ProductivityCast

In this episode, we continue our discussion of the AI-Powered Professional by returning to the AI Researcher persona. Picking up from the prior conversation (episode 149) on information overload and information toxicity, Ray, Augusto, and Francis explore how AI can help professionals move from traditional search toward more collaborative research, synthesis, comparison, and knowledge discovery. They discuss deep research tools, source verification, using multiple AI systems to challenge each other, Google NotebookLM as a grounded research workspace, AI-assisted book reading and writing, proactive information discovery, and the importance of treating AI research outputs as drafts or hypotheses that still require human judgment. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/150 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 2) from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 2) Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 2) Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. ResearchGate Google Search Google Scholar Academia.edu ChatGPT Claude Google Gemini DeepSeek Google NotebookLM Google Alerts Feedly Feedly Pro Zapier Evernote Evernote AI Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist | 00:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a more fulfilling, productive life? Then you've come to the right place. Welcome to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. Here are your hosts, Ray Sidney Smith and Augusto Pinault with Frances Wade and Art Gelwix. Ray Sidney Smith | 00:19 Welcome back, everybody, to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud | 00:25 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade | 00:26 And I'm Francis Wade. Ray Sidney Smith | 00:28 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this continuation of our discussion on the AI-powered professional. In our last conversation, we were really defining the problem around information overload and many of the issues that the modern professional or knowledge worker really deals with as it relates to all of the information. In our lives today. And what we wanted to do in this episode is continue that conversation. And talk through really how to take the sometimes overwhelming amount of information, but the treasure trove of information that we have every day coming into our world and really utilizing it in productive ways. I think that today, Thanks to AI, we no longer need to think about the concept of a search engine. We need to really think about this from the perspective of it being a collaborative engine and there is this kind of reality that it could be considered an answer engine, a research engine, all of these kinds of ways in which we can coin it. There are lots of different use cases today. We're particularly focusing in on the research And these more sophisticated AI tools can now perform tasks previously reserved for a research assistant or for you to take intensive manual effort to produce. And so let's talk through some of the ways in which you're utilizing AI for research purposes. And let's think through perhaps some of the pitfalls that people fall into as they're trying to use AI for research. Francis Wade | 02:12 I've been in a whole different world as a result of deep research in the last year. I remember before It was available. I used to do... Research via looking for documents like ResearchGate, I can search for a PDF using Google. I could search Google Scholar. You could go to academia.edu and What it would give back to me, these different sources, is Stuff that was close to what I was looking for, but not exactly what I was looking for. Matter of fact, it was often not close at all because I would have a specific question. And I'm trying to get a specific question answered. But I have to find somebody who actually answered that question in a document. Or maybe a book or in something. And usually I'd be looking for an academic source. And usually I wouldn't find anything.  So that's just, The game I would play was would be hunt and never find and that was 50%, 75% because I'd be looking for Esoteric stuff. Today, however, I have at my fingertips multiple A few different subscriptions to deep research and chat GPT does it for free up to a particular limit. And I can ask a very specific question. And to my shock, I can receive a plausible reply to my question Right. Pulls from credible sources for the most part. In the beginning, it When it first came out, they would pull from hallucinated sources, which was pain in the neck. But today... They've gotten to the point where They give credible... Specific answers to my very specific questions.  So my research has just multiplied by, it's hard to even compare what it was like No, Versal, what it was like before. Because I do so much of it now. It's really been a game changer.  So that's at the high level. The game is completely different for me right now. See you next year. Ray Sidney Smith | 04:15 And it will be different in a year from now even. More so. As the technology gets better. Francis Wade | 04:21 - I've told people that different parts of my work. Have undergone more change in the last year than in the last decade. 30 years before that, 20 years? And this is certainly one era that is completely different. Augusto Pinaud | 04:37 Sometimes digging and research in a topic and sometimes more than the papers, find the books. What is the book that, okay, I read this book. Now, What other... Go. Into this line and with books go on the opposite line.  Sometimes it's not only The papers, it's the one to give a more... Book rented? What books? Hey, I'm dealing into... And sometimes once I want to deal or work or research into this particular idea, Bye. Where can I find those books? Because you think, okay, I want to get, how do you get granular and now fast? But then now how do you find those book, those authors, who are the authors who I'm researching this, the same areas that I'm research, it doesn't matter if they're agreeing or disagreeing with you, but how you find them, that was a labor Of love. A lot of times, to find those books and to find those authors.  And then after that, then you needed to start Figure out which one was good, which one was bad. That job? One from weeks to hours. And you in hours can get a list that is better than what I was able to produce in months. This gets very interesting, the issue. Who's this? The expectations that now the people have. Because for what you're describing, similar to mine, it's not only get the information, now that just you were able to get to the sources pass through. But the other part of the process is still, you need to still read it, still download them, still digest them, still trying to connect those dots. That is still takes the same amount of time, but then First part, it's fantastic. The issue I see with this is I find a lot of people who think that find the sources is enough. And find the sources is just a step one of X number of steps to be able to get to the next conclusion. Ray Sidney Smith | 06:47 So I think about AI in a research context, when I say this is an AI researcher, Bye. That AI can still hallucinate. I know Francis is a little more, maybe more trusting than I am when it comes to these tools. But I've found ways to revalidate information even after it has pulled research And again, I Preface this always with everything I do with AI, I presume to be a first draft when it puts it out. And so I'm reviewing everything as though an intern handed it to me and it's an intern's work product.  So I need to make sure that it is correct. So we were all on the same page there. I think there are certain areas where AI is really good right now and where it will get better. I think that the deep research functions within all of the major tools that AI chat bots are pretty good right now.  So you have this deep research function in Claude Gemini, and ChatGPT. Personally, I've found that Gemini's does the best. I'm not sure why, but I just feel like it gets the most right when you prompt it correctly. And I don't like the verbosity around the deep research that Google puts out, but it's fine. It gets the data right, which is what I care about most. And that's one piece, which is you have this complex question and you need it to go out there and scour lots of sources and come back to you with an answer. And you don't know what the sources are. And I think in that sense, it can go ahead and find sources and then go ahead and do that analysis and synthesis that is really complex and therefore laborious and make it simpler.  Though Concern I always have with folks is that We're a little too trusting. So I'm going to, again, underscore the point that even after it does this research,...

In this episode, we continue our series on the AI-Powered Professional by introducing the AI Researcher persona. Ray, Augusto, and Francis discuss how AI is reshaping research, learning, and knowledge work by moving us beyond simple retrieval toward active knowledge synthesis. Along the way, they explore the problems of information overload, low-quality information, over-trusting AI-generated answers, news and social media overwhelm, and what Ray calls “information toxicity.” The ProductivityCast team also discusses practical ways to curate inbound information, reduce cognitive friction, use AI-generated briefs and drafts responsibly, and stay in control of your attention while working with smarter tools. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/149 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 1) from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 1) Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | The AI Researcher: From Information Overload to Active Knowledge Synthesis (Part 1) Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. ResearchGate Academia.edu ChatGPT Google Gemini Google Workspace Microsoft Copilot Feedly Evernote Social Fixer The New York Times The Onion Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist | 00:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a more fulfilling, productive life? Then you've come to the right place. Welcome to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. Here are your hosts, Ray Sidney Smith and Augusto Pinault with Francis Wade and Art Gelwick. Ray Sidney Smith | 00:18 Welcome back, everybody, to Productivity Cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Francis Wade | 00:24 And I'm Francis Wade. Ray Sidney Smith | 00:25 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. This week, we are going to be continuing our dive into the world of artificial intelligence, which I like to call smart software, with another episode in our series of the AI-powered professionals.  So today we're going to be focusing on research and what I'm coining here is the AI researcher persona and how these new tools are really transforming the process of learning and researching and knowledge work for us. We're moving to a place where we can understand retrieval as basically active knowledge synthesis. And we're going to be talking through some of the challenges that folks face with regard to information overload and otherwise.  So let's first talk through the problems with research today. What do you find are the good or the positives around research today? And what are some of the problems that we experience? One of them we're going to talk about, which is information overload. But there are others that are out there.  And then we can give that context. Color with regard to how we can use AI as a researcher to help us with that process or those problems.  So what do you feel like are the primary problems today with research. Francis Wade | 01:47 I think in the past, very much a hit or miss kind of proposition. Where if you could find someone who had done the research... Answer the research questions that you have. You were extremely lucky. And the game was, how can I increase odds of success how can I be luckier So that meant that dwelling in places like Research Gate. Maybe at academia.edu.  Yeah. But ResearchGate was my goal, though. And For certain topics, especially the two that I specialize in, which are task management and strategic. Planning. I've pretty much got to the bottom of everything that I could find easily. It took a few years for each one, but I've sort of gotten to what I think is like the bottom. Where I read what they have to say. And I've noticed sort of where all the faults are why in neither field the research academics do is very useful in the real world?  You know, it's very esoteric and it's meaningful. Academics tend to write for each other. And for journals. And for advancement in their field. They don't like to go into areas that are cross bouldery that I like to mix and match different fields. They don't go interdisciplinary. It makes a real mess of the nice, clean, lines that they like to follow. And I don't like to go into areas that, you know, If you become an expert in an area where there's no conferences and no journals, no chairs and no departments anywhere in the world. If you go into an area like that, you know, you're sort of dooming yourself to obsolescence.  So with those problems, It means that for the two areas that I'm interested in, there's a, Not a lot of useful research. There is to find.  So finding something useful used to be a lucky proposition. And I would have to basically find someone who has enough experience in both areas to be able to do research in both areas so that they would have the questions. And finding that was like a needle in a haystack.  So it's always been difficult in the two areas that I Try to find research written on. It's always been an uphill struggle. Augusto Pinaud | 04:02 I think it's important to make an distinction between professional researching practices and the non-professional one. I agree in the professional researching the impact of AI has been incredible because now these people who Say. Knows better when they're trying to search and look into information. Cinta was not available. When you go to the noun informal research. It's interesting because I feel that we used to have Three levels of research, bad research, middle ground research, and good research. And now with the AI, we have gone and disappeared that middle because people think that they can find the answer that they believe is legit. Doesn't matter if it's true or it's fake information or what it is. They can go bump into any of these agents. Get an answer. And because of that, people stopped digging. Into is this really legit? But when you think in the world of productivity, When the first book of David Allen came out, we were talking about 2001, It was hard to find the information. It was hard to find the principles behind unless you have access to them. 25 years later, you can find A ton of information. The question now is, How did you know that information is legit or not? And that's why I think that middle ground has disappeared. You have the people who goes and do a prompt, and get an answer and assume Dad. The answer they're getting is the truth. And because of that, that's the stop of the research.  So what was part of the issues 20 years ago is, okay, I want to research this topic and now I have 20 books. No, they just go, ask two questions, get what they think is a truth answer, and take that That's a fact. Then you have the other level that is the people who are going to get that and try to figure it out. Is this a fact? They're going to try to dig out or it's not a fact. And what is the fact? What is interesting for me with AI is That middle ground, that guy who will have get that fact and tried to see why. I don't look legit or not legit. That disappeared. What I have seen is people getting the output that AI is giving them I'm taking them. It's a truth. It's an absolute truth that is even more scarier. And I have seen this In academic settings, I have seen this in professional settings, okay, where people go What is the obsolescence of this? Okay. Can you repeat that? I didn't get an answer.  So when that is, they never really dig. Hold on, did you want to do the vendor? Did you, did the chat GPT was floating you know, That, I mean, how been... Wonderfully. Last week. My son is a baseball fan, so he was watching the baseball and he wanted to see the score, so he asked, Madame Eyre. And But I may say, the game has not started. It was time for the game to start. That's true. The radio. Fuck. And you know, like, You've got me in the life. Damn, man. Give us whatever is for them. I've nothing to do. With the reality. And it was a great moment of, teach an opportunity because of that. If we will have the initial answer, what most people do, This other game has no authority. Okay, and you move on. But the reality is minimal. The game had started. We were in the middle of the game and there was a different score than what she was giving us on the third answer. And that is what Most people don't notice when they go into this research. AI will give you an answer. The question is if that answer is actually the answer or. Ray Sidney Smith | 08:11 Not. When it really matters, right? Learning that the game is not trivial, maybe not to your son, but to the rest of the world, you know, when it's... I will. Augusto Pinaud | 08:19 Make sure to tell him that right thing, that when the game is on, it's not trivial. You are going down in that scale of people he likes. You're going down, my friend. Ray Sidney Smith | 08:27 The unfortunate part is if you say, hey, I just swallowed this thing mineral....

In this week’s episode, the ProductivityCast team continues their conversation about sequencing for greater productivity, this time about ordering projects to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/136 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Projects Sequencing: Ordering Your Projects to Enhance Productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Projects Sequencing Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Projects Sequencing Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Microsoft ExcelNotionCodaLifelong learningLifelong learning institutes - Wikipedia  Tom’s Planner Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this action packed episode of productivity cast, I'm just going to call it this is going to be a lot of fun. We're going to talk today about really the other side of sequencing. We talked about task sequencing in the last episode. And in this episode in this cast, I wanted us to talk about projects sequencing, why would we benefit from it? what are maybe some of the pros and cons? What are some of the examples of ways in which we use sequencing in our own productivity systems, and potentially some pitfalls, some things that we see folks around us experiencing in terms of troubles and challenges, and then we'll end with maybe just some Quickstart tips, some tips and tricks for you to be able to get started with projects sequencing, if you're not already doing it? Let's start off with why what is the reason for someone to be able to and want to sequence projects, which are different than tasks? Can you give a compare and contrast there for folks, and then we'll go from there, Francis Wade 1:32I think we've all been in that situation where we messed up a project so bad, because we thought it would be a short thing, or it would be a minor, you know, minor commitment, only to realize as opposed to two hours, it took 20. And as a result in crossed into an gotten away of other projects. And in retrospect, we look back and said to ourselves, boy, if I just sequenced it differently, if I had just focused on the one, and then decided to do the other at some point in the future. If I just applied a little bit of insight and maybe a little bit conservative, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache. So I think those who are interested in Project sequencing are those who take on larger projects, those who get asked to join lots of projects. But above all, there are people who've been burned by making mistakes by not sequencing projects correctly. I think that I'm sure that's what brings most of us that are called today. Art Gelwicks 2:37It's one of the reasons why doing retrospectives uncompleted projects is so important, because it's the only way to learn what the sequences should have been that you didn't pick up in the first place. I mean, we assume we can figure those out, because we've done this, but because we've done this provides us the historical data and the insight. That's what those retrospectives provides. So when we start talking about Project sequencing and task sequencing within a project scope, if you're going to do that type of project, again, you need those learnings you need that insight? And if you fail to do it, what's the old saying you're doomed to repeat history? Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:16Yeah, what I hear is that there is a finite set of resources in our life, whether that be time and energy and other things. And while we should have an abundance mindset, we should understand that focus is necessary, and that we have to allocate resources. Well, in order to be able to get projects successfully completed. And by sequencing projects, were in essence, postponing certain things or conditioning, certain things, so that the more important things, or at least the more important things right now get done well. And from my perspective, it's a standard of excellence in your personal productivity more than anything that forces projects to be sequenced. And the other side is that sometimes you just don't have the resources to be able to do that project right now, that could be a time resource, that could be a financial resource that can be a labor resource, you need someone in order for something to happen. And so there becomes a conditioning of when these projects get put on to your current active status than not. So let's talk a little bit about some of the examples in your own world where you benefit from being able to sequence projects in a way that really it helps you. I Francis Wade 4:38think it helps me to say no, frankly, that's the biggest benefit for me, is that when someone comes along with red shiny object, the thing I've been waiting for all this time, and you know, they paint a picture of how great it will be to have me on the project. And it's not something I had originally planned to do. But you know in that moment Mental of optimism you scan. If you only do a mental scan, you're just back into trouble. But if you do a mental scan of your commitment, I use age, or I should be able to do that. And, and that comes because you haven't done proper sequencing of your own projects ahead of time. So when the request comes, all you're left with is a vague sense of Yeah, I think I'm I should be okay. But you don't really have anything that you're looking at, that's written down, you don't have anything on people, you have actually haven't invested the time to do real sequencing, which you must do. If you're someone who manages lots of projects and lots of tasks, you must have a an accounting, a written accounting of your long term commitments, otherwise, you become that guy. And we've all worked with that guy who says yes to everything. And that guy is a disaster. And if you find out that he says yes to everything halfway through your project, that he's working with you on your big trouble. But that guy, we don't want to become that guy. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:09Who do you give projects to the busiest person in the meeting, right? The reality is, is that many times, when you are the productive person in the room, people start to pile on, because they recognize that you're capable of being efficient and effective with your time. And that becomes a problem for you. So So understand, many of us here have been there, we understand that perspective. And saying no, is a way of potentially probably project sequencing, in the sense that you are, at the very least, pushing back against and setting boundaries against these kinds of, well, since Susan always gets everything done. Let's put more on Susan's plate. That's, you know, both inappropriate, and you know, unhelpful to Susan. But it's something that we have to be mindful of. And so you need to be able to set these boundaries to start, and then project sequencing becomes a little bit more useful. I'll give one particular example where projects sequencing for me is just kicked in. So at any given time, I am doing quite a lot of learning. And I call them journeys. I call them quests, you can call them learning paths, whatever it might be. But in any given year, I decide what it is that I want to learn. And so this year, I have been on a a pretty thoughtful path toward upping my programming and coding skills. And so I've been learning these various coding platforms in order to be able to figure out where I want to go. So my learning journey is sequenced. So that I am taking a particular course at any given time, and I am not taking other courses at that time, because I want to be able to make sure that one happens, then the next happens, then the next happens, so that I'm building upon that knowledge. And so we can see this in academic or educational environments very easily, right, if I don't have this information, then going to this next step is going to be not as useful to me than the next step, which is not going to be as useful to me. So as we advance in our skills, we can sequence the learning associated with those pieces, those stepping stones. And so that's how I develop my learning journeys. I sequence the projects, in this case, the courses or the deliverables in that. So for example, I started out with, I wanted to learn programming fundamentals. And so just not not getting too far into the into the specifics of any one language. So I started out with fundamentals this year, I've been learning all of the various different types of of programming models. And that's been incredibly useful to me. Because no matter what language I learned in the fut

This week, the ProductivityCast team tackles the topic of ordering tasks conditionally and task sequencing for momentum. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/135 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Task Sequencing: How to Condition and Order Tasks for Greater Momentum, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Task Sequencing Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Task Sequencing Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. OmniFocusAny.doMicrosoft ProjectMicrosoft TeamsNozbeTodoistTemporal Structures in Individual Time Management - Wu DezhiRemember the MilkIFTTTZapierUnscheduleGTD Weekly ReviewJoin Ray’s Weekly Review Accountability Party on Fridays at 10:30 AM ET!KrispNotionPaprika (grocery shopping app) Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Hello, and welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we are going to be talking about something that I find to be fascinating, which is the order of operations, so to speak of tasks. And tasks. sequencing is interesting to me, because I think that when we deal with so many complexities in life, there are ways in which we can really order the tasks that we're doing, not just for making them more effective, but also making them more efficient. And I think that it's important for us to think through how we put things one in front of the other. And so I thought today, we would have a conversation around the idea of why would you condition tasks? Why would you sequence tasks, in essence, and then we could talk about maybe some of the examples and or pitfalls that we experience when we do task sequencing. And then we'll close out with maybe some tips and tricks for you all to utilize when you want to jump start the process of task sequencing. So let's get started with Why do you task sequence? Why would you want to do task sequencing, Francis Wade 1:32if we don't think about task sequencing, we end up making mistakes, small mistakes, big mistakes, we end up arriving at places late because we didn't start early enough, we end up with late deliverables, we end up being stressed, there's a host of problems that we can create if we don't do task sequencing correctly. And they all end up causing us emotional stress, the people around us come to realize that they can't count on us. It's loss of reputation, there's just a whole host of problems that gets created when we don't really pay attention. And we just do what we think we feel like doing in the moment. recipe for disaster. Art Gelwicks 2:19Task sequencing is one of those things that you don't realize it's important until you don't do it. Because you go to plug into working on a particular task. And you realize that three other tasks before that had to be done first, for this one to be able to be executed. So being able to take the time to say okay, what, what's the predecessor what has to occur to prepare this task to be able to be successfully completed? And then what are the next tasks that get triggered from this. And often we, we lose sight of that. And partially because it's not a natural habit to think about the before and the afters. But the other thing is that most task management tools don't support this kind of thinking. They don't have any structure built into them. To have that transitional piece from task to task, you wind up doing it artificially through the organizational structure. So the outlines and nesting and things like that, Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:17I think that OmniFocus is really the only one that I know of that has a true conditional task feature built into it. Are there any others that you know of that that really, truly will basically only show a task after you complete one? Art Gelwicks 3:31Not without getting into the project management space that I've seen? I mean, most of that's a much heavier lift, which it shouldn't be that hard of a thing. I mean, to paraphrase, you know, top gears, Jeremy Clarkson, how hard how difficult could it actually be? Because all you need to do is provide a connection to the next task and ID. And maybe that's the charge is that every task would have to have some sort of unique identifier. But I'm really surprised that most more applications don't give you that option to say when I finished this, what's the next task I want to do? And be able to designate that and say, Okay, here's the next one in the sequence and the next one, because when we talk about flow states, when we talk about time blocking, these are perfect connections to that. And it just seems to be a blind spot in the task management applications that are out I will definitely Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:28say that I think that task sequencing is important, if you think about it from the perspective that we design checklists, because we want to know in say, any given known project, that we know the sequence, the order that those things should be done in one before the other. And many times what happens is we have the complexity of many different projects ongoing that has many different things that we need to do throughout any given day or week, and not knowing the order in which they're going to happen. It creates a level of just inefficiency that causes things to break down. And also, you lose momentum in many cases. And so if you think about it, if you have to go to the grocery store, you would group the things you're going to purchase, buy the areas of the grocery store, right, you're not going to go, go get the milk in, and then walk, you know, to the other side of the grocery store, then walk back and get the eggs. And then you know, you're going to when you're in dairy, you're going to get all the dairy items, you know, you get the milk, cheese, eggs, when you're in the bread aisle, you're going to get all of the, you know, grains. These are things that we naturally do in some areas of our lives. But for some reason, when we think about tasks, we don't actually group things, or sequence them in a way that makes them to be more efficient. And that just creates more problems. Augusto Pinaud 5:45Yeah, only focus on that sense, as you were mentioned, was incredible in the sense that not only you could say, do not start this task, or show me these tasks on top. But you could also say, not only you cannot show to me until the prior one is ready, but also need to be after this date. And you could combine those two conditions, I have not seen anything that do conditions as incredible as OmniFocus. That's the sad part was a collaboration. But from the condition perspective, and the fact that you could mix, conditional or non conditional in the same projects, and you could have part of the project who has those conditions, parts of the project, or tasks that did not have them. It was really, really incredible. You brought Art Gelwicks 6:31up the grocery list thing, right? That did does remind me the application any do it's interesting when you go and you plug tasks in there on their shopping list, it will actually organize those by category within the store. So like it'll try to put the dairy items together and the thing, so it creates groupings. But again, that's not a sequencing as per se, because there's nothing within that grouping. It's it's all you're in the dairy aisle, find your stuff, I'm trying to think about how some of the tools will do sequencing, for example to do is the closest you get with sequencing and Todoist as you can change the order of tasks in the list. And that's assuming you're going to work from the top to the bottom, most Kanban tools, you can rearrange the cards in the board, something like a Trello or something like a notion board, you can change the order that way to create a somewhat of a sequence. But there's nothing that locks it in to say that when this one's done, this is the next one that has to be done. And I'll make the argument that the next one is actually less important than what was the preceding one that needed to lead up to this task. So what had to be done first, because what I've seen consistently is that when you have a task that you're not prepared to execute with everything, it fails. But if you have a task, that's going to dovetail into the next one, that's logically the one that's setting up the success of the next task. So the predecessor is really the one that makes all the difference. And it really doesn't matter how you, you look at it. If you want to look at a task and say when this is done, I can do this next thing, or when I need to do this when I need to do the prior ones. But it does raise an interesting situation....

In this week's episode, the ProductivityCast team chats about how to track and manage time in a calendar/agenda style format to be more productive. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/134 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Get More Out of Your Calendar from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Get More Out of Your Calendar Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Get More Out of Your Calendar Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. SortdMacSparkyAcuity SchedulingCalendlyManicTimeUnscheduleIkigai Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're gonna be talking about getting more out of your calendar, how to track time in a calendar interface to an agenda style format, so that you can actually be more productive. And so let's get into the topic related to utilizing your calendar for tracking it is something that is probably common to many of us, that is we are used to the calendar format, we we've been raised to see time in either a monthly, weekly, even a day style agenda. And so we're very comfortable with laying things out. It is just another form of list in a, you know, in a matrix or otherwise. And so the idea of a calendar is useful to us. And I'm curious from all of you, how do you use a calendar for tracking? Let's start off with events? Since I think it's probably the most common style and way of or, or data that you would capture into a calendar? It's it's the most common form of data that you would capture into a calendar format, which is what is going to happen in the future? And so how do you how do you use a calendar in that sense, and then we can perhaps, then turn over to the task or in Francis's terms, time demand space to think about how you would capture, forecast budget, and ultimately track the things that are happening in your productivity system. Francis Wade 1:57The way I do it, is to schedule the appointments in and then use an auto scheduler to fill in the gaps, so to speak, to put the flexible tasks in the times that I don't already have committed. But I think what you're alluding to is that that's that's the first part. And it might be even the easy part, the subsequent parts, which we all do, would do to some degree. And I think we all do mentally anyway, is we ask what whole? Well, did I build a schedule? And then how do I improve it in the future? How do I how do I do better? Scheduling in the future, because we've all the planning fallacy is real for all of us. We've all said all this to take an hour and five hours later, we're groaning and struggling. And but does that mean that the next time that we go to plan the activity that we're actually any better? Or do we fall right into the same trap? I think the great thing about using a calendar is that it allows you the opportunity to be accountable to yourself to some degree for the plans that you made. When you have a list, only a list. And no calendar, I think the opportunities for improvement are fewer and more, more difficult to grasp, because you're really just going off of kind of hunches and memory at least for the calendar year you have some possible data to work with. So I think the scheduling is perhaps the easiest part, the harder part is to become a better scheduler, which I think we all all need across the Art Gelwicks 3:29board. I use it poorly. And we'll go from there. Yeah, I use it. I have a basic challenge. And I think a lot of people run into this, I have two calendars that I have to maintain and a minimum one business calendar, one personal calendar, the business calendar is not actually maintained on my own devices, it is maintained on a client machine. So I am actually take that back, I have three calendars because I also have the company calendar. That's part of the challenge I have is that I'm bouncing between calendars. So I have to think about where does this need to go when I'm going to capture something which is rendered my calendar management and usage fairly inefficient. I mean, I'm looking at double and triple work anyway, adding extra stuff to it for processing and learning from it has fallen by the wayside a bit. So there's definitely room for improvement with this mess that Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:27I have. And it sounds to me like you are doing that because of company policy. Art Gelwicks 4:31I'm required to do it. Trust me, it's not voluntary. I would love everything to be in one place, but it's not. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:38Yeah. So my first suggestion to anyone is that if you are capable of doing so centralized to a singular calendar tool, even if you are utilizing multiple calendars in your world, seeing them and allowing them to overlay really is useful. You know, if you have, say a Google account like a Gmail account and you have a calendar there and you have an apple Will account and so on and so forth. That's pretty simple and easy to do, which is to bring those, you know, items over to one app, and then synchronizing into that singular app. And that allows you to see things that are happening in multiple contexts, multiple areas of your life in one space. And I think that a lot of people can benefit from from doing that. So certainly centralizing is helpful. And I think that what most people get fearful of is that then they'll be overwhelmed by seeing too many things at once. But remember that or if you didn't know, you can actually turn off those calendars just by taking them out of view. In Google Calendar, you literally just click on the calendar, and it will disappear from view, when you want to turn it back on, you can do that. And it'll just overlay and then hide those calendars on command. Same thing with Apple. Same thing with Outlook, Augusto Pinaud 5:50I actually use an app called sorted, sorted pool from my calendar into a sheet and create every appointment as a task. And then that allows me to integrate that with Todoist. And then bring the other task into there. So allows me to really look not only to where are those calendars, events, but what I'm going to be doing on those calendar events. On top of that, I try, I don't do a good job in this to report every half an hour, what I plan to do, and what I actually did, and the days that I do that, well, I get much better success as the end of the day than the days that I'm not great at it. But it's something that I'm still working on to make a better job. My Calendars are crazy, mostly because one I do a lot of things, but two, it keeps colors for different parts of the business or different parts of the family and, and thing. So it's a carnival of colors. It's what it's probably in sorted what I use what I use the most. Even more than checking my own calendar, Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:09you bring up a really great point, which is the coloring of items, I use two layers of color in my calendar. So each calendar represents a different area of my life. And what I call life category. So each calendar is is a life category. And sometimes they also are programs. So I will have a dedicated program because that calendar is then published for Google Calendar to a website or someplace else where it's automatically updating. So there's a reason for keeping that separate calendar so that I don't have to double entry into other places. What I do then is each calendar then gets an additional color for the context of work. So for example, if I have to be someplace physically, I will change the native calendar color to another color that tells me that I have to be someplace in person, because right now, that is the rarity, as opposed to the common being in a zoom or, you know, Google meet or something like that. Now, I'm like, Okay, I have to actually buffer in travel time and otherwise. And that means placing additional calendar events into the calendar to show travel time to and from that place. And those are variables that I like to know. So I will color the the calendar event, you know, an additional color. So it is very different from all the other events. And then when I'm planning for the coming week, I can see the little my case dark green events, and then I can say, okay, I can talk to my scheduling assistant and making sure that we are putting in travel time and buffer time between those things. So that I'm able to get to and from places but not just to and from, I need to debrief from those meetings. So I need to make sure that I have enough travel time and then time to sit down and say what happened in those meetings,...

This week, the ProductivityCast team talks about how to set up effective reminders when you're time blocking (or time chunking) as your primary productivity system. The conversation turns out much more useful for anyone looking to set up an effective reminder system. Enjoy! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/133 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Time Blocking Defined; Why Time Blockers Need Effective Reminders West Wing (TV series) What’s Available Today? What You Should Look for in a Reminder System? Google CalendarApple CalendarMicrosoft CalendarApple RemindersGoogle TasksGoogle KeepMicrosoft’s Scheduled Tasks (Task Scheduler)Checker PlusZapierIFTTTMicrosoft PowerAutomateWindows Scheduled TasksTodoist RemindersOmniFocusGoogle AssistantApple SiriAmazon AlexaChecker Plus for Google Calendar™ EvernoteGboard (Android) / Gboard (iOS) (voice typing on Android/iOS) Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your host, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be talking about time blocking, sometimes called time chunking. And Francis brought this topic. So I'm gonna hand this over to Francis to kind of open us up in terms of kind of explaining to us what time blocking is. And what we're going to do today is have a little bit of a conversation around the idea of an effective reminder system, how do you set up reminder systems? And why is it important as a time blocker or time chunker, to go ahead and have reminders, remind you at the both appropriate time and a level, so to speak, and maybe Francis can speak to that a little bit. So that you can really do what you need to do when you need to do it where you need to do it. So Francis, for those of you who are maybe have no idea what time blocking is, can you explain for listeners, what time blocking is? Francis Wade 1:15Sure, it's a technique in which you put a task a flexible task in your calendar. So in other words, you're moving it either from your memory or from a to do list and you're putting it on your calendar. In other words, you're assigning a time and the day and the duration to a task that you could do at different times. So you're pinning it, in other words to a specific spot in your calendar. And in general, it's it's not a technique that everyone needs to use, it's a bit of a requirement, if you are managing lots of tasks if you only have one task to do per day. And you can do that anytime, then you don't need time blocking. But if you have lots of tasks, and vertical discretionary time, then pinning tasks to your calendar becomes a requirement just because it's too hard to have to figure out what to do all throughout the day, go through all of your lists and figure out exactly what you need to do. It's easier to do it once in the morning or once at the beginning of the week. And then just execute it as you go along. So that's the general idea, you want to discuss that some more or sort of go on to the remainders. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:28I'm really curious about this, because I think a lot of people who hear what you're talking about, which is scheduling your tasks, and a calendar ultimately becomes more difficult as you place things in the calendar. And you realize that you don't necessarily know how much time something might take or that things might be overlapping each other in terms of the number of things you want to do in the same, say, hour, some calendars don't allow you to put things in smaller increments than say 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And so you have lots of things overlapping and that might feel cluttered. Is there a software solution that you utilize in order to be able to overcome that? Do you just get used to seeing overlapping? Basically calendar events in your calendar? What do you what do you think about all those kinds of challenges that people have with regard to putting things in a calendar view, Francis Wade 3:17we could imagine someone who uses PayPal, it has a really difficult time because they it when things change, and they have to move things around, they're left with using an eraser crossing things off, it gets really difficult, someone like that will probably upgrade to a tool like Google Calendar, which basically allows you to put anything anywhere, anytime, overlapping as often as you want. It's not doing anything smart. It's just replicating what you had on paper in a digital version. So things can be moved around at will at the next level. They're auto schedules, which make some smart decisions. They don't allow overlaps. They try to optimize your calendar. And they try to make sure that at least you're looking at a feasible representation of your calendar and not just things thrown in there willy nilly. So that's the that's the most complicated level, the most sophisticated level I'm aware of. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:09So if somebody is going from task list and calendar two, than having too many, as you call them time demands that require you to kind of level up then there is software bespoke to the solution of taking all of those things and placing them in your calendar. That's kind of what I was leading the witness so to speak. I wanted to make sure listeners know that there is software out there that is built ready built for this kind of situation, that they're not just basically placing things into Google Calendar in this hodgepodge way. And so thank you for that. I'll position is for everybody. And Francis, you can maybe start us off. Why do people need effective reminders? If they're time blocking, they have everything in their in their calendar, or in their calendaring task based software. Why do they need To be able to be reminded about what they need to do Francis Wade 5:02with it. The analogy I like to draw is that of the TV show The West Wing popular in the 2000s. Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:08Okay, you're gonna need to explain to me the West Wing and reminders now. Francis Wade 5:13The West Wing was a TV show about the president, the United States jab, jab back that I think his name was fictional, of course. And he had a secretary and her name was Mrs. Landingham, or Landingham, one of the two. Anyway, she was the perfect secretary, you know, in the show, in that he had a full schedule, as you may imagine, the President does, or a CEOs or anyone who has lots and lots of commitments to execute each day. And her job, one of her jobs, was to manage his calendar. But also, in addition to doing all of his time blocking, she would come and give him that proverbial tap on the shoulder when it was time to switch to another task or to consider switching to another task. And as you can imagine, she had different ways of doing this, you know, she could, you know, just kind of open the door and Wave at him to remain soft remainder that time to wrap up, or she come and tell them oh, by the way, you're there's a phone call coming in for you. And she would interrupt the meeting, and that will be a switch. Or she would walk into the meeting and say, Mr. President, your plane is leaving in two minutes. Well, he's the president. So he determines when the plane leaves, but let's say he didn't, there's a president, you have to leave No, in order to make your meeting with this dignitary via plane. And here's your bag, and here's your ticket, and Secret Service will escort you out the door. So she'll be very firm sometimes. So sometimes she'd be very soft. And sometimes she'd be very strong, different kinds of remainders. But what it allows the president to do is essentially relax. You know, David Allen says Your mind is is for coming up with tasks, not for remembering them. This is a bit similar, your mind is for executing, not for trying to remember what you need to execute. Next, at the minute, you need to execute it. Because there's a bunch of research that says that, that effort it takes to remember to do something at just the right time takes a whole lot of cognitive resources. And if you can outsource that to Mrs. Landingham, you're in great shape, because that person will basically just say, Okay, no, tie your shoelaces, I'm exaggerating, but Okay, now it's time for your meeting with this Chief of Staff. Okay,...

In this week’s cast, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art discuss why task lists fail in your personal productivity systems? And, we offer some tips for making task lists that are resilient to our workaday worlds. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/132 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Why Task Lists Fail? from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Why Task Lists Fail? Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Why Task Lists Fail? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. How to Master the Art of To-Do Lists by Understanding Why They Fail : iDoneThis blog Todoist Remember the Milk Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this action packed episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we are going to be talking about Action Lists, actually, we're gonna be talking about task lists, and really what they're all about, why do we have them? Why do we use them, and some of the common pitfalls that people experience while they are trying to manifest and utilize their task lists. And this is a perennial topic, but I think it was triggered by an article that we picked up from the I done this.com site. And we thought we would have a discussion around some of the things that people really do get hung up on when it comes to task lists. So let's start the conversation off around the idea of why do we have a task list? What is the purpose of a task list, and let's go from there. Art Gelwicks 1:10we start off with the common knowledge of everybody visualizes a task list. And it's a list of items with checkboxes next to it. And that's usually, unfortunately, as far as people will think. But a task list is so much more than that. And it's not just things to do, I think one of the biggest problems we get into and we saw this in the article, we've seen this, in numerous conversations about this topic, is understanding the scope of what a task list can do for us, rather than what we can do for it saying apologies to JFK. So when we think about a task list, we're initially trying to capture all those little things that we have to do on a given day, given week, given month, whatever. And we're trying to get those off of that list. Well, that becomes an action in and of itself, trying to clear that listing. I, I suppose that a task list is probably one of the best tracking and planning tools we have available to us. We use all different kinds of tools. But if you if you take a task list and you soup it up, you start to get into a project management tool. So wait, if it has that level of capability with just some extra features. What can a regular task list do to us do for us? Well, I think that's where we have to go back to our definition, what is a task list. And a task list in my definition, is a tracking and planning tool. Francis Wade 2:41For me, it's an external representation of a bunch of psychological commitments. So we make promises to ourselves to do stuff in the future. And we make lots of promises, and some subset of all those promises, it can be captured externally. So that we are able to have some peace of mind because they are not swimming around in our heads. We use it it helps the chances that we'll actually get the task done. And so there's people task lists, there are calendars of different kinds, there are digital task lists, there are Excel spreadsheets. And then there's also having an administrative assistant, having an individual who manages, basically manages all your tasks for you. So that's giving someone the job of you know, once you have a task, you just tell the person and then you stop trying to remember it, and the person is trusted, they can be just as effective or more effective than a list or a piece of paper or a digital tool or anything like that. But the objective is the same psychologically, it's either in your mind swimming around causing trouble waking you up in the middle of the night, and likely to be forgotten, or it's in some trusted external mechanism that allows you have some peace of mind. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:09I would very much agree with Francis in in that definition, I think that I think of a task list as an externalized list of your work. It's just externalizing work. And when we take the work off of our own shoulders, the stress of having to remember it plus the really inefficiency of our mind to remember all the tasks that would could or should be done at any given time. We just aren't very good at being able to do that algorithm in very complex long term work. And so being able to do that in an external inside of a tool, paper and pen, digital or otherwise, gives us a longer term planning and a lot more complex planning capability than we would otherwise. And I think that's really useful for most of us. You know, I'm not really going to think about what I'm going to Do a year two years from now. But the reality is, is that I have a thought about something that's going to be done at that time, in that timeframe. Or on that timeline, I can go ahead and plant that in my digital system. And it'll show up in one or two years timeframe. And then I can deal with it. And that didn't, that stress didn't have to sit on my shoulders for any of that length of time, until I until I prompted it to give me that stress. And so it becomes a positive stressor, something that I am capable of tackling at that time, versus me every day for the next, you know, 700 odd days, thinking about that thing every day so that I don't forget it in in one or two years time. It's just kind of not necessary. So I think of task lists as being that one external piece. The other part is, for me the prioritization capabilities of a task list. Coming from kind of the GTD perspective, thinking of next actions, as being those physical things that will prompt me to move a project forward or move, move some kind of work forward, I'm thinking about it from the perspective that I'm looking at my action list and identifying what can be done right now have all of the possible opportunities of things that I can do during discretionary time. So there is there is that function, but it also is a prompting function for the things that must be done. Or there are two different pieces there, right, there's the stuff that I need to do, and want to do in my discretionary time. But there's also the things that must be done. And it is not withstanding my discretionary time, it needs to be done today. And I need to be able to do that. And so it to some extent, there is a date time and location function there to a task list that some people actually externalize to a calendar type interface, right. Some people put that into a scheduling system. We'll talk about that in a bit. So we have these two pieces that are that I think are are very similar, but not the same. But things that I can do on a longer horizons, I have a project and there's work that needs to be done. It doesn't have to be done today. But if I have to go get my driver's license renewed and my driver's license is expiring today, then I must do that today, that becomes a must. And it also becomes date, time and location fixed. And I think more of the context that kind of connect there, the more it becomes something that that we have to manage differently in our task lists than otherwise. And so maybe it even becomes a different task list for some people or a calendar or something like that. So I Augusto Pinaud 7:26think I agree with that definition that you have, for me, they have three types, the ones that need to happen today. Now, regardless of the ones that should happen soon, because they The thing is getting louder and louder moderator and the things that I want to wish now that that wish list here, I want to read these articles, but but they are there, they're on my task list. But they don't. It's really more if I can get rid of that critical step, that I will be able to go to that to those nice to have. And I think that's where it makes a difference for me. Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:02From that point, we can then start to think about what are some of the common pitfalls that folks experience in creating task lists. So I see folks using, you know, task lists for all kinds of things. And sometimes they're doing them effectively. Most times, they are not, and and so then they come into contact with me because they're trying to figure out what the heck is going on with their business or with their world or whatever. And, you know, it's just one of those things where you you come into contact with a lot of people,...

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art discuss learning and four stages of curiosity. Curious what they are? Listen in and learn! 😉 (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/131 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing learning and the four stages of curiosity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Learning and the Four Stages of Curiosity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Learning and the Four Stages of Curiosity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. From Procedural Knowledge To Self Knowledge: The 4 Stages Of Curiosity  Montessori education Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:28Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. This week, we're going to be talking about what we're calling the four stages of curiosity. And it actually came out from an article that Francis Wade had come across. And so Francis, do you want to kind of open us up in terms of this topic today. And then we'll get into a little bit of our agenda. Francis Wade 0:46Sure, it has to do with knowledge acquisition or learning, the idea is pretty straightforward that you move from initially taking directions from someone who is an expert, someone who knows a lot more than you do. And you graduate from the bottom level to the point where you need to essentially create your own knowledge in order to make progress. Because there's lots of areas that we want to know something a lot about. If you get stuck at any one level, it'll the idea of the article is that if you get stuck at any one level, then it will actually for your development. So the idea is to notice when it's time to move to the next level, and then use the techniques that are appropriate for that low in order to keep making progress in the chosen area of interest. The concept that was provided was done in the in the form of a diagram, and we're gonna go over that, but it's a pyramid. And so that pyramid diagram starts with with four levels, in essence, hence, the four stages of curiosity. And as we make our way through today, you will hear us talking about those four levels. And we will explain those very shortly. And so today, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the four stages. And just to give some preface here, the four stages are in Francis's terms here, process starting at the base of the level content, that is the next here, upper stage two, stage three is known transfer, and then stage four unknown future, let's get into the defining of the four stages. And then we'll talk about each of the stages in order. For instance, do you want to give us a little bit of background in terms of the items here that you've noted regarding procedural knowledge, self knowledge, and curiosity, let's, let's talk about these components that you talk about curiosity. And then we can define the four stages proper, when you don't know anything about the topic. And it involves actually doing something, not just knowledge acquisition, the best way to learn it in the very beginning is to borrow the schema from somebody who knows something. So you want to be them to be very prescriptive. And to tell you the details of what you need to learn what they've learned, pretty much tell you what they have done. If you have no background in the item, you've never done it before the actual you haven't done it before, it's brand new to you, the best place to go learn is from someone who's willing to translate what expertise looks like. So they lay it out to you. So that's the first level. The second level, Francis Wade 3:18which I call the content level, is that you gain some interest. And by the way, this is borrowed from an article on, I just want to make sure I give the kudos where they're due on teach thought that calm the four stages of curiosity. The concept isn't is new, not new to me. But it's one the four levels that they laid out are what we're basing this conversation on. So firstly, that in the show notes are great, great. The first level again, is that you just follow what someone else tells you to do. The second level is that you start to gain some interest in the topic. So you've already been able to do what they told you to do. And now you're asking questions like, Oh, why this step? Why not that step. And you start to read around what it is that they're telling you to do. And you miss go deeper into their thought system. That's typically the next step is okay. When I read the Cliff Notes version, let me actually read the book. Let me read the listen to the videos, let me hear the podcast. Let me pick up some other people who are talking about how great this idea is, other people who are expanding on it. So you're learning pretty much the same schema, but you're learning more information about the schema. And then at the third level, you know, say, I know what I know and I know what I do, how do I apply what I'm learning to what I've done in the past or what I'm doing right now. So you're know looking to make things fit and this is where most people have a bit of difficulty because there's no schema that in any field. You know, if you're learning bowling and someone teaches you the basics, is going to come up point where the basics don't really apply anymore. But what you try to do is to keep applying what you've learned to what you're doing. And as you gain more expertise, you keep trying to do that. And as you apply, you start to fail, you apply, you start to fail, you start to get to the point where you start to question what you've learned. Because it was simple. It served you at this first step. But no, at this step, you've gained some expertise, you got some hours, you've been to the bowling, I was gonna say, bowling rink, no, you've been to the bowling alley a few 100 times. And you started to see nuances and you now need to move to the next level. So the fourth level is one in which you are you understand that you need to develop your own way of doing things and your own way of thinking about what you do. You need to think about analyzing what you're doing so that you can make improvements in the future. Because as you look to the future, you see what do I when I start to enter the World Series of bullying or the World Championships, obviously, what I learned that level one won't work for me, I need a coach to point out the areas where I need improvement or if I can't afford a coach, then I'll need to examine what I'm doing so that I can analyze it for further improvements. And also to anticipate that when I get to the Olympics of bowling in the Olympics, when I get to the Olympics of bowling at that very, very high, the highest of the highest levels, then I'm going to need to keep improving. So I No need to build a bit meta and say how do I keep improving my bowling so that when I eventually get to the Olympic level, it's not just a matter of being stuck in the way I do things. But I'm able to flex and unable to adjust and be able to still continue to make progress. And we Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:53can see that in thinking about any of our ability to be productive. We're always in some stage of learning something in our world. And I think it's really interesting to have these conversations around what learning is because for most of us, we actually never learned to learn. And we just were taught things. In that passive approach, we end up not building the skills to learn how to learn. And so I really find discussions around learning how to learn just fascinating generally, because the more we learn how to learn and learn how learning happens, we're better capable of manifesting new learnings faster and more efficiently and really more effectively. So that we're capable of drawing on these to be able to move and develop faster. So let's drive in to each of these stages. Let's start with stage one, where we are basically at the beginning stages of I don't know what I don't know, I suppose. How can people build scaffolding for purposes of learning at that stage of the game? Art Gelwicks 8:01The first two levels of this seem to be the most basically intuitive. I mean, that seems to be where we just operate as people, that you have your innate curiosity about something a new topic comes past you. And you're like, where do I start? Where do I start digging into when you think about frameworks? This is something that I think you have to do across the board is to establish where are your credible sources going to come from whatever topic you're looking at, you should be,...

Last week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art started a discussion about caffeinated productivity. This week, they continue their conversation about their favorite caffeine beverages, timing them for greater productivity, and many of the varieties of caffeination available to the productivity enthusiasts out there. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/130 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing caffeine-based productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Caffeine-Based Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Caffeine-Based Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. See part 1 for more caffeine-focused resourcesBETTY Flavoured Condensed Milk (Cinnamon,Vanilla,Nutmeg) | jamaicabasket876Coffee Science: How to Make the Best Pourover Coffee at Home Your Ultimate Guide to Different Types of Coffee  Is Coffee Bad for You? Is French Press Bad For You? The Surprising Facts.Is Coffee Good For You? Is Coffee Bad For You? | TIME12 Health Benefits and 6 Disadvantages of Coffee - SMASHING IT!Coffee and health: What does the research say? When Is the Best Time / Methods for Consuming Caffeine to Benefit Your Productivity? Bad News: The Best Time of the Day to Drink Coffee Isn’t as Soon as You Wake UpWhen Is the Best Time to Drink Coffee?The Best Time Of The Day To Consume CaffeineThe Best Time to Drink Coffee: Daytime, Nighttime, and More Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. We are going to be continuing our conversation from last episode caffeine based productivity. And in the last episode, we really talked about the kind of foundational elements of caffeine, how it interacts with your body tips around really dealing with the different types of caffeine that you can come across, you know the many different types of caffeine. So if you have not listened to that episode, feel free to snap back to the prior episode. And listen to that. In this episode, what I wanted to do was have the ProductivityCast team here really talk about the different types of coffee based drinks that we consume, maybe some of the tea based drinks that we consume as well, that may or may not be the typical black coffee or tea, then we can talk about the ways in which we make coffee and tea. From a productivity perspective, what I want us to do is think about how we make our coffee and tea productively. That is to say, What's the best way to make it when we want to have it made quickly and efficiently? Well, I want to talk a little bit about some of the health benefits, people should have concerns or health disadvantages that we should have concern about when it comes to coffee. And then after we talk about that research, we'll get into really the best times to consume caffeine for being most productive. And so we'll get into a little bit about timing our caffeination at the end of the show. So let's kick into the different types of coffee, and other caffeine based drinks that you all have from the mundane perhaps for all of you not mundane to me, but I just like black coffee, it's the drink I am, I am I have right now in front of me. And so I drink my coffee, black. But there are so many different types of coffee and espresso based drinks. And so those who are not aware espresso are just basically coffee beans that have been ground and then forced pressure with a small amount of boiling water. So you just basically have the the concentration of the coffee in a less water as opposed to in more water. And so based on that espresso then gets mixed in with many other drinks, and either water or the different types of milk to create different combinations. What are some of your favored or favorite mixed drinks in the caffeine world, Augusto Pinaud 2:47I am boring too. I drink a strong espresso, except during my weekly review on which I go for a strong Lahti usually, if if I will on the pandemic, now I do it at home. But I used to stop in a Starbucks and it was part of the part of the routine and then I get a toll quad A latte that is basically for shot of espresso, it's a little bit of milk. And I do it through the weekly review. And there is a reason why I have not only through the wicker review is because I have over the years condition, the brain to understand Oh, there is invoking discovery, maybe with a review time. And those kinds of things help. Francis Wade 3:29I'm think I'm more basic than that even I am an instant coffee drinker. Take a cup every week or two weeks, somewhere in there. But I do have a little additive there that I use. It's a condensed milk made here in Jamaica and it has cinnamon and nutmeg in it. So it's, it's nice. And because I drink decaf on the days I don't take caffeinated coffee. It's a daily that's a part of my daily routine. But that gives it gives it a nice, a nice flavor not found. And I keep looking for other kinds of additives like that. But the convenience and the speed and the one for all kind of appealed to me. But that's instant coffee and condensed milk flavored condoms. Art Gelwicks 4:15Yeah, I'm a variety kind of guy, I will go through the course of a day and like, make coffee, three different ways have four different types of tea just everything's always changing, and it varies by the day. Some mornings it's hit the curb because I'm in a hurry. Other mornings, it's I want this to be a process. So I pull out the Chemex and, you know, boil up the water and do the pour over and sometimes I want to be overly complicated. So I'll pull out the French press, but that's just it extends to the teas too. Sometimes it's a bag tea, sometimes it's a loose tea. Sometimes it's a really robust tea. Sometimes it's a it's a white tea, it doesn't. There is no rhyme or reason for me. For me it's more the change in the experience of each individual time. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:59So For those of you who may not know about all the different types of coffee drinks, there are so many of them. You know, you can mix basically espresso, and or coffee and espresso with different types of combinations of water. Or as I said earlier, different types of milk or steamed milk, a foamed milk, all kinds of really fun things in order to create different drinks. And so espresso is usually a one ounce forced press of the coffee beans. And so you get that really concentrated item. And then you will usually have an eight ounce cup of coffee. And that's the same amount of coffee bean for that eight, you know, 1012 ounces of water. And then if you do a double espresso, or known as a doppio, that's going to be two ounces of espresso. And then you can do all kinds of other fun things like macchiatos, which are an especial shot with foam, you can do Moca which then includes steamed milk and chocolate, and I am a fan of the mochas and many different types of lattes as treats. So get familiar with the different ways in which you can combine different coffee based drinks. That's kind of a fun way in which you can spice up you know, if you're if you're like art and want a little bit of variety, you can definitely do that. And what I found is on the T side, you can do many of these things. Also, I think the British are much more familiar with putting milk in tea, and putting milk based products and teas. That's something that's not traditionally an American thing. But there are all kinds of ways in which you can make tea lattes. And many of the same processes that you use with regard to pressing leaves and forcing water through them. You can also do with tea. And so don't limit yourself in that there's there's so many different fun, tea based drinks that you can make. So when the tea world, I tend to think about them in terms of regular teas, whether they be loose or or bagged, then there are the marches, which traditionally Japanese find ground powder that you either mix directly into the drink, or some people strain them until they kind of filter through. And then there's Mati Mati being a tea that you are placing into hot water, and then it just basically keeps steeping throughout the time you drink it. And Matei is a little bit different, because my understanding is that you keep adding more hot water to the montae. And they have like specialized mugs for Mai Tais. And so like you the the straw itself has a strainer built into it, all kinds of fun things, and you just keep adding hot water and the caffeine content actually increases as you put more hot water into the multi leaves. So there's a concentration point and then it diminishes

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art start a conversation about coffee and tea and all things caffeine! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/129 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing caffeine-based productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Caffeine-Based Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Caffeine-Based Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. CaffeineCaffeine | The Nutrition Source | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public HealthHow Coffee and Caffeine Actually Affect Your ProductivityEffects of Caffeine on Cognitive Performance, Mood, and Alertness in Sleep-Deprived HumansCoffee in the WorkplaceEmber mugSapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah HarariUncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World by Mark PendergrastBulletproof Coffee Recipe: The Original Keto Coffee with Butter & MCT OilMatéTea / MatchaHerbal teas are non-caffeinated. FoodsSupplementsDrinksCaffeine/Energy shots (Best Energy Shots of 2020)Caffeine tabletsCaffeine patchesCaffeine chart | Center for Science in the Public Interest Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, what we're going to be doing is talking about caffeine based productivity, what we want to do is to give you a survey of how to use caffeine to be more productive. And so we're going to take a survey of the do an overview of all of the various caffeine based products, and I thought what we would start with doing is kind of defining what caffeine is and how it works in the first place. And then we will cover the various types of caffeinated products that are in the world. Not all of them, but certainly some of them. And then some of the health risks I think that caffeine has and we can talk about those as well. And some of the benefits, there's actually some really good benefits in the in the health space for that. And full disclosure, we're not medical professionals. So you should probably talk to your your licensed medical professional before you take any advice. And then of course, we're going to talk about timing and methods for consuming caffeine. And I think that'll be really useful for folks as well just to understand those components of how to time your caffeine intake for greater productivity. So let's start with kind of the baseline, which what caffeine is both how we think about it in terms of our world, but also from a little bit more of a scientific perspective. So caffeine, of course, we think of as being in coffee and other products is actually quite a number of other products. But at its core, what caffeine is a stimulant. And it's kind of the opposite of what you might think in the sense that it actually blocks some neural receptors, so that it causes you to stay in a wakefulness state, you have adenosine, which is a molecule that attaches to parts of your brain and causes you to get tired, get sleepy. And these adenosine receptors on your brain are blocked by caffeine. So caffeine comes in, it goes through the blood brain barrier. And it antagonizes those adenosine receptors and blocks the adenosine from being taken up by the brain and basically absorbed by the brain. And that's what actually causes you to stay awake and feel that sense of wakefulness. So it can not only block you from getting tired from the adenosine, but it can also then increase wakefulness, in that sense as well. Art Gelwicks 2:46If you're going to look at caffeine as part of your generalized productivity, you really have to understand the science behind it. I think too many people think, okay, a cup of coffee, or two cups of coffee, this is part of what I have, or three cups or eight cups or whatever. But understanding the science behind the chemical itself, as well as how it impacts your unique physiology. And that's the other thing is that it affects everybody differently. And it changes over time. I mean, that's one of the things that I've discovered is you can mess around with caffeine and how it affects yourself. It takes time to do it. But you can adjust your physiology based on how you consume caffeine to determine what impacts it's going to have. And it becomes predictable. It's not one of those, okay, I didn't get a cup of coffee, therefore, who knows what I'm going to be like today? No, if you pay attention to it, there's a period of time you can start to understand what this is. But if you don't take the time to understand the science behind the chemical itself, and what its job is, you know, being a suppressor like, like Ray just outlined, and the fact that it constricts blood vessels in the brain and understanding those mechanisms then gives you the predictability as to well, what's it going to do? And how am I going to use that, rather than it just being an external factor that kicks in? Francis Wade 4:12I think it's worth knowing that information because the I believe the the common sort of the average way of drinking coffee is not informed by much other than habit. I think most people just drink it out of habit. They don't delve into the sense and they don't ask the kind of questions we're about to ask, but how do you make the best use of it? So they're just basically following the crowd, which I think limits its usefulness. And maybe even those are a few things that you don't want that Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:46caffeine is a cultural component. And if I if I had to go into a product business, where you could sell very easily, very fast coffee would be it. It's just such a cultural Moray. It's such a Strong Moray are in so many different cultures around the world. And it's just easy to sell in that sense. The interesting thing you noted our which is that when you do drink caffeine, it is also a vassal constructor, right? So it is actually constricting blood vessels. And that's another component here, which is that we also have to take some of the good with the bad here, the vessel construction is what causes you to potentially feel like you're thinking faster, things of that nature, you know, that people think about and the reality is, is your water consumption, how much water you're drinking, comparative to how much coffee you're drinking affects your ability to have that feeling of effect as well. But any vessel constructor can also cause headaches, and other kinds of issues with regard to anxiety, giving you that sense of anxiety, good to kind of keep us mindful of those pieces. A couple of other like little tidbits that I picked up along the years of researching caffeine, I've done many, many experiments with caffeine. Caffeine is something that takes a very short amount of time to get into your bloodstream, usually somewhere around 15 minutes. And it can stay in your body for hours and hours and hours, depending upon your particular body type your particular circumstances. And so just be very careful about the fact that if you drink coffee, say in the late afternoon, you could still have caffeine coursing through your veins, late into the evening, which could potentially disrupt sleep. So we'll talk about some of those risks as well, because it doesn't just stop there. The point is, there are all of these biological components that caffeine is working with. And we are complex biological creatures. And so as we talk about this, just remember that the complexity really does come into play in in so many regards. Art Gelwicks 6:42One more thing to add. And this is a really common thing. Caffeine is not measured by the cup. So many people will think that, oh, I'll just have a smaller cup of coffee. It depends what's in there. It depends what you're drinking. It depends what the consumption is, cumulative, and raise absolute right? The cumulative effect of caffeine can be way more impactful than the shot of espresso you just had, I was just looking at a chart, comparing different caffeine levels and a Starbucks pikes place venti I think it was, as compared to a Starbucks espresso, you think and express Oh, wow, that's got a lot of caffeine. No, the venti is like 410 milligrams versus the espresso of 150. So understanding that the measure of volume has nothing to do with the amount of caffeine you're actually consuming. And where all those sources are coming from, that you're right, that has that cumulative effect. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:39And as we continue our conversation on we should talk about the fact that we will be talking about this in milligrams of dosages....

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art continue the conversation about tags, discussing how they use tags in their own lives and work, and how to deal with the limits of software when tagging. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/128 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing productivity taxonomy from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Taxonomy, Part 2 Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Taxonomy, Part 2 Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Remember the Milk Skedpal OneNote Workflowy Evernote Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis WadeI'm Francis Wade. Art GelwicksAnd I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to continue the conversation that we started last week. So in our last episode, we opened up the dialogue, because of a topic are brought to the team and wanted to discuss and that was all about tagging in our personal productivity systems. And we discussed really what productivity tagging really looks like, what does what does a taxonomy really stand for in a personal productivity system, we talked about some of the topics relating to it, but we really didn't dive into how we all use tags on our system. So I think that would be a really great conversation for today. So how do you tag and use tags in your personal productivity system Francis Wade 1:08as little as possible, whereas you can tag everything from now until the cows come home? I think the purpose of tagging is, as we discussed in the last episode, to be able to manipulate large volumes of data by focusing on some smart attributes. And I think that one of the rules I have is, and this was from bitter experience of trying to use multiple tags, and all sorts of fancy hierarchies and tags, using attributes that were the most interesting is that we should be always aiming to use as least the least number of tags as possible because they extract extract such a cost. The managing tax isn't easy for us psychologically. And we should be looking to manage the minimum number possible to get the biggest benefit. There's a Pareto effect. In other words, so this is not a matter of and I see people asking questions all over the internet, you know, what should I tag? Should I tag this, I'm tagging with 10 different attributes. No, whereas they may be cool, and they will be fun. It is a utility problem. And we have a capacity to the number of tags that we can use. So my first technique, whenever I go to tag is use as little as possible, minimum number that I can get away with and still be effective. And then I'm going to add another level of tags or another dimension or degree, I think long and hard before doing it, and usually don't. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:36So what are the areas though, that you do use tags, from what Francis Wade 2:39I know everybody tags, tasks, but they don't necessarily put them in a system. So in their mind, there is always tasks tagging happening all the time. And the same principle applies. You could tag your tasks in any number of ways. But the question is, Which one will you use? That will give you the practical benefit? So I use temporal tags, mostly? Few others occasionally. But temporal tags are duration, start time due date, its placement in a calendar relative to other tasks. So they're non overlapping, and so that there's they cannot be done at the right time. Temporal tagging is what I use mostly, Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:20yeah, you bring up an interesting point, which is that you're you're talking about tagging from a time perspective, even a start time is that is that because your tool includes a start time field or you applying a tag as to when you actually plan to start that? Francis Wade 3:36Both? Yes, I did it before I got the tool. And the tool allows me to do it easily, more easily. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:41Because I have a start time field and a due date, you know, completion date field in my Task Manager, which happens to be Remember The Milk. And so the so the idea of having a tag associated with when something's going to be done is more like morning, afternoon evening, kind of having a tag that tells me this is a block of work that needs to be done in the morning, or is the best time to be done in the morning, both for energy for performance management, but also for when it's likely is to be done. I try to use those tags for management of putting what should be in the right places in the right places. And even to this day, I've now chosen in Remember The Milk you have priority one, two, and three, and then no priority. So that's just color coded. And it's the way in which it sorts in the system. And I've chosen to apply that as the three parts of my day, as morning, midday, and really afternoon, evening, before I close out. And by placing those things in that timeframe. It gives me a fourth kind of block of time, which is end of day. So anything that is no priority ends up being in that. Well, you know, after dinner, I'm going to do these few other things in the evening. And that's going to fall to that point. So it actually color codes them and blocks them in that timeframe. So it's not priority anymore for me that the tag is that color, and grouping of those things in those sections. Francis Wade 5:07If you could change the tag, you would really able to Morning, morning, afternoon, evening, after evening, but it Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:14doesn't matter to me because it's the color is 123 and zero. So that's really no, you know, there's no words applied to it. So it's just literally the color and grouping of the lists, which is perfect for me. And that also translates well over to when I print. Like, if I were to print the checklist, that's all going to manifest on the printed checklist, and I frequently will print it to PDF, so that I have that available to me to markup on my tablet. And it's really nice to have one, it's, it's just like one of those days, I've got a lot to do, I will literally print the the task list to PDF and put it on the tablet. And now it's in there and I can mark as I go, which is really nice. So you're Francis Wade 5:53doing it by handwriting, you got it. Yeah, I wish I had something, something as sort of easy as that each of each. Anything I've tried to do to grab a calendar and have it in front of me easily turned into more of a hassle than anything else. So I pretty much just leave within Google Calendar, wishing that I could have it somewhere handy in front of me that I could mark it up in the same way. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:12But so Google can email you a daily agenda. And then you can automate the stuff from receiving the email, you can just click Print to PDF, Francis Wade 6:22what I really want, I wanted to print a piece of paper that slides under the cover of my desk, which would be transparent, without me having to press any buttons. Okay, well, that's, I want something that I don't have to touch, because the printing and the messing around the paper or the PDF is all too much friction to do on a daily basis to Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:42be alright, anything, anything else about how you use tags. Francis Wade 6:46And one more thing, which you brought up, which is one of the features of Scalpel. Scalpel is an auto scheduler. And it allows you to build a time map. So time map is essentially a list of preferred slots in your calendar. So that you can build several time maps, all of which are focused on some attribute like energy or time in the office or peak time for thinking or downtime for reading. So it automatically tries to use the time map that you assign a task to schedule that task in a sort of a zone of time throughout the week. So that's a very big attribute that they've introduced and use heavily to come up with an auto schedule whenever you're personable. So that's another one that time map art, how about you, Art Gelwicks 7:40I'll pull this through three different applications that I typically use tagging on. And it's important to understand that, to me, tagging is useless without filtering. Because that's, that's what makes this applicable to getting at your information more effectively. So when I think about tagging things, and I'll start off with the one application I deal with all the time, which is one note. One note, it's a love hate relationship with tags within OneNote. Because they don't use the normal hashtag functionality, you know, put in a term, they have a part of the application that allows you to define tags....

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art start a conversation about tags. Classifying information in our productive lives comes in many different ways. We discuss what tagging is, how tags are different from other types of organizing, and how to jumpstart your use of tags. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/127 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing productivity taxonomy from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Taxonomy, Part 1 Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Taxonomy, Part 2 Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Hypernym / hyponym Evernote OneNote Dewey Decimal System Zettelkasten Episode 124, Personal Knowledge Management With Zettelkasten Bullet Journal Episode 035, What Is the Bullet Journal? How Does It Work? Episode 073, Tailoring the Bullet Journal Method Episode 123, Productivity Labs, Methods Edition—Bullet Journal Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:25I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:26 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be diving into a topic that is near and dear to my heart, but I think is also really important for people to recognize as a fundamental component of personal productivity systems that I think is often lost in the world of just organizing your systems for action. And that is tags, the concept of using taxonomy to be able to be more productive. And this was a topic actually brought up by art Gelwicks. And so I'm going to hand it over to you art we were Art Gelwicks 0:59talking about in one of the previous episodes, we're talking about organizing notes, and specifically recalling content from notes. And that always raises the specter of tagging. So I thought it would be worthwhile. Having talked about this in the past, for us to dedicate some time to this actual topic in and of itself, separate from applications right now separate from systems and implementations. But really what tagging means, what it means within the context of our personal and professional systems, information management for ourselves. And also, as we start to really get into it, how this helps us improve our organization. beyond some of the alternatives, things like folder structures and that sort. There's, you'll hear classically that, you know, tagging is better than folders, use tagging, don't use folders, use tagging, don't use folders. And I don't know if I necessarily agree with that in all cases. And I think that's where we need to start to dig into this, because there are so many variants of tagging so many conceptual pieces, that I think it's hard for people to really get their hands around as a starting place, but also to give it the extended life it needs for it to make a difference. I know a lot of people, including myself, have implemented different methods of tagging numerous times. Well, if you're implementing it numerous times, it means that numerous times it's not working right. So I wanted to see if you guys could help help me frame it up for the listeners as to what we think tagging is truly beyond just the Wikipedia definition. And also how we can start to help people out. Francis Wade 2:50I think, first of all, we're there's different objects that can be tagged to or benefit. There's digital objects, which you mentioned, there's physical objects and psychological objects, maybe there's others that I haven't thought of. But in any case, the reason we tagged it is to, for me, it's like adding a handle to a suitcase. When you add the handle to the suitcase, you don't have to pick up the whole suitcase in its entirety, you could just use the handle. So it's a way of manipulating the object using a small kind of not substitute but a small attribute of the object. So if you're manipulating manipulating the attribute, then you don't have to manipulate the entire thing. And that makes it very handy or useful for us to get different things done. So a tag is always a bit of a manipulative shortcut. It allows us to manage lots of stuff, but only using some small attributes. So we're looking to get leverage the way you lose a handle on a suitcase. That's my Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:00theory. I agree with that in in, in large part, my thoughts on taxonomy is wide and varied, right. So if we think about taxonomy is just the categorization of a set, then we can go then deeper, when we start to think about it from a personal productivity perspective, which is, as Francis noted, we are applying how we apply metadata in a website. You know, for search engine optimization purposes, we can think about the application of new data on top of the original set of data. So the items in our productivity systems, whether they be projects, actions, events, or otherwise, documents, you name it, the idea is that we're applying data that is not the object itself to the object, so that we're able to better contextualize and also better able to sort or filter those things in our systems and we lose something When we don't do that, I feel like many times people set up systems and they actually lose capabilities, because they don't take advantage of that in the systems. And one of the things I really abhor is when I come across a tool that doesn't give me the capability of doing that kind of tagging. Now, there are some that I have cobbled together and have worked for me. So for example, I've been a Google Calendar user for many years. And I use tagging in that system. But I've cobbled that together, because I've had to use the search feature in order to be able to tag things because it's not, it doesn't have an inherent tagging capability. So there are these pieces in your world, we have to think through, how are you going to use a taxonomy to be best able to help you versus just I could have many different calendars, right, that's one option. And you can think about those as folders in a Dropbox OneDrive Google Drive perspective. But the reality is, is that that is a container tags are applied data, they are a way for you to be able to look at things across many areas of your system, many organized areas of your system. And that's really where tags become more powerful, is when you're capable of understanding that now tags actually serve two purposes. For me, I consider them an applied data or metadata perspective, where I am connecting disparate parts together for purposes of context. But then they also helped me connect other types of things for action. So what is really a reference type system, the other is an action type system. So we can use tags for say, I have all of my recipes, in a notebook in Evernote, that is for the recipes that I have, right, and they're all contained in there. But now I want to slice and dice, the different recipes in there to say, pastry recipes, things that are, you know, baked goods and that kind of thing. So I could have a pastries tag, but I could also then have a lunch and dinner recipes tag. And now I can separate those two apart, right, so there's that function of being able to do that. Plus, I could have a family recipe that is in my family notebook. And I can also tag that pastries. And that tag now gets pulled in when I search for all of the things that are tagged pastries. So now I'm not limited to where I'm putting things because if I can just apply a little bit of data to it, I can now find that data faster. At the same stage, I can have a notebook or folder for projects. And I can then identify a status to each of those resident projects as say, notes or documents. And now I can say, Okay, which of these projects are in status to, and then I can search for those, just by virtue of that singular tag. And that's the kind of power that I think a lot of people don't take advantage of in their systems, and really is, I think fundamental to you being able to be more productive. Francis Wade 7:59I think it goes to the, to some degree with, with what Ray is talking about the programmers who write software for digital objects, I think there's a, there's a way in which they don't go far enough in anticipating the user's needs. They don't think through all the use cases, or they don't look for the unmet needs that the user is trying to fill. So they don't think as far as Okay, in order for me to meet that unmet need, I need to tag in the following way. So that the user can have access to the information in the way they want it. I think that kind of proactive thinking is actually kind of rare. I agree with Ray that I use so many programs that if only they had

This week, Augusto and I sat down with co-author of The Power Bible, Brendon Lemon. Brendon is a comedian and with his co-author William Betweet, III, are the authors of this unique book on how to manage power dynamics in relationships. (We had some technical recording issues, so you may notice we jump a bit in the conversation. It still came out to be an intriguing conversation with Brendon, so we hope you enjoy it!) (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/126 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing The Power Bible with Brendon Lemon from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | The Power Bible Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Show Notes | The Power Bible Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Power Bible by Brendon Lemon and William Beteet, III The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene On the topic of pre-reflective self-consciousness, Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness Slavoj Žižek - Wikipedia Gad Elmaleh - Official Website Gad Elmaleh - Wikipedia SugarSammy Eddie Izzard interstitial journaling Raw Text Transcript | The Power Bible Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23 And I'm Augusto Pinaud. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24 And welcome to ProductivityCast. Today, we are bringing you a special episode as we are want to do a few times per year we interview people who we think are going to be useful to you out there in your productivity world. And today, we're going to be talking about a book called The Power Bible by William Beteet III and Brendon Lemon. And we actually have Brendan Lemon with us. So just a little bit about the book. So you have an understanding. I'm just reading here from the Amazon description here. This is a quotation that James all teacher, you know, presents at the beginning of the description, it says, quote, the core of the power Bible is how to light the mastery and confidence in yourself at a deep internal level, and using that confidence outwards, to clearly see the various frames and agendas being used by the people around you, end quote. And so the the description moves on to say, to have power over another one must first have power over one's self. And so this is a book of teaching you how to really assume that intrapersonal individual and societal control and to do that, as I said, we have Brandon lemon here on the show. Brendon from his website is a comedian from Detroit, where he started performing regularly at a famous comedy castle at the age of 16. Two years later, he was filmed for the documentary funny, which featured Christopher Titus and Mike Green. He moved to Paris in summer 2013 to both write and perform stand up in both French and English. He returned to the US and live between Colorado and Chicago in Illinois, performing and writing plays as well as being featured on a TV show Sex sent me to the ER and the movie. Do you believe he lives between Chicago and Detroit currently, and so welcome to ProductivityCast Brendon. Brendon Lemon 2:08 Hey, thanks for having me, guys. I appreciate it. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:10 It's such a pleasure to have you join us today. We have a lot to ask you and to discuss about the power Bible. But first, did I miss anything? Brendon Lemon 2:17 No, you got it? I'm I think I would the Asterix that I would say to update that bio from from my website, I should probably go do it is that I have since moved to New York. But now I'm due to the pandemic in Austin, Texas. It's about the only place you can do comedy in the United States right now. So I'm doing a lot of outdoor shows. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:35 As a New Yorker. I'm I was raised in New York City. I'm a Brooklynite and but now I live in Pittsburgh. So you're you're in my hometown, or we're in my hometown for a while and now you're in Austin, another of my favorite cities in the country. Austin's a really good city. Brendon Lemon 2:51 It's really cool. Pittsburgh is great, though. I went to Pittsburgh, and I was like, this is a more functional Detroit. Yes, yes. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:58 It's like the Midwestern vibe with a bunch of small towns mash together. It's really remarkable right Brendon Lemon 3:04 around the rivers dude, it's great. Very, very cool. I Augusto Pinaud 3:07 really like that description of functional Detroit. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:13 Alright, so let's get into the power Bible. Why did you sit down and decide that you're going to write a book about power? Where did that come from? Brendon Lemon 3:22 Yeah, this is good. This is a good question. So I it should I should back up and say that it you the book came together. Because my co author and I, William petite, the third met in Chicago doing comedy. And what's kind of funny about that is that we were not when I first met him, I was like, I can't stand this guy. And we did not. We did not get along at all. Like all good marriages. We started that way and realized after getting to know each other a little bit more. We actually had a lot in common. And it wasn't just comedy. It was a lot of our background was really similar. We came from very different places. I grew up in Metro Detroit in the Midwest, from a what start would call a petite bourgeoisie family. He came from a very bourgeoisie family. He was born in Britain, raised in Hong Kong, his dad's from St. Louis. He's mixed race. He's got a very, I mean, Bill has a very and he talks about in the book, very diverse background. I have I have a very, I think white bread American background. But I think that our experiences growing up in my case is shifting sort of post colonial Detroit, in his in a in Hong Kong and all over caused us to reflect a lot on our sort of mutual alienation as like his adolescence, and I know this is really going down the rabbit hole. But that's a long winded way of me saying that, once I met him, and when we realized what we had in common, we had a common story of trying to figure out who we were related to the world of shifting sands that we kind of grew up on and you And what we began to realize when we talked a lot about it was that we had done a lot of work. We're both philosophers. He's a lawyer, I almost went to law school until I was literally talked out of it by everyone in my life. And I literally everybody I talked to, would say that I had, I have a degree in philosophy, which I joke is a degree and asking really good questions like, what's the meaning of life? And do you have any change, it basically allowed us, I think, to see how we needed to, at a fundamental level growing up, go inside of ourselves and kind of pick apart our feelings and how our feelings created beliefs, and how those beliefs influenced our identity and our person and how we worked our way out in the world. And going through that process, we developed a similar philosophy. And we realized, as we talked about it more and more, we really had something to create. And I think that the power Bible was finally created, because we wanted to produce something, we had something to share. And we wanted to produce a book that we wish we had, when we started this process out. We wanted something that somebody could take, and really try to understand how do I get what I want in life? How do I win conversations that matter? And winning conversations that matter isn't just tactics that happen in a negotiation, or interpersonally, it also happens inside of yourself, the first conversation you have to win is with yourself. And that's what we realized, I think was missing from a lot of books that we had read on the subject. And that's what we wanted to create with our Bible. That's a very long winded way of answering your question. Augusto Pinaud 6:36 But that was one of the things that as I progressed in the reading was exciting for me, because I obviously didn't know what to expect when I begin the book. But one of the things I found when when we talk about power is the power towards daughters and how we're going to control that. And that is, so what it is. But if you don't control yourself, if you don't learn how to do it inside first, then the outside it's not real. So that was as I begin progress into the book, one of the things that got me into it and got me more interest. And we'll get to my questions that I have in a bit. Was that part of how you it is in a way more about what you're? Yeah, it talks about a little bit about the others. But it's really more about how you are going to use the tools and the framework to apply it yourself. Now. It's really exciting for Brendon Lemon 7:32 me. Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Because I think you know, I mean, there's I guess there's two things I want to say there. One is, you know, character matters....

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art start a new series on ProductivityCast, BookCast, to discuss books in time management-related genres. To start us off, we’re discussing The Myth of Multitasking, Second Edition by Dave Crenshaw. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/125 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing BookCast: The Myth of Multitasking, Second Edition by Dave Crenshaw from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | BookCast: The Myth of Multitasking Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | BookCast: The Myth of Multitasking Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. BookCast: The Myth of Multitasking, Second Edition by Dave Crenshaw Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, PhD Rube Goldberg machine bricolage MacGyver Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Hello, and welcome to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to today's episode. Today, we are doing our second book caste, book discussions on books that we are reading and we wanted to share what we are reading with you today we are discussing the Myth of Multitasking how doing it all gets nothing done the second edition by Dan Crenshaw, he has written several books on productivity. But most notably, he has written and produced several courses on lynda.com, now known as LinkedIn learning, and that is the Microsoft owned company, LinkedIn, LinkedIn learning and the lynda.com platform. So if you ever go to LinkedIn learning or lynda.com, and you look at any of the productivity courses there, they're likely done by Dan Crenshaw. And so he has written this book this, do we call this an allegory or a fable of Helen and Phil, Phil being a productivity consultant that has come into this company to help out GREENGUARD with their productivity, specifically, the CEO, Helen, what did you guys think of the book? What were your ideas that initially kind of after finishing the book you thought about, and then then we can get into the kind of particulars of what Phil is really trying to portray here. What Crenshaw is trying to portray here through the character of Phil, Augusto Pinaud 1:40another book was a really enjoyable I agree on on the issues of multitasking and the problems of lack of attention and lack of focus. So I, I think, for many people who think that they can be to certain degrees effective multitasking, it's important to understand what Crusher coal, by ground tasking, you know, that you can drive and listen music and versus actually when you need to put attention on the work and what is the cost of not putting the right attention to this to these tasks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:20He did attempt to bring a couple of new definitions to the world, I have frequently called what he was calling back tasking or background tasking. As meta tasking, that is something that is layered. And back ground or back tasking just didn't seem right, to me is the right term, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And so the idea of kind of habit stacking, or these other terms that tend to muddle what is actually happening is, I think counter to my own productivity, when I think about it in those terms, they just don't make sense. If we are doing two tasks at once, one that doesn't require our full attention, and can be done either by a machine or simultaneously like having a conversation and driving while not is not the safest thing in the world can be done, or texting and driving, which is not safe and should not be done. Either. There are different standards of what can be done. And so this idea of back tasking, or background tasking, just didn't seem to stick with me as a term. But I recognize that it happens that we do it. And that it can actually be a very useful mechanism for time management, Art Gelwicks 3:29the concept of back tasking to me as a rationalization within the book. I mean, it's it's talking about pushing something to an alternative system. Let's say you've got a video that you've edited, and it needs to render. So you're going to let the system render while you take some calls. That's fine, but you're not doing the work. And that's where I think it becomes a misnomer. And it actually undermines this whole concept of getting away from multitasking because we're talking about something else going on, but you're not actually doing it. So why even kid yourself that you're doing it, you're starting something off and running. This is delegation, you just happen to be delegating to an automated system. So I don't know, I think it's an unnecessary addition. And it clutters the concept. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:14Yeah, I think you could take the example of doing laundry while watching a television show. So there is a facilitated part here, which is that the washing machine and the dryer are going to do the bulk majority of the work but say that you're folding your clothes, or putting your clothes on hangers while watching the show. That's where you are in essence, you have your attention primarily on one activity where you're consuming something while still being able to do the other activity which is folding the clothes. I don't differentiate the fact that a machine is doing some level of the work like you said, you know, get video rendering and you go and do something else. You're still having to manage. If you're if you're managing the activity, then I consider you doing it. And so that's kind of how I've pieced those two pieces to So I, it's interesting because you're, you're differentiating that which is machine facilitated work. And that that you're managing and action based work that you're actually doing yourself manually. That's an interesting delineation. Art Gelwicks 5:13See, but I would also challenge the the idea, the consuming example, because, to me, there's a difference between active and passive consuming. And if you are doing something like folding your laundry, you're passively consuming whatever it is that you know is on the TV, because for periods of time be ever they how short, you have to disconnect from that to make sure you actually fold the thing in front of you. So for that block of time, you're not engaged, you're not doing that other thing, which is that passive absorption of whatever's going on, you're not taking notes, you're not capturing details, you're not processing the information, it's just kind of floating in the background. So and I find myself doing the same thing, if I'm working on a project, and I decided, Oh, I'll play an audio book. While I'm doing this, too. It doesn't take me very long to recognize the fact that I'm getting very little value out of that audio book at that point, because I'm not focused on that. It's background, it's, yeah, I might absorb something, but it's not an effective use of the dual task. If I if I want value out of something, it requires focus. And that's, again, this is where I struggle with this a little bit, because it does make sense to me to take things that do not require my focus, and I do not need to drive personal engagement to get the value out of to some other things, whether mechanical, personal or otherwise, but simultaneously doing things. And it just flat out doesn't work. I mean, his definite, his reference to what he often we refer to as time slicing, you know, jumping back and forth between things, I think is a much more accurate representation of this. With that Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:49I'm gonna, I'm gonna snap us back to the beginning of the book, and start from the beginning of the book, which is, it is called The Myth of Multitasking. And we find fill in this narrative, where he is a productivity consultant. And he comes and meets Helen, the CEO of green garb. And as he is introduced to her, she is harried and dealing with multiple people in her office, and finally makes time to sit down with Phil, and then they are capable of having a conversation about her current time and task management. And what did you think let's just start at the very top of the chart in terms of multitasking, as he defined it, the idea of multitasking generally, how we've considered it and thought about it in society and work culture over the past several decades, because it is a fairly new invention. And we can kind of go from there. You know, there's a there's a story here. So let's stick to the narrative. And we can kind of make our way through the different pieces, perhaps. But what did you think about the presentation of the material of multitasking, and I'll just start with the fact that he basically posits that multitasking is a myth,...

This week, in continuing on our recent episodes about note-taking methods, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art are taking on a closely-related topic of personal knowledge management to discuss Zettelkasten. Don't know about Zettelkasten? Listen in and learn! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/124 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Personal Knowledge Management With Zettelkasten from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Personal Knowledge Management With Zettelkasten Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Personal Knowledge Management With Zettelkasten Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZHuWLA09M Zettelkasten The Zettelkasten Method: Examples to help you get started. Getting Started • Zettelkasten Method OneNote Evernote Obsidian Instapaper Flipboard Feedly Pocket Maker’s Schedule and Manager’s Schedule by Paul Graham Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. This week, we are going to step our toe into a little bit more of our note taking methodology topics that we were talking about earlier. And of course, that's going to get very muddy very soon. But we're interested in discussing the concept of zettelkasten. And today, what we're going to do is we're going to define the concept of zettelkasten, as best as we can, as the ProductivityCast team, and then talk about the ways in which people use zettelkasten in the in their own personal productivity methods and systems. And then talk a little bit about how you can maybe get started utilizing zettelkasten in your own work and life. And so let's start off with jumping into what is zettelkasten. And for those of you who are a little bit confused, it's ze TT ELKSTN. zettelkasten is a German word that means Slingbox, kind of like, think about the Dewey Decimal System in the old libraries, where you would put little cards into those little slip boxes. That's the the term that was used by this particular gentleman who developed the system. Art Do you want to give us a little bit of background on zettelkasten, where it came from, and then we can all kind of dive in and give our interpretations of what several caston is, Art Gelwicks 1:44here's the nutshell version, the original premise. And unfortunately, I'm going to, I can't, I'm drawing a blank on the author's name, or the the writers name, but he's maybe a goose, or maybe Ray, you remember his name, very prolific writer, 400, articles, books, everything generated huge amounts of content. And he developed this system called zettelkasten, to allow him to organize all the knowledge he needed around these topics and all this research content. Now keep in mind, this was all pre digital tech. So he designed all this in an analog platform, basically index cards, and he would put a piece of information he learned or a quote, or a reference item on a card and have a specific index, a referencing number system to allow him to identify each one of those pieces. And then based on each one of those pieces, he's then able to go through and say, Okay, now how do these relate to each other? What are what are the concepts that are tied to this particular item. So let's say for example, I'm I don't know I'm writing a paper on flowers. And I find a reference piece of information about a particular type of flower, the zettelkasten, not only would have an index related to how this fits into my system, but also all the pieces that this is a flower, and this is maybe about pollination. And this is about location. The the core energy around this, if I can use the term energy is to create the relationships between the ideas, and in basically an old school method of hyperlinking. So that within each idea, you have those connections to the other ideas. So by being able to leverage those connections, you can find relationships between information and ideas that you normally would not recognize. And see. It's designed to handle a huge volume of information. And it's also designed to be very scalable. Its liability was always at the time. Because it was analog, it was it literally, and I can't again, I can't think of the guy's name. But if you look up one of his quotes he talked about that he always worked at in partnership with his zettelkasten. That's a big level of commitment for any system. I mean, if you're going to consider that system to be an equal to you, and whatever you're doing, adds a crazy level of commitment. With digital technology, it's easier to do the mechanical parts that were so prohibitive within zettelkasten to create the hyperlinks to create backlinks and the relationships within there to be able to do the search indexing around content to find those relationships between ideas. But it doesn't change the fact that this is something that really lends itself to pure knowledge management. I don't know that I would try to use a zettelkasten for task management or even managing a project. But if it's all the information around various topics, this becomes that kind of second brain type of approach and it doesn't have to be for just a topic. If you're working on say a thesis or something like that, you could use a zettelkasten to do that. But there's no classes designed to grow well beyond that. And its benefit comes from the fact that you may be putting content in there for your thesis. But you may also be putting content in there. From a series of articles, you're just randomly reading, and identify relationships between those things that you normally would not see, just because of how those hyperlinks are. I don't want to say organically created, but they develop on their own as they as you start to see the contextual relationships. I'm not doing the explanation of this justice, because it is a fairly complex thing to initially get set up. But at its core, thinking about dealing with those abstract pieces of information that we find very valuable in and of themselves. But we don't know what to do with and never truly realizing the the benefit of those interacting with each other. Well, that's where something like zettelkasten comes in. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:03Yeah, so the person you're probably thinking about was Nicholas lumen, or lumen in German. And so He's a sociologist, and quite prolific, as you noted. And so I really think about zettelkasten in terms of like capturing knowledge in ways that are purpose driven. One is reference. So I would consider that knowledge management. The other, of course, is being able to file then filter and find what I've consumed. And what I want to be able to remember from my readings, and that being able to help support me as I'm writing new material. And so you know, as I'm writing any longer term piece of material, I want to be able to capture and surface those items. So I think about the zettelkasten method from that perspective most frequently. And I think you've captured most of the pieces that I think would help to define what the zettelkasten method really does, and how it helps someone as a in their own system. Art Gelwicks 6:56One point I did leave out and this is this was something that came up looking at it related to digital technology, is that one of the key things about zettelkasten is its small captures, we're not capturing like entire dissertations into the zettelkasten. These are all individual quotes, individual facts, individual items. And it's because they're small, they can relate to each other much more effectively than something that's large and comprehensive. It's a common question that you see, when people when you start to research implementing zettelkasten in a digital note taking tool, a lot of the feedback that you'll see as well, does it how well does it handle little notes. And that's exactly what we're talking about is the zettelkasten requires little notes. Most of our note taking tools are really designed around longer form notes. One note is a really common tool for using for zettelkasten. And that's one of the first questions is well, one note likes big notes, not necessarily little notes, but you can do that. So it's it's an important context to apply around it. When you think about a book you may be reading, you're pulling all those little things out. So the best example I can give you is if you would sit there and highlight something, that highlighted thing is a great candidate for zettelkasten card. Because that is an individual piece, you're not going to highlight four pages, well, I would hope not....

Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art art starting a new "series" called Productivity Labs here on ProductivityCast. We're going to be discussing tools, methods and research we're experimenting with in our own personal productivity systems (even when they are not what we normally use) so we can report back to you what we've learned. This week, we're diving into how using the Bullet Journal method worked for us. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/123 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing the Bullet Journal method experiments from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Labs, Methods Edition—Bullet Journal Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Labs, Methods Edition—Bullet Journal Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Episode 035 - What Is the Bullet Journal?Episode 073 - Tailoring the Bullet JournalPatrick Rhone » The Dash/Plus System Going Further With Evernote masterclassAugusto referenced Anything But Idle, Episode 052, when discussing some research on taking notes on a laptop versus by handwriting notesGoodnotesEvernoteOneNoteOneNote Bullet Journal communityThe Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder CarrollWorkflowyRocketbook notebooks Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm Augusto. Francis Wade 0:23And I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, what we're doing is we are introducing a new I guess, we can call it a series in which we are going to be talking about different experiments, that is just discussing how we have each experimented with various methods and tools. Today is one of those methods discussions. And we're going to be talking about the bullet journal, we've of course, talked about the bullet journal in the past both what it is in Episode 35. And then again, we talked about really how you can tailor the bullet journal to your own needs. And episode 73. I'll put links to those in the show notes for us. dogfooding. A methodology when you're very used to another is very interesting. And I thought, well, we could do this more often, we could actually try these things out. And since art had had experience with the bullet journal already, I thought, well, let's put this together. And so good stone, I really started ideating. Well, let's do this with other methods over the course of time. And so that's really where productivity Labs was born from. And so let's get into it. Let's talk about the bullet journal in its most basic sense, because like I said, you can jump back to Episode 35, and go deep in to what the bullet journal method is. But let's do a an overview of the system itself. Then we'll talk about our own setup experiences, and then our own experiences actually using the bullet journal. So let's start with what is the bullet journal. And since we're going to consider you the resident expert, what is the bullet journal Just in brief for listeners, the bullet Art Gelwicks 1:56journal itself, and I'm not going to do writer Carol justice with this, but I'm going to sum it up as best I can. It's a method of tracking activities and tracking notes on a running in daily basis. That is not tool specific. It is platform agnostic. So you can do bullet journaling. In a paper journal, you can do it on a digital pad, you can do it in most productivity applications. The design of it is supposed to be simplified, very simplified and very adaptable uses literally just that bullets and variations on bullets to help you keep track of the different things that you need to do. And we are making notations. There's a lot of detail that you can dig into it. But if you think about taking notes on a legal pad, and then adding some icons to it to make sure you can tell one from another, you're probably about a quarter of the way to a bullet journal at that Augusto Pinaud 2:51point. For me, it's inevitable when I think on the bullet journal, and even with this exercise of the bullet journal, to think about Patrick Brown dodge Plus system and and we will put a link on on the notes because that's the first time I heard about the idea of not using something digital or not the first time but the first time I saw an implementation that seems robust enough, it really fits really well. Basically, the idea is that you use a dash and you can modify it, you know, they sit in the action is done, or you're waiting for delegates that data point or move. What I like about what I did was a bullet journal is that it's really I can see for certain people how this can be really useful. How can having everything in there, what kills me was a double entry that reentry they're recreating that part, I did not see a benefit on the cost benefit part of that in doing all that reentry. So even that my test was digital, and even that might test supposed to work really well. On the way I did it. I saw benefits. And I see a person who love paper on which brain works in a paper like base way can see a lot of benefits out of this. My concern was if doing this, you will skip the step of processing those notes. Because that's what I found online. You know that now that I can index me to process notes, that was a danger. Because there were things into that system that never made it out of that just because I knew where to find it on the index of that Art Gelwicks 4:35you're bringing up probably one of the biggest weaknesses I consider in the system. It is not automation friendly. It is not designed or having any intention to leverage streamlining functionality that allows you to integrate if you're going to do this in a digital environment with other systems, tying it to task lists and things like that, and you have to go back to its original core Is that it, it is simplified enough that it can be applied everywhere. But because it is simplified enough, there's a lot of functionality that we would expect within productivity tools. That just doesn't exist because it's, it has to be able to be implemented anywhere. I mean, you could implement the bullet journal in Microsoft Word, you could implement it in Excel, you could implement it hack in a PowerPoint slide, if you wanted to. The concept carries over regardless of the platform. But just like you're saying, A Gousto. That means that labor part of it is on you. It's not on the tool that you're utilizing to manage that. I see that a lot. And I'll talk about the platform I've worked with it in. But there's a couple of different ways that it's commonly implemented on, on my platform. And they all struggle from that same problem is that lack of integrity when it comes to automation and streamlining functionality, and you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're going to be the one that cranks the widgets on this, you're going to be turning that handle, not some other system, or not some other tool rather Augusto Pinaud 6:12well, and that brought my second shortcoming is how much this is really is a scalable, you know, I pick it for a particular project, not for my whole system. But even in this particular project. And it had been worked great the project start on March 1, it was a great way to do the test to collect the information to have all in one place. Even as the project is progressing, and the complexity and the pieces on the project has been adding, there has been more times that I'm that I've been feeling that it's slowing down the process instead of allowing me and it may be a part of automation, it may be a part of, I don't know exactly. But it felt multiple times that it was clear to me in week three, that this tool will not even be sufficient or sufficient for this project. Even that is not really complex one, it has a lot of input and reports. But it wasn't a complex one, and it was choking by week three. Art Gelwicks 7:15Yeah, it's not a high velocity system, it's not, don't kid yourself, if you think you're going to do high velocity work through this kind of a system. Because it's not designed for that I wouldn't try and run a corporate project using a bullet journal. I however, would probably maintain all of my own notes about that project using a bullet journal structure, and emulate a lot of that functionality, because I have found that it is scalable at the individual level, it can go up and you can handle personal and professional within the same system and build it up. The one thing I have discovered, though, is you really you have to commit yourself to just using the system, you have to commit yourself to using your bullet journal and making it your trusted and your trusted tool....

In this week’s ProductivityCast episode, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art voiced their thoughts on note-taking methodologies. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/122 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing note-taking methodologies from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Note-Taking Methodologies Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Note-Taking Methodologies Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. OneNote Workflowy Cornell Note-Taking Method Mind Mapping 3 Best Note-Taking Methods Common Note-taking Methods 7 Most Efficient Note Taking Methods Evernote FreeMind/Mind42 TheBrain Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and a goose open out with Francis Wade and art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23And I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, what we're going to be doing is starting kind of an ongoing conversation we're going to have over the next few episodes on notetaking. And what I thought we would do today, what I thought we could have a conversation around is really the the note taking methodologies that we know of, and use and kind of go from there. So let's start off with some of the most popular note taking methods that are out there. And then we can kind of touch base on what we use, how we've used them in the past, and maybe some pointers in terms of how people can bridge the gap between the hybridization of notetaking, which is that people have to toggle between paper and digital so often today, even though they don't realize it because we get a lot of paper in our world. And we take digital notes many times, but yet we actually don't make them actionable. And I think there's this balance between making things, reference and action. And I'd like to have a conversation about that as well around these the baseline methods that I know of like outlining, the Cornell note taking method, there's mind mapping, there's just unstructured note taking. There are many other ways in which we can take note taking, where do you want to begin in terms of note taking methods that you know about, and you'd like to discuss? Art Gelwicks 1:52Well, for me, it's a pretty straightforward one, I'm an outline guy. I love outlining, I use outlining that's, that is my fallback method, I find constantly doesn't matter what tool I'm using, I'll find myself creating outlines for organizing and moving through content. Mind Mapping is probably the counterpart in my mind to outlining, because it's that freeform structure, which outline limits a little bit, but I don't think, too, not to an extreme. But both, interestingly enough, translate just as well analog to digital, I can do them in both platforms. But also I found that they define the tools that I'm going to use. Because if I go into use a tool for note taking or try one out, if I don't have an easy ability to generate an outline in the tool, the tool is much less attractive to me, I have much less desire to use it. And even beyond that, to be able to get the content out of the outline to other tools, say from an outline into a word processing document, I have to be able to do that. So it still becomes that common denominator. It's the the one note taking method that I don't have to think about. It just naturally happens for me. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:15So can you explain for listeners what you mean by outlining? What does the hierarchy of the content look like? How do you structure your outlining method? Art Gelwicks 3:23It's it's interesting, because there are very formalized structures and outlining you can you can look up specific approaches to how to create outlines, numbering structures and things like that, for me, it's really just a matter of relevance of relationship of content to each other. And then creating a progressive structure. One of the problems with outlining that people will run into is, especially if you do it on the analog side. As you start to capture the outline, it feels like it's being locked into place, you know, you've created a top level topic, you've captured sub items underneath that topic. And you may have captured additional details under those sub items, and so on and so forth. When you're dealing with that on an analog platform, you know, if you're taking it on a legal pad, it can be challenging, because if you need to go back and put something in the middle of that, functionally and physically, that platform doesn't allow you to do that easily. On a digital platform. It's much easier, you can backtrack and you can interject it in. But what I find outlining is at its best is a way of providing context relevance between topics that you're dealing with, whether you're taking notes from a book, you're going through and capturing information during a meeting. You're planning out a project. It's a great way to provide that structure. For two methods that I use. One is lots of levels I Ness things deep. I mean I will drop things in I'll have a question and then underneath that I will address additional answers. If I have, there's a statement that's made, and I have my own thoughts about it, well, I'll drop in sub items under that, that show mine. Because that in the digital space gets coupled with collapsing and expanding, most good tools will give you the ability to collapse and expand an outline to its various different levels. And that gives you an ability to refocus your thinking, but also reorganize the content easily. If you look at tools, I use OneNote all the time. But there's another great one called workflowy, where you can collapse down to a top level topic and then move that around in your outline structure to reorganize it and get get your thinking more structured. So formal outlining methods, I think that's one of the things that scares people off from outlining is they think back to school, and they go, Okay, this is what I had to do. And I had to have a Roman numeral here. And I had to have numbers underneath and lowercase letters under. And that if I didn't have that structure, right, it wasn't correct. Now, that's a bunch of baloney. You can do whatever you want. You can do colored dots, you can do emojis, you can do numbers, you can do letters, you can do bullets, I'm a big one for doing bullets. If I have no reason to have a sequence for the things under an item, if there is a logical sequence, I'll use numbers or I'll use letters. But if there isn't a sequence, I just need to indicate that these are slightly different than the ones above it and the ones below it. So structurally, it's relatively simple. I mean, it's exactly what we define. We just can't overcomplicate it. And I think that's one of the hang ups with outlining is people get that PTSD from elementary school, or middle school, in this case, of trying to figure out how to structure it just right, you don't have to worry about that just write this stuff down, Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:49I find that I, I spend most of my time using the outlining method, when I'm taking notes in meetings. If the content is highly structured, I find that outlining is best for me, because I can, you know, bullet, or 123 or Roman numeral one, number one, A, and I can follow the line of whatever that is that tends to be in an educational environment where I'm consistently taking an online course or I'm studying something online. And that gives me that conceptual framework for being able to follow and take notes along with those items, I tend to feel like this breaks down for me very quickly for being able to review and understand the notes when there isn't a structure or a flow to what is going on. So a meeting has an agenda, a seminar or workshop, the webinar or whatnot will have will have a syllabus, and I will be able to follow along with those things. If it doesn't have that, then that's where the outline method really breaks down for me. So just so that people have an idea that you know, you can, you can utilize or not utilize structure here, and that can be useful to you. Let's move on to mind mapping since art already brought it up. Mind Mapping is probably my favorite and preferred way of really capturing in general in a freeform fashion when it comes to brainstorming, or even sometimes collaboratively working with people so that they can structure their own thoughts. Many times people have difficulty structuring their thoughts. And so for those who don't know what a mind map is, a mind map is a freeform visual note taking method, whereby you create a parent thought, and that parent thought is usually in the center of a page. But it doesn't have to be but it becomes what we call a central

In this week’s ProductivityCast episode, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art voiced their thoughts on note-taking—the value of note-taking, methods we use, and tips and tricks for taking notes in different contexts. Note: I say that we're covering note-taking methodologies in this episode, but we will actually be discussing those in the next several episodes, so stay tuned. Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing A Love Letter to Note-Taking, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | A Love Letter to Note-Taking Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | A Love Letter to Note-Taking Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. OneNote Workflowy Cornell Note-Taking Method Mind Mapping 3 Best Note-Taking Methods Common Note-taking Methods 7 Most Efficient Note Taking Methods Evernote FreeMind/Mind42 Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be talking about some fundamentals in the productivity world. And that is note taking. What I'd like us to do today is for us to talk about why we take notes that is we around the roundtable here at ProductivityCast, why we take notes, why maybe you should take notes. And then what I'd like for us to do is do a survey, kind of an overview of the top five or so, note taking methods that we know about and or use or have used in the past. And that will hopefully help you get a better understanding about how to take notes better. And so let's start off with why take notes. What is the what is the reason for taking notes, and I will step outside of that answer for just a moment to note that the note taking space, that is the industry around notes is roughly a billion dollar industry and is supposed to grow to about $1.3 billion by 2026. So in just under, you know half a decade, we're gonna see this explosion of the note taking software market, this is just in software, we're not even talking about paper planners, which is another multi, you know, billion dollar industry. And it's really interesting to see that note taking software is so popular, even though note taking itself is not the most sexy topic that people really think about when they think about productivity. It's just one of those things that kind of rests into the background. But it's something that I think all of us do, in some way, shape or form. And I'm curious why you take notes, what was the impetus for you to start taking notes? And why do you take notes? And what do you take notes of today? Art Gelwicks 2:01Well, for me, it's pretty straightforward. It's because I can't remember everything. And it's for the things that I need to remember. And it will, when I think about notes, everything goes back to academic note taking we think about scholastic note taking and all that lovely note taking we had to do back then, but it carries forward. And part of the challenge that I run into with notes and note taking. And the reason why I'm doing it is now professionally, I do it for reference after the fact, again, things I can't remember and shouldn't be trying to remember. Secondly, it's for historical record of conversations and activities. And thirdly, and this is where I really struggle with a little bit. It's to provide context across different sets of notes, where discussions happen around different topics that are related to each other or similar to be able to go back and revisit those and say, Okay, well wait, maybe there's something else deeper here. But no taking in and of itself, I have yet to find a way that actually lends itself for that. I mean, there's other methodologies and things. But when you sit there during a call during a meeting, during your discussion, whatever, and you're just capturing stuff, you have to commit yourself to the fact that later on, you're either going to have to go back and rewrite this and reorganize it, or it's just going to sit there in a notebook or in a file or in the cloud somewhere. And you're probably never going to do anything with it. And Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:21I think that's one of the number one reasons why you would structure notes in and with a method so that you're able to actually identify what it is that is useful in and during some event that forces you to take notes whether that event is solo or with others. Art Gelwicks 3:37Thanks. So also, I mean, the one thing I didn't call out there is a lot of times you take notes for other people, you take notes to share with other individuals. And that's almost even harder, because your structure and their structure may be completely unrelated. So they look at your notes and they go, What the heck is this mess, but you realize that you have all the context and the information you need. It's just the approach and how you visualize it is different now that Augusto Pinaud 3:59you mentioned that I really feel bad for whoever need to look at my notes and reference. For me notes is a similar you know, it is my way to make sure that I understand what was discussed and more importantly for me, what are the projects and actions that come in out of that discussion. You know, as Art said, my my memory can't remember that not only that I learned many years ago that the mind is great for certain things, but not for that. So notes for me has has a simple process and it's a way to remember and I use markers through my notes so that way sometimes just the fact that I took the notes is enough and I don't need to go back other than to pull actions away. So I make sure that I mark I am a big proponent of the Cornell Method so that way I could pull actions out of that if I am doing it by myself and they used to be my maps and then the mind map same thing. I mark easily for me to just look without need the need of reading, I know what are the places that I need to go to pull it, I think Francis Wade 5:05of note taking in sort of falling in three different buckets. One is for prospective memory, which is essentially next next actions, time demands, tasks, things that I need to do in the future. And I treat those very differently than I do notes that are for prospective member retrospective memories are, which is stuff that I'm trying to remember, and not forget, versus stuff that came into my awareness, I have no chance of remembering, but I need to retrieve at a later point. So I'm not trying to retrieve to remember, I'm actually storing it so that I can forget, forget, in the sense that I can't, I don't want to be able to retrieve it, I just want it to be available. So those three, those three notes may be mixed into the same page, but they're doing three different jobs. And from the moment and I treat them differently, I'll say Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:56that I started out my academic world with the idea that I didn't need to take notes, I really felt as though I was against the topic as a as a as a youth purely because I, I was brought up in in the mindset that you know, you're smart, and smart kids don't work hard, you should not need to work hard. And it was actually a really terrible cultural component, I think it still is, you know, when you tell children who are who are brighter than average, that they're smart, it tells them not to work hard. And so I would go through all kinds of sessions in school. And I would not take notes purely because I thought that I had to pay close attention. And only by paying close attention was I going to be able to recall everything. And remarkably, I just happen to have a very good memory. And so for many years that served me, and then scholastic duties expanded, and that started to fail. So I got my Trapper Keeper out and decided to use the note, you know, the notebook in it, for purposes of taking notes. And that's when I really started to feel like, wow, this is so simple. If I just take notes, then I can reference them again. And nobody cared. Nobody cared that I was taking notes. It wasn't like Johnny over my shoulder saying, oh, ravens taking notes, nobody cared. And, you know, that was, for some reason, there was this cultural component I just that I that I understood at a very young age. And for some reason, that made me not take notes. And going into the place where then I started to take notes, I recognize the value from that very early age that just that one twist of saying, Wait, I'm not capable of remembering everything that's happening in class, I can't remember all these signs, the teachers telling me, there was a point where I think probably in Bali, fifth or sixth grade, moving from elementary school to junior high school, that's the way the New York school systems work. I,...

The four-day workweek is lately in the news. Its promise is greater economic benefits for businesses and governments, and increased productivity for organization’s human resources. How should we think about this from a personal and business productivity perspective? Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art share their thoughts on the four-day workweek. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/120 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Four-Day Workweek's Impact on Productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Four-Day Workweek's Impact on Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Four-Day Workweek's Impact on Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Day After Tomorrow: an Autonomy study on the 4 day week in the private sector Related: The Five-Hour Workday: Live Differently, Unlock Productivity, and Find Happiness by Stephan Aarstol Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, we are going to be covering something that I think is quite kind of interesting, it will give us an opportunity to really think through something that we have just kind of taken for granted, it kind of sits in the background. And that is the workweek, how we structure our lives is so built on the routine around this structure of really the eight hour work day. And the concept that we work, a regular set of hours throughout our work week and our weekends being structured to be this space where we rest between work. And the reality is, is that much of it is a bit of a farce. We spend so much of our time thinking inside and outside of work when we're on so to speak. And yet at the same time, we don't really recognize the fact that we are always working in a way, whether that be being applied to life work or work work. There's kind of both of those pieces going on. And I'm really curious from the ProductivityCast team hear our thoughts around this. And what piqued this was that autonomy, which is a consultancy, based out of the UK, they put out a recent study that discusses the profitability of UK businesses, if they were to implement this four day working week concept. So that came to prominence in my own mind, we've talked about this on in on ProductivityCast In the past, and now the study came out. And in essence, it covered some really interesting and I think compelling arguments for the case of having a four day workweek. And so what I thought we would do is cover kind of the big ticket items that the study identified, and then talk about how we all view the four day workweek in the context of the US and other jurisdictions how they would really apply this, and whether it would work for individual productivity, and then what you all could do, say, to get started to test whether or not a four day workweek would really work for you. And so the report was called the day after tomorrow, and the name being named because of the COVID 19 pandemic. And of course, the fact that a lot of businesses have been in some form of shutdown and reopening and shutdown and reopening, and the impacts of how the four day workweek could benefit companies post pandemic. But anyway, it's called the day after tomorrow. The subtitle is stress tests, affordability and the roadmap to the four day workweek. This was published in December 2020. And I'll put a link to this study in the show notes. So you can have that autonomy, who's the author of the study, they're an independent think tank based in the UK and they provide necessary analyses, proposals and solutions with which to confront the changing reality of work today. And so that's really their whole goal is to help us flourish in the face of all of this change the in the summary of findings, I'm just going to note these I think these are useful, and then we'll get into the particulars. The summary of findings notes, we It says we provide a conservative worst case scenario for the impacts on profitability of a suddenly implemented four day workweek in the private sector. They also find that a four day workweek, with no loss of pay would be affordable for most firms once the initial phase of the COVID-19 crisis has passed. On the other hand, some firms in some industries would experience cashflow problems if changes were implemented too quickly. A four day workweek, with no loss of pay will most likely be implemented in the public sector before the private sector. And then public sector organizations could influence private sector businesses through procurement policy and other indirect routes. The process of changing expectations and behavioral norms could be sped up by the creation of a more of more bank holidays and the reintroduction of pro union legislation. Even if a four day work week in the private sector took longer than expected a four day work week in the public sector could support the UK long term recovery out of this particular pandemic. This particular crisis Augusto Pinaud 4:26Well I think the first question is where is work happening and on what on how we define work you know it's work they actually meet the people is actually doing the report at what level we're talking I'm all for to certain roles to be a four day work week. You know, we if we think when we came with the idea of this or when they came with a CDL, five days 40 hours a week with the in implement on technology, efficiency, non technology. What we have gone is exactly the opposite way people must people in work in a lot more than those 40 hours a lot more than those five days. Even if you're talking public sectors, unless you are the person in the window, most likely you are working more than that. So I'm all all formed the question that I will have is, and and this is an American question, as an American culture is, are we ready to leave our addiction to work? Because the problem, when you look into the United States, specifically, there is some kind of an addiction to work, there is a badge of honor to say, Oh, I work 80 hours a week. You know, that doesn't happen in other cultures, you know, I make fun of some customers from Spain, and I make fun of them. Because, you know, we may be in the middle of a meeting, but it's time for a siesta. And that meeting need to stop, we hope to come back. And I remember when I begin working with them how difficult that concept was, for me thinking on the American way to work, you know, and how much they respect that hour. And that is a stop. And we continue after this yesterday, that was fine. When you go to other cultures, it is the same they have those rhythm that I have not found in, in the American working culture, you know, what I have found is let's see who can push harder. Let's see who can stay longer. Let's see who can work more, and is the exception to the rule. The companies who tend to work on those 40 hours a week. Art Gelwicks 6:34Let me lay out some facts here because I actually did a little homework on this. Starting off the 40 Hour Workweek, I need to be clear about something we talked about the four day workweek, or a 32 hour workweek, because many cases, the four day work week is actually 14 hour days perceived. So you're not decreasing the number of hours, you're just compressing them into a shorter period of time during the week. That's a mixed bag. It's been documented as being a mixed bag, because anything more than eight hours has been shown to be not increasing productivity that goes back to the Henry Ford piece. But what's important to understand is where the 40 hour week came from, and it started well before Ford 1866, the National Labor Union asked for the eight hour work day It wasn't passed, but it started to increase public support. President Grant in 1869 was the first one to mandate eight hour work days for federal employees. And in 1886, the Illinois legislature mandated eight hour work days, this actually caused employer resistance resulting in worker strikes, including a bombing that killed 12 people, if you look up the Haymarket Riot of May 1, it's related to this whole thing. It goes from 1886, all the way up to 1926. Before we get Henry Ford included in this mix of popularizing the 40 Hour Workweek, and that's him saying, well, working more than eight hours, doesn't really benefit based on what he's seen. The Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, required overtime for all employees working more than 44 hours a week, but was then amended two years later to be 40 hours a week. And in 1940, the 40 hour workweek becomes law....

In this week's episode, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art explain the concept of building a memory palace (a/k/a Method of Loci, or Journey Method) and then discuss its veracity in work and personal life, and some productive uses of the memory palace for someone starting out. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/119 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing building a memory palace from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Building a Memory Palace Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Building a Memory Palace Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Method of loci https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6PoUg7jXsA Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to listeners to another, I think, action-packed episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we are going to be talking about something that goes by many names, but is all the same thing. We're going to be talking about the method of loci, also known as the memory palace method, or the Journey method. And what we're going to do today is really talk about its history. I just want to go through a little bit about what the history of the method of loci is, then we will talk about the method itself, how it actually operates, what are the functions of the method, the primary part of our conversation will then center on whether any of us have used the memory palace technique or the journey of method, technique, and what our experiences are with other kinds of mnemonics in either studies or at work. And then we'll close out with maybe some productive uses for you. And where you can apply the Journey method. Let's get into first, the history and the idea of the Journey method. The method of loci really started out in the concept of the ancient Greeks and Romans talking about the idea of memory, and how the brain really works, how the mind works. In this particular case, the, the ancient Greeks and Romans had a different perception or conception of where the mind lived. So we won't get into that. But in essence, it was used for memorizing everything when you studied in ancient Greece or ancient Rome, you were memorizing full treatises, and all of these things were required of you in order to be a learned individual, the mnemonic system known now as the Journey method, method of loci or the memory palace was developed. And so this is an very ancient concept. And so what I want to do is just cover what and how I understand the method. And then gentlemen, you can jump in with any questions that you might have. So the way in which I think about the Journey method is four distinct components. I use the acronym alles AI ls to remember it generally. And it stands for Association, imagery, location, and story. And the idea is, is that the more outlandish and connected pieces are in a specific location connected to a story, then the more likely we are to remember those things. And more importantly, in that order. And many people may know the Joshua force story. This is a guy who was not a memory, genius of any kind. But he decided to use this technique and won the World memory championship the following year, and he did a TED talk. And I'll post the Embed of the TED talk in the show notes. But in essence, he used the method of loci, he used this technique in order to be able to remember all of these cards in a deck and all these other memory, you know, tests that they put him through. And so the idea is, is that you come up with something that you want to remember, say it's a deck of cards. And in essence, that deck of cards becomes associated with something. So for example, you might decide that the the jack of hearts is a family member. Now this is something that you have an association with, and so therefore, it can be tied or anchored to something that you already know. And so generally, when we think about the method of loci, we're thinking about what are the things that we know what are the things that we're associated with so many memory champions, what they do is they take every letter in the alphabet, and they associated with a particular thing that they already know, a may or may stand in, as an apple. And now this leads us to the next point, which is that imagery, if we take that Jack of Hearts, and we're thinking about that family member, because maybe they look like the jack of hearts on the card. Now that creates a connection, but we also know have an image in our mind, we then placed them in a location and this is where the memory palace really comes into play and why they call it the memory palace or the mind palace, because you pick a spot in physical space, and then you recreate the journey, the story in that physical space. Now that physical space can be a very large place like the planet or the solar system, or the universe or a can be a desk literally just the space on your desk and you different you choose different points on the space on your desk. And so from there, you go through the process of telling the story of what happens to those things in that order. And by doing so you're able to remember all of the pieces. And as many people note, the more outlandish the story, the crazier the things are, the more novel It is to your brain, and therefore the the likelier that you will remember those components connected to each other. So through association or connection to things that you already know, imagery, placing them into physical locations, and then telling a story you're capable of combining. In this case, memory champions will sometimes can sometimes combine hundreds or 1000s of data points together in this method, and all they're doing is telling a story. And they're, they're telling themselves a story so that they can remember that story, as these pieces are being put in front of them. And what happens is, they can then speed up the process of memory for them. That's not particularly case for us. But for these folks who are in these memory championships, they are in essence, rapidly creating those stories by connecting those associated images, which are kind of pre populated in their mind, right? A is for apple, B is for boy, C is for cat, and so on and so forth. And now as soon as they see those components, they're capable of starting to tell that story. Oh, the Apple was picked up by the boy, the boy then saw a cat. Now, as I said, you want to make the story outlandish, you want to make it exciting and interesting. And that way your brain would be more likely to remember it. So you can say something like, you know, the Apple flew out of the sky and whacked the boy in the head, and the boy fell on top of the cat and the cat screeched, and, you know, and so on, and so forth. So you start to create these really provocative stories, these journeys of all of these connected data points. And when you see them in the locations, where they're supposed to be, that actually connects inside your mind to it maps it out, your mind maps out a physical physical location in that sense. So that's, in essence, the method of loci as best as I can kind of explain it. So from there, where do we go from here? What are the what are what are your experiences with either the method of loci or with other mnemonics that you've used, maybe in university or in other areas of your professional life, Art Gelwicks 7:42this is a tough one for me, because I've never had any personal success with this. Mnemonics themselves have always been a struggle point, much less, you know, apples and houses with Uncle Bob. I mean, I, it almost to me feels like more work to try and remember this stuff than less because now I got to remember all this other stuff. And remember the story along with this other thing that I hope will help me remember, I've I have to admit, I really struggled with even where to start with this I've used. There are some mnemonics that I use. But even those take a lot of work to get to that point where they become second nature and their recall. I mean, it sounds great. It sounds like it would be fantastic to be able to just recall stuff like that. But I don't know, it just sounds like a really heavy lift to me. Francis Wade 8:39I have used mnemonic, well, I can't say I use them, like I invented them. But I still remember the ones that was taught when I was a kid. So aren't that wondering if there's not some age component, that after you get past a particular point, the effort it takes to embedding a mnemonic is significant, but teach a kid a mnemonic, and they'll have it for life. You know, when I get together with my alumni groups from prep sc

In this week's episode, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art gathered round the microphones to discuss what they noticed happening in the world of personal productivity, and then what their plans are for next year (in terms of their own systems and other work they are doing). (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/118 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. ClickUpZoomGoogle MeetApple FaceTimeProductivity unicorns like ClickUp face off in competitive market What the future of work means for productivity tools - ProtocolEvernoteGoodnotesZapierIFTTT Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23And I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be doing a year in review and a year in preview for personal productivity, both in the world of productivity and in our systems. So we're just going to cover some of the notable things that we kind of noticed this particular year. And it was a kind of an odd year, considering we've been dealing with the pandemic over the past two years. And so we're gonna highlight some of the notable items there. We're then going to talk a little bit about the things that we think happened, notably in our own personal productivity systems, or kind of in our world, and then what would like to what we'd like to happen again, the good things, and what we'd like to be different the areas of improvement, so to speak. And then we'll talk a little bit about what we're planning for 2022. For those of you who kind of follow it, pay attention to what we're doing out there in the world, you can kind of see and follow along with us as we make these kinds of implementations into our own worlds. And so let's start off with what were the kind of notable productivity events of 2021. What were the things that you really noticed in the personal productivity world that happened? Art Gelwicks 1:37I mean, I think the biggest things that everybody is knee deep in right now and have truly recognized that wasn't necessarily new in 2021. But it became part of our norm is the understanding that the office as we used to know it has changed working from home hybrid from work, full remote work, whatever you want to call it, is here, and it's not going anywhere, it's no longer just a perk, it's no longer just a fun thing that you occasionally get to do this, this is a part of the new norm and will not be going away. And from a personal productivity standpoint, it changes the dynamic for us, because now, we don't have that clear dividing line of getting up driving, you know, commuting into an office working at a different location, and then coming back home. And having that separation for if you had that separation at all to start with. Now that's completely gone, because now work is in your house. So I think the impact of that in 2021 is forcing us not only personally and professionally, but on a deep individual level, to rethink what productivity really means to us to avoid overwhelm to avoid burnout, to really have a sense as to this is what is important to me. Do you think Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:05that that means that for the for the vast majority of people who still do need to go into an office environment, and there are still going to be people who need to do that? There's no question plus the folks who want to? And does that mean that we all have to be, in essence, like road warriors, we have to understand how to use our mobile technology better. What has this year really taught us about the fact that because if every organization in some way, shape or form is hybrid, and work is happening in different locations at different times, how do we how do we deal with that switch context happening across an entire organization? Art Gelwicks 3:44See, I think this is one of those situations where the inflammation workers are getting a little dose of reality. Because if you think about most professions, let's say for example, a carpenter or a plumber or something like that, they will go to a job site, they will take their tools with them, they will go they will do their work, they will work as long as they need to they will come back but that's not their office as per se, information workers, especially in a corporate environment have gotten spoiled to say Oh, I will come in My computer will be there, it will be set up for me my desk will be there. They'll give me a nice office chair. And it doesn't have to be that way. And it isn't that way anymore. Those of us who have worked remotely or or worked in environments where we go to client sites and things like that we're used to going in with everything in our world in our backpack or our computer bag and setting up and working and leaving. So there's no harm in that. There's no harm and getting comfortable with that type of a road warrior mentality, not so much to the degree of Oh, everything has to be you know, maximum in functionality minimum inside but we have to be thinking about flexibility. And we have to also take responsibility, because we are now responsible for a lot of this stuff. It is not going to come and set stuff up Your house for you, you become truly responsible for things like your internet connection, getting your mouse working those types of things. And it's just, it's gonna sound a little harsh, but this is when people actually have to grow up about this stuff. Especially professionals. Augusto Pinaud 5:19And yes, I'm laughing as you say they need to grow up because they should have grown up many, many years ago, but, but he's true. And all in those lines, yes. Now you're going to be but it's even more complex and deep like that, you know, you are seeing on manufacturing now that the production workers, okay, that's those people who is in the line who, okay, who has been traditionally they still need to go into the office, okay, they need to manage production, they need to help with all that are asking HR, okay, why they other people can be hybrid? And we cannot, how can we get our schedules more human? Because normally you have, you know, three shifts, you know, that shift in the morning, a shift in the midday the shift in the night. And the shift on the night for most people is like the worst shift the punishment shift. And now they're asking, well, how we can make it better, because otherwise, we are going to start looking for other solutions. And as you said, people is discovering, okay, now I don't have that it to help me connect my computer and fix it. And they are need to go out of their comfort zone. And that is on every level, we're not talking about the entry level guy, we're talking about the VPs, and the high level on the food chain, given on some of them, they still can call they it may not come but may remotely login into their computer, and help them fix. But it is a problem that we are seeing every day. The good news with all this is that most people experience what they quote unquote geeks has experience for years, in software, in teamwork in how to make these things more effectively into No, we don't need to sit into that conference room for two hours, we can make it in 15 minutes in a zoom call or a Google me or a Google or, or a teams. And that I think it's showing a lot of people in that corporate world that it can be done better. Now we are going to come for a long period of resistance, you know what we are been listening Oh, the big quitting thing that is coming? Well, that is part of the resistance. And he's the resistance of the old school saying we are not going to make the change. And the new younger generations are or geeks in this case, coming and saying, Well, if you don't change we're leaving. And that is going to be a really or make for a really interesting thing. In the year to come, Francis Wade 7:58the pathway to be more productive, is going to be more clear, because we're online. The fact that we're online means that now we can actually we must actually measure certain things not most, but the software we're using is going to start telling us, it's going to start giving us analytics about our productivity. You know, for example, at some point in time, Google meats and zoom will start to give you back analytics that tell you how well the meetings are being run. At some point, they're going to aggregate those statistics and say that you're spending x number

Today we are discussing about Voice Productivity. the ProductivityCast team explains how to use Voice on our devices and technology to be more effective and productive. We have in the past We discussed voice assistants in episode 071 (Personal Outsourcing) and episode 086 (IoT Productivity). (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/115 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Voice Productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Voice Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Voice Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Brain.fm Coffitivity Gboard (Gboard on iOS) Google Voice Why time passage is longer or shorter at different ages Reminders Pro Narro Active Words 4 Raw Text Transcript | Voice Productivity Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode. Today, we are going to be talking about voice productivity. And before the show started, we were talking about other things. And Arthur C. Clarke came up and I thought it was really interesting. So I'm going to start us off with this, which is Arthur C. Clarke is the British science fiction author. And he had these three laws that he talked about, of course, it's third laws, most known but I thought it was interesting for us to start off with kind of the other two, which is the first law of Clarke is that when a distinguished but elderly scientists, states that something is possible. He's almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Number two is the only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible, great for a science science fiction writer. Hmm. And then his third law, which is his most well known law, and the one that I want us to kind of kick off from is any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. It really conjured up something really interesting about voice productivity, which is that just a few 100 years, there are people who would have you know, kind of been burned at the stake as as sorcerers and witches and whatnot for some of the things that we can now do without ever physically touching anything. And it's just remarkable that voice productivity has taken us there, we have this ability to use audio, both for input and output to be more productive. And I just I find it very fascinating. And I'm looking forward to this discussion. Now, in episodes 71. We discussed a little bit about this in the personal outsourcing episode. So if you haven't listened to that episode, head over jet ProductivityCast dotnet forward slash 071, you'll be able to listen to the personal outsourcing episode, we also actually touched a little bit on this in the IoT productivity episode, which was Episode 86. So if you go to productivity cast dotnet, forward slash 086, you'll be also capable of listening back to that episode. So feel free to listen to those episodes in tandem with this, because there is some other material there as well. But we were talking about this episode, Augusto and I have talking about it. And, you know, the reality is, is that audio productivity predates and goes well beyond what we know today in terms of voice assistants. But we have so much around audio voice productivity that I wanted to kind of have this discussion. And then Augusto brought up this other really interesting, unique use case of this did you want to tell us a little bit about how that came to be. And then we'll get into the conversation, Augusto Pinaud 3:01 of course, and this happened to me working with a new client. It's a new client that I'm coaching. And as we were looking into his personal productivity, we got to the keyboard. And when I publish 25 tips for productivity, one of the things that I said is learn to type, you know, typing when you spend your days, in the computer, the keyboard is your bottleneck, and the fastest you can type and the more you know certain things in a computer, the better you can use that computer. So when we test the speed typing speed of this client, it was really, really slow. So I told him, we need to get you a software to learn to type so we can get your speed up. So you can really be more productive at this to what the client answer. I'm not. To my surprise, what do you mean, you know, I'm not learning to type. So we need to find a different way. So we begin looking into the audio way and see if I could get this client to use the audio commands on his devices. So that way instead of typing the emails, he can dictate the emails. And that's how this episode came. Not only that it was really interesting for me, because as much as he's improvement in productivity came almost instantly he went from 2520 to 25 words per minute, to be able to dictate between 100 and 120. Not only that he now for the first time Feel free to do these emails to dictate this and it's really changing productivity in a way that I didn't envision. I my response has always been learn to type. You know, let me give you this tool. Let me teach you and I still think there is an incredible value into learning to type better and to type faster. But I have never considered the difference in the speed of that mostly because I, I personally have a privacy issue when I dictate, you know, everybody can hear everybody. And that doesn't necessarily appeal to me. But I understand that it's not a concern for you. Now you can go and type emails and do these things and really improve your speed and many other things. So I've been looking into this in the last week and a half or two weeks into how can you improve and really change things when we talk about this typing and input typing and everything else. Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:40 So what I'd like us to do is to kind of have this conversation in three parts, we're going to talk about what are the ways we know voice and audio productivity can be used, productivity tools and workflows can be used. And then we'll talk a little bit about how we currently use voice or audio productivity technologies in our own productive systems, productivity systems. And then for you listeners, we can kind of close out with ways that you can get started with voice or audio productivity. And if you are already using these tools, then maybe how we would recommend leveling up in that space, what are some of the ways in which you can do more with some of these productivity tools, where you can get input and output by audio, and be more productive with it. So let's get started with what are the ways in which we can currently be productive. Using voice and audio, Francis Wade 6:38 I don't use a lot of audio. So the little bit that I use, in terms of productivity, is I so I produce a column for the newspapers on the topic of productivity every two weeks. And I've done it for about 10 years or so. And one of the one of the techniques I use is that once I've gotten to almost the final draft, or it's been vetted by my colleague and wife, I actually record it. And the reason I record reason I recorded is not for the recording or didn't start off that way. But it started off as an attempt to even though the bumps in the manuscripts were 100 words. And so every two weeks, I reread over the article I've just written. And what I'm listening for is where the the grammar is a little tricky. The words don't flow, where I'm repeating words anywhere I could make improvements. And I started out doing that just for myself, just listen to how I could improve the text. And then I decided, why not why not recorded just for the heck of it. And then at some point later on, so why not publish it? for the heck of it. So I turned it into a podcast. But the the major, the major productivity improvement is, yes, it's cool to have the podcast. But it's the reading overload and capturing it on video and hearing my voice as I'm reading it, because it helps me to write become a better writer. I did that for my book as well. I read every chapter and then tried to listen to where things weren't making sense or where I was getting into problems. But that's one of the it's this. This is one that's been recommended for years. But it's a bit of it used to be a bit of a pain in the ass to do it's become easier. Art Gelwicks 8:30 It's interesting, Francis, because I do something that's kind of the exact opposite in process. I use Microsoft Word Online and their dictate function when I'm going to script, a podcast episode,...

Using the Eisenhower Matrix Productivity Method Longtime productivity technique, Eisenhower Method, is often tied to the myth of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After all, it’s named after him! But, there’s much more to the prioritization method than meets the eye. In this episode, the ProductivityCast team explains the Eisenhower Matrix (or more aptly, the Merrill-Covey Matrix) and analyzes the use cases for the time-tested tool. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/114 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing How Is It Important But Not Urgent?!: Using the Eisenhower Matrix Productivity Method from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Using the Eisenhower Matrix Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. https://youtu.be/tT89OZ7TNwc How to be More Productive by Using the “Eisenhower Box”Avoid the "Urgency Trap" with the Eisenhower Matrix TodoistRemember the Milk Raw Text Transcript | Using the Eisenhower Matrix Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your host Ray Sidney-Smith and gousto been out with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, we are going to be talking about what is colloquially known as the Eisenhower method or the Eisenhower matrix. And what I wanted us to do is to cover kind of the origin and the outline of what the Eisenhower matrix is. So we all have a better understanding of it. There's a little bit of mythology around the Eisenhower matrix and the methodology underpinning it, then we're going to talk about our experiences with the Eisenhower matrix and how matrices generally can help us be more productive. And then talking a little bit about when and why you should use it. Where are the contexts in which the Eisenhower matrix can work? And then, of course, how we can blend it with other methodologies, productivity methodologies that we all use in our own productive worlds. So let's start out with what the Eisenhower matrix or what the Eisenhower method is. I'll start with the fact that in 1954, former US President Dwight D, Eisenhower quoting someone else, he was actually quoting Dr. Roscoe Miller, who was the president of Northwestern University. And so he was speaking to the second assembly of the World Council of Churches, it turns out and he was he is quoted as quoting Dr. Miller as saying, quote, I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important, the urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent and quote, this has come to be known as the Eisenhower principle or the Eisenhower matrix. Many people have then mythologized that somehow Eisenhower had developed this whole entire methodology around it. But the reality is, is that his importance and urgency construct was was taken from someone else. And while Eisenhower himself was a great time management afficionado, someone who really paid attention to how he used his time and had many other principles that he abided by, he was not the progenitor of any specific methodology, but it is what we come we have come to known as the Eisenhower matrix, that takes us forward to the concepts behind the Merrill covey matrix. And a lot of people don't know this, but Dr. Stephen Covey had been doing work with Rebecca Merrill and Roger Merrill. And the three of them combined, ended up creating what is now known as the Merrill covey matrix, which is the matrix that most of us know in the view of the four quadrants, and what pieces fit into those four quadrants, and in in the form of importance and urgency, we'll cover that shortly. But just understand that there's been a long arc of progression of people's thoughts around what the Eisenhower matrix is, and ultimately, what became the middle covey matrix and how we actually see that in much of the productivity Literature Today, and a lot of people get this wrong. And so I just wanted to kind of, at least point that piece out in terms of its history, so that we're all understanding the fact that everything between Eisenhower quoting Dr. Miller and any piece of productivity material that has been seen pretty much after the meril covey matrix was published and First things first, and other materials that covey and the Merrill's put out if they are interpretations of the concept of other people, Art Gelwicks 4:08I mean, it breaks down the old, important, urgent, not important, not urgent analysis of being able to prioritize things. Therefore, something is important and urgent, you should go ahead and do it. It's important and not urgent, you're supposed to schedule it. If you're if it's not important, but it is urgent, you delegate it. And if it's not important, not in urgent, you just kind of put it in the trash can. The methodology is, this is about as close to common sense, as I think we see in the productivity space. These are the logical things, if it's really important that something gets done, you have to prioritize it. If it's really urgent that something gets done, it has to be prioritized. If it's neither one of those things, why you're wasting your time on it. So I get that stuff. I struggle a little bit with one of the categories Which we can talk about a little bit later on. But at the highest level, what I just outlined, that's, that's the question criteria that you apply to tasks and, and anything else, you're really trying to reprioritize to determine where actions are where and when action should take place. Francis Wade 5:18When the matrix is a, from my point of view is a clever, a clever after the fact analysis of something that's already happened, which is that we create tasks in our mind. There are psychological objects and the moment of creation, we implicitly have a sense of whether something is urgent, not urgent, important or not important, it's might say it's subconscious. But it comes into existence in the moment that we create the task in our minds. So the matrix is, is a, like I said, a clever way to capture a decision that we've already made or a notion that we've already created. It's a way of making external, something that we already internally know. Making it external makes it easier to manage. And I think that's the genius of it, if any, Augusto Pinaud 6:09as much as the matrix, I believe, had incredible things. And I agree with what Art said, it sounds really, really simple. I think people tend to struggle with the concept of urgent and unimportant and covey did a really good job, trying to discover and identify, you know, what really important means what really urgent being, so it makes more sense in the matrix. But I think still, people struggle with those two concepts and really making them work for them. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:47Just some other like small pieces here. So that we have a little bit of clarity in terms of what the Eisenhower matrix really can do, or what the methodology can do. All told. So the matrix is a visual device meant to be able to put particular items in a priority for you to be able to determine whether or not you do that thing. And so if urgency runs across the y axis, and importance runs across the x axis, then what you decide to do make a decision on delegate or delete ends up being those four DS ended up falling into those categories, in in the eyes of most people who talk about the Eisenhower matrix. So then it furthers beyond the visual device to then kind of this full methodology, you can use this for planning your week, you can use this for how to spend your time this, you know, the next three hours today, that kind of thing. And it can also help you plan the things into the future. So you can say, how should I spend my next year? How should I spend my next quarter, whatever it might be. So this tool is just basically a prioritization matrix that allows you to be able to look at almost any type of time horizon and decide things. Now, let's think about it from the perspective that we all now have a basic understanding of the Eisenhower matrix, Eisenhower method, and I'm curious about each of our experiences with utilizing the Eisenhower matrix. And whether or not it has borne fruit for you in and around your productivity system. What has been your experience Art Gelwicks 8:31with it? The matrix itself is a good basic level tool. I use it to help people understand core concepts around prioritization. But honestly, in its daily use, it's got a lot of flaws. The one flaw that I find in it most frequently is in the categorization of urgent but not important. And most of the time when people look at that particular quadrant, these are tasks that will often be misconstrued as busy work type of ta

Today, we take four questions that each of the ProductivityCast team has brought to the show and then we answer and discuss our perspectives. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/113 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Potpourri, Numero Dos Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Potpourri, Numero Dos Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Hey Via Negativa Unroll.me Raw Text Transcript | Productivity Potpourri, Numero Dos Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this action packed episode of productivity cast. Today, what we're going to do is do productivity properly. numero dos, we are going to be doing our episode where we take four questions, one from each of us, and we discuss them in alphabetical order. So we're gonna go round robin, and take each question and discuss the question that each of us has brought to the table. And so because we are doing this alphabetically, aren't you? We're up first. And so go for it. What's your productivity potpourri question for us. All right, I'm Art Gelwicks 1:04going to start us off with a thinker here. This is we always talk about retrospectives, whether it's a daily retrospective, weekly, monthly. So I'm going to throw this out to you guys as a six month retrospective. If you think back over the productivity choices you've made over the past six months, is there one that you would change if you had the opportunity to? And how would you change it? Is there something that you decided during this time period that you thought was a good idea, but after executing, and it turns out, maybe not so much. And I'll give you guys an opportunity to think about that. I'll throw mine in there. And it's actually a two parter. For me. My challenge was over this past six months, I decided to do more testing of whether or not I could capture notes digitally and analog pen and paper and make that system balance. The mistake I made is I did that with my actual system. If I had the opportunity to do that over again, and I do and I'm going to, I would do it in basically a dummy system, because what I found is the value of testing that process of trying to see could I do it digitally as well as analog, disrupted my own productivity solutions. It disrupted my note taking a disruptive my note organization. And I'm still in the process of backtracking and recapturing things the way they should be. It's, it was an idea at the time that had merit and I did learn a lot from it. But I would definitely not use my own day to day operational system as the guinea pig of that, that catalyze changes to my to do lists and other functionalities that again, I, I took the core, and I made it the guinea pig. And that would be the one thing I would go back and change is I would duplicate the system and test on the duplicated system. It's more work. But I think in the long run, I wouldn't be behind the eight ball like I am right now in some areas, you bring up a great point, which is that if you're going to test new tools or new systems, it's usually helpful to run that concurrently, while you are still maintaining your prior system in whatever fashion you need to, Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:31I know that because I test so much productivity software, I always actually set up a singular project in that system to then run it through it. And that's how I test is kind of just, you know, slicing off a piece of the work into that system for that timeframe to see if it can actually do what I want it to do. And you know, many projects are tailored for particular types of software, particular types of systems. And so I'll usually do that. But I very infrequently, will move my system, I will set my system completely up in another tool to be able to see how it works to get the enough experience with what it will do for me and how it will work. But it's it's absolutely a good idea to not move your system completely until you're comfortable. And that means maintaining the current system, which can be a little bit difficult, which is why changing tools is it's never my first choice for people, you know, it's usually trying to make do with what you've got before you switch to another tool because there is that loss. There's that productivity hit that most people if they really thought about it are not probably excited about So my question to you aren't is after the change. Did you learn enough? And is there enough of a benefit on the other side that made it worthwhile? Art Gelwicks 4:52I think after looking at the change, I learned a lot of things I don't want to do. That's and that's one of the things doing that kind of testing as you determine the wrong things as well as the ways to improve, I have found that there are some things that I'm going to change by not doing them anymore. And also finally galvanizing in my head that what I've always thought might be a viable alternative, really just does not have the opportunity cost tied to it. I like using my pens, I like using my paper notebooks. But the downside of being able to organize and recall that information for certain types of work, it's just not worth the effort. I have to categorize now. And this is part of what I put into my processes is where is the best place to do the work not only what is the work that needs to be done? So and I'll give you a practical example of this. I do work woodworking on the side as a hobby. And I was looking at as part of the processes, could I do designs online? Could I use a CAD tool? Can I use something else for that? And I absolutely could, the problem I get into is, it's not the best way for me to do that type of work. So I've made the conscious decision in my system to say, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to do it on pen and paper and rollers. Because I know that's the most efficient and the most effective. So putting that kind of decision making into the beginning parts of my process, I think are going to help a lot. And that's the direct learning I got from this experiment Augusto Pinaud 6:34during the pandemic. And, you know, there were a lot of things that evolved for me, that were then revised to be changes, who would you know, the context were one of those, obviously, as context disappear, I require to update some of them. And same thing with the hard word. Because again, as I move a lot less, and spend more time in the in the office, and some things, you know, are going to stay that way, then the changes, you know, we're quite, quite interesting. So for me was, you know, I modify for certain notetaking activities, as you were describing art, I'm now taking them on a different application, especially on those meetings that require me to process the notes during meetings that I go through, I just take the notes, and if I need them verify, in many cases, I just need to file them. But there are other meetings that I go that the result of that meeting will define what I need to do. So in those cases, those meetings are those notes are taken on a different app. So that way, I process them before they go into my system. And that has make a productive changes. Same thing, as I said, was a context. And I'm right now currently working into hardware updates, and not necessarily to acquire or eliminate anything, but to make sure that what is right now hardware base, is doing what it needs to do or not. Francis Wade 8:09This is a very simple one, I think maybe lots of people are already doing the same thing. But I've almost eliminated the use of the phone and replaced it with the use of video. And I know lots of people are doing that because video is the new sort of invoke way to communicate in real time. But what I've noticed is that my video calls are more productive than my just mere phone calls. And I think it has to do with the amount of information I'm able to gain by seeing the person and vice versa, I find them the cause shorter, more productive, more focused. And if I need to move them along, I think I can move them along a little better. Because I can transmit my need for urgency, for example, without having to say something I can non verbally do it. But I'm finding them way more productive. And we're more useful. So it's, I don't that I'll go back to doing voice calls when I can do video calls. The of course is the exception when I have to take a voice call because the person is on the road or they don't have data or whatever it is. But video calling is a change that I made....

We had the pleasure of interviewing on the show, Nicolas Vandenberghe, CEO of KosmoTime. Nicolas Vandenberghe started selling newspapers in the streets of Paris in high school, studied Maths at Ecole Polytechnique then Business at Stanford GSB, started and sold 3 tech companies with up to 65 employees and $11M in revenues, ran Sales for a $2Bn telecom company negotiating billion dollar deals with companies like Google, now co-founder of Chili Piper - the System of Action for revenue teams - and of KosmoTime - the first Focused Productivity Assistant. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/112 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Making Time to Focus With KosmoTime from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Making Time to Focus With KosmoTime Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Nicolas Vandenberghe (LinkedIn) Show Notes | Making Time to Focus With KosmoTime Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. KosmoTime Structured Procrastination Raw Text Transcript | Making Time to Focus With KosmoTime Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Unknown Speaker 0:00Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. And I'm Augusto Pinaud. And we're your hosts for productivity cast and a few times a year we like to bring a productivity expert onto the show and talk about their application or the work that they do. And today we have the pleasure of having Nicholas Vandenberg. Nicholas started selling newspapers in the streets of Paris in high school studied maths at the Ecole Polytechnique, then business at Stanford GSB. He started and sold three technology companies with up to 65 employees and $11 million in revenues. He ran sales for $2 billion Telecom. And then he negotiated billion dollar deals with the companies of the sort of like Google, and now he's co founded a company called chili Piper. It's the system of action for revenue teams. We'll get into that. And what we're going to be talking about today, which is Cosmo time, the first focused productivity assistant, welcome to ProductivityCast. Nichols. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So what Didn't we say that you did that you wanted everybody to know what what what's, what's the essence of Nicholas Vandenberg? No, no, that's about right. Unknown Speaker 1:27I grew up in France. Unknown Speaker 1:31good at sales. So always that's why I started selling newspapers that there was a way to pay for my studies in a very fun way. And then I came to Stanford. And when I arrived on campus, my plan was to travel around the world and go to Asia. And in the first weeks at the Stanford Business School, a classmate of mine invited Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs told us what he was up to, at the time, not much actually had been fired from Apple, and he was working on this company called next. But yet it was so inspiring. I thought, This is what I want to do. When I grow up. I went to be an entrepreneur, I want to create software and try to impact the life of people. So ever since that's what I've been doing. So you started cosmic time, in parallel with this other company, chili pepper, can you tell us a little bit about chili pepper? first syllable? Yeah, that's going on. And then what prompted you to create Cosmo time very much. So it's actually not quite parallel, I started TD paper with my wife. It's a bit unusual, but she's a has a strong background in software product design, we bootstrapped the company t pepper, we target sales people, as I mentioned, I love sales. So we thought that the SAS technology was due for a revamp, and we were going to do it. That's not be correct. There's a lot of opportunities to sell software salespeople. And so as companies started growing, I found myself busier and busier. And I thought, okay, now now Unknown Speaker 3:00is a time to really optimize my time. So I started using a to do list and, Unknown Speaker 3:08and my to do list went in the wrong direction. So it kept growing and growing. So I thought, okay, I'll try another to do list. And so I tried to do a separate things, I tried Trello, I tried, remember the milk, all sorts of it to see if something will work better, and it didn't. And eventually, I thought, you know what, I'm going to solve that problem myself. And my wife thought I was crazy, it looks to be so busy, you're too busy, you're not going to take on another company method. Look, if I have this problem, I must not be the only one who has this problem. And we're also going to resolve it. So. So I did, we started a company on the side to help people busy people be productive. And as I said, the problem I found was that these two lists were really good at capturing the things to do, but not very good at helping you actually do them. And so my, it's been a super interesting journey, because my, Unknown Speaker 4:02obviously, early on, we figured so I should mention my co founder Matta, who at the time was working at Facebook in the artificial intelligence group. So with this idea that artificial intelligence was meant to solve the problem. So that's an interesting starting point. And the idea was say, look, we need to reserve time to do your tasks, right, your list is good, but you need to do assign time. So our initial idea was to have the computer work as an executive assistant and plan your calendar. So compute where you should do this task. And it was a beautiful idea. And actually, when I told my friends about it immediately, we got Unknown Speaker 4:47interest in got some other people invest in a company to get started. So we did we met as a brilliant engineer, we built a system that would take your list of tasks and schedule in the calendar. Unknown Speaker 5:00compute where they would say to say this call with you guys. And then that's from 11 to 12, New York time, and free boom, it with three tasks in there because you know, two of them 15 years winter in this. So we went live at those, it was super excited. And Unknown Speaker 5:15guess what happened, it didn't work at all. Unknown Speaker 5:20It was a nightmare, because I never got to do the task that the computer including my schedule, he was like imagine we finish the quality level. And he doesn't have time to do three tasks. But you know, I want you to get to an espresso right. So I want you to check the pictures of my new baby. And so it didn't work at all. And then these tasks, he would reschedule and reschedule and reschedule it felt like the system was almost felt like the computer was getting angry at me, you know, instead of Unknown Speaker 5:48instead or imaginary is going wrong. It was another computer getting angry. So circulars that is fascinating because it sounds like such a good idea, right? It's like a German executive assistant done by artificial intelligence, because executive assistant exists do a job, it seems to work, you think the computers can do even better. Unknown Speaker 6:08So it doesn't work because your life is too predictable. And your mood is in predictable. And so what do I, what we discovered is that Unknown Speaker 6:20the problem is a lot more complex. Because there are times when you want to do something, there are times when you're not in the mood to do something, you don't schedule you just just based on time and things, you also base it on what what you know is more important, what you feel like doing what you know, is going to take too much cognitive load, and you want to leave for Saturday, you know, when nobody bothering you. So we restarted Unknown Speaker 6:43we were pretty much a waste, even change the name actually. Then we just went we started calling in the customer on time. And we thought okay, the idea of blocking time is a good idea. But what are the most difficult things to do. And we kept the concept of scheduling time. So we have a good calendar integration. And then with the two other things that are missing, so three of the things that are missing, one is distractions. So you want to help the user be motivated, but you don't want to take any chance on a distraction. So what is a distraction blocking feature that we didn't have at the beginning, we can go into more details, then we thought that a way to be more efficient is to minimize context switching. So we came up with this concept. At the beginning, we call it sprint, but users got a bit confused. So we call it a block, where you put tasks of the same nature together. So say, I need to work on the product. And I have three things I need to do. And we need to put them together and put a block that says work on product and then Unknown Speaker 7:48execute the three tasks at the time of the block. And of course, the block can be scheduled in the calendar. So that's the second thing. And the third thing that we're working on we'll talk about is is what I call being not only efficient, but also being effective....

We are going to be talking about software stewardship. And really what that means for the world of productivity, culture and society is remarkably impacted by how software today is developed, there isn't anything that isn't really run by technology, from your water plants, you know, the the treatment plants that are running water and sewage, to your cell phone. And on smartphones in your pocket. Everybody is connected to software in some way, shape, or form, even if we're not using that software directly. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/111for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Productivity Software Stewardship for the World from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Google Calendar LinkedIn Learning - Programming Foundations Raw Text Transcript | Productivity Software Stewardship for the World Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, we are going to be talking about software stewardship. And really what that means for the world of productivity, culture and society is remarkably impacted by how software today is developed, there isn't anything that isn't really run by technology, from your water plants, you know, the the treatment plants that are running water and sewage, to your cell phone. And on smartphones in your pocket. Everybody is connected to software in some way, shape, or form, even if we're not using that software directly. And we thought it would be really interesting to look at that through the lens of productivity. And Francis, you brought up this topic to the ProductivityCast. Team. So I wanted to have you kind of preamble us talk to us about what you were thinking as a related to this topic, and then we will get into our discussion. Francis Wade 1:24 But I was ranting, you know that many productivity folks do when they try to use a piece of software and realize that the developer, or whoever designed the software has totally missed the mark. And what's happened is that someone came up with a very bright idea. And the bright idea seems to be interesting and useful. We either use that using the software, or we try to use it. And we hit upon a block a block, or some kind of stop. And we realize from using the software that the developer had a half of an idea, or a poorly formulated idea before developing the software. And that's why the software doesn't work. So it doesn't fit our needs. It doesn't do what we want it to do, it kind of halfway gets there. But it needs to go away much further. So for example, Google Canada, or outlook Canada, for that matter, those both of those software apps, and all of the Canon most of the counters I've ever seen, a handful of are exceptional, but were designed based on appointment calendars. So they basically copied the appointment calendar that you would see in a doctor's or a dentist office where you put in meetings. And it's meant to track events that take place with other people. And that basic idea. Fast forward to today. And of course, we live in a world in which time blocking is a key element, or timeboxing, or calendar blocking any any time at which you decide to schedule a solo activity into your calendar that does not involve other people, and therefore is quite flexible. So neither calendar, and the two of them are the base calendars of that I think 90% of people use the one of those two, neither of them have Sorry, I should also include Apple calendar. But neither neither of the three, none of the three is geared towards people who do time blocking. And that's a critical activity that we must use in today's world, especially when you're working from home, you have to think very carefully about getting into the flow state. For example, creating time when you can do focus work away from family, kids, pets, distractions, meetings, calls, all the things that would disrupt you from doing your best work. And there's no provision, no real provision in any of these software programs for individual time blocking. And it's a kind of an inside joke among those who do time blocking because we're trying to do we're trying to force the calendar to do something it really wasn't designed to do. The creators of it, never intended for it to be used in this way. And here we are an even worse, there doesn't appear to be any effort by any of these three companies to do any kind of customization for time blocking. It's as if they've kind of said, Okay, this is enough, we moved on to more interesting things. And that's that has its own crazy logic. But again, back to the main point, designers and developers who think and come up with ideas that they think are pretty bright ideas end up causing problems for lots of many of us just because their theory or the idea they have in mind is just not robust enough. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:46 So I'll take your bait, and I'll look at this through the lens of Google and Google Calendar, which is that Google has given those of you who are time blockers The ability to add a calendar event, which is without anyone else, you know, you're not inviting anyone else, you can move it, you know, each calendar event is fungible. And they've even gone the next step of being able to add tasks at specific dates, and times, as well as all day task events in the calendar interface. If you were a developer or a product manager at Google, what would you tell them to do differently? Francis Wade 5:30 Drag and drop? That's a simple one, simple drag and drop tasks and move them around so that you can manipulate your calendar will without having to go in and edit each individual light. So you can already do that drag and drop. Yeah, I'm gonna try that, right. Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:47 Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Francis Wade 5:49 from day to day, or just Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:50 yeah, day to day, week to week. Oh, Francis Wade 5:53 I stand corrected. But still, the interface is just not meant for that purpose. It was invented and created and put into the suites at a time when these were afterthoughts. And they haven't done much develop mental them even since then they've tried. Canada tried to put a Google Calendar tried to put in Google goals. Google Yes, goes right, barring from a scheduling software. But it clearly this wasn't meant for that. And that that particular feature is kind of just dropped off the calendar, I still use it. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:30 You know, the funny part though, is that the the Curiosity is in Google goals, when you set a goal that's useful inside of Google Calendar inside of Google Calendar, the mobile application, but when you take it outside of that, say you put your you add your calendar, to Microsoft Outlook, or to woven or to another tool like that, you it then disappears, it's not a part of the feature set. And the reason for that, in my limited understanding of it is that calendars and what is a calendar infrastructure is ancient technology, we're using this old format. And so for greatest interoperability, where we're basically depending upon the legacy structure of how calendars were developed. And so all of this new technology, kind of like SMS, right, we deal with SMS, which is a terrible infrastructure system. But because it works currently, across all of the various telecommunications carriers, we continue to keep using it. And we know that RCS is the better standard, and we should all get there. But for some reason, we keep using the lowest common denominator. And that's a little different for me than email, which email is the right, interoperable standard, right, everybody uses, it's a part of the internet. And we all know how to make an email function. And what we build on top of that is really where developers start to have more say, hey, which is the new email app, email service from the folks who create Basecamp? You know, they're creating a highly opinionated email software on top of an email service, and it's still email, right? The the infrastructure is solid, the what you put on top of that really makes a difference. And I think here with calendar, just in this specific instance, Francis, I think calendar is I think we just need a better system, like, for example, calendars, that the natural ability to create a feed for your calendar, right, so that I can send you create a calendar and send you a se

We are starting a new ongoing series on ProductivityCast called BookCast. Each BookCast, we bring you a productivity book that we have read and discussed the merits and demerits. We each come at the material from different backgrounds and experiences, therefore, some of us will dislike and some of us will dislike the material, and that will make for an enlightening discussion for you. For our first BookCast, we bring you The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling. I have been recommended this book so many times and so I wanted to bring this book to the ProductivityCast team to dive into its major tenets and discuss them. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/110 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing The 4 Disciplines of Execution (BookCast) from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | The 4 Disciplines of Execution (BookCast) Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | The 4 Disciplines of Execution (BookCast) Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim HulingTodoist Raw Text Transcript | The 4 Disciplines of Execution (BookCast) Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23 And I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24 I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners. This week, we are starting a new ongoing series on ProductivityCast that we're calling book cast. And so book cast is where we're going to bring a new productivity book Well, a new to, hopefully you productivity book, but it could be an old book as well, that we're reading. And we want to discuss the merits and demerits of the material. I'm hoping that we each come at the material from different backgrounds and experiences, and therefore some of us will love and some of us will potentially not love the material, and that will make for an enlightening discussion for you. For our first book cast, we bring you the four Disciplines of Execution, achieving your wildly important goals by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim healing. I have been recommended this book so many times. And so I wanted to bring this book to productivity cast to dive into the major tenants and discuss them. So a little bit about the book First, the book is described on Amazon and pulling this from the Amazon description page. It says, Do you remember the last major initiative you watch die in your organization? Did it go down with a loud crash? Or was it slowly and quietly suffocated by other competing priorities? By the time it finally disappeared? It's likely no one even noticed what happened. Often the answer is that the quote unquote whirlwind of urgent activity required to keep things running day to day devoured all the time and energy you needed to invest in executing your strategy for tomorrow. And then it goes on to say that the four Disciplines of Execution can change that forever. It says the four Disciplines of Execution are for dx is a simple, repeatable and proven formula for executing your most important strategic priorities in the midst of the world win. And that includes the four disciplines being focused on the wildly important act on lead measures, keep a compelling scoreboard create a cadence of accountability. And so with that, the authors are Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim healing. Sean covey is not only notably the son of the late Dr. Stephen Covey, but he is also the senior vice president of innovations and products at Franklin Covey. And so he has been at the Franklin Covey company for quite a while. And obviously, he's the author of many other books, and and obviously helps with his father's company. Chris McChesney is the global practice leader of execution for Franklin Covey. And he's, of course, one of the primary developers of 40x. And then Jim huling is the managing consultant for Franklin Covey's four dx delivery of that material across the world. So he's he's responsible for the 40x methodology and the quality of the worldwide delivery. So those are the author's that's a little bit about the book. And as I noted in our lead up, the book is divided into four parts. What the methodology is 40x is broken up into four parts. And so I thought we would kind of have our conversation in those four parts. The book itself is designed in, it was designed in three sections, they go into the four Disciplines of Execution, then they talk about installing 40x, with a team, and then installing it on the macro level and installing 40x in your organization. But I think for our purposes, since we're going to talk about this kind of on the personal productivity level, we could talk about this on the four disciplines, each individually. So where do we want to get started with the conversation? Let's start with focusing on the wildly important, let's talk about what they mean by that and what wildly important goals are. And we'll go from there. Francis Wade 4:23 I actually spent this past weekend working with a fertilizer company to develop their strategic plan. And one of the challenges my clients always grapple with is how do you separate that which is essential from that which is nice to have. And most strategy documents that I've read have done by other consultants with their clients look like mega Long, long laundry lists so they're like everything and the kitchen sink. And as you go through the kitchen sink, after the fact, you have a really hard time. Figuring out just what the strategy is you can see that they're doing 30, they want to do 30 things. But the 30 things don't actually fit together. In any kind of coherent, they don't tell a story. They don't provide a rationale or reason. They don't, they don't reveal what, what what Kaplan and Norton called a strategic hypothesis, which is the idea behind the strategy, they just look like a lot of stuff to do. And to give him what the author say, if you can find the and I'll go a step below, just saying what's wildly important, what's, what's the wireless, most important thing is, what's the hypothesis and the sequence of core activities, and how they fit together, and how you describe them to other people. That blob of information, which gets created come get created, doing a retreat is the most important. And it's got to be separated at all times from everything else that's nice to have, or everything else Art Gelwicks 5:58 that's kind of emergent, for instance, brings out a really good point of the separation of critical versus desirable. But I think in a lot of cases, especially when we start to look at it at the personal level, those critical items aren't coming from us. They're coming from outside factors. And that becomes a significant weighing on how do you make that decision? Is it really your call in those cases, and that's, that sets the drive on what you need to focus on. A lot of the initial text focuses on development of the strategy, and then the execution of the strategy. Well, from a personal productivity standpoint, I think a lot of us don't have control over that strategy part. That strategy is getting defined for us by external forces. If you have not only just work things, but you have, say, kids that have to go to college, you have bills to pay, things like that become those wildly important goals. Because if you don't do them, nothing else really happens. So I think quantifying it around that around what's, what's the critical, what's the desirable. And then honestly, not excluding all the desirable things, when I work with clients in the corporate space, will go through and define a list of requirements on a project and I go through the same exercise, what do you need to have, what do you want to have, I always tried to include a couple of the once into the overall need listing. Because it makes, it makes the overall execution more effective. Those are the things you can say, look, it's just going off the rails, we just need to pull a couple things out, you can pull the ones out, and not affect the needs, and still have everything meet the requirements. So I think the focus on the wildly important is critical. But I also want to make sure that people don't put blinders on the fact that it must be only those things, you still have to keep a holistic look. ...

What a year 2020 has been! This week, the ProductivityCast team reminisces on four of our eight favorite episode topics this year (and all eight are embedded below for your listening pleasure), then we discuss thoughts on interests for next year. Happy, Productive New Year! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/105 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing the year in review, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | A Year in Review & Preview Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Top 3 listened-to episodes of the year Episode 094 - How Mind Mapping Fits Your Productivity SystemEpisode 070 - On Getting Things Done with David AllenEpisode 066 - Working from Home in the Age of COVID-19 Art's Top 2 Episode 063 - Email (23:38 - 24:32)Episode 089 - Amateur vs Pro (14:09 - 15:12) Augusto's Top 2 Episode 066 - Working from Home (47:16 - 47:49)Episode 070 - On GTD with David Allen (16:55 - 17:57) Francis's Top 2 Episode 091 - Do what you love as a career (23:01 - 25:05)Episode 079 - Detecting and managing burnout (self-awareness that pre-empts burnout) (30:09 - 31:20) Ray's Top 2 Episode 071 - Personal Outsourcing (12:13 - 13:35)Episode 087 - Automating Your Office (7:50 - 8:47) Raw Text Transcript | A Year in Review & Preview Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this final episode of 2020 for ProductivityCast. I can't believe it, but we have reached the end of 2020. Quite honestly, I think a lot of us are relieved that 2020 is over and looking forward to at least a better back three quarters of 2021 once we have a set of vaccines in order, and folks are starting to get back to a bit of normal life. And so with that, what I wanted to do today was for us to go through and talk about our most listened to episodes of the year, and then get into our favorite episodes of the year. Each of us has selected two episodes, we'll play the snippet, and then have a little discussion around why we chose it, whether it still stands, and then go round robin, for our picks. So let's let's discuss our top three listen to episodes of the year. And so if you are brand, new to ProductivityCast, this will be really good place to start in terms of listening to some episodes that have been most listened to in the year. And those end up being Episode 66 that is working from home in the age of COVID-19. Episode 70, we did an interview with David Allen, the progenitor of getting things done so on getting things done with David Allen, Episode 70. Then our number one, our top episode of of 2020 drumroll is Episode 94. How mind mapping fits your productivity system. And it kind of blows every all the other episodes out of the water. It just turns out that a lot of people were really interested in the mind mapping episode. And so yeah, check those three episodes out if you have not. And feel free to let us know your feedback. Like always, you can find our episodes through that three digit episode number. So 066070094. If you just type in ProductivityCast dotnet forward slash and that three digit number, it'll take you to the episode, you can go ahead and listen to it, download it or whatnot. Art Gelwicks 2:34I think the mind mapping episode, while it's a little bit surprising is not actually all that surprising to me. Because mind mapping is one of those things that I know a lot of people struggle getting their head wrapped around as to what do you do with it? How do you make it work? It's it's intriguing when you see mind maps, that something is visually focused is what they are could be an input, significant productivity tool. But I still think a lot of people struggle with it. I know even I do. And I do mind maps all the time. But I making that translation from what we have traditionally thought about for note taking and planning into a much more organic visual focus can be difficult. So I'm not totally shocked that people wanted to learn more about that. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:23Yeah, I'm really curious whether or not it's a bunch of students that were doing maybe research on different types of note taking techniques, or those kinds of things where mind mapping tends to surface, you know, brainstorming techniques, or or note taking techniques that mind mapping tends to come up in those conversations. And so maybe more students found it since they were doing more work online in 2020, than ever before. Yeah, I'm really curious why that ends up being such a big topic. And it's something that, you know, I've been doing for a long time, but I think maybe you're right art, you know, people sometimes have difficulty getting getting around the idea of mind mapping, you know, kind of kind of, quote unquote, how to do it correctly. And so maybe that is why it was so popular. Art Gelwicks 4:11And just a second thought to that it could also be people are struggling to find new ways to tackle the problems that they feel a little overwhelmed with right now. They're taking notes, they're writing things down, they're using their normal tools, and it just doesn't seem to be cutting it. So they could be looking for a different direction. I be curious. I'd be curious to hear anybody who's who went out and listen to that show, to let us know why you listen to it. That'd be great to hear. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:39Definitely. Okay, so those are our top three listen to episodes this year. And I'm really excited to get into our favorite episodes of the year. And so let's go around the table and play the different snippets. First up, I'm going to have arts first choice, which was episode 63, which was about email, Art Gelwicks 5:03it's just it boggles my mind. And I hear this all the time in collaboration spaces people like, Oh, yeah, email such a terrible thing. Email is such a terrible thing, no, emails, fine, you just suck at it. That's really what it comes down to. You have this inability, you being general, this inability to understand that when you send an email, you have no reasonable expectation that a response will come in short order, they will respond when they get it. That's why I go bonkers over this idea of read receipts, I'm going to send it Read Receipt. And that way, I'm going to know when they read it, and I should be able to know, all that is is a confirmation that they opened it, it's still an unreasonable expectation that they are going to respond as soon as they read it. If you want that immediate response. Guess what? We've got a technology for it. It's called chat. That's all chat is his email without the addresses. Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:57All right. All right. Why did you choose that snippet, and you still stand by that statement? Art Gelwicks 6:02Okay, apparently, that day, I was slightly over caffeinated, just to be clear, because anybody who listens to the show regularly knows that I do not get keyed up like that. So just just saying, there's an irony to that. I still stand by that. And I still believe that email is a very effective tool, it can be used extremely well, and it has a place. It is not the evil thing that so many people have made it out to be. That said, I think I would probably push further into the chat side of the conversation. The more I work with email recently, I have found email is actually being used less effectively than it was even before. Because people are now starting to use it as entire conversations. And that's just not what it's meant for. That's not what it's designed to do. And that it's not what it's good at. So I still stand by that. I don't know that I would quite jump up and down on the soapbox as much. But yeah, I'd probably jump a couple times. Augusto Pinaud 7:11I agree on that there is not a conversation tool. But he's what he's been turned for many, many years into the de facto conversation tools. And interestingly enough, even with the text and the video conference, and all that, it is, sadly, what people understand as the conversation tool is what understand, okay, I need 20 people to give input, let's send an email. And yeah, I agree. And I agree with your comment on the return that return received reader receive same as a text message doesn't mean anything I may have read it. That doesn't mean I have the bandwidth to give you the proper answer right there. All that you know, is that you open or that I receive it at all. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:56And I do like that I like to see the I like to see that someone has read it or even opened it. The problem with that is that many of the email applica

Using Your Task Management Profile to Focus Changes Everyone is walking around with self-taught skills in task management. As such, skill levels vary greatly but everyone would like to know where their areas of weakness might lie. In this episode the ProductivityCast team looks at the ways to build a task management profile and how one might interpret a self-assessment. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/103 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing using your task management profile to focus changes from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Using Your Task Management Profile to Focus Changes Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. MyTimeDesign ProfileHow Next-Action Thinking Changes Over Time (Episode 025) - ProductivityCastHolmes-Rahe Stress InventoryLife Events Inventory Raw Text Transcript | Using Your Task Management Profile to Focus Changes Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:20I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:21I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:23 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24And I'm marquel. wicks. Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to everyone listening here to productivity cast. Today, we are going to be talking about something that's a little bit unique, something that's interesting that I think you'll all find fascinating, which is a task management profile that Francis has put together. And to kind of explain a little bit about what we're going to talk about today. Francis, can you give us a little bit of background in terms of what you've devised. Francis Wade 0:49I used to be a triathlete. And people who are brand new to triathlon think that trap on is a matter of being a good swimmer, being a good runner and being a good cyclist. And as you progress in the sport, you realize there's a few other dimensions that you also need to be good at, such as lifting weights, nutrition, and rest. So there's at least six disciplines that you need to be really, really good at to be decent triathlete that somebody who doesn't get injured and is able to complete races and starts to be competitive at a particular level. And most of triathlon training is based on individual sports and triathletes Think of how good am I at a given sport? And how can I get better at nice my weakest sport, and I don't need to focus so much on my strongest sport. So they tend to think in terms of separate disciplines? Well, I took the idea, the basic idea of becoming better at a discipline, the idea of breaking down one event into disciplines and took it over into task management, and said, okay, task management is also based on disciplines. And within each discipline, there are particular best practices. And within each best practice, there are levels of accomplishment ranging from people who do things unconsciously. And you could even you could apply that conscious unconscious diagram, where you start off being incompetent, and unconscious, all the way up to being conscious and competent. You may you could apply that to this example. But the idea is that someone starts off just doing and at some point, they become an expert, or someone who is at a world class level. And once I divided task management, so to speak, into different disciplines. I said, Okay, how can you focus on one at a time, because you probably can't improve more than a couple at a time anyway. Because we're just not able to improve that fast in so many different areas. If you knew the different areas, maybe you could focus your efforts and get better faster. And also be somewhat immune from the shiny, shiny object syndrome, where you get distracted by some tip that you've picked up on Reddit, and you're off to the races, perhaps trying to improve something that actually would make no difference overall. So the basic idea started in terms of how can you get better faster? I wanted to talk about two things. One is, how do you figure out your profile very, very quickly, because I wanted us to get over the hump of how do you find out what your profile is. And as an aside, I wanted to, I think I'll put up the simpler version of this chat that I have here, the one that only has the first seven fundamentals, so capturing through listing, but not the others. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:45So we'll post that in the show notes. Art Gelwicks 3:47Okay, so here's, here's where I go with this. So if you want to talk about every about getting better, faster. The first aside from listening to a Daft Punk song to do that, you need to first I would think, know what you're trying to get better get better at, what are the measuring criteria, that you're going to those areas that you're going to focus? And then what are the thresholds? You describe this as being a triathlete I for some reason I keep picturing this in my son who used to run track ran hurdles for quite a while. And each one of these is a hurdle to get to that end goal. So you have to understand what are the not only the measures? I mean, if he's running 400 yards, that's the measure. But what are the hurdles in the way of getting to that end measure? And each of these different categorization areas, has their own hurdles, they're not all the same. Some people can blew right through them, other people can really struggle with them. So I'd say the first thing is, what are the lanes that we're evaluating? Are you implying that they're the same for everyone or are they different for everyone? Or is there some commonality? Francis Wade 4:59Right, that's great question. it the way you were, you'd say that a car, every fuel combustion engine, German car, the Stewart from the electrics and any other exotic cars, every car has a fuel system, electrical system, and air system if they have the same basic components, although they may work differently. And in task management, we all have the same component, so to speak the same seven components that are in the diagram in the show notes, essentially capturing, emptying, tasking, acting, those storing, scheduling and listing. And we all perform them, regardless of a Well, once we get into our teens, we're all performing them to some degree. So they all need to work together in order for us to manage our task from the moment of creation, to the moment when the task is complete, and to manage multiple tasks. So where sort of stock so to speak, in this task management world of our own creation, in which we're trying to get stuff done. So yes, it's a bit like seven disciplines, which are all we're all trying to manage at the same time. But without a heck of a lot of awareness, because we're primarily self taught. Art Gelwicks 6:18So if we take those seven disciplines, then and I'm just going to pull one that you mentioned off the top of my head, the capturing one, let's start with that. One is the example. How, how do I determine what quote level? My capturing skill is at right now? Because I have a perception. But if I sit here, and I look around at all the different ways I capture information, depending on the criteria, I could either be really good at it or terrible at it. I'm not sure what the what's the measure? Francis Wade 6:49We actually have talked about this on our shows, how does someone know how how well they're doing in anything. So the most expensive ways to have somebody assess you and tell you, which is sort of the doctor patient model, where you're not able to measure your you can't do any, most people can't do an EKG of themselves. So you need someone outside of you to tell you how good you are. So let's call that the first option, option one, an expert does an evaluation. So in terms of capturing it would mean someone is actually watching you do your capturing and then telling you how well you're doing. Most of us can't afford that particular option. So we go to a second one. The second one could be someone says, Well, here's what capturing is, at a very basic level. How well do you think you're doing? Let's call that an initial analysis where you just sort of hear the idea for the first time. And you kind of decide, okay, I think I'm at this level. So someone who reads for example, GTD here's a description, and then makes a determination as to whether or not they need to focus on that area or not. The book doesn't tell you to do that. But that's basically what everyone does. If you figured out you're already doing really well, you say okay, and you put a mental check beside the list in your head, and then you move on to the other areas of the book. Another thing you could do, which I have explored, the ones I'm about to describe, is to put together a quiz. So I have a quiz that you could do where you ask for the five questions,...

This week, we bring you our third Productivity App-apalooza! We’ll review three apps each that we know and use, and think you might find value in knowing about and using too! We’ll go in three rounds of the ProductivityCast team. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/102 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing this Productivity App-apalooza #3 from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity App-apalooza! #3 Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity App-apalooza! #3 Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Round 1 Art - Do it now: RPG to do listAugusto - AnchorFrancis - Files to SD Card (Android)Files (Google) (Android)Ray - Mind42 (Web only) + FreeMind (Win/macOS/Linux) Round 2 Art - Habitica: Gamify your tasksRay runs the GTD Party on HabiticaAugusto - Infuse 6Plex / SyncLounge for PlexFrancis - MailTrack (Google Chrome extension)Ray - SendRecurring.com Round 3 Art - Epic To Do ListSuperBetter (book/iOS/Android) by Jane McGonagal PhDAugusto - FE File ExplorerFrancis - Remo.coZoom / SococoRay - File Juggler (Windows) / Hazel (macOS) Raw Text Transcript | Productivity App-apalooza! #3 Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this episode, and we are going to do another exciting episode, we have come to coin as appa Palooza, so this is our third time, where we're going to be doing four rounds, and discussing apps that we use in our everyday productivity systems and enjoy using and we we recommend them to others, and so why not share them with you. So as I said, we're going to go in three rounds, we'll have three rounds. And each of us will give our tool and kind of give you a little bit of explanation behind what it is and why we use it. So let's kick it off. Let's let's get started with this party and go with you art art I have you at first, what is your first app? Art Gelwicks 1:13Well, I've got a bit of a theme to this app a Palooza since we're in a situation where people are trying to kind of deal with the mental aspects of having a lot of stuff to do, and unfortunately having time to do that. So the theme on mine are gamification, tat or the gamification of tasks. So the first one that I'm talking about is an app called do it now. Now, these are all on Google Play. These are all on Android, I'm sure you can find equivalent ones on iOS, but do it now is an old school style role playing game, but it's done with your task. So if you think about it, from the perspective of something like a Dungeons and Dragons, or that type of a game, what you're doing is you're creating a character into it now of yourself your own stats, the challenges, you create your characteristics, like memory, perception, strength, and you apply those criteria to the things that you need to do, whether they're individual tasks or recurring tasks. I like it because it's a fairly modern style of interface, and you build experience as you move forward. And you can chart those metrics as you move forward to achieve specific goals. So it's a nice way, it's a little bit complex. But it's a nice way to get into this idea of gamifying, the things that you have to do and setting those point goals to help yourself move forward. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:33Because so what's your first app in round one, Augusto Pinaud 2:36my first app is anchor, and it is an app to record podcast podcast, like this one. It's been an interesting evolution, especially for a person who leaves iPad, only the recording and editing of the past podcast, even the power of the machine has been there for a while has taken longer to really get to reality. And anchor is the first application that allows us to really do that and to really record edit, even save templates. And it is a really easy, powerful way to start doing podcasts on on any device, iOS. iOS, is what I use, but I'm the reason I bring it here, obviously. But it is a really, really nice and powerful blood. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:24Now I happen to use anchor for one of my podcasts just because I needed to make sure that I was using the tool that you know a lot of my small business clients are using and talking about. And so I decided well, let me just use it for that purpose. Even though I'm I'm much more a fan of other podcast hosting services. But I've got to be honest, you know, the the anchor platform is is really quite useful and helpful are what's your experience been with anchor? Art Gelwicks 3:52Oh, I love it. I've been using anchor since the beginning on my own podcast. From an implementation standpoint it there are some little inconsistencies in the interface between the devices. But to have an application and a platform that you can literally build or record, edit and publish your entire podcast off of your mobile device is pretty slick. I've sat down and I've recorded multiple episodes from inside my car, I've been able to jump around and do the different things I needed to do. And then sit down and say, okay, publish this all right from my phone, I can do it from my desktop also. So yeah, I love it. I use it. I use anchor for all my podcasting. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:28The only only issue that I have come across is that the anchor messages like if someone records the messages and and sends it to you, I had no notification of that because it was only in the app. And so just make sure that you do have the mobile application installed, because then you'll install the app several months later and realize that someone you know some persons have ftu audio messages that you had no idea existed. So just little things like that. You know, and if anger is lifted You know, please give people the ability to see name record their show so that they can have their control over their domain. And yeah, so next up, I have Francis Francis, what's your first app. Francis Wade 5:12So it's called files to SD card. And it's on Android. And what it does is with a click of a button, you can transfer files from your internal device to your SD card. So it allows you to go through the directory, pick directories, or files, or basically whatever you want. And then with a with a tap habit all get transferred over and for folks who are having WhatsApp users. And if you belong to lots of WhatsApp groups, this is a most just because WhatsApp is doesn't allow you to save directly to the SD card, you have to save to the device, which means that if you are running out of space like I am, then you everyday you have to be moving files or and this is a way to do it in bulk takes about a couple of minutes to run each day, and allows you to keep going. I mean, this game will probably end because I imagined that there are other other programs that have files that I can't transfer. But at least for now, it's allowing me to extend the life of my smartphone. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:11One corollary to this is using the files app on Android. So you know, files to SD card isn't is an Android focused application. And the same thing kind of is being done by files. So there's an application called files, it's an Android app. And when you install it, it walks through your system. Again, it scans your system for things that you can get rid of like detritus, like junk, temporary files, you know, cache files, that kind of thing, but also these large media files that are sitting on your system, whether it be PDFs, mp3, you know, other video files as well. And it'll just give you a list of those so that you can purge them. And and many times, you know, those WhatsApp files are no longer useful. If you're sharing personal content, then why do you care about the GIF that your friends send you? You know, you could just get rid of it. So that's a kind of a secondary piece if people are really trying to save space on the device, and it's doing it semi automatically, because it'll just like prompt you at times and say, Hey, I scanned it, and I can save you x hundreds of megabytes worth of data. And then you could just go through and say okay, like in my case, you know, I found about a gigabyte, or two or 10 worth of excess podcast episodes that had just been sitting on my system from a prior podcast application. And I didn't need that stuff tape, you know, sitting on my system, so it was able to purge those pretty easily. So just check out the files app on Android. Francis Wade 7:42There's one that comes native, that's called files. But that's not what you're talking about. Right? Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:47It is indeed. Francis Wade 7:48Yep, it is....

We've reached 100 episodes! And, in honor of that, we hosted a live show and discussed our favorite of the first 99 episodes. Thanks to everyone who attended live and joined in the conversation, and here's to the next 100 episodes. Here's to your productive life, everyone. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/100 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | ProductivityCast Live, 100th Episode Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | ProductivityCast Live, 100th Episode Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdvOjYrck_0 Raw Text Transcript | ProductivityCast Live, 100th Episode Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:01Hello, and welcome everybody to productivity cast to Episode 100, our live episode. So, for those of you who are listening to the podcast, welcome back to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23I'm a good scooping up. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26You're muted Francis. Francis Wade 0:30I'm Francis Glade. Art Gelwicks 0:32And Hi, Mark ellex. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:34Oh, Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to everybody who is watching us live. And so just a couple housekeeping items. Since we are doing this episode live, those of you who are listening after the fact, you can go ahead and of course, you know, listen, those of you who are watching live, you can comment. So wherever you are watching across the many different platforms. Go ahead and comment and we'll see that comment here in the dashboard, and we'll be able to respond to them. So if you have a question or a comment, feel free to, you know, share those, and we can go ahead and place them on screen as well as discuss those items. What I wanted to do today, in and in honor of our 100th episode, I can't believe we have gotten through this many episodes together. And I'm very excited for us to have gotten to this milestone, both at 50,000 downloads in under 100 episodes. And now here at our hundredth episode and running, what I want to do is just cover a little bit about what has been kind of our most popular content on on so far. So some of you may not have listened to all 100 episodes, as I have in preparation for today. And then when when all of us kind of started in the process of joining ProductivityCast. And doing this, we each have come across in our past 100 episodes, some of our favorite episodes. And so I wanted us to kind of go round robin and discuss maybe some of the more favorite aspects of some of the episodes throughout that. And then we'll close out with some of our thoughts for what we might cover in future productivity casts. And maybe get some of your thoughts as well, because I'm sure that you all have some suggestions maybe that you would like to hear from us discuss in that category. So with that out of the way, let's talk about the first thing, which is what has been our Julie best raise, noting that you're muted is the catchphrase of 2020. You're absolutely right, Julie. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:38It is, it is the thing that I feel like I say the most to people in every zoom meeting and every other kind of video chat meeting as well. But I thought this was really fascinating. And what I wanted to do was kind of cover the most viewed episodes of all of our world, we distribute ProductivityCast not just through the podcast, but also through YouTube and a number of different other channels. Because of that, and and what I what I found was that the ProductivityCast itself ranks in the top 10 in global ranking according to listen notes. So on my first and foremost thought is just thank you to all of you who listen and watch the episodes on YouTube. And otherwise, I mean, you guys really have made this such a wonderful community and a wonderful aspect of our week. You know, a gousto Francis and art, we we get together every Monday morning and record. And it's the first experience I have of every week sitting down with these gentlemen and talking about personal productivity, something that we're all passionate about and passionate about helping you all be more productive, and spreading the word that people can have more successful and just stress free lives. Through implementing the strategies that we talked about, that are not all ours, you know that we're really standing on the shoulders of giants, and sometimes standing on the shoulders of just everyday people who have had great experiences, and they've shared those experiences. And then we share those with you. And some of the topics that I just thought were really interesting. One is that our topic on indecision is by far our most listened to podcast episode, and followed up by that is the productivity planners episode. So if you have not listened to those two episodes, those by far are our highest listen to episodes in terms of podcast episodes, followed just shortly behind that by personal compound. Now if you combined episodes into topics, I just thought everybody would like to know that GTD is by far the most listened to topic listened to on the ProductivityCast world and that doesn't make that makes quite a bit of sense. Considering the amount I talk about GTD all the time, but we have 13 episodes dedicated to getting things done and the various aspects of it and so it makes a lot of sense that that ends up being a quite a big part of it. evening routine And morning routines are a big topic. So our bullet journal. Now if we turn to YouTube, this is really fascinating to me, because by far on YouTube, the most listened to episode is the one on mind mapping, it continues to skyrocket in terms of numbers. So there's something about YouTube and the people on YouTube that just really love to listen and learn about mind mapping. And, and some mind mapping is the is the biggest one that we have found on YouTube. So I just thought it would be interesting that if you have not listened to any of those episodes, it's full well worth listening to, or, you know, those episodes because they happen to be our most popular ones. So it must have been our best content, right. So with that in mind, let's turn ourselves over to the topics of our favorite topics so far. And I'm going to turn it over to you art, what was your first favorite episode of our past 100. And why? Art Gelwicks 6:01It's interesting, because when we started this exercise, we realized we were getting to 100. And going back and looking at some of the old episodes, I was trying to figure out which episodes got me the most fired up about the particular topic, and also retains relevancy today. So the one of my top ones is Episode 59. It's where we dove into the idea of Open Office plans and the benefits and the downsides of operating an open office. And initially, I'm like, well, Does that even make sense anymore? Is that even remotely relevant, especially with where we are right now? And then I realized that, yes, it is totally, completely 100% relevant, because so many of these open office layouts now, we can't use, they aren't set up in a way that work with this new world that we're operating in. And we have to start thinking about, how does, how does this change, where we are trying to get work done. And now we're going to go back to an environment that is completely altered from the way we left it. So digging into this idea of open office spaces, to me, is a continuing, ongoing, evolve, evolving conversation that we need to have. Not only is the people who work in the environments, but the people who make the recommendations. And we have to start pursuing this even in more detail now. So this is one of those episodes that I love to go back and listen to because we haven't had an answer for it yet. And I don't think we're going to anytime soon. Augusto Pinaud 7:48It is interesting, because that episode, the set of conditions that exist before that, that are assumptions we have when we record that episode, I'm not sure they even exist anymore. So we will need to go from back to the drawing board and reconfigure things that even at this particular point, we don't know. Art Gelwicks 8:12Right, I that's one of the things that jumped out at me. When we recorded it at that time, the client work I was doing, I was sitting at basically a communal table with five other people 10 monitors across five people, or 12 monitors across six people, just a tight, close knit environment. And the way the office plan was laid out, you were in a spot and literally, you could just reach over and touch the person next to you, you were that close. That's not going to be the case. And that's a completely different ballgame. And if we think about people who are now working remotely, and then going back to that those designs have to be reset. And if we're used to working certain ways in those environments, being able to lean over the person next year and talk to them about something that's not going to be the case anymore. So our productivity will naturally have to change as the geography of where we're working changes as well. Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:13Yeah, definitely see this being interesting,...

On this week’s ProductivityCast, we discuss the merits and demerits of all-in-one productivity tools, the likes of Outlook and its competitors on the market. Can they be good for your personal productivity system? Do they work at scale in an organization? Listen and let us know your thoughts. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/099 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing All-in-One Productivity Systems—Good or Bad? from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | All-in-One Productivity Systems—Good or Bad? Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | All-in-One Productivity Systems—Good or Bad? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Outlook Mailbird Thunderbird HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes) TimeMatters (and BillingMatters) 17hats Freshworks suite Station Shift Bella Zapier IFTTT iMacros TextExpander Alfred ActiveWords 4 ClipMenu Jobs To Be Done theory Raw Text Transcript | All-in-One Productivity Systems—Good or Bad? Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Voiceover Artist And that's it for this ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things productivity, with your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.

On this week’s ProductivityCast, we discuss the merits and demerits of Staying Productive with good cybersecurity practices. This is part 2 of 2. Listen and let us know your thoughts. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/098 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part Two from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part Two Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part Two Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Raw Text Transcript | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part Two Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Voiceover Artist And that's it for this ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things productivity, with your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.

On this week’s ProductivityCast, we discuss the merits and demerits of Staying Productive with good cybersecurity practices. This is part 1 of 2. Listen and let us know your thoughts. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/097 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part one from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part one Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part one Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. HaveIBeenPwned Firefox Monitor Google Chrome Passwords Shodan Monitor Spyse (business) VPNs - why, what and how / DOH Password managers + security keys + authenticator apps LastPass, 1Password, Dashlane, Bitwarden, Enpass, KeePass, Keeper Firewalla / firewalls in your routers Privacy.com Two Factor Auth (2FA)  Fair Ad Blocker plugin Raw Text Transcript | Staying Productive with good cybersecurity - Part one Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Voiceover Artist And that's it for this ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things productivity, with your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.

The ProductivityCast team was having a conversation about our generational perspectives on technology and how they affect views about personal productivity. So, we decided to turn on the recording and share with you that conversation. What are your thoughts about how generations think differently about technology vis-a-vis productivity? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/096 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Generational Perspectives on Technology from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Generational Perspectives on Technology Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Generational Perspectives on Technology Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Raw Text Transcript | Generational Perspectives on Technology Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Voiceover Artist And that's it for this ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things productivity, with your hosts, Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Download a PDF of raw, text transcript of the interview here.

In this week's show, we discuss how our mobile productivity usage was and has mobile productivity changed during the COVID-19 pandemic and how that may apply to your own personal productivity systems. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/095 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing how has your mobile productivity changed from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | How Has Your Mobile Productivity Changed in the Current Circumstance? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Coronavirus productivity data: How the pandemic is changing the way we use digital devices, apps, and tools Raw Text Transcript | How Has Your Mobile Productivity Changed in the Current Circumstance? Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:19 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:21I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of productivity cast. Today, what we're going to be doing is talking about how mobile really has changed how you've been affected how mobile has changed in and around the current circumstance of the Coronavirus and the covid 19 pandemic, really. And what we'd like to do is talk about early on in the pandemic, as well as our current status. And to talk a little bit about how mobile is a part of your system, kind of going into the future, how you're going to make it a part or not make it a part of your system, and how we're really approaching those pieces in our own productivity systems. And then I'd like to close us out with thinking about how kind of philosophically maybe mobile technology, whether that be the OEMs as well as the providers of all of the various software technologies can adapt to the changing nature of work as we make our way through and out of the pandemic on the other side of this. And there's so many things happening and changing in that world. I'm just curious about everybody's thoughts there. So let's start off with where we began in terms of before the the novel coronavirus, SARS co v2 really came about how were How do you feel like you were using technology? And how do you feel like most people around you were using mobile technology, Augusto Pinaud 1:45it is interesting to see the use of mobile productivity. And not only it's easy to discuss how this has evolved over time, but more interesting how it is almost really clear that three stages into since we are starting this pandemic in March, you know the pre the pre pandemics. So before we were all sent into our new offices and at home and not being able to get out an old dad, the earliest stages of the pandemic where there was this component of uncertainty, but now we were at home, but we have all these mobile technology that we were not using, and where we are now, you know, seven months after this, and how people is getting back to really reevaluate, you know, before all the pandemic we have discussed. And many people have discussed about how the technology and the use of this mobile technology had evolve. But when we got into the real deal, the pandemic thing, people discover that most of the things they were doing before it stopped working I I had the opportunity to work, great deal people who their issue was that they simply change everything. And they were trying to use the same ideas on the same team techniques that they were using before. So and now they have come to a new way to do the things and to use this technology and to use these mobile technology that really fits their new workflow and the new way they work and the new things are doing. So that's that's a change that in most cases, or at least in most cases of the people, I have the opportunity to talk and discuss this topic, they have been able to see a clear distinction on this stages. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:54Funny enough for me, I don't feel like my use of mobile technology has fluctuated all that much. And it's probably a consequence of the fact that I don't like typing on screens, and that I have a much greater productive output on a full size keyboard. And so I've really avoided using mobile technologies for any amount of heavy lifting. And so I have relegated or you know, specified mobile technologies, whether that be tablets or my phone for the the work that I want it to do, and only that work. And so expanding upon that work has been a slow kind of progress. I've been doing more and more work on those smaller form factors, but it has been very metered. And I've thought a lot about how I'm using it. So I have an external keyboard for the iPad that I have. I have an external keyboard for the, for my phone, and I don't particularly like using the phone and, and keyboard for many things at all, I just don't. And so like before the pandemic, that was kind of how I approached it in the first place, I'm, I'll probably correct myself and say that I've, I've probably used the iPad more since kind of the first lockdown. And that's just as an factor of wanting a little bit more mobility with regard to like getting things done in different places, they're not things that I couldn't have just done with a laptop. So it's it's more just kind of variety is kind of a pull for variety, if I'm thinking thinking this through. But the main goal for me is to actually be seated at a full size keyboard with all of my assets, resources, that is processing power in front of me. And so the minor times when I'm, I feel the the urge to go someplace else and do a little bit of work for change of pace is, is probably very miniscule, comparative to the amount of work that I do when I sit at the desk, and I have all of my devices in front of me. And those mobile technologies are our single purpose. And they support what I'm doing on a primary or primary and secondary machine, Francis Wade 6:40I think I'm exactly the same way, I use their one or two apps that I have to use on mobile, because like Instagram, for example. Because they don't really exist on desktop in the same way. A couple others. But I'm exactly the same way my workflow has not changed much because of the pandemic. I've been working from home since 1993. And I put a lot of thought into what my office should look like. And it's always been an at home office. So when the pandemic hit, nothing really changed my day to day other than I spent less time away from the office. So for me, it was a bit of the opposite. But the single use single use ideal is one I've shared before on prior podcasts. And my tablet is is just for comm songs, consumption, it's in my living room, it kind of lives there. My phone is just for convenience, used to be when I was on the road, and no, it's when I want to do something in an unusual spot, like I'm laying in my hammock hammock in my outside, then I only use my phone to check email or look at Facebook. But 95% of what counts 90% of what counts happens at my desktop. And it's a function of the speed, the screen size, the keyboard, the the ease of having everything in front of me and also the ability to close distractions, because now I have my own office, my own rooms. So it's geared for particular kinds of results that are almost impossible to get in other places or with other devices. So it's where I've made it easy to get the job done other places, I could kind of get it done. But boy, it's you know, just that little keyboard on my phone getting anything decent written or trying to move between multiple screens or multiple apps. Ooh, boy, it's very, very hard. So I think I am more or less in alignment with what you said. Art Gelwicks 8:55Alright, I'm gonna play the counterpoint to all this. Let's take a look at it. For the past five years, I've been working in a primarily client, office location based mode, which is literally live out of a bag, pack everything up in the morning, go to the site, do the work, come home. Very little was left there. Matter of fact, every day when I would leave, you could look at my desk and say, Does somebody actually even work here? Because I think the only thing I would leave behind is maybe a coffee cup. So when we think about mobile, and we think about the pandemic, and we think about all these different changes. To me, the past part, I think the three of you are talking about it exactly the way most people think about mobile, which is it's a secondary convenience channel to the information that you normally utilize from your established workspace. So if it's a web based application, maybe there's an app on your phone that you can erase interact with the same set of data. So you can A quick look up, when you're waiting in line somewhere, it's a, it was a convenience....

Mind maps are ancient theory, but they’re not ancient history! Since the concept of mind mapping was popularized by Dr. Tony Buzan’s work in the 1970s, they have become a staple in academy and productivity circles in the past 20 years especially. Learn how the ProductivityCast team uses mind maps in their personal productivity systems, and how you might want to use them, too! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/094 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing How mind mapping fits your productivity system from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | How mind mapping fits your productivity system Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Tony Buzan books on mind mapping FreeMind Active Words 4 SimpleMind Mindjet Mindmanager Mindnode Mind42 Workflowy TheBrain Raw Text Transcript | How mind mapping fits your productivity system Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to talk about mind mapping. And if you don't know what a mind map is, then you've come to the right episode, because we're going to talk about what mind mapping is, and how it fits into each of our productivity systems, if at all, and how it might fit into your personal productivity system as a tool in your toolkit. And so what I wanted us to do was to first talk about what a mind map is, and to kind of kick the tires on the definition of a mind map, which is very malleable. And then talking about how we might use or do use mind maps, and then ultimately, some of the mind mapping software that we all use in the context of our systems. So let's start first with a mind map. And I'll just start with the sense that a mind map is a third century invention, if you want to call it that. But the concept of a mind map is very early dated in our history, and is in essence, a visual diagram. It has a hierarchy, where nodes, individual thoughts, if you want to call it that are connected to other thoughts. And they are hierarchical, because you have a parent thought, child and sibling thoughts or nodes that are connected to one another visually beyond that there's very wide latitude in terms of defining a mind map, who wants to tackle what a mind map is. And this comes from a conversation I had recently Francis Wade 1:55 where I found that I was doing them wrong, I'm informed by a practice that I picked up that was incorrect. But a mind map is intended to be intended to be a nonlinear brainstorm on paper, where you're you have a central node or a central question is how I know learned it. And you answer the question in this nonlinear kind of way, where your your mind is allowed to put anything anywhere on the people. There's no order and no necessary connection between the way you're basically downloading your thoughts. And as you download your thoughts onto paper, more thoughts popping that are connected to the things that you're writing, or they're unconnected, what you just keep adding, adding, adding, adding. So it's a little bit like that brainstorming session in which you spend the first part of it just collecting ideas on an uncensored kind of way. And I found that I was I was I had fallen into a trap of doing it in a structured way, which defeats the purpose of the brainstorming and the creative element of it the nonlinear, kind of allowing your mind just to run free and to allow it to collect on paper. So my my definition Art Gelwicks 3:10 for me mind mapping, and I've done mind mapping for years, I consider mind mapping the visualization of ideas, being able to provide those direct interconnects between ideas, to really facilitate the process of coming up with new ones and making sure things don't get missed. It is very visually heavy. So I define it as exactly as its name says it is a map of what's rattling around in your mind at that time. And we have to think about it that way. Because everybody who if you ask them what a mind map is, they either have no concept whatsoever, or the one I've got more commonly is they have this incredibly detailed, visually colorful design of conceptual and theoretical models around ideas and oh, it's just they're beautiful, but boy, are they impractical. To me, it's a happy medium, it is literally just a map to the thoughts around a particular topic. and allowing that map to lead itself wherever that topic needs to go. Which I think is probably the more important part Augusto Pinaud 4:28 mine mind map is it's an interesting tool and has always been a tool for me in the sense that it break the linear thinking and allows you to make sure you don't get stuck into loops thinking you know one of the problem sometimes when people are thinking is they go 1456678 and then go back 678678678 and they they go to stock mine man allows you to go on a spending that, but also helps you to break those loops. So that way you can do better things. That way you can get things actually accomplished. So it is a, it is a tool that I use often. And as proved to be really effective for me. Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:23 I'll disagree with Francis on just a minor note here, which is that while he thinks he was doing mind mapping wrong, I believe there's no wrong way to do mind mapping. And so the challenge is to actually relinquish this notion that there is a right way. And think about it in the perspective that there are skills associated with various types of mind mapping tools. So the type of Mind Map you're creating will dictate the, the skills you use, but the reality is, is that if you want to use mind mapping for brainstorming, go for it, if you want to do mind mapping for note taking Go for it. Mind Mapping was in at least modernity popularized by Dr. Tony Buzan. And he had a television show on the BBC back in the in the early 70s. I believe it was and he has written many books and published before his his passing a couple of years ago, Mind Mapping today has traditionally been used as a creative tool, because of Dr. museums, making the term Mind Map popular and the the tool popular as a as a creative tool. But reality is, is that it's a you know, if you want to call it a spider diagram, if you want to call it a visual diagram, or what have you. It is a it is a form of capturing thoughts and rearranging thoughts potentially, if you are using something that can rearrange thoughts, I guess pencil and an eraser would allow you to rearrange thoughts as well. But they allow you to connect thoughts to one another. And this this whole notion of a mind map is interesting when you're thinking about it from a personal productivity perspective, because it can be used in so many different arenas. I know individuals who use mind mapping software as their complete GTD system. I know people who use mind mapping software as a function for brainstorming, as Francis was talking about. I know folks who use mind mapping for note taking in in courses and lectures, and workshops and seminars. And that's how they take notes. So there was just so much flexibility and interest in the function of a mind map that my number one, I think tip is don't limit yourself in terms of what and how you can use a mind map. And once we get into some of these techniques, one of the things I do is link mind maps to mind maps. So my software allows me to say Oh, you know what, this node is actually a whole other Mind Map. And so therefore, you have this relational database, this database that connects one mind map to another, which are independent thoughts, but are connected by some central construct. Let's talk about how mind maps fit into your own systems. And I'm going to start with you, Francis, because what you said, was really interesting in the sense that you perceive that you were doing this wrong. And so how does mind mapping out today fit in your system? And what do you do with that brainstorming? Once you've done it? And that free form? How do you do it? Do you do a paper and pen? Are you doing it in software? And what does that process look like? For you? Francis Wade 8:36 I think I think your your qualification was point on and well taken there. The reason I made the comment about doing it wrong was because there was something I was leaving out when I was doing my mind mapping. So the most most of my mind mapping is done on paper, and it's to prepare for a presentation or a speech. So I'm I'm I'm trying to prepare him get my ideas together for some kind of,...

Today on ProductivityCast we discussed some of our favorite non-digital productivity gear. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/093 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing non-digital productivity gear from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Non-Digital Productivity Gear Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Dymo LetraTag LT-100H Portable Label MakerPilot FriXion Ball Clicker Erasable Gel Pens, Fine Point, Blue InkRocketbook BeaconsTargus Podium CoolpadLARQ water bottleLevenger Pocket BriefcaseCross Tech3+ stylusSqueeze BallDecaf CoffeeWhiteboard Raw Text Transcript | Non-Digital Productivity Gear Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners today to this episode. Today, what we wanted to do is we wanted to get a little bit non techie with some non digital technology, I suppose. But what we're going to do today is an episode on non digital productivity gear that we all use in our everyday lives in our in our productivity systems, that help us be more productive, and hopefully will help you be more productive in knowing about them. Even if you don't use the exact products we use, we you can find the things that we are talking about, and they might help you be more productive. And so what we're going to do is go around Round Robin, and each of us will describe what the tool is and why we use it and how we use it in our own systems. And that brings me to our first item, I'm going to go with art galax art, what was your first choice of your gear? Art Gelwicks 1:22Well, these aren't in any particular order. But the first thing I'll pull out here is my favorite little Dymo, letter tag, portable label maker. I mean, we've all seen one of those label makers before with the keyboard on the top, type it in. And it makes that lovely little mechanical sound as it spits the label out the side. Well, I'm just looking around my office right now, I've got cabinets labeled, I've got folders labeled, I've got drawers labeled, it's amazing how important it is just to know what something is without having to open it and route around in it. And it helps get past that hole out of sight out of mind issue that you can run into so often. So that's that's probably my first thing. I don't know that it's necessarily the best label maker. There's tons of them out there. And technically, it's digital. But to me, it's very straightforward. And it's very simple. And it just does the one job that it's supposed to do. And it does it very well. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:19So what do you find that you use it the most for? Art Gelwicks 2:23I would have to say it's it is primarily for my file folders. And for labeling drawers and cables, it is just that consistent thing where I want to be able to have something clear and easy to read from a distance. Plus, I want that consistency of visual. I'm a little bit of a design geek when it comes to that type of thing. So when I look at, for example, manila folders, I like that consistency of being able to go through and just have all the tabs uniform. So it's very easy to flip through and identify things. So there aren't, there aren't specific things. The one thing I do use it for though, which I don't know that everybody necessarily does. I use it for labeling cables, and power supplies. Because if you look in a box, for example, we usually wind up with like seven or eight different power supplies, they all look the same, but they have different voltages and things like that. And I'll admit, it's getting a little hard for me to read that fine print. So I'll take the most important information on there such as which computer it's supposed to go to or what its output voltages and label and just put it back on the back of the power supply so I can get to it. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:29I've been using a brother p touch 1100 q l for many, many years. And it's just one of those workhorses that takes a lickin and keeps on ticking. And so I've had it for so long, and it just keeps working. And so it has the cartridges you put into it. And you can type all kinds of things into it and save it and then print on demand. And yeah, I've I've actually looked into the brother, I forget which model that one is. But it you plug it into your computer, and you can print directly from the machine, various labels, but I've just really never gotten over the tactile control you have with the buttons on the P touch 1100 qL. So, Art Gelwicks 4:11yeah, that and that's I think that's the interesting part about those kinds of label makers. I've tried for years to use, like inkjet labels and laser printer labels and the setup and the work, you can do some neat stuff, don't get me wrong, but the setup and the effort just takes so much time away from actually accomplishing what you're trying to do. The label makers are just just that they're just straightforward. Like do the job they get back in the drawer until the next time they do the job. I looked at some of the desktop ones where they do the single label on demand. And I'm like, okay, that's fine, but I don't generate that many labels. What I do I generate a bunch, but otherwise it's just going to be sitting there tying up desk space, and it's not really getting me any benefit at that point. I want something I can use And put away when I'm done with it. So I will stick with this until it dies. And then I will probably buy another one that looks exactly like it. Augusto Pinaud 5:08Mine is also Dymo Letratag. So even more basic model than, than the one you have is the most basic one of the lateral tag. And he was actually what I got when when I begin doing my first getting things done swap. So we're talking about 2002 I think 2003 when when I got mine and it died, okay, it only lasts so long. And I went and replace it for the same one because of the I had the card that juice and I love the fact that in that one, you can even replace and use paper or you can use plastic. So I have a couple of different things for for different purpose. If I want waterproof, then I have one that he's made of plastic so that way I can label that. And it is really interesting how good it is to to have that I have never even considered going into a Desktop space where anything is wrong when I need it. I just can't pull it out and print what I need and continue with my life is a really, really a fantastic tool. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:14Elisa, what's your first pick of your non digital productivity gear? Augusto Pinaud 6:18You know, the first one I'm going to pick is a 11 year pocket briefcase. I take notes. And not every note even that I take a lot of notes on my iPad Mini. Not every meeting is good to bring the iPad Mini there is still a lot of people who feels that if you have the device on the table, you're not paying attention to which index cards are your best ally. I don't have notebooks because I don't want to carry notebooks because it's not every meeting that I need to to use it but i have i bought years ago this love in your pocket briefcase on basically, it's a fancy way to carry the index card. But he works really, really well for these kind of things. I can have a main card, and then it has a couple of buckets that you can put clean one and the ones you just use for process. And it has been a fantastic tool for over the years. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:18So how much can it really carry? Like how much stuff can you shove into it? Augusto Pinaud 7:25Well, right now I have one I have right now 12 clean index cards. And I can probably go until 36 index cards. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:41Okay, not bad. Art Gelwicks 7:42Yeah, it's interesting. If I think back in the day, they used to talk about the levenger pocket notebook in combination with an old thing called the hipster PDA, where you would actually build out your own personal organizer using index cards in a binder clip. But if you wanted to do it more on the high end, you would couple it with one of the levenger pocket briefcases to give you a nicer place to actually capture the notes on the index cards and then transfer them over into the analog PDA. It's been around a little while. Augusto Pinaud 8:14It's been around for a really long time. Yeah. And they are. Again, I don't know how old How old is this thing. But it's been it's been with me for a long time. Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:25Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you. All right. So I picked the for my first item. It's still a little bit techie, but I'm going to use it anyway,...

Augusto recently had an epiphany about turning an older Microsoft Surface he had laying around, that wasn’t quite working (Augusto, you can clarify for listeners), into a Chromebook. And, we thought it would be a fun, techie episode for us to discuss how to do so. Also, we discuss how choosing the right technology upgrade or retirement strategies can help sustain and renew the only known celestial body in this vast universe that supports human life. (We’ll give some ideas at the end of this cast.) (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/092 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Turn your Old Laptop into a Chromebook from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Turn your Old Laptop into a Chromebook Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Turn your Old Laptop into a Chromebook Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Raw Text Transcript | Turn your Old Laptop into a Chromebook Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome gentlemen and to our listeners today to this episode of productivity cast, where we will be discussing a wonderful world of replacing technology. In essence, Augusto recently had I'll call it an epiphany, about turning an older Microsoft Surface he had laying around that wasn't quite working, and Augusto is going to clarify for you all what actually happened. And then he turned that into a Chrome OS, device, a Chromebook, in essence, and so we thought it would be fun, you know, a little techie episode for us to talk about how he did so. And then after that, we're going to really discuss the broader discussion of how do we spend time and resources regarding upgrading replacing technology, and so on, so forth. So I'm gonna turn it over to you, Augusto, in terms of how did you give new life to your old Microsoft Surface? Augusto Pinaud 1:21 Well, you know, part of part of what I do is helping small business owners and coaching businesses, sometimes understanding what they need technology wise, you know, years ago, people will go and jump and get a new machine and faster machine. And in many cases, that was justified, that was how software was, but now that software has evolved and a lot of it happened on a browser happened online, really, we have discovered that we don't need necessarily that much more power as we used to. So the problem was the solutions you used to have on the past was get unbuilt line is a Linux machine. And that is fine and dandy. Except that requires you to be a little bit more geeky, even that now the UI on many of those Linux distros are a lot more friendly, still require a certain level of geekiness to go and adjust that and unsolvable the problem. So I happen to have a dead Microsoft Surface. The hard drive is that this says Surface Pro two. And the hard drive was it belonged to a client of mine. And after we discovered what it was, it was dead, and Microsoft don't fix them because it's all glued together in a way that basically they broke more than what they survive. Microsoft basically tells you good luck. So client leave the machine with me as a dead machine. And it was instead of in the trash on one of the shelves, because that's what happened, I was actually looking for a tablet that I could use to record this another podcast. So I did not need to carry the MacBook with me. That's how these ideas start. So the Microsoft Surface had a micro SD slot hidden on the back. So what I went was I stopped in an electronic store and buy a superfast micro SD, put it in the back and use that as the main hard drives. After I did that. Then I went to a website called Cloud ready ready.com. And they have a free distro of a version of Chrome OS, chromium. So I installed that and basically that create a full Chrome OS machine. After I have done that I have used that same thing into a couple of my clients, allowing them to get back to live a lot of all technology that they have laying around. The reality is that is most of your business leaves on the cloud. And you don't use any specific platform software, you can leave in this machine's forever from I have been recruiting now for three or four months to podcast and other things with this Chrome OS machine on a machine that technically is that so it has been a really fun project and a great reminder to myself as well as my clients. What we can do to reuse technology really, if you see this machine, except that you see the Microsoft logo on the front. There is no other thing that will make you think that he said reuse machine or even though the hard drive inside is that Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:50 so for folks who are interested if you have a machine hanging around that is maybe lagging or slow or maybe even In a good news case where it's not operable, you may be able to bring it back to life. And so a gousto, I think you're going to have some links in the show notes for folks to check out the various tutorials and whatnot that you use to be able to make that happen. Augusto Pinaud 5:14 Yes, and the process is pretty simple. And cloud ready is free, at least for one machine, if you want their support, they have programs for supports that you can get, but mostly, is free for everybody. So it's, it's really, really an awesome, awesome platform. Art Gelwicks 5:30 How have you found the battery life on the Surface tablet after installing chrome and King, you compare that to what it was before you did? Augusto Pinaud 5:40 Well, this was not my machine, this was a client. So sadly, I cannot report on the before I can tell this machine is pretty old. I can check what what is the year but I found the battery life really bad. And then I you know, big Sam comparing that with my own machine with my own iPad. And I was really well this is you know, that the life of this of the batteries really, really poorly until I discover or remember that this is a machine from around 2013, where three and four hours of battery, it was the norm, it was cool. Hey, four hours of battery. It's pretty cool. The problem now is we are getting to the point where we have 10 and 12. And four hours of battery seems like last nothing. But it does right now be no machine from 2013, solid four hours of battery on on the on the distribution that I have. So it works really really well. Francis Wade 6:41 Other question, can it work on an iPad and or iPad? Augusto Pinaud 6:45 On an old iPad? Not because the iPad will not allow you to install over the iOS? Okay, but he will work on a window on an old windows he will work in an old Mac too. Art Gelwicks 6:58 Yeah, the iPads are different chipset so it wouldn't support it anyway, there are Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:02 myths out there in the wild about people being able to install Chrome OS on iPads. But it requires a heck of a lot of work to be able to get it get it on there. Art Gelwicks 7:13 I'll be honest, and this is just brutally honest. Why would you want to? I mean, really, just because you can doesn't mean you should Augusto Pinaud 7:22 I completely agree with that. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:23 I think it's I think it's about being able to breathe life into the form factor of a, an existing laptop or desktop that that would really work well, I think actually, there are probably some Linux distros that would work better on an iPad experience. Because you know, the iPad is a tablet experience, you may be able to actually be would probably be savvy or to use some of the instructions that get Android onto an iPad, because it has all the functions for being able to take advantage of the sensors, and the touchscreen. But I just think it's I think it's just a really brilliant notion to be able to breathe life back into your computer that you may feel is failing or old. And for those who may not know, this, Chrome OS is, in essence, a you know, it's a type of it has a Linux kernel. So you know, in essence, you can actually activate project Cristini within the Chrome OS environment and have a full Linux desktop. So you can you can still have a Linux, you know, experience with Chrome OS, which is really quite brilliant news, go into the advanced settings and turn on the the Linux option. And you'll be able to boot right into the Linux environment, which means you can have all of the desktop software that Linux has available to it, which is pretty amazing. So this really takes us to the larger discussion around when do you upgrade and or when do you replace? And in a gastos case, he was reviving a a tool that was already broken. And I'm curious about for those of us who have existing m

What is the reason for having a career that you enjoy (or “love”)? And, what can you do action-wise to change the trajectory of your career satisfaction/life fulfillment? That’s what the ProductivityCast team tackles on this cast! Enjoy! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/091 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing should you do what you love as a career from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Show Notes | Should You Do What You Love as a Career? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood by Marsha Sinetar How Company Culture Shapes Employee Motivation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=202nbcLwxsg Dr. MLK's 'Street Sweeper' Speech at Philadelphia School October 26, 1967 On job crafting, Managing Yourself: Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want You can use data to boost your career. Here’s how. | Neil Irwin | Big Think Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, PhD Mindset - Productivity Book Group Do What You Love -- And Watch Your Productivity Suffer 4 Concrete Steps to Take to Love Your Job Again (Backed By Science) Reasons to Do What You Love for a Living 5 strategies to move toward a career you love How to love your job even when you hate your job Don't "follow your passion" Managing Yourself: Turn the Job You Have into the Job You Want Source/Credit: The Reasons We Work Source/Credit: Ikigai – Japanese concept to enhance work, life & sense of worth Raw Text Transcript | Should You Do What You Love as a Career? Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Francis Wade 0:20I'm Francis Wade. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. In this cast, what we're going to be doing today is having a little bit of a debate, as we do every week. But today, we're gonna be kind of debating the the notion of, should you do what you love as a career, and, and having a bit of a discussion around this notion of, you know, career satisfaction, career fulfillment, and productivity, there is a there is a, an overlap there, if you have like the Venn diagram of career satisfaction and productivity and, and that space there, we're going to really dive into that sliver. For us. This topic was developed by Francis. So Francis, what made you think of this topic, and what what brought it to mind, Francis Wade 1:16something I read that pointed out that people who do what they love, especially in the nonprofit sector, can often result in burnout or end up in burnout. And it's because they, they love what they do so much that they end up tipping their work life balance, or work life integration in a way that's not fruitful. So they put up with 60 70 hour 80 hour work weeks pursuing a passion or a cause, or, you know, altruistic motive, you know, you could be trying to save the whales. And because you're so committed to saving the whales, you then end up working 80 hours. So your body doesn't care whether you're saving the whales, or selling real estate, or doing doing multi level marketing or your body doesn't care, when you're putting in the 80 hours of work. It feels the brunt anyway. And it talks about the need for people who are nonprofit, and who are altruistic to also seek this kind of balance. But it made me think, in general, when I was a, like a center, entering the professional world, or sort of establishing myself in the 90s, I remember a book that's entitled, do what you love, and the money will follow. If it wasn't a book, it was an article. And this was highly debated, you know that there was a kind of a almost quasi religious belief that if you could just find what you love, and then put all of your eggs in the basket, then the universe would magically come to your rescue and provide you with bottom line profits. And that that that also is one of the Genesis, I think, why we're having this compensation, because there is that thought out there. And there are many sides to this coin. So that's, that's, that's, I guess, what, what the core of the matter is, is it true? Should it be pursued? Is it different for different people? Or is there just a practical hard market reality here? And it's nothing to do with the Whoo, Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:20I definitely have a copy of that book sitting on my shelf right here in view. 1980 1989. So, yeah, so let's let's start off with what is the reason for having a career that you enjoy? In in parlance today, we're calling it love, but we can call it fulfillment or satisfaction or what have you. But what is the what is the reason for doing that? And again, I'm, I want to really stay in the lens of personal productivity here for purposes of being productive, that is time to task, project energy, those types of management's of oneself. What's the What's the reason? What's the goal? If you want to be more productive to love what you do? What's the argument there? Augusto Pinaud 4:09When do you look at what you do or don't do? And you're looking at from the lens specific of the productivity, it comes to be really, really important? What do you do? The reason of, I believe, is if you don't enjoy what you do, it is really hard to be productive. You know, if you get kind of when I work with productivity with my coaching clients, okay? And you look at the stuff that they procrastinate the stuff that is on their list for years. Some of them you wonder, okay, why this has been there for years. The reason is, I'm afraid I don't enjoy it. I know. There are many reasons on that and all of them are the comes to this is something that I'm not passionate or afraid to it. So if you get a career where you have zero passion, okay? Can you do it? Yeah, can you be good at it? Yes? Can you be your best at it? No, it's not, I don't believe is possible. I believe that component, that passion component, it's really, really a key to attain a high level of productivity. And to attain a balance happy life on that. Francis Wade 5:37If you love what you do, you're more likely to be really, really good at it. At some point, you're more likely to invest the hard hours and the learning and the self training and the evaluations, you're more likely to develop yourself. And in that direction, I think that's as an endpoint everyone would agree. And there's actually a study that I just put up in the show notes, it shows multiple levels of motivation. And the most motivated person is the one who does what they do, because they love it only because they love it, and not because of the outputs, or because of the potential or because of the money or because of the peer pressure, or because of the inertia. So those, the lists that I just gave are the other reasons why people do their jobs. And they're all lesser than, than the actual love of the work itself, which is the highest highest in this particular article, some research done from the 1980s. But, but and here's the big, but what we learned back in the day, 1989, as he said, puts the cart before the horse, according to people like Ken Newport. And I think it's true from my observation also, which is that even though that's the end point, and even though we could agree that that's the ideal, the harder question is, how do you get from here to there. And that's where that that that that I think, is really interesting and counter intuitive. And that's where we've learned that the message of the 1989 book doesn't bear out in practice, Augusto Pinaud 7:09I there is some old saying that says, the most dangerous guy on the field is the guy who is having fun, and I wish to tell you who said that, and but I have believed that, you know, and I have seen it in practice, you know, many, many years ago, when I was, you know, in the, in the sales in the active sales for electronic world, as a sales manager, you could see who were the guys having fun in the field, and the level of success, and it was really correlation. And I over the years, keep that on the front of the mind. Because I have seen clients and friends and business partners, those that are having fun, okay tend to be more productive tend to be, you know, more passionate about what they do tend to be much better about the work they are doing, tend to be stellar about the results they're getting. I don't know, I don't think you know, that Field of Dreams, or the book, you know, building on day will come, it works. But what I can tell you is the people I have seen, build it without that passion, eventually walk away. that built the business build the career. Either way, it is really a tough thing to do....

Welcome to Productivity App-apalooza, Second Edition! Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art use and experiment with hundreds of apps per year in our productive lives. So, a few times per year, we review software and services that we use and recommend to others. We hope you enjoy, and let us know the apps you’re using that are helping you be more productive! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/090 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Productivity App-apalooza, Second Edition! from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity App-apalooza, Second Edition! Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Round 1 Augusto - Firefox Focus (browser) Art - Edge (browser) Ray - Rocketbook Everlast Francis - Twine Round 2 Art - LastPass 1Password, Dashlane, Bitwarden, Enpass, KeePass, Keeper Augusto - GoodNotes 5 Ray - Pushbullet Francis - Opus Creator Round 3 Augusto - Graphic (iPad) Francis - OBS Studio Art - Privacy.com Ray - Trello Raw Text Transcript | Productivity App-apalooza, Second Edition! Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24And welcome gentlemen and welcome to our listeners today. For this episode, what we are going to be doing is our second App-apalooza. And what that means is that we are going to have three rounds. And in those three rounds, each of us is going to pick a tool and explicate why the tool is awesome, how we use it, all of those good things, why you might want to use it. And so let's get right into it. Let's start round one ding ding ding. And let's start with you will gousto What is your first app and Why do you use it? The first Augusto Pinaud 1:01that I will talk today is an application called Firefox focus in the world of browsers and not exactly a lack of browsers these days, Firefox focus to recent player in the game that bring you put you automatically on privacy mode. That is cool. But second doesn't allow you to open tabs or anything. Basically, you have a window to work for. So there are moments that my level of attention is not the best, and that I'm distracted and that I'm aware that I'm distracted. So are those times it is really, really useful for me to work on Firefox because allow me to stay on that browser. Allow me don't allow me to have the 27 tops at the end of the conversation. I am forced to basically figured out how I'm going to do on one plus add the privacy and other aspects that is really, really cool. So it works well on the iOS. So it is something that I tend to give, you know, a lot of use to be honest with you. Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:19And it's available on iOS and Android. Art Gelwicks 2:21Alright, so if a goose is going to go down the Firefox path, I'm going to go down the Microsoft Edge path, edges there. Unfortunately, it has a bad reputation from older versions, but they've rebuilt edge using the chromium engine. So it's basically chrome with a Microsoft skin. I have found that on mobile and on the desktop, I like it as much as chrome if not a little bit more at times. It's fast. It supports extensions. It will sync between mobile and desktop and as it browser alternative to our classic chrome solution. I think it's something that's a very viable use. If you look at some of the capabilities, there's a nice pop up function at the bottom of the browser on mobile, that gives you access to all of the different controls and features that you would normally have to dig through chrome to get to. So that's my recommendation, if you want to look at an alternative browser, and you're, you know, trying things like Firefox and brave throw edge into the mix too. And give it a good try. I think you might be surprised at how much you like it. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:33Yeah, it's like they took all of the Google guts out of the chromium project that goes into Google Chrome, and they put in all of the Microsoft guts. And I think that's actually really helpful for people who are in the Microsoft ecosystem. You know, you're still using a chromium based browser. You've got all the extensions available to you. You've got a lot of really embedded Microsoft you know, company opponents, and I think it'll only get better. And it Now, of course, reduces the number of browsers, major browsers in the market. Because, you know, Chrome, and edge. And all of the derivatives are basically chromium. And then you have the Mozilla Firefox, which produces the focus browser that Lucy was talking about, but also Firefox, General and a couple other different Firefox installations. implementations. So we are having a kind of major reduction in the market, where you have Google Chrome, Firefox and and Safari being the really the only three major browsers if you want to think about it in in the largest sense. So there has been a bit of a consolidation in the market, but very interesting to watch. Art Gelwicks 4:47Some people get worked up about that, and I always flip them around to it's literally like car platforms. You go and you look at the major car platforms and you wind up with three different models from three different Four sub brands, all built on the same chassis. Well, that's exactly what this is, as a developer, if there's a common chassis between these browsers, it's much easier for me to actually build content and build materials, because I know they're all going to interpret it the same way. as an end user, I can choose the browser that has the look and feel that I want and the functionality and know it's going to render everything the same way. So I don't think it's a bad thing. I think this is one of the areas where that lower level of standardization is much more useful than what you lose in having, you know, not having 18 different things to pick from. Augusto Pinaud 5:41It is really also really interesting to think that Microsoft when died the route and I'm building on top of chromium two, especially after all the issues that for many, many years they had was internet exploder. I don't know how marketing wise It was a good call but I'm keeping the same scheme of colors and all that it brings as art was mentioned at the beginning the impression that is this just a chain of change of a scheme or it is really something that they have done on the background and I have seen even for people who supposed to understand the technicalities behind the idea of I don't know this is a still you know, it still looks still look like the same Microsoft Internet exploder even that he's not so but that said it is it is interesting for me how Microsoft when when the way of put the Kremen engine in in the bag instead of try to recreate something. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:49Alright, let's let's move right along to Francis Francis. What's your first round Francis Wade 6:55choice I've gone a lot into what what now has a name is called rapid, rapid game prototyping for learning something like that. But the idea is that you're you, you very quickly put together games for learning. And the instead of trying to put together something like a New World of Warcraft, it's, you know, massive undertaking that takes several years. Instead, you spend a few hours. And it could be as simple as a quiz or, or involve a software like twine. So that's the app I'm talking about is twine. And it allows you to develop branch scenarios in zero time. And it used to be a nice development tool because you could develop in twine and then move on to other programs to use the I guess they the branch logic, so you could develop the app, develop the story or the storyline, in twine and then go to a different software and then actually develop a final product. That was the workflow Up to a couple of years ago, where they changed twines that it actually has a an output of its own, which is great, you don't have to know jump to a whole nother software. And it allows you to very, very quickly, not quite as fast as writing prose, you know, which like writing a story or a novel. That's not quite as fast as that because when you're coming up with a branch story, you need to account for different endings and either keep several threads going on at the same time. But twine does a remarkable job of allowing you to do that very, very quickly. I don't think there is anything else on the market like it, it's free, it's open source, and it just does an awesome job. Raymond Sidney-Smith 8:47Fantastic. It's one of those that I have played with, and I find it to be very interesting to see how you can create these very interesting. For example,...

The State of Project Collaboration Software in 2020: Slack, Teams, G Chat, and now P2 Automattic, the company that manages the open source software, WordPress.org, recently launched P2, its version of project collaboration software for the Remote Work Age. Timely, considering the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it also provides commentary on the state of project management today. My reading of the tea leaves is that there are still challenges organizations--from small businesses to large enterprises--are facing in finding the right principles and tools to manage and collaborate effectively on projects and programs both internally and externally. Today, we’re going to discuss the state of project collaboration software in 2020...from Microsoft Teams to Slack and Google Chat to Asana and Trello...and now, P2. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/088for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing The State of Project Collaboration Software in 2020: Slack, Teams, G Chat, and now P2 from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | The State of Project Collaboration Software in 2020 Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Raw Text Transcript | The State of Project Collaboration Software in 2020 Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we have a fun topic, automatic, the company that manages the open source software wordpress.org, which powers if you didn't know about a third of the internet's websites just recently launched p to its version of project collaboration software for the remote work age, timely considering the state of the covid 19 pandemic, but it also provides commentary on the state of project management today. my reading of the tea leaves is that there are still challenges organizations from Small businesses to large enterprises are facing and finding the right principles and tools to manage and collaborate effectively on projects and programs, both internally and externally. So today, I thought what we would do is we discuss the state of project collaboration software in 2020, from Microsoft Teams to slack and Google Chat, to Asana and Trello. And now p two, we have all of these products on the market. And there's a bit of muddy water when we try to understand what they are and how they fit into the schema of both project management proper, but also then our own personal productivity. And so what I thought we would do first is to kind of define the various parts of project management software in the marketplace today. Then have a discussion around what the important characteristics of pm software are and the parts that make project collaboration work, plus, of course, our personal productivity work. And then finally, we can do maybe a light campaign. And contrast of the project collaboration software is on the market today. And that includes automatics p two now that it has entered the fray. So let's start with defining project collaboration software in the context of project management today, Francis Wade 2:18 I think the software that I longed for is the one that would connect me with other people that I am working with in a seamless fashion. So I've been in my mind hankering after conquering hankering after just a perfect environment that would allow all of us to be able to see the same thing at the same time updated, share the contents of it, have it be somewhat private and separate from the real world or the rest of the world. A kind of a walled off garden that would allow us to focus and get things done without distraction and and also a lot of Zippy fast communication. That Maybe might be, um, speedier than other channels. I've hoped for something like this forever. And I've never found it. Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:08 Since we're focusing on project collaboration software today, there's an understanding of the various other types of software that are out there. And so in project management, we think of the various aspects of taking a project from the beginning phases of planning through to the outcome, which is deliverables that are that are being produced on the other side. And so there's planning involved and there is project planning software. So we can think about like Microsoft Project, Gantt charting software, like Tom's planner, and so and so forth. We then kind of move forward into the project collaboration space, which is what we're going to be talking about today, which are software that allows you to be able to communicate while maintaining a connection or an integration With the project tasks, as well as milestones of the project itself, and that really comes into then project tracking software. So we have project tracking software that helps teams basically keep all of their tasks that are related to one another, including, you know, budget and expense reporting and resource allocation all together. And, and then there's project budgeting software as well, which really allows you to be able to handle all of the financial aspects of project management, there is a kind of a higher level, which I hear it being called portfolio management software, and that really is on the enterprise level, where management needs a tool, usually somehow related to their RP or otherwise to really manage on that macro level, goals of the organization and all of the resources that really drive down towards the Other software that it's managing. So there's this hierarchy, as well as integration between all of these software to make a cohesive platform for people to really be productive in amongst the various pieces of the puzzle, moving things forward. And so what I'm really interested in is, why is project collaboration software important in the context of making progress in our organization? How do you answer that question? When people ask it, Art Gelwicks 5:34 I think you hit the key concept that you have to take into consideration here, which is the spectrum of need of collaboration as compared to project management itself, isolating the collaboration part out of it, because there's a lot of applications that do the project task management portion very well and have added on Collaboration Trello is a good example of that. There are other tools that focus primarily on the collaboration side and have started to add on the project management piece. teams, for example. So thinking about the balance between the two, what's, how do you find the one that's going to be right? For me, the really important thing is you have to look at the projects that you are doing. And identify where is the weakness, you're not going to deploy a tool that necessarily just only caters to the strength of your teams. If you have teams that work together really well. They just have a hard time getting their work organized. deploying a tool that focuses on that, working together really well doesn't really move the needle for you. You've got to be able to offset those weaknesses in your team without creating new ones. For is right there isn't one out there that does both sides of this fence equally well. I mean, there are always pluses and minuses to both of them. Everybody's trying to do the same basic things. They make the argument that, oh, if we put all this stuff in one place, we can kill email. That's one of the things you hear a lot with these things that they're email killers. But you can also simplify finding your files and keep your tasks on task and all all the lovely marketing hype. But it still boils down to one core thing and we're talking about the collaboration piece. Projects are successful when everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing and knows what that is. And if we're able to use tools like Trello, or like a team's to hit that mark, then the actual features are more gravy than anything else in my book. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:55 All I have to do is say here here to the the ridiculousness of people attempting to kill email. First of all, just to soapbox for a moment, email is a strata of the internet, it is not something that you can kill off isn't it is an open protocol that is a part of the internet. So, so so that's a foolhardy perspective to begin with. Second, it's an absolutely brilliant piece of technology when used correctly. And so three means we need to learn how to use email correctly, and not use it for things it's not meant to do. And then we'll all be better off. I think the abuse of email is what you know, not the use,...

Frequently we hear the term “amateur” bandied about as an insult. But, there’s a long and rich history to what amateur really means. And, being productive, in my humble opinion, requires you to be an amateur and professional, simply in the right amounts and contexts. What does amateur mean? What does professional mean? And, how can their differences help level-up your personal productivity? That’s the topic of today’s cast here on ProductivityCast.

Automating Your Office: Improving Your Workplace Productivity With Office Automation In this week’s ProductivityCast, we discuss: What is office automation? How does it differ from home automation? What office automation do you currently have/use? What office automation would you use if technology/cost/other barriers to entry were not there? Where should you start with office automation? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/087 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Automating Your Office : Improving Your Workplace Productivity With Office Automation from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Automating Your Office Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Four fundamentals of workplace automation Raw Text Transcript | Automating Your Office Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:28 Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to a another episode of this productivity cast, where we will be discussing office automation. And what I thought we would do today is we would discuss the contrast between what is office automation and what is home automation and explaining that for everybody, and then getting into the context of what automation we use in our own office environments or the environments that we work in because that could be home as well. People have home offices, and people work from home. And those offices also can take advantage of automation. And then talking about what technology we would use if all technology was available to us and cost and other barriers to entry were reduced. What would we use in our office to help us be more productive in our workplaces? And and then we'll, we'll close out the episode with what are the first steps we would consider offering to our listeners to you listeners to start in the office automation space? So let's get started first with what is office automation and how does it contrast in your minds with home automation? Augusto Pinaud 1:42 From my perspective, home automation, it's a lot more about comfort, okay, it's about security and comfort you go you know, get the lights Get, get automated, something's when you now come to the office. It's more related about efficiency on productivity. One of the First examples we can talk about, about automation in the office was the death of the paper fax, okay, and I need even that most people will not consider that automation. That's the first step. So the earliest steps of the office automation, the moment we stop having to worry about replacing, you know, getting a fax in the middle of the thing, and now discovered, oh, we run out of paper, it's called a birth a human being who send us that, to get that when now you can get the numbers digital and get that fax in the same way via email or directly in the email. You know, that's the difference between, in my opinion between home automation and office automation, it's office automation is more about how can we make the work more efficient, more productive, and even in some cases, how can we stop depending on humans for a certain task, you know, as much as You know, when you look on a small business offices, okay, how much can we use technology to not hire that person that we may or may not need or the fluctuation of their business at that particular point? can or cannot afford? And how can we use technology and automation to help that? Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:20 I think that office automation is about helping make the business more profitable. And increasing productivity is, you know, one of those mean a big ticket big majority reasons and, and vehicles to that end. And the way in which I see office automation, really mostly different from home automation, is that there is so much more software involved in office automation than there than there probably isn't home automation, just because we spend most of our days working in an office environment or just working generally in our lives. And that information needs to be moved around. And now today since most people work on a computer, whether that be at a desk or on their phone, we are, are constantly being bombarded with new types of productivity software. And those software can be connected together. And we've talked a little bit about this before, with, you know, Zapier and other other integration tools. But I'd like to get a little bit more into that today, as well. And I'm sure we'll talk about it exclusively as you know, kind of workflow integration and workflow automation on the software side, in a later episode, but the real piece here is is how do you connect the physical electronics together for day to day productivity, along with the software that's available to us today? And I'm, I'm uniquely interested in seeing taking a step back. You know, my my audience is small business owners and I spend a lot of time In small businesses, helping them and so I see how many times a small business owner is using a lot of home automation, or least consumer based electronics and consumer based software in their businesses, because it's less expensive. There aren't enterprise licenses. And so I'm seeing a lot of that being used in the automation space. And we'll talk a little bit about that later today. But the that's really the part that I see is office automation is how we connect all of these various parts, these disparate parts to be able to help us get gains where we otherwise wouldn't think about getting gains. But we're doing these things routinely. Francis Wade 5:43 I think the rationale is completely different than home automation. In other words, the Why is different. I think as automation needs to produce some, some results that accrues to the bottom line and there are well established Process Improvement reengineering, process management techniques that I've been around since the 90s. that tell you how to do that. And office automation for me is, comes from that, that kind of line of thinking, where there's an investment and then there's a payoff. And if there's no payoff, then it's not worth making the investment. And also, if something can't scale, then if your business is going to scale, then you need to look very carefully at whether or not that nice Gizmo is is actually adding value or not. So I think in home of home automation, that the need for comfort and to be the first on the block and to to have something that diversionary or entertaining, entertaining, is more possible. But in business, I think that the more black and white in terms of will I will I make an investment that produces Have a bang for the buck. Art Gelwicks 7:01 Yeah, I think within the space of business automation, you have to remember two key areas. One, there is a big difference between physical automation and information automation, especially in the business space, that line seems to be a little bit more clearly defined. But secondarily, the influence you have over office automation is often just limited and defined by the role that you have. In many cases, things like facilities are responsible for printers, they're responsible for other controls. They're responsible for conference room setups and cameras. You don't have either control or influence over that. So you're really kind of limited in my automation is the things that I cannot influence and the things that influence me. Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:50 I came across a really interesting paradigm mine McKinsey, the big global Consulting Group, and they talk about kind of the four four fundamentals of workplace automation, you know, office automation. And they they talk about it from the perspective that there is automation of activities, and then read of it redefinition of jobs and processes, right? The idea of business processes being redefined based on that automation, the impact on occupation in general. So, like, if you have high wage occupations, those are obviously going to be, you know, changed by, you know, impacted by the by automation. And then finally, how that how that impacts creativity and meaning both for the workplace but also for the industry, the economy at large as well. And so, that's like, on the very, I think, kind of like you know, from the ground level up to the macro level in terms of how we consider automation and for like for you art where You are in an environment where you're not controlling the space. And I am in an environment where I do get to control most of my space. And then going into environments where, you know, I'm working with business owners trying to automate and become more efficient,...

In this week’s cast, we discuss how the Internet of Things affects personal productivity. All those smart devices (including your smartphones and tablets) make up part of the large interconnected web of items tethered to one another by the Web. We provide our thoughts on approaching the IoT productivity in your home and life. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/086 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing IoT Productivity: How Internet of Things (IoT) Affects Personal Productivity, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | IoT Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Big G - Google AssistantBig A - Amazon AlexaBig S - Apple SiriBig C - Microsoft CortanaBig B - Samsung Bixby Nest Thermostat Raw Text Transcript | IoT Productivity Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25 And Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode. And what we are going to be doing this week is talking about the Internet of Things, and its impact on productivity on personal productivity. And what we're going to cover throughout the episode is a little bit of a definition of what IoT is, what the Internet of Things is, and how it relates to personal productivity. Then we're going to talk about what IoT we currently use in our own personal worlds or don't use and what we may be planned to use in the near future. Then we are going to broaden the conversation then to what we think how we think IoT is going to impact productivity in the next few years for those of you out there, and we want to do it from this future perspective, so that we're all a little bit more aware of how IoT works, and how it can work for you, and therefore help make you more productive. And I think that's a good thing for all of us. So let's start off with what the Internet of Things is. And so I'll kick us off just with kind of the basic understanding of what the Internet of Things is. And I'm going to read you the really wonky Wikipedia definition, and then I'm going to interpret what I believe it is. And then I'm going to open it up to the floor for for the other gentleman here to give their views. So Wikipedia defines the Internet of Things as a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals, or people that are provided with unique identifiers, you IDs and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human to human or human to computer interaction. What that really means is that the Internet of Things are all the things that are uniquely identifiable on the internet and connected to one another without someone else having to facilitate that connection. And that ultimately means that the Internet of Things is anything that we call quote unquote smart that is able to be connected to your, your internet connection at home or at work. And I guess along the way, if you were using your smart phone along the way, in a mobile device capacity so if you're in the car, or if you're on a bus or a train or plane, and or boat, I suppose you know, all of those things. And devices that are connected to the internet infrastructure are IoT, Art Gelwicks 3:06 this whole idea of the Internet of Things I think the the Wonka pedia article there because I like your wonky Wikipedia article. So I'm going to coined that new term, the Wikipedia. That is pretty accurate, at least in my book as to what I perceive when we talk about Internet of Things. It's any, any device that you wouldn't traditionally consider a computer or a computing device, but you're still using technology to interact and control with it. So things like our lovely home assistance that we have the the Guillermo and elite, you know, Alicia, I'm trying not to trigger anybody. So pardon me with weird names that will go with big a big G and that and so forth for for naming purposes. So big a and big G is I think what we commonly understand now We think about Internet of Things, and all the things that those can interact with, that's not limited to that in any stretch. But it's all of everything wants to be connected anymore, at least companies who are releasing things all want things to be connected. I think for the the more important understanding of it, though, internet of things really needs to go beyond what's connected, and focus on how you're using that connection. How is that benefiting you? Is it connected just because it can be? Or are you actually deriving a direct benefit from using that connectivity to make life easier or more efficient or just more pleasant? Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:42 And I think what what art is getting at here so that we have context is that I gave the more textbook definition, the longer pedia definition. And really, this ends up being about data and shared data. And when we when it comes to thinking about Your own productivity. Most of what you're doing is generating data, capturing data, manipulating data in some way, shape, or form. And by having devices, things out in the world that are, quote unquote smart, that are able to share that data, without you being the one to have to do it, necessarily, you know, there are potentially sensors and other things, capturing data ambiently. For example, your smartphone collects dozens of pieces of data points, you know, every second about you as you move around in the world. And that data can then be utilized by IoT devices to get things done for you. That's really the power here that I think about is how it can transfer and share that data without me having to do it. And privacy implications aside, we could talk a little bit about the the security and privacy behind IoT and the necessity for Security Standards and compatibility for both extensibility but interoperability as well. And those things, but the core here is that I don't have to do everything. Because now I have these. They're not that much smarter devices. They're just devices that are connected to the internet that are talking to one another, that are then capable of passing on these little data points that ultimately become the big data of me, that then knows more about me than I could know about myself in particular categories, and therefore, potentially helped me get new things done that I didn't know needed to be done. But now it can help forecast. For example, my phone could tell me how to get to work better because it knows the ways in which I drive to work. Or it could tell me that I really like one cafe over another cafe because I consistently rate the beverages I have at that cafe in a particular way. So there's like the new stuff. But it can also actually help me with the stuff that I know I need to do and know I want to do. And that's also really great. Francis Wade 7:06 Like the definition that I'd love to hear the examples. That's that's a part because I'm looking around my office or my world trying to think of examples that I may have using without actually knowing I can't think of any yet but I'm hanging in there. Augusto Pinaud 7:21 So one of the things that he's interested in was Internet of Things is that for most people, has come almost in an invisible way. You know, that comment that Francis made? It is interesting, because a lot of people are not even aware of the Internet of Things. And when their phone, you know, told them, they put an alarm that says the location and their phone is able to tell them, hey, you have a meeting in two hours and you normally have this meeting in your office and you are not in your office. Those kinds of things that are a combination of Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are things that people don't understand what ease they just know their phone do that and somehow the smartphones and these things has been getting into people live without people be necessarily conscious of what Internet of Things is. So they have led the terminology being a quote unquote geek terminology technically terminology without allowing them to understand this is part of your life when you can go to your fridge and Mark milk into the thing or your fridge can intelligently said hey, the milk that you put on the shelf is getting low and then pritch there are some that can so that is the internet of things but for most people, it is invisible. It is invisible. The fact that if you open your phone, it will tell you You are 17 minutes from home, okay or he will tell you do not take I 69 because There is a crash. And for most people, they don't understand that is the Internet of Things. It's just a feature on the phone is there always m

Some of us of a certain age were introduced to digital technology with four basics of personal productivity at the fore—calendar, tasks, contacts and notes. Today, the calendar seems to be the remaining function that presents prominently on any new smartphone or tablet that you might purchase. Why is that the current state of productivity? And, what can you do to go back to the future with making sure your mobile technology serves you, and not the other way around? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/085 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Back to the Future: From the 4 Basics of Personal Productivity to the Current State of Productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Art Gelwicks Show Notes | Back to the Future: From the 4 Basics of Personal Productivity to the Current State of Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. PalmOS Apple iOS parental controls Google Family Link Google OnHub router (since this recording, Ray has moved entirely to Google WiFi) Driving mode on Apple iOS Driving mode on Android (Pixel)Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Raw Text Transcript | Back to the Future: From the 4 Basics of Personal Productivity to the Current State of Productivity Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25We are back again this week to talk about something that I think all of us who are of a certain age have experienced over the course of time, which is a transformation from older technology to newer technology. And what we're going to really be talking about today is really the current state of productivity in light of that technological change. You know, I can remember back to my first computing device, so to speak. I received a ti 83 from my aunt as a hand me down. It was a The reverse calculators they used to call it and then I remember the first device I actually bought from myself with my own allowance and that was a Casio our 500 little spell checking dictionary device and what a long way we have come from way back then, but it really does say something about technology. Okay, so can you give us a little bit background in terms of what we're going to be talking about today and and how it affects our personal productivity? Augusto Pinaud 1:29You know, I'm not I'm not that also all that I will share today it's been several things I have. But the reality is that when you look into productivity when you look back into into the past and you talk about those devices my first device was also a Casio I don't remember the model but I remembered you could not back that up so it was a painful If you lose, if deleted, given I was young enough or anything formation may not be that irrelevant, but, but it was painful. And when the Palm Pilot came to the market, I remember how excited I was to the fact that you could back that up. So there was not going to be, you know, loosing stuff anymore. But what I want to talk or discuss today is those four pillars that came from that time that has been somehow degrading into more powerful tools, but less obvious tools and how that has affect the current state of productivity. Before we start recording the show, you know, we were talking about, you know, those devices and we were talking about the planners, you know, the justa paper planner, you know, one book one page calendar per, per day, and how our PDA sort of the beginning of the PDA basically bring four buttons, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes. That need was really The beginning you know, I remember walking in into what it was a Franklin Covey stores in the malls in the states and looking at those planners and looking at those, you know, and I'd imagine the possibilities and but those planners, were still basing it on the on those four pillars, you know, the calendar, the contacts a task and the notes when you fast forward now to 2019 what you found is rarely those four things and I will even argue in many cases, None. None of the manufacturers do really strong task management, you know, or context is okay. calendar may be the best they do, but how that affect, you know, our generation and even the generations before you know, what are the solutions we come to in order to make that happen? You know, when the iPhone came out, my biggest thing With the iPhone was you could not do tasks, you could not sort notes, there was a lot of problem that was quickly solved by third party software. But in a way, it was leaving a really powerful divide device with, you know, big shortcomings from the productivity perspective. And if you look today on my iPhone in front of me right now, you know, I was thinking of this, as we were talking before we start recording the show. You know, the four applications on the bottom of my iPhone are for writing for a journal for organizing and task management. You know, it is interesting for me, there is no calendar context or notes on this Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:45when I look at my own phone and think about how I manifest what I do productively on especially the dock, the main series of buttons at the bottom of the page. In my case, my phone has five spots in the doc and, and so in the center is his calendar. But then remarkably enough on either side is a folder for contact apps, then Google Maps because I just use it as much as I do for traveling. then to the right of the calendar is my browser, my Chrome browser. And then to the right of that are my task management apps, and task and project management, all of those combined into another folder. And that's because above that, I've created a widget. I'm on the Android OS. And so I've created I've added a widget for my task manager above that with all of the features that I like to use within that software. So it's all really readily accessible to me all of that to say that probably not much has changed for me since then. With regard to the way in which I think about the you know, the people PDA and, and back then, you know the Palm OS on my devices. And today with regard to using a small device that's with me all the time that it has access to my calendar and my tasks, specifically my my contacts on my notes, those are much more blended. But I do know that when I transitioned from, from the palm over to the first iPhone, I, I was already migrating everything to Google. So I already migrated everything to Google Contacts. And so my transition was just once digitally, it went from the Palm OS. I uploaded that to Google Contacts. As far as I can remember, maybe there was some period where that went to Yahoo, but I'm not sure. And then, and then it went into Google Contacts and that's where it's been ever since. I've I've actually never maintained a contact database outside of Google Contacts. And then that has always synchronized with all of my other devices. So it's a it's a pretty unique circumstance, I think, for me in the sense that while the devices have gotten smarter, the devices have gotten faster. My usage of those devices for those functions have not actually changed all that much. Francis Wade 7:26I'm looking at my Android phone, and I'm asking the same question, but and what strikes me is that the the four apps that Augusto mentioned, none of them were internet based, so they weren't cloud based. Initially, they were really meant for standalone devices. So when I had my I guess, it See I had a I had a hp something or the other what it was, but this was like the early 90s. I tried to put in the contacts and I tried to put in tasks. I tried to do different things with it. Which should, theoretically allowed you to do. But once the phone was in the phone, it was a device once the device died. That was the end of it. I started to use the palm and had to re enter all this information. And I could sync with my laptop, but there was no cloud access. But I think the the game changer has been closed access because all of the the content that I have in contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes are all no cloud based. And the way I use the device is to access the cloud. It's, it's a portal to the information that I have safely secured somewhere. So it's a it's a device has changed from being the source of the information, which it used to be to being just one access point. Now, having said that, I think Augusto’s point is is is valid, which is when you win, you win those were the four primary buttons on your PDA. Essentially, the manufacturers were training you to operate the device in a particular way and to use it for a particular purpose. So it was it was,...

Capturing, annotating and even doodling in lectures or meetings can be more digital than ever before. What are the options on the market? And, how do you approach smart pen productivity? That’s what we discussed this week on ProductivityCast! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/084 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing smart pen productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Smart Pen Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The 7 Best Smart Pens of 2020 6 Best Smart Pens of 2019 – 3D Insider Best Smart Pens 2020 Livescribe smartpens (Livescribe Symphony came out between our recording and publication of this cast.) Apple Pencil Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) Google Pixelbook Pen Samsung active pen Moleskine Pen+ Ellipse Smart Writing Set Adonit Stylus Sonocent Audio Notetaker Cornell Note-taking method ScanMarker Air Squid Nebo Wacom tablets and pens Equil Smartpen 2 Iris  Goodnotes reMarkable tablet The Slate (by iskn) Boogie Board Microsoft Surface tablets Raw Text Transcript | Smart Pen Productivity Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:25I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:26 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode. What we are going to do today is we are going to talk about the digital pen or that is the smart pen. What I'd like us to do today is to compare and contrast good old fashioned regular pens to the concept of the spectrum of different types of digital pens. And we have everything from pens that actually have ink that write on paper to digital styli that are writing on screens, and we'll talk about some of the particulars there. I'd like first also to do a comparison of the Major options on the market. And then to close out, I'd like us to have a little bit of discussion on basic tips for jumping into the digital pen or the smart pen market. If you are interested in a smart pen, what would you want to do? What would you want to do first in getting ready for that type of transition. So let's start off with what the various forms of digital pens are that are out there. So I'm going to cover at least three that I know of and then I'm going to have art explain the fourth since I probably can't do it as well as he can. So So first and foremost, we have good old fashioned pens, right we have ballpoint pens, we have fountain pens, we have the ability to write pen on paper, they require no battery. And in essence, we can digitize that by using our smartphones today and an application like Evernote or OneNote art What's the name of the Microsoft scanning application Office Lens Office Lens they You There we go. So we have Office Lens on the Microsoft platform and the ability to then just capture what we have written on paper with pen into our digital devices. Then we take the next step up, and we have other products that are in essence a an ink pen that has a camera or a series of lasers inside of the tip of the pen as well, that captures what you're writing on either specialized paper or just regular paper. And then that gets sucked into your digital world in some way shape or form. That data can be then turned into live typable text or remain as an as a digital form either as an image or as some other kind of digitized drawing. Then we go to the next step, which is a stylus and then we have the ability to write on screen in essence that requires a digital device where you have a touchscreen that can be written on and or a tablet of some kind that allows you to like the way cardboard is a stylus pad, where you're writing on a specialized board with specialized surface that then captures into your device very similar to your mouse or keyboard are Art Gelwicks 3:20the other two that I would throw into this mix. One is the one that you see all over the place at like staples, and it's a capacitive end that is basically emulating the end of your finger, you would know it better as just a regular pen that has a squishy black, little almost like an eraser at the end of it. And it's used to create that connection between a touchscreen and the stylus device. The other one is one that is pretty much exclusive to the Samsung world and that's the S Pen. The S Pen is an active stylus that works with Samsung devices. Certain Chromebooks like the plus and the Pro, the also the note range of Samsung phones. Those are active devices that don't have a squishy end, they have a very sharp pen. But what they don't have is a battery. And they're deriving interaction from the screen surface itself. So there are two more specialized cases. But I'd say they need to be included into the mix. Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:16That's the spectrum of the various digital pens on the market, or at least digitizing your ink into a device. And so let's get into some of the pros and cons of what is actually on the market. And I'd like to start from one end to the other, which is talking specifically about the pens themselves, and what we know about those particular devices. So I've been a Livescribe smart pen reducer for quite some time. And so Livescribe currently has the Livescribe three and the eight year now. And so the three of those models are the kind of class of similar pens that have in essence a camera that is embedded next to the ink cartridge. And as you as you write it is an essence capturing on on page. Now it requires special paper. So you have to have their notebooks or you need to have the ability to print their their paper, the so the format onto paper. So you can you can in essence like pairing with a levenger circa notebook or the staples Arc System, you can in essence, manifest your own planner, you know and notebook but you have to print that specialized paper in order for the camera to be able to know where you're writing and on what pages you're writing because it actually tracks what page you're on. And that helps it to organize the documents in your system. The the great part about the I think the Livescribe three is that it allows you to write in real time into lifetime typable text on your mobile device. So to kind of explain it, as you're writing in your notebook, you're putting pen to paper, and you're just happily writing along. Now the Livescribe three can capture audio at the same time. And when you click on any one of those points on the page, the physical page, you can jump back to that audio moment, you can also put a star like literally just draw a star on the page and then tap on it, and will actually create a, a bookmark to that point in time. And those are specialized little moments to snap you back to that particular moment in your notes, as well as in the audio. While you're writing in the with the Livescribe. Three though, if you look on your mobile tablet as it's open, it's recording the audio. And if you want it to you can turn that off, and so it can be recording the audio but at the same time, you will see the text being captured. Well at any moment in time. You can just swipe your finger across that text and it turns it into live typable text, you know, like ASCII characters, which is a really, really powerful feature. So, that's the Livescribe three I have not played with the ager but it's a it's, you know, the, it's a cheaper version. So it's about half the price of the Livescribe three, which I'm very curious about playing with it, it's it's got a smaller amount of memory. It's a little bit smaller in size. And I'm it's it's lighter. I'm very curious to see what this pen is all about. But it is the it is their latest duration and I'm presuming their movement into that space. It also auto synchronizes with Evernote OneNote, Google Drive and the Adobe cc cloud platform. We have many, many other pens in the market. We have the we have the Neo smart pen, the end too. We have the moleskin pen plus ellipse and I will put that links to these in the show notes so folks can just at least see them. Art Gelwicks 8:03I played with the light of scribe when it first came out years ago. And the concept, I mean, seems solid enough, but all it's doing is in my book, at least all it's doing is helping the digitization part of the process, you still have a paper notebook, you're capturing information on the paper notebook, you have to deal with that at some way sometime, unless you're using just like legal pads and throwing the pages out. So while I, I think it helps with the digital transcription part. I don't know I'm I'm beginning to wonder if we haven't moved if the technology hasn't moved to the point where

From planner systems to no-code platforms to 3D printing, creating your own productivity tools today using analog or digital products has become easier than ever. But, how do you approach this so that you make an effective personal productivity tool for yourself, so not just scurrying down the proverbial rabbit hole? That’s what we discuss in this week’s ProductivityCast! Creating your own productivity tools is possible, and we discuss the tools but also the strategy and methods to consider in approaching such an endeavor. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/083 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing how you can benefit from creating your own productivity tools from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Creating Your Own Productivity Tools Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Creating Your Own Productivity Tools Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Special Theory of Productivity General Theory of Productivity Levenger Circa notebook system Staples Arc Office Depot OfficeMax TUL system Moleskine Smart Writing Set Scanmarker Air Pen Scanner - OCR Digital Highlighter and Reader - Wireless Foundations of Programming (Lynda) Airtable Getting Things Done (GTD) System in Google Sheets Tutorial Coda Notion Microsoft Sharepoint G Suite App Maker (this has been deprecated since the recording) 3D printing services: ShapewaysSculpteoMore high-end, engineer-level 3D-printing: 3D Hubs iOS Shortcuts (née Workflow) Microsoft PowerAutomate (née Flow) Tasker (Android) Automate (Android) Google Routines IFTTT Zapier Raw Text Transcript Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:20 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:22I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, welcome one and all who are listening to us today, what we're going to do is we're going to have a conversation on this episode about the topic of creating your own productivity tools. And the the topic came about from considering the idea that today with the proliferation of so many different ways in which you can create your own X or Y, whether that be in the analog world, to creating things in the digital space. We now have all of these tools at our fingertips, and I will wanted us to talk about the the wide range of these services and tools available to us, for us to make our own tools. And I think maybe some of the principles first would be the underpinning for the conversation, and then making our way into some of the analog and then digital aspects of available resources to create your own tools. So let's let's start at the, at the kind of foundational level, what are the fundamental elements that you want in a productivity tool? And I'm going to I'm gonna pick on gousto with these two, how about you? How about you start us off with what are what are what's maybe, you know, two or three things that you think are absolutely important to have in any productivity tool that you would create, whether that be analog paper or digital Augusto Pinaud 1:53good isn't an interesting discussion, and you and I have discussed this offline and I believe there is. One of the issues you find on all these things is what? Some people grow up what I call the basics of productivity. They are not present for most people, there are newer, younger people who come into the need for productivity. Begin discovering devices that didn't have what I call the basics. So the task then notes, the calendar and the context. You know, if you go back in time, you know, when paper was a big thing and digital organizers were not any digital organizer you bought in paper had those four things and I still believe they are the basic four things, you know, you need to have a place to have your task. You need to have a place to have your notes a place to have your calendar and a place to have your context. And what happened with the evolution of the smartphone is data Took the prominent front place and then went someplace in the back. And people simply came to devices that didn't have it. And what happened now is as they need or they are in the need to get more productive, or discovering, okay, what I need to do when they come in and are recreating the wheel instead of making the wheel, in many cases a little bit more efficient. I Art Gelwicks 3:25definitely agree with a gousto on this. I think one of the parallels to this if you want to use an analogy, it's kind of like getting a driver's license. Before you get your driver's license, you're looking at cars, these are neat cars, you want to go drive. Imagine if you just went ahead and jumped in one and drove off something bad is very likely to happen. You need to go through the process of learning the basic steps, getting the mechanics down, getting comfortable with it before you can go through and jump in a car and drive away. Now take it to the next step. Now you want to not only drive That car but you want to customize it, you want to make changes to the car that are not standard, but fit your personality and how you work. You can see how far down that path that actually is. But yet, with tools like analog notebooks and many of the digital apps, we start at customizing, we don't start at the basics of learning what's in the box, and then going from there. And that's, I think, one of the biggest hang ups with this. Francis Wade 4:26I think I would only add that most people sort of fail them fail into or use use tools like the ones that I was to describe because they had a failure. I think the failure comes from not being able to remember all the stuff that they thought they should be able to or could and when you know when they were younger and adolescence or a little bit older, or actually they're even some adults who To this day, won't write anything down, won't keep won't put anything in their smartphone and won't have a planner because they're still trying to use memory. I think it's Important to start with the sort of accepting that people try to use memory first for all these functions, and it's only when they fail that they look for replacements and they look for something better and they start to copy other people or they buy take a course or buy a book or get a planner, but it all starts with a failure of memory as the common denominator, Augusto Pinaud 5:27I agree with you, Francis, but but also I love the analogy that art brought to the table because yes, it is true people go because of the failure, but also people go first into customizing so it is the you know, using arts analogy, I just put the car into the tree. And now let me take it to the shop. Okay, and let's now fix it fix the problem, but we are going to make it even more let's put blank let's put rims, let's put new Your paint job and not looking to the problem that is one what I'm trying to accomplish with this system doesn't matter if it's analog digital num, what you're trying to accomplish number two, how you work better because there is people who would love to to stay on paper and they go digital because they will people everybody's going digital. So I guess I also need to go digital where paper will work much better for them. And exactly the opposite. You know, your people will, but I can do it pretty Yeah, you have a really pretty blink thing that is completely dysfunctional. So I have seen both things because, yes, they come to a problem but they they are trying to fix a symptom more than understanding what the problem really is. Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:51Okay, so I'm going to come at this from yet even a different angle. And let me see what you gentlemen have to kind of say about this. Which is on productive flourishing. And I'll put a link to this in the show notes. Charlie Gilkey, back in 2008, had put together two different perspectives two paradigms, he called them the the general theory of productivity, and the special theory of productivity, kind of a play on Einstein there. But what he tried to do with the general theory of productivity was to outline the perspective that a productivity system, in essence was supposed to encompass several specific pieces of the pie. basics of the two of them kind of mashed together is that a productivity system should help you with planning, with execution and with evaluation, and then a a tool or a system and I guess he would probably say a system but I'm gonna corollary this to just the tool right now is that the tool itself should have some these five fundamental components simplicity. usefulness be statically pleasing. So have some kind of aesthetics, connectedness, and cohesiveness. And so over time,...

Emergencies abound. But, they don't always mean you have to lose personal productivity. With some contingency productivity planning, you can stay productive even when things break, when technology fails us, and when people snap! Also, this was recorded a while back and since then, we're glad to note that Francis has since upgraded successfully and happily to Windows 10. 🤓 (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/082 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing contingency productivity planning from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Contingency Productivity Planning Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Show Notes Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF) 048 Creating a Backup Storage System – ProductivityCast Francis Wade had Ray Sidney-Smith on his podcast to discuss backup systems: Ep 60 Creating a Storage Decision Tool w/Ray Sidney-Smith p1Ep 61 Creating a Storage Decision Tool p2 w/Ray Sidney-SmithEp 62 Creating a Storage Decision Tool p3 w/Ray Sidney-SmithTry the Storage Decision Tool here Raw Text Transcript | Contingency Productivity Planning Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:20 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:22I'm Francis Wade. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:24and Welcome, gentlemen, welcome to our listeners. Welcome to you all listening. And what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about backup plans, that is contingency planning for greater productivity. We all come into contact with situations where stuff just goes south. And we need to be able to be prepared. We need to be flexible and adaptive. We need to be dynamic in the circumstances to be able to recover from those situations. And so today we're going to talk about three umbrella areas. Pretty much when things break when technology goes wrong. And of course, when people say The app. And so those will be what we talked about today in terms of what happens when those three areas of our worlds melt down. And we have to still be productive, we still have to get things done even when the problems arise. So let's start off with the notion of when things break, and ugly. So do you want to start us off with a personal example Augusto Pinaud 1:27to kind of start with a personal example as he wake up this morning, grab his glasses out of his nightstand and end up with half of the glasses on the hand, the legs, one of the legs is broke. So traveling this week and I have all these PC things and it throws your morning off when you now need to add something that you know is time consuming. It's not as simple as say, Okay, well I need to replace it is I need to go stop on a particular place that only open on a certain time so it throw a big wrench on your planning. And like that many of the things many of these on expected failures and some of them you can plan the contingency I mean I went open the drawer on my nightstand and pull an old set of glasses and I have glasses otherwise I will not be able to see anything okay but but he's still a problem that now needs to be turned into a project that we need to look for next actions and everything else. So what do you do well, those things come in you're already complicated life Francis Wade 2:29number conscious of this. The whole business of having backups because when I I, a migrated to Jamaica from living in the US, it was it was like moving from the land of reliable everything to the land of To a land of random, random everything random everything else. It was it was a culture shock to go from being able to live a very ordered, reliable, trusted, in some ways boring life in which everything was extremely predictable. And things were easy as a result, to move to a country where, where every day is a breakdown of some new concoction that you sort of have to navigate. And it was it was it was very difficult at first it's still it's still extremely challenging because he when the when the things that you can rely on, develop and become new and all of a sudden intrude into your world, it's it still takes the same level of ingenuity and effort. Like for example, just in the last year or so by cell phone services basically stopped working. Part of it is that I live up in the hills but something has changed in the networks here in Jamaica, the two major cell phone providers and the service that they provide has deteriorated to the point where Half of the time, it's impossible to have a phone call. And I've basically stopped receiving phone calls because people call me and all they get is voicemail. So I've had to adjust and readjust and use FaceTime and hat and Google Hangouts and, and telegram and Skype and WhatsApp is of no help. Unfortunately, it's very popular. But it's so popular that the word is that the telephone companies are throttling it, because they're losing too much revenue. But the other ones all work somewhat. So this is required. And this is just in the last year. It's just an example of what the kind of thing that when there's no copy of the source code create one, Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:45you bring up a great point, which is that when when things break, like your cellular network, telephone network generally, then you need to make sure that you're aware of some some pieces of the puzzle. One is that it can break almost everything in your world can break I have a microphone that I'm speaking into right now and we'll get to technology stuff soon. But you know the the microphone arm could break. It's there's springs and joints and I'm use it every day. And it could just break. And what happens in those cases where there is a breakage and you need to now recover from that and still move on. Now my contingency plan is understanding what the scenario is. Right? So what are the various ways in which things could break and knowing what are the ways in which the contingency plan kicks into place? Right? So there's a scenario there's a cyber attack you you then think of Okay, what are the scenarios within which there could be a probability of some impact on your ability to continue to have continuity in this case for me, I always think of business continuity, but you were talking about your productivity system. So your productivity continuity then becomes a What's the probability of an impact? And those are the things that we pay attention to. So what could break in your world? And what would trigger you to know that there is a break. And so, for example, if your car's engine light comes on, that's a trigger, because it's at least warning you. And you then have the opportunity to do that. If you are writing with your pen, and all of a sudden the pen starts to and it's your only pen, you know, you have on an off site meeting, and it starts to you know, give not have enough ink in it, right? You know, you're like, Wait a second, why is this not? The why isn't the ink not flowing properly? That's a warning, that's a trigger. And then you have to figure out how you respond to the whole scenario. And so in the pen example, I always carry extra pens. I actually carry way too many pens on me at all times. And this is actually two problems and one, the first problem is that my pen could run out of ink I traditionally write with fountain pens, and I just like having a nice, you know, everyday nothing fancy fountain pen, but I tend to feel like it slows me down enough to think more thoughtfully about what I'm writing, especially when I'm taking notes by hand on like physical agendas that might be given to me at meetings. The other is I've been forced to use the the the friction pens that go with the the everlast, the rocket book everlast notebooks that I use for capturing my own internal notes when I'm meeting one to one with clients. And so that notebook uses the the gel ink pen that comes with the friction, you know, inside the friction pen. And so I have those two so I already carry two pens for when I'm capable of writing on my own or when I'm taking specific notes, but I want to use some automation through everlast notebook and Evernote and any other automation that's going to then get triggered beyond that. Automatically sending it to to whomever I need to. Well, the problem is that I frequently go to meetings and other people don't have pen and paper. And so I actually carry extra pen and paper for those people. Because frequently, I'm delegating or making recommendations of projects and actions to those people. And I want to make sure that they capture them. Because I can't depend upon others to have great productivity systems. And that by itself is a contingency plan. My contingency plan is that no matter what other tools people have, or don't have, or systems they have or don't have,...

In this second part of our two-part series this week of ProductivityCast, we look at the ideas behind the book by one of our regular contributors, Francis Wade. Perfect Time-Based Productivity (2nd Ed.) is for the person who has already begun their productivity journey. It focuses mostly on task management and we talk about the ways we can gain greater insight into the way each person manages his/her tasks in order to find the best areas of improvement. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/081 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Perfect Time-Based Productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Perfect Time-Based Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Getting Things Done by David Allen SkedPal Kaizen Stickk Perfect Time-Based Productivity: How to rescue your peace of mind as time demands increase (Second Edition) by Francis Wade (Amazon) Perfect Time-Based Productivity – A unique way to protect your peace of mind as time demands increase (book website) Fixed versus growth mindset - Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, PhD Discussion of Mindset at Productivity Book Group Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences and education – infed.org Multiple intelligences The Age-by-Age Guide to Teaching Kids Time Management Zwift Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, et al. Make It Stick - Productivity Book Group Change management Evernote OneNote Notion.so Productive Failure in Learning the Concept of Variance  The 12 Important Life Skills I Wish I'd Learned In School  Last Chance U Micro-goal setting Raw Text Transcript | Perfect Time-based Productivity, Part Two Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:23Welcome, gentlemen and welcome to our listeners to this second part in our conversation we're having around the book, Perfect Time-Based Productivity, the second edition by our very own Francis Wade, I'm going to pass it over to you, Francis to tell us where we left off kind of a recap of our last episode. And and then where we left off in the conversation, and what we're going to be talking about in this week's episode. Francis Wade 0:49Well, last time we talked about the fact that today's learner or today's young person, let's put it that way. People who are younger than we are, are left to their own devices. develop their own productivity system which they do they start doing somewhere in the teens and unlike us authors with gray hair they have very few signposts very few very little guidance especially with respect to the the smartphones that they're using. And with less guidance it means that the systems they self develop end up having some gaps when they get into their let's say their late teens and early 20s this stuff development business is true for everyone but but for the today's user today's learner today's person entering the point is there's less signposts and less guidance than there has been in the past and or hypothesis was that as a result, they need a way to evaluate themselves which is what they do anyway, when they take a training program or pick up a book is that they go through a period of self reflection to see okay, where am I with respect to what this book or this person or this training is recommending and we had just gotten to the point where I shared a an evaluation I had done in under the guise of playing a game. So I shared the fact that a couple months ago, I picked up a esport called Swift, which is basically a bicycling training program online, which you attach a trainer to Bluetooth transmitter, it transmits the signal to your laptop, which then transmits the signal to the game which links you up to races and rides with hundreds, thousands of people all over the world. So you're essentially pedaling on your bicycle on a train against some resistance. And you're watching people go by you and you're catching up with groups, but it's all happening on the screen in front of you. And it's feels extremely real, as I shared the last time and it's, it, of course, makes you very, very fit and the proof of the pudding has been my own writing. So I've gotten measurably fitter since playing this game two months ago and The guys on guys who I ride with in my club are telling me that Yeah, looking much stronger and I feel a lot stronger yesterday I rode had a six hour ride and had no problem doing it. And so the thing is working, it started with a just kind of a lack because I didn't know where it would go. But the programmers have found a way to give me an experience that translates into real time fitness on the road, you know, where I where I do the man riding, I guess. And the idea, which is I guess, the one that is just an example of is that there's a way there are ways to use software to either evaluate or and or to train and or to gamify and or to give someone this immersive kind of experience. That's not just about having fun, like a typical game might be but actually results in a real skill. You know, I think of flight simulator, and what it goes for would be pilot It actually does build a real skill. So that's where we left off is what role does the digital world play in developing real skills, I guess we're going to tie it back to productivity skills. And then Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:12what Francis is talking about is right in line with a lot of the game design discussion that we've had in past episodes, but I think it's really important to circle back to this on occasion, which is to recognize the importance of certain types of components of game design, that that really engage us all in the learning process. And really, let's let's remove game design and just say good learning is built on some fundamentals. One is what's considered, basically, lateral thinking, and we've talked about Dr. Edward de Bono's work here with six thinking hats and that kind of thing, but in essence, interlaced learning, in my perspective is very akin to lateral thinking. Which is the idea of taking multiple, that's actually wrong. So scratch that. So I like both of these concepts. So I like the idea of interlacing your learning. And what that means is that in in when you're trying to learn you are taking different parts of the subject and learning them out of out of order. And the idea is, is that if it's easy, your brain automatically stops learning if it's difficult your brain attempts to rise to the occasion. Challenge is what makes us motivated challenge is what makes us learn human human civilizations. Humans as a as a species, we are, thankfully, who we are because of our ability to face adversity. And it seems as though that's also the way we best grow. That's how how we were best, you know, able to go from where we are to where we want to be. We embrace challenge and I think frequently what people want to do is find the path of least resistance. But when it comes to learning, it doesn't actually work that way. And so what what we want to do is we want to be able to have challenge. And that means don't try to learn things in order, don't go from Part A to part B, Part C, yes, you won't understand Part C, or part f as well, until you circle back around to the material. But the science clearly bears out that when we learn out of order, we actually learn we understand it better. We also have to make mistakes and get immediate feedback. If you learn something and you don't make a mistake in the process of learning that thing is you will learn it less you will actually retain it less than if you actually learn it, make a mistake along the way, get corrected quickly and then come to the end. You will actually have learned it better. You will retain it better, you'll comprehend it better. There's this better learning experience by virtue of you going ahead and having made mistakes and Again, that that tertiary part is actually immediate feedback. So as you're learning, you need to be tested, you need to be, you know, you need to, in some way, shape or form, you need to be able to show that you have actually learned it. And that forces you, it's kind of like accountability, generally, it's the idea that you have to be held accountable. And that that very nature of being tested in some way, shape or form forces the accountability. So from my perspective, I think that these are, these are game design principles. These are also learning design principles, whether that's pedagogy or andragogy. This is how we best teach....