Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:03

Hello personal productivity enthusiasts and community Welcome to Anything But Idle, the productivity news podcast. Today’s show is brought to you by co working space by personal productivity club. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith.

Augusto Pinaud 0:16

And I’m Augusto Pinaud.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17

And we’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is episode one, a one. And this is for March 28 2022. Apple releases universal control and the productivity News. This week we talk about the productivity and technology news headlines of the week. And each week we do that by first talking about the articles and podcasts that come out in the productivity space. And then we do the technology articles after the break. And so Gousto start us off with our headlines for the for the articles this week.

Augusto Pinaud 0:52

The first one is an article from Inc done prize. He did as you know, study in his company about okay, what we’re going to do, are we going to come back and stay hybrid, what are we going to do and share and say, you know, I asked my employees what to work, 7% of them want to go back to the office full time 31% want to be on a hybrid model. And 62 Want to stay working at home. So what do you do as CEO, and he came with a policy that basically do come here and do the best job you have. And that’s enough. And it is a really great thing to understand. That’s what your employees one, you know, he said if you get your work done, the client incoming calls. Gotta love technology when it works the rest of the time. So I was saying, anyways, I was saying, if you get your work done, that’s all that matters. And that is the remote policy for the company. You want to stay remote, stay remote, you want to come hybrid come hybrid, you want to be full time, come full time. And I hope we’ve started looking of more of policies like this.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 2:12

Yeah, and this is the CEO gravity CEO who in the past he he gave everybody in the company a $75,000 salary, and that no matter what position you’re in the starting salary was 75,000, which set you at, you know, basically the US kind of cola cost of living. And so he’s had very progressive policies as it relates to the company to begin with. And having this remote work first perspective, I think is very powerful as an experiment and I’m curious to see how the company does going forward having this kind of remote work policy set in place. All right, next up

Augusto Pinaud 2:48

so the next one is an article from life hack. Why am I too tired to sleep and what to do and as a person who for many years burned the candle from every angle possible burn the candle it was interesting because I don’t know exactly when I begin looking self care as something important on on my list. But it is something important is sleep is something important for me and but the article goes into why you’re too tired to sleep, you know, what is over tiredness and how to prioritize back to sleep and focus on wildly of you’re asleep. Consult your doctor and all that. But what goes in this article to me is self care. We are in a culture where self care has little to no value sadly, for many people, and this is the kind of results of that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:59

Yeah, I know I noticed one additional item on the list which was sleep procrastination. This is the idea that people will put off sleeping because they feel put upon by the rest of their daytime work and so you know if you if you don’t get what what you want to do at night, then you you procrastinate on on going to sleep because you are kind of rebelling against your your daytime activities. And so there was a little bit of that also that happens as well. So be mindful of the various reasons for resisting sleep in a way and I can’t more highly recommend a book called The Power of when and this how Dr. Michael Bruce, B. R E us how Dr. Michael Burgess talks about the concept of sleep psychology and he uses a mixture between Crono typing and what is, in essence, a personality type indication. And it’s interesting to see how those two combined while while I normally would would shy away from the idea of using personality type indicators. Like the Keirsey Temperament Sorter, or those kinds of slight personality indicators for something like sleep, I was actually really impressed by the usefulness of the four he created for Chronotypes. Typically, we have, you know, three Chronotypes. But he created four, they’re all mammals. And it’s just a really interesting book to look at. And you can go to the power of when quiz calm, identify your sleep profile, and then start to really enact some of the concepts behind it very, very quick. From there, John Hazels, noting that he does some sleep sleep procrastination himself. But yes, absolutely, John, check out the power of win. That’s a really, really good book. And I’ve really appreciated reading it in the past. So alright, okay, so what’s our next story this week,

Augusto Pinaud 5:57

our next story was an article that I enjoy a lot. And then Seidel, ambition is overrated. And it stuck in about an article that we’re start talking about an article that Professor Newbridge road called Slow productivity. And I love that says, well, kind of a mini manifesto proud of the topic of his next book. But basically, what Professor Neopets said is, well, the central goal of slow productivity is to keep an individual and a volume at a sustainable level. You know, that may, and as the article mentioned, that may work in other countries, I don’t think that us Coulter will give to that. I doubt that many cultures will give to that. But she made a really great point on the article and say, I don’t really want to have less productivity or slow productivity, what I want to grow is to sustainable productivity. And I think that’s a concept to define really well is probably individual. But that is something that I can subscribe to. Let’s work into how can we sustain our productivity? Do I think that we are going to work less based on what the article from Professor Newport said, and all these? No, no, you can do that. But what he will be great is to understand what works for you, what works for your productivity, and how can you sustain it over time to avoid burning?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 7:40

Yeah, so a couple things. I think that I, I disagree with the author here. And I and I actually, this is gonna be funny to say I agree with Cal Newport. And so that’s a that’s a, not a first, but certainly a few and a second. But but the reason why I agree with him here is that he is differentiating the slow work movement. And if anybody doesn’t know about the slow work movement, definitely look at the various permutations, the corollaries of the slow work movement, that that started way back when I think it’s Carl Andre, and that whole concept, but when we when we think about what he’s talking about, regarding slow productivity, what the author of this medium article is talking about when when she talks about sustainable productivity, I don’t necessarily disagree with her. But she’s, again, coming at it from a cultural perspective, that somehow she should be working at a sustained level that is higher than everyone else, that somehow somehow she needs to be so much better than everyone else. And that is for a number of reasons, right? Systemic cultural problems that we all have to face. But at the same time, what Cal Newport is really commenting on is Congress person’s congressperson tucanos recent introduced introduction of legislation to reduce the 40 hour workweek to 32 hours on the federal level, which would mean that people would have eight hours more every week of leisure time. And for those of you who know me know how much I am a supporter of liberalism, and therefore liberal, free society, needs to make sure that we are embracing where we are going with regard to specifically US culture, and us work culture for a long time has decided that humans are widgets, and that we should just put our human widgets into companies and somehow they would just crank along like any other component of a machine. I believe we are seeing a tide shift where we’re seeing a change in perspective here. And that’s where I think that I agree with Cal Newport. I agree with Newports perspective that we are seeing a new shift. We’re just seeing a shift. Employees have now the power and it is up to them to be able to use that power to be able to shift the way in which work culture has has been doing it for probably the past 50 to 70 years. And I think we have an opportunity here to see see a change there. I don’t necessarily know if that will affect me, right. You know, I’m, I’m self employed, I don’t have the same shackles as many folks who are in the employed world and have those circumstances affecting them. But I see the opportunity there for someone who wants to work from someplace remotely, some somebody who wants to have more time with their family, somebody who wants to do more things with their free time. And those things actually benefit the the firm, right? When we talk about business or the firm, right? When people do things off clock, like knitting, or going out there and reading a book on philosophy or reading a book on Legos, whatever it is, they’re reading, they’re bringing those ideas that come from other disciplines into the business. And I think that cross pollination of ideas is where innovation comes from. And I think a lot of businesses hold themselves back because they want but in chair time, as opposed to having employees have a life work balance that actually promotes well being promotes, I would even say happiness, but basically all the the various terms, the effects that consider happiness, contentment, contentedness, joy, you know, whatever those particular pieces are, so I’m curious to see where we’re going here. Julie’s noting, Julie bestiaries, noting that she hopes I’m right, and I hope I’m right to not for the sake of just being right. But really for for the, for the the workforce itself, I think it would be really nice to see just a little bit of a shift of power here. So we have a little bit more balance between, you know, government, employers, you know, in the private sector, and then, of course, the employees themselves already Gousto onto our next story.

Augusto Pinaud 11:59

So our next story comes from rest of the world, and they did last year, according to them a profile and people in RAM Bangor, Mexico, and they’re coming now to revisit, and where are they was the pandemic, you know, what is change from the ways they were working to how this year has changed. And it is a really interesting, read to find people who is happy, you know, I’d been at home at been working at home, versus people who were saying you didn’t know what it means to work and on the floor is to who now are all all business move at home, and they are talking to companies a couple, I think what’s in buying God because they know, you know what, no, we have figured it out, you know, when one of us a conference call, the other one goes to the kitchen, and come back and all that. And it is really interesting how this change, now that we’re trying to come back, is really noticing that or we’re acknowledging how much has changed on the way we work on the way we do things. And everything else, you know, and my, I used to joke at the beginning of the pandemic that I earn that I God tree, loud roommates, especially the kids, okay, but the reality is that I can, you know, my day, up to 3pm, that I picked them up at school, they the office is really quiet, I can work with a door open, I can do all this at 3pm, that dynamic change completely. And, and I’m lucky I have a door, but not everybody have that and how, but more importantly, how work has adapt to that. I remember having conference calls in which I was terrified to let the mute button out. So they hear the children, you know, shout out the background. And now that’s normal. And it’s okay in many environments is fine. People understand that the families are around and that change, that’s a change, I hope we never lose. Because it used to be that you have that work person. And that work person didn’t have any life now or outside. And now it’s a one thing Yeah, people understand that you have animals, pets, and your dog bark, and the kids are allowed.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:31

Now, and funnily enough, it’s at the same time, we’ve gotten a greater sense of technology, in the sense that, you know, like zoom and Google meet all have noise cancellation technology now that they’ve kicked into their tools, so that when you are talking on Microsoft Teams, or zoom or Google meat, a lot of those background noises can actually be muted to some extent so that people don’t actually have to, like I’m very sound sensitive. So you know, having, you know, people you In the background or hearing other background noise can be very disruptive to me. But, you know, really, the technology has done such a great job of making those pieces come together. And I know we have another article kind of on the flip side, so rest of the world covered folks around the world who are dealing with the pandemic, CNBC make it also had a topic on this. So we’ll go on to the next article.

Augusto Pinaud 15:22

Yeah, to the next article. Popup windows. The next article is from CNN, and again, goes into the same topic two years later, remote work has changed millions of career, you know, from moving across country, from people who finally took the leap, their leave their corporate work to people who will now they’re enjoying the hybrid life, you know, and they used to work, you know, and have those deadlines, and now, they’ll they can balance and again, for me, there is so much positive into this, how much things have improved, how much things have been humanized, you know, now, it’s okay, that you have alive, it’s okay. That you have things that things are part of your life, you know, and that is really fantastic. It’s, you know, it’s rebalancing. But I think in a good way.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:34

Yeah, sorry, I misspoke when I said that it was a CNBC, it was at CNN BUSINESS that, yeah, that did the little vignettes of these folks who changed the life people moved cross country, people started new jobs got new degrees, it was very interesting to read, I highly recommend it to everybody to when we do put the article links out to check it out. It was very, I thought it was very useful to see that there is a wide variety of experiences among people. And we should be mindful of the fact that while one person may love the notion of working from home, other people will really appreciate and enjoy going back to the office I, I read that one little vignette of the college graduate who had been, you know, going to school for two years, you know, finishing off her degree and then started a new job, and she was, you know, stuck at home. And it was very difficult for her to kind of, you know, get up to speed at the office. And while there was part of me that says we need to be training our graduates coming out of school better, right, and, and teaching our managers to onboard our, you know, new employees, new workforce, you know, members better, so that they can thrive in a remote work first environment. There’s also the side of me that appreciates where she’s coming from where she’s like, I want to like be able to bump into a co worker and be like, Oh, you have five minutes, let’s talk about this thing. As opposed to all of this feeling of, well, I should probably bother people, because I don’t know what they’re doing on the other side, because it’s opaque. She doesn’t know what anyone else is doing on the other side. And they haven’t adopted technology to help people know that stuff. And so I really do feel feel the balance of of everyone’s desires to kind of come together and be productive in that environment.

Augusto Pinaud 18:22

Yeah, and I think I know, you don’t think this I, but when you read that a student is true, if you have never worked if you don’t, or you have limited experience. And suddenly you got new to this job, and you don’t know exactly what you’re going to do. And now you get a laptop in the mail. It’s like, okay, and it’s not the technology, it is the all that experience like it or not like to be in the office to meet with people, I don’t miss it. But again, there is I get the why, if you have never had it, it is something new experience to learn. So I really think that I have said, hybrid, maybe the option in the future and should be the option for most people,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:05

that John is noting that he would love the optional hybrid. And I agree, I think most people, if given the option will have a few days in the office a few days from home, or just having the flexibility to do so. Like for example, if you are sick, and you still feel good enough to work, and you have the option of remote work, then I would much rather employees choose that option. You know, I would I would actually rather them, you know, like, in an ideal world, they would just stay home and get better, right? But we understand that we’re the real world. And so the second best option is you work from home and don’t make me sick. Right? And so it’s one of the reasons why I’ve always had a very aggressive policy like if I if I have if I hear you sniffle in my office, go home, you know, I will pay for your time off. I do not want to get sick. And so, you know, like, I’m not I’m just one employer among many, many, many different employers. And so you know, Like, I just love the notion that someone can now make that choice have an agency and be able to work from home, when when they don’t want to make them other co workers, you know, Ill

Augusto Pinaud 20:09

so and I think is something that we need to start for implementing the school level, you know, we experienced two years of living remotely, and then we shut them off. And I believe that’s a mistake is not because of the pandemic or the Commodore the numbers is because that’s going to be the future of the kids. And we continue teaching them how to work in 1950. But we are going to 2015. So it’s a problem kids should be able to pick, you know, I’m going hybrid, I’m going and again, I say, as we said on the first article, if you’re great if you can manage to be hybrid or remote in the school, as well as work, you can handle the workload and be responsible. Why not let the kid pick?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 20:55

Yeah, absolutely. All right, we have covered the productivity articles this week. So far, we’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsor, then we’ll come back with our technology articles, we’re going to talk about our business segment, we’re going to have also our announcement of our top 10 Female productivity technology and organization experts for 2022. And then of course, we’ll have our features story. So we will see you after the break in just about a minute. Well, working

Sponsor Voice Over 21:21

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Raymond Sidney-Smith 22:31

Welcome back everybody to Anything But Idle. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith, joined by acoustic pinout for the second half of the show. And this takes us along to our technology articles this week. Gousto what’s our first tech article,

Augusto Pinaud 22:45

our first articles about Google dog, and now it’s going to let you draft emails in Google Docs, you can go create all the draft and then finally send it from there, find a person write it connected. And I think this is great. I hope this solves the issue with emails and improve. Now that one of the things that this has great is if you leave in Google Docs does change the way you think about an email because you are used to use this product for long text, what means you slow down and think or most people slow down and think, therefore the help with this for me is that people now is going to use this work, Google Docs thing to slow down and write better emails. Because the problem many times on email is how poorly written they are.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 23:45

Yeah, I’ll be curious to see how this actually works out this feature is available in Microsoft Word and has been available in Microsoft Word for aeons, I mean, for a very long time. And I don’t know if there’s really all that much uptick, all that much usage of the of the feature. And so I’d be very curious to see how many Microsoft users actually use this Microsoft Word feature to send an email from from the document itself. And whether there are folks who are on the Google workspace side where this will be something useful for them. i Yeah, I’m just really curious to see how people use it, but it’s good to see that they have added the feature to the workspace environment.

Augusto Pinaud 24:26

Alright, next up. So our next one is exciting, because basically Google workspace, it’s going to allow you to create externally friendly booking pages. So in other words, they are bringing Calendly into Google Calendar. And this is really exciting. I think this means platforms like Calendly or acuity scheduling, and the search are getting to the point of the masses. This is not going to be any more the game This is going to be everybody getting the link book with me have an appointment with me look into my calendar. And that’s something that it’s exciting for a person who use this so much every day. Seeing it coming to Google, it is really, really exciting.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 25:18

Yeah, so just a couple of things for people to understand where we’re coming from. This is for Google workspace users, these are business accounts. It starts at Business Standard or higher. So if you’re on one of the business starter plans, that’s not going to be the case so as to be Business Standard or higher. And this provides an external booking page, as Augusto noted, similar to Calendly. And, and one sub schedule once those kinds of tools. But this is already a feature if you are inside of the kind of enterprise Hall. So if you’re ready, a Google workspace user, you can use appointment slots, to schedule things internally, among team members, you can see everybody’s internal calendar and be able to, based on their privacy settings, be able to see when they have availability. But the idea to be able to then provide this external page that people can be directed to is, is pretty powerful, I’m looking forward to seeing kind of how that all looks in real life. Because you know, if it if it can replace a Calendly in the system, you know, I use a number of different calendaring tools in my own world. And if it can go ahead and do that, then I think this is going to be really, really powerful. I haven’t seen it, I’ve got rapid release turned on for my domains. I haven’t yet seen it rollout for me, they said up to 15 days starting on March 24 2022. So I haven’t yet seen it. For those of you who are on the normal rollout that’ll start somewhere in around the week of April sixth. So you start seeing rollout at the on the scheduled release date. But remember, this is for Google workspace Business Standard or higher enterprise standard or higher. And then I think all of the education plans have them. So if your education fundamentals standard, plus all of the various ones, and then all the nonprofit customers also get it. So it’s good that you’re you know, they’re they’re rolling this out for everybody. And, you know, I It’s kind of a shot across the bow for Calendly to, like, level up their capabilities. And I know that this is isn’t going to replace Calendly in a lot of ways, because Calendly has a lot more features. But tools like them really do need to get, I guess better, right in order to be able to keep their customers. But a very, very interesting because I think you know, how much money do I spend for all of these various calendaring tools that I don’t have to now because Google is just baking it in. So it’s going to be interesting to watch and see how that all comes to pass.

Augusto Pinaud 27:45

It is going to be really interesting. Yes,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 27:47

yeah. But it’s also a cultural thing, like I’ve recent, I’ve been seeing a lot of and maybe it’s just because I liked a few of those tweets. But now the algorithm is showing me more of these, these like, I think bad takes of various folks being like, Oh, I’m not going to complete your scheduling, you know, Link kind of power play. And of course, you know, I don’t see myself as being better than anyone else. So I’m just like, this is the most productive way for us to schedule a meeting. If you have a calendar link, send it to me, and I’ll schedule it yours. I don’t care. You know what I mean? I just want it to be not a back and forth of here goes a few dates, and then you send me a few dates, and then none of the dates work. And then we just go back and forth five times. You

Augusto Pinaud 28:26

see, I have had I have heard about that. And I’m lucky I have had one of those cases. And the email was not even about not doing that was the reason Sarah let’s merit here is my link and dispersal reply. Here is my link

Raymond Sidney-Smith 28:43

declined incoming calls.

Augusto Pinaud 28:46

The sad part is that is you who is calling me according to this because you call me July homie on telegram earlier before the show, and the stream got stuck. Anyways, I apologize. And was one person who just sent me his link and say, Please follow my link and schedule with me instead of the other way around. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t care. But I have not experienced that. But I have heard the same thing yourself. Do people get mad that you send them the link? Sorry. Yeah, I

Raymond Sidney-Smith 29:20

think it’ll be very, very few people. And for me, it’s it’s been purely an education point where people just didn’t know what I was sending them. And so as long as I gave them clear instructions as to why I was sending it to them, then you know, it’s one thing to be a jerk about it. But it’s certainly another to just want to have a productive exchange. And I want to be focused on what I’m working on with a client not calendaring with a client, you know, so it’s like if we want to get that out of the way so we can actually work together. This is the most efficient mechanism and by all means, if they have a calendar link, I will always use their calendar link because that just makes me happy to be able to sit down look at my calendar and choose is the best time for me to meet them. I always think it’s the, it’s like me giving you my link is actually better for the client because they get to choose their best time I agree with you, you know what I mean? Like they get, they get empowered with that choice. And so for any of you who might come up against any friction, please be, you know, as as useful to people and helping them understand that you having the link to somebody else’s calendar puts you in the power position, because you get to choose when you’re going to be best, you know, in their calendar, not vice versa. And I consider that actually the more deferential position to be in. So anyway, moving on to Microsoft,

Augusto Pinaud 30:39

well, Microsoft updates outlooks, teams PowerPoint, for the hybrid. And, you know, I have praised Microsoft for teams teams have done a great work. And Microsoft really has worked really hard. And I don’t praise them often. But they have been really, I had of this remote and hybrid and one of Miller they’re coming with many new features. One of those now is that when you get an invitation, you will be able not only to respond yes or no, but respond yes. Or virtually. So that way people know. Okay, yes, he said yes, but he’s coming virtually to the median, he’s not going to be actually in the office. And unlike that many other features. So it’s a really interesting article to show what Microsoft has done, or is doing for all these comments in the future for them.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:35

Yeah, and I just want to point out to everybody, that Google workspace has the same features. So if you’re, for some reason, feeling a little bit of, you know, you know, fear of missing out, so to speak a little bit of FOMO using washing your, your entire system just wants to talk talk to us today. Anyway, so. So the so the idea here is that in Google, you have the basically the work locations feature, and you should be able to set those same work locations. And it’s a little bit more robust than what Microsoft has here. But the same thing applies you can you can then say, Where am I attending from and all kinds of other fun things. So it’s good both Microsoft and Google workspace are are embracing this hybrid work, even though their their employee policies may be a little bit different than what they’re doing in their technology, it’s really good to see that they are getting us the technological capabilities that really companies are need, they need the flexibility right now. Okay, on to our next story.

Augusto Pinaud 32:34

Our next body is story. Sorry, it’s from life hacker, why is the iPad Pro Easson worth the extra money. And I disagree mostly with the article. I love what Apple is doing with the iPads, they are bringing super quality products, but they are keeping the distinction between a clear distinction, this is our consumer line, this is our pro line. And the machines don’t need to be different, some of the features need to be different. And, you know, the The article goes into say, Well, this is same is the same? Well, there are two main things in this are three main things. One is the screen, the screen on the iPad Air five, that is what they’re comparing with. It is different than the screen of the iPad Pro. The second thing is the port, the iPad Pro, half a better port, Thunderbolt USB, four ports that the iPad consumer model do not have. And finally, capacity. Okay, the iPad Air five is limit to 256 gigabytes of storage while the iPad Pro gets on to one gig, or winter when one terabyte terabytes. Sorry. That is really, really good. on Apple side, in my opinion, when you look at both lines, children need to be approached to understand do I need this machine or not do will know immediately that will make your decision easier. And I think again, it’s brilliantly gone on their part. If you go there and say 256 is not enough for me, then you already make the decision doesn’t matter. And there has been a lot of roasting to Apple for this machine. No, I think they’re doing really well on older line made in a super clear distinction. On what machine should you get based on three or four specific things other than that, the machine will perform at the same level and yeah, I think they’re doing really well.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:44

I was so getting ready to argue with you. But I agree with you. I was like no, like really? You’re absolutely right. I think that I think that the the I’m actually thinking about getting the iPad Air five. I think that it’s perfect. iPad for me, and I’m gonna save a couple 100 bucks, I’ll buy all the peripherals necessary to be able to get it up to a state where it is, I just don’t need the iPad Pro, I don’t need that size, I want it to be smaller. I actually like the smaller footprint, you know that I like my iPad 10 inch, you know, seventh Gen, like, you know, it’s just, it’s just perfect. It’s the perfect size. For me, everything’s great about it. And the iPad Air five has 5g capabilities, so I can get the 5g you know card for it. And so everything about it is perfect for basically the prosumer that I am in terms of using it. And then someone who uses the iPad Pro as their primary main machine, and needs that kind of horsepower. Great go for it totally for them. So I you know, after hearing your argument, I’m gonna say I agree with you. Alright, moving right along to our next story this week.

Augusto Pinaud 35:56

Oh, our next is about a device is a couple Libra to the reader is starting to sell here in the state. So if you are interested into this, it is 159 it comes directly to have, you know, competition with Amazon and the Kindles it is it’s a seven inch is comparing to the the Kindle Paperwhite. But allows you to have or to leave outside of the Amazon ecosystem. You know, you could have a couple bookstore, you can do overdrive, overdrive, so you can rent from libraries in the United States. It’s a great, it’s a great device. And it’s good to see competition in the market.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:40

Yeah, this is this is this is great. I think that it’s really important for us to see the various options come to the United States and not just stay overseas in Europe and Asia. And so I’m just really, really happy to see the Kobo line continuing to expand here to give competition. And so good to see. All right onward.

Augusto Pinaud 36:59

The next one we have is FDA clears the first iPhone app from delivering insulin connects to an iPhone to deliver insulin and reliable scar certain iSpring. But this is exciting, because for me at least excited because I could not foreseen how much our devices, the watches, and the phones has turned into medical devices and how much they have improved the quality of people who depend on things like insulin. So knowing that, you know, there, I had a couple of friends who were insulin dependent, and have one of them who has now something that he needs to replace. But it gives them a consistent reading, instead of trying to guess or trying to put insulin based on his guess or or pinching himself that then is permanently reading. And he can pull his phone. And he will tell him what is the reading and based on that he will make a decision. And I think the more we see improvement technology into this area, the better is going to be.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 38:13

Now this is fantastic. I think, you know if it works, we should absolutely use the technology to make people’s lives better. And so I’m just very pleased to see, you know, the opportunity to see technology and like a in this very lightweight way make people’s lives so much better. So that’s really, really great. And Julie’s noting that she finds it intriguing, and oh, yeah, that’s really interesting. And she’s

Augusto Pinaud 38:43

about a protocol freestyle livery. Who already using the phone to for continuous glucose monitor. I have seen her on my friend. I don’t know exactly what he has, but it’s exactly what you said it is now looking to be free to be better.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:00

Absolutely, absolutely. So Deb is asking appointment slots. Yes. And I’m not sure what question you’re you’re responding to Deb so let me know and I’m happy to clarify about the Google Calendar, Google workspace appointments lots topic. Alright. Okay, so I think

Augusto Pinaud 39:20

we have an Amazon then over news and now we’re going to

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:23

have one more story we have the Amazon Whole Foods story.

Augusto Pinaud 39:28

Oh for some reason is close on my side. So Amazon to open the first whole food that is cashierless or using cashier less technology in Washington DC and a second one is coming to Los Angeles. So how Amazon basically is bringing the technology to get rid of the cashiers you know, go you do. You can do your own thing. You can scan your barcode you can even scan the palm of your hand and they will know is you Oh, let’s see what it is going to happen. But it is going to be interesting at the end of the day, is that 21,000 square feet location? That is not exactly a small grocery store.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 40:13

No, no, I know exactly that whole foods I’ve gotten there many times in DC. And I’ll actually be there in DC in a couple a few weeks. So I will definitely be going there to check it out. I want to, I want to see what it’s all about. This is my first time I haven’t been to any of the Amazon Go stores or any of their other cashierless stores. So I’ve really been really interested to see, since the other stores have been like bookstores and convenience stores. Having a full grocery shopping experience in Whole Foods just is a novelty, but I’m really curious to see how it all worked out. So when I when I go, I will report your report back. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Wonderful, great. Deb. Yes, the Appointment Slots versus the external booking page. So we have basically both of them now within the Google workspace environment. Alright, moving right along to our business segment. Okay.

Augusto Pinaud 41:02

So the first one is, in q4, 2021, Apple let the wearable device the marketing bid in second place. Cme was almost four times the number of shipments that a lot of forex have anything is a lot. And the second use we have is notion and notion now will allow us to start integrating notion with a bunch of applications, Google Drive and slack and Asana, and others. So you will be able to do those integrations and do really, really well with that. On our final news for, for our business section is about Dropbox, joining, or your command II joining. Dropbox I’m not that familiar with command is, but I’m sure you are.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:03

Yeah, so I actually use Command A command E is Mac and Windows, basically keyboard shortcut, Command E on the Mac, Ctrl E on the windows, bit of a branding problem. But uh, but but Dropbox has now purchased them, what they do is you basically connect all of your cloud services. So say you are an Evernote user, but you’re also a Dropbox user and Google Drive and, and, and so you take all of these, you log into them. And now through a keyboard shortcut Command E or Ctrl, E on on the desktop environments, you just basically execute that code, and you can search across all of them Gmail, you know, so you can, you can just basically search, find what you need. And that launches that thing that you were looking for. And so it creates this kind of Omni index of all the things there, there are several different products out there that tried to do this, but I just felt like command II was the best of breed in this particular category, the only missing element was that they, they stopped, because they weren’t having very good success with it. And I’m hoping that they’ll figure this out when Dropbox, you know, gets their kind of claws on the on the technology. But, you know, they were having difficulty indexing the local system and kind of doing both local and cloud indexing. So you could search across either your desktop, local environment and the cloud together. And so this is that’s kind of the holy grail for me is basically being able to search across both your local and cloud storage and find the things you need, so that you can quickly jump to them. And that’s what command E really solves. Now, there are a part of the dropbox team, that makes them a little less desires for me to be, you know, putting all of my data in the hands of Dropbox. But you know, I’m not necessarily against Dropbox, you know, just I’m just a little bit more vigilant, I suppose, than the average bear. And so I want to make sure that I’m utilizing tools and feeling safe about it. So we’ll see what they do with Dropbox, we’ll see how independent the company stays. I would imagine that what Dropbox has done with other programs, other tools that they’ve purchased, it has been quickly absorbed into the dropbox ecosystem. So I don’t see this necessarily being separate and independent from Dropbox for very long. And if that’s the case, then, you know, I’m probably going to disconnect and find another tool. And like I said, there are several of them that are out there in the world. And as I come across the ones that I have decided to use, I’ll let folks know, but just wanted to let everybody know that they were purchased by Dropbox since I have made the recommendation about command D in the past, which takes us along to our productivity resources of the weekend. So Augusto and I come across many personal productivity tools, apps and services in and on our personal productivity journeys to put together Anything But Idle each week. So in this segment, the productivity resources of the week, we each bring you one, either new or old or otherwise, tool we think you might like and so this week, we have two tools as usual. And our first tool is a is one that I have not used extensively, but I wanted to show everybody so that you can could kind of see kind of a new tool in action. This tool is called Rose. And rose is a spreadsheet technology that allows you to integrate with other tools really simply and easily. So this is really a Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel airtable, kind of that kind of competitor. But it’s actually really interesting to me, because it’s seemingly just a very simple. So like, if you just go here and click on create a new spreadsheet, it actually will give you this set of templates that immediately tells you, hey, would you like to do this thing. So if I wanted to create a trending tweets tracker, it could go ahead and just immediately connect to my Twitter account, and then pull that information together and display it. If I wanted to track my Google Analytics data on my website, I could use one of the templates for doing that. If I wanted to connect a Slack notifications to Twitter, it can do that kind of stuff. So it tries to out the gate, make your data useful and applicable to the reason why you’re collecting it together. So I just find it really interesting. Again, it’s to me brand new. And so I’m just very interested in seeing how rose starts to put together this level of workflow automation built into the data collection process. It’s kind of like, what’s the integration? What’s the what’s the data you want to get out first, and then from there, it connects to the data sources necessary. So I find that to be quite interesting tool. And some of you might actually enjoy and want to check out. But this so what is your resource this week.

Augusto Pinaud 46:30

So my resource this week is called a bumper slip pocket notebook belt, or as my friend art Gelwicks, call it the fanny pack for the iPad. The reality is that I got this, I got this for my wife for Christmas, she carry one of those loving your notebooks. And I thought, Oh, this is great when you just want to carry a couple more things. This is great. But after I saw her use it for the people who are looking us in video, I got one for me for the back of my iPad. And it really changed everything because I carry the iPad, that’s the main thing I carry. But sometimes I need to carry two more things. And where I’m going to carry now I can put it in there, I can carry a pen all the time in the iPad, I carry some index card. And as I understand that, you know, it looks like a fanny pack. As Art Gelwicks mentioned, it has really changed because now they’re I carry everything I carry a pair of her phones at phones in there, the connectors that I wanted the two connectors that I want to carry with me. And I don’t need to carry anything else it attached great in the back of my iPad. And it allows me even to have a pen and a couple of index cards. So it’s been great, great, great for me to have them.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:54

Fantastic, wonderful. And with that, that takes us out of productivity resources of the week and on to what are we doing next.

Augusto Pinaud 48:06

So the next thing we’re doing is our topic for this week, our main story for this week, or our feature story, it’s all about what Apple calls universal control. And universal control basically allows you to go from your Mac and move the mouse and keyboard of the mouse and use it on the iPads connect to the iPads or another Mac. So basically you can keep your central keyboard and move from machine to machine that are connected. And the article in The Verge call it Apple must impressive feature in years. I don’t know if it’s the most impressive feature but it is incredible. I have two iPads here in my desk. And I can sit in the MacBook Air and move from one or the other and one of them is Hi so it is really nice to be able to use that iPad without moving at all. And even to the point that even that I leave iPad only on the iPad is my main machine. I have a MacBook Air that I use once in a while and it’s been compelling enough that has made me think if I need to change my work around to make the Mac into a place that the iPads are more centric and more comfortable because it is super powerful to be able to move quickly to the iPad on the left do something and come back to what I was doing on the Mac.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 49:41

So that everybody’s aware of what this really is. It basically allows you to have your cursor and keyboard your mouse and keyboard move from the edge of your say Mac device and there needs to be a MAC MAC involved with. So there at least on Mac Mini So you must have a Mac running Monterey MacOS Monterey, either 12.3 or later. And then you can also pair this with other Macs also running 12.3 or later. Or you can run an iPad that is running iPad, iOS 15.4 or later. This also works with Intel Macs, by the way, so as long as it’s running MacOS Monterrey 12.3, or later, then you’re capable of doing this. So that means that you can operate both Macs via keyboard does not have to be an Apple product keyboard, either. It can be any keyboard that you have attached to it, as long as those two operating systems are at their peak, and you have at least one Mac involved. Okay, so Julie’s asking, So does this mean, one iMac? Bluetooth keyboard can simultaneous operate to IMAX? That is exactly correct. Yes, yes. So as long as there’s a Mac involved, and you’re on Monterey 12.3, or later, you then can go ahead and move your cursor to the edge, and then it just pops over to the other device, and you’ll be able to then utilize that same mouse and keyboard in order to be able to go ahead and do that. By Deb, we’ll see later. And, and so this is really powerful. I think this is you know, I, I would agree with apple that this is probably one of their most, you know, innovative features, too, for a very long time. This is certainly beyond what sidecar does. sidecar is really just expanding the screen size, allowing you to either extend or mirror your iPad, you know, using your iPad as an extended ceremony. Yeah, basically, as a second monitor. But this really extends the capabilities of your device. And means that you don’t have to have four and five keyboards sitting on your desk to operate the same devices that you have sitting on on your desk. So I’m really pleased with this idea of universal control. And I’m looking forward to playing with it. And again, I really wish that you were able to use this across all devices, right. So you can’t do this, if you have two iPads. And no Mac, you can’t do this on all using your iPhone, this doesn’t obviously extend to any windows or Android devices, which is totally understandable. It doesn’t include the Apple Pencil. So there’s, there’s some limitations here. But but if we have the ability to sit down with a keyboard, and mouse and have an iMac, and MacBook Pro, and an iPad, and just to be able to seamlessly move across those devices, that’s a really powerful productivity feature. But I don’t think we should overlook and I’m really impressed with Apple being able to bring that to market. So very, very cool.

Augusto Pinaud 52:43

Yeah, I wish that I don’t, this is on my wish list. I’m not getting it. But this is on my wish list is that this year, with a new operating system that is coming for the iPad, we are going to be able to get it from an iPad to another iPad. If they do that, then I can get rid of my MacBook.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:02

And and for those who might have the question, you can get rid of them, you can turn off the the technology. So if you go into your system preferences under Display, you should be able to turn off your the universal control in the Mac. And on the iPad. I believe it’s under airplay and handoff is in your system settings you can go into in there and turn it off as well. So if you don’t want it, you don’t need to have it. You do need to have what is it Bluetooth, Wi Fi. And you have to be logged into your Apple ID in order for

Augusto Pinaud 53:35

me to share the apple id yes, they need to share the Apple ID and they are connected. They don’t need to be connected, but they need to be close enough. So I’m guessing they’re using somehow Bluetooth or the technology they have to share documents in order to know which which with which machine is close.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 53:53

Yeah, so so just to be to put a fine point on this, you need to be in the same iCloud account. So you need to be logged into the same iCloud account. Two factor authentication must be enabled. You have to have Bluetooth, Wi Fi enabled and handoff enabled. So all three of those enabled, and the devices need to be within 30 feet of each other. So they need to be able to be within that same space. They can’t be tethering. So they can’t be tethered. You know, like if your Mac is tethering to the iPad, if they can’t be tethered, they have to be on the same Wi Fi network. And so there’s some again, it’s it’s like within these limitations. It’s still a very incredible technology. Yeah, so I’m pretty impressed with it. I’m like you I would love to see the ability to have two iPads side by side and just be able to have an external mouse and keyboard operating both of those devices without anything else. That’s a really really nice setup especially if you have an iPad Pro and say an iPad Air or or an iPad nine inch and you want to be able to just work on those two devices side by side. That’s a really nice setup and I think that a lot of people will want that.

Augusto Pinaud 54:57

So all right, our next muse or The announcements and I think we should start with announcing our top 10 female experts for 2022.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 55:08

Yeah, and so I have an image. I know I created it, and we could put this up on screen for folks. Ready, I don’t have a drumroll. So we’re just gonna say we’re just going to announce it but the winner of the top 10 I’m going to put on screen for us and, and there it is, with 45% of the votes in Stacy Harmon is our top productivity technology and organization expert of 2022. So congratulations to Stacy Harmon. She’s an Evernote certified consultant or an Evernote certified expert now as I am and is just runs a wonderful you know, program that she calls the Harmon enterprises academy that helps Evernote hers, so definitely go check her out and what she’s doing over there at Harmon enterprises. And Haley Watts comes in in second place, who is tip for me, I have a new person on my list. And she was actually nominated by Grace Marshall came in fourth. And here in the audience today is Julie bestiary who came in third. So congratulations, Julie on being a third at 13% of the vote. And to everybody else who who placed in the top 10. We had a tie for 10th place so there are 11 folks who are on screen. If I’m if my math is correct here, but making Hyatt Miller and Mel Robbins tied for 10th place. And Gretchen Rubin and Laura Vander kam tied for what is that 10 Nine 8/8 place. So. But yeah, but But congratulations to everybody. We will tweet this out and let everybody know with the podcast released tomorrow morning. So we’ll let everybody know about all those things. But it’s just really wonderful. This is the second time this is the second year in a row that we’ve done this, I’m just really pleased to be able to highlight these wonderful productivity technology and organization experts. And yeah, we’ll probably do it again next year. Why not? It’s a lot of fun to bring some voice some elevation and some notoriety to these these folks. So right,

Augusto Pinaud 57:17

continued to we have a couple more announcement. You know, later Bon has left the verge and he wrote a firewall letter really interesting to read. You The link is in there. In the important things are the most important thing. But in technology area, there is an announcement that I wanted to keep an announcement and is that the fair repair act is going to the Senate and data thing is going to be interesting. Also Google IO, it’s going to be very cool again is starting May 11. So it’s coming so excited

Raymond Sidney-Smith 57:58

for this year.

Augusto Pinaud 58:03

For a reminder for our users have to do is the outlook old plugin is going to stop working. So you need to update to the new way to connect to Outlook. So you can keep that working. And Michael Hyatt and company changed their names to full focus. And finally, there is a link in there for second batch of at home COVID tests that you can get for free. And finally, there is an app called Jairus gyroscope that I hope Ray knows more than the apt and I but gyroscope apparently for what I understood on how I got the information is stop having that free plan went for a full two year paid. And now they’re back having a free plan for people. And what I was able to research about it seems pretty, pretty interesting app again, talking about health, your watch your and your technology to help you balance all that.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 59:08

Yeah, so so that everybody is aware gyroscope is inside of the category of applications that are passive data trackers for your health and productivity. And so what it did is similar to instant and Rescue Time and some of the other applications it sits in the background and it monitors what you’re doing on your phone and some of the till the telemetry that is happening on your phone so that it’s able to tell you what you’ve done right help categorize this items. I use an application called RISE ri Z and I should have saved that for a productivity resource one week but but rise is really great and but it’s a subscription just like gyroscope gyroscope was free. Like instant is and and then all of a sudden they you know I’m sure like any business they have to make money so they they put out a subscription plan and it just wasn’t working For me to pay for it, and so they went to this paid plan. But now they’ve they’ve launched and now they have much more in the health space, like a whole bunch more that they’ve done in the health space, which is really, really interesting. And they’ve put out a free plan. So definitely check it out. If you’re interested in the quantified self movement, I’m accused Belfer. And so I love the idea of being able to just do that level of both active and passive data tracking. And so that’s, that’s really what gyroscope is, it gives you that ability. They’re very Apple focus. So this is iOS, and kind of Apple focused platform where it’s instant. If you go to I think it’s instant dot today, or instant app dot today or something like that. They’re there the more Android focused application for that kind of passive data tracking, but it’s just useful to be able to have a third party, kind of collect them, collect the data, and then crunch the numbers and give you dashboards to tell you, Hey, how much did you walk today? What did you do with your, you know, with your applications today? Where did you spend most of your time on this or that, and it helps to give you some level of data in that regard. Any other announcements? Gousto?

Augusto Pinaud 1:01:03

No, you said, and then there were two,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:01:07

that we have covered the productivity and related to technology news this week, thanks to our live audience for joining us as always, to join in the festivities to celebrate the top 10 productivity, female productivity technology and organization experts this year. And so congratulations to the winners, including of course, especially Julie bestiary, who’s here with us today. So congratulations, Julie again. And thank you, Augusto, for putting together the show this every week, making sure that this show comes together is really on your shoulders. And so thank you for doing that. It’s my pleasure. Always. All right, everybody on anything but idle.com that is the place to go for our show notes. So if you’re watching us live tomorrow, when the show releases as a podcast, the show notes will be there with links to all of our stories, our productivity resources of the week, our extra stories we don’t cover during this time, because if not, our show would be three or four hours long. And you probably want to actually get other things done in your day. But we also have a text transcripts to read and download there as well. So after the podcast episodes goes out, and you go to anything but idle.com forward slash one to one, if somewhere along the line, we’ve missed a story, feel free to visit that page. And let us know if we’ve missed something because it’s a possibility. You can either tweet and DMS or DM us using our Twitter handle at Anything But Idle, you can use our contact form on the website, you can just leave a comment directly on the episode page. And let us know that as well. And we have plenty of other ways in which you can engage with us. If you go to anything but idle.com forward slash community, you will actually find the personal productivity club channel that is dedicated to this podcast. So if you want to keep up with the news and want to let us know about upcoming news that we should share, go to anything but idle.com forward slash community and go ahead and join the channel. And then there is where we post the episodes. Of course, we also post the events for our upcoming live events like this are live recordings that that we do when I remember. But you know, there are all kinds of things that we would want to post in Anything But Idle in in the channel there. So go ahead and join that group so that when we do post things, you’ll get them first. If it’s your first time watching the live stream, feel free to click the subscribe button. So you’ll get notified when we do go live. If we don’t post it as an event, it’s kind of you know, iffy thing you know, depending upon the week and work and everything else like that. But if you are subscribed, you’ll get that notification in YouTube. For those purposes. If you’re listening to the podcast, feel free to add us to the podcast app of choice and you’ll get it downloaded each week when we do the episodes. And feel free to rate and review us in your favorite podcast app of choice. That really helps us to grow the personal productivity listening community. And so thank you to those who have left reviews and ratings and feel free to leave one yourself with that. We will see you all next time on Anything But Idle. Here’s to productive life. Take care everybody