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.

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In this Cast

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Art Gelwicks

Francis Wade

Show Notes | How Has Your Mobile Productivity Changed in the Current Circumstance?

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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?

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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 0:19 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....