Laura Mae Martin is a giant believer within the settings menu. As Google’s government productiveness advisor, Martin spends a lot of her time working with different Googlers on bettering their productiveness and communication programs — and one of many issues she usually recommends is taking a couple of minutes to poke by the choices. “Along with your cellphone, together with your electronic mail, your Slack, all these items, the options are there, however we don’t take the time to dive into them,” she says. She even thinks it is best to perhaps have to have a look at settings earlier than you should use the app. “Like, you’ll be able to’t get into the app until you spend 10 minutes determining what it will probably do.”
On this episode of The Vergecast, the primary in our three-part miniseries about all issues productiveness and work, we discuss to Martin about how she sees issues altering. 4 years after the pandemic pressured us all to make money working from home, are we lastly determining distant and hybrid work? Are managers realizing that butts-in-seats isn’t — and perhaps was by no means — metric for productiveness? And is the period of the hard-charging hustle bro lastly giving solution to a more healthy, extra holistic mind-set about being productive? Martin sees all these items from so many views and has numerous ideas on every little thing from communication kinds to vitality flows.
We additionally discuss concerning the rise in digital productiveness instruments like Notion and Slack and why electronic mail continues to be so essential — and nonetheless so horrible. Considered one of Martin’s jobs at Google is to seek the advice of with the groups constructing Workspace apps like Docs and Gmail, and she or he has numerous ideas on how these merchandise work and the way they might be higher. We additionally discuss whether or not AI stands to alter the best way we get issues accomplished and whether or not it’ll assist us do extra or simply give us extra to do.
Alongside the best way, Martin presents us numerous sensible recommendations on how one can handle our digital lives a little bit higher. Charging your cellphone exterior the bed room, no-tech Tuesdays, and a few prettier electronic mail labels would possibly truly go a great distance. And you probably have too many notes in too many locations, it’s time to get a Fundamental Record going.
If you wish to know extra about every little thing we discuss on this episode, listed here are a couple of hyperlinks to get you began:
