May 31 in Austin: Learn Better Productivity
The Forrest Four-Cast: May 29, 2018
Technology makes life easier — remember getting lost, trying to meet someone in a crowded festival, buying plane tickets? But it can also make everything a lot more complicated. When work is almost never farther away than your own pocket, finding work-life balance becomes an even greater challenge.
But real change is possible. On the evening of Thursday, May 31, several productivity experts will offer concrete tips and practice on how to best manage fielding work demands and your smartphone while staying on top of wellness and trying to excel in our career. Taking place at WeWork Congress (600 Congress Avenue, 14th Floor), the session runs from 6:30 to 8:30 pm and is sponsored by General Assembly.
Beyond time management, you’ll learn to think about how we manage our attention and focus, our projects and actions, our choices and habits. And because there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all, the speakers will share five distinct methods so you can decide what works best for you.
Nathan Ryan from Blue Sky Partners will walk you through an exercise to help you maximize the first few hours of your day so you can do your best, most focused work. This exercise involves examining your current morning routine, and time-blocking a more effective and efficient one.
Get oriented to five steps of mastering workflow as defined by productivity thought leader David Allen in Getting Things Done — The Art of Stress Free Productivity and learn why Evernote is a brilliant tool to support a modern GTD® practice.
John Fitch, Venture Partner at Animal Ventures, will discuss the power of rest for success and how to put it into practice. He believes that busy is your enemy and there is no such thing as multi-tasking.
Other speakers include Douglas Ferguson, President & Founder, Voltage Control, an Austin-based workshop agency that specializes in Design Sprints and innovation workshops. Productivity coach and Evernote Expert Stacey Harmon (pictured above) is on a mission to empower you to be effective in a digital world. Her company, Harmon Enterprises, offers Evernote training products, workflow designs and coaching for those looking to optimize their productivity and improve their lives. Kimberly Watson-Hemphill, is CEO of Firefly Consulting, a boutique consulting firm, focuses on innovation and operational excellence. And Daniel Walsh, of nuCognitive, is a passionate advocate for Lean, Agile, and system engineering methods and practices with 20 years of engineering and product development experience.
Register for the free session here.
Other Austin events for the week of May 28
May 29: Michael Pollan Book Reading
May 29: TEALS Volunteer Info Happy Hour
May 29: Mental Agility: Hack Your Creative Process
May 29: Design Sprint Essentials Workshop
May 30: EdTech Austin Summer Job Fair 2018
May 30: Austin Ethereum Meet Up
May 31: Austin Gives Mixer
May 31: Austin Big Data AI Meet Up
May 31: VR Cafe Meet Up
June 1–3: ATX Hack for Change
June 1–3: Dreamhack Austin
June 2: Bill Kilday Book Reading
More upcoming Austin events:
June 4: Austin Virtual League Meetup
June 4: Intro to the Austin Media Scene
June 5: Austin Forum on Internet of Things
June 5: Capital Factory Accelerator Info Session
June 5: iPhone Developers Meetup
June 6: Health Tech Austin Hosts The Artificial Intelligence Summit
June 6: Austin Digital Marketing Conference
June 7–10: Startup Weekend Hackout 2018
June 19: SKU 6 Showcase Day — Graduation Pitch Event
June 21: Central Texas LGBT-Allies Diversity Summit
June 22: DivInc Spring 2018 Demo Day
June 23: Austin Ice Cream Festival
June 25: SXSW 2019 PanelPicker Speaking Application Process Begins
July 19: Austin Mosaic Awards
August 1: SXSW 2019 Registration Opens
August 3–5: RTX Austin 2018
August 22: Snap Judgement LIVE!
October 2: InnoTech Austin
If you have a creativity-focused event that you want listed in this space, then please contact hugh at sxsw dot com.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
