Productivity

Improving your work day ✅

Hey, Friends! 

This week I have 14 must-read stories for you to enjoy and share (sharing is caring) with your teams in slack or teams. 

Joe Rogan Reaction GIF by UFC

FYI: Last week’s most popular must read was how to handle back to back meetings 

Must Read Articles Of The Week 

  1. Are You The Business Catalyst? 🤔 An important Introduction you to The Catalyst, the person in a team or a department that seems to be the colleague who kickstarts projects- Find out more

  2. Time For Hard Conversations 🆘  It’s time to prepare to think for the future and how hard the summer will be for managers and HR teams - Read the full article

  3. Do You Miss Working In A Coffee Shop? ☕️ Missing working from your favourite coffee shop or one near the office? Here’s a good and fun article on how to replicate working in a coffee shop and what they learnt- Read how 

  4. How The Busiest People Get 'Deep Work' Done 💯 As a productivity person and coach who’s built his workflow around deep work, there are a few ways to help improve your workday. - Read the full story —> This is a good related article on why scheduling your breaks helps with productivity

  5. How algorithms took creativity out of social media 🤖 Wired has a good article on human curation (like Must Reads) is so sort after when we lose creativity and inspiration from algo’s - Read the full story

  6. Instant Messenger Wars? 💬 As Nick and I discussed in The Future State of Voice, WhatsApp might have some better competition on it’s hands with fully encrypted Signal & Russian hybrid Telegram. The latest download stats suggests both Signal & Telegram installs have skyrocketed. My own POV this means groups did not have migrate and we are seeing splintering aka different apps for different use cases - Telegram for organised protests, Signal for highly private conversations. - Read the report

  7. What Is TikTok Rewarding? Pretty Bland? 🤨 TikTok is where every brand wants to be but struggle to make that algorithm play with them and for them, there have been breakout brands like the ‘Amazon leggings’ and Ocean Spray but there were a number of breakout stars, who turn out to look the same and do the same actions, maybe “blandness” or relate-ability is a way of saying it. - Read the Tiktok story

  8. Are Jeans & Bra’s Really Done? 👀 Buzzfeed makes a compelling argument about not going back to our previous workwear while we start returning to some normality in some of the Western World. What do you think can we work in shorts and t-shirts or comfies from now on? - Read the full article

  9. ~430 billion birds on Earth 🦢 🐦 🦅 Nat Geo takes a look at the number of birds are on earth and why birds are so important - Read the full story

  10. Paying To Attend A Zoom 🎞 Zoom-fatigue is impacting a lot of people, even famously their CEO, but Zoom’s ambitions cover virtual PT’s, therapy, virtual coaching and now aspiration for virtual and hybrid conferences. This makes sense for Zoom but some tools are made and stick just for x (in this case work) and some get more traction, I’m not so convinced for Zoom vs Hopin & other options. - Read the story

  11. A New Queen’s Gambit ♟ How a ten year old is now the newest chess prodigy - Read or Listen to full story

  12. Why Not Being Distracted By Emotional State Is Key To Winning Poker 🃏 This is a good read on how an amateur won a poker tournament and how they broke down the fundamentals, it will apply to the everyday and making better decisions - Read the full account

  13. Updated Google Docs? 😳I am confident you use Google docs, if you have your own business or work at a startup Google docs is thrust upon you or you know no better, however, let’s be honest it hasn’t changed at all since it rolled out, why? Because Google is so big and making sweeping changes is expensive from an internal time and resource POV but also because so many users are free & using it for 🆓, well Google finally announced they’ve pulled their finger out and making changes around productivity and making it better for GSuite users. Basically making it docs centre point of meeting calls (meets) and adding mentions and reactions like how most people work…- Read the full breakdown

  14. How To Update Customers & Investors In Public 💵 It’s uncommon for me to call out a good tweet thread from a business leader, why? Because it just doesn't happen that often, Wise CEO tweetstormed their Q1 update with the most relevant information and sticks to their mission they are trying to achieve. - See the full thread

🎧 The Future State Podcast 🎧 

This week’s future state podcast covers the future state of VR. The pod is going live this weekend.Nick and I discuss the future of VR, AR and MR, basically how we might work, play and rest in the very near future and why it is more than just Facebook and why it might just be Apple vs Facebook vs Microsoft vs Google vs others. 

Subscribe To Listen On Your Podcast App: 

Is your career stagnating? Worried about having an executive presence? I am coaching Marketing Directors, Operations Directors, a CEO & Business Founders, book below:

FYI: Here’s a coaching tip for managers, the 10 do you know questions to ask and answer

Quote Of The Week:  

“The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest thing is to initiate. – When people ask you to tell them what to do, resist.” — Seth Godin (via friend of Must Read’s Simon Swan)

Thanks for reading again this week Must Readers, have a great weekend!  

Danny Denhard - Must Reads Editor & Focus Founder Let’s connect on Twitter Or LinkedIn

PS. Here is the best article from Focus this week - How to take over from a bad boss