Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash

Table of contents

1. Preface

2. Main Article

3. Stuff

Preface

In today’s newsletter, I’m going to try something different. 😱

I want to take you on a journey into my head and share how I think. 🧠

Since I keep my surgical decision-making confidential, I won’t use surgeries as an example. Instead, I will use my project to add audio to my newsletter. It included obstacles 🧗🏼‍♀️, sleep deprivation 😴 , time management ⏳, and thinking outside the box 📦.

All the good stuff inherent to my day-to-day life as a surgeon. Come to think of it, my thought process in these two is IDENTICAL.

For those who missed last week’s announcement, my newsletter now includes an audio version 🎤. Clicking the link will play an mp3 audio file on your device. This file is yours to keep, and once downloaded, you don’t need internet access or a subscription to play it. It should work on phones ☎️, computers 💻 , smart watches ⌚️, and tablets 📱.

If you look at the link, it seems simple. A few words you can click on, right?

But the behind-the-scenes was complex 🎭.

Let’s go back to how it all started.

Enjoy #31!

And welcome to my head. 💆‍♂️

Main Article

Last week I decided to introduce a new feature to my newsletter: an audio version 🔊.

It all started when I waited for my train on a dark Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, 05:30 am.

I already went through all my emails from last night, so I had time to read an e-book 📱. However, since I move around a lot on Wednesdays, listening to the book instead of reading it seemed a better option 🎧 . So I searched online for the audio version of the e-book but couldn't find any.

What a waste of time!

Instead of reading the book, I browsed the internet for a file that didn’t exist. 😡

Engaging in repetitive technical tasks that lead me nowhere is something I hate.

So I either stop doing them or find a better way.

This was not the first time I wanted to listen to a text file. So I already had an app on my phone that handled this situation.

🏂It’s called Speechify, a text-to-speech app that reads the text aloud in a natural voice. This way, I can listen to any text document I want. If you wonder how it sounds, wonder no more. The audio of this newsletter was generated using Speechify voiceover. More on that in the Stuff section

So I started to listen to my book, and then I realized:

This is EXACTLY what some of my readers are experiencing!

If my readers prefer to listen to my newsletter instead of reading it, they must go through the same process. But they can't if they don’t have a dedicated text-to-speech app as I do.

💡Do you know what? I should have an audio version for my newsletter!

🏃‍♀️ And it should happen this Friday!

Is it necessary to do it so quickly?

Of course not. This is my newsletter, and I can do whatever I want.

So why should I do it in two days?

👵 Let my mother respond, as she already answered this question 30 years ago:

“When Shay wants something to be done, he wants it done not by tomorrow, and not by today. He wants it done by yesterday.”

Mother is always right.

But seriously, I have two reasons:

🔵The first one is Parkinson’s law.

“Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.”
— Cyril Northcote Parkinson

Simply put, if I decide a task will take me two days to complete, it will take me two days. If I choose it will take me two weeks, it will take me two weeks.

So why waste two weeks?

🔵The second reason is the challenge.

I LOVE to challenge myself. This is just the way it is.

👨‍⚕️ Now, here’s the thing. I spend 10-12 hours in the hospital every day. Sometimes even 18-20 hours. So how can I squeeze in this project? This is where my time management system comes into action.

🕰️I call it third spacing of time.

I paraphrased this term from the medical world (third spacing of fluids).

Imagine your time divided into time that you devote to work/study (“first-spacing”), your leisure time (“second-spacing”), and the rest of the time in between (“third-spacing”).

What do you usually do “in-between”? You commute 🚂 , walk between meetings or classes 🚶, wait for the elevator, etc. Most of us don’t see this time as something we can use. But If you use every spare moment, they add up.

🏋️‍♀️So I used my commute time, my walking-around-the-hospital time, and the short breaks throughout the day.

Initially, I concentrated on finding the right tool. I always start with Google.

The goal: find the best tool.

🏅If I’m going for an audio version for my newsletter, I will do it in the most professional way possible. I don’t want to ask my readers to download dedicated software, and I don't want them to receive it as an attachment to their email. The tool should be easy to use, generate a natural voice, and not cost me too much 💰. Whoever wants it - will click the link.

⌨️ About the click: I want it to be accessible with a single click from any device and free to download and keep forever. Finally, I want to own the rights to this file as the sole creator.

📢I picked Speechify. They recently launched a voiceover service that allows creators to prepare audio files from something they wrote. I went over the specs, end-user agreement, and copyright terms. It passed my long list of demands.

So by the end of the workday, I signed up for it and got home at 17:30. From then to 22:30 it was family time (thirdborn was up until late), and at 22:30 I sat on my computer to create the audio file.

Wednesday, 22:30 (10:30 pm).

It’s nighttime, everyone’s asleep, and I’m tired. ✨

Thoughts cross my mind: “Why am I doing this?” “Why not go to bed and deal with it tomorrow?”

Well, I was curious to hear how it would turn out.

And I hoped I can complete it in 30 minutes.

It took me 3 and a half hours.

Why so long?

First, this tool is new, so it still has bugs.

Second, I wanted the audio to be the best I could generate.

🗣️I tried the different voices, speed, pitch, and pronunciations. I tried to use the “gap” feature, which introduces a silent pause between two words to make it sound more natural. These things take time.

Is it perfectionism?

No. I don’t need it to be perfect.

But I want to be proud.

Sometimes it takes me 30 seconds to create something I’m proud of. Sometimes six months. But I want to be proud of my craft.

Thursday, 02:00 am 🌝.

The audio newsletter is done. I should go to bed, right?

Nope.

I want to add a musical intro. A short piano bit at the beginning of the audio.

This task turned out to be complicated. I don't want to pay royalties every time I use it or deal with copyright issues.

So I looked and looked and eventually found a piano tune I liked.

So this is when I went to bed, right?

NO.

This is when the problems started.

I wanted the music intro to last 12 seconds, but the piano music I found was three minutes long 🎹. I tried editing it on Speechify’s website, but it made it sound weird. So I edited it on another site and imported it into Speechify’s website. I got more errors.

I even lost half the newsletter audio in the process 😳!

This is when the negative thoughts started to attack me.

“Why am I staying awake for this?”

“Does it matter if I won’t have a music intro this week?”.

The answer to both of these questions is: I don’t have more time to invest in this. I have a family, fellowship obligations, and another newsletter to write for next week.

I HAVE TO complete this project.

🤪For those of you who think that this is crazy, you’re probably right. But this is how I do things. Welcome to Shay’s head.

Thursday, 03:00 am 🌙.

I realized that I couldn’t fix the music issue on my own. I sent a message to Speechify’s tech support and finally went to bed.

Thursday morning.

The next day was a long day at work, lasting until 9:00 pm. As always, I used my “third-spaced” time to keep working on the audio. To do that, I carried my MacBook Pro M1 💻 with me everywhere I went, and kept working on it whenever I had a spare moment.

In the late morning hours (”late” in Shay’s terms), I got a response from Speechify. Their engineer reviewed my project file and concluded that the edited music file I uploaded was corrupted (computer term for “messed up”). You can still listen to it, but editing it into my newsletter required me to fix it with another tool.

I tried nine different tools.

Nothing.

Dear god, I’ve been working on this music intro for so long! 😪

Error message after error message.

Thursday, 21:00 (9:00 pm).

I am still in the same spot I was in last night.

I could have used that time to relax, listen to music, or read a book. Instead, I exhausted all the power I had.

🏃‍♀️ But giving up wasn’t an option.

I’m not saying that you should never give up. Sometimes it’s the right thing to do.

But as in surgery, giving up is an option only if you have a reasonable alternative and only if pursuing the same path will cause more harm than good.

So I stopped and reassessed: what can I do differently?

If I can’t edit the music file to be shorter, I should find a short music file that doesn’t require any editing.

It has to be royalty-free (so I won't have to pay someone every time I use it), and with no copyright issues.

Not an easy task.

💵 The internet is filled with websites trying to sell you music, but they want you to pay them a monthly fee.

Finally, I found a website with tons of free music, royalty-free, and with no copyright issues. It’s called Pixabay. I even got a license for every music piece I downloaded that has my name on it.

Perfect!

I searched and listened to about 100 music pieces until I found two that met my needs.

Great!

Why go through 100 music pieces?

Because whenever I listen to my own newsletter, I want to be proud.

I want to sit back, relax, and adore my craft.

It’s so worth it.

The same with my kids learning something new, a presentation I give, a manuscript I submit, or my research students giving a lecture. These are the moments I cherish for life.

Thursday, 23:30 (11:30 pm). 🥱

So all that is left is to insert the music bits into the newsletter audio, and I’m done!

I might even go to sleep before midnight!

“Error. Please try again later.”

Damn it! That diabolic message! 👿

Maybe I’ll try to fix them with the tool the Speechify team recommended?

I tried five tools.

Error.

Maybe I should just give up on the music this week?

I can’t stay awake every single night!

Friday, 01:30 am

I’m exhausted! If I give up I can be in bed in 5 minutes. 🛌

I started to picture the sweet moment of lying in bed and putting my head on the pillow.

I don't understand. The engineer told me the previous file was corrupt because I edited it outside their website. But I didn't edit the current files at all!

Wait a second.

Then it hit me. 🥊

The only file that worked was EDITED ON Speechify’s website.

If I’m right, if I edit the files on their website, it will make them compatible and prevent errors. That should solve everything!

But I don’t want to edit the files I found. They’re perfect the way they are.

This is when thinking outside the box kicked in. Same as in Surgery.

What if I just cut a milisecond? No one would notice a millisecond missing, but the editing process on Speechify’s website does something to the file.

Could a whole tech team of engineers and computer programmers miss that? Did I solve their bug by myself?

My gut feeling told me that I was right.

So I edited, and added the two music files to the newsletter file.

It worked.

About 10 hours of trying to solve this bug ended with a sweet victory.

YES!! 🎈 🎉

My audio file is ready.

Is it perfect? No.

It has a bunch of glitches and mistakes.

Am I proud of it? Oh yes.

Every time I listen to it, I’m proud.

But wait!

I haven’t written a word about this new feature in my newsletter. 😱

And what if someone doesn’t have any software to play it?

I have readers over 70 as well, and some of them don’t use phones and computers for playing mp3 files.

Exhausted, I started to write an introduction explaining the audio file, including instructions and a download link to an app that will work on any device (VLC player).

I fell asleep in front of the computer and woke up around 3:00 am.

Friday, 03:00 am.

I still haven't finished the passage, and I am exhausted. I slept 2.5 hours in 2 days, and the newsletter should publish in 4 hours.

I finally completed the introductory passage, and it was a mess. If you look at it, the sentences are vague, and the flow is all wrong. Instead of trying to correct it, I just explained that I was tired, and submitted it to be published.

I crashed on the bed and woke up 2 hours later, at 5:00 am, as usual.

Friday, 07:00 am

My newsletter is now published.

I scrolled to the link, clicked it once, and the audio file was immediately downloaded to my phone. It played perfectly. Exactly as I planned. I posted this new feature on LinkedIn, and concluded my 2-day journey.

Summary

It all started 50 hours earlier when I struggled to find an audio version of a book. It ended with me having 1-click audio for my own newsletter.

From now on, it should take me about 15 minutes to prepare the audio every week, and I expect it to run smoothly. It’s not perfect, but I love it.

That’s the end of your guided tour in my head.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Should I do more of these? If you made it this far and enjoyed it - please reply, “I made it.”

Otherwise, I just experimented with something new.

Stuff

📱Application I use - Speechify is the app I use to read texts aloud. For me, it is a game-changer. It allows me to listen to any text document I want, on any device. Perfect for people with reading disabilities or people who want to read but can’t find the time.

From reading webpages to PDFs and books. You can check it out and try it for yourself using their 3-day free trial. The link I provided throughout this newsletter will give you a discounted price if you decide to purchase it.

Epilogue

That’s it for this issue.

If you enjoyed this issue and haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so by clicking below.

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Have a great weekend!

Shay