Where do you work best? And for what type of work (focused thinking work, diffuse thinking work, mundane/ministerial tasks, big projects that require multiple modalities, or specialized handcrafting) do you do best in what environment? Creating your ideal workspace is important to being able to be and stay productive. In this cast, the ProductivityCast team discusses the factors and tools to get and sustain productivity in your workspace.

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In this Cast

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.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Digital Bankruptcy

Inbox Zero

Unclutterer

80/20 Pareto Principle

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 good morning everybody and

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welcome to productivity cast the weekly

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show about all things productivity today

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we have Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks

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with us and with me Augusto Pinaud

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and Ray is somewhere in the world

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missing hopefully having fun or sleeping

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according to the recording time we have

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today we are going to be talking about

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creating your ideal workspace it is

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important to understand what are the

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needs of your work-place mostly or the

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workspace mostly because you know will

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allows you to establish higher levels of

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productivity in that space or if you are

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the lucky kind who can have it anywhere

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anywhere so today we would like to split

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the show in three parts the first part

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will be where do we work best the second

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part were the factors for that

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and finally the effects on having that

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ideal workspace and what you should if

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you should have ownership on it or not

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so how are you guys this morning

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I'm fine a bang I'm doing well it's a

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kind of drizzly day here right now but

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you know mountain about mmm working

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weird work needs to be done so I'm doing

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well how about you been pretty good

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doing pretty good and joined a really

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nice day out of the window so I'm

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working on the home office today and

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record in actually from the home office

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let's start this conversation where did

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you work best my first thought was that

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it worked best in my my office and

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ideally my office is a quiet spot quiet

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place no interruptions there's no phones

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and pings and knocks and

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no interruptions from the outside

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environment but as I started to think

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about it some more it's it's not for the

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work that requires the quiet that I need

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to get it done then my office is the

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best place but what about when I'm

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giving a speech I can't say that's the

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best place to give a speech is in my

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office you know be kind of crazy to say

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that so it it's a tricky question

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because I started to think that maybe

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it's not as simple as it seems that

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there is in order for me to give my best

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speech for example it's not the case

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that I have to be in my office it's the

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case that I have to be in uninterrupted

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and and I can have an environment in

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which I can be focused so I then pivot

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away from it having anything to do with

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geography and that then I started to

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think okay it has something to do with

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being able to focus for a particular

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level of intensity for as long as it

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takes and that didn't seem to be boned

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by geography it's it's more a function

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of the environment as I'm able to create

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it I think that that it's not really jog

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rafi for me it's the environment as I

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can create it yeah I gotta agree with

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you on that one Francis for me a lot of

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my work takes me to client locations or

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various places and being able to create

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a work space wherever I am is critical

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for me to be able to be productive so

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when I look at things such as you know

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how am I going to work best my

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headphones are probably one of the

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biggest contributors to that to be able

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to plug in to a sound source put in my

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headphones block out the outside sound

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and drop into a flow state to be able to

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get work done that's what makes or

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breaks it for me now saying that I did

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spend four years working directly from a

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home office and that was it was very

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nice to have that isolated environment

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you knew you had dedicated focus for

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extended periods of time but I don't

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think that that decrese how productive

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someone will be you really have to find

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a way that you can put your mind in the

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right operating state regardless of the

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because if the environment is what's

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preventing you from being productive you

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can either change the environment which

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unfortunately is not an option for many

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people or you can go through and you can

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just find a way to create your own

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little bubble so that's what I do I

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carried the gear that I need in my bag

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and I can sit down and create a bubble

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somewhere and get work done you know it

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is interesting you put it that way I if

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I look back to my work experienced there

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has been trickier up to this point at

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least three really clear work styles you

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know when I start that it was really

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office bound and it was trying to make

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that space productive and been able to

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get in the zone between you know that

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particular space there is a second stage

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where I was what we will call a road

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warrior and I was traveling 250,000

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miles per year where I was pretty much

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in that situation you are describing you

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know where I needed to be productive

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anywhere didn't matter it was an

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airplane you know or a cramped airplane

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or a hotel room or looking at the ocean

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close to a client side and then it it's

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we can talk about that the more recent

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stage and where I am where I have now

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the flexibility to work anywhere I can

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be here my home office I can actually be

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in the office or I can be on a client

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side and the problem is still the same

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you still need to find a way to identify

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what kind of work you are going to do

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and how to get in the zone for that kind

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of work in my particular case it depends

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what I'm trying to accomplish and what

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