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Get More Out of Your Calendar: Forecasting, Budgeting and Tracking Your Day

In this week's episode, the ProductivityCast team chats about how to track and manage time in a calendar/agenda style format to be more productive. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/134 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 Get More Out of Your Calendar from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Get More Out of Your Calendar Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Get More Out of Your Calendar Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. SortdMacSparkyAcuity SchedulingCalendlyManicTimeUnscheduleIkigai 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 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:22 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're gonna be talking about getting more out of your calendar, how to track time in a calendar interface to an agenda style format, so that you can actually be more productive. And so let's get into the topic related to utilizing your calendar for tracking it is something that is probably common to many of us, that is we are used to the calendar format, we we've been raised to see time in either a monthly, weekly, even a day style agenda. And so we're very comfortable with laying things out. It is just another form of list in a, you know, in a matrix or otherwise. And so the idea of a calendar is useful to us. And I'm curious from all of you, how do you use a calendar for tracking? Let's start off with events? Since I think it's probably the most common style and way of or, or data that you would capture into a calendar? It's it's the most common form of data that you would capture into a calendar format, which is what is going to happen in the future? And so how do you how do you use a calendar in that sense, and then we can perhaps, then turn over to the task or in Francis's terms, time demand space to think about how you would capture, forecast budget, and ultimately track the things that are happening in your productivity system. Francis Wade 1:57The way I do it, is to schedule the appointments in and then use an auto scheduler to fill in the gaps, so to speak, to put the flexible tasks in the times that I don't already have committed. But I think what you're alluding to is that that's that's the first part. And it might be even the easy part, the subsequent parts, which we all do, would do to some degree. And I think we all do mentally anyway, is we ask what whole? Well, did I build a schedule? And then how do I improve it in the future? How do I how do I do better? Scheduling in the future, because we've all the planning fallacy is real for all of us. We've all said all this to take an hour and five hours later, we're groaning and struggling.
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How to Sell a Disruption to Your Executives

You’re the member of an executive suite who has battled the COVID-19 pandemic alongside your colleagues. As the world adjusts to accommodate the virus, it’s high time to look beyond the mere survival of your company. But…surprise! Not everyone on the senior team or board agrees this is urgent. Do you garner full support first or power ahead, hoping laggards will catch up later?

Now that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, most leaders are ready to move past survival mode. Today, companies must thrive in waters churned up by COVID-19, inflationary recession, armed conflict and unsteady supply chains.

However, a few visionary managers have outgrown a yearning for the old normal. Some are convinced that customer behavior has changed…permanently. They also expect new competitors to attack from anywhere in the world.

In their minds, there is no going back. They see once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to transform everything by moving forward.

However, their impatience to seize the future and disrupt their markets isn’t shared by all their fellow leaders. Board members, executives and senior managers are showing a mixed bag of commitment and reluctance. Why can’t they see the obvious?

  1. They are stuck in short-term habits

Disruptive thinking requires an ability to think in the long-term. But the past few years have prioritized short term, firefighting skills. Many corporate leaders have thrived by learning how to set everything aside, other than the bare essentials. In this emergency mode, they have adapted by becoming hyper-alert, flexible and willing to exert a great deal of energy at a moment’s notice.

But it’s not enough. In fact, their transition up the organizational ladder requires more strategic thinking, not less.

The bad news is that these skills aren’t taught, nor is their need emphasized. Consequently, you find top executives and even board members silent in strategic planning retreats. While they can rally to any emergency, they lack the practice of asking themselves: “Where is the organization headed?” They become the kind of leaders who win battles, but lose wars.

However, it’s never too late for a reboot. Long before your next planning session, create opportunities in meetings at all levels to explore strategic choices. These discussions should help develop staff’s willingness to think in both short- and long-term dimensions at the same time. This crucial skill will make its way into the culture of the organization, preparing it for later disruptions.

  1. They lack the skill of precise long-term planning

Newly promoted executives discover that an enthusiasm to be strategic is just the beginning. For example, in the middle of a retreat, when they are asked to create a detailed 20 and 30 year plan, they balk: “I can only think five years out.” Or, “Things are changing too quickly to look that far ahead.”

Too many leaders assume that because they can’t see how long-term planning works, it must not be possible.

When shown multiple examples of successful cases, their resistance softens, but the point is not to change their minds. It’s much more important to give them the necessary skill of long-term planning.

Unfortunately, even the best business schools only hint at this capability. If you’re an MBA, you may recall courses on strategic planning. But the case method of discussion which most use isn’t intended to teach you actual steps. That comes from real-life, and some lucky exposure.

However, the process is easy enough to follow, even for skeptical team members. In prior columns, I have laid out the steps in detail. Observe them, and you will have a skill which can be yours forever.

Don’t ignore the need to develop this competence among your leaders.

  1. They won’t collaborate

If you’re a top executive, you probably hate the occasions when you have to force people to act. At most, you receive grudging compliance. But you don’t get true understanding or intrinsic motivation, i.e. buy-in. Therefore, you feel forced to micro-manage.

Nevertheless, you won’t produce a disruptive strategy following this method. Why? A lasting, game-changing plan is beyond the brilliance of a single individual. Instead, it takes a multi-disciplinary team to envision the breakthrough and implement it together.

While a collaborative approach requires more time and interpersonal skills, it’s the only one which is sustainable. Selling a disruption to teammates calls for extraordinary capabilities, but these aren’t ordinary times. The remaining months of 2023 are a chance to separate your company from the Blackberrys in your industry…the failures. Make the most of it by including your colleagues from the very beginning in a smart way.

Francis Wade is the host of the Caribbean Strategy Conference on June 23-25. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.

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Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System

This week, the ProductivityCast team talks about how to set up effective reminders when you're time blocking (or time chunking) as your primary productivity system. The conversation turns out much more useful for anyone looking to set up an effective reminder system. Enjoy! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/133 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening! If you'd like to continue discussing Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Time Blocking and Time Chunking: Setting Up an Effective Reminder System Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Time Blocking Defined; Why Time Blockers Need Effective Reminders West Wing (TV series) What’s Available Today? What You Should Look for in a Reminder System? Google CalendarApple CalendarMicrosoft CalendarApple RemindersGoogle TasksGoogle KeepMicrosoft’s Scheduled Tasks (Task Scheduler)Checker PlusZapierIFTTTMicrosoft PowerAutomateWindows Scheduled TasksTodoist RemindersOmniFocusGoogle AssistantApple SiriAmazon AlexaChecker Plus for Google Calendar™ EvernoteGboard (Android) / Gboard (iOS) (voice typing on Android/iOS) 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 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are 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 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:25Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we're going to be talking about time blocking, sometimes called time chunking. And Francis brought this topic. So I'm gonna hand this over to Francis to kind of open us up in terms of kind of explaining to us what time blocking is. And what we're going to do today is have a little bit of a conversation around the idea of an effective reminder system, how do you set up reminder systems? And why is it important as a time blocker or time chunker, to go ahead and have reminders, remind you at the both appropriate time and a level, so to speak, and maybe Francis can speak to that a little bit. So that you can really do what you need to do when you need to do it where you need to do it. So Francis, for those of you who are maybe have no idea what time blocking is, can you explain for listeners, what time blocking is? Francis Wade 1:15Sure, it's a technique in which you put a task a flexible task in your calendar. So in other words, you're moving it either from your memory or from a to do list and you're putting it on your calendar. In other words, you're assigning a time and the day and the duration to a task that you could do at different times. So you're pinning it, in other words to a specific spot in your calendar. And in general, it's it's not a technique that everyone needs to use,
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Getting Everyone Aboard the Strategy Development Train

Your company is one which builds its strategic plan around an individual’s ideas. But even if the “Big Man” is a brilliant entrepreneur-founder, is it a good idea to include a host of other stakeholders in the process? If the current method isn’t obviously broken, why fix it?

Some argue: if a strategic plan is little more than words, who cares how they were written? This popular sentiment leads companies to assemble plans in a hurry, including as few people as possible. After all, “too many cooks spoil the broth”. And there’s always time to convince board members and staff that the soup tastes great…after the fact.

However, if you are interested in a more inclusive way, here are some methods. They promise a better product and a greater chance of success.

Missing Board Members

In some organizations, the board is excluded from strategic planning activities. Once the final product is completed, they are expected to offer cursory comments, if any.

This approach undermines advisors who have the time and wisdom to think about the big picture: the future of the organization. Untethered from the daily grind, boards are well-suited to consider PESTER forces: Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Economy and Regulatory/Legal.

If they aren’t capable of this analysis, uninterested, or not permitted…then ask: “Why bother with a board?”

In both private and public sectors, this hard question is rarely asked. Consequently, some board members take a passive approach, failing to show up at meetings and retreats. Their abysmal performance goes unchecked, hidden under a veneer of collegial “blighs”. Friendship trumps stewardship, to the detriment of all concerned.

Instead, have a board which exhibits the highest standard. Or have none at all.

Checked-out Executives

Your senior managers are probably the best result-producers in your company. Why? After all, their track records helped them climb the corporate ladder.

However, these skills have little to do with strategic planning. As such, they feel uncomfortably ill-equipped to think for the long-term. Also, organization-wide cause-and-effect relationships are hard to grasp. Plus, there’s never enough data to make easy decisions and set targets.

They would gladly skip this year’s retreat and leave the whole awkward business to the founder/Big Boss. She can do the heavy lifting. All they need to do is provide a quick blessing once the dust has settled.

In simpler times, with a small organization, this may have worked. Unfortunately, today’s complex COVID-era challenges require more. The full team, with its wide range of skills and experiences, must bring all it can muster to the activity.

Given the fact that your company should be developing a game-changing strategy for 2023, it’s folly to disengage the best minds. Instead, help stakeholders to embrace their incompetence in this area and start learning.

Uninterested Staff

Jamaican executives are often dismayed at their staff’s reaction to the announcement of their grand strategy. First there is silence, followed by a seeming lack of curiosity. No questions are asked, and most employees seem happy to delegate 100% ownership (and blame) to the organization’s leaders.

The conclusion senior managers draw is that staff is disengaged.

That may not be the best interpretation. Consider that the typical non-executive spends most of his/her time on daily tactics. Unfortunately, when faced with questions about the strategic future of the company, they flounder.

The general remedy might be the same for board, executive and staff: engage them all at the start of the process. Conduct open sessions defining the challenges the organization faces. Use PESTER to describe the environment. Ask for stories about competitors, especially if they are indirect, or based outside the Caribbean.

Arrange interviews, focus groups and online surveys to ensure these three levels consider the future and the cost of inaction. At one level, you are asking for their input. But at another, you are sharing responsibility.

Now, your planning retreat becomes more than a mere meeting. It’s a venue to place bets about the future of your enterprise. While it’s not as random as a casino, you need everyone’s best thinking to come together to make the most of your industry’s uncertainty.

This task is so hard that many organizations skip the exercise altogether. They hope that the status quo should suffice. By contrast, leading companies embrace the challenge. They don’t shrink away, but see their courage as a competitive advantage.

Winston Churchill said: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” You may not have a country to defend against Nazis, but your stakeholders will need to do some heavy lifting. It’s the only way to bring everyone onto the same page.

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Why Task Lists Fail?

In this week’s cast, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art discuss why task lists fail in your personal productivity systems? And, we offer some tips for making task lists that are resilient to our workaday worlds. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/132 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 Why Task Lists Fail? from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Why Task Lists Fail? Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Why Task Lists Fail? Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. How to Master the Art of To-Do Lists by Understanding Why They Fail : iDoneThis blog Todoist Remember the Milk 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 0:00Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place. ProductivityCast the weekly show about all things productivity, here are your hosts, 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 0:23I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this action packed episode of ProductivityCast. Today, we are going to be talking about Action Lists, actually, we're gonna be talking about task lists, and really what they're all about, why do we have them? Why do we use them, and some of the common pitfalls that people experience while they are trying to manifest and utilize their task lists. And this is a perennial topic, but I think it was triggered by an article that we picked up from the I done this.com site. And we thought we would have a discussion around some of the things that people really do get hung up on when it comes to task lists. So let's start the conversation off around the idea of why do we have a task list? What is the purpose of a task list, and let's go from there. Art Gelwicks 1:10we start off with the common knowledge of everybody visualizes a task list. And it's a list of items with checkboxes next to it. And that's usually, unfortunately, as far as people will think. But a task list is so much more than that. And it's not just things to do, I think one of the biggest problems we get into and we saw this in the article, we've seen this, in numerous conversations about this topic, is understanding the scope of what a task list can do for us, rather than what we can do for it saying apologies to JFK. So when we think about a task list, we're initially trying to capture all those little things that we have to do on a given day, given week, given month, whatever. And we're trying to get those off of that list. Well, that becomes an action in and of itself, trying to clear that listing. I, I suppose that a task list is probably one of the best tracking and planning tools we have available to us. We use all different kinds of tools. But if you if you take a task list and you soup it up, you start to get into a project management tool. So wait, if it has that level of capability with just some extra features. What can a regular task list do to us do for us? Well,
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Why 5-Year Plans Aren’t Strategic. They’re Dangerous

Almost all corporate plans cover the next five years. However, many companies go not a single month further. In other words, they survive on one five-year plan after another. If you have ever questioned the wisdom of this practice, keep reading.

Your strategic planning team meets and decides to limit its time horizon to only five years. Why? “It’s too hard to know what will happen in the future.” It’s true. The past two years have brought COVID, the recession, a war and other rude surprises. Companies’ best intentions lay in tatters.

Given the amount of change we have experienced, some say it’s folly to think past the short-term. In their mind, leaders will be so wrong about the future that it makes no sense to think too far out. The idea seems perilous.

If your managers are thinking along these lines, they aren’t alone. Around the world, the focus of attention has been on survival tactics. They keep the top line viable, limit costs, micro-manage workers performing their duties and secure supply chains.

Why then, should your company consider the creation of a new long-term plan? Here are three reasons we have gleaned in two decades of experience with clients who craft 15-30 year plans.

= Your 5-Year Plan is Just a Dull Revision

If your executive team is like many, it may be “mailing in” the strategic plan. In a half-hearted effort and minor revisions, the old plan merely becomes the new one.

Your Pre-COVID thinking is fully preserved.

This contrasts with the best companies, which are undertaking a fundamental re-think. They realize that more changes have taken place in two pandemic years than in the prior 20, shifting the underlying unmet needs of customers.

Furthermore, competitors are using the opportunity to craft “Blue Ocean” spaces which have never existed before. Consider the way Digicel entered the mobile phone market in 2001. Inside the walls of the incumbent, C&W leadership fought the notion of a pent-up demand for cell phones. The long lines on the first day of free competition propelled the new entrant to regional prominence.

If your company is too busy or lacks the energy to do a rethink, prepare for its own rude surprise.

= Your 5-Year Plan is For You, Not Them

While the Great Resignation is slow to reach the Caribbean, this hasn’t stopped the Big Disengagement. Your most talented and accomplished employees are withholding discretionary effort, searching for outside opportunities, and starting side-hustles in the meantime. Their faces are on the screen, but their dreams lie elsewhere.

However, when you announce a fresh strategy, their ears perk up. They want to see whether or not there is something worth staying around for.

Unfortunately, if all they hear is a “new” five-year plan, they will accelerate their plans to leave. It’s written proof: the company’s leaders are just as clueless as they suspected. And self-serving.

The fact is, a long-term strategic plan signals that the future is being secured by savvy creativity, rather than lost by selfish short-sight. It could craft a legacy to be celebrated.

= Your 5-Year Plan Ignores Technology Trends

The whole point of planning for a long horizon is to place intelligent bets now that shape the future. Understanding technology trends helps you do so effectively.

In your industry, these transformations have probably accelerated due to COVID. Companies who have accepted this fact and planned accordingly, are thriving. By contrast, the laggards are stuck teaching their employees how to use Excel and PowerPoint in face-to-face classrooms. They already failed. Perhaps they believed that the digital future would take care of itself.

Today, you know the truth. Organizations which fail to invest in younger, digitally savvy talent will reap the sour fruit of stale thinking. Their strategies won’t disrupt their industries.

This isn’t to say that it’s easy to create a 30-year strategic plan. However, some believe it can be captured in a nebulous vision statement.

Unfortunately, in today’s fast-moving world, these pronouncements arouse the suspicion of staff. Fancy words aren’t enough. Without a roadmap, they simply won’t trust grandiose statements which have no foundation.

To carve a credible route, adopt tools like back casting and the Merlin Process to connect the future to today. Yes…people want Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG’s), but they must be grounded in feasible logic.

The timing may be right for you to create more than a mere five-year plan. It could exploit opportunities which, perhaps for a limited time, beckon your organization to achieve great things. It’s the best way to stay out of danger.

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

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Learning and the Four Stages of Curiosity

This week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art discuss learning and four stages of curiosity. Curious what they are? Listen in and learn! 😉 (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/131 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 learning and the four stages of curiosity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Learning and the Four Stages of Curiosity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Learning and the Four Stages of Curiosity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. From Procedural Knowledge To Self Knowledge: The 4 Stages Of Curiosity  Montessori education 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 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:28Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. This week, we're going to be talking about what we're calling the four stages of curiosity. And it actually came out from an article that Francis Wade had come across. And so Francis, do you want to kind of open us up in terms of this topic today. And then we'll get into a little bit of our agenda. Francis Wade 0:46Sure, it has to do with knowledge acquisition or learning, the idea is pretty straightforward that you move from initially taking directions from someone who is an expert, someone who knows a lot more than you do. And you graduate from the bottom level to the point where you need to essentially create your own knowledge in order to make progress. Because there's lots of areas that we want to know something a lot about. If you get stuck at any one level, it'll the idea of the article is that if you get stuck at any one level, then it will actually for your development. So the idea is to notice when it's time to move to the next level, and then use the techniques that are appropriate for that low in order to keep making progress in the chosen area of interest. The concept that was provided was done in the in the form of a diagram, and we're gonna go over that, but it's a pyramid. And so that pyramid diagram starts with with four levels, in essence, hence, the four stages of curiosity. And as we make our way through today, you will hear us talking about those four levels. And we will explain those very shortly. And so today, what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the four stages. And just to give some preface here, the four stages are in Francis's terms here, process starting at the base of the level content, that is the next here, upper stage two, stage three is known transfer, and then stage four unknown future, let's get into the defining of the four stages. And then we'll talk about each of the stages in order. For instance, do you want to give us a little bit of background in terms of the items here...
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Leaders Failing to Adjust to Remote Work

As a manager, you may be in trouble. In the past two years, new ways of remote working have come out of nowhere and the debate is on: should you resume face-to-face working? Part of you wants work to be efficient, but another part hopes that everyone will come back to the office. Is this an unreasonable ask?

In your career, you probably have experienced a few micro-managers. With a patina of distrust, they hover over their people to ensure that they do what they are supposed to.

The sad fact is that this technique works, especially with manual workers. But it’s not faring well with knowledge workers. It’s hard to micro-manage in the COVID era. Why?

Stalking employees via WhatsApp or email messages just looks crazy. Installing software to inspect every keystroke feels like Big Brother. Calling staff randomly for casual “check-ins” can’t hide an unfortunate fact: they have lost their initiative.

The truth is, whatever intrinsic motivation they ever had has disappeared. Instead of being an excited newcomer to the organization, they have turned into drones. Now, they go through the motions, pretending to be engaged.

Consequently, you see yourself as the victim in all this…the unlucky recipient of poor employees. “If only I could get some good people,” you think, “I wouldn’t need to treat them this way.” You dream of a time when you could sit back as intrinsically motivated workers willingly produce their best work. How can you reach this end-point from where you are today?

  1. Fire Yourself

Here’s a shocking conclusion: your incompetence is showing.

What are you missing? The truth is: you don’t know how to manage people in a way that preserves their initial enthusiasm. Under your watch, staff with potential and energy become mediocre.

If this fits, consider getting rid of yourself: the part of you that COVID has revealed to be a weak manager. It may suggest that you quit the job, but here’s an alternative.

Instead, undertake a transformation in the way you manage. Start with a ruthless self-inventory of your performance. Ask for input from a coach, your immediate supervisor, and those who report to you. Pick an area to work on and start to make improvements.

  1. Upgrade Your Workers

In many cases, your company has hired employees who are not sufficiently self-directed. This has not helped. But if you have already undertaken a personal transformation that inspires others, you may also be making some more cynical. You must act on workers’ mindsets.

Partner with HR to build a process for identifying the most entrepreneurial recruits. Hint: they won’t be the ones who follow orders without question. Instead, look for people who could one day start their own business.

Why? An effective remote worker has more in common with a self-employed freelancer than a typical office worker. They manage their time, take responsibility for deliverables, and put work above insider-politics.

However, there will be some employees who can’t change fast enough.

  1. Transform the Culture

The majority of workers may not be bad: just used to an old way of doing business. It might be best to effect a cultural transformation.

In the change projects I have experienced, the end-result looks like an injection of personal responsibility. In other words, staff are willing to step up and say that things aren’t working, and publicly claim the part they are playing to fix them.

After all, the most responsible employees work well from anywhere. They empower themselves in the way they talk about their relationships. How? There’s almost no trace of the victim/poor-me stance taken by those who require constant supervision.

Once your organization starts to experience this shift, support the positive moves people make towards the ideal. Over-share so that folks come to see examples of self-motivation.

Also, paint a picture of how managers function in this new, remote dispensation. When behavior falls or degrades at any level, everyone should be able to identify it clearly.

But above all, resist a lazy slip into the way things used to work. For most companies, COVID has opened the door to a new kind of self-empowerment. Some staff have blossomed as a result.

Don’t drag them back to the office just because your least effective managers and workers are not delivering. Instead, forge a culture built around the most responsible staff. In other words, focus on creating more of what you want.

You are likely to feel uncomfortable waiting for the right answers to emerge. But don’t stop the search. You aren’t taking the path of least resistance; you’re fighting to bring forth a new normal.

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Leaders Failing to Adjust to Remote Work

As a manager, you may be in trouble. In the past two years, new ways of remote working have come out of nowhere and the debate is on: should you resume face-to-face working? Part of you wants work to be efficient, but another part hopes that everyone will come back to the office. Is this an unreasonable ask?

In your career, you probably have experienced a few micro-managers. With a patina of distrust, they hover over their people to ensure that they do what they are supposed to.

The sad fact is that this technique works, especially with manual workers. But it’s not faring well with knowledge workers. It’s hard to micro-manage in the COVID era. Why?

Stalking employees via WhatsApp or email messages just looks crazy. Installing software to inspect every keystroke feels like Big Brother. Calling staff randomly for casual “check-ins” can’t hide an unfortunate fact: they have lost their initiative.

The truth is, whatever intrinsic motivation they ever had has disappeared. Instead of being an excited newcomer to the organization, they have turned into drones. Now, they go through the motions, pretending to be engaged.

Consequently, you see yourself as the victim in all this…the unlucky recipient of poor employees. “If only I could get some good people,” you think, “I wouldn’t need to treat them this way.” You dream of a time when you could sit back as intrinsically motivated workers willingly produce their best work. How can you reach this end-point from where you are today?

  1. Fire Yourself

Here’s a shocking conclusion: your incompetence is showing.

What are you missing? The truth is: you don’t know how to manage people in a way that preserves their initial enthusiasm. Under your watch, staff with potential and energy become mediocre.

If this fits, consider getting rid of yourself: the part of you that COVID has revealed to be a weak manager. It may suggest that you quit the job, but here’s an alternative.

Instead, undertake a transformation in the way you manage. Start with a ruthless self-inventory of your performance. Ask for input from a coach, your immediate supervisor, and those who report to you. Pick an area to work on and start to make improvements.

  1. Upgrade Your Workers

In many cases, your company has hired employees who are not sufficiently self-directed. This has not helped. But if you have already undertaken a personal transformation that inspires others, you may also be making some more cynical. You must act on workers’ mindsets.

Partner with HR to build a process for identifying the most entrepreneurial recruits. Hint: they won’t be the ones who follow orders without question. Instead, look for people who could one day start their own business.

Why? An effective remote worker has more in common with a self-employed freelancer than a typical office worker. They manage their time, take responsibility for deliverables, and put work above insider-politics.

However, there will be some employees who can’t change fast enough.

  1. Transform the Culture

The majority of workers may not be bad: just used to an old way of doing business. It might be best to effect a cultural transformation.

In the change projects I have experienced, the end-result looks like an injection of personal responsibility. In other words, staff are willing to step up and say that things aren’t working, and publicly claim the part they are playing to fix them.

After all, the most responsible employees work well from anywhere. They empower themselves in the way they talk about their relationships. How? There’s almost no trace of the victim/poor-me stance taken by those who require constant supervision.

Once your organization starts to experience this shift, support the positive moves people make towards the ideal. Over-share so that folks come to see examples of self-motivation.

Also, paint a picture of how managers function in this new, remote dispensation. When behavior falls or degrades at any level, everyone should be able to identify it clearly.

But above all, resist a lazy slip into the way things used to work. For most companies, COVID has opened the door to a new kind of self-empowerment. Some staff have blossomed as a result.

Don’t drag them back to the office just because your least effective managers and workers are not delivering. Instead, forge a culture built around the most responsible staff. In other words, focus on creating more of what you want.

You are likely to feel uncomfortable waiting for the right answers to emerge. But don’t stop the search. You aren’t taking the path of least resistance; you’re fighting to bring forth a new normal.

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Caffeine-Based Productivity, Part 2

Last week, Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art started a discussion about caffeinated productivity. This week, they continue their conversation about their favorite caffeine beverages, timing them for greater productivity, and many of the varieties of caffeination available to the productivity enthusiasts out there. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/130 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 caffeine-based productivity from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Caffeine-Based Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Caffeine-Based Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. See part 1 for more caffeine-focused resourcesBETTY Flavoured Condensed Milk (Cinnamon,Vanilla,Nutmeg) | jamaicabasket876Coffee Science: How to Make the Best Pourover Coffee at Home Your Ultimate Guide to Different Types of Coffee  Is Coffee Bad for You? Is French Press Bad For You? The Surprising Facts.Is Coffee Good For You? Is Coffee Bad For You? | TIME12 Health Benefits and 6 Disadvantages of Coffee - SMASHING IT!Coffee and health: What does the research say? When Is the Best Time / Methods for Consuming Caffeine to Benefit Your Productivity? Bad News: The Best Time of the Day to Drink Coffee Isn’t as Soon as You Wake UpWhen Is the Best Time to Drink Coffee?The Best Time Of The Day To Consume CaffeineThe Best Time to Drink Coffee: Daytime, Nighttime, and More 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 0:22I'm Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:25And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26Welcome, gentlemen. And welcome to our listeners to this episode of ProductivityCast. We are going to be continuing our conversation from last episode caffeine based productivity. And in the last episode, we really talked about the kind of foundational elements of caffeine, how it interacts with your body tips around really dealing with the different types of caffeine that you can come across, you know the many different types of caffeine. So if you have not listened to that episode, feel free to snap back to the prior episode. And listen to that. In this episode, what I wanted to do was have the ProductivityCast team here really talk about the different types of coffee based drinks that we consume, maybe some of the tea based drinks that we consume as well, that may or may not be the typical black coffee or tea, then we can talk about the ways in which we make coffee and tea. From a productivity perspective, what I want us to do is think about how we make our coffee and tea productively. That is to say, What's the best way to make it when we want to have it made quickly and efficiently? Well, I want to talk a little bit about some of the health benefits, people should have concerns or health disadvantages that we should hav...