Month: December 2021

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2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview

In this week's episode, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art gathered round the microphones to discuss what they noticed happening in the world of personal productivity, and then what their plans are for next year (in terms of their own systems and other work they are doing). (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/118 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | 2021 in Review, 2022 in Preview Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. ClickUpZoomGoogle MeetApple FaceTimeProductivity unicorns like ClickUp face off in competitive market What the future of work means for productivity tools - ProtocolEvernoteGoodnotesZapierIFTTT 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 mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio). Read More 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 0:17Welcome back, everybody to ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:23And I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:27Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be doing a year in review and a year in preview for personal productivity, both in the world of productivity and in our systems. So we're just going to cover some of the notable things that we kind of noticed this particular year. And it was a kind of an odd year, considering we've been dealing with the pandemic over the past two years. And so we're gonna highlight some of the notable items there. We're then going to talk a little bit about the things that we think happened, notably in our own personal productivity systems, or kind of in our world, and then what would like to what we'd like to happen again, the good things, and what we'd like to be different the areas of improvement, so to speak. And then we'll talk a little bit about what we're planning for 2022. For those of you who kind of follow it, pay attention to what we're doing out there in the world, you can kind of see and follow along with us as we make these kinds of implementations into our own worlds. And so let's start off with what were the kind of notable productivity events of 2021. What were the things that you really noticed in the personal productivity world that happened? Art Gelwicks 1:37I mean, I think the biggest things that everybody is knee deep in right now and have truly recognized that wasn't necessarily new in 2021. But it became part of our norm is the understanding that the office as we used to know it has changed working from home hybrid from work, full remote work, whatever you want to call it, is here, and it's not going anywhere, it's no longer just a perk, it's no longer just a fun thing that you occasionally get to do this, this is a part of the new norm and will not be going away. And from a personal productivity standpoint,
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WhatsApp Groups for Employee Engagement

In today’s COVID era, local companies have seen a dramatic rise in the use of WhatsApp groups among staff. It’s been a love/hate relationship for most, but online groups have become a critical channel of communication. Is your organization boosting employee engagement via these groups, or sitting by hoping the fad will die off?

Remote work has made virtual, intra-company communication more important than ever. By replacing its digital sibling, email messaging, WhatsApp has become the popular default choice. Now, your official email updates are being ignored. Your employees’ habits have shifted; they are using the app over a hundred times per day.

Unfortunately, a number of poor practices have also arisen. In response, most executives and HR departments watch from the sidelines as the software shapes their organization’s culture. No-one knows what to do, or even whose responsibility it is to ensure this channel adds productivity. How should your company influence a change which is already underway?

  1. Accept WhatsApp’s power and limitations

Understand that you can only influence WhatsApp, not control it. Unlike email, the messages being shared aren’t sitting on IT’s servers, where management can observe and dispose of them at will.

Also, individual accounts don’t belong to you. Disgruntled ex-employees can continue their hourly gripe sessions with key workers for months to come.

As such, WhatsApp groups have a life of their own. For example, a small chat between friends can quickly grow to reach the limit of 256 users. Any hot topic can dominate the space and take over attention, including office gossip. Individuals can use it for self-promotion, or to attack others.

Unfortunately, the range of responses is limited. For example, when a group develops a nasty sub-culture, an administrator may only see a single course of action – to delete the group. However, this final act of desperation doesn’t prevent former members from forming a brand new chat to continue the discussion.

Yet, despite this danger, WhatsApp remains the most effective way to have a conversation within a small to medium-sized group of people. It’s already your employees’ most popular app. Some companies try to counter its power by launching their own app. If you try this tactic, “Good luck!” Be prepared for staff to bypass it. Instead, they’ll discuss your attempts to take over their chats in their groups.

Your best bet? Accept WhatsApp’s role as today’s trusted, and most frequently used, channel of corporate communication between staff.

  1. Play the Role of Coach

If the channel is already out of your control, the best option is to provide workers with skills to use the platform effectively. Essentially, this “if you-can’t-beat-them-join-them” strategy is your way of spreading sound WhatsApp principles to others. You hope that they’ll act in ways that support the well-being of your employees.

This means that someone needs to become versed in the apps’ best practices, such as:

  • realizing that group chats are not the same as individual chats – once the number of participants grows beyond 10, a unique space is created.
  • setting up a moderator and establishing guidelines or rules of engagement.
  • developing a strategy for large groups, such as splitting it when the number of members reaches 100.

Where do these come from? This short list is based on my experience in regional WhatsApp groups of all sizes. Your company needs to develop its own insights in keeping with your policies and strategy.

The sad fact is, most companies don’t train their employees to be productive in either meetings or electronic messages (email and WhatsApp). The net effect? A ton of waste, even as these activities take up a reported 25-50% of employee time.

  1. Encourage Exception Reporting

Unfortunately, WhatsApp’s design encourages users to think of themselves as individuals, not corporate citizens. Therefore, they act in their own interests, first and foremost.

However, there’s another dimension which you must consider: the impact of online discussions on the entire staff. For example, when an employee quits, but doesn’t exit a WhatsApp group discussing sensitive company matters, everyone is affected.

Your organization should act to introduce this broader perspective.

In cyber-space, employees need to ask a new question: “What is best for all concerned?” In this context, someone can act to protect a fellow employee, a department or their entire company by intervening and alerting others when trouble is brewing.

The truth is, these are uncharted waters. Executives who ignore the powerful immediacy of WhatsApp Group communication are putting their heads in the sand, hoping it will go away. It won’t. Gear yourself and your staff for the new reality of remote work dominated by digital messaging at scale.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

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Overcoming the Flaw of Forgetting Tasks

Like most people, do you share the challenge of keeping track of your to-dos, especially during the holiday season? You may think it has something to do with your personality, but…surprise: it doesn’t. Here’s why.

We human beings have a flaw. When we make future commitments, we find them hard to track, manage, and trigger at the right instant. Consequently, quite often, we simply forget to do what we intend.

In fact, the further away in the future a tricky activity must be performed, the more likely it is to fall through the cracks. In those moments, we blame our memory, or psychology. We suspect it reflects a lack of personal motivation.

But the most effective professionals have found a way to recall tasks later, every time. But their performance has nothing to do with their mental ability or willpower. What can you do to be more like them?: flawless.

1. Forget About Using Memory

Some believe that the right answer is to cut down your commitments, but that isn’t a real solution for people of even average ambition. Don’t surrender. Instead, craft task management techniques which match your aspirations.

Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. First, you’ll have to undo mistakes you are making and untruths you were taught.

One mistake is to continue using your memory to track tasks. Why? Unless you have relaxed into a simple retirement, you are already committing to more tasks than you can recall. This is the direct outcome of being an engaged employee.

Unfortunately, your brain is no longer 11 years old. It cannot track tasks the way it once did, without help. Inside of a complex life, it doesn’t keep up.

Instead, give your memory the sack. Take away the job of tracking tasks and hire an external tool. You’ll stop complaining about the onset of early dementia, and, like the most accomplished professionals, your focus will shift.

When these exceptional individuals fail to manage their tasks, they talk about systemic issues instead of personality weaknesses. They know they use a system comprised of a range of paper and digital tools, and they are willing to upgrade it as needed to stay on top of a growing task volume.

As such, when there’s a failure, they change their system, rather than feeling guilty, or stupid.

Thus, they reverse a pernicious untruth. In school, we were shown that smart kids who did well on tests could remember everything; hence, their high marks. The irony is that, as an adult, the wise move is to do the opposite and stop using what’s called “prospective memory” for to-dos.

It’s fine to use “retrospective memory” to recall facts and figures. If you’re in the horse racing industry, don’t forget the number of yards in a furlong. You need this kind of memory to perform your job.

But when it comes to prospective memory, the best practice is to overturn what you were taught.

2. The Replacements

Once you make the commitment to unlearn the use of memory, don’t delay. Most start with a task or to-do list, usually written on paper. But nowadays, some of your younger colleagues are skipping over paper, going straight to a simple task app on their smartphones. So can you.

That should work for a while until you take on more tasks. Then, you should upgrade to a more powerful task management app. After that, with more growth, you will need to switch to using a calendar or even an auto-scheduler.

But these aren’t just matters of taste.

You should follow the described sequence in order to augment your capacity. To illustrate, think of a spoon as a device to transfer some soil. But if you want to move more earth, you should probably switch to a hand-trowel, shovel, wheelbarrow or tractor. Notice that each tool has greater capacity. But the “right” solution is the one that fits the job at hand.

The same applies to your choice of paper task list, simple task app, complex task app, digital calendar, auto-scheduler or trained administrative assistant. Once again, pick the right one from the lineup for your current circumstances. Then, keep an eye on early warning signs, which indicate it’s time to switch.

These aren’t common lessons taught in school. However, as quality task management becomes a hallmark of high professionalism, they are becoming widely accepted.

It’s ironic – the best memory for all your adult to-dos isn’t actually memory at all – not if you want perfection. Use a system that matches the depth of your commitments. In these tumultuous times, this is a terrific aspiration to create for 2022.

P.S. Registration is now open for the Task Management & Time Blocking Virtual Summit coming up on March 3-5, 2022.