Hello you, likely from the Cortex podcast notes for episode 50. I drew this many years ago, and what I do to stay organized and productive has changed a lot. I’m not interested in going over those details, but what I am interested in is giving you my list of Cortex episodes that helped me out the most in my own creative journey making videos and artwork.
A lot of these are from before Cortex Brand started to be a Thing :tm:. Around that point, the podcast stopped being about two people with creative jobs talking about doing those jobs, and started to become more about running a physical goods business. And don’t get me wrong, the Journal and Sidekick notebooks are pretty great.
But for now, my focus is on art and video and retro programming, and the discussions about how Myke and Grey approached their work on podcasts and videos, as well as some of the lessons learned along the way, matter a lot more to me. (Also, I skip basically any Apple content in the episodes, but if that’s your thing, then enjoy.)
Episodes you may like
Episode 8 - An Episode Out of Time
Zip over to 1:20:14 for some advice on becoming self-employed, specifically about trying lots of little projects first.
Episode 11 - 0% Entertaining
What’s the best time to start a new project? Right now.
Episode 17 - Dialing Down
Episode 18 - King in a Castle
Episode 27 - Danger Inches Away
The main part of this is knowing when to outsource work. If you know anything about the animation industry, you’ll know the roles and work products that Grey was looking to hire for or make.
Episode 33 - CorteK
Zip to the end where they talk about the right point to leave your job, and having a separation between your day job and your not-day job.
Episode 43 - Tornado Bigshot
Much in this episode about learning new things and creating things as well. “This would be nice to have done” is still a metric I apply to my own projects.
Episode 45 - Cortex Working Group
There’s a LOT in this one.
Episode 65 - Goals are Dumb
I have in my notes that this is the episode I should give to anyone else to start off their Cortex journey. So…start here?
Episode 66 - Triggers: Creating Behavior that Lasts
The book in the Cortex Book Club is surprisingly good. This episode drove a bunch of design decisions for their journal, as well.
Episode 67 - “Entrepreneurs”
Fast forward to the end, where the discussion about Grey’s parents’ side projects happens. If you’re running any sort of side gig, you can probably find some lessons to learn from this.
Episode 68 - A Noble Profession
A huge episode about my favorite video of Grey’s, his adaptation of Nick Bostrom’s The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff about the creation of that video that, if you do any sort of writing or video production yourself, is super helpful.
Episode 79 - 2019 Yearly Themes
Build the Guide to Yourself. You will die many times.
Episode 101 - Productivity 101
The early COVID-19 pandemic episode about getting started with productivity.
Episode 112 - Activation Energy
Your audience is their own entity. You can’t pick and choose other parts of people’s lives to swap with your own.
Episode 125 - Making “The Interstate’s Forgotten Code”
The companion podcast to Grey’s interstate video. Lots and lots about the process of video production.
Old stuff
I just finished listening to the latest episode of Cortex (episode 49) and decided to finally get this up and posted, since Myke was asking for stories from listeners about how the podcast helped them. I’m on my second listen through the series. The first time through, my own comics and art business was in shambles. I had no real organization or structure, and my only goal was “draw more comic pages”. After that first listen, I realized that, if I wanted to make this art and comics thing real, I had to do more, and do it smater. So I started making checklists, doing weekly and monthly reviews of both my business and personal worlds, fixed up my VPS so I can use it for real productivity (thanks to Sandstorm), and made so many other changes, most that I’ve highlighted in the fanart above. Of course I don’t do every little thing that was covered in Cortex…that would just be silly…but I did zag pretty hard on a few changes in my business and my life. I’m feeling pretty confident that I can cobble together a good working creative business by the end of this year. Thanks Myke and Grey!