Podcast Recommendations, Laundry Backpack?, Focus Mode, Flights, and Backlight (Week of 2/17 Roundup)
Missed our latest tips? Don’t worry. We’ve got all the tips for the week of February 17, 2025 right here for you!
Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and get all of our links at https://DailyTipsPodcast.com
The tips last week were:
A Tip For Saying “What a Time To Be Alive” (February 17, 2025)
We’re trying something new on today’s episode. We’ve got a tip for you to check out a podcast that Ned loves. This opens up a whole new world for us and for you — tell us about your podcast and maybe we can recommend it on the show as a tip!
Check out What a Time to Be Alive wherever you get your podcasts or at https://whatatimepod.com
A Tip For an Easier Time Carrying Laundry (February 18, 2025)
Today’s tip comes from Arielle’s college self, but it’s just as useful today as it was then!
A Tip For a Better Work Life Balance (w/ Catrin Skaperdas) (February 19, 2025)
If you’re an iPhone user, then our guest tipper of the month, Catrin Skaperdas, has a gamechanger tip for your work/life balance!
Check out Italian, For Sure and learn more about Catrin at https://italianforsure.com
A Tip For Cheaper Flight Options (February 20, 2025)
Today’s tip comes with the caveat that we simply read it on the internet, and have no idea if it works. But if it does?! It could mean a better price on your next flight.
A Tip For Better Video Capture (February 21, 2025)
Today’s tip is to help with your video calls or recording, so if you haven’t followed us @DailyTipsPod on the social media platform of your choice, today’s a great time to do so and see what Arielle’s talking about!
Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You is hosted by Arielle Nissenblatt and Ned Donovan.
Music is by Marcus Thorne Bagala
Find us everywhere at https://dailytipspodcast.com.
Transcript
Arielle: [00:00:00] Ned, let’s do some tips. How about it?
Ned: Uh, have you ever listened to What A Time To Be Alive, the podcast?
Arielle: No, I have not.
Ned: uh, it’s a great podcast. It’s counting down the five best things to happen in the world every week according to just three comedians who then tell you funny anecdotes about that thing.
And it’s really good. And anyway, they always kick off with one of them, usually Kat going, “let’s do numbers”. So your let’s do tips just reminded me of it.
Arielle: Love that. Yeah, I do love lists and numbers and things like that. And that’s the tip of the day. Sometimes it’s that easy.
Ned: Are we allowed to do that?
Arielle: We’re going to do it. We are now recommending podcasts sometimes.
Ned: I will kick the tip I was going to give for today, Monday the 17th of February, 2025 here on Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You to another day this week. That’s
Arielle: That’s improv, baby.
Ned: Check out What A Time To Be Alive, I guess. [00:01:00] Arielle, you’ve got a tip on here. I’m not entirely sure I know what it means. Please educate me. I have a guess. The tip is listed as “laundry backpack?”
Arielle: Yeah. What’s the guess?
Ned: My guess is use a backpack instead of like a duffel bag to go do your laundry.
Arielle: Not terrible. Not a terrible guess. Um, The thing is, the reason there’s a question mark at the end of this tip is because I fear I may have given it before or it’s just a tip that lives in my head because it’s the best thing I’ve ever done and that is that I, freshman year of college, had a laundry backpack and it was not a backpack that I repurposed for laundry doing, it was literally a backpack that I used to put laundry in and then when it’s time for laundry day, you strap it on and you go downstairs and you do your laundry. You can order them anywhere, Amazon, probably someplace local.
And it’s been great for me because it can be really hard to hold one of those unwieldy, I don’t know, [00:02:00] baskets and bring that down with you, especially if you don’t have laundry in a place that’s super convenient to you. So laundry backpack, question mark, exclamation point.
Ned: Exclamation point. Not even a question mark.
Arielle: Not anymore.
Ned: Laundry backpack!
Uh, I love that. Hey, it’s Tuesday, the 18th of February, 2025. This has been Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You. I’m Ned, that’s Arielle, and we will be back tomorrow with our guest tipper, Catrin Skaperdas.
Arielle: Can’t wait! It’s Wednesday, which means we have a guest tip on Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You. We’ve got our resident Italy expert, Catrin Skaperdas here, but we’re shifting away from Italy now. And we’re just going to general tips that may or may not help you. So Catrin, what do you have for us today?
Catrin Skaperdas: If you have an iPhone, my tip is to use the focus setting and not just do not disturb. As an American living in Italy and working with podcasts around the world, I was waking up to way too many notifications, um, even nice ones from friends and family and my mom telling me that she loves me. That’s always [00:03:00] great, but also stressful ones about work reminding me of all the things I had to do and it was just really stressful to wake up that way. So I learned how to use, uh, personal mode and now every weekday at 7 p.m my phone turns into this personal mode and it stays on this personal mode until the next morning at around 8 a.m. of course I can manually turn it off or turn it back on. On weekends, it’s on this personal mode the entire weekend. What does this mean?
My home screen turns to this beautiful, nice, calm pink color. All the notifications are gone. They’re muted except for one person. And that is my husband. He is allowed to break through and get in contact with me.
Arielle: How nice.
Catrin Skaperdas: My calendar widget is gone. Um, all of the apps on my homepage are only essential ones like, uh, my clock, but no email, none of that, that’s all gone.
And this has really allowed me to have a better work life balance. I’m much calmer at the start of the day, not waking up to a bunch of notifications that I wasn’t yet ready to receive. [00:04:00] Um, and I’m more present in my own time, not getting sucked into those unexpected notifications and pulled away from the present moment. So my tip is to check out the focus mode on iPhone.
Arielle: We love iPhone tips here on Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You. And always, it’s always great to discover new ways to not be on your phone. So Tippendales, once you listen to this episode, or once you watch this episode, log off, do something else on February 19th, 2025, it’s Wednesday. We’re back on Thursday with another tip that may or may not help you.
And I’ll be back with Ned and I’m Arielle. I realized I haven’t said my name for a long time, but you know who I am because it’s in the title. Ned, in this crazy mixed up world, sometimes we have to give advice on things that we’re not experts in, especially when you host a podcast called Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You. So today’s tip comes from Ned and it caveat is one that we have not tested out. But what is it, Ned?
Ned: Yeah, this is an internet tip. Uh, it’s one I’m fascinated to try out. I travel a lot. I end up having to take a lot of flights a year. I [00:05:00] book a lot of flights on points. We’ve talked about credit card points and things like that. But here’s the tip, uh, that I’ve never tried. If you have a VPN, try logging into a different country and then trying to buy the flight you’re looking for.
Often, uh, supposedly airlines will keep the prices lower for people in other countries who are traveling to the United States. So you can test to see if you get a cheaper flight by joining said countries’ VPN, and then going to the website and trying to buy the flight and seeing if the price goes down.
I’ve never tested this theory, but I am fascinated to know if it works. So if you do it, Tippendales, uh, let us know in the comments, even if you try it and find out that the price doesn’t go down, that would be really helpful to know as well. But the internet says it works and the internet has never lied. Ever.
Arielle: Well, also, the good news is if you do it and debunk this for us, we can change this tip to be an anti-tip, which we’re always looking for tips and anti-tips. And you could submit them by going to DailyTipsPodcast.com.
Ned: That is is our website. Nicely done. [00:06:00]
Arielle: Tippendales, look at me or listen to me if you are listening to this as a podcast only, but for those who are viewing, you can see that there’s no lights on above me or behind me.
And instead there’s just a bright light on my face. And that is because today’s tip is that. You should avoid backlight when you are recording video and or making content on the internet. It just makes for an overall better viewing experience. And I am no expert. I have not outfitted my space at all with fancy lighting.
I just have a really nice lamp up here that is made for video recording so that my space here is pretty bright. Same goes for Ned. You can see him on the other side of the screen. He’s got a pretty bright light in his face, but not behind him. And if it were behind him, it would be obscuring him.
Maybe it’s his shadows, but no shadows here on Daily Tips That May or May Not Help You. Ned chime in. I realize I’ve been speaking about you and speaking nonstop. Go ahead.
Ned: I’m just having [00:07:00] deja vu. Fun fact, Tippendales. We actually recorded this tip to give to you a couple weeks ago, and the editing software ate it, and the whole episode disappeared, and we had to re record something really last minute. So I’ve heard this tip before, you haven’t heard this tip before, but it’s deja vu for me.
Uh, yeah, it’s important to have lights on you. If you can, try to have one on you and a wash light. kind of to the side to kill off shadows on your face and other places. And you don’t want anything too bright behind you because it’ll take you away. I actually think right now my camera is overexposing me.
And, uh, I don’t think there’s anything I can do about that mid recording and it’s going to bother me.
Arielle: You know what? It’s good to expose yourself every once in a while.
Ned: no. I can’t. Oh, we’ll see you all next week. Bye.
Arielle: That got me.
Ned: It’s funny.
