Full disclosure: I am full blown Google fanboy. I have been using Google free account, Google Apps for Domains (grand fathered into G-Suite Free version) for the last, 10 years or so (not sure about the actual years, but feels like this is something I practically grew up with).

I have been accustomed to certain loss of privacy, exchanging it for productivity boosts when using Docs, Sheets, even Google Calendar (= I am the PRODUCT). I will continue using most of the Google services for sure. I have no issue in paying a little for them too, but not much – after all, I am taking care for all my backups, I need the offline functionality and finally, I need precision in editing (think Microsoft Office).

What are my gripes with Google? I checked – most of them cannot be solved even if you are a paying customer.

First and foremost, they are closing their services, not providing support for long-standing industry standards. The standards may be bad, but still. The glaring example is calendar – you cannot sync with Outlook natively anymore. This an old issue, but nevertheless – it was just killed. At this point, I don’t care who’s to blame – Microsoft or Google – but the fact remains, Google shutdown the service and is now offering it through an application, for paying customers.

On the other hand, if Google is going the enterprise way, I would like to ask them if they have ever seen any task management solutions and how they are connected with the calendar. Namely, tasks are currently still practically useless and visually unappealing. Syncing Google tasks with different end-points is still a pain.

Let’s consider internal integration (something that venerable Evolution, Outlook have) – how to make an email body of the calendar appointment. This was a no-brainer – but now, you can’t do it anymore. For many managers, this directly breaks the workflow.

Let’s finish this section with another classic – threading in Gmail, or lack of it. Many use-cases actually require following who said what. This is much faster than digging through the actual emails and decoding all those indents.

What about Google Drive? For me, this is a game changer, but not without faults. Glaring problem – no Google Drive client for Linux? This has been a problem for many years now – no response from Google. On the other hand, InSync works like a charm, on all operating systems.

When you start using the Drive, notice the sharing pains – the problem is any aspect of it, to be honest. Changing rights of a group of users, removing a user from a shared folder, managing the transfer of his files … all unsolved issues for many years now.

Let’s finish with some straight blunders. Google Talk, a brilliant product, working, ahead of its time. It became Google Hangouts, which sucks. Now, Hangouts is being weirdly dissolved into Allo, Duo, something. Compare that with transformations of Skype.

Oh, and Chrome is hog :P.

P.S.: No links. Just Google It 😉

Celebrating catholic version of events for all my life (as far as I can remember), it was a different kind of experience going for today’s Christmas. All I can say, this is crazy.

Too much to eat, drink, celebrate and dance.

Every once in a while, there is a need to make some rearrangements of the home computers, network, monitors and all the connected stuff.

For me, the main guiding point is the congestion we get into as we use all these devices and devise new ways of leaving them “on their designated places”. So, when I see there is a spot on my sofa, that is always completely filled with cables, hardware, etc., I tend to get itchy and do some cleaning.

First things first. Evaluate if you need all this stuff. If not, sell/donate whatever you don’t need. DO NOT store them somewhere – this will simply result in the hardware being forgotten, not used until it is completely obsolete and then … thrown away. Needless to say, if you have so much hardware, you are usually quite capable with it – clean it up, make a sale/donation – someone will be able to use it.

Do you need something new? As an addition or replacement? If you do, go about it in a smart way. Whatever you will be using with your eyes, hands – only top quality, but be smart about it. Top quality does not equal the highest price. Usually, after certain threshold, hardware providers add just gimmicks or features, you don’t really need. So, for example, when I am buying a monitor, I need to have to matrix, good and useful resolution, but no sound jack, speakers, useless lights, etc. This principle holds for practically every piece of equipment. Think about it when you see your neighbour using an iPhone for only text and calls.

Now you have both lists. What goes, what comes. After that, it is just physical labour. Important: do not go against your habits. You live in your flat, you decide where the stuff should go, but be neat about it.

Good luck and know it will repeat in roughly six months :).

Overnotification is not a proper word, obviously. However, for me it means that one has reached the state where he simply cannot do any useful work anymore, due to notification task switching. In layman CS terms, person is thrashing.

Are there ways to combat this?

Sure, most of the modern operating systems already include a mode, called “quiet” or “night”. Notifications then become silent and simply do not intrude our focus.

Of course, notifications these days may come directly from browser itself, phone, smart watch, etc. All these little screens/pop-ups are crazy destroyers of focused thought – simply turn them off. A simple procedure I usually follow is to have only one screen active – mobile is offline, with screen turned away from me, smartwatch (proud-yet-angry Pebble owner) in quiet mode, quiet mode set on computer and with notifications usually turned off in my browser. I achieve greater levels of focus working like this, leading to much more efficient use of my time.

Sometimes people need to contact you and want to get immediate answer. I tell them that in cases of urgency, they should call. Or send IM. Otherwise send email. As you can see, the order of appearance denotes the level of urgency. This procedure has a simple benefit – it educates people on what urgency actually is. Namely, when people call you with seemingly BIG problem that you can solve in seconds, this is not urgent. It simply shows they didn’t do their “due diligence” when searching for solution. Punish such behaviour at all costs and always.

I am intentionally going for shorter chunks of my time when addressing notifications. I make time for them, when I am ready. This enables me to work focused in longer stings and make the difference

Treat your time with respect, defend it at all costs.

I guess this is a practical guide to Deep Work. Funnily enough, all the approaches defined above motivated me to go, buy and read Deep Work (as reviewed in my blog post) :).

Motivation of personnel works until they start detecting the patterns of how they are being motivated to be at a stand-still. Obviously, this is no way to work with people, to lead them and to actually, make them grow, stay, bring revenue even change to the company.

A simple message to everyone with a boss: please, check the stories being served to you. If you can detect the same meaning behind different messages, you are being duped.

An example of such behavior: if there is always some drama, which requires change, full support of everyone at the company/team and after the drama, everything is back to “normal”, this means you are running in circles. Returning to normal after “drama”, without the actual implementation of the changes in the organisation, will lead to repeated drama occurrences. You are running in circles.

In short: if you are growing, but your organisation doesn’t, run.