Newsletter – June 2021

Here’s the technology and people update for June 2021.

STATUS
This month I’ve tried to cut down on the number of hours I’m working. I have two part time jobs split across my Trash Project and 500 Startups. Then there’s my technology consulting and my web agency clients. Normally this is fine, I really enjoy all of it, but recently the frustrations and additional hour or two here and there have taken it over the limit of enjoyable. As I posted on Instagram “Work is supposed to be enjoyable”. So I’ve made a few changes to my working environment, reduced the number of items on my ToDoist list (Max 6 per day) and spent a bit more time reading and watching movies. I’m not 100% there yet, but I’ve seen an improvement already. I would really love to go swimming, but with the Covid situation getting steadily worse here, I think it unlikely life will return to the previous series of swimming pools.

PRODUCTIVITY
As mentioned above I’ve tried to go back to the Ivy Lee method.
– Choose 6 Tasks
– Prioritise them
– Start on #1
– Work until the task is completed
– Start on #2
– Repeat

The issue with this, is that I tend to pick off the easier lower priority tasks and end up with the bigger priority task incomplete. I can see that getting a few tasks out of the way early gives a small dopamine hit that then motivates me to carry on with the other tasks. Maybe I just don’t like the priority tasks. I’ve tried breaking them down even further into smaller tasks but still nothing seems to get me to tackle the list the right way round.

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
I’ve modified my ToDoist filters and projects to adapt to the Ivy Lee method. I love the way that ToDoist can adapt so well when you change your process.

ASANA, PIPEDRIVE & ZAPIER
Asana continues to be quiet. The number of enquiries is much less than normal. I did speak to a potential client in the US yesterday who was looking to make the most of the reporting features. As I say to many clients, this really is the weakest point in Asana.
Interesting then that Asana added a whole host of new reporting features. Most of which I have to say are rubbish, particularly if you need to do client reports. No milestone reports, no reports on late tasks vs on time completion and of course there’s no baseline on Gantt charts or projects to work out the difference between your plans and the actual progress. Am I bashing Asana here ?
They did update the My Tasks section so that now you can have a board (Kanban) view.

Zapier and Pipedrive are a different matter. Lots of enquiries about automation, databases, passing data between systems, notifications, form filling and actions. I’m working on lots of lead generation projects, linking things to websites and forms, building inventory databases and even played with barcode scanning into Asana on my smartphone. I have a side project mapping Airtable data to Google maps to complete this week too.

CONSULTING
Lots of work with startups this month, teaching, mentoring and a few technical architecture and business model discussions. The themes are the same. Startups here really struggle with Marketing, Sales and technology.

With Apple driving the privacy agenda on iPhones and blocking Facebook tracking, next they’ll be turning to email tracking. Anyone who sends bulk email and cleans their list because of un-opens needs to read this article. You’ll need to consider list scrubbing based on clicks. When MacOS Monteray comes out later this year.

TECHNOLOGY
A few updates this month:
My significant other is not really the minimalist I am, and also has a tendency to put stuff down on the top of other stuff. This frequently results in the question “Chris….have you seen my………? ” – Apple to the rescue and a box of Airtags later I have many of the problems solved.
I love my Sony Headphones, noise cancelling for the constant noise of Phnom Penh. The only downside is that they are a bit on the big side. So its welcome news that Sony have now introduced the in-ear version . I can’t get stock here for a month at least so maybe this will be something I’ll pick up in Europe in August.

RECENT PROJECTS
Creating an order and inventory system for a clothing supplier
Building a website for a UK manufacturer – its been a while since I’ve done a website from scratch
Linking Airtable to Google maps for location based information
Teaching Sales and Marketing for startups

MISCELLANEOUS LINKS
Retrain your brain with AI – a super-geeky article
I read the book – To-Do List Formula – for a short book there are many snippets of wisdom in here.

That’s it for this month. As always I love your replies, and continue to be interested in some of the challenges you face and
problems you want to solve. Please do let me know what you’re up to.

Chris