ProdCast: The Personal Productivity Podcast

Digital life is convenient, but over time, services and subscriptions can pile up, and the cost can outweigh the value that you receive from them.

Matthew Anderson discusses how he is trimming subscriptions that he isn't using, but Joel has some cautionary tales from that approach. This leads to a discussion of digital cameras vs. cell phone cameras and personal file backup strategies.

Learning is important. Joel has started a bi-weekly LinkedIn newsletter about learning--why it is important to be a life-long learner, choosing a learning goal, and tools to help learning. On the podcast we discuss our learning goals. Matthew Anderson has also been pursuing certification, and he talks about his strategies for learning and test-taking.

Other topics in the episode:

Smart pens: Neo Smart pen and Moleskine Pen +.

Edge collections

Taking certification exams

This episode is brought to you by ClickLearn.

Topics discussed in this episode:

Revisiting inbox zero

Ohio method

triaging email

working from multiple computers

PowerToys for Windows 10 https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys

Waiting for list in Microsoft To Do

Business Wars podcast https://wondery.com/shows/business-wars/

Untitled Goose Game https://goose.game/

Music: www.purple-planet.com

How do you deliver bad news? Today Matthew and Joel talk about how to tactfully and confidently deliver bad news, and how to help people without becoming the owner of their problems.

Topics in this episode:

Delivering bad news

Mentally preparing for the conversation

Confidence

Helping without taking ownership

Bad news doesn't get better over time

Mentoring, ownership, and skin in the game

Feedback on dumping Outlook desktop

Review of iPadOS

What's the most productive podcast player?

Productivity and personal collections

Improved search and scheduling in Outlook web access

Is dark mode productive?

Should you use animated gif's and emoji's at work?

@mentions in email

Controlling subscriptions

Should you cancel Amazon Prime?

Tool recommendations:

All-In-One Messenger https://allinone.im/

Flighty App: get pilot grade flight info https://www.flightyapp.com/

Music: www.purple-planet.com

In this episode we cover personal security, including password management and threat modeling and review task management systems.

In today's episode we revisit our moves to Outlook Web in last episode.

We also revisit our ongoing discussion of personal mission statements--what does Joel mean when he says his goal is to do amazing work, and how do mission statements help you determine what not to do.

When you find your schedule to be super busy, it's important to do a personal retrospective--how did I get myself here, what was my part in it, and what am I going to do differently in the future to avoid this happening again?

In today's productivity podcast (brought to you by D365UG), Matthew C. Anderson talks about making the move to the modern experiences for OneNote and Outlook.

Why did he make the move, do the new experiences have the same capabilities as desktop, and what are some of the things that you can do with the new experiences that you can't do with the desktop versions?

We also get into Microsoft Teams and how Outlook and OneNote can work with Teams.

Plus we discuss if a vertical monitor can be productive.

In today's episode, Matthew and Joel talk about being more efficient with your browser sessions during demos and screenshares, and Microsoft Teams productivity

Chrome browser profiles

Working with multiple demo personas and D365 accounts

Controlling extension icons

Tab management

Microsoft Teams productivity

The Team of me

Organizing contacts

Quickly start a chat

Group meetings vs teams

Copying and moving files between Teams and OneDrive

Using Flow to manage Teams

In today's ProdCast (brought to you by KingswaySoft):

Breaking an audacious goal down into smaller pieces

Re-evaluating direction toward a goal

Deleting Facebook

Being more intentional with technology

Joel's strategy for managing personal online subscriptions