Update, September 30: Five episodes have already aired on topics like securely saving passwords, avoiding the pitfalls of productivity porn, and taking great meeting notes. Now I’m looking for more questions from readers like you. The more specific and answerable-in-2-minutes your question is, the more likely it is to get chosen. Email your question to worksmart@fastcompany.com. Thanks in advance!
Thrilled to announce I’m prepping to shoot a new Q&A video series for Fast Company. Work Smart 2 will be a question and answer consultation with viewers and readers like you. If you’ve got a burning question to ask me about tech and productivity, this is your chance.
Here’s how it works:
1. Email me at worksmart@fastcompany.com or leave a comment here on this post with your question. Topics might include things like email overload, mobile apps, cloud computing, productivity, or anything related to working and living saner, smarter and more efficiently with tech tools.
2. If we choose your submission, you and I will schedule a video Skype consultation where we record your question and my advice. I’ll even call in some of my best tech-savvy expert friends for help.
3. We’ll edit together the clip and run it on FastCompany.com and right here on Smarterware.
Interested in getting a little video Skype Q&A going? Here are the details. Can’t wait to talk to you.
13 Comments
claimid.com/zeeboy
The Internet, as a distraction, is so easy to succumb to but I rely on it for my work. I use OpenDNS to block out categories of sites but how can I block out categories of sites for times of the day easily?
Norman
I’d really like your opinion on how to manage your task lists, projects, next actions, etc. with the huge variety of tech out there. What do you think is the best way to consolidate and keep it simple?
Cranium Slows
I have never been able to get into snippets but I know they would save me soo much time when coding. What do you use to prevent reinventing the wheel? Are snippets the answer and if so what do you use / how do you organize them? Thanks
Bill Clark
How do you actually sit down and “work smarter” when you’re constantly looking for the next great way to actually work smarter? I find myself getting too caught up in finding better, faster ways to do things, that I’m actually getting LESS done in the long run. Where do you draw the line?
Ben Collins
How do I maximize the signal to noise ratio?
I have tried aggregating RSS feeds, but I get overwhelmed by reading so many headlines, so I end up just haunting my favorite 3 or 4 websites and getting the rest of my signal from the social network – which has a lot of noise too.
Frank Garufi Jr.
As someone who suffers from ADHD, I’m constantly searching for ways to get all of my tasks completed daily, in a more efficient way.
As a Project Network Engineer, I find ways to manage, but I know there are more practical ways of doing it and in a more efficient time.
Derek Wilson
I would love some tips on how to manage a shared email inbox. At my work 6 people share the same email account and sometimes we get problems where messages get read by not dealt with and therefore never get resolved.
What programs, settings or rules do you suggest we enlist to achieve inbox bliss?
FrightenedByPenguins
Basically – what Bill and Ben said. I suggest you get both of them together in an audition couch situation and see who wants fame via Gina the most. AWWWWKWARD
J.D. Meier
It sounds like a great pro-sumer model.
I think videos will be a great way to do justice to some of the recurring themes of problems that hit people time and again:
– prioritizing
– focus
– time management
– information management
– energy management
– motivation
– impact
I think the beauty that happens now that there is so much information and so many tools on productivity is that we move up the stack and it becomes even more Darwin-oriented … as tools specialize and we specialized ourselves for our own, maximum impact, and meaningful results.
Sterlingwit
Hm, here is a question 😉
How come you don’t know that the applications under settings/accessibility are apparently not a standard for Android phones? My HTC Desire has nothing there – and thus no power button setup.
pmtaylor
Wonderful idea. Is there a way to sync (and keep synced) the contacts in my Google Apps account with the contacts in my plain vanilla gmail account?
Thank you.
Rick Bergami
Hey I blogged a little about this. http://blog.helpmypc.biz/
Mary Evangeliste
I find that a lot of people I work with are very apprehensive about adopting new technology and sometimes by the time they actually get interested the time for discovery has passed. On the other hand I think it is ridiculous to adopt ever form of new technology, or change for change sake.
When adopting new technology do you think:
Is it best to just jump in and use the new technology and learn as you go? Read and research the new technology? Or a combination of both?
Do you think it is best to have a finite group who plays with the new technology ?
Finally how can you systematically integrate new technology into say a marketing plan as opposed to allowing new technology to hijack your plan?