ProductivityCast Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud

Episode 065 | Ergonomics and Your Productivity With James Olander, The Roost Laptop Stand







For James, he found the right thing to work on by being very close to a problem that affected him personally and discovering an unsolved problem in that space.  He had been working at a laptop for years, hunched over, until it put him out of commission. RSI (repetitive stress injury), carpal tunnel, constant neck and back pain.







James started his career in aerospace engineering, worked on satellite and rockets, mainly on lightweight structures. When he came across the ergonomic crisis with his laptop, he found that no one made a compelling solution, something as portable as his laptop, that could help solve the bad posture laptops put us in.  He then decided to put his engineering background into practice and worked to develop a laptop stand that was indeed very portable. He put it on Kickstarter and they rest they say is history.







The Roost Stand is the resulting ergonomics-focused laptop stand. Today, we talk to James about his experience, his laptop stand and the future of ergonomics and your productivity.







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/065 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | Ergonomics and Your Productivity







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







The Roost Laptop Stand







James Olander, The Roost Laptop Stand







Raw Text Transcript | Ergonomics and Your Productivity







Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).







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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.







Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17 And Welcome back, everybody to productivitycast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith.







Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud.







Voiceover Artist 0:00

Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life? Then you've come to the right place, productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here,

Indecision can be one of the powerful productivity inhibitors. It can be a powerful force against projects and actions that can help move your professional and/or personal life forward. We wanted this episode to help you make great decisions and provide you with strategies and techniques to combat indecision.







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/064 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | Indecision's Last Stand







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







Art Gelwicks







Show Notes | Indecision's Last Stand: How to Make Great Decisions







Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.







Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, PhD







Systems 1 and 2 thinking processes and cognitive reflection testing in medical students







Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono, MD, PhD







We discussed Six Thinking Hats methodology more in Episode 053, Optimism Versus Pessimism.







Robust decisions







Uncertainty decision model







Pugh decision matrix







Sample Pugh decision matrix template (Google Sheets workbook)





(Note: Once you open the link above in your Web browser, use File > Download, or File > Make a Copy... to use this Google Sheets workbook as a template for your own decision-making.)





SWOT Analysis







Ego depletion (as explained in Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy F. Baumeister, PhD, and John Tierney)







Raw Text Transcript | Indecision's Last Stand







Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).







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Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:00

Hey there, productivity cast listeners. Before we jump into this week's episode, I wanted to make a small apology and a big announce...

A recent article in The New Yorker, "Was Email a Mistake?," triggered a conversation around the veracity of email in the Digital Age. The author, computer science professor Cal Newport, discussed this on a recent interview on NPR. This is our response to the question, was email a mistake?







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/063 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | Was Email a Mistake? A Response







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







Art Gelwicks







Francis Wade







Show Notes | Was Email a Mistake? A Response







Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.







Was Email a Mistake?







Write Email With Maximum Efficiency Using This Military System







Scrum







Microsoft Outlook







Spike







Feedly







Stoop Inbox







“Bursty” Communication Can Help Remote Teams Thrive







Raw Text Transcript







Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).







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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.







Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17

And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith.

Most don't think about it, but aside from finding the best productivity planner for ourselves, the very paper planner (a/k/a agenda, diary, journal, scheduler, notebook) didn't even exist until roughly 90 years. What did humankind do for the prior millennia upon millennia?! It wasn't until Gustav Grossmann came around with his own 200-page manifesto and leatherbound planning notebook in the 1930s, that the modern organizer was born.







Today, we who pay attention to our productive lives take it for granted at the plethora of options for planners on the market, as well as learning how to use them effectively. In this week's episode, the ProductivityCast team discusses the factors that make the best productivity planner the right one for you.







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/062 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | The Best Productivity Planner







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







Art Gelwicks







Francis Wade







Show Notes | The Best Productivity Planner







Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.







History of Day Planner







Levenger Circa system







FranklinPlanner







Staples Arc system







Day Runner







Apple Reminders







Remember the Milk







OmniFocus







The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll







Casts referencing BuJo:







* 035 What Is the Bullet Journal? How Does It Work? – ProductivityCast* 051 Managing Digital Notebooks* 047 Reflections on Getting Things Done (GTD): What I Wish I Knew When I Started GTD, Part Two – ProductivityCast* 024 Can Productivity Be Fun? – ProductivityCast* 022 Productivity Pet Peeves – ProductivityCast* 016 The Power of Reflection – ProductivityCast* a href="https://productivitycast.

If you haven’t heard about Kanban before (which many of our productivity enthusiasts had not, so you’re not alone!) started as a lean manufacturing process by Taiichi Ohno. It has since branched off into a process management and improvement method used by many in the productivity community (especially in the Lean, Six Sigma and Agile communities). In practical terms, with Personal Kanban, you create a visual process management system (Kanban means “billboard” in Japanese) for what you’re going to do, what you're currently working on, and how much you want to do (or what’s been done). There are many tools out there that help manage these kinds of boards and different styles for facilitating the boards. That's what we discuss in this latest episode of ProductivityCast!







N.B. Ray mentioned mistakenly kanban was developed in the 1960s/70s but it was actually developed in the 1940s/50s.







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/061 for clickable links, the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | Personal Kanban







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







Art Gelwicks







Francis Wade







Show Notes | Personal Kanban







Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.







Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Tonianne DeMaria Barry and Jim Benson







Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen







Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown







The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Ryder Carroll







Rules of Personal Kanban







* Visualize your work* Limit your work-in-progress







Post-It Notes







Trello







MeisterTask







Wekan







Microsoft Planner







Notion







Being Productive podcast hosted by Art Gelwicks







Raw Text Transcript







Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).







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Are you always hearing excuses from others about why they didn't get something done? Or, are you coming to terms with making excuses yourself for commitments you are making and breaking? In this cast, we discuss the particulars of excuses (and making justifications, and perhaps appropriates "reasons") for not getting a task or project completed.







(If you’re reading this in a podcast directory/app, please visit https://productivitycast.net/060 for clickable links and the full show notes and transcript of this cast.)







Enjoy! Give us feedback! And, thanks for listening!







If you'd like to continue discussing managing digital notebooks from this episode, please click here to leave a comment down below (this jumps you to the bottom of the post).







In this Cast | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses







Ray Sidney-Smith







Augusto Pinaud







Francis Wade







Show Notes | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses







Resources we mention, including links to them, will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.







The Difference Between a Reason and an Excuse (Because the world does not need another thumb sucker)







QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life by John G. Miller







How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life by Alan Lakein







“Responsibility” - Werner Erhard







Dunning-Kruger Effect







First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Gallup and Marcus Buckingham







Raw Text Transcript | Excuses, Excuses, Excuses







Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors, but you can search for specific points in the episode to jump to, or to reference back to at a later date and time, by keywords or key phrases. The time coding is mm:ss (e.g., 0:04 starts at 4 seconds into the cast’s audio).







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Voiceover Artist 0:00 Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivity cast, the weekly show about all things productivity. Here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks.







Raymond Sidney-Smith 0:17

And Welcome back, everybody to productivity cast, the weekly show about all things personal productivity, I'm Ray Sidney Smith.







Augusto Pinaud 0:24 I am Augusto Pinaud.







Francis Wade 0:25I'm Francis Wade.