News

We all intuit the importance of our spaces in being and staying productive throughout the workday. Yet, companies and management have different goals and objectives when it comes to how they structure those spaces. In today's cast, we discuss the topic of open office spaces, and whether or not they are a productivity enabler or disabler. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/059 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Open Office Spaces Ray Sidney-Smith Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Open Office Spaces Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Basecamp “The Open Plan Office Is a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Idea” “Library Rules - How to Make an Open Office Plan Work” Slack Hipchat Trello Asana Evernote Varidesk “The Essential Workplace” “The future office is here” 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 Welcome one and all to productivitycast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Francis Wade 0:23 I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:24 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 And welcome everybody to this episode of productivity casts where we will be discussing the topic that is quite complicated in terms of management and physical layout, and so on so forth. It's the idea of open office spaces, and whether or not their productivity enablers or disable errors. And this topic came up because I came across several articles from the gentleman who started the company base camp, formerly 37 signals. And on their medium blog, they have been writing about the idea of Open Office plans, Open Office, open plan offices, and whether or not they're good or bad for staff generally. But more importantly for us here today is about productivity, how productive our employees in an open office plan environment. And there are pros and cons to both sides. And I wanted us to have a discussion about that topic today. So let's, let's kind of start off with each of our perspectives on the Open Office, space design concept, and what our various experiences have been in them. Art Gelwicks 1:37 I have been painfully clear over the years, I am not an advocate fan or otherwise, endorser of the Open Office movement, I don't think it's a good design. I don't think it's practical. And I think the rationale used to justify it does not hold the proverbial water. That said, there are reasons why you could have colored elaborative workspaces, which is a different thing entirely. But the idea of taking your entire staff and putting it putting them basically in a giant warehouse style room, no walls, no isolation, no opportunity to to focus, no privacy, just to be completely flies in the face of how people think how people operate, and how people basically spend one third of their lives because they're spending them at work. If I Francis Wade 2:28

You’ve likely experienced good and bad meetings in your work and personal lives. Meetings that seem to never end, or as aimless or dull that they possibly lull you to sleep or madness from boredom. On this week’s episode of ProductivityCast, we cover the anatomy of a successful meeting so that if you’re able to, you can lead your organizational gatherings, volunteer group huddles, church committee confabs, and/or family meetings in a positive, productive direction. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/058 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Anatomy of a Successful Meeting Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Show Notes | Anatomy of a Successful Meeting Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Doodle LettuceMeet Advisory Board Anatomy of a Great Meeting 3M Meeting Anatomy Guide Outlook group scheduling Google Calendar group scheduling N.B. G Suite Calendar allows you to see coworkers’ availability for scheduling (if your G Suite Administrator allows it), as well. GTD DC Meetup GTD NYC Meetup Everlast Rocketbook notebooks Raw Text Transcript | Anatomy of a Successful Meeting 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 0:25I'm Francis Wade. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 And today we are going to be talking about the anatomy of a successful meeting. everybody listening likely has an understanding has an emotional response to the worst meeting that they probably attended last week. And we wanted to talk today about how to make meetings more successful, how do you how do you really manufacture successful meetings, even when perhaps you're not the person who is managing or organizing the event. So what I wanted to do for us today is first to walk through what really is, and are the parts of a successful meeting, both in preparation, participation and post Ops, I wanted us as a group to discuss how we manage participation during meetings before, during and after, and ultimately have a discussion about some of the the skills that we have to have in terms of communicating during the meeting, presenting and facilitating meetings, as well as closing out meetings, which can sometimes be difficult. So let's start off with what makes a successful meeting in terms of the individual parts that make up a meeting. Francis Wade 1:44 I think it has to do with the mindset of the people who are coming into the meeting itself. A meeting is always a collaborative event between people. And the ones that take place in companies occur because the participants or someone is the someone instigates the need for the meeting. But it's not just the fact that they're instigating it, that's a potential problem is that they're doing so inside of a context inside of a culture.

What we did this week is unusual for us, but we hope this works out to be a good format for an ongoing series on the podcast. Each of us proposed an independent topic, a productivity potpourri if you will, and we asked it of the other ProductivityCast teammates. We all went round robin and answered and discussed these topics. And hopefully we get into a place where we realize, some of these topics could be its own episode with your feedback...so let us know in the comments. In this cast, we discuss these questions/topics from the ProductivityCast team: Art: If you had one piece of advice to give someone to get started on being more productive what would it be and why?Augusto: Importance to creating small changes to produce big impacts.Francis: How do you get better (i.e. more productive) over a career that spans decades?Ray: There are a plethora of tools out there today. How do you connect your various personal productivity tools to have an integrated management system? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/057 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Productivity Potpourri, Premiere Edition Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Productivity Potpourri, Premiere Edition Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox Raw Text Transcript | Productivity Potpourri, Premiere Edition 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 0:24 Welcome everyone who's listening to productivitycast to this week's episode, what we're going to do this week is a little unusual, unique, it'll be something that we may try to do in the future. If this works out to be a good format, what we're going to do is we're going to take four independent topics that each of us has come up with, and we are going to ask it of the other productivity cast team members. So we're all going to go round robin and kind of answer and discuss these many topics that I think will be quite interesting. And and hopefully we get into a place where we realize, wow, this could be its own episode by itself. So let's see what happens we'll take a little bit of time for each of us to ask the question and then go from there. So let's let's start off at the top alphabetically. Art, Art Gelwicks 1:15 one of the things that we always have to try to do is get people over that initial hump of starting to be productive. So the question I have for the three of you is, if you had to give one piece of advice to someone who was looking to get started on being productive, what would it be and why, Augusto Pinaud 1:32

Social Media is ubiquitous today. Almost every mobile or Web-based app we use has social technologies built in—like buttons and emojis, commenting, rating and review systems, and the ability to connect, share and collaborate with others. While these features have made social media technology companies billions of dollars, they have also created some deleterious effects on humanity at large. How should we consider social media in the context of our personal productivity? And, what can we do so that we are using social media productively? That’s the discussion topic on this week’s ProductivityCast. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/056 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Using Social Media Productively Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Show Notes | Using Social Media Productively Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Twitter Instagram Facebook Yammer Word Replacer II (Chrome extension) Hootsuite Buffer Instant app Gyroscope Android’s Digital Wellbeing Screen Time on iOS Freedom Cold Turkey RescueTime You’re all welcome to join the ProductivityCast channel inside the Personal Productivity Club community! 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 0:20 I am Augusto Pinaud. Francis Wade 0:24I'm Francis Wade. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome, gentlemen to productivitycast. Welcome to our listeners. For today's episode, I'm just going to get right into it. Today's episode is actually a jam packed episode where we're going to talk about social media and how to use it productively. And the conversation is going to be divided into three parts, we're going to talk about whether or not social media is doing harm to personal productivity writ large. And then we're going to move the conversation into some of the pros and cons of social media as it relates to PR productivity. And then finally, we're going to have a conversation about what can we all do with our use of social media in our productive lives. And so I'd like us to just really kick it right off with agree or disagree. Social media is doing more harm than good. for personal productivity. Augusto Pinaud 1:22 I think I agree on that statement, you know, it is one of the problem with social media is that we take for us truth, a 40 and 140 characters statement, okay, doesn't matter, the length is statement. But the fact is, you find two or three people and say, Oh, if so and so said that that needs to be truth. And we stop the research and process that in personal productivity is important. personal productivity is not a cookie cutter, you know, he's not every site, every size fits everybody, I'm not every solution. It's good for everybody. But when you just take it for granted,

We are picking up from where we left off on the last cast in our discussion of two books, The Power of When by Michael Breus, PhD, and When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Dan Pink. On this cast, we discuss the power of having an ideal daily schedule and we reflect on our own daily schedules and how we use our understanding of our chronotypes for optimal productivity. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/055 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Chronotypes and Ideal Daily Schedules Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Show Notes | Chronotypes and Ideal Daily Schedules Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Power of When by Michael Breus, PhD When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Dan Pink 4:00 A.M. A Productivity Argument. by Augusto Pinaud “Dolphin “Dolphins may or may not have a regular sleep routine. As light sleepers, they frequently wake throughout the night and often do not sleep enough. Dolphins struggle to fall asleep, ruminating over the day’s failures. “Dolphins’ extreme intelligence and tendency toward perfectionism probably explain why they spend so much time chewing over the day. They do their best work from mid-morning through early afternoon." ~ Being a Morning Person Isn’t the Key to Productivity. This Is Being Productive (Art Gelwick’s podcast) Episode 30: Active Data Tracking Episode 31: Passive Data Tracking Heat map (Productive Flourishing) 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 And I am Augusto Pinaud. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Thank you so much for being here with me. Gentlemen, we are going to be continuing our discussion from last episode, where we were talking about two distinct books, when the scientific secrets of perfect timing by Dan pink, and the power of win by Dr. Michael Bruce. So if you have not listened to that episode, go ahead and jump back in episode and listen to that episode on Chrono types and optimal productivity, which is the name of the episode and then hop on back over here and continue on, where Today we are going to be talking about our reflections on our own ideal daily schedules, and really fleshing out for for for you how we approach some of these pieces that might be in Confluence, or may be in conflict with the archetypes. And I think that'll be a fun, interesting discussion for us all this morning. Are before we got started recording, you had an interesting kind of starter question, I think that you would positive to to a gusto. You want to start with that. And we'll kind of go from there. Art Gelwicks 1:37 Sure. The question in basically was, if you studied your Chrono type,

Every day, we wake up, we go about our day, and then we go to bed. In that span of one Earth rotation, we hope to and frequently achieve our basic needs. And, many of us want to do more. This where an understanding of chronotypes and how it impacts your productivity can help! Most people know about night owls, and maybe about morning larks (or, “early birds”) and hummingbirds. But, in this cast, we discuss two books that talk about chronotypes and optimal daily productivity in some unique ways. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/054 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Chronotypes and Optimal Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Chronotypes and Optimal Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Power of When by Michael Breus, PhD Bear, Lion, Wolf, and DolphinRelationships, Fitness, Health, Sleep, Eat and Drink, Work, Creativity, Money, and FunThe Power of When Quiz (to determine your chronotype) When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Dan Pink Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink How to determine your chronotype via core body temperature: “You want to have a fairly accurate temperature reading. A lot of the ear digital thermometers are ones that are quite helpful. What you’ll start to see, again you’ll start to see these differences in core body temperature rising and falling. With my lions, their core body temperature has a tendency to rise one to two, sometimes two and a half hours earlier than my normal folks, my bears. If you wanted to, right when you wake up in the morning, you could take your core body temperature, and then right after maybe 90 minutes take it again and then about 90 minutes before bed and then right as you’re going to bed. What you’ll slowly start to discover is that your core body temperature changes at very different points in the daytime and the earlier in the day that your core body temperature makes these changes, the earlier your chronotype is.” (Source) The Temperature Test (from The Power of When by Dr. Michael Breus) Ultradian rhythm Being a Morning Person Isn’t the Key to Productivity. This Is Podcast episode: Lions, Dolphins and Bears, Oh My! With Michael Breus – #344 ProdPod: Episode 69–Day Reset Coffee nap 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. Francis Wade 0:26I'm Francis Wade. Art Gelwicks 0:27 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Francis Wade 0:25 Francis Wade, Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 So welcome, gentlemen to the show. Today, we're going to be talking about Chronotypes, Chronotyping, and the construct of ideal daily schedules for optimal productivity. And what I'd like us to do is to define Chronotypes for our audience.

Do you see the world in a half-glass-full or half-glass-empty perspective? And, pertinent to us, how does optimism versus pessimism affect your personal productivity? That’s the topic we tackle on this week’s episode of ProductivityCast. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/053 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 managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post). In this Cast | Optimism versus Pessimism for Productivity Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Optimism versus Pessimism for Productivity Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Are You an Optimist or a Pessimist? Planning Fallacy Use PERT technique for more accurate estimates World War Z (IMDb) The Productivity Paradox: Pessimism vs. Optimism The Positive Power of Negative Thinking by Julie Norem, PhD The Positive Power of Negative Thinking (article by Adam Grant, PhD) The Surprising Upside of Pessimism (And How To Use It For a Psychological Edge) Six Thinking Hats (Wikipedia) Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono, MD, PhD Transcript | Optimism versus Pessimism for Productivity 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 I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 Welcome, gentlemen, and welcome to our listeners to another action packed episode. Today we are going to be talking about an interesting psychological construct, which is optimism versus pessimism as the two constructs. And the idea here is for us to talk about optimism and pessimism as it relates to our own personal productivity. When we talk about optimism and pessimism, I think it's good to understand the definition of that. And so that's what we'll do out the gate will define optimism and pessimism. And kind of in the context of personal productivity to some great extent, will each tell whether or not we're optimists or pessimists, generally or otherwise. And and then we'll in our third segment, talk about how we actually use our own optimism or pessimism, our outlook on on the world to affect greater productivity or how we overcome it. If we are, our productivity is lessened by the impact of our outlook. So let's get started. optimism and pessimism. optimism, pessimism can really be defined very simply as optimism as a general outlook on things, having possibilities having opportunities, you see the see the world with the glass half full, as opposed to the glass half empty, and more of a personal productivity perspective. I see it more as the fact that in in a moment, we define risk differently as optimists than we do as pessimists, right, we see the the opportunity of overcoming a risk, more likely than not overcoming that risk. And I think that can be actually a very positive thing, right?