ProdPod, a Productivity Podcast

ProdPod: Episode 95–Effective Meeting Series: More Productivity Meetings With Robert's Rules, Part II

While Robert’s Rules of Order may seem outdated, outmoded, prescriptive, and even restrictive, you’d be surprised what a little bit of parliamentary procedure can do to make meetings much more highly productive. In this episode, I continue my discussion on Robert’s Rules of Order and how this can be incorporated into your meetings.

In the last episode I gave some productivity principles for effective meetings. Continuing on the Robert’s Rules of Order theme, I want to cover some steps you can take to run more effective meetings in the modern era. Here they are.

ProdPod: Episode 94–Effective Meeting Series: More Productivity Meetings With Robert's Rules, Part I

While Robert’s Rules of Order may seem outdated, outmoded, prescriptive, and even restrictive, you’d be surprised what a little bit of parliamentary procedure can do to make meetings much more highly productive. The episode is the first part, giving some context with important productivity principles for using parliamentary procedure in meetings.

When Brig. Gen. Henry Martyn Robert proposed the use of parliamentary procedure for common meetings back in 1876, he likely didn’t foresee the future of meetings as they happen today. However, while seemingly an anachronism or overly formal to some of you listening/reading (unless you yourself are a parliamentarian), Robert’s parliamentary law was as needed back in the 19th century as it is relevant today for the future of work to be done in more transparent, collaborative, and productive ways. Here’s why and how.

ProdPod: Episode 93–Gamification and Your Productivity

A gamified life. For the productivity and technology geek that I am, it sounds like a pretty cool existence. I’d get to live the superhero lifestyle (minus the superpower-enabling lab experiment gone wrong) I should’ve been living all along. But can I live a truly gamified life? Over the past several years, that is something I have sought to find out, and here’s what I’ve learned.

ProdPod: Episode 92--Rewarding Yourself for Productive Habit Development and Reaching Goals

One of the most unproductive outcomes of the last century’s shift from the Industrial Age to knowledge work in the Digital Age has been the loss of seeing the fruits of our labor firsthand. In the Industrial Age, Americans made things and saw them come to life. There’s an inherent satisfaction in creating products that come off an assembly line. Contrast that to our daily lives in the Knowledge Worker Age, and you may start to notice this missing element in your life. And, I think an example of a cultural response to this lack of tangible outcomes is the Maker Movement. People need extrinsic as well as intrinsic motivations. And, while not a perfect solution, I have found that establishing a tiered reward system for completing mundane tasks, habit development and reaching big goals in a Digital Age society increases productive output by pairing difficult-to-achieve outcomes with physical rewards. Read the full blog and listen to the podcast here.

ProdPod: Episode 91 -- What Do You Own?

Have you ever been in a situation where you lost all your worldly possessions in one day? I have. It’s a life-changing event, even for someone not too attached to material things, to find out it’s all been burned away, water-damaged or otherwise destroyed in a catastrophic event. Other than the insurance covering my personal property providing little emotional relief for lost baby pictures and irreplaceable artwork, I had one piece of solace--my home inventory. Before or if calamity strikes, you too should have a home inventory. Read full post and listen.