fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
FIX it!
By: Aisha Iqbal
Tags: Fixingstuff, Amal Academy, Organization

#organizing_stuff_around

“With organization comes empowerment” -Lynda Peterson

Fixing stuff around you or organizing them is great idea perhaps it’s a motivation for yourself to prove. Well, according to Lynda Peterson empowerment comes to those who work in gentle ways, order things and collocate them in compliance.

Here comes my story of organization, or a chance to be a leader without authority. This is surely the new aspect of leadership i was unaware of, a bunch of thanks to Amal Academy for introducing this and providing us with this platform. Well initially, i was wandering all inside my home that what’s the most easiest place to organize. Exactly at that point i realized the work of my mother on daily basis, and it seems so disgraceful to me. Then, i found out my grand mothers room, and the principal of courtesy flashes in my mind.

So, here i share the picture of her bedside and corner table, which she usually uses to place medicines.

Before snap of her bedside

In that way, the things i think needed to be fixed were bed sheet, her blanket, cushions and some clothes. So, i just cleaned the bed sheet, folded her blanket, place cushions, hung some of her clothes in her cupboard and at the end placed her Islamic book which she used to read every time on the shelf. These all things that i fix are must to be organize, because tidy environment promotes our positive energy and contentment in life.

After snap of her bedside

After completing this task, i feel much contented and satisfied with my efforts. I felt like i’m performing something from my virtue and that pleases me beyond expectation. Yeah, i did it sometime, if i hadn’t asked to do so but not now. I didn’t realized this before that organization comes parallel with time and today i have become aware of it.

This whole procedure teaches me with the importance of leadership in our lives, and that the act of leadership isn’t limited to some high mark or status but we ourselves can be leaders of our surroundings.

“THE ESSENCE OF GREAT LEADERSHIP IS INFLUENCE NOT AUTHORITY”
I was just thinking what do I do with all those stragglers?
By: Rebecca Cullen
Tags: Organization

I was just thinking what do I do with all those stragglers? When I saw your post! I need a better organization system- some are in Google docs, some are in Word, some are in my notes app, and some are half written in my head when I shower 🤔
See it, Fix it, Cherish it
By: Muhammad Hasan Farooq
Tags: Organization, Fixing Stuff Around You

Much to my surprise, I suddenly got this amazing feeling of being freed from something. Like, the space around me was much wider, and my room was no longer congested. Not to mention the tiny sense of achievement I was having. Looking back at my watch, it hardly took me a minute to accomplish the task and I wondered, what keeps me from doing this every day?

Upon reflection, I came to the conclusion that I was nothing but lazy and I would have surely succumbed to my “laziness” had it not been for an assignment. But a simple phenomenon such as this made me realize that all the small things in life that we could fix, should be fixed. If only we put in a little bit of extra effort throughout the day, our house, our workplace, and our personality would really blossom and it would benefit not only us but our companions as well. It all depends on us to take the initiative and organize our life and environment. We are our own leaders. Our behavior with our surroundings defines our behavior with our life. We could either let it unfold itself, or we could identify the problems, fix them, and cherish our lives.

In a commencement speech at the University of Texas, McCraven, a former US Navy SEAL, said,

“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task, and another, and another. And by the end of the day that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed.”

He added,

“If you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. And if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made — that you made.”
Fixing Stuff Around yourself
By: Kainat Mustafa
Tags: Amal Fellowship, Amal Academy, Organization, Responsibility, Daily Life

When we’ve worked up an attitude for success and are feeling motivated, it’s time to get organized. organizing both our space and your time is a multitasking challenge we have to face every day. if you think about getting organized is easy stuff, but sometimes it’s hard to be organized. well, for me “be more organized” anyway is something I had to follow like, it can be always knowing where everything I need is, or generally being prepared, receiving unexpected guests. it makes me feel like I’ve control of my day.

1: As I have moved to a new place and here I’m the elder one to do all routine duties, so after as I had done with my all routine work it was time to take a good bath and make your self feel fresh and look good after that as I came infront of my dressing table where I got a surprise, all mess things and lost of dust.

Before cleaning and dusting

basically, it was another work waiting for me on my To-Do list and I can never feel fresh if something seems disorderly around my space so I decided to clean it make it more organized fir then go for other stuff.

After cleaning and dusting

now it was perfect to make you feel fresh and taking good morning selfies and snapstreaks.

2: After that moment I was free and time was to work on my fellowship weekly project works, as I set in my working area I Found a mini bookshelf was looking very lovely and saying me hello like (come and fix me)

Before organizing

Growing a functional space or area for me in which I would study with consciousness tends to need a chunk of the organization around my working place. However, these are sure aspects that make contributions to an extra practical learning place to me, so here I rearrange this little mini thing in my working area and I'm feeling more organized now.

After organizing

By learning the Organize my life framework, I can apply it to every area of life that may be: home, work, and everything in between. You can perform skillful tricks and move onto the next act. Although people often think that experiences always learn in the working area around professionals. however, I guess basic learning of taking responsibilities and authority or time management can be learned in a more batter way how you manage your daily routine how you fix your stuff around you how you are taking this responsibility without asking.
Get rid of the todo list. Use this instead.
By: Bryan Whiting
Tags: Organization, Productivity, Time Management

I’ve had less meetings and more unstructured time during WFH. It can be isolating, which can slow down productivity.

Here’s a tip I read today on how to be productive with unstructured time: put your to-do list directly into a calendar.

That way, you’ll always have time for the important things. Remove the things that take up your time and aren’t as important. I like it.
Forget Work-Life Balance
By: Mike Vardy
Tags: Mindfulness, Work, Organization, Work Life Balance, Life

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

I’ve never been a fan of the concept of work-life balance.

The term seems rather tenuous, especially considering how much bleed our personal and work lives have between each other. Tilting one way or the other creates more problems because it appears to be a “this or that” situation.

While looking into the concept of balance as a whole, I leaned in a familiar direction: superhero mythology. That’s where Doctor fate comes in.

Doctor Fate is an agent of the Lords of Order, which had me thinking that he was charged with keeping the agents of the Lords of Chaos at bay. Turns out that’s not the case, as revealed in this quote from the benevolent doctor himself:

“The Multiverse is never as black and white as you’d like. It isn’t about chaos and order. It’s about balance. You’ve been under a misapprehension. I don’t work for the Lords of Order. I work for the balance. Not chaos. Not order. I am the balance.”

When navigating order and chaos, balance makes sense. The middle ground is impossible to maintain meaning that balance between the two elements is ideal. I don’t think the same applies to navigating work and life.

I prefer work-life harmony, because work and life need to intertwined in some respects. There’s no real fight there to maintain balance — no need to wage war against one or the other. In the world we live in, work and personal lives are less separated than ever before. I can’t see that changing, and using a term like balance seems like we’re fighting against the tide.

Don’t strive for balance — unless you’re doing so to keep order and chaos in check. Embrace work-life harmony instead. That way you can do both sides justice.
The Power of Keeping Your Life Organized
By: Valeria Monrreal
Tags: Organization, Mental Health, Environment, Wellbeing

Photo by Igor Son on Unsplash

If you are ever feeling stressed or overwhelmed, take a look around you. Ask yourself:

How does your environment look?

Is it messy or unorganized?

Are things out of place?

The other day my partner and I were having a hard day. We both found ourselves arguing about seemingly nothing.

“I feel like complaining about the world.” He said. At that moment, truer words have never been spoken.

After dinner, we decided to clean the kitchen. Given the day we were having, it felt like an impossible task.

But something crazy happened.

We started off wiping the counters.

Our bickering back and forth started to slow down.

Then we finished cleaning the stove.

The arguing faded to a mumble.

Once that was finished, we washed the dishes, mopped the floors, and put the food away.

Something that seemed like an insurmountable task was so rewarding in the end. One minute the kitchen was a disaster, and the next it is gleaming with shine.

When it was all said and done, we forgot what we were fighting about and felt surprisingly relaxed.

I think I can suspect why that happened the way it did.

Studies have shown that you can bring clarity to the mind when you organize the physical aspects of your life.

According to Intermountain Healthcare, bringing organization to your health can help you do the following:

Improve sleep

Reduce stress

Improve your relationships

Focus on other aspects of your life and free up time and energy to improve your life in other areas

Reduce depression and anxiety

Make better food choices and stick to a workout regime, which will help you lose weight

Make you more productive

I get it; life can get hectic. It’s hard balancing everyday tasks, and the small pile on your desk doesn’t seem all that important. Except it is.

If your feeling a little overwhelmed, it happens to the best of us, take a break and organize something small, like your desk or a drawer. This small task will make you feel accomplished and want to continue to accomplish the next thing on your to-do list.

Keeping your home clean and organized can lower your stress levels, which will help you feel less overwhelmed.

I’m by no means a clean freak. I prefer my space to be clean and I work diligently to keep it that way. But like many others, life gets the best of me, and I let it go sometimes. But I have learned when my home is in disarray, so are my thoughts.

In the future, when you feel the same, it’s probably time to get a vacuum, Windex, and rags and get to work. That reminds me, I better go tidy up my room!
The 7S Framework: Mutually Exclusive, Intrinsically Linked, and Continuously Realigned
By: Andreas Holmer
Tags: Mckinsey, Mece, Organization, Tom Peters

The “Mutually Exclusive” phrasing on top is a hat-tip to McKinsey’s MECE Principle — “a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive (ME) and collectively exhaustive (CE).” I do not know whether Peters et al used the principle in creating the 7Ss, but it’s possible. Barbara Minto, who coined the term, was in charge of training at McKinsey in the 1970s. In other words, a contemporary of both Peters and Waterman. And while she didn’t actually put MECE into book form until 1987’s The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking (featured in w502019), it’s not unreasonable to suspect the idea could somehow have made its way to Peters… but I digress.

The point is this: while the 7Ss aren’t MECE per se (it’s ME but not necessarily CE), it could be made so. One could drill down into each of the 7S to unearth their component parts. Staff could subdivide by occupational categories, for example; thus providing a bit more detail to work with. Just be careful not to take it too far. Simplicity is a virtue. And if we expand on the 7S too much, we risk eroding the “shared understanding” mentioned above. So keep it simple. And keep in lean. Peters would approve.

That’s all for this week.

Until next time.

/Andreas
Christmas Get It Organized book review: 12 Days of Bookmas / Blogmas
By: Deanna Martinez
Tags: Books, Christmas, Organization, Book Review, Blogmas

Ready to get organized and have a relaxing Christmas? It’s not too late! This book will help guide you and provide you with recipes to make it happen!

Do you find yourself dreading the Holiday season? Does the word Christmas make you cringe? Christmas…Get It Organized by Deanna Martinez provides easy steps to be ready for the Holiday without all the stress, crowds and expenses. Learn easy ways to stay organized, spend less and have more time to spend with the people you love, doing the things you love.

Deanna will show you how to make lists, shop ahead of time, have parties, bake treats, create drinks, add new family traditions and much more. Gifts do not have to be things we buy. They can be things we make or time we can give.Put Deanna’s organizing ideas into practice this year and find yourself laughing instead of crying this Christmas. Simply click to purchase and download your copy of Christmas…Get It Organized, now!

What is Blogmas?

Book release: Picture This
Covid 19’s impact on businesses
Tags: Unemployment, Jobs, Covid 19, Organization, Business

Covid-19 has made a huge impact on all organizations around the globe, transitioning from office work towards work from home and social distancing. Most people are now engaged with work they never thought of doing, just so that they can continue working and provide for their families. Employees working in the clothing line are now producing stylish masks and surgical suits for customers to meet their needs without disrupting their fashion sense.

Business leaders have the opportunity to rearrange work by having employees take on different tasks and responsibilities. They propose 3 ways to shift work, talent, and skills towards significant tasks so that they are able to rebound into the market with greater advantages when the economy recovers.

1) Making work portable across the organization: Seeing the world’s situation today, it is important to give people tasks that are of utmost importance and as soon as possible. Many organizations have introduced new tasks broken down from jobs that can be matched by any individual within the organization with relevant skills and availability. This enables people to work efficiently if they find themselves alienated in the workforce. Dividing the work also makes it easier for employees to handle and can be performed from a different geographical place depending on the task.

2) Accelerate automation: For most businesses, automation has become a necessity in an organization which is also able to deal with a crisis. Many utility based companies have increased their use of automation software allowing workers to operate them remotely hence, reducing the risk of being in contact with other people. Schools too, have been completely shut down allowing them to teach through various online platforms.

3) Share employees in cross-industry talent exchanges: Those businesses who don’t require employees can be moved to other businesses with excess work. Some businesses have started to share employees with other similar businesses so that they can move employees without work which avoids costs that is associated with letting people go. This way, workers can develop their skills and network. For example, a restaurant does not demand a few employees, hence they will be shifted to another business like ‘Foodpanda’ without having to pay frictional costs.

This pandemic may be a difficult time however, it brings new opportunities and innovative ideas for people to redesign their way of work. Advancement in automation can accelerate the future of work and open new ways to get things done. This may help with the efficiency in organizations which can lead towards more sustainable lives.
5 Ways to Demonstrate Your Value — Remotely
By: Chirantan Joshi
Tags: Work, Organization, Leadership, Management, Values

A very interesting article in the HBR highlights the importance of staying relevant in current times where you are expected to work remotely. Job losses are going to be a sad outcome of the situation but you need to ensure that you do not lose a job because you did not pay heed to the five things that can keep you relevant even while you are working remotely.

1. Do your work

Getting your work done is always a good idea. But especially in times where businesses and organizations are having to make hard decisions about who to keep, doing your work — and doing your work well — is essential.

2. Tell Others

I don’t recommend that you give yourself a shout out at every single meeting, and I definitely don’t advise that you take undue credit for others’ work. But if you have accomplished something significant, share it.

3. Help Your Boss

Although you don’t want to overload yourself with extra work to the extent that you burn out or can’t keep your commitments, look for ways to make your boss’s life easier.

4.Play Nicely

During this time, you not only want to be seen as a valuable individual contributor but also as someone who elevates the entire team. Try to work out differences with your colleagues on your own, without getting your manager involved.

5. Spread Positivity

Be different. Don’t increase the anxiety of others. When you’re chatting before the start of a meeting or sending an email, mention something, anything that will make the atmosphere lighter. That could be the birds you saw on your walk, the funny things your kids did, or a book you’re reading. If needed, come up with some varied subjects in advance each day. Whatever you focus on expands, so expand good in the lives of your coworkers.

For the actual article; https://hbr.org/2020/06/5-ways-to-demonstrate-your-value-remotely
Intentional Team Design
By: Xinxin Wang
Tags: Organization

Leaders are about empowering people to make impacts. Part of the empowerment comes from having the right people. The right people don’t mean the best people. It is more about the most suitable ones. Now the question is how to define “suitable”?

That is the design. First, I need to define the purpose of a team, which helps select the guiding principles. The purpose of a team is to deliver business value.

To deliver value, there are a few fundamental principles or beliefs.

First, diversity in the team. Diversity can be demographic, experiential, or cognitive. People tend to focus on demographics because that tends to be the most obvious and a bigger gap. For example, my latest hire is Regin. I started with my principal and one other senior. Then I hunted for mid-level. I have full-stack, or pure java backend, or DevOps focused members. So here, when I hire, I need to be aware of the diversity perspective.

Diversity in team make-up matters since it brings diversity in perspectives, leading to better decisions and results.

Second, the culture fit [see my other article about a good team culture]. Culture fit allows the team to be more coherent and focused. Culture is the value and behavior. I want self-motivated individuals who value learning and making impacts. There are other elements like collaborations, customer obsession, etc. But I want to keep it simple. If people are not clear on what impact they are making or what they are learning and don’t want to know, I don’t think they are a good fit.

Culture fit produces job satisfaction and productivity

Third, job fit. A team is a dynamic entity that should evolve with the mission and responsibility. I have got risky strategic projects that require creative thinkers, and I have operation-heavy projects that require a strong sense of responsibility. A different way of looking at this is whether it is better to have homogeneous or cross-functional ones. For an infra team, we don’t need to build UI, and it makes more sense to have a majority of backend engineers. A customer-facing product team should have some UI expertise, hence a heterogeneous skillset and potentially a cross-functional team.

Job fit maximizes the strength of individuals, leading to the maximized impact.

Overall, I believe an optimal team structure is one that produces business impact. To achieve that, we need to focus on diversity, culture fit, and job fit.
Five Keys Strategies of Agile Organization by McGrath
Tags: Agile, Agile Organization, Innovation, Organization, Digital Transformation

Digital transformation era has forced organizations to transform and adapt to the digital era. This transformation could become a wild ride since organizations should create a new way of dealing with the world. A “digitally native” is one of the appropriate ways that could be used by organizations to adapt the rapid change of digital technology.

A Framework for Creating Agile Organizational Strategy

Rita Gunther McGrath, a globally recognized expert on innovation and growth strategies has developed a framework that could be useful for creating an agile organizational strategy, McGrath’s framework was developed based on the research conducted in companies that have market cap of more than 1 billion USD and net income growth of 5 per cent above global GDP. Several strategies in McGrath framework for creating agile organizational strategy could be seen as follows:

Continuous Reconfiguration

Continuous configuration concerns in keeping the existing source has competitive advantages since there are more competitors in the market. It is also a process that moves from extreme restructuring to one that allows for dynamism in operations, structure and execution which will only occur through the fluidity of talent allocation.

Healthy disengagement

Healthy disengagement is a more systematic, frequent, and formal approach to a disengagement situation. This strategy provides more favorable learnings way to learning back into the business as well as to repurpose and re-leverage any potentially reusable assets and capabilities.

Agile Resource Allocation

The central control of organization is managing its key resources. In agile resource allocation, organization forms a team of people consists of a cross-functional team that has all abilities needed in the team. Through this agile resource allocation, organization could access its resources as well as leverage their capabilities.

Innovation Proficiency

Organizations should encourage their resources to learn from mistakes, find the right way to deal with problems, and continuously encourage their resources to create innovation that would help organization enhances their business.

Leadership

Leadership strategy promotes continual shift in which more people are involved in the strategy process, in order to be an excellent agile leader, resources should be able to seize opportunity and adapt to rapid change of digital technology.

Conclusion

In order to thrive in digital transformation era, organization could use McGrath’s framework as the way to build an agile organizational strategy where innovation, disengagement, and leadership become the priority for change.

Go to Multimatics Strategy to check other articles!

References

Neil Perkin & Peter Abraham (2017). The Agile Business Through Digital Transformation. Kogan Page (2017)
Calendars changed my results.
By: Stephanie Kelly
Tags: Success, Family, Travel, Organization, Business

Calendars changed my results. I now actually have successful results regarding my schedule, time and responsibilities. Thanks for sharing this.
Planning and Staying Organized
By: Gracie Nicole
Tags: Planning, Notetaking, Organization, Planner, Efficiency

I write anything ranging from homework, finances, weekend plans, work schedules to lists and grocery lists. I personally love to use planners because it sets me up for my week and I am able to have a sense of control in life when I know all that I have to do right in front of me and written down. It also helps to take it all out of my brain and release my stress. I love to use colorful pens and highlighters for my planner to look aesthetically pleasing and pretty.

Another thing that I like to use to aid to my planner is Google Calendar. It is always good for me to have my plans digital just in case I do not have my planner with me at all times. I am also able to send event invitations to my friends and family so that they can be on the same pages as me and have my events saved to their calendar. I am able to add locations and reminders for these invites. Google Calendar also gives an option to color code as well.

One more app that I like to use to stay organized is my google keep app. I love using it for regular notes. I also like to use it for digital grocery list and to do lists. You can share these notes as well and color code them. You can even link them to your google calendar.
Why would you want a brochure for your business and organization?
Tags: Brochure, Organization, Print, Brochure Design, Graphic Design

What Is Brochure Design?

The Brochure is a Bifold and Trifold print-ready document. This is a very powerful document to promote your business and organization. The brochure is an advertising template.

Why do you need a Brochure Design?

The brochure is a promotional document that is used primarily to launch an organization, an organization’s products or services, and to inform potential customers or members of the public about the benefits.

Why you should purchase our service?

Are you looking for a professional brochure design for Your Organization or Business? If your answer is yes! Then you have come to the right place! with over 4 years of experience, I am a professional brochure design expert. Working with me is going to be a bulletproof idea for you. Because I will help you create a unique brochure design that will speak well about your brand.

What we will give you?

I will do a high-quality brochure design, flyer design that will speak well about your brand.

I will design 16+ pages of PSD, PDF, EPS, And Ai brochure templates

Infographic and all elements 100% edit and printable.

Super fast delivery.

High-quality print-ready files.

All design is layered.

Mockup files.

FAQ

What you need to start the Project?

Please send me your all Text in word document per page wise, Logos, Photos that will go to the Design.

Do I get the Unlimited revision?

Please see additional services for basic and standard packages.

Do you Provide Photos?

No, please send me pictures related to all your services. Or if you need a photo, please see the Additional Services Order page.
Get It Together with GitHub
By: Ijeoma N. Akamnonu
Tags: Organization, Github, Git

Before I could proceed any further I needed to set up an account. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, what it was doing, what it was showing me, or even what it was showing me that I was doing. All I knew was that it was called GitHub, so I just rolled with it. After weeks of boot camp preparation, it was Day 1 at Flatiron School and we were learning about this Git/GitHub thing. Our instructor was teaching us about contributions and showed us this quaint little grid that had multiple shades of green.

Calendar of Commit Contributions

Imagine my surprise when I realized that I had been personally adding to this. Every time I finished a readme or a lab, I was generating a commit? Neat-o! (thinking, what kind of picture can I create with diligent commit contributions, haha)

It is now Phase 3 of boot camp, the workload has piled up and it’s been a heck of a roller-coaster. It’s only going to get more intense and right now the only thing I can do to prove to myself that I really care about this is develop the habit of making commits to my GitHub and showing that commitment and consistency. It’s really about organization. Files have been misplaced and thought forgotten. It’s time to get it together!

Me talking to myself

Semantics

What is a “Git”?

Git, is a type of distributed Version Control System. It is what can track the changes you make in any given file. It is considered distributed because it allows you to easily work on your local computer or laptop while collaborating with other developers and contributors for a project. And the best part is, those contributors do not even have to be on the same network to pass changes back and forth. Wouldn’t that just be tedious and annoying after a while? Git can save any change you make in a local file, and give you the ability to go push that file to a remote location and still go back to an earlier version of it, in case a new change that had already been saved was a mistake. But here’s the catch, your changes must have been committed for you to be able to revert to an earlier file version. See where I’m going with this? Let’s continue.

Ok, then what is GitHub?

GitHub is the cloud service that hosts all those files that are being changed and pushed to folder locations called Repositories. In a GitHub repo, you can track any and all committed changes made to a file to build a well developed history.
Boost Your Productivity Using These Powerful Techniques
By: Purvee Chauhan
Tags: Self Improvement, Productivity, Time Management, Organization, Personal Development

Boost Your Productivity Using These Powerful Techniques

Being productive had been an unresolved conundrum for me since the beginning of the pandemic. Most of my days went by sulking, thinking that “I could have done so much”, but all I did was think about work instead of actually doing it. I was juggling between a new country, new job, new relationship and the new norm of ‘working from home’. One by one, I embraced the changes and started to implement the following techniques. They work like a charm for me, and I hope they do so for you too.

Five techniques to boost productivity. Photo credit author

1. Use the Pomodoro technique

What is it?

The Pomodoro technique helps in combating distractions, limiting procrastination and committing to the task at hand. It was developed by Francesco Cirillo to focus better on studies. Pomodoro means tomato in Italian.

Standard procedure —

1 (imaginary) Pomodoro = 25 minutes of focused work + 5 minutes break

How it’s done?

Left. The Pomodoro Technique tracker (by thetendingyear.com) | Right. My handwritten calendar

Make a to-do list and assign the # of pomodoros that you wish to dedicate to different tasks

Set timer for 25 minutes

Complete your task with full attention

Mark off one pomodoro (you can make your own tracker or, use this super one by www.thetendingyear.com)

Take a 5 minute break

Start another 25 minutes

Note — you can change the standard 25 min work + 5 min break to suit your needs. It can be 30 mins work + 10 mins break or 45 mins work + 5 mins break. See what works the best for you.

Why does this help?

The Pomodoro technique helps in limiting distractions and increasing efficiency, especially when you are doing something autonomously and you have a tendency to procrastinate.
How to Automate Categorizing Medium Email Notifications
By: Lucy Dan 蛋小姐, She Her 她
Tags: Organization, Medium, Automation, Gmail, Freelance

How to Automate Categorizing Medium Email Notifications

I got some brilliant responses to my earlier rant about notifications!

My new system is now two-pronged. First, I check responses via Medium, because it now has a separated tag for responses. I check them about once a day at the same time, so I can just open up the notifications in a new tab. I now to stop at roughly “1 day ago”. Brilliant but simple? I can only toot my own horn.

My boyfriend has also pointed out that the way to open up new tabs in Chrome while staying at the current tab is to click using the middle scroll thingy on your mouse. It’s changed my life. Here’s hoping it changes yours too.

The second prong is to check emails. I have my Gmail filters to sort Medium articles based on the type of notification it is.

Screenshot by the author (who likes to be organized shh)

Amplify: articles that I email myself to make sure I include in my ever-growing database of favourite articles to shoutout. (manual filter)

Highlighted: houses all of the emails that include what people have highlighted. (automatic filter). I use these to learn about what readers are loving from my writing, to help me grow as a writer.

Mentioned: houses all of the emails where people have mentioned me, so I can make time to read them. (automatic filter)

Prompt: houses all potential prompts or ideas I have on the go, including random notes I email myself on mobile, and/or articles where I’m mentioned for a prompt. (manual filter)

Responded: houses all of the responses. Now that I’m manually checking via Medium, it’s now a defunct tab, though I’m still getting emails, so I sometimes check-in to see if I’m seeing any unfamiliar ones that I’ve missed.

Submission: houses all TBIN submissions, which I batch review!

How to create automatic filters

On Gmail:

Go to “settings”

Click on “see all settings”

Click on the “Filters and blocked addresses tab”

Click on “create a new filter”

For any and all emails from Medium:

screenshot from author, who loves organization and automation… a lot

For emails from Medium specific to highlights:

screenshot from author, who loves when people highlight things she didn’t anything would read, like dumb photo captions

For emails from Medium specific to responses:

screenshot from author, who loves responding in emojis and will not be stopped

For emails from Medium containing mentioned posts:

screenshot from author, who jumps a little in her mind when she gets tagged in writing prompts so keep ’em coming yo

For emails from Medium regarding new submissions to a publication:
Need help navigating Medium?
By: Mary Devries
Tags: Writing, Self Improvement, Organization, Ｍedium, Advice

Need help navigating Medium? Trying to write excellent content, grow your follower base, and maybe make a penny or two is a challenge. Gathered here is my advice to help you succeed on this platform.
In the digital and social age of marketing, the world wide web is a vast landscape where outreach…
By: Christopher D. Sims
Tags: Digital, Organization, Marketing Strategies, Digital Marketing, Nonprofit

In the digital and social age of marketing, the world wide web is a vast landscape where outreach and communications is unlimited. Social media platforms and advancements of the sharing methods of these platforms has allowed organizations and nonprofits reach wider and important audiences who would have never found them otherwise. the internet has brought together social awareness experts, organizers, and activists to come together in more unified and seamless ways.

The need for the coming together of minds and those of us who are activists is evermore needed in this divided and consistently racist society. The tools, such as video recording, editing, and where to share the content has been monumental in shaping the way we are activists. I look back at the technological ways the first Obama/Biden campaign was instrumental in bringing like-minded people together. We have come a long way since then, and the issues are even more impactful to our communities and neighborhoods. It is a digital world we live in now.

We must know how to take advantage of all of what this age has to offer us if we are going to remain united and fighting against oppression. Think about what you are using Facebook for — especially if you are a nonprofit that is fighting for something such as women’s rights. You are using direct language and tags that reach or speak to the people who are fighting for women’s rights.

Your organization or nonprofit has benefited from the direct messages or the tags you are using. You base has grown. Your impact is being felt. The people who are interested in your work or who may want to donate to your organization have ways to be in contact with you. Entities who have figured this out will stay ahead of the game and at the same time they will reinvent themselves remaining relevant.

How will you use your power in this sphere to make the much needed changes we need in politics, policy? Do you have a graphic design specialist or a communications lead who is helping you figure this out or implement a plan you may have? The digital world needs you. Millions of people need your leadership and your online presence. Take these thoughts into your mission as you continue to embark on the expedition of being digital savvy.
Top 5 dokuwiki for 2021. Dokuwiki is a very simple wiki platform…
By: Paulo Lapa
Tags: Organization, Wiki

U pdate: I updated this list with more and better content. Feel free to check it here

Dokuwiki is a very simple wiki platform that you can self-host. It provides just the right balance between features and complexity. With an ecosystem of plugins, it allows you to customize your wiki to your taste. Over time I have fitted it to the extent where I can use it without battling its rigid “wiki nature” while ensuring that no information is lost.

I want to share some of the plugins that I have used on my personal wiki.

Add new page

https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:addnewpage

The default way of creating a new page in DokuWiki is to create a new link from an already existing page — while this ensures that there are no orphans pages, this is cumbersome. This plugin adds a form that enables you to quickly create a new page.

The risk of creating an orphan page is mitigated with the IndexMenu.

IndexMenu

https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:indexmenu

This plugin creates a list of all the pages under a namespace — being very flexible in terms of display and filtering. For example, on my start page, I use it to display all the pages in my wiki, which I find makes it much easier to navigate through it.

See how I use this plugin in detail here

markdowku

https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:markdowku

This was the first plugin that I installed— it enables the formatting of the text using markdown rather than the wiki syntax, which I find very cumbersome and unreadable.

Move plugin

https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:move

You should not be moving your pages manually, it is super tedious and this plugin does it automatically. It painlessly moves and renames pages and namespaces — it then updates all the needed backlinks.

Note that I’ve had some problems with using this plugin in my phone with the responsive template — for my it only works with the wiki in desktop mode.

Tag

https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:tag

The traditional hierarchy of parent and child pages is quite restrictive. This plugin lets you assign category tags to wiki pages — which can then be listed and you can find all related pages.

A very interesting use I found was to create a “pinned” tag that I then filter by in my start page. This way I have my most used pages in one place.

Update: I updated this list with more and better content. Feel free to check it here
Ecosystem approach to automation
By: Navin Maganti
Tags: Rpa Tools, Process Improvement, Organization, Automation

Photo by Rui Silvestre on Unsplash

The technology landscape for automation continues to evolve at the same that there is great interest and adoption in enterprises. The speed of evolution whether it is new capabilities, new vendors, new technologies is faster than the rate of change and consumption by the organizations. This is not something unique to automation rather an age old challenge between new technologies and how organizations at large apply them in their environments. So it becomes critical for organizations to have a plan and approach to match the right automation technology with the business need. The automation toolkit can help organizations achieve this goal.

Every automation technology — whether it be RPA, AI, ML, process execution platforms, process mining or others all have their use cases that they are good at and potential business challenges they can address.However as the market evolves every technology vendor is extending their platforms to cover the entire automation lifecycle, most of which centers around their innate strength or capability. This creates a challenge for the enterprise , inspite of wanting to take an ecosystem approach to automation, it can suddenly become a very vendor centric or singular technology centric automation story.

Recognizing this early in the journey, allows the organization to plan, evaluate and evolve its automation toolkit and approach. Building the toolkit requires marrying the right technologies to the right business problem. e.g apply RPA to automate high volume repetitive processes, process execution/workflow to co-ordinate end to end process, people, systems and others. This ensures that you can combine the right technologies to address to the end to end business processes and operational needs. e.g Process Mining + RPA + ML to intelligently handle inputs and data required to process high volume processes.

The other aspect of toolkit is to analyze the individual business functions and impact technology has on the business functions over the next 5 to 10 years and the accompanying financial models of the business. This ensures a strategic lens on the business process and accompanying automation revolution.

Matching and implementing the technology option to the business need is a skill and requirement is a need that will exist for always, same holds true for automation.

If anything may be new is the rate of change, the speed , scale , methods in which change is communicated and impact at which change is felt.
The State of Our Organizations in Two Pictures
By: Gregory D Esau
Tags: Orchestration, Ecosystem Building, Platform Thinking, Organization, Digital Transformation

Orchestrator of Citizen Driven high performance networks flowing through Strategic Ecosystems for Traffic Management.
What No One Will Tell You About How to Manage Your World
By: Joy Lee
Tags: Productivity, Organization, Management, Psychology, Data

To one person, two ideas can seem disparate. To another, those two ideas are profoundly woven and intertwined. So, like our fellow human-centred designers, firms like IDEO and frog, we create mind maps. We use post-it notes and whiteboards. We write down concepts and connect the dots in our minds and onto paper.

The nature of information is inherently hard to control. For example, Davenport notes that the very reason why information architecture has failed is because it will never be able to capture the reality of human behaviour. Therefore, a human-centred approach to knowledge, information collection and management assumes that “information is complex, ever-expanding, and impossible to control completely” (Davenport 1994).

The reason for its complexity is because information takes on diverse meanings and particularities between and amongst individuals, small groups, entire organisations, and beyond. Again, to one person, two ideas can seem disparate. To another person, the same two ideas can be deeply intertwined. How we make meaning and sense of information is subjective.

Why does understanding ecology matter?

How people understand the knowledge and use information needs to inform how we create systems–systems that store, analyse, and summarise information.

To quote Davenport:

“Information managers must begin by thinking about how people use information, not how people use machines” (Davenport 1994).

If we simply create systems that overlook the very behaviours of information users and providers, we’ll continue creating computer models that don’t translate. We’ll be working for our computers, rather than making them work for us.

To this degree, knowledge management looks more like an aquarium than an excel spreadsheet. Schools of fish can be identified, interspersed with slivers of raw data, swimming over corals of information assets from one region of a global organisation to another.

The historically-rich term Knowledge Management now spans topics, concepts, industries, and communities. From any of the following names:

Enterprise-Wide Information Analysis (coined by IBM)

Data-Driven System Design,

Decision Analysis,

Intellectual Capital,

Enterprise Content Management (ECM),

Supply Chain Management (SCM) and, even,

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)…

Knowledge management is actually a lot less complicated than it seems. We’re trying to make it more accessible here at Weavit — by constructing a more intuitive way of understanding your own knowledge through your networks.
Le Program Board pour aligner vos équipes
By: Xavier Koma
Tags: Roadmaps, Product Management, Teamwork, Organization, Safe

in The Road to Wellness
Our first steps in sociocracy
By: Iwan Negro
Tags: Startup, Organization, Sociocracy, Agency, Holacracy

Our first steps in sociocracy

Although we are a well-coordinated and experienced team that has been working together for years, setting up our new agency presented us with organisational challenges. Iwan Negro Follow Dec 3, 2020 · 4 min read

Starting from the exceptional foundation of six equally entitled partners, we gave each other the confidence to believe in our idea. However, our individual goals, competencies and areas of responsibility were different.

So how did we find a common process that adequately secured business decisions and yet remained open to change at any time?

Start

There were many business and organisational decisions to be made. In addition, our daily tasks continued to pile up.

I decided to educate myself on the subject of self-organisation and sociocracy. I interviewed colleagues, friends and family in order to identify ideas that would help us to move forward in terms of organisation. Many things were completely new, but after a few weeks, we discussed two concrete suggestions in the team: Holacracy and Sociocracy 3.0 (S3). In the very same meeting, we decided to test S3 for 6 months.

Getting started was easy — S3 was designed as a practical guide that could be implemented step by step and offered an extensive collection of ideas, so-called patterns. These patterns proved to be helpful in other organisations in implementing sociocracy and in enhancing productivity, collaboration and satisfaction.

Several weeks have passed since then. Certain patterns we use daily, others we understand but do not yet apply, and new ones we are still learning. In the introductory phase, the following patterns have helped us the most.
If there is one thing I love more than my cup of coffee in the morning, it’s chronicling my daily…
By: Cristo Lopez
Tags: Writing, Writing Tools, Productivity, Organization, Entrepreneurship

If there is one thing I love more than my cup of coffee in the morning, it’s chronicling my daily progress on my Medium spreadsheets!

This morning I was excited to read a great story by Mary DeVries titled Using a Simple Spreadsheet to Organize Your Writing. I was thrilled to see that I’m not the only one that loves using spreadsheets to stay organized and motivated.

I have two spreadsheets (although I am in the process of merging them into one). The first for keeping track of my Medium stories in progress from draft through publication, and the second that tracks data like the number of followers gained each day, daily earning goals vs. reality, and publications I am accepted into and interested in writing for.

I’ve been giving the first spreadsheet away as a “Thank You!” gift to my readers here: Writerby Stories Management Tool.

Please try it!