It is Labor Day as I record this.

I just knocked out a 25 mile bike ride,

and I thought it would be a cool idea

to answer some of your questions.

A few days ago, I asked for questions over on Twitter.

A lot of you guys responded,

and I'm going to crank through

a bunch of them in this video.

Now, if you want to get your questions answered

in future Q&A videos, because I think this may be

a fun thing to do in the future,

you can follow me on Twitter over at TomFrankly.

With that being said, let's get into the first question.

"Do you have any tips on creating a creative,

"yet productive work area?"

I thought this might be a good question to start out with,

because you might have noticed that the work station

in the background has changed a bit since

maybe two videos ago,

and I'm going to do an updated

work station video pretty soon.

I promise you guys,

but I did want to give you a few pointers

that I have discovered through my own

multiple, multiple work station iterations.

What I found works really well for me

is to create a balance of having access

to all the things I need to be creative

and to get work done,

but to also have everything that isn't related

to my current task at least out of sight,

and preferably out of hand or out of access.

What I mean by that, is I have a lot of tools

in this little spinning drawer thing over here.

I've got books behind me.

I've got all my camera gear within easy reach,

and I usually have my overhead shooting set-up

over in the other room

if my friends don't need to use the table,

but when I'm working, I also try to shut down

all my other tabs, all my other apps,

and I put everything away,

and I try to keep the desk as clear as possible,

and I also use a Pomodoro App called Tomighty,

which basically keeps me focused on the task at hand.

Remember, a balance between access

to your creative and productive tools,

but also focus and lack of distraction.

"How did you decide to start a YouTube channel?"

That's a bit of an interesting story actually,

because my channel has been on YouTube sine 2006,

and back when my brother and I created it,

we shared it, and it was just a place

for us to dump all of our dumb home videos

and ninja fights and all sorts of really dumb stuff

that I've since pulled off for good reason,

but the reason I started making educational videos

is because I was an educational blogger in college,

and then I moved onto being a podcaster,

and I realized in about 2014, the middle 2014 I think

that I was watching a lot of YouTube videos,

and I was having more fun watching videos

than I was reading blogs.

Naturally I thought to myself,

"Why don't I start making videos as well,"

and the rest is a two year history.

Now, if that's not enough detail for you,

I did make an entire YouTube story video

which explained my entire journey to becoming a YouTuber,

and you can find that by clicking the box right there,

or finding the link down below the Like button,

and that's about ten minutes and my full high school story

and everything that led up to this point.

"When and why did you decide to become super-productive?"

I like to tell myself

that I'm a naturally productive person,

and in truth, I do get antsy

if I haven't done much for awhile,

and if I haven't accomplished anything

for a span of a few days.

In fact, when I travel to places like San Diego,

recently, for example, I could only make it about four days

before I started working again.

Maybe it's a little bit in my DNA.

That being said, there is one catalyst from my past

that made me work even harder

than I probably would have worked by default,

and that was the 2008 stock market

and housing collapse crisis.

Alien invasion basically.

This was really traumatic for me, basically,

because I was scheduled to graduate in 2009,

and when this happened in 2008,

there were all these articles and news reports

and people, like talking heads on the TV, saying,

"College graduates of this year are completely screwed.

"They're not going to be able to find a job,"

and I was scared by that,

and I was even more scared,

because there were adults that I knew personally in my life

who got laid off from their jobs,

or whose entire companies went under,

and I was thinking to myself,

"Am I going to go into college and have to deal with that

four years from now?"

I don't want to make it sound like

fear was the only motivator,

because I do really have a lot of passion for what I do,

but when that happened,

there was this switch flipped in my brain.

I never want to have that happen to me.

I never want to be in a situation where

an economic downturn, or a company going over or under,

or basically, anybody just saying,

"Hey, we don't want you anymore."

I never wanted external events like that

to be able to totally throw me out on the street.

When I went into college, I had this mindset of,

"I'm going to get ahead,

"and I'm going to collect as many skills as I can.

"I'm going to have a really versatile skill set,

"so that way if one thing doesn't work,

"I can move right into something else

"and I'll always be employable."

Today, I don't even want to be employed by anybody else,

at least not for the foreseeable future,

but that was at least part of the motivation

for working really, really hard when I started college.

"How do you study efficiently when you're sleep deprived?"

Stop trying to work and get some sleep.

"Who do you main in Super Smash Brothers 4 and Overwatch?

Some of you guys might hate me for this,

but my main character in Super Smash Brother 4

has always been Diddy Kong,

and yes, I know he is the top tier character,

and you could just say I'm picking him

so I can win as many matches as possible,

but I really, truly did enjoy playing him.

That being said, ever since Bayonetta got released

as a DLC character, she is my new favorite,

because her movement, like the speed,

and the agility, and her skill set, it's just sick.

I love it.

I'm going to be practicing with her.

With Overwatch, I do actually make an attempt

to play every single character, other than a few

that I just don't like,

and I also spend a lot of time

in each of the four classes,

so I can be a very versatile player.

That being said, my mains right now

are Reaper, Mei, Junkrat, Zenyatta,

and sometimes Winston if I'm feeling like I want to go tank.

"When do you think is the right time

"to start applying for scholarships?"

Believe it or not, you can start applying for scholarships

as early as your freshman year in high school,

and in fact, there are probably

private organizations out there

that cater to even younger people.

If you are a future-minded person

who is even in sixth grade or something,

you could start,

but I would say that you want to start

getting serious about it when you are in eleventh grade.

That gives you two full years

to start making sure your resume is how you want it to be,

and let's you start thinking about clubs,

and it let's you apply for a decent number of scholarships.

Also, don't stop applying for scholarships

after you graduate from high school,

because the majority of the scholarships I won

came after I had started college.

I probably won five or six scholarships in college,

and I won one scholarship in high school,

so keep applying throughout the entirety

of your educational career.

"When you're feeling lazy, how do you personally

"muster that last bit of energy

"and focus on what is at hand?"

Okay, I'm going to share a few different tips here

that really help me, but please,

please listen to me on this first one,

because I have learned through personal experience

that no matter how tired I am,

no matter how much I think the day is wasted,

no matter how much I think this particular tip

is not going to help me,

it always helps, at least to some degree.

That tip is to take a walk and to do it outside,

because the sunlight exposure and the little bit of exercise

is really going to rejuvenate you

and sunlight actually does help us

to suppress the sleep urge,

which contributes to that afternoon slump

and a lot of those tired feelings you get

when you're studying.

Go for a walk.

Do it for just 15 minutes, 10 minutes even,

make it outside, and then when you come back

choose one task, clear off your work space,

and do a Pomodoro Session.

This is basically a 25 minute work session

where you focus only on one task.

You have an external timer, either an egg timer,

or your phone, of the app that I like to use,

which is for both Mac and Windows and is free.

It's called Tomighty,

and basically, this external timer

is going to help you to one, put the task in perspective.

It's just 25 minutes of work.

You don't have to worry about finishing it,

and number two, put everything else out of your mind.

"Tell us everything.

"All of the knowledge."

Dude, it's like you don't even know

that all of the knowledge in the universe

becomes unlocked once you purchase 42 Lamborghinis.

I thought everyone knew that.

"What is your favorite YouTube channel?

"Besides yours of course."

All right, number one,

my channel is not my favorite channel,

though I am quite proud of animations

like the one you're about to see in a second,

and number two, I don't have a favorite channel,

because my interests really do change

on a pretty quick basis,

so instead of giving you a favorite one,

which will change two seconds from now,

I'm going to give you a bunch of them,

and definitely go check these channels out.

CrashCourse, Vsauce3, LinusTechTips, Satchell Drakes

Caddicarus, Jon Tron, I Like to Make Stuff,

Gary Vaynerchuk, the NerdWriter, Anna Akana,

h3h3, MowtenDoo, Tom Scott, CGP Grey,

Geography Now, Casey Neistat, Comics Explained,

Regular Car Reviews, BrainCraft, Caleb Wojcik,

Alpha M., The School of Life, Colin Furze (whoops mispronounced it),

Yungtown, SeaNanners, Smarter Every Day,

Did You Know Gaming, and Smooth McGroove.

"How can you develop discipline instead of motivation?"

I think the main contributing factor

for going from fleeting motivation

over to regular and reliable discipline

is the habitualization of your work.

Basically, showing up every single day,

sitting down and getting it done,

without needing inspiration, and doing it on a schedule.