Inger and Jason talk about work, but you know - not in a boring way. Practical, implementable productivity hacks to help you live a more balanced life. Find us at ontheregteam.com
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The podcast feed for Thesiswhisperer.com: tune in for audio projects produced by Professor Inger Mewburn from The Australian National University. Scroll down in the feed for past projects, including 'Academics Talk about The Chair' and 'Your brain on Writing'... Coming soon: 'Academic workers talk about Severance'
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Late stage capitalism wants us dead - what can we do about it?
1:59:56
1:59:56
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1:59:56Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason have been on summer holidays. Jason's family acquired a 10 year old ginger cat, while Inger has committed to #puppyproject and put a deposit on a dangerously adorable, small fluffy puppy. Prepare for a lot of pet talk this year! In the mailbag there's a good description of a workf…
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Our technology stacks - what products we use for different problems (Kitchen Table episodes vol 2)
1:48:44
1:48:44
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1:48:44Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason catch up at the kitchen table... in Casa Downs this time. The sound on this one is ok, considering we were in a huge open space downstairs! While Jack Downs washes Inger's new car, she catches Jason up on the first Shut up and Write symposium at Cambridge University. Jason tells I…
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Why that book about Bullshit Jobs is not, in fact, bullshit.
1:43:22
1:43:22
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1:43:22Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason is dying of a cold. Inger is surrounded by an ocean of redundancies at ANU. Anyone would think winter was coming, but no - it's the start of Spring (at least here in the Southern Hemisphere). After a bit of mutual whingeing on the State of The World, the team zip through the mail bag. We an…
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The Kitchen Table sessions (volume one)
1:33:19
1:33:19
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1:33:19Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! The OTR team have been travelling around the country, and around the world, delivering workshop goodness. Jason was temporarily at the Canberra Branch of OTR Team on the way back from a Sydney gig, so Inger set up a podcast studio from the kitchen table to hear about his glamorous post-Latrobe li…
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The Pain Sponge (or how to be a less crap academic manager)
1:54:48
1:54:48
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1:54:48Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason is living his best life, free of Latrobe - but Inger has immediately put him to work! On The Reg Team, their new consulting company, is struggling to life through multiple stages of paperwork. More to come... The team talk about various doings, including Doen's Jnr's laundry skills, Inger's…
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Is this book bullshit? Cal Newport discovers the labour movement
1:52:41
1:52:41
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1:52:41Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! The On The Reg team have been busy with All The Things. In Jason's case, making salami and in Inger's case, possibly signing up to one too many book projects. In the mailbag we marvel over dashboards for packing lists and cool new AI tools recommended by listeners. This week Inger read Cal Newpor…
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The mean girl in the internet of things
1:34:38
1:34:38
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1:34:38Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason has consciously uncoupled from his employer. Inger's getting a Volvo. There is clearly a lot to discuss in the first half an hour, including the survey that Inger finally has out (participate here!) Jason's had some time to wrangle the mailbag, so he's cleaned up Inger's mess and made a spr…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason is having some time off work to get his health back in order. Inger takes the opportunity to share the whole story of her burn out episode. Be warned, this one gets a bit heavy... We lighten it up in the middle by responding to Ben's question about travelling with a laundry list of suggesti…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason convene for the long awaited mailbag episode! (but first there's a bit of old-person whinging about health and other stuff). Inger explains how she and Narelle wrote a 36000 word book in a single weekend with Claude. The mail bag is full to overflowing! There's gold in there - whi…
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Obsidian! 1996 called and it wants its database back.
1:55:39
1:55:39
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1:55:39Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! It's been quite the month. Jason was pulled over in the Tinny (again), Inger had a mole taken off her foot. We skipped the mailbag in favour of a deep nerd chat about Obsidian starting at 32:51. The discussion gets waylaid part way through by a mutual existential freakout about Claude Opus. It's.…
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What we are doing with GenAI now... (it's pretty cool)
1:48:16
1:48:16
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1:48:16Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason had pneumonia when he recorded this very long pod with Inger. It's a testament to his brainy-ness (and Inger's sound engineering skills) that it turned out as well as it did, given he coughed and sweated his way through it. Warning: in the chat section at the top there's a lot of talk about…
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The sweet, sweet taste of academic freedom
1:52:12
1:52:12
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1:52:12Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason are at the end of the holidays. For Jason this meant going to a hash den in Thailand (it's a long story) and for Inger it meant organising all her rococo style porcelain figurines (yes, really). The mailbag (18:53) is full of interesting letters and provokes only one moment of fem…
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The unexpected Christmas Day episode!
1:06:11
1:06:11
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1:06:11Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason recorded an episode at 9pm at night on the 15th of November, before Inger took off for the UK. Inger was meant to edit and post this sometime in December, while travelling in the UK, but due to the vagaries of wifi and Christmas shopping, she ended up doing it at Heathrow airport …
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Hot academic gossip and the Circle of Niceness
1:47:19
1:47:19
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1:47:19Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! This one has been in the can for a while - but it was recorded only a week after the previous one about the Meat Grinder. You'd think that would make the banter session shorter, but ...not really. Jason has largely avoided having his face squished at Brazilian Jujitsu and Inger has been writing w…
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It's the final episode of Severance, and it's really fucking tense! For our final show this season, it's just us: Outie Anitra and Innie Inger, talking about episode 9. So much happened this episode! So many big reveals, and new plot lines opened. Helly has the most Dystopian Cinderella moment, Mark is Ricken's fanboy, Dylan is taking one for the w…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason are back, a bit later than anticipated because the audio the first time this episode was recorded was borked (that's a technical term). We promise the re-record is much better, and also, much longer. There's some unscripted banter at the start, which Inger had to cut as it went on…
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Worker solidarity is the theme of this episode, and in celebration, we invited Anitra's current boss, Geoff Stringer. Don't worry though - he's not going to rat us out to the higher ups. The team dissect episode: What's for Dinner. This is the episode where Inger had to text Anitra all the way through because it was so damn tense. Plans are made, d…
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You'll never look at mandated company fun the same way after this episode, especially when it becomes clear that inter-departmental politics can get its own body count. Prof Narelle Lemon, who is now at Edith Cowan University, joins us again to dissect episode seven of Severance. There's so much in this episode - the action is really heating up. Mi…
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Is productivity talk the new veganism?
1:51:41
1:51:41
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1:51:41Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! The Downs household has suffered a loss, while one member of the Mewburn household has discovered hither to unknown talents. Somehow the team still end up crapping about Obsidian a lot in the banter section. This is our second sabbatical mailbag episode (starting 20:44), which prompts a series of…
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Love is in the air in episode six of Severance, where inter-departmental politics is platonic. Sort of. Maybe. Bert and Irv grow closer, Mark and Helly take the work flirt to the next level and Devon has a mysterious encounter in the local park... Anitra's work colleague and future novel co-writer Chris joins us this week to dissect the many Kier m…
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Episode Five: The grim barbarity of optics and design
52:21
52:21
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52:21We saved this one for Anitra's co-worker and Director of Digital Experience, Joyce Seitzinger, because it is the infamous "bring-your-baby-goat-to-work" day episode. There is also a lot of Ricken in this ep, which gives us an excuse to talk about our favourite academic. Anitra compares Ricken to Yoda while Joyce points out that the comparison works…
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In this episode we are joined by Inger’s ANU colleague and fellow podcaster Will Grant and we are talking about how no one wants to go into the break room. Like, ever. We dissect Cobel’s (unasked for) freelancing — ‘wet work’ at Petey’s funeral — and whether or not she is getting any stock options. Will disturbingly points out the ways humans are n…
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In Episode Three of Severance, work friendships take a dark turn and we discuss it all with Anitra’s ex-and-current-coworker, Senior Learning Designer Miriam Renoyldson. Anitra mangles the word 'cishertrowhitemaletriarchy', which Miriam then neatly illustrates by pointing out that all the five founders of the University of Melbourne Business School…
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The one about Stephen Hawking's dining habits
1:42:32
1:42:32
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1:42:32Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! WE'RE BACK BABY! Inger sums up her whole Cambridge University experience in one anecdote about dinner. Jason has gone up a notch in Brazilian Ju Jitsu, which puts him in a position to comment on Mark Zuckerberg's training routine. In other words, it's a normal catch up, but twice as long! This ep…
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We focus on Episode Two of Severance and are joined once again by our friend and academic wellness expert Professor Narelle Lemon. We delve into the topic of corporate gaslighting and how the work of MDR is the best description ever of analyzing student experience survey results. Along the way we touch on the unique grief caused by corporate restru…
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Welcome to episode one of Academics talk about Severance': the Apple TV show that has a lot to say about Work. We hope this series helps you cope with fact that season two seems to be infinitely delayed, or maybe just stuck on the Severance Floor. For our first episode, we reunite the band from Academics Talk About the Chair (at least some of us) a…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason pop in for a brief, 2 minute-ish pod. The quickest episode in OTR pod history! It's not really an episode, just a reminder that we will be back next month. Thanks for all the amazing emails and speak pipes so far - we're enjoying them all and planning a big mailbag episode when we…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! On The Reg is officially on hiatus until Inger returns from her sabbatical in August. Listen to our quick explainer so you know what is happening until then. We're asking you send in all your questions and thoughts so we can put together a reader mailbag episode when we come back. The claim here …
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger's dusty in this episode, after an epic David Lodge style dinner party the night before, but her blood pressure is the best her doctor has seen in years. By the time you listen to this she'll be in Cambridge, punting or something. Jason didn't win the annual hot cross bun off, but did invite…
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How to get to inbox zero and other stories
1:50:17
1:50:17
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1:50:17Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason has been doing BJJ, the gym, eat sleep and repeat - with an occasional visit to country Victoria. Inger has been doing ALL the event organising and somehow managing to make a podcast with her sister about the Apple TV show Severance at the same time. You'll have to subscribe to the Thesiswh…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger's happy her Apple Watch has declared her 'fit' while Jason surprised his team with actually putting on an interesting strategy day. Inger finally bought a ticket to the UK for her sabbatical in Cambridge, so Jason is on notice that the pod will be his while she is away. He's got Plans. The …
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Coming soon! Academics talk about... Season two.
4:06
4:06
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4:06Coming soon to this channel, will be a new series of ‘academics talk about…: Season one, which you’ll find by scrolling down in this feed, was ‘Academics talk about The Chair’ - the excellent Netflix series about a small liberal arts college starring the wonderful Sandra Oh. Academics talk about the chair was a Covid lockdown project that kept me, …
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Strategic Thinking for Fun and Profit
1:51:32
1:51:32
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1:51:32Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger was late to the microphone but Jason is in the lead this time, so the show actually happened! Jason didn't win at the first annual 'Meat Off' competition, but it was a tough field. At work it's all Chat GPT all the time, or, as Inger's sister Anitra calls it 'ChattieG'. Inger's been on the …
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason have been on holidays, so there's a lot to catch up on. Jason was off the grid, finding boxes of romance novels in country opp shops while Inger borked all the authenticator apps on her phone and was locked out of ANU email. There's a brief foray into Power Ballads and the Austral…
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AI: a pearl clutching panic fest, or are the robots really coming for our jobs?
2:19:35
2:19:35
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2:19:35Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! You might have noticed this episode is rather... long. But it's your last episode before February, 2023. so we figure you can digest this omnibus episodes in parts! Look, there's a lot of Spider Talk in our catch up, so you might want to skip it if you're an arachnophobe. There's some very intere…
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Starting new things - what are the pain points?
1:51:12
1:51:12
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1:51:12Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger's had Covid Bingo, where she scored almost every symptom in the book. Meanwhile Jason has been been out there, having a life, which involves a story about the physics of gumboots. It makes sense in context, we promise. Inger snippety doodah-ded our catch up a bit, but it's still kind of lon…
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Twitter is a hot mess - do we have to start Tootin' on the Masty now?
2:15:49
2:15:49
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2:15:49Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Buckle up folks, this is a long one! It's been a big couple of weeks since Jason and Inger caught up. Inger went to Tassie and experienced crossing bass strait in gale force winds on the way back while Jason got rained on while camping and discovered 'Truckie Twitter' on the UHF band radio during…
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Where Jason and Inger go WAY too deep on Obsidian
1:47:12
1:47:12
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1:47:12Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason catch up to get their nerd on HARD in this episode - you have been warned. After the usual catch up - with only a little bit of old person health problems - Inger reads out some nice feedback (17:50). People loved our last episode on 'Building a second brain for writing' where we …
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Building a second brain (for writing)
1:47:48
1:47:48
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1:47:48Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! There's a lot of sweary words in this one, headphones in! Inger brought a sword to work and Jason is back on the mats at Brazillian Ju Jitsu (BJJ) so it's business as usual at On The Reg. Big shout out to Jason's wife Cath, who has nearly finished her course, which somehow leads to a long discuss…
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The 80/20 principle: is this book bullshit?
1:41:23
1:41:23
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1:41:23Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason have been busy, you know - the usual. Inger has been deep in three minute thesis land (ie: the annual ANU 'high school musical') and Jason paid $250 to learn he doesn't have to have surgery (yay!). There's only a little bit of 'old people complaining about their health' in the fir…
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Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason are both complaining about their health again. Jason has 'mild degeneration' of his shoulder joint and Inger has 'mild degeneration' of her eye lens. The duo agree that it means they are falling apart, but as Jason says ' slowly'. After the whinging about health, and a few things …
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Applying 'Extreme Ownership' to your career: are you an elbow patcher or an entrepreneur?
2:00:45
2:00:45
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2:00:45Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason catch up on Inger's 24th wedding anniversary (with Mr Thesis Whisperer's permission!). Inger went to Newcastle in the Tesla and had fun doing a workshop in a bathroom. It's been a weird couple of weeks: she also encountered giant animatronic wombats on the lawns of parliament hous…
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How Atomic Habits can make your writing life easier
1:40:15
1:40:15
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1:40:15Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason has Novid now, but he dragged himself to the mic. Inger’s been sick again and, honestly - the first 20 minutes or so of this podcast is just ‘old people complaining about their health’ (but we know some of you really like that stuff, so we left it in). Katherine Firth rings in (18m:17s) to …
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IS this book bullshit? Habit Three of the seven habits of highly effective people
1:53:01
1:53:01
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1:53:01Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Jason and Inger are behind on their podcasting schedule because Inger had Not-Covid/ Not-flu and too sick to record last Sunday. Meanwhile Jason has injured himself at Brazilian Ju Jitsu - again. Jason texts a picture of his inner thigh to Inger, live on air, to show her the damage. She is shocke…
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Revisiting the bullet journal and seven varieties of stupidity
1:45:31
1:45:31
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1:45:31Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Inger and Jason are back to their usual format now the election is done. This is the first weekend in 18 months that Inger doesn't have any political activism planned for the weekend - and she is happy about the election result because a well hung parliament is a good parliament in her book (tota…
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Hunky fire fighters and and existential crisis over bacon and eggs
58:39
58:39
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58:39Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Warning - there's a LOT of swearing in this one, so if there are sensitive little ears present, maybe save it till later... We recorded this on the 10th of April as Scott Morrison called the election. It's another short one as Inger was already deep in campaigning for the Greens, We did manage to…
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Someone needs to call the election because we are exhausterated
39:11
39:11
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39:11Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! We've been busy, but you know - in a good way. Inger and Jason are both exhausterated - both exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. Sort of like how you feel after a good workout. Jason has started his new job at Latrobe, where he has an office above the pub and #awesometeam. Meanwhile Inger…
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So good they can't ignore you... or can they?
1:43:45
1:43:45
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1:43:45Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Warning - there's a lot of swearing in this one, so maybe shield from sensitive little ears... Jason is between jobs, which means he's nearly killing his family on a hike and getting suits delivered. Oh - and reading Cal Newport's book 'So good they can't ignore you'. Meanwhile Inger is surprised…
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Is this book bullshit? The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
1:34:34
1:34:34
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1:34:34Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! This episode of On the Reg is slightly delayed because of children being stranded in Western Port Bay, internet upload speeds and an ill-advised attempt to record in the evening after work. In other words, it took time to get our shit together (and not just because we are both now over 50 and the…
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Obsessive passion and the Omicron variations
1:26:56
1:26:56
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1:26:56Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us! Content warning! In this episode we talk briefly about anxiety and addiction. If either of those two topics are not your thing today, click away friend! Jason and Inger are back from holidays - if you can call it that. December and January were marred by the Omicron Surge which, like all bad sci-…
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