Episodes

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 ...

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 p...

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 disc...

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 th...

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 link...

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. ...

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 m...

Are you struggling with controlling interruptions that are hampering your productivity? This week, the ProductivityCast team looks at the issues surrounding interruptions and how we can do our best to mitigate and manage them when they happen. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/052 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 discus...

In this week's episode, the ProductivityCast team discusses managing digital notebooks. With so much data flowing through your systems, taking and keeping track of our notes and reference information in our software of choice is critical to our personal productivity. How do you manage your digital notebooks? (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/051 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.) Enjoy! Give us fee...

Welcome to our Productivity App-apalooza! Premiere Edition! Ray, Augusto, Francis and Art use and experiment with hundreds of apps per year in our productive lives. So, we've decided to these Productivity App-apalooza episodes every so often to cover software and services that we use and recommend to others. We hope you enjoy, and let us know the apps you're using that are helping you be more productive! (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.ne...

In this episode of ProductivityCast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, we have the pleasure of bringing you our very first interview! They won’t be often, but sprinkled in, we think that hearing outside voices of productivity experts would be a valued addition to the personal productivity conversations we have. This week, we’re delighted we got to sit down with Taylor Jacobson, founder and CEO of Focusmate, a virtual coworking platform for personal productivity enthusiasts ...

Today, so much of our lives are lived in the ever-flowing river of data that we produce, consume and discard. But, what if you lose that data? What if your data gets compromised by some bad actor on the Internet? Do you have a plan in place to backup that data? That’s the topic of today’s cast -- creating a data backup storage system. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit http://productivitycast.net/048 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this...

This is episode nine, Reflections on GTD: What I Wish I Knew When I Started GTD, Part Two, and therefore the last in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. In this cast, Augusto Pinaud, Francis Wade, Art Gelwicks and I discuss what we wish we knew when we first started or came across Getting Things Done, the book...

This is episode eight, Reflections on GTD: What I Wish I Knew When I Started GTD, Part One, and our second-to-last in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. In this cast, Augusto, Francis and I discuss what we wish we knew when we first started or came across Getting Things Done, the book and methodology, as we t...

This is episode seven, where we discuss the powerful productivity practice of the Weekly Review, in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. “The Weekly Review is the time to: Gather and process all your stuff. Review your system. Update your lists. Get clean, clear, current, and complete. You have to use your mind...

This is episode six, continuing our discussion of Step Five of the Workflow Diagram / Map, Engage (Doing), in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. It makes sense that each of [the Horizons of Focus] levels should enhance and align with the ones above it. In other words, your priorities will sit in a hierarchy f...

This is episode five, on Step Five of the Workflow Diagram / Map, Engage (Do), in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. When it comes to your real-time, plow-through, get-it-done workday, how do you decide what to do at any given point?As I've said, my simple answer is, trust your heart...your gut, the seat of y...

This is episode four, on Step Four of the Workflow Diagram / Map, Reflect (Review), in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team–as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. “[...O]ne of the requirements it that you have to come back and reflect and review on your system and care and feed it and make sure that it stays current." "See a lot of the value of Gett...

Host’s note: You will notice that Art Gelwicks stopped speaking about 13 minutes into this week’s ProductivityCast about the GTD step, Organize. Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties. Our apologies for any parts where it may sound like we jumped from segment to another; it’s likely where Art was speaking and his audio wasn’t available. That said, this is episode three, on Step Three of the Workflow Diagram / Map, Organize, in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) perso...

This is episode two, on Step Two of the Workflow Diagram / Map, Clarify (formerly Process), in our nine-part series on the Getting Things Done (GTD) personal productivity methodology and eponymously-titled book, from the perspective of the ProductivityCast team--as long-term practitioners, critics and observers of GTD. “Without a next action, there remains a potentially infinite gap between current reality and what you need to do.” ~David Allen In this episode, we discuss how we all define Clari...

Over the next nine episodes, we are going to be in conversation about Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. We are going to talk about each of the steps in the GTD Workflow Diagram / Map. We will cover capturing, clarifying, organizing, reflecting and engaging, then a discussion about Weekly Review. Finally, we will cover what we wish we knew when we started our GTD practices many years ago. In this first cast in this series, we discuss GTD's first step in the ...

In Episode 037, we discussed the power of routines in your day, and specifically, your morning routine. In this episode, we cover the evening routine and how to make your evening routine a productivity enabler in your life. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit http://productivitycast.net/038 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 discuss this episode, please click h...

There’s a long-standing misconception (in Ray Sidney-Smith's humble opinion) that habits are how you become more productive. But, it’s actually your routines that power your habits, and therefore, your personal productivity. In this episode of ProductivityCast, we discuss the power of routines, and specifically look at the morning routine. We discuss each of our morning routines and discuss some challenges facing building a good morning routine. (If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app...

Commonly, we discuss how to better manage your personal productivity through the effective use of task lists. Today, we discuss a counterintuitive productivity concept that Augusto Pinaud has been using for many years--the "Do-Not-Do" List. In this way, this is another use of task lists but, in this case, it's a way to identify what you shouldn't do. In this episode of ProductivityCast, we discuss the idea of the Do-Not-Do list and how you might use it in your personal productivity system. (If y...