How to Start a New Job With a 30-60-90 Day Plan

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:00
Hello, hello, personal productivity enthusiast 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 0:11
I’m Augusto Pinaud.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:13
And we’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is Episode 123, how to start a new job with a 30-60-90 day plan. And we’re recording this on July 24 2023. Each week of this year, I cover the productivity and related technology news headlines of the week. So you know what’s going on in the world of productivity. And so with that, let’s get into our headlines of Augusto. What’s our first story this week,

Augusto Pinaud 0:37
on the first story come from the economic times. And he says strategies to deal with burn out and work related stress. And so it’s a good article talks about the hustle culture talk about things that I don’t do, but I understand and work for people, you know, like said, clear boundaries, I I don’t do that I have never done that I have never understood that part of the work life balance, I havea balance. But at the same time, the article talks about self care. And that’s something that is for me part of that balance. And I’m very clear on that part. And maybe that’s a reason why I’ve been so lucky into not needed, you know, that coming back and forward life balance. But and then in the conclusion, or then it talks a little bit about, you know, a survey from the Society of Human Resources Management that revealed that 89% of employees consider work life balance, an important factor into reducing that burnout. So what do you thought about the article?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:53
Well, as we’ve talked about, many times, in the past, I like the concept of life work integration, as opposed to the term work life balance, life work, and integration, gives me the sense that life is first and work is second. You know, and and then integration is better than balance, because it’s not about work being equal in terms of life. But the fact that we’re integrating our life and work together in a way that works for us. And that’s what creates sustainability and helps to to not just reduce burnout, but alleviate burnout altogether, right, we want to be able to to stop a burnout before it becomes a problem in our in our world, work related stress is necessary. And it’s only a problem when it becomes distress. And so we need to figure out whether categorically or volume wise, we have too much or too many negative stressors. So, again, this article is helpful for you, if you are feeling that sense of overwhelm that sense of, you know, low mood, whatever the things are, that that trigger you to know that you’re under stress, and you know, ways in which you can kind of mitigate that so I thought was really good article that for those who are may may be feeling this pressure at work, this is a good article to review to see maybe what things you might want to put into place to overcome it onto our next Article.

Augusto Pinaud 3:21
Article come from enjoying your mind, and some I was pleased to six minutes really feels a lot longer than that, but it’s called how to better manage your time and it’s from exploring your mind. And, you know, it’s it talks about, you know, a little bit of a journal or a study published on the Journal of Psychology and talks about the positive influence on perception and reduction of his trust and then talks about set clear goals, plan your days pricing, your to do’s and eliminate distractions, use time management techniques, we have talked about them in many podcasts ProductivityCast and others, and delegate whatever is possible. And that was when I started laughing, because normally, he said different kinds of stress, distress that that people need to have, but it doesn’t take to be with the stress you are referring to people cannot delegate it’s usually the people who is stuck with this kind of delegation. And remember, remind me when I start working in David David on getting things done, you know, 20 years ago, and they say delegate and I remember Yeah, the problem is my list is delegated to me and waiting for me to do it didn’t work very well. But now that does change a little on I do you now have access to things like TaskRabbit Sandow things that 20 years ago didn’t exist and they help but the still, for most other people who I feel this article is erected to delegate is most likely not possible. Anyways, they talk about that organize your workspace, it’s a good checklist to go and check what they what they have.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 5:12
Yeah, now, I will say this about delegation, most people think that they’re not able to delegate work down. But it’s not about always delegating down. Sometimes it’s delegating up. And so many times you have to say to your superiors or to your, to your, whatever, you know, the titles that are equal to you at your level, that, that some of that work needs to be done by them. And this comes to just like an understanding about your work culture, your hierarchy, all of those kinds of things. But if a, if an employer or a manager or supervisor comes to you and just keeps piling on you, going back to the prior article about burnout, right, that’s a recipe for burnout, right? If they keep thinking that you’re the most productive person on the team, and they just keep piling work on you, that’s not fair to you, right. And so you need to be able to, like number seven on the list, say, No, right, learning to say no, but stepping back and saying, Well, if you can do this part of the work, then I can actually focus on the priorities that you gave me yesterday, last week, the week before that I’m working on for this particular project, that’s more important. And then we’re still moving forward. And then I can take on the rest, once I’ve made X, Y, and Z kind of moved forward as well. So sometimes you do need to delegate up and out, in order to be able to do that. The other is in your personal world. I always feel like you know, having kids is, is sometimes helpful, because you can delegate down to the little ones, to do some things that’s that they listen, and I can see your face. But you know, you could delegate down, you can delegate just to a spouse or partner, you can also choose a friend, you know, I’ve talked about this many times, you know, if you have a friend who loves cleaning, and you love doing laundry, you can you can basically task swap, right and so therefore, you can drop off your laundry at his or her place at their place. And then you can go over and they can come over to your place clean, you can do their lawn, whatever, you figure out what’s appropriate for each other. And what you’re willing to do, you know, like, Maybe you love folding laundry, but you really hate washing the load, or you maybe hate folding laundry, yeah, hate folding laundry, but you don’t mind washing the load, maybe I’m just inviting them over. For to watch like, you know, your favorite show you that you and your friend loved watching together, and they’ll be willing to fold the laundry with you or their presence there just a presence helps to make the the, the experience a little bit more pleasurable. So think through these processes of how you can delegate and or task swap, so that you can share responsibilities with people that are not necessarily inside of your, you know, typical family structure, but are in within your sphere. And it can be mutually beneficial, right? Maybe you love grocery shopping, they don’t love grocery shopping. So you can kind of be their Instacart, right, and they could do your laundry and maybe clean your house. And that’s, that’s equal weight to them, right? They they hate it so much. All right, that they’re willing to do these extra things for you, as as replacement for you doing this one thing that’s really difficult for them. So you can kind of barter in essence, these kinds of delegated tasks. So give that some thought and let us know how it works. Onward very,

Augusto Pinaud 8:29
very interesting. Somebody wants to clean my office, let me know I do productivity coaching. Anyway, the next article comes the savannah post, and it’s called How to create a winning feeling every single day. And, you know, the article from this reading is started saying I am a progressive a professional procrastinator, when it comes to writer is this thing that I must want to do. Jet, I seem to never run out of ideas or inventions to distract myself from Guilty as charged. And I think we all have that thing in which it’s something that we really like, and we procrastinate on it and you know, we get it imagine the work work or get things I remember writing. Specifically when somebody asked me how long is the window that you need for right? And I look at this person and said, What do you mean, I want to have at least three hours. And this person started laughing at me in the call. So while you’re laughing and say how many three hours blocks are in their calendar. I said, Well, that’s exactly my whole and what we work was into how to make those writing blogs half an hour and how to make them very effective. So I can Both those into 30 minutes. And that one of the things that when you discovered some of the things that you are a professional procrastinator, you can start getting that winning feeling every day actually say it is about progress. It is about if you think is too big of a problem, collagen is smaller pieces. And if it’s still overwhelming, that piece start too big, because it is the process is what you do consistently, that will give you that success. And I don’t remember when this came probably a couple of years ago around pandemic time. Jeff Segal, who has been in personal productivity club, create a program that was called commit to sit if my memory serves me, well 30 days, okay, and he drives you to meditation. And he drives you to Darwaza commit to sit commit to sit and meditate and start from some short guided meditations to a much longer. And it was a particular time because it was a pandemic time. But that thing was very useful for me to really take my practice of meditation to a different level. And what make it was exactly that I was going to go there, and the minute meditation was already created, and it was already ready to go. And I didn’t need to do or invent or create anything, everything was there. So look for tools like that said, you can specify the process that what is what it is the purpose, and the 15, under sorry, call that I really enjoy. And it was write a failure statement. And we used to create this statements on our mind of how things are going to go wrong, I’m very, very good at those. And the reality is when you write them down, you may discover that, that in your mind is a complete disaster in paper. It’s not that. So that may allows you to continue moving forward.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 12:23
All right, on to our next story.

Augusto Pinaud 12:27
Our next story comes from your story.com and is the power of music, transforming mood, and performance. And I will let you talk because this is a topic and an article that I not only really enjoy, but that I apply consistently. And I want to talk a little bit about it. So I’m going to let you go first, this

Raymond Sidney-Smith 12:52
now I thought it was a really interesting article. And I think that anybody who is interested in how your mood and performance is affected by sound should definitely read. And as you know, we still I’ve been a huge fan of brain.fm for many, many years, and I’ve used many other types of I’ve used binaural beats, I’ve used all kinds of different technologies to be able to basically get your brain in particular wave states in order to be productive. And so, you know, this is definitely well within the kind of range of information that I really love. Because it it it’s an area where like you don’t have to really do anything to get get the productivity boost, right, like you just have to hit play and, and listen to music while you’re doing stuff, right. So it’s a really, really cool concept there. But of course, the more you focus on some of these things can also be really useful. So like not being just ambient music playing in the background, but then sitting and focusing on that particular music. Allah say meditating and listening to the sound of, you know, waves or the sound of rain and using that as a focal point for your mind can also be really useful in a lot of ways. So what were your thoughts regarding this whole article?

Augusto Pinaud 14:13
No, no, it’s exactly what you said. And you know, why don’t you just live examples I have said for many years, I do my quick review to batavi Nine symphony and have been doing it for now 20 years. So when the double NINE Symphony start my brain automatically start flicking or switch when review time. And I tell story that is very funny. Somebody knew that I really love Beethoven Ninth Symphony, and I was traveling in Mexico and they invited me to see the Mexican orchestra nine symphony. So we went there and a star and as soon as I started start getting this itch, I get what he needs. What do we suddenly what like, Oh, I’m getting ready for week review, but I haven’t been least appropriate place compiled out or i for i don’t remember it was the technology of the time it came out. And I did the quick review, I say enjoy the live concerts, because that was what the brain wants. That’s the power that it has. I use it, as you said, depending the kind of work, I have music, I have a specific playlist for writing for writing certain kinds of things and playlists for writing others, meditation concentration. So if you believe in this power of music, and I do look into that, and it’s been very fun to teach this to my kids, because they now especially my daughter was older, depending on her mood, you will pay if you pay attention, you will see the kind of music that she’s hearing. And it’s exactly that and for my son, it’s for for sleeping it there is a particular meditation that we use every night. And when we listen to that meditation, he asleep much better than when we don’t. And and what I said much better, is most of the times yeah, no nine words do not end up in our head. So it’s a win win in that case. So read that and if you like, enjoy it.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 16:25
Yeah, and just one other point here is, is that the choice of music that you listen to is important. Alright, so this is not just like any, any old music will do. As I said, I listened to break down FM and that’s a specific type of music for for specific productivity purposes. That might be sleep, napping, having focus, those kinds of things. But at the same time, that’s not my personal music. And there have been studies done that show that when you get to choose your own music and listen to your own music, you can have a better and or different expectations of yourself while you’re working. And therefore have that beneficial mood lift beneficial productivity. So just kind of give that some consideration because what it might mean is that you’re listening to your own music, let’s say binaural beats generated underneath the music, that is you’re playing two different types of music in your ears at the same time, that can be out of the same device, it’s just you’re playing the binaural beats underneath the music that’s yours, or you’re listening to this pre created music that may not be yours, and may not also be your style of music, and therefore not may not be, you know, useful for you up tempo music is going to be a little bit more peppy and, and upbeat and happy. So you’re gonna get a little bit more of those feelings, if you listen to a fugue is gonna be a little bit more, you know, slow and kind of melancholy. And so you’re gonna start to feel that those levels of of sadness. So be mindful that, you know, if you really like sad music, and you try to be productive, maybe that’s not going to work for you. So just kind of keeping those things in mind as you as you choose your music selection, and also where you might be working, right. So if you have a coffee shop, and they’re playing music, that’s going to be caustic, because they don’t want you to be there. Right? That’s gonna be very different and difficult for you to work there. If their music is designed to irritate you and make sure that you leave because they want to turn over turn over tables. So and that is something that coffee shops, do cafes will play music that’s that’s a little bit more, you know, frustrating, so that, you know, you’ll you’ll have your coffee and move along as opposed to stay there and working. So just keep that in mind. All right, onward to our final productivity. Focus Article of the week.

Augusto Pinaud 18:41
This is where they they agreed with the article and because the article came from Microsoft from I was saying the pursue passive income and says productivity habits trusted by the world’s most successful and trip annoyed and the first one is get a birdie and let me clarify. I am a big proponent of wake up early. If that works for you. Warren Buffett have haggin das for breakfast every day on Hiplife and k is his breakfast. So if you go for what well would you follow that then it started at 345 in the morning with Tim Cook having Haagen Dazs ice cream, okay, if I have a Haagen Dazs every morning, I will roll to the office again there were no need for me to use a vehicle and but it works great for other people. So what I have said over the years about these articles is now this benefit these people there is people who works great from 11am or 11pm. Sorry, to five in the morning and that Easter time think not necessarily on what is working for Tim Cook on or others but what is working for you okay, When they say, outsource, and delegate, don’t fear, failure, learn to say now, again, all this requires you to build a system, it’s very easy for a person at that level, when they are the CEO of General Motors, the CEO, or the president of MIT, to have a whole system behind already created, they’re not creating the system, they are getting into the system, they may improve it, but they are not most people is not in those conditions. So it’s not that you cannot outsource and delegate. And and you mentioned early today, Instacart, I do Instacart. And when people asked me, he’s about a little bit more expensive, yes, it is a little bit more expensive. But the relationship, a little bit of cost versus me not spending an hour in the groceries is worth it. So things like that, when there is a couple of things that I do with my kids that require me basically to drive three hours around to drop them and then drive back to pick up the kid dropping them different plays. Okay, and when that happened, I get an Uber, okay, because Uber drive me, Okay, we just stopped here, he jump in, keep jump down, we drive, and then those three hours I can be working on the phone or writing or doing whatever I want. So that’s a way to outsource and delegate. But don’t think that unless you are at that level, or do you have built that structure, you’re going to be able to delegate and outsource us, these people do.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:39
Yeah, I just underscoring your statement there, which is that many times, if you are an elite, CEO of some major corporation, you’re dealing with a very different set of resources. And, and so your mileage may vary. So, you know, I think some of the statements here are very generic and useful, you know, just like the prior articles about learning to say no, and so on and so forth. learning to say no, for Jeff Bezos is going to be very different than learning to say no, for you in your corporate environment. So just kind of keeping that in mind, you know, checking the reality factor there, that these these folks are, you know, very well resourced. And, and if you are, well, that’s fantastic. I laud you for being in that space. But for most of us, the rest of us, we’re not quite in that space. And it can be frustrating when we think that oh, well, I should be able to do what these other folks are doing. And that’s not really possible, because they have, you know, umpteen assistants, they have people who are who are working, you know, to make sure they’re every waking moment is productive. So they are doing all of these, this externalized, they’re externalizing, all of this work on to other people. And that’s, that’s what allows them to get up at four 3am Because they can go to bed at 9pm. Because they’re there, they’re sleeping on the plane on the way to Singapore, right? Like it’s they get the opportunity to basically do those kinds of things that we we can’t do, you know, I can’t constantly be in a mode of transportation going to different places, and sleeping in those in those places, and making up for the loss of time by virtual flying across time zones, right. Like there are people who do that, right that that that actually play the time zone game, so that they get more sleep across various time zones as they’re as they’re making their way throughout their workweek. Good for them. But that’s not for everybody. So with that, that ends our headlines and kind of part A of the show. And the first part of the show which our productivity headlines are we’re going to now take a word from our sponsor this week, and then we’ll be back to do the technology articles for this week, we’ll see after the break.

Sponsor Voice Over 23:41
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Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:51
Welcome back everybody to Anything But Idle. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith Joined by of course good to pan out for a second half of our show. And so we’re going to talk about Our technology headlines now a Gousto what’s our first technology headline this week,

Augusto Pinaud 25:05
or first one is shiny frog release, Bear 2.0. And I’m not a user of bear, but I know a couple of my friends who swear by this publication, burr is basically a note taking on asteroids, you can do tables, you can do sections that hide footnotes, nested textiles, this Kachin really was, you know, an AI note taken in this an asteroids, you know, on on the way or it’s similar to to the limitations to obsidian or, or Rome or craft or notions. That’s what they tried to do. And they recode beer for the 2.0 version, and it’s now available on the Apple store.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 25:55
Yeah, I think I think bear came onto onto the market as being an apple focused notetaking application that was very friendly to those who wanted markdown. And so it gives folks who who write in Markdown that capability and they’ve done really well. Still small user base, but I think a very strong product. And I think that, you know, if you are interested in trying out a different notetaking application, check out bear, you know, have they have they released one that goes cross platform? Or is it all still apple? I believe it’s all still Apple

Speaker 2 26:29
things still old? Apple? Yeah, yeah. So

Raymond Sidney-Smith 26:33
just kind of keep that in mind that it is an apple centric product. All right, on to our next technology article Augusto

Augusto Pinaud 26:39
are mixed article is about Apple, and they release product security update, took it down because of about release it again. Well, I think is a great thing that they can pull this rapid security responses, and the first release an issue had, so they pull it out, they release it last week. And then now this week, today, actually, they release Apple, see iOS 16.6 and the equivalent for the Mac and the iOS. And so if you have an Apple device, click the Update button, because there is update waiting free.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 27:23
Fantastic. Onward.

Augusto Pinaud 27:26
Now our next is Gmail is bringing Calendly like Calendly, it’s an application or service that you can pay and then integrate with your calendar. And then it will tell you, you know what, what availability you have, and they are even going to allow you to take paid appointments, that is one of the things that Kalyn Lee do. So those two news are very interesting for small businesses, especially those who already are in Google, because it will allow them one to use the service to eliminate maybe the extra service and integrate everything in one place. So again, I think this will be very, very interesting. I don’t know if they are already available for everybody. To be honest with you, I don’t know, it

Raymond Sidney-Smith 28:23
should be available for almost everyone I’d be I’d be curious if anyone still has not gotten access to it. So just to give you an idea of kind of describing through what’s going to what you’re going to experience. Now when you are in in a Gmail compose window, you are going to see a new drop down menu or you’re going to see an icon that looks like a little calendar icon within the compose window. When you click on the drop down the three dots to give you more options, you’re then going to see an option that basically says create a calendar event, that’s going to be on an email itself. So you’re going to you’re going to basically take the subject of the email. And that’s going to give you the ability to create a calendar event from that particular email. And then, and then the other option will basically pop out a little calendar on the side, you’ll be able to select the times you’re available, and then it will place those into the email. And then you will be able to send that email to folks, when they click on the time they’re also available. It will then create the event and place it into your into both of your calendars. That’s that’s the fluidity of what you’re what you should be experiencing with regard to this particular item. So it’s a it’s a it’s really powerful. I’m I’m I’m really looking forward to seeing more of this come from Google. This is going to this is going to obviously be a huge challenger to Calendly and to many other tools that are like this once hub schedule once all of those various tools that are out there that are that are doing this process. So I mean should be rolling out to me everybody I’m trying to look at to see who doesn’t have it yet. But you’ll, you’ll have it soon enough, it should be rolling out pretty quickly within the systems. But this is this is Google’s goal to centralize power within Gmail and Google Calendar. And they have the power to be able to do so they have the user base to be able to do so. And I’m really pleased to see them doing this, especially the paid option, you know, getting getting this, this whole freelancer, problem solved for people just being right in your email, I think is going to be really great. They currently have the ability within Google workspace. So if you have a business, Google account, where you’re where you have your own email, you know, your name, your business name.com, you know, set up in your system, you have the ability to set up an appointment schedule, so you can share a link, and someone can directly book into your calendar, but it doesn’t integrate with external tools, right, so you have the option of either Google meet or choosing an option later in person, but you don’t have the ability to say I want to integrate with Zoom. And so therefore, you know, every time someone schedules is going to create a zoom link, and put you in a Zoom meeting. So there are some limitations there. In that sense, I hope that as Google moves forward, it gives you those external integration partners so that you can, you can have that capability. Alright, on to our next story Gousto.

Augusto Pinaud 31:21
Our next story is Google’s AI powered Notes app is now called notebook L. M, and it lounge last week. So the app formerly known as tailwind give you you know, more AI model. And you can now use it as notebook help him have you play with notebook LM, or you’re on the waiting list. As I am, I haven’t,

Raymond Sidney-Smith 31:48
I’m on the waiting list. I’ve not I’ve not gained access to this, I’m not sure who has gained access to this, I thought it was only being released to a very, very small number of, of testers. And but I’m very much looking forward to gaining access to it when it does come out. You know, this is again, in in the long, slow march toward some kind of artificial intelligence baked into every tool in the world, we’re seeing, you know, just different options of this, what we should really call a lot of this is automation, right, we should just call this not artificial intelligence, we should just call this automation. And this is just a new form of automation. There is some intelligence baked into it by machine learning. And, and then of course, a large language model. But this is not artificial intelligence in the way in which we typically think about artificial intelligence. So using AI with it, kind of is cloak and dagger for a lot of this. So this is a mixture of machine learning, natural language processing, and a large language model that allows us to be able to put these these technologies together to be able to use this in a notebook environment. I think this is going to be very powerful. And quite honestly, I’m I’m curious how tools like Evernote and OneNote. And bear for example, notion craft, you name all of them, how they’re really going to be able to challenge a company like Google that has the chops. Sometimes it lacks the the the fortitude to say with these products, right. So that might be the only reason why someone won’t invest in a Google notebook LM because, you know, Google might say in three years, whatever, I’ll get rid of this now. Right? They did that with Google notebook. By the way, Google used to have something called Google notebook. Before Google notebook, LM, there was Google notebook. And it was a notetaking application. And then they killed it. Right. And so it went to the Google graveyard. And so you know, we’ll see what happens here. I think this is a very interesting concept. And and so we’ll, we’ll see what happens again, this is this is using generative AI to basically help you structure your, your process of notetaking. So we’ll see we’ll see what happens. I’m, I’m pretty curious about how this is all going to kind of work together between Bard, you know, which is the the open AI chat GPT equivalent under Google, if you go to bard.google.com. You can you can play with Bard itself. Then you have the built in functions within Google workspace. So if you’re in a Google Doc, you’ll you can sign up and then you will see a little magic pen pencil kind of icon that will hover next to your text, and then you can start using generative AI within that space. And then you know, of course Microsoft has copilot and all these. So we’re seeing lots and lots of different ways in which we’re seeing you know, advanced automation right advanced automation is really what this is as opposed to you know, artificial intelligence so to speak, but the the the advanced automation of all of these various pools is going to keep getting baked into all of the things that we’re touching. So we’re gonna hear about AI for the next four or five years, you know, just new things being implemented in all of these various ways, until they basically like, just settle into the background. And then we just say, hey, it’s a new feature, right? Like, this is a new feature of this particular tool, which is where we should really be, I feel like in the dialog right now, he says, Okay, this is a new feature. But you know, all these new quote unquote, products, like notebook LM, it’s gonna get kicked into something, right? No book, LM is not going to be its own thing forever, it’s just going to become a piece of Google Drive, or it’s going to become a piece of Google Docs, you know, it’s not going to be its own thing forever, it’s gonna get bundled into something. So I’m really curious how and where it ultimately gets stored. Maybe it’s Google Keep, maybe it’ll just get caked into Google Keep in some way, shape, or form, or it will take over? What is Google Keep, right, so we have to kind of keep some thought there in terms of where it’s all going. Okay, on which our next story.

Augusto Pinaud 35:59
In our next story is Google one BPM switching from broad to more local IP addresses. And basically, what they’re trying is to use the IP addresses to instead of being generic United States, more local, nothing. But it’s important. If you’re using VPN, now, you will be able to address your needs more explicitly than before.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 36:23
Right. So if you are a Google one subscriber, meaning that you have a plan with Google Drive, that gives you access to Google one, Google one has its own, quote, unquote, free, it’s one of the benefits of being a Google one member, which is this VPN tool, you can turn it on on your phone, you can turn it on on your various desktops, and the Google one VPN will then give you a VPN, before it was a much larger geographic region. And now you’re getting the more localized IP addresses so that you’re not getting blocked from things by accident, or, you know, in many cases, your own device is thinking that you’re, you know, somewhere else. And therefore, when he tries to connect to a website, it’ll block you from doing those kinds of things. And, you know, much bigger systems like ExpressVPN, and others, try very hard not for that to happen. And that still happens when you’re using those tools. And you have to kind of like turn off the VPN, access your system and then turn it back on. Google was trying to eliminate that problem, to a great extent, onward to our next story of Gousto.

Augusto Pinaud 37:25
Our next one is what we will call a box. And the title for make use of is WhatsApp versus telegram. Waiting order is better.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 37:39
These are fighting words against Oh, geez,

Augusto Pinaud 37:43
I know green stone need to admit for our listeners, that he put this article into the theme only because he knew the reaction of his co host. And he needs to admit that he’s been laughing for over a week about this article.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 38:01
Oh, man. So So I actually didn’t a chance to read through this article because I I didn’t see it. So what did they what did they come up with with as being kind of the better tool? I’m very curious.

Augusto Pinaud 38:16
They come and they have you know, the texting quality. They compare the texting quality in which telegram seems to win your organization as a text messages. They seem to be giving a lot to telegram. The reality is, I like telegram a lot more. And for me, there is a big reason why I like telegram. Okay, Telegram works everywhere. Okay, I use WhatsApp. I have clients, friends who live outside of the United States, where WhatsApp is the main adoption thing. That’s the reality. You know, I I made like, Apple. But the reality is, I am some Venezuela my parents have iPhones because otherwise I don’t do tech support. Otherwise, they will have androids because that’s the common device. Same thing in Mexico, where my in laws are. So what is better or what is worse? It also depends on that and take that into an equation. And I have found that the WhatsApp it’s very, very big among people who have international ties. So if you have tight with people outside of the United States, you tend to use whatsapp more than anything else. When you have more or you’re tight or internal. You tend to use more telegram. That’s what I have found. How scientific that is. I don’t know which one is better. Well, I believe anything outside of metta and Zuckerberg is better. But that’s again, it comes to my personal opinions, not necessarily a technicality even that I use both.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 39:58
Yeah, I will say that my experience As with WhatsApp is not bad. It’s not it’s not a, it’s not something where I feel like I’m ever dealing with, you know, what’s happening in a frustrated sense. The only time that is particularly the case is with WhatsApp on the desktop. Because whatsapp on the desktop, I, I’m not sure what I’m using, I think I’m using the desktop application, I don’t think oh, no, I guess I’m using the PWA. And so I’m not sure actually, if there is a fully fledged WhatsApp desktop application, I’m not sure

Augusto Pinaud 40:33
is there the problem was a PWA is I have more than one device. And then when I tried to use it and disconnect, it works great. You have one phone, one device, as soon as you start adding devices to that equation, it break. And it’s very frustrating for me, therefore, again, I tried to push people to telegram because telegram works great. I can throw any rise, any brand, any system, any model. And that didn’t work.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 41:02
But and that’s really that’s where I was going with this is that when you install Telegram, whether using the web app, whether you’re using the progressive Progressive Web App, whether you’re using the desktop application, the mobile applications, the iPad app, they all just work seamlessly across all of them. And you get a what I feel like is a richer experience, right? There’s something about the details of the telegram application, their UX is just very, very well done. Everything about it just has these nice features, including the animated emoji, when you respond to emoji, even on the mobile advice on mobile devices. It’s a delight. It’s really just a very, very nice experience for you. So I feel like Telegram for me just wins across the board. I will note that of course, telegrams, security is, uh, you know, supposed to be a little less, you know, than WhatsApp because telegram requires you to activate a separate secret chat. If you want to have end to end encryption. I am not sure how WhatsApp does their encryption, except knowing that they use the signal application protocol as their mechanism mechanism for end to end encryption. But it’s meta. So, you know, I, I don’t know. It’s just one of those things where I have this on on a biased, very, very biased perspective that, you know, really, are they really, really doing it all

Augusto Pinaud 42:25
Yar, I believe firmly the I encrypt in between Mara. And you and Mara and the other person that mean

Raymond Sidney-Smith 42:35
Correct. Correct. Like if you lose your whatsapp credentials, and you need to get back into WhatsApp, true end to end encryption would mean that would break so that they’re holding any of the keys then then it’s not truly e to e. So so that that part always bothers me because I’m like no, that’s not actually true. But But anyway, I don’t know that to be absolutely 100% Sure. So I’m not going to say that but whatever. Anyway, I feel like just across the board I have a better experience with with telegram and I find the video messaging worse the circles as just like just cute it’s just a nice feature about telegram is really nice again I don’t have any major qualms with WhatsApp I’ve always found it to be more limiting but now that they’ve allowed multi device and will tie you know one account having multiple devices you can still use it I don’t use it that much. I use it with all of maybe three or four people again as you said it’s because they’re out of the country or that’s their primary tool so we use it it’s fine but I’m not I’m not bothered too much by it because I’m I’m always in telegram alright on to our next

Augusto Pinaud 43:46
goal and this is the first look at the Onyx Books tab ministry in the ministry is the update of have talked about this device and it’s not shine but it is the Onyx Nova see, and this is basically the update of the Nova see Nova, she has been cobbled in years. It’s a color ink, it’s you know, it’s an interesting device. I bought it because he was eating I needed to replace my Kindle and I thought Great, I can replace my Kindle with colors, skin, it works for what it do. It’s an Android that allows you to install certain applications. It’s going to replace my Kindle ever. It’s not but it’s not processor wise. We have discussed many times in this show and others the processor can compete with the processor on my iPad is not designed for that. That set for the to compete with. I can go he needs um, my experience was a Kindle Fire tablets that the battery didn’t last long, the Sony Reader so I can charge and forget about that thing, charging into forever. But at the same time, I have the ability to install applications that I do not have, at least on the Kindles, readers that I have. So you get the it’s like sitting in the middle, you get some of the capabilities, and the slowness of the fire and tablets. But you get the e reader is the eating experience of the readers. And that’s exactly the reason I liked it. It’s not very powerful. It’s not very big. But he’s has a USBC, you can connect a pen drives as you want to it to have more capability, they offered you a books cloud, that you can store some devices, it comes with a pen, and it works. My only frustration currently is that they announced a tap mini C and they change some of the UI or user interface in this one, and they have not brought it to the last one. So now you get like the iPad or the tablets, you know, the Favorites application on the bottoms, but that you only get on this model, they have not yet brought it back to the old hardware. And I let my frustration with email.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 46:15
All right, with that, we have reached the the end of our technology headlines, or we’re now moving into our new tools of the week. And so with that, each week, as you know, gusten I come across many personal development, time tasks, project management tools, and and services. And so some of them we use some of them we just noticed and they stand out from the pack and therefore we go ahead and select a tool each week to share with you and let you know about them. And so, this week, I am pulling up my tool here to describe it to you hold on one second here. Okay, so we’ll go ahead and talk about Scrivener, then I’ll circle back and talk about plot.

Augusto Pinaud 46:58
So my tool is a Scrivener. In my case for iOS, I’m a writer, I write a books, and I write white papers in a red light or write long articles. And for none of them I have found anything better than Scrivener. I recommend obviously the one on the the iPad because I leave on the iPad, but Scrivener do the Mac as Scrivener do more than the iPad. So they do that they Sorry, I’m looking at it download because of course I know they do windows for sure they do Mac for sure. Yeah, Mac windows on iOS said you can access them wolfed with them on a windows when a Mac on iOS, they synchronize that you can put your files in Dropbox or that way you can open them in multiple devices, you cannot as far as this current release, you cannot work simultaneously more more than one person into the same document. But for organizing things, and moving things around and pieces of content as you are working, I have not found anything best than that. I use a different piece of software for short touristiques like like articles and blog posts. But for longer things, I can speak better things about Scrivener, I have not found anything that do other things that they do is they can compile so you can make it later into an ePub or, or an Amazon books and now that that format is leaving, but you can make them to an ePub or a PDF. So it’s really incredible. I’d recommend it to anybody who said I wish I ever write a book than Lotus Griffin

Raymond Sidney-Smith 48:54
antastic. So what I wanted to do was talk about a tool that’s currently on Kickstarter until like August 16, or something like that August 6 16, something like that. So you have a week or two before it leaves. I think it’s been funded way beyond its needs. But so it’s a tool called plod note like applaud without the first AP so PLA UD but plug note is a physical tool. And it is based on open a eyes whisper and chat GPT functions. So what you are capable of doing is it’s there’s an app connected to it. But it is a physical device that you use. You record your audio and then that recorder that is basically connected to chat JpT is going to go ahead and transcribe and summarize the conversations that you’re having. It’s MagSafe so it can clip right onto your iPhone if you are you if you have an iPhone. And so you get this tool that allows you 30 hours of continuous recording. It’s got 64 gigabytes of storage and the app location, of course comes with the device itself. So if you’re in a lecture, if you’re on a phone call with someone, just toss it on, you know, what do you call it speakerphone. You can take voice memos if you’re, you know, alone by yourself. And you can, you know, generate Mind Maps, you can do all kinds of fun fun things with the plug note itself. Like I said, it’s, it’s a Kickstarter, so I’ve not played with this yet. But I’m really curious about it. And, and I’m curious if any of you will be interested in doing that. It says it can do iPhone call recording that it supports Android as well, I’m not sure how that works. So I’m really curious to see how that kind of comes together. It is a very thin, it’s like, you know, point 117 inches thick. So it’s basically, you know, the thickness of a few credit cards. And so it’s just this device that gives you high quality audio recording with all the noise cancellation built into the AI. So it can clean out the that using Whisper it’s personal. It’s the data itself is encrypted. So you have all you know, encryption on the device, so you’re not going to lose. If you lose it physically, you’re not going to you know, to be be left in a situation. I’m, I’m really curious about it. I’m, I’m interested in seeing how it all works. With a physical product. I like sometimes having a physical product for that kind of thing. I am concerned about its limited use in that sense. So we’ll see what happens when it comes out onto the market. It’s I don’t know the company, the company is Isaac, Isaac, I don’t know something like that. But it is it is raised 600 $700,000 of the $5,000. It was trying to raise as its goal. So it has far exceeded its interest level, the product itself is roughly about 100 bucks, it’s going to be retailed at about $160 USD. But you can grab it right now for $100 comes to three colors. And yeah, and it’s MagSafe, as I said, really, really interesting. You know, thought there, so it can hold up to 480 hours of recording. But of course you can you can record 30 hours on a single charge. So something to kind of consider if you’re if you’re looking for a physical recording device. And you’re kind of interested in playing around with plod, and the app as well as plot AI which does the transcription and connects it to to the chat GBT functionality so it can do more and better things for you. So that is my tool this week. Already Gousto. From there, onward to our announcements who have any announcements?

Augusto Pinaud 52:48
Well, yeah, we have we have the story of the week. That was how to start a new job on 30-60 and 90 day plan. And then we have announcements. But

Raymond Sidney-Smith 52:58
but what story of the weekend then.

Augusto Pinaud 53:01
So story of the week is how to make a new job right 30-60-90 day plan. And you know, there is a lot of things that have happened since pandemic and now that seems like some of the dust is settling people is starting to look into new jobs. And how do you make it right? And this article from life hacker Lindsey go into the details will talk to your hiring manager figured out what is 30? What is 60? What is 90? And, you know, all this is fine and dandy. But most of what this article share may not necessarily apply to our listeners in the sense that the people listen to us, our productivity enthusiast, they most likely will pass over water those 30-60-90 day plan. And one of the things that I was discussing recently with somebody is you need to be careful into getting into the unit job and blowing everybody out of the water because you’re very productive. And the reason is, you would not be you may not be doing it in a mean way. But you are the new one in the house. And people don’t understand Inbox Zero. People don’t understand that you can organize label or do agendas. And I tell a couple of stories. I had a boss once back, you know, in my back into the cubicle and he saw my Outlook open with no emails. And he sure I was on the phone and as soon as I hang up he walked around and scare me What happened to your computer and I’m looking at him like I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You have no emails yet processing. Okay, and he was looking at me like I have two ads on one of them was read Okay, that happened to me. And many years later or some years later, I was in a meeting. And I begin, it was a large meeting. So I begin creating an agenda that I update before this bi weekly meeting. And someday, a very senior person in the organization join the call, and said, I’m so grateful that you update this agenda every week, because it is the first time that I know what is happening. And I’m looking at this guy like, but you’re very senior in the organization, you could have asked somebody to produce this. And these things that are very see and of use for productivity, and to share some productivity people are not necessarily for the rest of the organization. So as you as for your 3060, or 90 plan, take also into consideration, don’t put the jet in full trope, again, to store some little bit less of the power of

Raymond Sidney-Smith 56:02
Yeah, I think it can be, it can be perceived poorly, if you are so much more productive than your peers, and that pressures them to have to do so much more work than is necessary. So I think I think there is a kind of realism there, especially if it’s a huge change to the working order, or the culture of that particular business department, team or otherwise, you know, I’m of the opinion that if there are people who are just kind of skating along and not, and not pulling their weight, that shouldn’t make you slow yourself down to their pace. But I can, I can see where you’re coming from a Gousto, which is that, you know, a little bit of a little bit of competence sometimes goes too far. And so, and that will then not only make you enemies, right, that ends up being a social problem for you within the company, it may also be something that limits your growth, because if your manager thinks they’re more that you’re more competent than them, that can force you to be held down, because they don’t want you to surpass them in a way. So just being mindful of the politics of an environment, I will say that it is helpful to think about the, the way in which you onboard into a new company, and it could be just a new role as well. So, you know, if you change positions, and you’re promoted, was just I think the, the, the unfortunate circumstance of of companies is that, instead of just paying you more for what you’re already good at, they tend to put you in higher and higher positions of authority that pay you more, but make you change from the skills that you’re really good at, right. So they keep putting you up in higher and higher roles that takes you away from what you’re good at, and more what you’re probably not designed to do. And so it can be difficult. And so 30-60-90 days, it gives you an opportunity to be able to figure out what the things are. So 30 days into a new role. If you’re new to the company, you’re you’re learning culture, the roles and responsibilities, technology, onboarding, and such. If you are not new to the company, then you’re still learning in a way what’s required of you within the company. But culture and on technology, onboarding and whatnot are probably not as much of an issue, which means that changes your 3060 90 day plan. So just kind of keep giving that some some thought as you make your way through. The goal then though, for 30-60-90, is to set goals for those 3060 and 90 days, whether or not you share them with your hiring manager, you are going to be setting these goals for yourself. So you know what you’re going to be able to get to, and of course, documenting that so that when you do get to some particular point, you do have the opportunity to sit down with your supervisor, your manager, whoever is whoever’s higher up the new, and having that conversation about what’s working and what’s not working within the role. So that you can both, you know, exist with some form of life work integration, right? If you’re working 1617 hours a day, that’s not tenable, and certainly not sustainable. And you need to figure out why this is happening, and figure out how to overcome those pieces. So it’s a matter of of determining those pieces. And then going on from there. I think 90 is the most difficult part, because there’s a full quarter away from where you started. And so really determining those 90 Day goals is something that perhaps you should talk to a senior person in the company, maybe not your particular supervisor if you don’t feel comfortable with that. But other folks who have been there a long while who maybe share your same role in the company, or at least have been there long enough to know what those roles look like, and asking them, hey, at 90 days, what do you feel like is and what should I be doing in that particular regard? To make sure that I’m on track, you know, to staying safe solidly successful in my role. So just something to kind of kick the tires on, in that sense. Anything else Augusto about the 30-60- 90 day plan when you so

Augusto Pinaud 1:00:10
I think that’s it, so we ever go over announcements. One is, in the last couple of weeks Evernote announced that they are doing some layouts on the company, they are moving to Europe, some employees are planning to move to Europe, some employees decide not to move, and we’re let go. I don’t know if you want to comment, anything additional to that?

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:00:38
No, I’ll just I’ll say, I’ll say this, you know, a shock to all of us, you know, to see the US-based Evernote staff, let you know, let go. You know, they were, you know, many, many people I knew. And so it’s just unfortunate, but it’s the way of company purchases, you know, the company bending spoons is based out of Italy. They wanted to centralize their development team and their management, inside bending spoon in Italy, inside Europe. And that’s what they’ve done. So Evernote, the product suite is not changing. I literally just spoke to someone today about some new development on the application itself, and things that they’re trying to move forward with on the roadmap. So that part I’m not fearful about Evernote is going to be around, it’s perfectly fine. A lot of people thought that because of the layoff that it was that it was somehow the end of Evernote and that is not the case, the Evernote, the product suite is just fine. It’s going to keep running and doing what it’s always been doing. This is not like Twitter, or now known as x. You know, this is not a CEO who’s not paying their bills or arguing with people or causing fights in public forums. This is just a company that purchased another and is going through the process of centralizing and creating efficiencies. And so while it’s sad, you know, I feel for the people who are who were let go, they got a great severance package and I hope that they land on their feet. And but otherwise, Evernote is going to continue to grow, continue to put out updates and new features. And we’ll see where things go from there under bending spoons leadership.

Augusto Pinaud 1:02:19
So on our last newsletter was last week, Omni focus rich his 15 years. So happy birthday, Omni focus for iPhone. It was 15 years ago when it was announced on the Apple Store. And there’s an article there from the Omni group and showing you that what you may not remember the original iPhone was original I came in when you see those strings, you want to cry, but that at the time was the edge of technology. So happy birthday OmniFocus. And our last news is he’s been making noise and they have doing something unusual. And the NFL, we are having a hard word event in September. It’s not that they didn’t do it. They do their hardware announcements. They do the echoes on their tablets on their Kindles. But this is the first time that they announced it was that much time. So the rumor of the expectation is that is something fun coming and something big coming. So

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:03:26
yeah. And it’s funny because they’re there. This is kind of in line with the fact that they launched HQ two, which is in Arlington, Virginia, which is where my company was based for many years. And and so it’s it’s funny to kind of think about all of the really major things happening at Amazon right now. And you know, they haven’t said anything about what they’re going to announce at this event. So it’s kind of interesting. They’re they’re kind of putting a little bit of mystery into all of this by announcing an event so early without telling anyone basically context. And of course, now the rumor mill will start. But you know, still interesting for Amazon to go ahead and do that. All right. And with that, we have covered the productivity and related technology news this week, thanks to Augusto for putting together the show this and every week. And so thank you guys. So we’ll see you next week.

Augusto Pinaud 1:04:17
It is my pleasure. See you next week.

Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:04:20
All right, everybody on anything but idle.com, you’ll find our show notes of those include links to all the stories we’ve discussed the tools of the week, our extra stories that we couldn’t cover during the episode and text transcripts that you can read and download from the site, or just read directly on the page while you’re listening along. If you’ve looked at the show notes, if there’s something we missed, which can happen, feel free to go ahead and leave a comment you can tweet at us. You can also direct message us using our now x profile at Anything But Idle, Twitter. If you didn’t know rebranded today to be x, I’m not quite sure how we’re going to use that. lexicon now but it’s still tweet I think so. But either way you can post or tweet at us, whatever, it’s still Twitter to me in my head. So our Twitter profile or our X profile is at Anything But Idle, you can use our contact form on the website and use that to be able to go ahead and message us. The best way I think, to interact with Augusto and I is to come to personal productivity club. It is our free digital community for personal productivity enthusiast, and you must be because you’re listening to this show. So we have a group dedicated to Anything But Idle, the podcast, we have a whole section of our podcasts and the different groups for those podcasts. If you go to anything, but idle.com forward slash community, it’ll take you right to a signup page, and you’ll be automatically added to the group when you sign up for personal productivity club. As I said, it’s free, and it’s easy to then interact with us in that space. This is your first time watching the live stream. Welcome, feel free to subscribe to the YouTube channel. And therefore you’ll get notified when we do go live weekly or any of our special shows. If you’re listening to the podcast in your podcast app, and it’s this is your first time feel free to add us by subscribing or following following the instructions inside your favorite podcast app. And that way you’ll get a free download whenever we put out an episode. And with that, we will see you all next time on Anything But Idle. Here’s to your productive life.