to this where people are going to be like, oh, we hired this person and they revolutionized our back room that's full of crap. And we just never wanted to go in there. And they just went in there and made all the hard decisions that we were too scared to make. And now it's perfect, you know? Aaron Francis And you're not emotionally connected to the junk. You get to walk in and say, throw this away, put this in these bins, and this goes upstairs. It's like, oh, yeah, I guess that's, yeah, sure. Okay, that sounds good, Jamie. Thank you for the help. Yeah. That's what I think. Ian Landsman And it's like, you could charge a lot for it. So it's not like, oh, just like, it's like a real amount of money. You're the hero. Yeah, infinitely flexible. Aaron Francis And like this, you can go and buy all the stuff on your credit card and bill it through so you get extra points get the points oh yeah buying or i mean i wonder when you could even like uh you Should probably have a fee on top of that probably and they might have and i didn't notice because i was so happy and it was still so like reasonable you consider all the stuff you know you're Spending two thousand dollars put new tires on your car and you don't notice a thing of difference you know and you spend a couple hundred bucks on an organizer and your life changes that's Ian Landsman Great yeah yeah that's everything's so expensive now that yeah exactly like tires on your car is like a big financial commitment now and ([Time 1:07:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cb53a196-7f89-4420-bf29-3c63baab6d3c))