This was a strange year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a bit of cheer...and by cheer, we mean holiday presents! So, we’re starting a tradition here on ProductivityCast--a holiday gift guide show each year, discussing the gifts we think the productivity enthusiast in your life will enjoy (and perhaps that’s you!). Enjoy our Holiday Gift Guide 2020!

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If you'd like to continue discussing our holiday gift guide 2020 selections 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 | Holiday Gift Guide 2020

Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.

Round One

AG: Four Port USB KVM Switch- NotionAP: Side Phone MountFW: Broward Library OverdriveRS: Google Nest Home Hub Max 

Round Two

AG: Sling Shoulder BackpackAP: Zugu Case for Apple Pencil - Ringke Pen SleeveFW: Heart rate monitorRS: Down Dog - Great Yoga Anywhere (and there is a suite of apps that include yoga (with yoga nidra for sleep), HIIT, barre, 7 minute yoga, and prenatal yoga) + Calm

Bonus Gifts

AG: Leather Work ApronAP: Apple AirPodsFW: Blood pressure monitorRS: The Home Edit Life: The No-Guilt Guide to Owning What You Want and Organizing Everything by Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin

Raw Text Transcript | Holiday Gift Guide 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).

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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 our listeners to this episode, I'm really excited because we are coming near the end of the year. And that means holiday gifts, we get a chance to talk to you about really holiday gifts that you might want to ask your loved ones, your caring individuals in your home to purchase for you. Or these might be gifts that might be useful to another personal productivity enthusiast in your life. And so what we're going to do today is we're going to cover some gifts that we think particularly enthusiasts would enjoy knowing about and receiving as a gift. And so with that, let's do a round robin episode, where each of us talks about one gift at a time. And some of us probably know about the gifts, some of us probably have questions about the gifts you chose. And and we'll just kind of go from there. So with that, art, I'm going to pick on you first, what is your first holiday gift choice? Well,

Art Gelwicks 1:27my first one is, it's kind of mundane, but it's really useful if you're in an environment where you're working with multiple computers. And those of us we're working from home now often find ourselves in that case, I personally have multiple devices that I need to interact with. So what I'm highlighting is what's called a four port, USB KVM, which is keyboard video mouse switch. And what it is, it's a little box that has four cables coming off of it each with an HDMI port, and a USB cable that plugs into your computers. And off of that box, there is also a regular HDMI cable that goes to your external monitor. And there's a USB port that you can or USB ports that you plug your external keyboard and your external mouse in. And what it all comes down to is a little box that sits on your desk with four buttons on it. And just by hitting one of those buttons, you switch to that computer. And the external monitor switches to that device, the keyboard switches that device and the mouse switches to that device. I've been through a lot of these over the years with varying degrees of success. Sometimes the monitors will work well. But the keyboards and the mice won't switch over all kinds of crazy things. This one I'm highlighting for in the show notes is the only one I found so far that has worked consistently from day one. It's smart enough to switch to a device when you turn that device on without actually having to hit the button. And the fact that has a nice long remote switch box. So you can take all the cables and everything and tuck it into your cable management system and have this little switch box sitting on your desk and just push a button and switch computers. It's really, really useful when you think about just trying to be productive on multiple devices.

Francis Wade 3:21What's cable management system, I need one of those.

Art Gelwicks 3:25For me, it's the real dark area underneath my desk that happens to be behind the cabinets. that's usually where the large dust bunnies live, and come out and visit me every so often. So other people are a bit more organized about it. Actually, it's kind of funny, you mentioned that because if you look on sites like Reddit, and you do a search for cable management, there are entire subreddits just about pictures of beautifully organized cables, like in server areas and behind desks. And it makes me very jealous. But I know my cables will never get that way. So

Augusto Pinaud 3:58but you know that he's done. He's like, like when you see the planners, you see this color and these people who have these artistic abilities, especially on the paper planners, and I look at them and I say, Wow, the mind never will look like that doesn't matter. If you tell me you're never going to do anything other than organize that planner. It's never going to

Art Gelwicks 4:19Yeah, it's it's the Sistine Chapel. I mean, it's a beautiful thing, you admire it, but you're not laying on your back to paint it anytime soon.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:25And so for those of you who are unaware, KVM stands for keyboard video mouse. And I'm curious from your experience art, what are some of the reasons why you would recommend a KVM switch to a productivity enthusiast or someone who is buying this for productivity enthusiast? And really in the in the sense of I'm trying to get to the question, which is more like around different situations where this might work. I mean, like obviously the work from home situation. I'm not sure how many people are going to have multiple computers. But when you do, what are the what are kind of the peripherals, so to speak, that really helped to make this better? Like, do you have a specific keyboard, a specific mouse a specific monitor that you feel like works really well in this environment with that KVM switch?

Art Gelwicks 5:17Actually, it's, I'm glad you brought that up, because for me, it's more, it's much more than the key, the keyboard video and mouse component, the mouse is a big thing, because you only have to have one mouse on your desk, the keyboard, I have an external backlit keyboard that I've been using for years. And it's not so much that I like it, it's the fact that again, I only have to have one on my desk. So limited space necessitates switching things around. But because this works with the USB hub that I have, I'm able to have my webcam, jump from device to device, I'm able to have my headset, jump from device to device, even my boom mic, I can switch from device to device, just by pushing one button on the switch. And everything flips over. The only only hiccup I've had with it is sometimes it won't necessarily recognize the first when I hit the button to switch devices. And to fix it, all I have to do is switch to a different device and switch back and then everything wakes up. It's usually the computer that doesn't recognize the USB change more than it is anything else. But I could absolutely see if you had your personal computer, a work computer and a Chromebook, for example. And you wanted to use one nice monitor, keyboard and mouse, this is a perfect way to do that. Because you could stack those devices up on a rack next to you. You don't even have to have them open. And it's like you have three separate desktop units, even though they're still truly laptops.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 6:46Yeah, I really like KVM switches, and I have been a fan of them for years. So this is a great choice. For someone who really wants to level up their productivity like I do, I really am a big fan of having multiple devices so that I'm able to open up a set of like a project on one screen and then move over to another one and be working on that and the to not impeding on each other. And I don't I don't know why. But my brain just works really well when it's compartmentalised on its own device, and its own kind of situation just sitting there waiting for me. So I really like that. And sometimes I also like having my task manager, my calendar, and my notes all on a separate device. So I can see those things out of the corner of my eye while I'm working on a main screen. But it's also helpful to kind of have it if you have it on a, you know, a primary device.