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when we turned on the music and you started to dance with me.

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(Music)

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Conversations with Mr. and Mrs. Marciano, where we talk about life, creative work, and everything we are figuring out together.

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Today I like to talk about too much screen time,

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but it's my job,

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as I'm partially involved in software development,

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and I have a lot of management.

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I need to write scripts for the future films.

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I need to research a lot of data.

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And I need to work on post-process of what we should,

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at least partially the color grading, etc. etc.

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Yesterday I was thinking, I have three books not finished. You mean reading those books? I'm reading those books. I used to read like five books a day when I was young.

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And I got to the point when I cannot remember when I opened the book last time.

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Like, we both are trying to be offline, and definitely I don't want to talk about detox or provide any kind of advice to you or myself or anyone else. But maybe to talk about the differences

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or what works for you maybe, because I can learn from you. I realized that you spent lately way less time on a screen than myself or before.

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And you can say, "Okay, we have the choice." Do we?

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In a limited way, yes.

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As you mentioned, when the work is online, it's hard to replace at least some of the parts to not be online.

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For example, me, I don't have the calendar online anymore, like a virtual one on my phone. I have the paper calendar. You used to have.

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Yeah, the whole time you were together, I had one calendar in my phone. But you gave me the calendar last Christmas, and I used it since then. And I realized that actually sometimes it's even more convenient.

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Because my handwriting is faster than typing some stuff or delete something and add something else.

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It's easier to scratch for me and write it up. So I think it's important to be able to live in both worlds. Let's say online and offline. Because then if you can function in both, you have these options. And more options mean freedom in general for me.

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Yeah, that's interesting.

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When you were talking a record something from my childhood,

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I'm from a generation that really remember paper and ink and pen.

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And when I was 12, I got a typewriter from 1936. It was a Remington. It was a portable. And it was a machine I wrote all my poetry as a teenager. And for songs as a teenager back then, I loved the typewriter. And for me it was like, why the heck I should write anything by my hand anymore.

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And for me it was something like a spaceship. Or maybe the spaceship came up in the next two years for the first time I got to use a Mac.

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And found out that I don't need to do pictures in an analog way, but on a computer.

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When I was younger I was so happy to be on a screen.

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It was like magic for me. I fell in love.

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But the fact is that if I really want to write down some kind of thought,

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I still do prefer paper and pen.

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Like speaking of the script and other stuff, the screen is the only way for me. But I'm trying at least. And it's not the point. It's not the intentional like detox mechanics or whatever. It's natural for me to write down my thoughts on a paper. Not the poetry, not music. But the music actually goes maybe from this as...

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The first verses, first ideas go through the paper and pen. Yes. Like the most natural thing.

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I still would love to have the typewriter. And one day I need to buy exactly the same one. And I still have the dream that I will write my first finished book on the same typewriter.

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And speaking of the screen, but yes, for me it's full time job. Sometimes what I've learned is that when I'm finishing my work at midnight, I don't sleep afterwards at all. The night is being lost entirely. So I know that we gave us plenty of rules or recommendations like, "Okay, let's go sleep earlier," which is definitely a benefit. I need works. But if you have a lot of work, you need to finish up the same day. And the fact is that I remember that the screen is supposed to be helping us save some time.

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And my personal feeling is that I'm spending more and more time with my work. I do way more than my father could do, my grandpa could do. We were the most productive generations in history.

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That's fact.

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The price is widely known, I guess.

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But we're losing a lot. On the other hand, we're productive, but we're losing some kind of calm and quiet place. And that's where I'm heading to, is for me,

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I have the only quiet, sometimes quiet place outside when we walk. Because apart from the Americans, we walk practically daily.

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And for me, it's the only relax and screen-off time, as I'm starting in the morning and finishing in the night. But for me, it's really great to see you that you found. And it's not like I'm scrolling for six hours on Instagram. I used my Instagram and Facebook previously. It's more about to learn the new stuff, to learn about better lighting, to get some kind of information. It's a stream of information for me. And it is like repeating too much the same stuff. I'm scrolling just...

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I don't know, how much do you see me scrolling?

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An average daily, I would say maybe in total one hour, one and a half hour, maybe? I don't know. It's too much now.

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I have plenty of saved... Mostly I know that you are scrolling because you sent me something. Yeah.

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Yeah, I don't do scrolling. I'm happy for that. But it doesn't mean that...

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I also spend more time online even...

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I think that apart from work, when we want to relax, sometimes it's easier to just put on a video or a movie or something on screen that you can just watch and not talk about anything. Don't think about anything. If you are exhausted after work, it's the first thing you would do, or at least I would do, "Okay, let's see something on the screen." Right?

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But it's good to remember that all good memories, like little things during the day, I remember things that were off screen when we turned on the music and you started to dance with me. That was...

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Or when we exercised together and... Or when we cooked together, all those memories and moments are off screen for me.

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Again, I think that when we get to the first episode about the senses,

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offline you interact with more senses.

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It's not just watching and listening. It's also the touch. It's also... I don't know if you just smell. But you sense more things.

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It's a whole story. The moment is full somehow.

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But, yeah, so you use a lot of discipline to keep off, but you don't feel addicted. I don't feel addicted.

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But it is partially discipline for... Yeah, when we are in a bed,

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it would be easy to just grab my phone and scroll or watch something. Sometimes it's just that I have something on my laptop that I would like to finish reading or there's something interesting. But then I'm like, "I have a book on the nightstand I want to read. Let's keep off." The fact is that you read the book.

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And I don't know, sometimes I'm still searching for something. My issue is, maybe it's ADHD again. When there's a question, I need to find the answer first.

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You cannot save it for tomorrow. And again, as we talked previously, it's really easy now to have the answers because of AI and all technologies. So when you have a question, you know that you're just one click from the answer. Yes, right.

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So is it like, should I wait till morning? And another 10 clicks to just evaluate if the answer is correct or not. And

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sometimes you're like, "Okay, I just need to search the answer for this." And then I see you that you're reading and you're typing more and you're reading. And then you're getting deeper and deeper into that. And I'm like, "What did you learn?" Or, "What is the answer?"

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And another point is that

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I feel like sometimes you feel like you should not have a time off. You feel like even though it's 11 p.m. and I'm like, "Okay, let's stop the work. Let's leave it for tomorrow." You're like, "No, no, no. I need to do this. I need to work more. I have not... find a solution for this." Or, you know...

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I read an article recently about that we, due to socials and screens,

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we forgot to be bored.

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And I was thinking of myself and went further to my childhood.

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And I cannot recall that I was bored.

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Every time I had to do something, I was reading a lot. Yeah. Like, extremely much. That's one thing. The second one, when I was not reading, I was creating something. You could just give me a pen and paper. I was drawing. I was creating CDs and models for paper. I was writing my books and first scripts, like small, small plays for school.

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And I just couldn't sit and watch a fan or something.

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I never learned to be bored.

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So maybe for me it's easier to be addicted or just push to work more, see more, use the screen more.

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For me, I need way more discipline to stop by and say, "And now we have time to read."

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Yeah. Yeah.

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But you're way better at finding the balance.

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I'm trying to...

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Since for me, the computer and screen was not that special. Yes, when I was a kid, I loved to play video games and stuff.

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But it was not something that I would need to explore. I would still play outside with friends. I was playing the violin at a time, twice a week I would attend the music school. I think that I used to do things off screen.

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But you too, I don't know. Me too. I grew up with a computer. We never had a computer at home. I bought my very first computer when I was 20.

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The fact is that I can see a difference between living in America and in Europe.

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For me, the off screen is, "Let's take a short walk." If I'm not on the set, I walk, I work, I need a break, so I take a short break, 10 minutes walk outside, that's it. But sometimes if I want to really relax, here you really need to go like hours or an hour somewhere to hike. But in Europe, like at least where I live, you could go outside and walk.

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It's the difference, the distance, it's really different. If you live in a big city like Nashville or New York, it's pretty easy to go outside and walk in a park. But if you live in a countryside, it's not usual here. So you want to hike, okay, you can. That's great. Take a car and go somewhere. At that moment, you're starting to think, "Okay, but I have no so much time."

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And it's different living in America, spending way more time behind the wheel. I love driving, so that's how we start to really talk.

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There's a time off screen actually. So there's a time off screen. But when you arrive back home, you're tired sometimes. Like the driving is exhausting too. Traffic is not such bad in Barcelona.

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It's great to compare with Barcelona, but you cannot split the lane on a motorcycle. So it's different.

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A motorcycle for me was the easy solution to get anywhere pretty fast.

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But here is different in America. So off screen time, when is your job? When is your job and you need to spend the time on screen for living?

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You can read or see and watch YouTube videos about, "Okay, you should detox."

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I don't know what people that are actually advising detox are saying in particular, because for me it's the job.

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And the only discipline is don't work around midnight, because I know that if I finish at midnight, there's no night for me at all. I won't sleep. So I'm trying... It's not about the screen, it's about a work on a screen. The only way is for me, "Okay, try to at least..."

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Not later than at 10pm and go for a walk, even if it's night.

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Because it's the only way to get aligned with nature or normal life. Calm the mind and shift the focus. What's helping me, and I've learned that in Barcelona, are those meditations.

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Like 10 minutes and it's changing everything.

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But if you need to work, you need to work. That's such a simple thing. One thing that I remember about working on screen,

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lately there are the AI agents where you can talk. You don't need to write and read, you can talk to it and interact this way. And maybe even be outside and walk and talk. Is it something that you would consider doing? I don't want to.

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It's pretty weird, I'm giving out my voice, but I don't want to provide my voice for AI.

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Do you think it's harder for the AI to reach through the podcast? No. But yes, I get your point.

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I would like to keep some kind of distance.

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I use AI a lot, it's beneficial a lot.

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I have my own systems of agentic AI.

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Maybe I'm too old, but I do prefer still writing. I do prefer not talking.

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Because it's maybe too personal to me. And it's a tool.

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It's a tool, nothing more. And it's, in my opinion, it never should be more than a tool.

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Or we could.

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But we won't be. That's going to be fine. I don't know how we got to here.

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It was a thought, like one way to be off screen, at least somehow when you work on screen, to maybe use this tool to talk.

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But it's just about AI, but my work is not just AI. Yeah, I know. It's not just write code. Like save 30 minutes a day of your screen time. What I really admire is that sometimes you come to me and if there is no super high priority for the next day, you just come to say, "Hey, let's play cards."

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Or sit with a tea for a while. And in my case, sometimes I have no intentions to leave the screen or to finish the work. Or sometimes I feel like, "Yes, my wife sent me. Okay, I have two." Or something. I don't like the feeling. But maybe it's my mind that for me when I'm focused or something, I don't want to leave it so much. But I feel that you do the good thing for me at that moment. So when I really don't have the priority that some stuff can wait for tomorrow.

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And I'm aware of that some, but not consciously, like maybe just feel it. And you just come and say, "Okay, can we have a tea? Change the room and maybe play the cards."

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And that works for me like you helping me a lot. So maybe sometimes I'm not capable to help myself. It's not about the discipline. It's just about the focus and the bunch of stuff you need to really do.

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You have to. You have to. Finish the stuff. You have to prepare new stuff. You have to take care of IRS and all other stuff. So you can pay 10,000 people to do your job, but you still have some kind of job you need to deliver. And as I need to do, I need to try to finish a lot of things that are currently ongoing in parallel. That was my choice. So I'm not complaining. I just need to finish it. And I'm really looking forward when everything goes out, when we will roll it out.

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And it just brought me to the thought that as you started with

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that technologies and computers were supposed to save us time. But I think that the amount of work that is now considered as acceptable or required is just bigger somehow. It's consumed the same hours just on a computer that is more efficient. So it's still... We're way more productive. Yeah, but we cannot say after six hours. Okay, that was it. But that should... I remember it's supposed to be like that. We have computers. They will help us. Everything's going to be faster now with the AI. Mm hmm. Wow. You get an entirely new speed of delivery. Yeah. And you can be super, super efficient. Yeah. If you don't need to micromanage the AI as we talked last time.

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But yes, even if you are super micromanaging sometimes or whatever, it still means it's... You're way more efficient. You do way more stuff that it's even impossible to imagine 20 years ago. Yeah. I was thinking about before washing machines where I guess that someone dedicated full day for washing the clothes. And they were like, okay, so one day of washing clothes will be replaced by one washing machine. And then I'm going to just rest for the rest of the day. Or no, we're going to just have another job. Right?

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At least we are not bored.

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We are not bored.

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Maybe I learned today that if I'm not... if the screen is my job and I have no time to create the

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off screen time for myself, I have you to help me.

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Yeah. I never thought about it like that.

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So next time when you come, hey, let's grab a tea and sit for a while. I'll be way more grateful than I used to be. Thank you. Thank you too. Thank you for listening.

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And write down below in a comment section, how are you doing with the time off screen, the screen and off screen balance? Thank you for being here.

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Take care.