ProductivityCast

In today's world, it's impossible to remember everything we can know. From passwords to tasks to calendar appointments and more, there are data out there that simply don't belong rolling around clouding up our focus. And, thankfully, we have the ability to externalize this information from retention to recall. In this cast, the ProductivityCast team looks at the concept of the external brain as a productivity enabler. Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

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

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Evernote

OneNote

TheBrain

Workflowy

Google Drive

OneDrive

Amazon Cloud Drive

Dropbox

Box

Instapaper

Pocket

IFTTT

OTIXO

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).

Read More

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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 with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks

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welcome back everybody to productivity

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cast the weekly show about all things

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personal productivity I'm Ray Sidney-

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Smith and I'm here with Augusto Pinaud

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Frances Wade and art Galax welcome to

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productivitycast gentlemen wait the

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year hey how you doing we're gonna be

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talking about today the idea of the

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external brain and I and I just wanted

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to disclaim this for anyone who might be

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listening to us I know a couple of our

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listeners are medical doctors and so for

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those of you who are medical

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professionals please know that we are

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not talking about the the the assistive

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devices and and so forth that are called

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external brains we're talking about the

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productivity focus concept of the

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external brain but what we're gonna do

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today in this episode is really define

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what an external brain is we're then

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gonna talk about why it's important in

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at least personal productivity for you

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to have an external brain once we are

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all sort of on the same page in terms of

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what it is and then we're going to talk

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about how each of us potentially uses

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the functions of building an external

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brain so I'm gonna I'm going to turn it

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over to you art to to start sort of the

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co defining process of how do you define

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what an external brain is all right

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we've talked about this in previous

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episodes this idea

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Speirs of access and where information

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is really to you and how do you get to

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it and to me this idea of an external

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brain the information that is relevant

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to you but does not need to be

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immediately accessible or at your

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fingertips

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falls into that category because it's

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not information that I need to keep in

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my head it's not information I need to

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have on a post-it note on the monitor in

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front of me but it's information that

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I'm going to encounter during my day

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that I may need again in the future

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it feels like it's relevant it has

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interest and value to me but I need to

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someplace where I can go get it later

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and when I think about this model I have

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to think that this is almost one of the

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most challenging areas that we have when

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we think about productivity because this

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stuff is probably the big biggest

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candidate of productive clutter that I

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can imagine just thinking about this as

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we brought this topic up

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I went digging back through a lot of my

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external systems looking at things like

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pocket for example which I use for

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offline reading Instapaper and feedly

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and starting to dig through OneNote and

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I'm thinking more about it just the

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plethora of things that I have that

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every time I look at them I go yeah

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that's interesting that's relevant I

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mean I want to keep that and then

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literally 10 minutes later I have no

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idea that that's even in the system so

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I'm curious one how how we all handle

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this idea of important but not critical

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stuff how do we organize it and really

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probably the biggest thing how do we

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keep it from becoming overwhelming I'll

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say that for me the idea of the external

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brain was first introduced to me through

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really discussions of getting things

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done by David Allen and the idea of your

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brain is for having ideas not holding

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them as David is often quoted as saying

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and this always led me to the

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Einsteinian Khan step right that

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colloquially or sort of mythically

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Einstein never remembered the phone

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numbers of any of the people he knew and

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he would always say I don't need that

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information because it's in the phone

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book and that really did clue me in to

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something very important which was that

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yeah we have these tools that were

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available to us like an address book or

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a contact database you know a piece of

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software where we can put all of this

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information so that it didn't have to be

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rolling around in my head taking up

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space that was unnecessary I've always

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had the conflict between the external

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brain and our real brain in the sense

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that my concern is that when I need

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something to be in in my for mind at a

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particular time and location I want to

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be able to Reza

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that information very very quickly I

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want to be able to you know not only

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retain it but be able to recall it very

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very quickly when necessary so there's

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actually a toggling back and forth

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between what information do we commit to

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you know long-term memory and what

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...

25 episodes! Thank you all for listening and helping us grow the ProductivityCast community!

As we grow and change in our personal and professional lives, we should all consider if the way you see your “next actions” (the granular, physical tasks we take to move projects forward, a la Getting Things Done by David Allen). If we approach next-action crafting in time chunks smaller or larger, or based on different contexts, than you need to accomplish them, then we’ll see ourselves being less effective. In this cast, the ProductivityCast team addresses the issue of priming ourselves to appropriate next-action thinking in our productivity systems.

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, again, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

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

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

Quantified Self (DC Quantified Self - Ray is the Organizer)

Eisenhower Matrix (Merrill-Covey Matrix)

Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory

Life changes to give you pause to know it’s time to reflect on the structure, time and contexts of your next-action planning:

1- Birth

2- Death

Professional Transitions

   3- I've Been Demoted!

   4- I've Been Promoted!

   5- I've Been Hired!

   6- Unemployment (whether involuntary or by choice)

   7- Changing Careers (while employed or not)

8- Starting School

9- First Job

10- Moving Home

11- Moving Office

12- Downsizing Home

13- Starting Retirement

15- Marriage / Long-Term Commitment

15- Divorce / Separation / Ending a Long-Term Relationship

Calculator - Do You Need a Task Management Improvement? by Francis Wade

Francis: “The Ultimate, Evergreen Guide to Choosing Your Next Task Management App or Practice.” Plus. the stuff on implicit vs explicit tagging is in my book which is being updated - http://perfect.mytimedesign.com. Francis also included the idea in this paper - http://www.2time-sys.com/can-time-actually-be-managed/

Francis: The idea of facing changing constraints as task load increases, and the need to see a change is also mentioned in this article: What are the greatest task management tools, and why?

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).

Read More

1

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are you ready to manage your work and

2

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personal world better to live a

3

00:00:03,870 --> 00:00:07,350

fulfilling productive life then you've

4

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come to the right place

5

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productivity cast the weekly show about

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all things productivity here your hosts

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ray Sydney Smith and Augusto pronounces

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weight and art Galax welcome back

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everybody to episode 25 of productivity

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cast and so I just want to thank you all

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for listening to productivity cast and I

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want to welcome to the show today

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gusto pinaud francis Wade and art Galax

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welcome to the show gentlemen guys I'm

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doing really well and as I was saying

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pre-show I'm I'm double caffeinated I'm

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drinking two types of caffeine this

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morning so I'm probably a little jittery

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but I'm gonna I'm gonna try and keep it

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level keep it level for us all today so

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we're gonna we're gonna talk today about

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a rather interesting concept principle

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concept centering on the premise of

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getting things done next action

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principles and how those things change

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over time and so I'm gonna hand the mic

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over to you a goose toe to explain to

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the audience what we're gonna be talking

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about today I was looking at my next

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action list as it was getting behind and

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I couldn't understand why it's not a

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matter of the job it's not a matter of

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the tasks per se but the fact was what's

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getting behind and I started to get

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accumulated so the question for me was

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is this something because I've been

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extremely busy or this is something

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because a condition around my day-to-day

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change in my particular case was the

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second one a condition around my

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workplace my work day-to-day change so

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what happened was I begin changing or

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evolving my role from a person who spent

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a lot of time in the office to a person

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who spent almost none in the office in

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other words a world warrior again

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as I was looking at that I begin to

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consider or ask myself if the way you

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see your next actions and how is

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affected by the unconscious time you

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think you have to accomplish them so if

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you think for example on the two-minute

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rule the two minutes without any doubts

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in arbitrary number

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so we with practice we begin to identify

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what kind of task can be done on that 2

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minutes roll the same way that when we

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are when we have less time we change

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that 2 minutes to maybe a minute or 30

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seconds and everything else going to the

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system or when we have a ridiculous

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amount of time for example a long train

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trip coast-to-coast then we can go to a

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15-minute time because we'll make no

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difference we are not going anywhere so

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I begin to wonder if hold your next

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actions do conscious or unconscious

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begin setting that same time so when I'm

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sitting at work this is around the time

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I can do without being interrupted or

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without the next meeting coming or

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without somebody coming to my desk and

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ask me what I'm doing and you begin

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defining your next actions based on that

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interval if that's true then you should

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be able to adjust it one way or the

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other but I'm curious if people also

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observe the same thing in other words if

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they also notice that their next actions

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are defined to a specific interval of

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time or is just the way mine works

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enough yeah I'm thinking about this from

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the perspective of one of the questions

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that I always ask myself and I ask other

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people when they're trying to do task

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estimation is what's the amount of time

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that you think a task is going to take

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based on either assessment or

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historical values what's important I

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think related to what you're bringing up

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Augusto is that I don't know that it's

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necessarily contextual to the time you

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have available because if you think

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about traditional project management

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methodology you've got time cost and

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scope

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well if time becomes an inflexible value

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which is this is the amount of time I

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...

On this cast, we have some fun! That is, we ask ourselves the question, can productivity be fun? The ProductivityCast team talks about the concept of adding fun into your productive life. We discuss the potential opportunities to incorporate play into your work, gamifying your productivity system, negative stereotyping by business about the idea of games in a professional space, and more. How are you adding fun into your productivity?

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes | Can Productivity Be Fun?

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

The Fun Theory

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Cass Sunstein, PhD, and Richard Thaler, PhD

gamification

The Pomodoro Technique

Forest (app)

Bullet Journal

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

Deliberate practice (developed by K. Anders Ericcson, PhD)

Getting Things Done FAST (audio program) by David Allen

SuperBetter (at Work) by Jane McGonigal, PhD

Productivity Book Group’s discussion on SuperBetter

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).

Read More

Coming soon!

The winter holidays season is upon us and soon the new year! And, there’s no time like the present to start planning for the upcoming holidays and new year. To reduce distress and increase the opportunities to enjoy and celebrate time with family, friends and work colleagues during this season, good planning (and execution) is vital. What do you do to prepare for the holidays and new year? In this cast, the ProductivityCast team converses about strategies to squeeze more out of your time and resources during the holidays season. You’ll learn about Art Gelwick’s phrase for the celebration season, “getting done while still having fun.” What are your holidays and new year planning routines? Share them in the comments, comment on this cast on our ProductivityCast Facebook Page, or contact us to let us know! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).

In this Cast | Holiday and New Year Productivity Planning

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes | Holiday and New Year Productivity Planning

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

Holiday Budget Planner (Excel template) <--you can import into Google Sheets also!

Deep Work by Cal Newport

AndroidWear smartwatches

Apple Watch

Time demands - also in Francis Wade’s book, Perfect Time-Based Productivity

Evernote

OneNote

Google Keep

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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Transcript coming soon!

You know the productivity annoyances you deal with daily or weekly when coworkers or family or friends waste your time or resources. Some things get under all of our skins. And, it's best to occasionally talk about them, and even strategize how to address them and overcome them. What are your biggest productivity pet peeves? We'd like to know! We present ours on this cast for you to know how to identify and overcome them!

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

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

Getting Things Done (“GTD”) by David Allen

GTD-Q assessment

Francis Wade’s 48-point and 21-point skills assessment:

The Evaluations Learners Complete in My Book/Training

How I create evaluations featuring “Flowing”:

http://plus.mytimedesign.com/index2017interaction.html

https://medium.com/@fwade/3-superpowers-to-survive-improvement-overload-53a343e695e3

The Platinum Rule by Dr. Tony Alessandra (PDF)

Androgogy (Quora Q&A) (In Frances’ book he argues that learners go beyond andragogy to heutagogy.)

Evernote

OneNote

Bullet Journal - Pinterest

BLUF

Five Sentences (email methodology)

Boomerang Respondable (Web browser extension that rates your email for respond-ability)

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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Transcript to come soon!

Clutter is a pernicious problem for many people. And, so is its cousin, digital clutter. Across your many desktop and mobile devices now prevalent in daily life, we house files piled high (metaphorically speaking) that as Art Gelwicks aptly notes, lives on "without a clearly defined purpose." Clearly this is a complicated issue and the ProductivityCast team has a healthy debate about the practicality of managing our digital worlds, and what awaits us in the future for digital information management. Join us for this fascinating discussion into digital clutter and the need to do digital decluttering.

This is surely a topic we'll revisit in the future, as the more information we have about us living both locally on our systems and in the cloud grows, almost exponentially.

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). What are your thoughts on your digital information and performing any kind of digital decluttering? Do you suffer from digital clutter? Or, do you have a particular area where you manage your digital information well (say, at work), but very poorly elsewhere (like, home digital photo organization)? You can comment below, or let us know via our contact form (audio or text) and we'll be glad to help as best as we can in a future episode.

In this Cast

Ray Sidney-Smith

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.

Trello for Mac

Evernote

IFTTT

Amazon Kindle e-Readers

Survivorman

Instapaper

Pinterest

Minimalism (documentary)

ProdPod: Episode 68–Digital Clutter: Out of Sight Is Not Out of Mind

Otixo

MultCloud

OneNote

Google Drive

Dropbox

Getting Things Done by David Allen

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).

0:00:00.000,0:00:03.870

are you ready to manage your work and

0:00:02.159,0:00:06.120

personal world better to live a

0:00:03.870,0:00:07.350

fulfilling productive life then you've

0:00:06.120,0:00:09.599

come to the right place

0:00:07.350,0:00:12.090

productivity cast the weekly show about

0:00:09.599,0:00:14.299

all things productivity here are your

0:00:12.090,0:00:16.699

hosts Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto

0:00:14.299,0:00:18.720

Pinaud Francis Wade and art Gelwicks

Read More

0:00:16.699,0:00:20.609

welcome back everybody to another

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episode of productivity casts this is

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episode 21 and so we are in full steam

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ahead and how are you guys doing how are

0:00:27.480,0:00:31.230

you guys doing today doing well this

0:00:29.189,0:00:33.450

morning's good weekend busy weekend

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productive well that was productive as

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I'd like but a good weekend everybody's

0:00:34.950,0:00:39.000

doing well I think good I was on travel

0:00:36.899,0:00:42.239

this weekend and because of work I had

0:00:39.000,0:00:45.989

to be in New York and so I'm still

0:00:42.239,0:00:49.530

adjusting to the hecticness of the

0:00:45.989,0:00:52.020

weekend being somewhat personal you know

0:00:49.530,0:00:54.719

social stuff and then trying to get all

0:00:52.020,0:00:57.300

the work stuff in so for those listeners

0:00:54.719,0:00:58.829

who have to deal with that know that

0:00:57.300,0:01:01.410

you're not alone there there is that

0:00:58.829,0:01:04.710

balancing act that you have to have so

0:01:01.410,0:01:06.150

in the news this this past week and by

0:01:04.710,0:01:08.850

the time this is out and recording it

0:01:06.150,0:01:12.600

it'll have been about a month Trello has

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come out with a desktop application for

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the Mac and so it's had mobile

0:01:14.430,0:01:19.369

applications for quite some time now on

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iOS and Android and has been a primarily

0:01:19.369,0:01:25.020

web-based application and for those

0:01:22.860,0:01:28.860

listeners who don't know Trello is owned

0:01:25.020,0:01:31.049

by Atlassian and which also owns HipChat

0:01:28.860,0:01:34.110

and several other products but they were

0:01:31.049,0:01:38.340

purchased us maybe last year early this

0:01:34.110,0:01:41.939

year by them and so I was curious your

0:01:38.340,0:01:43.880

reactions gentlemen regarding web

0:01:41.939,0:01:46.590

applications that are choosing to create

0:01:43.880,0:01:48.780

desktop applications and in reality you

0:01:46.590,0:01:52.350

know the desktop application is probably

0:01:48.780,0:01:54.270

just a shell the web app with some some

0:01:52.350,0:01:56.250

fancier tie-ins to some of the desktop

0:01:54.270,0:01:59.909

components but it just gives you a an

0:01:56.250,0:02:01.350

icon in the taskbar and how that affects

0:01:59.909,0:02:03.649

people's productivity when they might

0:02:01.350,0:02:05.490

have many boards open in their browser

0:02:03.649,0:02:08.970

versus having a desktop application

0:02:05.490,0:02:11.069

where the tabs the boards are open

0:02:08.970,0:02:12.750

inside of a desktop application I think

0:02:11.069,0:02:14.940

is a matter to expand

0:02:12.750,0:02:18.660

your target market more than anything

0:02:14.940,0:02:21.000

the reality is that it will not make a

0:02:18.660,0:02:23.420

significant difference having the web

0:02:21.000,0:02:28.470

browser first having the local

0:02:23.420,0:02:31.470

application but for certain people of a

0:02:28.470,0:02:34.680

certain age it feels like it's real

0:02:31.470,0:02:38.310

first asad of what I'm saying sound for

0:02:34.680,0:02:41.250

certain people the web and online and

0:02:38.310,0:02:44.340

all that as we understand it for for the

0:02:41.250,0:02:47.970

techie point it's not mainstream and it

0:02:44.340,0:02:49.680

doesn't give them the idea of a solid

0:02:47.970,0:02:52.500

application even when you go to

0:02:49.680,0:02:56.640

corporate Trello is making their way you

0:02:52.500,0:02:59.390

know especially into development and the

0:02:56.640,0:03:02.400

agile work and all that and for some

0:02:59.390,0:03:04.980

corporations they need to have the feel

0:03:02.400,0:03:08.520

that they can control where the stop and

0:03:04.980,0:03:11.520

where the stuff goes so giving them or

0:03:08.520,0:03:15.510

giving them access to on an actual

0:03:11.520,0:03:18.090

application may give them a push into a

0:03:15.510,0:03:21.750

corporate world where is that there is

0:03:18.090,0:03:24.060

an impression that just online is not

0:03:21.750,0:03:26.700

secure enough I don't think it's gonna

0:03:24.060,0:03:29.640

add a whole lot to the individual user

0:03:26.700,0:03:31.260

experience I don't think they the person

0:03:29.640,0:03:33.060

sitting is at his computer trying to be

0:03:31.260,0:03:36.060

more productive is going to experience

0:03:33.060,0:03:37.950

any mega boost in productivity as a

0:03:36.060,0:03:39.840

result I think I agree I think it's four

0:03:37.950,0:03:42.299

with what gusto said I think it's four

0:03:39.840,0:03:43.829

not marketing but reasons of

0:03:42.299,0:03:45.540

implementation I think that's the

0:03:43.829,0:03:48.570

primary I imagine that's the primary

0:03:45.540,0:03:50.579

driver as opposed to really changing the

0:03:48.570,0:03:53.430

user as experience yeah I don't I don't

0:03:50.579,0:03:54.840

know that I totally agree with its being

0:03:53.430,0:03:57.239

on the marketing side of the equation

0:03:54.840,0:04:00.840

with it lasya n-- having purchased

0:03:57.239,0:04:02.790

Trello and their presence within the the

0:04:00.840,0:04:04.980

enterprise environment having an

0:04:02.790,0:04:08.400

application at the desktop level gives

0:04:04.980,0:04:12.180

them a much more compelling footprint to

0:04:08.400,0:04:14.430

get Trello into environments where being

0:04:12.180,0:04:16.919

a web only solution isn't all that

0:04:14.430,0:04:18.690

endearing to the companies because that

0:04:16.919,0:04:20.910

does happen a lot of larger legacy

0:04:18.690,0:04:23.580

companies the other aspect though is

0:04:20.910,0:04:25.020

just purely from the user side because

0:04:23.580,0:04:25.990

it's on the desktop level they're able

0:04:25.020,0:04:27.789

to in

0:04:25.990,0:04:30.550

more functionalities such as lots more

0:04:27.789,0:04:33.310

desktop shortcuts or keyboard shortcuts

0:04:30.550,0:04:35.380

rather which keeping in mind that tools

0:04:33.310,0:04:37.930

like Trello do have a habit of being

0:04:35.380,0:04:39.550

used by more technical people they tend

0:04:37.930,0:04:41.650

to gravitate towards more keyboard

0:04:39.550,0:04:43.660

shortcuts therefore their catering to

0:04:41.650,0:04:44.830

this particular audience I don't I have

0:04:43.660,0:04:46.690

to agree though I don't think you're

0:04:44.830,0:04:47.949

gonna see a major upswing in Trello

0:04:46.690,0:04:51.580

adoption just because they have a

0:04:47.949,0:04:53.650

desktop it's more of a price to play in

0:04:51.580,0:04:55.810

the space but it's still a nice feature

0:04:53.650,0:04:58.120

for them to add in the the interesting

0:04:55.810,0:05:00.940

thing that I found about the change was

0:04:58.120,0:05:03.009

the desktop application from the very

0:05:00.940,0:05:04.389

cursory review of it that I've done so

0:05:03.009,0:05:05.800

...

Augusto received mistakenly a letter from his local municipality, and the time-wasting process began of fixing another person’s mistakes. And, yes, people will make mistakes. You will make mistakes. But, the deeper issue here is valuing other people’s time. There are many issues when respecting and understanding the productive value of other people's time. And, in this cast, we guide you on how to be more productive when valuing other people's time and helping them understand how to value yours.

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

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

Modern Meeting Standard - Anonymous Meeting Feedback Tool

Facebook Messenger

Slack

WhatsApp

Microsoft Teams

Telegram

OneNote

Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality by Danielle Allen, PhD

Not mentioned in the episode but worthwhile mentioning:

On Time Window

On coming to work on time

On having better meetings

ProdPod episodes on Time Thieves, Thugs and Terrorists:

Episode 96: Time Thieves, Time Thugs, and Time Terrorists – Who They Are So You Can Identify Them Efficiently

Episode 97: Time Thieves, Time Thugs, and Time Terrorists – How to Combat Them So You Can Get Back to Being Productive

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).

Transcript not available for this episode.

Eight years ago Paul Graham wrote an article characterizing two different types of time management, each centering on either a maker or manager perspective. The maker schedule is that of the individual who needs longer stretches of time in order to create, whereas the manager schedule is structured around meetings and shorter periods of work times. But times, they are a-changing...and fast!  In this cast, the ProductivityCast team looks at potentially new additions to the maker and manager schedules (ergo, the maker, manager and the artist's productivity...and individual, too!), and how to attempt to master time management in a changing world.

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

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

SkedPal

“Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule” by Paul Graham

Maker vs Manager’s Schedules

Brainswarming

Google Calendar

Principle of Universalizability

The Platinum Rule by Dr. Tony Alessandra

The Platinum Rule - Sample Report

Keirsey Temperament Sorter

16 Personalities

Holacracy

McKinsey article: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/making-time-management-the-organizations-priority

Meetingless Meetings by Francis Wade

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Agile project management

RescueTime

Top Brain, Bottom Brain: Surprising Insights into How You Think by Stephen Kosslyn and G. Wayne Miller

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 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 product to Vittie here your host Ray Sidney Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks Welcome everybody to ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things personal productivity we're back we're going to be talking about something really interesting to find is the maker versus manager schedules and this is a an article that was written by Paul Graham sort of an idea developed by Paul Graham back in the system when when was this article written two thousand and nine o'clock in America it's been this very older piece of work but it has it set the stage for a concept and personal productivity that I think is really important to us all I'm curious about everyone's thoughts here as we make our way through this conversation and so do you want to start off with explaining what the maker schedule is versus the manager schedule and what Paul Graham was really talking about yes the article hardens the good there is two kinds of Scots who when he goes by your schedule research for this in all twenty minutes half an hour's Ketzel were do jump from one task to the other and can really make your essential into smaller pieces if you go even today to more mother reason articles about it you will find people Musk who said he's got his schedule in five minutes increment money then not even twenty minutes one amongst a lot of people used to work then you have what he calls the maker is going to him to sketch Oh poor people on projects who require a different timetable so if you think about coding for example rather than a piece of software or a program no webpage or. Writing a book or even or in an article are things that as much as we all wish they can happen in ten minutes increments usually doesn't usually require a longer chunk of time usually require that you don't get those interruption if there is a lot of things as a maker that interruptions are extremely costly because it's not the five minute interruption is it time that will take you to get back into the place where so you continue moving forward and that was the promise from the article those two things are reality and that some people have one on the other. As we say the article was written on to cross a line and to be honest with me when they are ignored reader this kid might I read it and say Oh Uncle Cornie dressed in that ago and about time my life was really heavily into been interleaved into a man of your stature and even that I had to make clear one I did not acknowledge their important type of work I was doing Ari access to those massive chunk of time I was travelling over two hundred mph thousand miles a year so I could have those chunks of time or airplanes on a star when my wall truncation the airplane or stop being a reality what happened was I found myself to struggle heavily with it to a statute and even took me a long time to track back the article because obviously I remember P.C.'s another Stargate all content to be able to find it but Syrians is something I've been keeping on the back of my mind and it's a concept that has been kroner me especially in the last years on important because what I have found is we've the technology and evolution of technology used to be or some people live on money years consumption. People leave on major instructions what I have found is this is a problem that most people is dealing with to them they are both Dylan with two elements inside of their productivity that are clashing with each other and in many cases employers just look in a distant and say I don't understand why my system works so great for oldest frames and fail miserably on all these other plans and some of the cast is not the system of the person is and you are trying to solve problems from a perspective of who. You are trying to use a pillar screwdriver to nail something on the wall well can you do it Jerry Penacoli eventually will work but the reality is you're not using the muscle practice too so I want to bring Francis into the conversation here because Francis you are the king of time management in terms of scheduling things on. You and you're an advisor to the Scott pal team if I'm not mistaken and so so so as an advisor to the Sky team where their promise is that you schedule everything into your calendar and correct me if I'm wrong there Wow does this concept make sense to you how does it not make sense to you in terms of the maker schedule maker manager schedule concept and do you agree with the guest of that it has melded over the last almost decade big big question yeah. Let me just correct one thing you said which is that by the way you have two minutes. And the correct one thing quickly which is that step pal is about scheduling everything it's not about scheduling everything at the same time so there is a there's a there features in it which allow you to store items that you don't want to schedule right away and I times of course that you want to schedule right away so it is an active kind on there and sort of an inactive list of tasks is not quite that we set. But having said that the concept of using your schedule in the skillful way that store described I think is becoming a huge problem for everyone I think it's a problem for me personally because I have always sort of bones between the two worlds of Maker and manager and I remember our coach telling me early on they needed to be in research somewhere and I said no not like I like being in business and I like being a consultant I like the cut and thrust of topic lots of people but whenever I go too far in one direction I find myself wondering back in the other I feel almost schizo phrenic in a way between the two having to choose between the manager and the maker I feel like I have to have some kind of balance and when I go to find one direction I have a problem so skeptical been a great solution because it gives you the freedom to vote the kind of schedule that allows you to live in both worlds where you can of course block out big point big periods of time like you can in any calendar but it allows you to manage all those flexible tasks which don't have a particular time slot so it in a way you might say optimizes your manager schedule while it allows you to block time for YOUR make a schedule so I like I like that feature of it use it in the end result is that your free to focus on whatever you're doing at that point in time without having to have your mind wander into my spending enough time making or to wander into a man managing all the tasks which I need to manage as a manager so it's a great question and I want to add in something that I also read about managers trying to be makers or failing to make a following of a ghost I just said it's a great article I came from McKinsey they interviewed a bunch of executives and I asked them. It was what you guys implementing your strategic plans properly and what they discovered is that executives you know being on the go and being busy all the time they don't sit down after a future planning retreat to work on their strategy they don't devote the Make a kind of time that you need to be creative to implement the new ideas so what they came up with or my interpretation to them what they came up with is administrative assistant who Books them all at the same time to be in a meeting which never meets so in an article I call it the meeting less meeting because it's a little bit like saying OK we're all going to work on strategy between say ten and twelve on Tuesday morning but we're going to book everyone's calendar as if it were a meeting however it's a meeting in th

There was a recent study of ravens that found they can plan. They can do the simple-to-humans function of planning for future possibilities. Only known to be a capability of humans and apes before, ravens (or, corvids) have now joined the elite thinkers of planet Earth. But, what does planning have to do with productivity? Why, everything! And, that's what the ProductivityCast team entertains in this cast--the importance of planning and getting into action so that you can get more done by thinking more about the right things and doing less of the unproductive things on your way to your goals. So, enjoy this episode on how to think more, do less, get more done.

Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).

In this Cast | think more, do less, get more done

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Francis Wade

Show Notes | think more, do less, get more done

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

Ravens—like humans and apes—can plan for the future

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Google Drive

Dropbox

Gmail

Evernote

OneNote

Flow

Deliberate practice

Deep Work (book)

Deep Work (Productivity Book Group)

Raw Text Transcript | think more, do less, get more done

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 personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life then you've come to the right place product to be cast the weekly showboat all things product to Vittie here your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks Hello and welcome to productivitycast the weekly show about all things personal productivity I'm Ray Sidney-Smith and I'm joined here with Augusto Pinaud and Francis Wade Welcome to the show guys good morning oh is everybody doing to be back I'm doing really well and today we're going to be talking about thinking about thinking we're going to talk about thinking about your productivity system and getting into action and we were just talking before the show recording about this study that was done back in July of twenty seventeen what these research scientists have discovered was that Ravens or corvids the birds known as corvids Jays crows and ravens all showed signs of planning I'm reading here out of a science mag dot org article which I'll link to in the show notes and so it turns out that humans apes not monkeys and birds all have the ability to plan and as the article says quote planning is the ability to think through future events taking place at a different location and quote and so really for us thinking about our personal productivity I think it's really important for us to all think about how we plan how we think about the future in the perspective of getting things done and so for me I really have always stood on the the the perspective or stood from the perspective that our cognitive skills are very similar to the way in which athletes condition and plan for competing in events and that week I think that we miss appropriately think that we're all. Running marathons when in reality we're actually playing you know small sprints throughout our lives even throughout our days and we need to be conditioning ourselves and planning effectively for each of those variety of sprints and our specialized sprints right so particular type of Sprint that you would prepare for would be in a in a say of racing or running you know athletic event would be maybe the pole jump or you know the long jump or you know the five hundred meter dash or something like that you know each of those requires you to work out for tequila things but it's also planning out the strategy of how you would compete in that event and I think a lot of that is power a wild with our own personal productivity as well as a personal productivity systems you know I'm quite beem a big job and I believe that thinking and planning it help you tremendously when you get into good later called the auction or the reality is that all of us been on productivity or intra and two shift or an expert or whatever you want to call yourself about productivity or not you have the same problem you have an incredible amount of time and you have an incredibly poor gives amount of time to do all of those those work problems are coming the difference from TIME BETWEEN A P one person who is brought up to be called up or tried to run a vision versus the ones who are not comes into this thing can come into this plan because you think about it and you need to go to one place and you get to that whites Let's put an example let's say the girls there is something most people when you go to the grocery and serve them going to make dinner today I'm going to put the chicken break so you go to the groceries and buy chicken get home and then you open the recipe and say Oh well I. Alternate garlic get in the car go back to buy garlic from by step three or I mean only go back for the third time and so far so on prevention are you going to make the recipe or the chicken for the night yes it's going to be unaffected and efficient way to know that there wouldn't that recipe what gives you the very soul of somebody being given planning before if instead of that you will have grabbed the recipe and shared Well I mean chicken or any garlic I need on him or any whites and when you go to the grocery you pick the four you will have external drive to the grocery transfer four times you will have been able to be the one you will have been able to go get home every to really get the project done in this particular case there are there is no difference between that example can any of our on your professional life the main difference between making dinner and a problem that you have from your professional life is that the recipe is not real and you need to be the one to create That's right that's a little bit a little bit differently and the only distinction I would draw is that cooking is a learned skill whereas something like running we can't remember the last time when we learned to run but people can burn at the time when they learn to cook so most all adults know let's say we know how to run. And don't think about running as a scale which is subject to development or even something they want to develop they can live a life without learning to run any better better more efficiently so it's more inherent so therefore it goes to sleep I think most people I think proclivity is more like running where whereas we learn the concept of time when we are six seven or eight we are able to teach ourselves. Create. Ask somewhere in or adolescence and we learn methods teach ourselves methods to manage tasks somewhere in our teens but by the time we get the dog heard it becomes for most people who we're talking to or isn't new to this park us every learn how to manage task and they can't remember how they got there so it doesn't appear to be a skill that is picked up at some point in their life it's more like running and not as much like cooking which which is something you definitely learn a lot of people can't do I can't begin to me and I think because press of productivity is sort of. Blind where whole of black intell or development of it we make we're going the wrong directions when it comes to trying to make think about our skills to improve it so people people can really be convinced that all I need to do is the bag buy a new device and that device with improve my productivity and they can also be confused and say I need a different job because the job I has I have has too many tasks associated with it so I need a job that has less tasks and I think those are two of the mistakes that people make when they think of their productivity they go to solutions that have nothing to do with their own or an inherent skill they look for external solutions I think part of the three of us do is try to bring into people's consciousness this notion that your capacity and the mistakes that you experience because you are managing your productivity well are yes somewhat a function of these external things but they're also a huge part of the skills that you use every day so I think we spell out the time finding that message and trying to get people to buy into it and some do and then some zones I think that it's really important for people to recognize as you said Francis that there are certain skills that we are very comfortable with and certain skills that we aren't sort of like that. That you talk about you know where we all sort of know that we can run even though we don't really remember that we can run versus other skills where we had to learn them and there was a discrete moment in our lives when we started learning that process like learning to drive or otherwise or other kinds of rites of passage into adolescence young adulthood and then adult life for me I really think about the very concrete skills necessary cognitive skills that are necessary for example the thinking skill of clarifying what something is and whether or not it's actionable you know in sort of the Getting Things Done or G.T.D. methodology that's a very important thinking skill for planning whether or not to do or not do something planning it in and of itself has its own construct as we talked about the top is is a core function that has benefited humans for our entire

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.

Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!

If you'd like to discuss 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

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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