Ray starts out most productivity seminars with a fundamental definition of a productivity system: a dynamic set of skills, strategies and tools, that you adapt as your life circumstances change. And, as you'll hear from Francis in this episode, you have the system that usually developed organically, not out of planning necessarily. So, in many ways, you need to overcome your own productivity system that developed to a productivity system that you have built to match your needs and wants today.

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In this Cast

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.

Evernote

OmniFocus 2

3 Superpowers you need to survive improvement fatigue by Francis Wade

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization, Revised & Updated Edition by Peter Senge

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

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fulfilling productive life then you've

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come to the right place

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productivity cast the weekly show about

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all things productivity here are your

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hosts Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto

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Pinaud, Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks welcome

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back to another episode of productivity

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cast the weekly show about all things

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personal productivity I'm Ray Sidney-Smith

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and I am joined here today by

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Augusto Pinaud and Francis Wade how's it

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going guys great wonderful wonderful

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today we are going to be talking about

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overcoming your own productivity system

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and while that might sound a little

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vague we will explain to you what we are

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talking about very shortly and to do

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that what I'm going to do is I'm gonna

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pass the baton the microphone virtually

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to Francis Francis if you want to

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explain to us a little bit about what it

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means to overcome your own productivity

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system in the context of what you have

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written about in the past which is this

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idea that you have the system you

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deserve could you explain that a little

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bit to folks so that they can understand

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what that really means in terms of

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having the system

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you deserve it sounds terrible there

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might be there's a responsibility issue

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it's not blame its responsibility okay

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that's much better thank you for

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cleaning that up but you know before the

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call Augusto said it well that everyone

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has a system and that system was was it

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didn't just were born with it obviously

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it's something that we developed in

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somewhere in our adolescent or teens so

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we we have a way of managing tasks

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managing our time working with our

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calendar if we have one each person has

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their own sort of idiosyncratic home

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brew of techniques and tools and apps

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and devices and and whatnot and it was

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not developed in a vacuum it was

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specifically put together to solve re

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solve a problem that we had at some

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point and what happens over time I think

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is that

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I've changes on us and you know we we

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grow up we get married we have kids we

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get a job we got a bigger job we get

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projects we pick up pastimes we get

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involved in our communities we become a

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deacon at church you know all these

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things happen and we're using the system

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that the same system the same put

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together homebrew of all the things I

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mentioned that we had when we were 18

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and then we have a problem so we we put

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together this nice solution and we

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deserved it and it worked for us and we

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were really happy and then life changed

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and no we're experiencing all of these

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weird symptoms because there's no longer

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a fit is that making sense absolutely

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absolutely and and so I wanted to I

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wanted to very just briefly explain to

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listeners how I define a system a

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productivity system specifically and and

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I think it's important for us all to

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sort of have at least a working

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definition of what system means to one's

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self and so everyone might find this to

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be a little bit different and that's

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okay you know I see systems as being the

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skills strategies and tools that you use

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and that change over time to match the

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needs of your of your productive life

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and that is I think that goes to the

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heart of what Francis is talking about

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here when it comes to being overcome by

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your own productivity system because it

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hasn't been looked at in terms of the

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issues that our faith that you're facing

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in life today as opposed to the issues

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that you faced as you developed those

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skills you know it's funny in the in

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business you know I'm as a management

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consultant I typically see people coming

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into the world saying well I want to

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develop our business and you know this

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is the way I want to shape our brand our

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business is brand and frequently you

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know as I deal with primarily small

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business owners you know I have to

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explain to them you know if you have you

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if you've come to me and you've been

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running the business first for a while

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you already have a brand

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you know the brand has been developed

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for you and now it's a matter of

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attempting to steer that that ship in a

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new direction but you know as anybody

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knows steering a ship is not a let's

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turn right let's turn left it's an

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incremental approach and so I think

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especially when it will only start

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talking about systems and and changing

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systems know that this is not a change

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overnight kind of thing so so you have

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to really steer that ship in in small

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increments back toward the direction

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that you want it to go in

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augusto I wanted I want to hear a little

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bit of from you about this concept and

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your thoughts in terms of you have the

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system you deserve do you do agree

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disagree I said on the pre-show that I'm

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going to be offended by that comment so

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but in a more serious note you know as

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much as it sounds when when you listen

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it that way it sounds like hey that's

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kind of rude you know in a way it's also

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true because there is a couple of things

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that happen you know as Francis

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described you tend to look for a system

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for a specific reason you got a

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promotion you got a job you want to grow

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in your job you're simply overwhelming

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the current conditions so you find a

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system that start solving then may your

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point or the major pain points until you

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