In this episode of Work Smart, idea guy Bryan Serven asks the question every entrepreneur has wrestled with; I offer a way to reframe the question and weigh your options, and author of Do More Great Work Michael Bungay Stanier weighs in with a great tip. Press the play button below, and then check out part 2, which covers how you know when to kill a project you're already working on.

Part 2: The toughest thing an entrepreneur has to do is admit a company or a product is a failure and move on. But the longer you work on something that's not working, the more time you lose that could be spent working on a success. This episode covers part 2 of inventor Bryan Serven's question: what are the early signs it's time to end a project?

Once more author of Do More Great Work Michael Bungay Stanier weighs in with his advice for diversifying your portfolio of projects.

I'm on the hunt for one more question to wrap up the Work Smart series. Send it to me at worksmart@fastcompany.com.

In this week's episode of Work Smart 2, I got to give my best answer to that question. Bill Clark asks how you can actually work smarter when you spend a lot of time learning new productivity tricks. I share my favorite tool for keeping yourself honest, and then asked author of productivity bible Getting Things Done David Allen for his thoughts. (In short: there are worse ways to waste time.)

Press play on the 2-minute, 30-second video clip below.

During my research for this video, I went back to using RescueTime in earnest. The charts it generated, which show what programs you spend the most working in, are really insightful for anyone who wants to do more self-monitoring. If you're having a particularly rabbit-holey day, RescueTime's Growl notifications which say things like "You've spent 45 minutes on distracting activities" can help you get back on track, too. Even if they tempt you to just quit the program and keep reading Lady Gaga's Wikipedia entry anyway.

I was lucky enough to get none other than David Allen to agree to be my expert in this segment. I was pretty nervous talking to David, as his material has been an inspiration for me for years now. Hopefully I didn't come off as too much of a dork on Skype with him.

Here's the final, 2-minute video clip.

In short, the key to staying productive while travelling is to create a to-go system that's as effective as your home system. A big part of that for me, which got cut from the final segment, is having a good portable inbox. I use a $2 plastic envelope with a Velcro closure, which I slip in next to my laptop in my bag. Expense receipts, business cards, and random pieces of paper that you tend to collect as you travel all go in that plastic envelope, which I dump out as soon as I get home.

We've just wrapped the first four video segments, and starting in on the next batch of four, so I need questions! If you want to appear in a future episode, email me your question to worksmart@fastcompany.com.

Despite the fact that I still can't watch and listen to myself on film without cringing, I am so pleased with the results. Adam Barenblat at FastCompany did an amazing job on the art and design, which is based on a fun new webapp: Popplet.

Check out the finished clip.

Some production notes: I outlined the script using Popplet, which Adam used to design the video, and that Popplet is available at FastCompany.com for you to click and zoom around yourself. We got all the interview footage using Skype and eCamm's CallRecorder software, which is cheap and fantastically easy to use. We wanted an informal webcam look, but we wanted "the hostess" to have a plain background and professional lighting, which I set up in my home office relatively inexpensively, thanks to the TWiG headset I already have. It was really fun getting to "meet" and talk with people who sent in their questions from all over the country. Unlike the first season of Work Smart, which was just me talking to the camera, these episodes involve 3 separate shoots--one with the person asking the question, one with the expert, and one with me. Breaking it up that way adds a nice variety, and it also means I don't have to fly to New York to shoot with a director and a production crew. I get to stay home and simply use Skype with my iSight. Fun stuff, plus time and money savings.

If you want to be featured in an upcoming episode, email your question about tech and/or productivity to worksmart@fastcompany.com.

In the past three months Anil and I have been to events in six different cities talking about Expert Labs and how the White House used ThinkTank to compile feedback on the Grand Challenges initiative. At Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored event in New York City last month, Anil absolutely killed it in a 12 minute presentation that hits the nail right on the head. Press play to check it out.