Is doing more faster really better? When is slow good for productivity? That’s what the ProductivityCast team seeks to find out in this cast on productivity and the need for speed!
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In this Cast
Ray Sidney-Smith
Augusto Pinaud
Francis Wade
Art Gelwicks
Show Notes
Resources we mention, including links to them will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
Weekly Review (GTD)
4AM - Augusto Pinaud
“Effective Utilization” (primarily in consulting)
Ray’s Unschedule video tutorial (based on The Now Habit by Dr. Neil Fiore)
PROCRASTINATION, DEADLINES, AND PERFORMANCE: Self-Control by Precommitment by Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch
Francis’s paper, Reducing the Risk of Un-Productive Team Members
Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD
The pace of life in 31 countries
Reducing the Risk of Un-Productive Team Members
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey, PhD
I’m So Busy I Must Be Important
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 h:mm:ss.ms to h:mm:ss.ms (e.g., 0:00:00.000,0:00:04.000 starts at 0.00 seconds and ends at 4 seconds in the cast's audio).
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are you ready to manage your work and
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personal world better to live a more
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fulfilling productive life then you've
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come to the right place
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welcome to productivity cast the weekly
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show about all things productivity here
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are your hosts Ray Sidney-Smith and
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Augusto Pinaud
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welcome everybody to productivity cast
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the weekly show about all things
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personal productivity we are back with
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another action-packed episode of
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productivity cast I have with me on the
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show today
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Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade and
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Art Gelwicks we're going to be talking about
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productivity and the need for speed you
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know I'm a New Yorker as some people
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know and as a New Yorker I'm frequently
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told that I speak really fast and I tell
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them that I just am more efficient with
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communicating but but you know what's
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really interesting about this is that I
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think that I think that there are
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different ways in which at least in
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English people tend to see language
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being communicated faster or slower for
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example the British speak faster than
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Americans they tend to think Americans
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speak very very slowly with a drawl and
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and I'm I've always been curious about
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the the sort of linguistic cultures that
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have developed because of that and but
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today but I really want to focus on for
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us all is really the importance of speed
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in a productivity system that one is
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developing what are the issues that we
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tend to encounter when we when we do go
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for speed over say any number of other
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things that could be quality it could be
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aesthetics it could be functionality and
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and then finally first all to talk a
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little bit about our own techniques for
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getting more done and less time using
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speed techniques in our own productivity
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systems and where we might have some
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positive consequences and maybe some
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negative ones as well along the way good
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morning everybody
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this is a good tip nuts and I want to
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mention a couple of things one regarding
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the language of what answered your
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question I am born and raised in
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Venezuela
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we Venezuelans tend to speak really
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really tough years ago I married a lady
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from Mexico and in Mexico of people
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being Spanish was much much slower to
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the point that if I talk to my parents
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and I get home and I speak with my wife
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she can know when I had I had speak with
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my brothers or my parents because she
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said that my speed increased tenfold so
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I still thinks a matter of Christians if
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you don't understand me faster you just
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need to pay more attention but I made
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mean agreement with the new yorker here
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I did study Spanish underneath the
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Colombian woman so so I must I must fall
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into that category of very very slow
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Spanish Spanish it's funny because I go
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to the other extreme I may live and have
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grown up outside of Philadelphia but my
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family is all from the south so
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conversations with my family when you
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get going they can take a half hour just
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to get one thing across but because once
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you add that drawl in and you start to
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wonder why those northerners are fast
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and why are you talking so fast and just
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relax then things just take forever but
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but that said I sadly in productivity we
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tend to try to apply the speed at the
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wrong time and and what I'm saying what
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I'm trying to say with bad is people
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don't think about a speed up their
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productivity only they only think about
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speed up their productivity when they
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feel overwhelmed or very feel their list
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has grown up or they feel that the
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manifestation Amin where people start
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considering speed up their productivity
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and in my experience
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and what I have been able to coach and
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teach people that is exactly the moment
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to do the opposite to do the most
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counterintuitive thing you can do that
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is slow down and the reason is simple do
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you still have the same amount of 24
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hours but we know 24 is more like 16 and
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when you try to speed up what happened
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is unconsciously you tend to grab the
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long hanging fruit so you feel that
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you're crossing out of your list more
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piping's the speed is not about what you
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are crossing but how many of them are
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you crossing how fast are you trying to
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get to clean to have a clean slate and
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when you reach those points when you're
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overwhelmed when your system has too
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many when did you feel you are in a
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negative spot that is exactly the moment
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to do the counterintuitive that is slow
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down because basically now every
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movement or every task that you peak has
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a much bigger impact than when you have
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time when you are not feeling not having
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any of those feelings that is the moment
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where you know in GTD terms you may need
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to do a weekly review every day you may
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need to look at your list you know two
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at the time and pick two things and then
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real valid after those two things are
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done and if I believe your system need
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to be able to allows you to speed up I
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also think people tend to speed up at
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the right at the wrong moment
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I'd agree and and I think I think that
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you know in order to get to a point of
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you know use the running analogy you
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know you sort of you need to accelerate
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to a point of speed which means you need
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to go slower before you get faster right
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you just do don't go 0 to 60 or in human
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...