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If you haven’t heard about Kanban before (which many of our productivity enthusiasts had not, so you’re not alone!) started as a lean manufacturing process by Taiichi Ohno. It has since branched off into a process management and improvement method used by many in the productivity community (especially in the Lean, Six Sigma and Agile communities). In practical terms, with Personal Kanban, you create a visual process management system (Kanban means “billboard” in Japanese) for what you’re going to do, what you're currently working on, and how much you want to do (or what’s been done). There are many tools out there that help manage these kinds of boards and different styles for facilitating the boards. That's what we discuss in this latest episode of ProductivityCast! N.B. Ray mentioned mistakenly kanban was developed in the 1960s/70s but it was actually developed in the 1940s/50s. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/061 for clickable links, 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 | Personal Kanban Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Art Gelwicks Francis Wade Show Notes | Personal Kanban Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll Rules of Personal Kanban Visualize your workLimit your work-in-progress Post-It Notes Trello MeisterTask Wekan Microsoft Planner Notion Being Productive podcast hosted by Art Gelwicks 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 0:23I'm Francis Wade. Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud. Art Gelwicks 0:25 And I'm Art Gelwicks. Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:26 And we are back this week with an episode on a topic that I really enjoy talking about. Because it's such an interesting flavor of a productivity system. What we're going to do today is we're going to talk about personal kanban, which is both a methodology and a book very similar to getting things done by David Allen. And so Personal Kanban mapping work navigating life as a book by Tony and Mario Berry and Jim Benson. And the history of it is actually found in combine the TGO, no lean manufacturing process that was developed back in I believe, the 60s or 70s, I could be wrong about that. But the idea here is that it has since branched off into a process management and proven methodology. The ideas behind Kanban have since branched off into process management and improvement methods used by many in the productivity community, especially in the Lean Six Sigma and agile communities.

Are you always hearing excuses from others about why they didn't get something done? Or, are you coming to terms with making excuses yourself for commitments you are making and breaking? In this cast, we discuss the particulars of excuses (and making justifications, and perhaps appropriates "reasons") for not getting a task or project completed. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/060 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 | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses Ray Sidney-Smith Augusto Pinaud Francis Wade Show Notes | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context. The Difference Between a Reason and an Excuse (Because the world does not need another thumb sucker) QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life by John G. Miller How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein “Responsibility” - Werner Erhard Dunning-Kruger Effect First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Gallup and Marcus Buckingham Raw Text Transcript | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses 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 we are back this week to talk about a topic that we have been really excited about, or I've been really excited about talking about, which is the idea of excuses. So many times, we ourselves experienced the idea of making excuses for getting things done. And we hear excuses from others about what they should have, would have could have done and didn't. And so I know that Augusto Francis and myself, we hear this quite often in our world of dealing with people in their productive lives. And so we've heard a lot of excuses. That's, that's all we're going to say there. And so what we wanted to do in this episode was to talk about the idea of what is the difference between excuses and reasons for not getting what you said, you're going to get done, done. And then talking about some of the excuses we we do internally, that is the excuses that we give ourselves when we are not getting things done, and how to overcome those, hopefully, a couple of tips on how to do that. And then how to deal with excuses from others, whether they be at home or in the workplace, how do we respond to excuses so that we can all be more productive along any project path, whether or goal that we might have. So let's get started with the idea that there is a difference between reason and an excuse. I'm going to start off with an interesting gentleman, he wrote a medium article called the difference between a reason and an excuse because the world does not need another thumb sucker by Gary Ryan Blaine. And I'm not going to fully read all of these.

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,