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Gmail and Google Chat will let you choose which contacts can nudge you through iOS Focus Mode and the Productivity News This Week
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In this Cast | Gmail and Google Chat will let you choose which contacts can nudge you through iOS Focus Mode
Headlines & Show Notes | Gmail and Google Chat will let you choose which contacts can nudge you through iOS Focus Mode
Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.
How to Use Block Scheduling to Revamp Your Workflow
To Keep Workers, Flexibility Is More Important Than Money | Time
You can now try 1Password’s customizable redesign on your iPhone and iPad – The Verge
Microsoft brings Autofill support to Authenticator to help you create strong passwords
You can now open Google Drive images directly in Picsart for web-based photo editing
Google Workspace customers will now be able to create Dynamic Groups
Outlook Tasks vs. Microsoft To Do: Which Is Better?
Business & Finance Segment
Memex went closed source while it figures out funding
Productivity Resource of the Week
Google Finally Announces the Switch to Android App
Cellular Data vs HotSpot discussion (Boox Nova Mention)
Featured Story of the Week
Gmail and Google Chat will let you choose which contacts can nudge you through iOS Focus Mode
Announcements
NYyou Library Offers Free Banned e-reader Books
Other News
A new iOS to-do app wants to get rid of the stress of completing tasks (Bento)
A life of Productivity Podcast: Podcast: A few ways to work with intention
Unlimited Google Photos Storage for $15 per Month Through T-Mobile
How To Decorate Your Office To Boost Productivity –
New Chromebook user? Learn to use Chrome OS with this simulator
How to Make Your Current Home Work for You (When Moving Isnt an Option)
Google’s Arduino-Powered Little Signals Offer Stress-Free Notifications
Googles AirDrop competitor is reportedly getting a big upgrade
Kobo makes a number of bookstore improvements
Pixel At a Glance widget finally gets new functionality from March feature drop
How to Respond to an Unreasonable Request –
A neuroscientist debunks the biggest productivity myths | BBC Science Focus Magazine –
Why I Wrote a Book About Momentum
Upcoming California Bill Proposes a 32-hour Workweek for Companies with Over 500 Employees –
Raw Text Transcript | Gmail and Google Chat will let you choose which contacts can nudge you through iOS Focus Mode
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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:00
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 0:13
I’m an entrepreneur,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:14
and we’re your hosts for Anything But Idle. This is episode 104 104. For April 25 2022, iOS focus mode comes to Gmail and Google Chat. And of course, the productivity and technology news this week. Each week we review and discuss the productivity and technology news headlines of the week for you. And with that, we start with the productivity articles first, then we go into after the break the technology productivity technology articles, and then we usually do a productivity resource of the week, then we do the feature story discussion. So with that, let us start with our stories of the week in the productivity article space of this day. What’s our first article this week? So
Augusto Pinaud 0:53
our first article this week is from Wired, and it’s how to use block scheduling to revamp your workflow. And it’s a good article, it remind you a well why did they do high school and why they blocked and why the time blocking. But I think it’s trying to bring the term block scheduling to what time blocking really is. And it’s not about article, it has a really good thing, you know, blocking or boxing, you know, plan ahead but be flexible. It is a really good article. But again, I think it when into trying to accomplish everything that in a way made it diluted because of that and tried to bring this concept of sorry, try to bring this concept of block scheduling that, at least, you did not convince me that this is different than time blocking based on what I read on the articles. But again, it was a good article.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 1:56
Yeah, what I heard in the article, this Wired article talks about the basically the three different types of time blocking in addition to time blocking. And so talks about time blocking, task batching, de theming, and then time boxing, and gives kind of a definition for those four types of block scheduling methods. The thing that I didn’t particularly agree with is that you were going to only use one of these, I really believe that there is some level of overlap between certain things you want to get done and wanting to be able to utilize each of these in different capacities. I use three of these types throughout my week. And I don’t have any problem with that. And so I do in a GTD flavor, but I I definitely use these things. And so I don’t think there’s any, anything wrong with mixing and matching the methods to be able to be more productive.
Augusto Pinaud 2:53
Or mix articles for fortune is your boss things, you know, you have no long term future at your job if your camera is on, and your microphone is off. So apparently you throw the camera. So that’s really worries me as their co host. But okay,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 3:10
I did that on purpose.
Augusto Pinaud 3:12
Interview a bunch of executive unknowing 96% of them think, well, if you’re not engaged, you don’t turn on your camera, you may not be that engaged. I don’t know if I agree with necessarily with that I, I have worked with organizations where the camera is on when the camera is important where people wants to be there. And I have worked in other organizations where nobody turns the camera on, nobody thinks they are on engaged. So I’m curious about these executives that were surveyed and what was their culture in their company, they may for what it is it is a camera on culture, that is fine. But again, I have seen many organizations where camera have completely fine.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 4:05
I can see why organizations would have a lot of executives who would believe that because most organizations have pretty poor managers. And so especially when you deal with middle management and the fact that most people are elevated to managing people without the skills taught to them about how to manage people. So you come into environments where you are a technical expert, you’ve you’ve excelled in your technical expertise. And then they tell you well, because you have excelled in your technical expertise, you now can be elevated to a new role doing absolutely something different than your technical expertise, which is managing people who are doing what you’re technically competent in. And I just think that’s really obtuse. And that kind of leads us to our next article, which is the Marcus Buckingham interview. And funny enough Marcus Marcus Buckingham. Sam is the one who wrote the book first break all the rules. And he’s the person who taught me the fact that in his book, this is the problem with most physicians, we say, Oh, you did really well, as a secretary, instead of paying me more to be the best damn secretary, you could be, let’s elevate you now to another role that you’re not actually good at, we’ll pay you more money. And now you fail in that position, or you do it mediocre. Because, you know, like, that’s the nature of the beast, you’re really good at this set of skills, you should be paid more, continuing to do that set of skills more and more optimally, we forget that about the way in which we both empower and upskill our employees. And so if you’re going to have managers who are bad at managing, they’re naturally going to presume that if they can’t see you, you’re not doing the right things in the right time in the right spaces. And that really is the crux of what Mark is Bobby McLean. Buckingham is saying here, he, you know, he, he’s a data guy, right? So he’s done all of the surveying. And he’s basically saying, you know, we’ve been more productive. During the pandemic, we’ve proven that we can be productive in a hybrid and remote work first world. And at the same time executives are kind of stuck, because they don’t know how to manage in this environment. What was your take on on the Time article?
Augusto Pinaud 6:20
You know, the Time article was very good. And they I agree, you know, it’s why, why we insist on on both sides, by the way, okay, organizations, as well as people, okay, we look at, let me grow, let me get to the next job, let me get to the next title, without necessarily prepare ourselves for for the next title, and then we fail. And when we fail, it’s like, well, I don’t understand. But even at that point, we struggle into looking that support, you know, the, that’s part one. And part two is, you know, I love, you know, that concept that the how important flexibility, it’s turning into be on how after the pandemic, you know, this has been, we were talking to an organization this week, that I’m trying to help they have the problem that in the different sectors are nonprofit, okay, and they have gone from engagement, and their current engagement in some of the locations is 5%. Five. And they’re terrified, because, well, if they don’t get that engagement up, they can keep operating. And they really don’t know what to do. And they are struggling into trying to find what they can do and how they can keep the flexibility that people feel they have, but increase the engagement. And I think that’s part you know, we have discussed this notion in the last two years, there is people who was going to be happy to come back there is people who not, but the flexibility, it’s going to be that factor that is going to make a difference, regardless, if you want to come back because even those people who come back will have things. Okay, that will require that flexibility. So it’s really interesting as a person who has been looking flexibility for so long. You know, that was my thing when I, when I begin working my professional career some many years ago, okay. That was my thing. What is the job? I didn’t care about money, I didn’t care about many other aspects. My question is, what is the job that if I get to be very, very, very good, I will have a lot of flexibility? And the answer was sales. Okay, sales who said job that if you are very, very good at what you do, okay, your amount of flexibility is incredible, because company understand that you are very good at what you do, and they give you that freedom. So it is really interesting for me seeing this come back now, in a more generic way.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 9:18
I would really recommend to everybody that once you get the link in the show notes to read through this article with Marcus Buckingham, he really details both the numbers side of this, as well as the kind of the myth of many of these things that we’ve been hearing throughout the course of the pandemic. And now, we’re seeing the data of the of the types of collecting that he’s been doing and the analyses and basically the synthesis and analysis that you can take from this kind of situation. Like when we overtax our employees and we cause them to basically be stressed out. They are much more likely to want to leave the company. So making them less stressed actually makes them more productive. And this makes a lot of sense to me, you know, we talk about we, we here have talked about psychological safety, and the importance of creating that kind of safety. And yes, there’s some level of positive stress, we consider you stress, but everyone’s different, right. And most people are much less likely to want, you know, high levels of stress, whether that be categorical stress, that is a negative stressor, like, you know, someone passing away or something like that. And also good stress, like how I would really like you to take on 15 projects tomorrow Gousto. You know, that’s, that’s a volume based stress, as opposed to just a categorical stress, both of those levels of stress become negative for people. And if we can, if we can understand that, for most organizations, people are going to work best when they’re not super stressed out. Better yet, not even, you know, overly stressed out in the sense of just pushing negative stressors on them. There are stressors generally on them, they’re going to be productive in that space, they are, they don’t need what we tend to think about when we think about executives needing to poke and prod people to get things done. And the people who need that kind of thing. You know, that’s were teaching them these kinds of productivity skills, and the importance of mission and vision. I mean, really works, it really helps people kind of latch on to why they’re doing the work they’re doing in an organization. And that’s a, that’s a meaning problem. And I, I try to always explain that to my clients, if you have a poor performer is likely because they don’t believe in your mission. And you can either help them believe in your mission, or they can move on. Alright. And you know, there’s a there’s kind of a difference there. And many times people just don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. And as soon as they understand that, then they get on board real quick. So all right onto our next story.
Augusto Pinaud 11:48
So those are three stories. This week on the productivity articles. Got it. All
Raymond Sidney-Smith 11:55
right, so we are going to then hop over to our break for the show. And when we get back, we will hop into our tech stories. And so now word from our sponsor this week co working space by personal productivity club, we’ll see after the break.
Sponsor Voice Over 12:10
Well, working in person may be normal for you. It’s unlikely your co workers are as interested in being productive as you are, or working remotely or from home can be isolating and there’s something powerful about being with productive people, even virtually that helps you be more engaged. If a flavor of these sounds familiar, co working space by personal productivity club is for you. co working space is a virtual work community designed to help members be more effective and efficient in their work and personal lives. At its core, we provide goal tracking and host focused action sessions throughout the week for accountability and camaraderie, visit anything but idle.com forward slash co working to learn more CO working space lives inside personal productivity club, a digital community for personal productivity enthusiast. So you can find people who use methods and tools you do to, again, head over to anything but idle.com forward slash co working to see how co working space can help you be more productive. And now back to our show.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 13:20
Welcome back everybody to Anything But Idle. I’m Ray Sidney-Smith with a Gousto printout, of course and we are going to get into our second half of the show, which are our technology headlines this week. Gousto what is our first headline this week,
Augusto Pinaud 13:35
so I’m very biased about this. But you can now try the one password, new customizable design, you can sign up one password, it’s been a favorite app for me, I don’t, I don’t know how many years. I remember I use a splash ID because that was the palm had. And then when I moved to the iPhone, you use his palm splash ID onto one password came when that was I don’t know I don’t remember. But that has many years I am using that. And it is gorgeous. The new app, the new icons. It is such a gorgeous app. So not only they are making more things on the engine, they are allowing you to customize how you use it and make it really really really, really pretty.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 14:31
Yeah, and you can look in the article and like pan back and forth between the two different versions like the article has a little bar so you can like pan back and forth between the two versions that are out and you can see how much nicer the new version really looks. It’s really really nicely done. I am of course not going to be putting beta versions on my devices or or recommending to anyone to be using beta versions but if you Want to like, look around and see what it’s all about, definitely check it out, I just wouldn’t recommend a beta Password Manager, because it’s your password manager, he really don’t want a beta version of that. But if you have a spare device and you want to play around, then by all means, you know, just make sure your back your passwords are on a device with the stable version, the general release version that is out there so that you’re not losing any passwords or having any frustration in that regard. But I’m very, very excited to see this. I have lots of clients who use one password. And so you know, just seeing the customization capabilities. And the interface just looks nicer. As you noted a Gousto. There’s just kind of a a slicker slicker view to it all. And just, you were noting, password history I, I was a key pass user for many, many years, which is the old open source Password Manager. And it was horrible. It worked. But it was just terrible. I’m so glad to see that password managers have become so much more useful and so much friendlier for users today, because they’re vital. I mean, we really need to make sure everybody has a password manager today. And if you don’t have a password manager, please get a password manager. It will, it will save you from a lot of heartache in the future regarding security and data privacy. All right, next up more password management stuff, go for
Augusto Pinaud 16:18
password. And you know, Microsoft is bringing out the field support to the authenticator, the likes of authenticator, it’s getting more powerful, you know. And if you use edge on the phone or any other device, they have already an extension that you can use the autofill if you want to use it on the phone or the Android, you need to update to the new version. But the beautiful thing with this is, I get it, I don’t understand that you don’t want to type 16 characters password, I get it. Okay, this will get to to populate out to fail, and then being able to really have those really long and not about authenticator. But it’s one of the things I love about one password is they have a browser internally, I don’t even need to go to my browser to use those. I can do some insight in that bubble. And I really, really liked that.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 17:17
Yeah, so as I understood the article, I have not seen this yet in authenticator. I believe this is it’s just generating a secure password and then filling it in. So you would still need to save that password in your password manager of choice. I don’t believe that authenticator is saving that password for you. So
Augusto Pinaud 17:36
I understood the edge was going to save it securely, and allows you to bridge our authenticator to the edge extension to the browser. But I could be completely wrong. I don’t use Microsoft products
Raymond Sidney-Smith 17:49
we’ll have to ask our delegates
Augusto Pinaud 17:53
aren’t because i don’t know
Raymond Sidney-Smith 17:55
i have authenticator on my devices. But I Microsoft authenticator on my devices just for a few accounts, you know, some 365 accounts, but I haven’t actually tested this feature. So I’ll ask RT and then I’ll test it out myself and make sure that we report back to you all on that because that would be very, very slick, that if it were connecting to edge and doing that I don’t use edge either. So you know, but it’s a chromium based browser. So it has a built in Password Manager. So I could see how that could be really seamless for a lot of people, you know, if they were if they were using Microsoft, Microsoft Edge, and the authenticator all packaged together. So very cool. All right, on to our next story this week.
Augusto Pinaud 18:31
So our next story is going to do is is the integration of Aggie flow. Hockey flow basically will allows you to get your tasks and calendars together. So you can play, plan your day with a lot more ease. And you can plan your schedule, your task in the Google Calendar, get decks of notification, get import tasks into to do is use the label, and everything else. So it basically bring you if you if you imagine your screen with a calendar basically will bring the task or certain task into the side, and you will be able to have everything on one is green, it seems very interesting. And it’s good to see it coming for integration with Google and to do
Raymond Sidney-Smith 19:22
Yeah, it’s basically like a non Microsoft Outlook without the email. And so it brings you I’ve been playing around with it flow I you know, just testing it for sake of of play, you know, because I’d like to know about these things. And so Aki flow is actually a really, really streamlined environment. It’s a it’s a nice application, it’s stable. And you can connect multiple accounts to it. And multiple different types of task integrations. So you can have, say, Google Tasks, and you can have your now to do list and you can have these different task management apps in there. Of course, as I remember the milk user, I cannot do that, which is why I’m Using our cue flow, so if the queue flow, people are listening, hey, I’d love Remember The Milk to be in there. But either way, it’s actually really nice environment because you can see your tasks, and you can see your calendar and then you can see them, you know, just seamlessly overlay and and then be able to toggle them on and off. And it has nice features in terms of being able to reschedule a little bit akin to maybe skid Powell, you know, and that kind of concept of being able to have some quick pieces, not with as much algorithmic determination as to the where tasks go, you really do a lot of that. But Aki flow is actually really nice I’ve been, and there’s a free version, by the way. So if you’re paying for Todoist, and you want to be able to still use Aki flow, there are some limitations on the free plan. But you can try the free plan out and see if it works for you. And then upgrade if you want all of the bells and whistles that it provides. So really, really nice application. And I appreciate what the rocky flood folks are doing. All right. On to the next
Augusto Pinaud 20:57
on to the next on the Chromebook now you can open Google Drive images directly on pick start from or for web based editing. So you know, I’m fascinated with the Chromebooks. No, I’m not leaving my iPads anytime soon. Okay, but I’m still fascinated, I’m still fascinated, because I think they’re getting more and more and more powerful. And without making too much noise about it. And suddenly, one day, we’re going to wake up and say, Geez, these things are very powerful. And that is really, really interesting. And this is another example, you can go to the Google Drive, you can now directly on the browser, and it was a big start. So it’s exciting to see.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 21:46
Yeah, I see, I see the holy grail for Chromebooks really becoming dominant to be able to do seamless photo editing, seamless video editing, seamless audio editing. And once those three multimedia components are available within the Chrome OS environment, and it’s just seamless for them, I think that users will very easily come over to Chromebooks. And it’s not, it’s not a person who’s a power PC user, like, that’s not the person who’s gonna go there. But there’s a whole generation of people coming online. And as they’re growing up, they can use this kind of lightweight technology, you know, lightweight hardware resources and get a an operating system that will do everything they want to do on online. And that’s really, really powerful.
Augusto Pinaud 22:29
Well, but even, you know, even I can tell you, I can share this, you know, my, my daughter, she’s not a power user, I get it. She’s 14, okay, 13 or even 1413. Okay, but Chrome OS is the OS that she has used the most. Okay, probably next to iOS. Why? Because that’s what it’s cool half. Okay, that’s a Chromebook that you do. So for her, it’s an OS where she can move really, really, really comfortable. And the fact that that machine is getting more and more powerful, when the decision to upgrade and get a computer will be, there is no doubt on her mind. Why do it unless you use a software that you need to run that will not run into that she will most likely will not get a Mac or a PC? Not because any other reason that why I can do this. I know the software, I know, the application, and I’ve been using it for the last X amount of years.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 23:32
Yeah, I think I think there’s going to be a whole generation of people like your daughter who are just so comfortable with utilizing that tool. And I know that the article from Chrome unboxed also noted Canva. And its capabilities. I mean, Canva has put so much of the power of design into an application ecosystem, meaning that you could do all of these things in an Android app on the Chrome OS environment, which just for
Augusto Pinaud 23:58
saving on it, but and I laugh, because I deal a lot of designer for what I do for a living and used to be that they send us you know, I used to talk about this app who allows you to, to open those Adobe files into the iPad and all that. And now they send you Canva they don’t, they don’t even I don’t know if they export an imported or creative in there. I honestly have no clue. But when they share now, they share in Canva. And it’s really, really interesting.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 24:27
And it’s going to be interesting to see how Adobe responds because Adobe responded originally to create with Creative Cloud, right? And so Creative Cloud is now the basic challenger to Canva. but it pales in comparison to the number of businesses I know that use Canva and can quickly design. You know if you’re putting together a 50 100 page annual report. Yes. And design is your tool. But most businesses are not doing you’re doing a banner, flyer brochure. All of that stuff is templated and easy. to produce, I’ve really given it credit for where credit’s due. And I just I’m, I’m really loving the fact that now this is all just available in the Chrome OS environment. And of course, all of the other browsers and application ecosystem. So good on Canva. Great Australian company. So onward to our next story.
Augusto Pinaud 25:18
So our next story is I google workplace, customers will now able to create dynamic groups or groups that will update automatically based on department location, and other conditions. So I want to let you talk more about that for obvious reasons. But tell us more about
Raymond Sidney-Smith 25:40
it. Yeah, so dynamic groups are, in essence, a way for you to be able to, and this is this is on the enterprise level. So for most of you listening, you’re not going to have access to this potentially ever, but certainly not in the short term. So this is for folks who are in enterprise environment of the of the Google workspace kind. In essence, you can create filters, or if anyone knows regex, you’re basically creating not you, Reggie, but regex. The idea is, is that you would create, you know, regular expressions and filter for a set of criteria. And then those criteria creates the the group of people that then get access to particular things, groups currently in the Google workspace environment are you select the members of that group, and then they get access to an email address, and access to anything you give them access to through that group. So you can say these applications are given access to this group, these folders in Drive are given to this group, that kind of thing. Now, you can do that dynamically. And again, at the enterprise standard plus and other versions higher than that, I think it’s going to, I can’t imagine that Google won’t bring this kind of thing down to the lower plans for small business owners eventually. But at the present moment, it’s up at the higher levels, I think they’re probably testing this out on that level to just kind of separate more what is business and what is enterprise. But I think that they will probably bring this to the masses eventually, because this is just such a really great feature. And I’m sure that it takes a bit of extra processing power to make it happen as well. And so we’ll see how they implement that on the enterprise level, I’ve actually haven’t seen it specifically. Now, for those of you who are in enterprise environment. This is regarding email and distribution lists. This is regarding groups and collaborative inboxes. And then security groups. So it’s not even extending to file systems or you know, file Drive files, or Drive folders, or any of those application based memberships yet. So I misspoke before. So just be aware that this is just really regarding email and distribution lists, as well as those kinds of groups and collective collaborative inboxes. So that’s, that’s a start, I think that they’re going to do a lot more with this. And then you can start to create some really interesting queries. And so they utilize a set of variables. So you basically set conditions, and you can say, everybody in Canada gets access to these things, or everybody in the US in California get access to these things, you could do it based on location, you could base do it based on, you know, all kinds of other types of things, keywords, you name it. So they’re giving a lot of flexibility in the system. And I’m hoping, hoping that they give access down to the business, at least the business plus folks. So Google business, Google workspace, business plus, folks. But we’ll see, I think this is going to be a really interesting new feature. But I would really like to see, which is what I thought originally was that they were going to be providing your ability to say, Okay, if I put everybody in this group, they’re going to automatically be given these Team Drives, these shared drives are going to be automatically giving access, and those kinds of things right now they’re just looking really powerful. Yeah, yeah. But right now, that’s not the case. So I misspoke because I thought it was but it’s not. And but I hope they go there. I really do. I think that’d be really, really powerful piece because then I can, you know, I’m onboarding people right now. And it would be really great if I could just say, Oh, everybody in this group that’s in the marketing department gets access to all these things immediately. And everybody who’s in accounting and finance they get automatic access to these things immediately and not having to do all of those things manually. You set it and forget it kind of thing. right all right on to our next story back to some Microsoft news.
Augusto Pinaud 29:38
So back to Microsoft and make yourself is making a comparison between Outlook task and Microsoft to do if you remember or if you don’t want Microsoft to do was basically what used to be Wunderlist and, and to many people surprises including mine. Okay, Microsoft got it made a list. To bid but didn’t destroy it, that is what I thought Microsoft was going to do with Wunderlist. Now they rename it and make it really, you know what it was. And what it came interesting to me was how they did that, then they eliminate the task out of the free version of Outlook. So if you don’t have the Pro premium, or whatever is called version of Outlook, you really have no tasks, you have notes, you have email, and you have calendar, but you have no tasks. So that way, we’re going to assume they push you to, to do to Microsoft to do that said Microsoft to do it comes pre installed every Windows and it is very, very powerful as Wunderlist was. So this comparison, it’s a little tough on the sense that, well, you need to be on that group have access to both, okay. And most people, even on the corporate level that most people have access to the free outlook and to do it, but not both. So that’s the first thing that, you know, I think it was a little unfair. That said they go into Okay, let’s compare, what is the best for group projects? What is the best for organization? What is the best for customization for you? So if you are in that environment, you live on Microsoft, you are interested on using, you know, or you’re debating between Microsoft task and or Microsoft Outlook task and Microsoft to do go and read the article, it was a very well written article. And but if not, and you are curious, what is Microsoft solution, make sure to download Microsoft to do because they have been doing a really good job keeping that.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 32:01
Yeah, it’s a beautiful application, I think I think the article comes down, right, which is that while Outlook tasks is less, is just clunky, it looks, it just doesn’t look as beautiful as Microsoft to do. But it has the ability to integrate fully within the outlook system. And so even in the Outlook mobile application, you see your Outlook tasks, but you can’t see those Outlook tasks and to do and someone maybe who uses outlook, and the task system will know this better than me. But my understanding is that, you know, you add your Outlook tasks in the system, you can you can collaborate with those, you can filter based on those, you could do all those fun things, you’re creating email tasks, your task from an email, you can embed those all in that system, it’s a bit decoupled, and then Microsoft literally recordable. And then Microsoft to do is kind of separated from that. And so but you can see your Microsoft to do items in your Outlook environment to some extent. So it’s like, it’s just a weird environment where you see like tasks, and you see the two different sets of lists. It’s just very confusing to me. And so I think, just streamlining to use one tool for work and one tool maybe for for personal, I would say personal would be to do and work would be Outlook tasks. And that way, you kind of have a clear separation. Plus, you can filter very quickly and easily with Outlook tasks, in their various lists, you can set up lists in the system, and really be really mindful about that piece of it. So I would just say that, while Microsoft to do is beautiful, it’s still limiting in that sense, because of the fact that Microsoft is not like why doesn’t Microsoft just override Outlook tasks with Microsoft to do and fully baked in? You know, they’ve got it baked into teams, as I understand it. I don’t really use teams very much. But Microsoft to do is is pretty tightly integrated with the apps right in in teams. I don’t see Outlook tasks in there as Outlook tasks in teams. I don’t I don’t know what it was just to do.
Augusto Pinaud 33:57
I think I think it is on at least on the PC version. I don’t see it that integrated on the mobile one. Yeah, I could be wrong.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 34:05
Yeah. So so I just feel like I feel like they’re a little bit confused as to what they’re doing right now with, with tasks and to do and I wish they would just bring them together so that people aren’t confused. And it’s just like, when Microsoft put out the lists app. And you know, now they’re they’re really working on this loop framework, and I would really love to see are the app loop which is on the fluid framework, I’d really love them to just give us a little bit more like I understand that loop. And the fluid framework is supposed to be a challenger to notion and what notion is doing, but give me a little more can you explain it to me just so that we know where we should be looking to identify what’s personal and what is kind of enterprise and, you know, organizational productivity focused stuff. But you know, again, I thought the article was really good because it does give people at least a set of understanding as to why they should use one or the other for certain circumstances. I agree with you All right onto our business and finance segment, you just have one article there.
Augusto Pinaud 35:04
So remember x,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 35:08
which is an application, by the way, so if anybody who doesn’t know, Memex is this notetaking application, there’s lots of folks who kind of have jumped on the Memex debt, you know, bandwagon. And so, so it’s a notetaking app,
Augusto Pinaud 35:21
right. And they suddenly, you know, went from, from an open source model completely open to decide, we need to make money too. So they close some pieces of, of the software, so that way, they could really work into figure it out what kind of model they can use to make money out of this.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 35:49
Yeah, so I follow the the, I’m guessing one of the co founders explanations in a discord channel. And he has been very transparent and forthright about the circumstance, the the circumstances were overly exaggerated by the Open Source advocates, I’m an open source advocate, I totally get it. But there are just circumstances where, and rightly understood by this particular person, that they’re just different flavors of sourcing, open or closing source. And he wants to be able to fit a model where he can have stable income for his business. And then they can potentially open source again, there’s nothing stopping them from opening, opening the source, I know that there are folks who are working on some open source, they, they basically wanted to use the source code for other projects, right. And that’s totally, also interesting and useful in the open source community. But if you’re not paying me, for producing code, it’s not my responsibility to you to, to continue developing. For for the code that I’m writing, I can write my code, however, I want to. So the fact that some of these open source folks who were basically poaching the software and using it for their own projects were upset, you know, they can continue using the source code as as of the last version, and they can continue maintaining and updating it, according to that license. There’s nothing stopping them from doing that. But you know, the the fact that they they don’t want to do the heavy lifting that Memex was doing doesn’t quite, you know, it doesn’t pass muster in my my book. So I hope they can find funding, I hope that they can then potentially have a scale where they open source over time, faster than say, Microsoft, right? I think right now Microsoft is out. What did they open source most recently, it was like, I don’t know, Windows 3.1. I’m joking. But I mean, like, it’s a recently open source, some very, very old version of Windows, you know, they, we can see more and more open sourcing of proprietary software over time. But you know, like, they’ve got to figure out their business. Otherwise, min max is going to go out of business. And it’s going to be one less tool on the market. And I think that doesn’t help anybody either. So I, I feel for them. And I also recognize that there was like a large outcry that all of a sudden, they were doing something that was somehow, you know, wrong, or or, you know, somehow, you know, pulling the wool over people’s eyes, that was not any of the of the case there. They were just really trying to figure out what’s the next step for Memex at all. And if they can make it work, then they will, and hopefully open source it again. All right. With that, we are moving on to our productivity resources of the week. It used to and I come across many personal productivity tools, apps and resources services, and our productivity journeys to bring you our stories each week. And so in productivity resources of the week, we each bring you one potentially new, potentially old tool, whatever that we think you might like. And so our first one up is, I’m not going to bring anything up on screen tonight, just because I was having some some technical issues earlier. And I don’t want to, you know, tempt the fates. But I wanted to let everybody else know that Google finally announced the switch to Android app. So I’m not I’m not calling for anyone to leave iPhones. But for iPhone users who do want to switch over to an Android, it is not the easiest processes, right. And so this switch to Android app now in the App Store, that is the iOS App Store, is now available. So it is now giving people the ability to just pull all of those pieces so that you’re able to trance transition seamlessly. And this happens with a lot of different circumstances. For example, if you have an an iPhone for work, and you want to be able to then have an Android device for home or a secondary phone, those kinds of things. That transition process is really difficult. And the switch to Android app will now solve some of those headaches because you can say, Okay, I want to move these things over from the iOS platform to the Android and I will tell you this for I mean, I went to an iPhone, way back in the day I think it was like a three s and I’d always used Google contacts on the iPhone, I’d always used, you know, Google Gmail on the on the iPhone, I use all Google products on the iPhone. So transitioning from from that to the other was really, really simple. Because I found the iPhone didn’t have any of my data, really, it was just a VESL was really good hardware, right? It was a really good hardware, and did did really well. It’s kind of like the iPad for me today, the iPad, I don’t use any of the Apple apps. You know, like, they’re all just, you know, it’s great hardware, it does really great stuff, and Apple Pencil, iPad, whatever. But everything that I have on it is our other products, there are other cross platform tools. And so just keep that in mind, if you do plan to make that kind of switching back and forth between platforms. And keeping that in mind. But I think that the switch to Android app is a really, really great tool to have in your back pocket for those kinds of circumstances. Okay, so what is your tool
Augusto Pinaud 40:58
this week? So more than a tool show discussion? Okay. And the reason is this tool. Okay, this is the books and we have discussed about this tool in the show. Previously, it is an Android tablet, with ink, okay, and I got an A unit, so to test. And so the first thing that came with this unit, or that was shocking for me was how not user friendly it was and, and the way it got for me was from a client, okay, the client got the tablet, and he was thinking, Oh, what’s going to be as easy to set up as my iPad, and I’m going to be running and it was not like that. So he shipped it to me and say, Can you please figure six out so so I’ve been playing with it, and then I will ship it back. But that’s what it is great. Okay, the ink in the tablet, it is very, very interesting. But it came to what I wanted to discuss today. And it’s similar data versus hotspot. Okay. And when you get these tablets and this device, yeah, I get it when you want a similar data. One, you pay 150 to $200 more for the device. Plus, now you need to add that 10 or $20 monthly plan to get the data on the tablet. And I don’t remember which one was the first iPad that I make the jump to that. And before I made the jump, I always look into well, how many times do I really need the data? You know, that I cannot connect to my phone is worth 100 bucks a year, 200 bucks a year, whatever. And I was no no, no. And I think was something on one of the iPad Pro than I point seven that I finally got it with data. And I remember the realization Oh. So whatever they say Pennywise dollar fool
Raymond Sidney-Smith 43:04
is what? Any wise pound foolish? Yes.
Augusto Pinaud 43:07
That’s exactly how I felt for the $100 difference. Because it is true connect to hotspot on your phone is second. But he’s second that will bring that barrier over I need to connect. Okay, I do it later. While the phone is double it’s connected is there is no thinking about it, you will jump directly into make that. And I have been reminded of that with this device, this device do not have data need to connect to my phone to or Wi Fi to be here. So a couple of times I’ve been playing with this outside of my house. And it’s like, Oh, yeah. So let’s tether and all that. So I just wanted to bring that as my tool of the week, if your next device have that cellular data, consider the productivity gains of that not the dollar cost of that. That was what I was I didn’t evaluate from a productivity perspective. And the moment I did, it was fantastic. Because I can grab now any of my iPads and be connected all the time. Anytime. Oh, it’s so it’s not a pull the phone and connected No, it’s already full data full running. And it’s fantastic.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 44:27
Yeah, and I think that comes into play with regard to smartwatches, right, whether that’s the Apple Watch, or you know, Samsung Galaxy watch or any of the other smartwatches that are out there Fitbits included, which are a Google owned product, you know, like having that level of connectivity. When you walk away from your phone and you’re just watch oriented. You know, there are limitations once you once you break that connection and having LTE or you know, hopefully 5g on many of these. Now going forward, you’re going to have that level of connectivity and so you should consider that how often you to basically go off the grid and disconnect from your phone as to making those kinds of choices, but certainly in the tablet space, and as well as on laptop space, there are a few Chromebooks left that have built in data. And I’m hoping that more of the Chromebooks come out. And certainly more of the Mac and PC laptops start to, you know, the I mean, I don’t know why.
Augusto Pinaud 45:22
I don’t understand why either, you know, you can sure there is a patent troll somewhere.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 45:28
stop them from doing it. Well, that’s a good, that’s a good, that’s a good point. But yeah, I mean, just makes no sense that I shouldn’t, you know, you have a Samsung, you know, this great Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, what, why shouldn’t have a SIM card in it? SIM card slot and just be able to click it in and go, go work, right wherever I’m at. And I don’t have to connect to some silly cafes, Wi Fi or having to tethered to my to my phone, in order to be able to work, I should just be able to work solo of the phone, and be more productive because of because you know, you have the phone, they’re sitting on your on your table with you, wherever you are Mobley. Now you’re being distracted by the notifications on the phone, which brings us to our story of the week, which is that iOS focus mode has now embraced Google Chat and Gmail. So tell us a little bit about that. So
Augusto Pinaud 46:18
I always focus mode was it’s been really, really interesting. And I’ve been I wasn’t sure what’s going to happen and I have been enjoying and, and I have a need to recognize that he has not been really productive for me not because the feature is not productive. But because I have Tinker so much to find the perfect ones. But it happened to me today, I wanted to do something and it was so easy to put my phone into focus mode, so I could work and I have now different things. And one of the things that are cool is you can say okay, I only want this group of people to be able to pass or I want anybody, or I want these applications to be able to give me notifications, or nobody. In my case, I was no notification. And it was lovely when I went out of that sprint that I needed to make that the iPad and the phone are told me this is all that beep on your phone, or your device when while you were in focus mode. So I think the fact that Google is doing that, and allowing you to choose who can get through you while you are on focus mode, it is really, really powerful. And, um, and it’s going to be really, really welcome.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 47:39
Yeah, I think that this is, this is fantastic. I think that being able to choose who gets to email you during your focus mode, sessions, so to speak, as well as Google Chat, especially for those mission critical chats that you want to be able to get. This gives you the opportunity to be able to do that. And just so folks know, this is also coming out to not just Google workspace users, but also to Google workspace, personal users. So this is on the business side and on the personal. So everybody’s getting access to this on iOS. So for me where I’m not, I’m not on iOS, other than the iPad. I absolutely love this concept. Because I’ll basically have this in focus mode all the time, except when I want to be able to set to receive things like specific email or specific chats during specific times of the day. So I think this is gonna be a really good piece for me to be able to utilize. Otherwise, I just turn off all the notifications, because I just don’t want anything notifying me on the iPad. But I feel like there are times when it would be really useful to be able to get some of these notifications to break through and notify me. And so I’ll be really curious to see all that happening. For most of you. You should already see this coming out. If not, you’ll see it over the next few days. But it’s been rolling out across all of the, you know release schedules, so you’ll be seeing it, rollout. If you haven’t already seen it, you should see it now. So you’ll just need to update both your operating system and the application to make sure that if you are on the latest version of iOS and the latest version of the apps, you should see it come out to you as well. So go use focus mode and get some work done.
Augusto Pinaud 49:23
Yep. So our announcement for the week is a New York library. It’s offer free ban readers books so during the month of May the New York Public Library will basically release four banned books, stem speak the king of the dragon flies and Catcher in the Rye. And you will get for free you will need to download their app. Simply simply thank you and you will be able to get it and it is You know, it is interesting that they are able to do that and get really in agreement with the publishers, you know, because for libraries, the ebooks, as much as we think, Oh, well, the ebook, they can get one ebook and rent 1000 times. That’s not how the real thing work, the publishers can only they can only learn how many copies they get. So that limits and sometimes make really long waiting time. So it is really cool, you know, to know that they’re doing that. And as the article says that their server has been crashed so many times from people trying to get the free books.
Raymond Sidney-Smith 50:41
Yeah, I understand the political implications of this. And, you know, some people feeling one way or the other, and I don’t particularly weighed in those waters. But I, what I am curious about is giving access to books, I think is always a, I err on the side of access, I don’t err on the side of limiting. And so I’m really, really pleased to see them doing this, no matter what the content is. So I think that I’m really excited to see more of this kind of thing happen. Because, you know, if you if you’re going to tell me that I can’t access one book, then it’s inevitable that you’re going to tell me that I can’t access some other book. And and I think that that’s that, you know, that’s just a free speech issue for me that I’m not willing to compromise on for, for everybody. I mean, it just really don’t, I don’t really see a reason why we need to be limiting these things for people. Already Cousteau. We’ve got some extra articles and but otherwise, we have covered the productivity and related technology news this week, thanks to Augusto Pinaud, for putting together the show this every week. Thank you, Augusto.
Augusto Pinaud 51:45
My pleasure. All right,
Raymond Sidney-Smith 51:46
everybody on anything but idle.com. For those of you who listen to the podcast, that is that is already because you’re listening to the podcast to those who are watching live. That’s tomorrow, you’ll find our show notes. Those will have links to all the stories, the tools of the week, our productivity resources of the week, and that will include extra stories that we didn’t cover during our hour together today. It also includes a text transcript, that’s that’s both readable right on the page, as well as one that is downloadable as a PDF. You can just download it offline and be able to read it. After looking at the show notes. Let us know if there’s a story that we missed, because it can happen. You can leave a comment you can tweet or DMS at Anything But Idle. Or you can use the contact form on the website and let us know. Give a comment or a question about anything we’ve discussed. During the show, you could do the same. You can also join us in personal productivity club. If you go to anything but idle.com forward slash community, you’ll be taken to the registration page. If you’re not already a member of personal productivity club. It’s free register and you’ll be able to access the Anything But Idle community group. And then you can engage in dialogue around any of the productivity topics that we talked about today. This is your first time watching the live stream feel free to click the subscribe button. If you are not watching the live stream you’re listening to the podcast you can also click on the subscribe button by searching Anything But Idle on YouTube. And then when we go live each week, you can join us and hang out in the chat and comment along with us and and have a good time. And of course, if you want to listen to the podcast, you can go find out about the podcast by going to anything but idle.com and clicking on the subscribe link. And we’ll give you instructions on how to subscribe via email. You can subscribe on your favorite podcast app or otherwise. So lots of options to be able to get you know the access to the episodes each week really easily. With that we will see you all next time on Anything But Idle. Here’s your productive life. Bye everybody.
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