Reclaiming Your Time
If you caught the weekend edition of “Brad’s Blog,” you might recall that I was reading a book called “Indistractible” during my travels.
In the midst of dropping a loyal and curious reader of this fine newsletter further info on the book over the weekend (a service I am always happy to provide), I browsed the website a bit and found the Tools section, where author Nir Eyal broke down some of the techniques and concepts discussed in the book into helpful little appetizers…like Mastering Internal Triggers, or quieting that little voice in your mind that desperately wants you to check reddit again right now.
You just refreshed the page, there’s nothing new there. Close the window.
Click the X.
Click it.
If you feel personally targeted by that last riff, it’s because you’re not alone. The shiny digital future in which we live is so packed with distractions it’s a wonder anyone ever gets anything done at all…Eyal’s website (cleverly dubbed nirandfar.com) is all about making more out of the same 24 hours that both you and the highest achiever you know get to work with each day.
Listen and Learn
A popular teaching (and presentation) theory states that there are four basic types of learners, I fall firmly in the “auditory” category…for some reason I just retain the most possible information through hearing.
Everyone knows about Audible, but another app I really like for educating my ear holes is VoiceDream, which can convert any text to voice. Yes, we all want an option for having our documents narrated by James Earl Jones, but I’ve already sent the company an email request and I’m sure another one from you can’t hurt.
Intercontinental Conference Room
One of the great things about 2020 is how easy it can be to collaborate across great distances…on a good day, getting people on multiple continents in the same room takes just a few clicks.
Zoom is great for running conferences and share screens with the team…I can schedule the meeting, send invites, and start the session all inside the app. Available for Android and iOS, I even hear Zoom makes a more than serviceable primary phone system for those crazy startup kids with their shared coworking spaces and their helicopter rentals.
The Last Word
That about wraps things up here, at this weekly meeting of tech and text, but before I go I do want to invite you to check out my growing archive of audiovisual geekery: another entry of Brad’s Vlog is set for the ‘Net today! Can you tell I love doing this?
Thanks as always for making time for another enthusiastic episode, fire away at my email inbox with comments, concerns, and contributions!