Nonprofit Radio for April 18, 2022: Apps, Tools & Tactics For The Hybrid Workplace

 

Jason Shim & Meico Whitlock: Apps, Tools & Tactics For The Hybrid Workplace

 Work ain’t going back to what it was pre-pandemic. How can you and your teams remain productive, not merely busy? Jason Shim and Meico Whitlock reveal the resources that will lead you to rockstar productivity. Jason is from Pathways to Education Canada and Meico is The Mindful Techie.

 

 

 

 

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[00:01:54.94] spk_0:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast and oh I’m glad you’re with me. I’ve come down with blue fro dialysis. If I saw that you missed this week’s show apps, tools and tactics for the hybrid workplace work ain’t going back to what it was. Pre pandemic. How can you and your teams remain productive? Not merely busy, Jason Shim and Miko Whitlock reveal the resources that will lead you to Rockstar productivity On Tony’s take two summer is coming sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o As we continue our coverage of 22 NTC, You know what that is. You know, it’s the 2022 nonprofit technology conference hosted by N 10, you know who N 10 is because we’ve been talking about this for weeks and weeks. They’re the smart folks who help you use technology in all your social change work right now. Our coverage includes Jason Shim and Miko marquette Whitlock both returning to nonprofit radio Jason Shim is director of digital strategy and transformation at pathways to education. Canada and Mikko market Whitlock is speaker and trainer on mindfulness and technology. He is the mindful techie Jason and Nico. Welcome back to nonprofit

[00:01:58.54] spk_1:
radio Thanks for having

[00:01:59.13] spk_2:
us.

[00:02:33.24] spk_0:
Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. I don’t know if you guys have been on her three or four times. We’ve, we’ve been doing not uh, the NTC for since like 2016 or something. So it’s been a long time. It’s been a long time. Good to have you back this year. Your the topic is apps tools and tactics for hydrate workplace. Rockstar productivity, not mere productivity or increased productivity but rockstar level productivity. Okay, I’m gonna hold you to that.

[00:02:35.24] spk_1:
Mm hmm.

[00:02:36.44] spk_0:
Jason. Why don’t you give us a little overview of why you think this was an important topic for for Ntc?

[00:03:18.34] spk_2:
Yeah. Over the years I found that when sharing information at NBC and presentations that uh some of the feedback that we’re getting with people we’re feeding back well we love hearing about the tools and so, you know, this um presentation emerged as a, as a result of that really, you know, following the data and you know, the people have spoken and uh we put together this session to really reflect, you know, that there are tons of tools that are constantly coming out and these are tools that we have, you know, tried tested and have identified that, you know, they really help us in our kind of day to day work and we just want to share it with the world.

[00:03:37.04] spk_0:
And because there’s also a mental model component to this. So as as are mindful techie, what’s the what’s the mental side of

[00:04:48.44] spk_1:
this? The mental side of it that we talked about specifically in the presentation. Was this idea of moving from being busy to being productive. Right? So you can be busy answering emails, you can be busy and back to back zoom meetings. You can be busy attending all of those unsolicited calendar invites for various things and you could be exhausted and tired at the end of your day in your week, but you might not actually be making a difference in terms of moving the mission forward. And so the mental framing is really about how do we move from focusing on outputs? Right. I answered this many emails. I worked this many hours. Two outcomes focusing on OK. How many people did we actually serve? How many how many dollars did we actually raise? You know, how how did we make a difference today in someone’s life based on whatever the mission is of our particular organization. Uh And so the the tools are really that we talked about are really designed to help people make that that shift from dizziness too, productivity related to actually moving mission forward.

[00:04:51.54] spk_0:
What a critical difference distinction between being busy and being

[00:04:55.27] spk_1:
productive.

[00:04:57.07] spk_0:
Love it. All right. So why don’t you get us started? Why don’t we uh why don’t why don’t we start with some apps, tools and tactics. Mikko, why don’t you kick us off?

[00:06:59.14] spk_1:
Yeah. So, uh you know, I’m you know as the Michael Techie, I’m really big on tech distraction tools. And so um some things that I highly recommend our um for example, taking full advantage of the do not disturb feature that are available for your devices and so enjoy devices IOS device system to be the most common right? We have the watch, we have the phone, we have talent we we even have the you know the laptop or the computer in all those instances. The tools that we have have opportunities for us to silence stills notifications when we are doing things that are necessary for us to be um productive. So at work when we do focus on work related activities, silence notifications. And then also when we’re sleeping and when we’re resting and believe it or not sleep and rest are actually one of the most powerful productivity tools that we have. We didn’t talk about this in the session but it’s often left out of the discussion. People feel guilty for taking time off and resting. But it’s actually a requirement to to take care of yourself and to do greater work and so do setting your do not disturb settings. You can automate this. So for me for example I have my my phone and my tablet automated so that at um at about 9 30 every evening until about 10 a.m. The following day my notifications are silenced. And what does that mean? That means that from receiving text messages from receiving alerts from other types of apps on my phone unless I’m looking at my device. I’m not hearing the beep. I’m not hearing the ping, I’m not seeing those things flash across the screen. They’re not disturbing my sleep. Um during the night and when I wake up in the morning, they’re also that the first thing that sort of jolts me into my day, right, I’m able to ease into my day without having those things um turned on. So that’s, that would be one thing that that I would recommend in terms of um thinking about this idea of tech distraction um

[00:07:14.24] spk_0:
before you continue, I think you and Beth Kanter, we’re talking about this, I don’t know, 34 years ago using using the, using the very simple functions on your phone that that are available to keep you from being distracted using the do not disturb. I’m pretty sure it was you and Beth like like I said four years ago talking

[00:07:23.26] spk_1:
about the

[00:07:24.06] spk_0:
very simple nothing to download. Just use the function that’s already on your devices.

[00:07:43.54] spk_1:
Absolutely. And and they have evolved. And so one of the things that Jason and I talked about the other sessions that we’re not disturbed, for example, um some of the latest updates for android and iphone allow you to for example, make those um the shutting off of those notifications. Geolocation based. Right. And so like if you’re at the gym or you are

[00:07:51.30] spk_0:
actually

[00:08:26.64] spk_1:
physically driving, you’re physically at like an actual on site in your office for example, you can set it so that it recognizes where you are and it adjusts to notifications based on that maybe in the case of of, of Jason for example, he needs certain notifications on so that he can be alerted if there’s something happening with the babysitter. Right? And so maybe depending if Jason is leaving the house to go to work, maybe he wants to be able to receive text messages or calls from the babysitter but have everything else turned off. And so that’s an example of how you can modify those things based on what your needs are. So that you can um, you know, stay informed, be responsible, be responsive but also make sure that you are moving from busy. Too productive.

[00:08:33.24] spk_0:
Jason has an infant at home. That’s why Miko is saying that

[00:08:37.24] spk_2:
very relevant.

[00:08:52.64] spk_0:
That was very relevant. Yes, very relevant. Um before we moved to Jason, Miko, can we talk about the importance of rest and the glory of napping? I’m, I’m a huge proponent of naps.

[00:10:19.74] spk_1:
Yes. I’m a big proponent of naps. And one thing I will share is I talk about deep rest right? And depressed is a continuum that includes power naps that includes sleeping. It includes just shutting yourself off from external stimulation. So, one of the things that I share with folks is that um some of us have a hard time sleeping and sleep looks looks differently for everyone. Um, But there are other ways to rest and recover and recharge outside of just like when I give the example of sometimes when I take a power nap for example for me a power nap is about 30 minutes or less. Sometimes I am not during that time period able to get into a place of deep sleep and that’s okay. Sometimes the restorative power comes from simply taking a moment to lie down or just sit in a comfortable, you know, cool place unplugged from the devices set the timer and simply allow my body to relax that the the act of doing that even if I don’t fall into a deep sleep is also rest and restoration as well. And so a lot of us beat ourselves up because we feel like oh I didn’t get you know, x number of hours of sleep. Well maybe we expand the definition to focus on. Did you allow yourself the space to simply not do A bunch of things at one time to allow your brain to rest to allow your body to rest. If you did that then maybe that’s good enough for where you are right now.

[00:10:38.74] spk_0:
There’s NASA research that the optimal naptime is 22 minutes. I’ve I’ve seen that I’ve seen that in a couple of places. So yes, that’s what they recommend for people on the International Space station. 22 minutes optimal naptime.

[00:11:07.04] spk_1:
Yes. And I find for myself that I I set my timer for 35 minutes and what that allows me to do it because actually you actually need time to get to that 22 minutes. And so I build in the buffer to allow myself to actually lie down and get comfortable, You know, whatever it is and generally by the time the 35 minutes is up, I’ve I’ve gotten some maybe not a full 22, but I’ve gotten, you know, a sufficient amount so that when I wake up, you know, I’m feeling refreshed and not, not groggy.

[00:11:29.94] spk_0:
Okay, you’re welcome to take more than an extra 13 minutes it takes to get a lot of prep time leading up to your nap. You need to get just the right position. Just the right weight blanket, just the right pillow. I mean I’m not, you know, these are all things that I have my special quilt, My nap quilt, it’s just the right weight. It’s soft cotton. It’s it’s it’s ideal. So

[00:11:33.16] spk_1:
Alright,

[00:11:39.04] spk_0:
So take your extra 13 minutes. Get yourself you get a solid 22 minutes of rest. All right, Jason, let’s go to you. Let’s let’s um what what you know I mean, however you guys have categorized these. You just, you just go next

[00:13:28.84] spk_2:
what? Well, following on the lines of tech distraction. I mean, Niko spoke a little bit about the built in functionality and one functionality dollar highlight is a night shift in nightlight which are baked into IOS and android. So in IOS, it’s called night shift in android, it’s called nightlight. And these functions used to be separate apps and then with the latest releases that they’re, they’re not baked into the absent and what it is is essentially a red light filter that turns on when the sun sets. And the reason why this is important is that for folks who may find themselves staying up late at night, like if you’re up at like, you know, one or two a.m. And you’re trying to figure out why you can’t fall asleep for some people, the culprit, maybe the blue light that is emanating from screens. So if you’re staring at your cell phone without a red light filter on, or if you’re working late into the night on a computer without a red light filter on, your actually exposing your eyes to a lot of blue light, which is kind of stimulating, you know, bright light outside. So, you know, your body is thinking that it’s kind of daylight and so, you know, no surprise that, you know, that may lead to kind of sleep problems. Uh, so uh night shift and night light, our settings where you can flip the setting on and then as the sun sets, you know, your um, screen will kind of tint a reddish orangey glow and uh I have found that it’s made an incredible difference in being able to fall asleep and actually feel tired. I think there was a, for me a pre night shift, um, life and in a post and even more important for me now with a little one uh you know, at home and you know, folks, I have introduced this feature to, you know, have have noted that um they actually, you know, start to feel tired at, you know, the times of day when they’re supposed to be, and, you know, they’re experiencing, you know, fewer sleep challenges in that regard.

[00:13:45.64] spk_0:
Doesn’t the blue light suppress the production of melatonin, which is uh, isn’t it melatonin? I think that because people take melatonin supplements, if they, if they’re not

[00:13:51.50] spk_2:
sleeping well, I

[00:14:03.04] spk_0:
think the blue light suppresses melatonin and that’s why it’s good to filter it out toward approaching sleep time, so that your body produces the melatonin that needs, it needs to help you fall asleep. Isn’t something like that.

[00:14:19.94] spk_2:
Yeah, I think it’s helpful to be able to provide the body with the ongoing cues that, you know, it’s that, you know, it’s been built for and, you know, if we’re creating lots of like artificial light, um, you know, via our, our screens and, you know, moving beyond the screens to in general, um that, you know, if uh if folks are, you know, having like really, really bright overhead lighting, you know, in their bedrooms or things, you know, it’s, you know, it’s important to be mindful of, you know, those light sources late at night

[00:15:39.74] spk_0:
television, same thing, you know, it it serves no purpose to use night shift or night light on your, on your device and then your phone, you know you’re watching tv you know again that that that that blue light. Um Yeah I just saw something else. Uh This is it seems like the the theme running through this is sleep. But I just saw I just saw research about the darkest, the darkest and the darkest environment is best for sleep, the least amount of light possible. So if you have a light on your charger, you know put a piece of, put a piece of tape over that or turn it upside down. So the light isn’t not the L. E. D. L. E. D. S are very bright so and the slightest light. Um I see it alarm clocks in hotel rooms and then I unplug those things and then and then I try to be courteous to the housekeeper and I reset the time before I before I check out but led alarm clocks, you know, brightness brightness is is bad firstly

[00:15:40.20] spk_2:
I totally hear you there. I’m putting putting tape over things. I I I’ve gone over my entire bedroom with electrical tape and so you know it’s it’s almost like doing a light on it. There’s like a little glow of something. Alright electrical tape is going on top

[00:16:36.14] spk_0:
Of it. Exactly there there’s a kit, there’s a little kit that Amazon sells for like $6. It’s different size circles and different shapes, circles and squares with an adhesive on the back, you just you know peel it off a sheet and then based on how big your light is that, you’re trying to cover those different sizes and different shapes. Um So you can get a little kid too, but same thing, some some kind of tape or whatever, but you wanna you wanna, you wanna sleep in a gym, not just dim dark, you want to sleep in a dark environment? Um All right, I love it. So, we haven’t even downloaded anything. We’re just using the devices that are using the functions that are on our devices for to avoid tech distractions. Um Why don’t you give us something else? God will stick with you. And then we’re going back to Mexico.

[00:18:06.94] spk_2:
Yeah, the next kind of another kind of uh tool is something called Newsfeed Eradicate. Er uh So this is a tool that was introduced to me by, by Miko and it’s a plug in that you uh is available for for chrome and when you install it, you know, when you log in on facebook that you see a bit newsfeed of everything. Uh I mean, newsfeed eradicate er it does just that it eradicates the news feed. So it allows you to be more intentional with your social media consumption that um you know, when you dip into a social media networks like facebook, you know, they’re incentivized to try and keep you on there for as long as possible. You know, viewing all the ads and so on and so forth. But sometimes you just need to go to facebook to send a quick message or to like look up something and you need to get back out. And what this does is that it removes all the distractions so that you’re not stuck on the site, you know, which can often happen. So it actually shows an inspirational quotation instead and you know, if you want to post an update, that’s all you can do. Um and you can just focus on that Now. Newsfeed Eradicate er has evolved over the years as well to include other uh platforms. So it’s also added twitter linkedin, youtube, instagram, hacker, news reddit. So uh you know, I think this really reflects that they’re they’re listening to their audiences as well because those are also other sites that, you know, um during the course of a day, you know, if you’re going in just to check in and something uh that uh you know, you could end up staying there longer than than you wish and a tool like Newsfeed eradicate er uh you know, allows you to be more focused.

[00:18:25.04] spk_0:
Yes, the distractions that which which are designed, they’re built into the they’re built into the sights and the apps to keep you there longer. That’s why uh Yeah, so news where we find, where do we find news feed eradicate er how do we how do we turn that on?

[00:18:33.84] spk_2:
Yeah, so you just short short in in the the chrome plug in. Um uh, Chrome plug ins online. It will show up as news feed. Eradicate er and you can uh, you can install it there.

[00:18:47.04] spk_0:
Okay. Chrome plug in. Excellent. Alright. Miko. What do you have?

[00:20:51.94] spk_1:
So minus is related. It’s also a plug in for um for chrome, it’s called stay focused and it’s a plug in that allows you to really manage your time on those distracting websites. So for me, for example, I’m a political news junkie and so I could spend all my time if I could going down the rabbit hole of, you know, the political news, you know, headlines and the videos and the podcast and all those things. Right. And so what state focus allows me to do is it allows me to set up time budget. So for me, My daily time budget is 30 minutes. And what that means is I plug in all of my distracting websites and I can browse those for 30 minutes. And then after my time expires, if I’m on one of those websites, I get a pop up that says, shouldn’t you be working and then the page closes right and my time budget resets every 24 hours. And so what this allows me to do is to um find the balance between being productive but also, you know, engaging in something that’s actually fun or entertaining or interesting to me, but to Jason’s point about facebook, for example. Um there’s nothing wrong with facebook, you know, facebook is great. If you like to watch cat videos of panda videos, that’s great. But we have to be able to put parameters and boundaries around us so we don’t spend all of our time doing that. You know, one of the things we have to recognize is that especially with social media technologies, they aren’t um neutral in terms of tools like we tend to think that technology is neutral, but they’re not because as Jason pointed out, there are companies that are incentivized, you know, for a number of different reasons to keep us on their platforms as long as possible, right? That’s how they make money, right? How they monetize their, their their offering. And so it’s a tools like stay focused, allow you to strike that balance between saying, okay, I like to watch cat videos or I like to follow the political news fox or I like to follow what’s happening on Reddit. That’s okay. There’s something wrong with that. But I’m going to set some limits on that so that I can do that while also making space to, you know, get the work done and also spend time with family and friends and some of the other things that are really important for your life as well.

[00:20:58.14] spk_0:
So stay focused as a, as an app for android and iphone,

[00:21:03.54] spk_1:
it’s a plug in. That’s a browser plug in just like, like the newsfeed Eradicate er for, for chrome.

[00:21:34.94] spk_0:
Okay, Okay. Alright. 30 minutes. You’re pretty disciplined. I would have said it for more like six hours or something, you know, so defeated 10 hours and defeat the whole no, but I’m using the good, I’m using the good plug in. I’m using it. Alright. 30 minutes is very disciplined. All right. And then it shuts you said it shut the site down. If you if you go over whatever whatever site you’re on, if you, when you go over it, it pulls it down, shuts it. Yeah,

[00:22:04.94] spk_1:
So it’s, it replaces it with a with a pop up that says, shouldn’t you be working? Um now, and obviously they’re there. You know, if you’re determined enough, you can obviously work around like I can open another browser. I can do a number of other things. But the point is that hopefully that will be enough for most people to pause and to really assess. Okay, well this has been enough. I can I can come back uh and you know, I’ll, You know, I’ll be able to come back. I have another 30 minutes tomorrow. I really need to get back to this report. I’m working on. I need to go, you know, walk the dog or whatever it is,

[00:22:13.04] spk_0:
raise your consciousness, right? Give you the chance to be disciplined.

[00:22:18.24] spk_1:
Exactly.

[00:24:03.44] spk_0:
If you, if you want to override it and go back into un productivity then of course you can, you can figure out how to do that. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications content. They can help you create content whether that’s for internal audiences or for your outside audiences, whether it’s blog posts, social media, your annual report, reports for the board research that can help you create content and and content curation management. Have you got a lot of documents, some of which could be valuable on your website, on your blog. There might be good social media posts, but you don’t know how to organize them or their you need somebody to go through them to find the good stuff and separate the wheat from the chaff. Always like that. The wheat and the chaff, you know, they can help you with that too. So the content creation and also the curation, the management of your content organization there of all eminently doable by turn to turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. Now back to apps, tools and tactics for the hybrid workplace. What’s the movie you both have talked about the way absent sites are designed to keep us on. What was the movie just within the past year or 18 months that that revealed the tricks the or the technology that uh, that all the big sites used to keep you on, was it? It wasn’t the social network that was the older one about facebook wasn’t it? The social

[00:24:07.02] spk_1:
network

[00:24:09.08] spk_0:
social dilemma. Thank you social dilemma. It’s exciting. It’s on HBO. It’s excellent. Thank you. Make up your social dilemma reveals all the technology that they’re using to keep you on intentionally intentionally. That you’re right. This this is the technology is no longer neutral.

[00:24:39.44] spk_1:
Yes. So yes. So the social dilemma talks about that. And um what you know, uh example that um that Jason gave us in terms of the news feed, which is sort of never ending, right sort of this infinite loop, for example, um you have other examples with netflix and Youtube where the default setting is for the next thing to play right automatically.

[00:24:52.80] spk_0:
Right? You

[00:24:54.73] spk_1:
can turn those off.

[00:24:56.94] spk_0:
So

[00:25:12.54] spk_1:
with netflix, you can turn off the automatic playing of the other things. You can also turn off what I find annoying is sort of the the audio preview. You can turn off the audio preview so that you know, when you’re flipping through different options. The audio preview doesn’t you know, you’re not sort of it’s not blaring at you as you’re trying to decide what you’re gonna

[00:25:36.54] spk_0:
do, you’re trying to sort through what to watch and every time you highlight something right, the preview starts all right, I’m gonna check, I’m gonna check the settings in all three, you’re the one that annoys the hell out of me. You know, I just watched a great movie. I like to watch a movie to the very bitter end that has the copyright year in the credit. But but they’ll but they’ll start streaming. They’ll they’ll they’ll, they’ll start streaming another movie or so. Or unless you click up into the upper corner to say continue the credits

[00:25:43.08] spk_1:
so

[00:26:23.14] spk_0:
You can, you can defeat it, but you got it, you got like 10 seconds or maybe 15 seconds. I think it’s always, you have 10 seconds to move the cursor, you know, go up and highlight continue credits and then, and then you can watch the indian credits and the and the music. And to me, they’re cutting the movie in half. Even though it’s, it’s the last two minutes to me, they’ve cut it in half the credits count. I want to see the credits. I want to hear the music. Alright. I didn’t even realize you could turn those things off. Okay. Check check settings. So check settings in all your streaming apps. All right, Thank you. Excellent. Alright. Uh, let’s see, Jason. You wanna you wanna take a turn.

[00:28:11.14] spk_2:
Yeah. So another section in the presentation that is on automation and ai tools and I’ll start with a really cool one that came out fairly recently and it’s called visual ping. So the the ul Firdous visual pain dot io. And what it is, is essentially a tool that will tell you when a site changes. Now. It sounds super simple, but you know, the specific use case maybe, you know, let’s say you are looking at a site and you’re having to check it regularly for, um, uh, an organization that is going to be announcing, you know, a round of grants soon and you want to be notified. But let’s say they don’t have an email notification system set up where they don’t have like a feed. Um, that means, you know, someone in your organization or you have to be checking that every day or maybe several times a day if it’s super urgent or you want to get in, you know quickly and what visual ping allows you to do is just you input the website and that, you know, you can allow um, yourself to, to draw a few boxes and say, you know, this is the area of the site that I want to be notified when it changes and it’ll send you a message when it changes or you can connect it to something like zap here to, you know, maybe send you a message on slack or however you wish to configure it. Um, but it’s, it’s really, really cool, you know, and especially when you look at some websites that, you know, may not even that are manually updated, this can be really, really useful. Um, so you know, for notifications of, let’s say if there’s, you know, I’ve used it for notifications of new charity registrations. Um, there, there isn’t necessarily a notification feed for that. So I usually just send me a notification every time a new charity is registered in Canada. Um, I had a friend, you know, share with me that they used it to get tickets for the latest marvel movie when they came out to be notified as soon as they were available. So you know lots of use cases for it and it’s it’s really taken off.

[00:28:21.64] spk_1:
Covid vaccination appointments.

[00:28:23.65] spk_2:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:26.64] spk_1:
Covid vaccination appointments.

[00:28:30.34] spk_0:
Covid excellent. Uh Jason aren’t you getting too many things about new charity registrations daily? I mean aren’t there dozens a day?

[00:29:13.14] spk_2:
Yeah, they they it only um I think that the website only gets updated when it it does update. Uh so it is possible to actually go a couple of days without any notifications and I think that they seem to be patched updated. So when they are updated I’ll get a notification and then they’ll be like, okay, there’s four new charities registered today. I know that after the holiday season there’s a whole slew of them. Um You know, it’s uh yeah, it’s it’s just been kind of cool to to see that because otherwise, you know, I was checking the site like you know, once a week, just like, oh you know what’s new and now, you know, I think there’s some really interesting possibilities um for just being able to, you know, I see it as it as it comes up

[00:29:20.44] spk_0:
and what do you what do you do with that information? Is it just it’s just just for you to see the breath of charitable work being done in Canada or are you doing something with the new registrations as they come through?

[00:29:48.44] spk_2:
Yeah, I I was just curious to see, you know, them as they’re coming through, uh you know, I tried a little experiment where I connected it to uh happier um kind of process to automatically tweeted out. Um so, you know, I think there’s some, you know, experiments that, you know, I’m trying there, but um yeah, it was really just to stay informed and on top of, you know, the new organizations that are coming out and you know, what what what what are the new charities and what are they focused on?

[00:29:58.14] spk_0:
Interesting. Okay, okay, Mika want to take a turn, please give us give us a couple.

[00:31:44.24] spk_1:
Sure, so, yeah, so it’s sort of sticking with this theme about ai automation. Um, you know, a lot of us use, in terms of productivity tools, we use some version of the google suite of tools, so google docs, google slides, or we’re using Microsoft office or something similar. And something that’s really cool. Is that both of those actually have built into it, You don’t have to buy anything new, you don’t have to install the plug in, they have dictation features that allow you to actually speak as opposed to type so you can actually speak your notes, speak your outline, your agenda, whatever, whatever it is that you’re actually working on, and depending on the type of productivity style you have, depending on also your your learning style, maybe you’re not so good at typing. Uhm maybe if you’re doing brainstorming, maybe you just want to sort of, speak out loud as you’re outlining that report or whatever it is, and just have it sort of automatically be captured. Both Microsoft office and the google docs have the um dictation features like this built in. Um And there are there are other tools that folks are probably aware of, like outer ai for example, that integrate with zoom to actually do transcription. Um there’s also um close captioning, A lot of people aren’t aware of close captioning that is automated. That’s built into things like zoom and teams and teams that you can turn on to make your meetings more accessible. Um I think by default, it’s they’re they’re available in english um and you might have to pay an additional fee or hire a live trans transcriber if you wanted another language, depending on the type of meeting that you have, but nonetheless, those are features that are that are there um that can make life a bit easier for folks that are ai it’s an Ai driven

[00:31:53.54] spk_0:
if you’re doing this in the word sweet or google suite, you just search for dictation.

[00:32:00.84] spk_1:
Yeah, so I would if I am not able to set a pinpoint exactly where but what I would do is just go to the help menu and search for um for dictation or you can just do a quick google search. Um Those will be the two places I would start to to look for where in your particular version you might find

[00:32:18.84] spk_0:
that. And then also a good point about the closed captioning on zoom.

[00:32:22.54] spk_1:
Yes.

[00:32:23.15] spk_0:
Make make these also making technology more accessible as

[00:32:27.81] spk_1:
well.

[00:32:29.44] spk_0:
What what else? Miko let’s stay with you.

[00:35:36.54] spk_1:
Um So out of responders, so many of us are accustomed to this when it comes to out of office replies for email. Um I encourage people to use those to indicate um you know, your availability and and and things of that nature. Um but in addition to that, there are also out of responders for things like social media and so there’s I’m going to give you a low tech version and the high tech version. So if your organization, for example has a facebook page, I’m gonna give you the high tech version. Uh facebook has a feature that will allow you to set up an auto responder um to respond to people. So for example maybe you are a crisis hotline but maybe you’re not 24 7 and so people are reaching out to you through your facebook page, maybe you want an auto respond and let people know hey we’re not available between the hours of this hour and that our if you have an emergency please call this number or you know please make an appointment if it’s not urgent to come back the next day or whatever it might be right, so you can use your auto responder uh to to communicate and give people access to information if you’re not able to respond in the moment. Right? So that’s sort of the one of the high tech solutions sort of built into facebook um and I actually use this my personal, my organizational facebook page because I’m not, I’m not active on facebook, so I’m, I’m active on other platforms and so I use my auto responders let people know, hey I see that you found me here. I’m actually not here, I’m taking a break from facebook, but you can find me on linkedin, you can find me on instagram and here’s the information for that um low tech version of that is on this, I’m going to use twitter as an example, so twitter is another platform where I have a presence, but I’m not active, twitter is for this particular season of my life and work, not a tool that makes sense for me. Uh and so I made a decision that I’m going to take a break from twitter, so twitter does not have a built in auto responder, so what I’ve done is I’ve simply created a tweet that I have pinned that simply says I am not on twitter if you want to reach me, here’s how you can actually reach me, you can go to my instagram page or you can follow me or connect with me on linkedin and I’m happy to engage or two that way. So if you go to my twitter profile, that’s gonna be the first thing that you actually see, you’re gonna see that pin tweet that says I am out of the office where I’m away from twitter and here’s the best way to, to connect with me. So um auto responders I think are pretty cool when you’re using in this context. And so the high tech version is if the tool you’re using has that built in, you can do it that way and then given the example that I showed you with twitter where it’s not a native feature, um but you can still use it as such and this is important too for smaller organizations, maybe you have a small staff and it’s it’s not feasible. It probably doesn’t make sense from a communication standpoint to be Active on all the platforms at one time, but people might still be looking for you, that people might be looking for you on tiktok on twitter on facebook and maybe you’re not able to manage all those things, maybe you’re only able to manage, you know, instagram because you only have one person who’s working part time or whatever it is, right? And so you can acknowledge that people are looking for you across those platforms set up, auto responders if those things are available or just simply, you know, Panda message just says, hey, I know you’re looking for me here, but we’re taking a break, find us over here.

[00:35:54.54] spk_0:
I love it. You’re walking your walk, your your very intentional and mindful about what platforms you’re on. You said you you said at this phase, twitter doesn’t make sense for

[00:36:43.03] spk_1:
you. Yes. And I encourage everyone to think about that, particularly if you are managing a brand for your, for your organization, uh to consider like, yes, part of your audience might be on twitter, Part of your artists might be on facebook or on Tiktok, but if you realistically don’t have the capacity to manage those things, well, that’s perfectly okay, There’s nothing wrong with that. And so there are ways that you can figure out what’s one or two platforms that you actually can manage well, and then you can use the auto responder or another strategy to manage the fact that people are looking for you on those other platforms, but you simply don’t have the bandwidth to be on those right now. It’s

[00:36:57.73] spk_0:
also just very considerate. So that people, because because if people see a presence on a on one of the social sites, then I think it’s reasonable to assume that there’s gonna be some interaction if, if I if I try to engage with, you know, but but you’re being considerate and saying, you don’t don’t have that expectation because I’m not here, but you can find me in these other places and then I’ll be happy to engage with you.

[00:37:11.13] spk_1:
Very

[00:37:12.72] spk_0:
considerate, very considerate use of of the social network’s Jason, Jason.

[00:37:19.83] spk_2:
Yeah, so I would like to share a copy ai, so this is another really cool tool that it allows you to use ai to generate uh

[00:37:33.33] spk_1:
copy

[00:38:29.62] spk_2:
for various things, so I’ll give a few examples here. Um you can input something like a brief description of your organization, you know, what you do, or maybe, you know, you can copy and paste, you know, your case for support, you know, into it and what it does is it’ll generate you text based on what it is that you need. So let’s say for example, you would like to write social media posts that it can generate for you say, you know, 20 or 30 proposed, you know, social media posts with with content based on what you’ve input into it. Now, keeping in mind that, you know that this this is not intended to be like, you know, you copy and paste directly what comes out of this into your social media like that, this is more of a kind of a first draft kind of thing, but it can be a huge time saver for various things. So, you know, one example is for social media posts, another is um for landing pages, so if you’re trying to create, you know, landing pages for, you know, your website and you, you know, several of them that, you know, you can input the intent or what you would like and the system will auto generate, you know, within a few seconds, something that you know may otherwise take 10 or 15 minutes um or you know, depending on you know, how long you’re you’re making it um a 10 or 15 minutes reduced to a few seconds again for a first draft kind of thing that you can then tweak and evaluate. Um most of them are pretty good, you know that there’s some that you know, you definitely wouldn’t use but you know, I think that that’s the element of you know um the human in the loop kind of process to make sure that uh you know, this is working well

[00:39:11.12] spk_0:
that you said copy ai, is that is that an example of an app or that’s a general category

[00:39:17.34] spk_1:
of

[00:39:18.32] spk_0:
of the type of ai you’re talking about?

[00:39:20.90] spk_2:
So the website is copy dot ai

[00:39:23.52] spk_0:
copy dot ai. Okay, that’s an example of one of one. Okay, so

[00:39:39.42] spk_1:
Jason a question for you, so would an example be that let’s say tony were to take the transcript of this conversation and he wanted to generate social media from it. He upload the transcript to copy dot ai and have it do a first draft of social media for this conversation.

[00:40:41.21] spk_2:
Yeah, I think you could even um uh yeah I think put that in and then you could input, you know um uh you know generate uh generate a social media copy or landing page, you know, based on the, you know, the conversation, if you had a transcript available, uh the technology that it’s built on is built on a model called GPT three and that was released fairly recently and it’s it’s really really if if folks want to look beyond copy dot ai and want to dig a little deeper, um they can go to the open ai website and register for an account and it allows you to kind of peek under the hood and uh it gives a few options for folks to um, you know, have conversations with Ai or um try out, you know, you could input like very large blocks of text and ask it to, you know, summarize or explain, explain this to me. Like I’m a five year old for, you know, if you’re looking for like simplified descriptions

[00:40:44.42] spk_0:
and that’s a that’s an open ai.

[00:40:46.61] spk_2:
Yeah,

[00:40:47.71] spk_0:
open dot is it open dot ai,

[00:40:50.11] spk_2:
I believe. It’s open. Open ai dot

[00:41:09.41] spk_0:
com, interesting. Alright, alright, so we start to get a little more comfortable with artificial intelligence and not, not fear it. Uh and here, Alright, so it can give you a first draft, like you’re saying, instead of, so instead of looking at a blank screen uh it gives you a place to start for for a blog post or social posts. Alright, alright.

[00:41:31.31] spk_2:
Yeah, I think, I think it’s a big time saver and that like, you know, you could be spending like ours, you know, turning out those, those first drafts for um uh for some of this copy and, you know, really that this, you know, can save you those hours and really, you know, puts you more in a in a curation kind of mindset where you can, you know, take a look and tweak and kind of use those hours to um, you know, further refine um you know, the things that, you know, would otherwise be really time consuming to to put out.

[00:41:44.51] spk_0:
Yeah,

[00:42:29.30] spk_1:
I was gonna say so, Jason, I think one of the use cases we talked about was, you know, summarizing long or complex documents. So like if you’re an advocacy organization, you’re following policy or legislation that’s coming out. You know, a lot of those things they come out and you have to have a be ready to have a rapid response. Right? And so something that can really help is, if you can use a tool like copy dot ai to say, okay, can you give me like a really rough summary of this, you know, 100 page, you know, legislation that just came out, um and and just highlights, right? So again, it’s not gonna be perfect, but, you know, it you can use that alongside, you know, humans actually sort of taking a look at and reading line by line. Um and it can help you to sort of again speed up the process of if you need to respond to that, maybe there’s something you don’t like and they need to be able to put out a press release, you know, saying what you like and what you don’t like or whatever. It might be

[00:45:25.49] spk_0:
excellent. That’s a very good case. Alright. And, and Nico, this is in line with, you know what we were talking about earlier being busy versus being productive. You may feel like you’re productive if you’re reading the 100 pages of proposed legislation, but you can be more, much more productive by having a tool. Give you a first cut through it and then at the very least I will give you a place to focus your attention. So then you go read the pages that are relevant at the very least right business versus productivity. You don’t, you don’t want the former strive strive for the ladder. It’s time for Tony’s take two in the summertime when the weather is hot. You can stretch right up and rush this guy when the weather’s fine. You’ve got women, you’ve got women on your mind. Yes. The summer time is coming up of course that was Mongo jerry. You know him, they do all that the sound effects with their mouth. You know that I always thought that was on a washboard, but you watch the videos and just their mouths the summertime, the summertime. So I’m reminding you two make your plans for summer, whether it’s time alone, which can be very restorative or time with others. Whoever that might be. Start looking at that summertime calendar. You aren’t going to find the time to do the things you want to do this summer. You’re gonna have to make the time. You got to make the time. Set it aside. Be intentional. You want to spend time with these friends, Book the weekend and then it’s in violet. Everybody trusts everybody else and your weekend happens. So just uh, my advice, please set that time aside for yourself for others. Book it off and preserve it so that you can enjoy your summer the way you want to, whatever it means to you however you want to do it. Make the time. You’re not gonna find it. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo but loads more time for apps, tools and tactics for the hybrid workplace with Jason, shim and Miko Whitlock, you guys have more. Right, I’m sure. Is there more, Is there more out there

[00:45:29.19] spk_1:
there? I mean, we we could talk forever. Um, so would you like us to go through another category and what would you like?

[00:45:37.29] spk_0:
Yeah, sure. You got please. What what’s, what’s the category introduced it. So we know what we’re talking about.

[00:46:01.68] spk_1:
So we’re talking about productivity. So this is category, Focus on productivity. And I’m going to highlight one around video. So there are lots of interesting video tools out there and I’m gonna group these together. So there are three. So there is Vidyard is one Bloom is the 2nd 1 and bonds Euro is the third. They’re all very similar.

[00:46:07.36] spk_0:
Say the first one again?

[00:46:09.28] spk_1:
Vidyard.

[00:46:10.48] spk_0:
Vidyard,

[00:46:13.38] spk_1:
Yes, V I D White, A R D.

[00:46:14.87] spk_0:
Vidyard and

[00:48:16.17] spk_1:
then loom. So they’re all very similar. Uh And the, you know, one of the more common use cases is particularly since we’re working a lot of us in the remote or hybrid setting. Um you asked me for example earlier, how do I find the dictation feature in google docs or in Microsoft word for example. Um And so in this youth case I could actually send you a video with the voice over with me on the screen showing you my screen and showing you step by step how to actually do it. So as opposed to simply just send you the instructions, I can actually show you and you could say, okay, well actually I don’t see it, I’m like, well, tony show me what you’re seeing. You could send me a video back, show me what you what you see and it can be asynchronous. So right now we are together having our conversation together, but maybe we are asynchronous, you know, maybe you’re in a different time zone. Um and you know, we are available to respond at different times. And so this allows you to send video back and forth. Uh and you know, help one another in a way that’s going to be more helpful than simply sending someone a list of things and an email do this, this and this, right. People can actually see it another use case. And this is something that, that, um, you know, Jason shared in terms of fundraising, you know, you know, how often do you make a donation and you receive nowadays, um, an email or if that at all saying thank you for your donation and that’s it, like, that’s all you get right. But how cool would it be if you got a sort of an email, you got a short video that was like, hey Tony, thank you for your 25 donation, $25 donation to save the Wells. I really appreciate it as a result of it. You know, you’re gonna save x number of wells and we appreciate your support and you’ve got like a 32nd video from somebody, um, you know, how impactful would that be. And so tools like this allow you to actually do that fairly fairly easily. So there’s so many use cases for this and one of the, the, the broader points in terms of productivity that allows you to make particularly hybrid or remote work more productive, particularly when you’re working a synchronously. So if you’re not gonna zoom together, you’re not together, you’re working at different times. Um, but you want to bridge the communication gap. Um, these can be powerful tools to help you do just that

[00:48:49.17] spk_0:
bonjour Euro is one that I know and I, and I use, uh, for exactly the way you describe it. I don’t do it with donors, but I do it with new members to my, my course planned giving accelerator when when someone has, has joined the course and paid the tuition, I send them instantly. I send them and I, I tease it with, you know, when I see your payment comes through, I’ll send you my special welcome.

[00:48:59.37] spk_1:
Yes.

[00:49:09.37] spk_0:
And then the special welcome is that it’s a 30 or 45 2nd video. It’s just I find that one makes it very easy to use. But you’re saying loom and vidyard also as good as bond or Oh

[00:49:58.57] spk_1:
yeah, so they’re, they’re very similar. And so maybe Jason can speak to like some of the nuances there that I’m not aware of. Another use case here too is, you know, you know, you mentioned you have your courses and so on. I do a lot of prerecorded things and so, you know, things like bloom can be super useful where I can, you know, maybe I don’t want to use them. Um, maybe I wanna use um, bloom because I want to share my screen. Maybe I’m doing drawings on the screen and I want to show people things I wanna point to stuff. I want to highlight different things. Uh, but I want people to be able to see me and hear me as well. Um, so a tool like loom for example, can be a powerful tool to help you to to to do that. So when people get you’re recording, it’s not just you, but they’re able to see you your slides, they’re able to see you interacting with the slides. Um and and so on.

[00:50:02.76] spk_0:
How is that better than using zoom? If you just recorded yourself on zoom and shared your screen, zoom has a white board feature,

[00:50:11.36] spk_1:
it’s just an alternative.

[00:50:13.06] spk_0:
Yeah, it’s

[00:50:13.45] spk_1:
just an alternative.

[00:50:15.46] spk_0:
Yeah. As you can loom you can zoom Alright,

[00:50:17.61] spk_1:
alright.

[00:50:18.76] spk_0:
It’s cool. Uh

[00:50:59.86] spk_2:
I’ve also found that for for figured um when I’ve had to troubleshoot any technical issues with any of the software that I’m using. Uh and I send in a video video detailing exactly what my screen looks like and what I’m doing as I’m narrating it. Um I up until I started doing that, I never got feedback from support people being like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing, thank you. Since I started doing that feedback that I get from support folks like thank you so much, you know, this has saved multiple back and forth emails and we can solve and diagnosed the problem in one shot. And so if you if you want to make a support persons day in your for technical issues, you know, record a video of your have any problems here you’re having and send that in

[00:51:02.76] spk_0:
and also be more productive.

[00:51:05.76] spk_1:
Yes,

[00:51:06.36] spk_0:
avoid the end, avoid the endless emails back and forth. All right,

[00:51:10.48] spk_1:
yes,

[00:51:13.06] spk_0:
Jason your turn.

[00:51:54.16] spk_2:
Yeah. So speaking of avoiding, you know, back and forth. A couple of tools that I’d like to highlight is addressing uh quite quite a simple thing. So, you know, I think folks tend to copy and paste fairly frequently on a day to day basis. So, you know, you go into one document and you need to copy something over into another document. But what do you do when you have many little bits of information that you need to shuffle over now? For most folks, you know, they may just flip back and forth over and over again. However, there are there is software that will make it easier to do that. Um So the specific software for Mac, it’s all the fly cut and the windows um equivalent is copy Q. That’s the letter Q. And the analogy I would use is that it’s kind of like a bucket for your clipboard. Or maybe a better analogy is a like a coffee tray. So instead of having to go back and forth to the coffee shop, you know, for each individual kind of request that you can just kind of put it, you know, in a tray and get it all at once. And then, you know, when you’re um moving between programs that you can, you know, copy copy, copy a whole bunch of different stuff. So

[00:52:27.41] spk_0:
Let’s say you could have 20

[00:52:33.75] spk_2:
different items, then you can move to, you know, where you actually want to paste the stuff and then, you know, paste paste paste paste, instead of having to go back and forth 40 times. You could, you know, just batch those all at once. And this is a very simple, but um you know, if you’re doing this like, I don’t know, 40 50 times a day and you multiply that over the course of a year, like this can save a huge amount of time.

[00:52:56.55] spk_0:
Why do we have to wait till 20, for somebody to think of that? I’m sorry, what did you say?

[00:53:14.35] spk_1:
I think equivalents have been around for a while. I think they’ve they’ve evolved over time, but they’ve been around for a while. Like the for particularly for folks that are like into programming and things like that, they’re probably we’re aware of these tools, you know? Well, before now,

[00:53:50.95] spk_0:
Alright, I was not alright, copy to you. Yeah. You know, from my intent interviews, my ntC interviews, I I was copying and pasting the tight onto I made a sheet for each for each interview. So I need the title, I need the uh the, the short bios of each person or the name and the title, but they’re not together. So I was doing them separately because they’re not together on the page and then I need the description and I need the learning outcomes. So it’s like four or five or depending on the number of speakers could be like eight different copy and paste for one interview. Alright so I can bulk copy and then bulk paste with copy

[00:53:54.69] spk_2:
queue

[00:53:55.75] spk_1:
or you could just hire Jason to create a process where it it’s great. It scrapes the website, it creates the sheets for

[00:54:01.25] spk_0:
you.

[00:54:06.98] spk_1:
Exactly. And you’ll just you know, take you 30 seconds and you’ll have all the things you

[00:54:14.84] spk_0:
need Jason. I don’t think I can afford Jason though. His expertise is being

[00:54:18.02] spk_2:
friends and family discount.

[00:54:19.10] spk_0:
Thank you. Alright.

[00:54:21.15] spk_1:
And he’s he’s on parental leave now so you can take advantage of that, you

[00:54:23.91] spk_0:
know? That’s right. I got leverage. Yes. Well it it paid paid leave.

[00:54:29.14] spk_2:
Yeah.

[00:54:44.64] spk_0:
I don’t have quite the economic but take the friends, I’ll take the friends and family discount. Alright. Um Alright let’s keep going. We got a couple more minutes, we can spend a lot more time um Do something else. Somebody I I’m not gonna call you guys decide who wants to go next.

[00:55:04.04] spk_1:
I’ll talk about timing. So we were working in a remote and hybrid world, I think all of us but I think yeah, I think all of us are probably in different time zones, right? And so I find um particularly in remote hybrid environment that I’ve I’ve there have been instances where I’ve gotten confused about times I was like and what time something is and I actually think this, this actually happened for our ntc session and I was like, well I thought this was an hour later, you know,

[00:55:10.55] spk_0:
oh my

[00:55:16.04] spk_1:
I did not know, luckily Jason, you know had the sense to to call and

[00:55:19.48] spk_0:
text. Yes.

[00:57:36.93] spk_1:
So we so we got that that part figured out. So one of the things that I that I love is a feature because I’m a I’m a big google calendar person. So I there’s a feature in google calendar actually to one is called multiple time zones requires no add on, you can go into your settings and you can, if there are frequent time zones that you’re operating across for your organization, you can add those. And so I’ve added those in terms of the clients that I worked with, what are the three or four most frequent time zones so that when I’m booking um appointments, I can see which time zone it is and make sure that it’s the right time. And then the other is the world clock feature that is very similar um that allows you to see what time it is in different time zones at a glance. Um and that allows um scheduling to to make things easier. Um and it’s for me like as someone who’s traveling and you’re working with people across multiple time zones, that helps me to understand, okay, what time zone am I in and what time zone is my is my client in and I’ll give you an example that was really relevant with the daylight savings time. So the place that I’m at now. Um so so some people that I know this, but when we have daylight savings time, not every time zone changes at the same time. Right? And so the time zone that I was in this year, um there was like a three week difference, right? Where there was, there was like, I wasn’t like no man’s land where like it was like regular time or standard time everywhere else. But like I’m still stuck in like this place where like I’m in purgatory or something. And so I needed to be very, very uh in tune with like what time it was for me versus what time it was, wherever it was that I was with the folks that I was actually collaborating with. So multiple time zones and the world clocks feature, I don’t need to add anything, simply the features that you can actually turn on by going into your settings into your google calendar. Um They’re similar features for for outlook for folks who are looking for those so you can google and and figure out what those things are. But something super simple, but actually super helpful in terms of helping you to be more productive when it comes to scheduling those those meetings.

[00:57:40.53] spk_0:
Alright, so, so world clock and multiple time zones that those are both features in google calendar.

[00:57:45.93] spk_1:
Okay,

[00:58:02.72] spk_0:
because I’m thinking when you said world clock, I’m thinking too, I use iphone, you can just set up multiple just on iphone set up multiple time zones for where your where your clients are. I mean I’ve been doing some collaborating with some folks in India now and

[00:58:03.28] spk_1:
absolutely

[00:58:07.82] spk_0:
It’s 10.5 hours ahead from eastern time where I am. So and and it’s a half hour difference in every time zone is not on the hour

[00:58:12.92] spk_1:
in

[00:58:16.82] spk_0:
terms of different so there’s 1.5 hours. Um And then in my class we had the trouble. Hawaii does not use daylight savings

[00:58:21.18] spk_1:
time. Funny

[00:58:22.92] spk_0:
there, but they don’t need it. So the class members from hawaii we’re late for or they missed the missed the class after daylight savings time. They don’t think of it. So

[00:58:33.96] spk_1:
uh

[00:58:41.12] spk_0:
get smart. Yes. Just be productive. You know, there are tools to help you with this. You don’t have to make the calculation every time. I love your kids like you’re traveling. All right. So I know you know from your home this client is plus three hours. But right now I just went back to So now they’re plus five or do I add the two or do I subtract the +25 plus one now, you know,

[00:58:59.12] spk_1:
So you’re you’re doing like a math problem right

[00:59:15.22] spk_0:
use your tools use the tools please use the tools. Um All right. Nico I let Jason open. So why don’t you wrap us up and give us give us one more and take us out with little motivation.

[01:01:14.21] spk_1:
All right. So I’ll give you one more and a little bit motivation. So the last one I’m gonna give you is a tool called what’s at business. A lot of folks are familiar with what’s app which is encrypted SmS platform. There are others like telegram and and and and like um but one of the things I like about what’s at business is um it allows you to number one have more than one WhatsApp number. So if you have just a regular WhatsApp, most people understand that. One of the limitations is that you can only tie one phone number to WhatsApp. And so I travel internationally. So I have an international number and I have a US number. But with the traditional WhatsApp I wasn’t able to use WhatsApp with both numbers. Well now I can because I set up a WhatsApp business account and I’ve attached my international number two that and now I can use both WhatsApp accounts um simultaneously. The other use cases for organizations. Um Going back to the crisis hotline example, maybe you’re using WhatsApp as a way to communicate with folks and have it be encrypted for example, um you can set up a catalog or a menu of services that you offer within what’s at business. You can set up auto responders so people can get a response if you’re not available. They can get a response of of like your office hours or how to contact you um doing regular times of who to contact if it’s an emergency. Um and you can allow ready access for multiple people to use the west top business account and be able to respond to messages. Um and and not have that limitation that you have with the traditional um WhatsApp that most people are familiar with. So um if going back to this time zone um challenge you also have multiple phone numbers for whatever reason, right? Hopefully for legal reasons um that you’re you’re able to use WhatsApp um business to help make that transition a bit more a bit more seamless. So um

[01:01:23.41] spk_0:
you

[01:02:24.40] spk_1:
know as we close out, you know, I really want to just go back to what we talked about at the top which is you asked us about the mental model for the work that we’re doing. And um it’s really again moving from being busy, right, taking off things on the checklist, ticking through those emails, you know, counting the number of hours that you worked and really centering the amount of your time and energy and effort on being productive and moving towards tangible meaningful, impactful outcomes for your work. And to apply this, not just for your work but also personally we can apply these same concepts to how are we um making ourselves more productive so that we can be more present and more available for our friends, for our family, for our colleagues and also for ourselves because ultimately, if we are not at our best, when we cant give our best and so we want to make sure that we are keeping that in mind as we think about this topic of Absolutely and tactics specifically in this hybrid world that we’re experiencing right now,

[01:02:45.30] spk_0:
That’s a perfect wrap up. Thank you and I’m gonna, I’m gonna ruin it now. You’re stuck with a lackluster host. It’s tragic. Really tragic because while you were talking, I realized, you know, we didn’t talk anything about email help. Help with the email email management. Are there, do you guys have anything I’m putting you on the spot now in a specific category, Do you have ideas for? I feel bad for ruining your outstanding rapper. We’ll just have to listen to, you have to replay it after we have, but we gotta hit email. You mentioned email, you have, you have tips for email management?

[01:03:12.20] spk_1:
We do. There are tons of tips and um, I’m gonna let Jason there was one you covered in the session um the inbox pause. You want to talk a little about that?

[01:04:23.19] spk_2:
Yeah, there’s a tool called inbox because it’s uh it’s made by boomerang and it’s a plug in that it’s, it applies for gmail and what it does is that it will hide your inbox until you’re you’re kind of ready to to view or that’s that’s one of the settings that you can have. But the positive boxes that when you press the pause button, it’ll stop the emails from coming in. So that uh you know, you can more carefully manage your time around how you process the email. So instead of you know, going back and checking and responding that you can actually, you know, schedule in time and your calendar be okay. This is my designated email checking and responding time. And not kind of have that temptation of having the email sitting in the inbox because you literally can’t see them until you hit the resume inbox. And then all the emails will come flooding in and then you can process it then and there. So uh you know this this kind of goes in line with what we shared earlier about, you know, um Newsfeed Eradicate. Er it’s kind of similar in its function and that um you know, this is to manage your attention and you know, help make it easier to uh schedule intentional time to to deal with those things.

[01:04:28.81] spk_0:
Okay? Inbox inbox pause. You have another, you have another email tool, Jason.

[01:04:35.69] spk_2:
I have one.

[01:04:41.19] spk_1:
Yeah, I was gonna okay.

[01:04:42.09] spk_2:
Uh

[01:07:24.88] spk_1:
so I was going to share uh it’s a strategy and then the tool related to the strategy. So the research shows that we spend more than half of our work time actually reading writing, responding to email. More than half of our work time reading writing responding to emails. So a significant chunk of our lives are spent nowadays, you know in our in our inboxes. And so one of the most effective things that we can do to manage that time more effectively and to actually lower that amount of time is to um reduce the number of decisions that we have to make about the things in our inbox. And one of the most effective ways to do that is by actually filtering things into different buckets um so that you’re not having to think about that because when when the when the email comes in it’s not just responding to that, you have to think okay do I respond to this? Is this spam and it will respond to this now do I respond to this later? How urgent is this? You’re having to think about all those things simultaneously and it becomes mentally and emotionally draining and exhausting over time. So I use Gmail and one of the ways I do this with Gmail is I use the multiple inboxes feature That allows me to sort things into um four different buckets. I have my main inbox I have um you know, alert for things like google docs. So if Jason and I are working on something and Jason’s tagging me, I can see that Jason tagged me and expecting a response. I have my newsletters right, so those are things that don’t require an immediate response. So those are things I want to go back to. But I don’t need to see that in my inbox and then drag it and drop it to manually to a folder and then the last one of the receipts. Right? So if I’m ordering things online, um I don’t need to see that receipt right away. So if I need to see that receipt for tax purposes or if we’re getting reimbursement, I know that it’s there in my my receipts folder and I can go back and look at that um later. And what that means is then I have those four categories. Then I’m spending less time sorting through my inbox and I can spend more of that time actually responding to the things that are actually the higher priority. So you can do this. Also for outlook, there’s a smart inbox feature that can support this. You can also set up filters um to route things to different in boxes. You can color code things based on who it’s from. For example. So if if your top priorities to respond to e mails from donors and to your your supervisor or the ceo of your organization, um you can flag those as a different color so that you can make sure that you’re always focusing on those things first. So there are many different ways you can do this. But the broader principle here is to um set up filters, Whatever system works for you in terms of filtering so that you’re spending less time mental and emotional energy processing email but actually being productive when it comes to the type of email that you’re receiving.

[01:08:14.27] spk_0:
Thank you. All right, thank you guys for going a little long again. I didn’t think of email until until Nico mentioned it, but so we went long. But so thank you for the graciousness being gracious around that. But I mean the stuff we talked about, you know, do not disturb night shift, night light news feed. Eradicate er stay focused, visual, ping auto responders copy dot ai vineyard loom bands, Euro fly cut copy queue multiple times. Well multiple time zones. Oh multiple time zones, World clock feature, right, what’s that business? Uh inbox pause and uh just being intentional filtering, filtering, filtering, filtering,

[01:08:18.97] spk_1:
filtering so

[01:08:29.27] spk_0:
Incredible. I was probably another hour and a half. Alright, they are, they are both both former board members of N 10. Jason Shim Director of Digital Path, digital strategy and transformation at pathways to education. Canada and Mexico market Whitlock the mindful techie, a speaker and trainer on mindfulness and technology, Jason Miko, Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing all this.

[01:08:48.07] spk_1:
Thank you for having us. Thanks

[01:08:49.59] spk_2:
for having us,

[01:09:46.77] spk_0:
absolute pleasure, loved it. Thank you. Next week We’re gonna have more from 22 NTCC asking for receiving and giving feedback if you missed any part of this week’s show. I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com responded by turning to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows. Social media is by Susan Chavez. Marc Silverman is our Web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty. You’re with me next week for non proper. radio big nonprofit ideas for the The other 95% go out and be great. Mm hmm.

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