July 2, 2025 • 28 mins
Drowning in digital clutter? You're not alone. In this practical deep-dive, Andy and Jeff share the productivity systems that have transformed their professional lives as network engineers.
We explore how Asana's Kanban-style boards create visual workflow management that prevents important tasks from falling through the cracks. Whether you're managing podcast production or complex network projects, seeing your work move from "ideas" to "completed" provides both clarity and satisfaction.
Knowledge management gets a critical examination as we contrast traditional tools like OneNote with newer Markdown-based systems like Obsidian. The key revelation? Portability matters. As your career evolves across different companies and platforms, keeping your accumulated knowledge accessible becomes increasingly important. We share practical strategies for ensuring your technical documentation remains both organized and retrievable regardless of where life takes you.
For visual thinkers, mind mapping emerges as a powerful solution for tackling complex problems. Andy demonstrates how transforming linear documentation into spatial relationships helped him decode complicated processes and organize complex content strategies. These visual frameworks provide an entirely different perspective on challenges that can feel overwhelming in traditional formats.
Perhaps most valuable is our discussion of task management simplification. Microsoft To-Do with a "brain dump" approach helps maintain focus amid overwhelming possibilities by extracting just three priority items each day from your master task list. This practical technique has proven transformative for managing both daily tasks and longer-term projects.
Whether you're struggling with note organization, project management, or simply finding focus amid information overload, this episode offers practical solutions you can implement immediately. The technology landscape constantly evolves, but with the right productivity system, you can transform information chaos into organized knowledge that supports both daily tasks and long-term career growth.
Join our Discord community at "It's All About the Journey" to continue the productivity discussion and share your own favorite tools and techniques!
Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Andy Lapteff (00:00):
This is the art of network engineering, where
technology meets the human sideof IT.
Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems or shaping
your career, we've got theinsights, stories and tips to
keep you ahead in theever-evolving world of
networking.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
My name is Andy Laptop and onthis Whiteboard Wednesday
episode, I am joined by the one,the only the AI-tastic Jeffrey
(00:24):
Clark.
How are you doing, jeff?
Jeff Clark (00:25):
I'm doing all right.
Ai-tastic it's a new word.
I have to look that up in.
Andy Lapteff (00:28):
AI Is that AI-tastic Now?
Can't we just make up words nowwith a little dash?
Ai puts dashes in everythingyou ever notice that You're ever
looking to see if somebody usedit for AI.
It's just.
I don't think it's a dash, Idon't know if it's an Oxford
comma, it's a really long dash.
Jeff Clark (00:42):
It's called like I ended up looking at or actually
having a whole conversation withchat GPT about it, because it
was putting them into myconversations and it's called
like an M dash, like EM.
It's weird Anyway.
Andy Lapteff (00:51):
I'll look to stop doing that.
Jeff Clark (00:53):
You sure you can tell it, it doesn't stop.
Andy Lapteff (00:55):
but you can tell it.
I told mine to stop puttingemojis in and it keeps putting
emojis in.
Dude, I don't need your littlebullseye emoji and your little
rocket ship, which, again, everytime I see a rocket ship on
somebody's post somewhere, I'mlike that was AI generated, I'm
not reading this.
All right, we are here onWhiteboard Wednesday and, just
to let the audience know, incase they didn't catch the last
(01:15):
Whiteboard Wednesday, this is anew series that Jeff kicked off,
where we kind of walk through,we do screen shares and we walk
through different tools ortechnologies or things that
we're using that are making ourprofessional and personal lives
better, more efficient, moreproductive.
Hint, hint, nod to today'sepisode.
Today we're going to talk aboutproductivity tooling.
(01:36):
I guess Jeff has some toolsthat he wants to show people and
what he uses to be productive,and I have a few things as well,
as well as some comments aroundtools that I use, have tried to
use, stopped to use, usedifferently, because it seems to
me in my experience that everytime I seem to have my
organization down and I kind ofthink this is almost like an
organizational tooling that kindof helps us be more productive.
At least that's what I'mthinking about.
(01:57):
I still haven't dialed it inright.
So I'm something you're allprofessional person.
I've studied all the things andI still don't feel as organized
as I could be and I couldalways use a productivity hack.
Where do we want to start, jeff?
I guess we'll do a screen sharehere and a reminder for the
listeners you can check out ourYouTube channel at Art of NetEng
and you'll be able to see we'regoing to try to talk you
(02:18):
through this.
So if you're an audio onlylistener, you'll be able to get
value here.
But this is going to be avisual heavy show where we're
going through the tools andstuff that we use.
So where do you want to start,jeff?
Jeff Clark (02:28):
well, I think largely the whole idea that kind
of sparked this particulartopic was we have our discord
chat that you and I are on forshow topics and that kind of
thing, and it feels likeconstantly you're mentioning
some new tool or you're showingme some screenshot from like a
brain thing that you're doing ormind map that you're doing.
And I see this with otherengineers too.
(02:50):
They've all got kind of theirown little secret set of tools
that they've been using foryears or things that have helped
them to be more productive,more organized or just kind of
works with their workflow.
So I thought, hey, we've gotthis kind of whiteboard
Wednesday idea where we're doingmore visual things.
Maybe this would be a good timefor me to show you a couple of
the things that are really,really exciting to me.
(03:11):
You keep talking about thisother tool I'm going to mess up
the name Asana or I say Asana,but it could be Asana.
I don't even know what it is.
It could be Asana.
You want to start there?
Let's start with that.
You can share your screen first.
You tell me about this thing.
I don't even know how to use it.
I just know you'll be like, oh,we'll just put this in, the
awesome thing.
Andy Lapteff (03:31):
So I'm going to share a screen.
I'm going to try to share ascreen.
I have an ultra wide, so I haveit, so I happen to be using
again, not sponsored, while it'sopen source.
So how would it be?
But this particular tool on MacOS is called Deskpad.
I can't show you this on ascreen share, because this is a
(03:52):
virtual screen, but basically onan ultra.
I have a 49 inch ultra wide andit looks awful.
When you try to screen share itit's very thin and nobody can
see it on the other side, butthey have these different apps.
So here's a tool productive.
You can see it on the otherside, but they have these
different apps.
So here's a tool productive,not a productivity tool, but you
download.
It's called Deskpad, and thenwhat I'm doing is I'm dragging
what I want to show you intothis virtual desktop.
So what does it?
Jeff Clark (04:12):
create Like a box on your screen that you drag.
Andy Lapteff (04:15):
It's a separate, so it looks like a browser
window but it's kind of like avirtual desktop, I guess, but
it's sized normally as opposedto this crazy.
I'm semi-new to ultrawides.
I got one a couple of years agoand it's really helped my
productivity.
I have different windows and Ihave like it's carved up into
six different.
There's a perfect example.
We're just going to keepstumbling upon these things.
But I used to have fororganization slash productivity
(04:37):
as a network engineer.
I used to have like three orfour different external monitors
.
I'd have secure CRT up in one,I'd have my OneNote up in
another one, I'd have email andDMs in a third, and there's
cords everywhere and it lookslike crap.
And some company laptops arebetter at others than multiple
external monitors.
I would come back the next dayand like one monitor wouldn't
turn on unless I rebooted thewhole system.
I got an ultra wide 49 inchesit's as wide as my huge uplift
(05:00):
desk.
So it's great.
And then I have to find anotheropen source tool that I got to
manage.
So ultra wide is great becauseyou have a lot of real estate.
But the downside is you have alot of real estate and how do
you organize all that.
So there's something calledrectangle that I also use.
It's another open source, butit's a screen management, the
center of my screen, the centerthird is my browser window or a
(05:23):
word document or whatever I'mworking on, and then the right
and the left.
I break up into sixths, sothere's my communication stuff
on the left, onenote, and ato-do list on the right.
Let me shut up and show you myscreen.
I realize you can't see myscreen as I'm saying all this.
Jeff Clark (05:36):
But I'm going to need to make sure I take notes
of these things.
I hope you put them in the shownotes at the end, because I'm
going to actually want to getsome of these tools you're
talking about already.
Andy Lapteff (05:43):
What you're looking at here is Asana and
this.
You have a couple of workspaceson the left.
Really, all I use for the show,to organize the show, is this
episode workflow project.
So you see, on the left herethere's projects that you can
navigate into and out of.
This is the episode workflow.
Again, in full transparency.
All the credit to AJ Murray.
He set up a lot of theorganizational stuff that A1
(06:07):
runs on.
So in order to try to get ahandle of all our show ideas,
what's been recorded, what hasto be edited, and just handle
the workflow here, that's how weuse it.
So, for instance, I justcreated, right before the show
you see this tile here.
So for the listeners, there'sfour columns.
The first one is show ideas,the second one is recorded
column, the third one's editingand the fourth is completed.
So new ideas start on the leftand work their way through the
(06:29):
system.
We are recording whiteboardWednesday productivity now, so I
can drag that over to therecorded column and then when I
hop in here I can see, okay,that one's been recorded.
I have to edit that.
I am currently editing cruiseship networking with Will
Robbins.
So that's in the edited column.
And then on the right-hand side.
These are all the completedshows.
This is back when we used tohave really fancy, nice
thumbnails.
Look at that.
I got to get back into that.
(06:49):
So, what I like about this is,as you and I are talking, let's
say, going to Discord, and we'relike, hey, I was thinking about
this particular example, right,like, hey, let's do a
productivity organizationalthing's, so many tools where to
put it.
So what I would do is I wouldjust direct you to our son and
say, hey, man, go into episodeworkflow.
If you could put it in showideas.
And then what's nice is whenyou and I have some time and
(07:11):
we're going to record some stuff, I just kind of flip through
here and I'm like, oh cool, likeI really want to do a BGP
episode because I know a lotabout EBGP and I really want
someone to walk me through thedifferences with a little lab.
Maybe another whiteboardWednesday.
I put that in here.
Jeff Clark (07:26):
Does that make sense ?
There's not.
If you go into each one ofthose, there's more stuff you
can add, cause I saw some ofthem had pictures, some of them
have links.
Andy Lapteff (07:33):
It's just a full notepad almost once you're,
let's go into an older one thatactually might have some notes
in here.
Can you see that?
I see it Perfect.
This this is when we had AlexisBerthoff on and, as you can see
in here, there's a due date, sothat's when we're going to
publish.
You can put a description inhere.
If we didn't know who Alexiswas, hey, here's Alexis and she
used to be in aerospace, but nowshe's networking and is in the
school and she works at such andsuch and there's a nice subtask
(07:56):
workflow down here.
So what do we have to do?
For each episode?
We've got to record it, edit it, name tags there's some old
stuff in here.
We used to do wins on the showand things like that Run it
through, timebolt, run itthrough.
Another idea you had, which Ilike, that I should probably add
to Asana, is a behind the show.
So, right, we're like here'sall the stuff we have to do to
get a show ideated, produced andreleased, and that's what
you're seeing Some of thethumbnail and blah run into in
(08:17):
my personal professional contentcreation.
Life is like there are so manydifferent tools, many options on
like where to put things andwhat.
I like William Collins from theCloud Gambit podcast, who comes
on the show all the time.
He has a Calendly link forguests Yep, and when you fill
(08:40):
out that Calendly link to be aguest it's so smart he asks for
your bio, for a headshot, forany questions that you'd like
him to ask, whereas you'reseeing in here kind of behind
the scenes.
I had to email Alexis.
I had to get a headshot.
I probably forgot to ask for abio and did it again.
I really like how he automatedit in his scheduling.
Jeff Clark (08:57):
That's really smart.
He would actually be good tohave on kind of the behind the
scenes stuff to.
But I'm part of a two-man teamhere.
I have an account manager, I'mthe engineer.
There's constantly stuff thathe and I have to work on
together and we have a full listof ideas, and I guess this was
called a Kanban board orsomething like that, so you just
(09:19):
kind of move it across.
This is really helpful.
Andy Lapteff (09:21):
Which I think it's all the agile methodology.
Right In networking, we'restealing a lot of guests from
dev, and that's that's reallywhat you're seeing here too, I
think.
I think this is basically aKanban board.
You can see up top here there'sactually a little thing that
says board.
I guess you could do it as alist.
I haven't really messed withthis, but there's a lot of
functionality in here that Idon't know about.
Jeff Clark (09:40):
Do you want to show?
And you've mentioned a coupleof times OneNote and I have been
at every job I've been at ahuge, huge OneNote fan, but my
problem has been-.
Andy Lapteff (09:51):
You turned me on to OneNote at Comcast.
By the way, it's your fault.
Jeff Clark (09:54):
And then what was nice was I could then share my
notes with other people as theycame in.
My OneNote became like anonboarding thing, it was.
Andy Lapteff (10:01):
And you can search it, which is, I think, the best
function of it, because I cannever find anything.
Jeff Clark (10:13):
What I have most recently been using.
Is that the reason OneNote forme I've kind of outgrown it is?
I like to take my notes fromcompany to company and OneNote
has become harder and harder totake with you and it's also
become more challenging to getout of it.
Once you're in the OneNoteworld, you can't really escape.
So what I wanted to do is Iwanted to start doing something.
I can change platforms anytimeI want, and I also wanted to
start writing in Markdown.
I don't know if you've have youdone anything with Markdown at
all?
Is this something that you'refamiliar with?
Andy Lapteff (10:34):
So I kind of know what it is, but I'm going to
have you describe it because Icouldn't describe it.
I know that in GitHubeverything's written in Markdown
and like the about me, and Ithink that there's advantages to
Markdown, but I don't know whatnotes or any kind of a text
file really well organized.
Jeff Clark (10:54):
And it's all done by simple keyboard shortcuts, and
it's similar to you've been inMicrosoft Word, where you've got
heading one and heading two andheading three and then body and
all that stuff.
Markdown is the same way, butit's done, like I said, with
keyboard shortcuts.
So, for example, if I do asingle pound and then type this
becomes a heading right, thenthis heading here I can put in
(11:16):
here with my put a dash, it'sgoing to start a bullet point,
bullet point one, two, et cetera.
If I do two hashes, it makes itlike a subheading.
Three hashes makes it a what asub sub heading.
What's nice about this, though,is these all become collapsible
parts of a document, so I can,as I'm taking notes and working
with somebody, I can take notesin a meeting really, really fast
(11:37):
, and this is all actually justsaved as a text file.
So if I go into my finder on mycomputer, all of these things
are saved in my folder calledJeffopedia.
Here's the A1 podcast.
Here's the whiteboard Wednesday.
Here's this.
I'm going to open this, just insublime text.
This is the text editor I use.
So, speaking of and you'll see,this is exactly as it's written
(11:58):
Hash these files now can bemoved from any Markdown editor
in the world.
I can take these files with me.
They're simple text files andthey're just really easy to work
with.
Andy Lapteff (12:11):
So the advantage to using Markdown is it's a
standardized language format,whatever.
And as I'm seeing it here, Ican see the last screen.
I couldn't see the dashes andthe pounds and stuff because I
guess it hides it for you.
But on the backend, markdown isa language, it's portable and
you can move it from tool totool, which is huge Because, to
(12:32):
your point, when I left aparticular company with a ton of
engineering notes I had, I lostthem all because they were
super regulated, super lockeddown.
They would walk you out thedoor if you put a USB in.
So there's no way I could havegotten anything off of that
machine, but if I had Markdown.
So how do you export this?
Let's say you're in a heavilylocked down environment, like
(12:52):
you just email yourself a textdocument.
Jeff Clark (12:54):
And in this case this is literally.
This is.
I mean, you recognize, this ishis finder on the Mac right.
This is, these are just done infolder structures.
Andy Lapteff (13:02):
So all I'm trying to think, if, if, if I left the
company I'm thinking of, I don'tknow how it would get my stuff
out.
Jeff Clark (13:08):
You'd end up with the same problem, right?
Because you're doing it locallyon your machine, and then in
that case I use Obsidian.
But there's Notion.
Notion also uses Markdown.
Notion is a web-based notesapplication, Also really good.
I happen to like Obsidianbecause it was self-hosted Go
ahead.
Andy Lapteff (13:23):
But if it was just vendor syntax commands and I
had it in Markdown and I emailedit to myself toward the end.
It would all work fine Job, itwould be okay.
It would look.
I think less.
I'm not trying to say how toget around your security stuff
at a job you're leaving, I think, for me to export OneNotes to
myself tied to the company'sOffice 365 domain.
(13:46):
Right, that's like it justseems way harder, worse and
fraught with peril than justsome text document that I'm
emailing to myself Because ifanyone were to look at it,
there's nothing proprietary init.
I'm not a dumb duck.
I'm not going to export thingsthat I shouldn't.
Okay, this is compelling.
Jeff Clark (14:01):
I like this For me it just lets me take my notes
away from a tool that I'm lockedinto and that's kind of been my
big challenge.
Mantra for myself lately is getaway from anything that keeps
me locked in.
If I can, that I have theflexibility to to move platforms
, because right now I'm usingobsidian if I was going to ask
you what are we looking at here?
This is yeah this is obsidian,and then, like I said, there's
(14:22):
another one called notion, verysimilar I kind of like the
layout.
Andy Lapteff (14:25):
It reminds me of a lot of the other note-taking
tools.
You have categories and alittle bit of city.
Jeff Clark (14:30):
You can get really, really creative with little
plugins where you can.
I've got an ai tool built intothis thing so that I set my
notifications there, ai tool soI can come and do smart lookups
for things, and but all the samestuff that you find within your
one note are in here so you cansearch your stuff in here
here's my expense report stuffand I need to know.
(14:50):
Okay, I put in my notes fordoing monthly expense reports or
whatever.
I I'm not going to stay onthese, but it makes it nice and
simple to be able to get aroundmy notes and, like I said,
because it's done in just astandard file format and file
structure, it means that I don'teven have to build it in
Obsidian.
I can literally take existingtext files that I have, throw
them into Obsidian and then theywould all just show up.
(15:13):
I might have used someformatting magic and that kind
of stuff, but anyway, obsidian,the whole idea behind it and
really the whole, the whole ideabehind markdown is just that it
gives you a more portable,non-proprietary way of keeping
notes and again kind of gets youaway from the lockdown I'm glad
you're showing screenshots,which are images, because a lot
of what I have in my one noteI'm like I'm in my lab and I'm
working on something, so, hey, Idownloaded this thing and then
(15:35):
I did this and here's the screen.
Andy Lapteff (15:36):
Images aren't a problem, I guess, right.
Jeff Clark (15:38):
Nope, not at all.
It's going to work the same wayas OneNote.
I can copy and paste them in.
Andy Lapteff (15:41):
Hey folks, andy here, Unfortunately we lost Jeff
.
The internet fairies came andgot him.
An ISP that I used to work for,that shall remain nameless, has
yet to send a tech and fix hisproblems.
Jeff, I miss you.
I'm sorry I lost you in thisepisode.
(16:02):
What I am going to do here isjust finish out the episode and
share I don't know two or threeof my most used daily driving
tools for organization, and thenwe'll wrap it up.
We covered probably three to Ithink we covered about six tools
so far in the episode.
As I mentioned earlier, onenoteis one of my favorite tools.
(16:22):
Why?
Well, mostly it's the searchfunction.
I'm one of those people thattakes a lot of notes, writes a
lot of things down and then hasa really hard time remembering
where I put them or how Iorganize my data.
So this, for example, this is aOneNote called Server HP.
I have an HP server in my homelab and there's a bunch of tabs
here.
(16:42):
I did some research.
I have some software hardware,just different categories that
I've run through over the years.
And let's say that I don't know.
I'm in here and I'm like, but Ihad a friend once.
He told me the Dell serverswere great.
This HP server is old.
I probably need to upgrade it.
Where in God's green earthwould I have put my Dell Notes
(17:03):
in here?
Just looking at the categoriesright now research, software,
raid, windows Server, servicesto run virtualization I don't
see anything in here that wouldintuitively tell me that's where
I put my Dell Notes.
So I click this little searchbar here and I can hit Dell, or
I can type Dell and hit enterand this will give me three
results.
So right here, oh good, look, Ihad a friend here say, hey, a
Dell R620 server would be greatfor home labs.
(17:25):
On the next tab here, videoediting oh look, a Dell monitor
that I had for editing Cool.
And then the third hit onhardware.
A person I used to work withtold me about their Dell and how
they had it set up and the kindof hardware and things like
that.
I have a ton of notes in OneNoteand I have a really hard time
finding things, and I love thesearch functionality.
Another tool that I love anduse every day in my professional
(17:48):
life, sometimes in my personallife, is Microsoft To Do.
There are a bunch of differentI don't know what you call them
task management pieces ofsoftware.
I've used.
Most of them I landed on to do.
Now my use case for to do is Iwill have things pop in and out
of my head and I had differentsystems.
(18:08):
I have a notebook with meusually that I can write notes
in or reminders.
I have post-it notes that I canwrite reminders in.
I have voice memos on my phonethat I can write reminders in.
I can email myself.
I can put them in calendarentries to remind me hey,
tomorrow at lunch you're goingto do such and such.
The problem I ran into is I hadno less than five or six places
(18:32):
notes and lists of things to doand invariably, let's say, it's
Saturday and I'm like oh,where's my house list of things
I want to do around the house?
Are they in sticky notes in mydesk?
Are they in one of a fewnotebooks laying around?
Is it in the notebook in mybedroom?
Is it in the notebook in myoffice?
Did I email myself?
Is it a calendar?
So, organizationally, I havedecided to go with one tool and
(18:55):
to simplify it.
As you can see on the screenhere if you're watching YouTube,
this is a to-do list calledHouse Projects, and this is just
stuff that I've been meaning todo around the house.
What you'll see, the problemwith this and this is not how I
do it today, but I want to showyou the old way I used to do it.
If you can see on the left hereI have a good number of lists
(19:16):
here Things for finance, thingsfor the house, shopping lists,
things for birthdays, things forthe podcast.
Here's just a month, june 2025.
I wonder what that is?
Different house stuff.
Here's my list for packing fortrips.
It's not great having a to-dolist with like 15 to 20 sub
lists and then again similar toOneNote, where I have lists
everywhere and I don't rememberwhere I organize them.
(19:38):
I had a heck of a time findingthings.
So my new jam is and I'm notgoing to show it here because I
use it for work and I don't wantto share my work stuff here but
I have two lists in my to-dolist now A brain dump, anything
I think of, gets thrown in there, and then a top three or an MVP
, most valuable priority list,whatever you want to call it.
(19:59):
But every day I have threethings from my brain dump list
that I bring up into a top threelist and those top three things
are my priorities for that day.
Guess what If I knock those topthree out and I need to add
more?
I have a whole list in my braindump, but it helps me capture
my thoughts as they come,because they come at different
times, different weird things.
Hey, I'm out on a run, I thinkof something, let me write it
(20:20):
down.
So, brain dump list, great.
And then when I get back to mydesk or I get back to work or
it's just some downtime whereI'm organizing I might look
through my brain dump andprioritize top three and put
them in my top three list.
That has been very helpful forme and that is my new method for
using my to-do list.
Love it.
I did take a look real quickand there's nothing in here
(20:40):
that's NDA or would be crazy toshow.
So just to show you a very quickexample.
This is what I was speaking of.
This is a brain dump list andthis is my today list.
Brain dump is just everything Ithink of when it's completed.
It goes down the bottom up top.
As an example, here's a takePowerPoint class on LinkedIn
learning.
Okay, I need to work on myPowerPoint skills Now, ha ha,
but it's on my list in Braindumpand when I get through my today
(21:03):
lists and I need something todo, I can grab one from the
Braindump into the today listand, as you can see here, here's
all the things I've completed,here's my top priorities, and
that's how I use it and I loveit.
The last tool that I use on theregular and I'd like to show you
a couple examples here, andthen we'll wrap up the episode
this is another organizationaltool that helps me visualize
problems or workflows, thingslike that.
(21:25):
It's called a mind map.
You've probably heard of it.
If you haven't, I'm going toshow you one in a moment, but my
understanding of what a mindmap is is it's a visual
representation of data.
That's it.
I am a visual person.
I think visually.
My wife makes fun of me because, as I'm thinking through a
problem.
I'm usually looking up at theceiling or the sky.
I'm not sure what I'm lookingfor, but it helps me focus and
concentrate.
(21:46):
As an example, when I got my jobat Nokia, there is a.
I work in data center,primarily in automation, and I
thought what is all the contentthat I can help create as a
marketing person?
So let me show you an exampleof this is a very busy mind map
and you won't really be able tosee much of the text, and that
is on purpose, but I think it isinstructive to show you how
(22:11):
crazy these can get.
So this is my data centercontent mind map.
I just started.
You start in the center datacenter content, right?
What do I want to do?
Certifications, communityoperating system, creative ideas
, what's our unique sellingproposition?
What makes us unique anddifferent?
Right?
What kind of events or otherplaces we can distribute these
things?
So this is just an example ofwhen I'm working through
(22:33):
problems, when I'm trying togather my thoughts.
This is a tool that I love thatenables me to kind of see a
larger, more complex problem orsomething to be worked on
visually.
As another example, based onthe podcast, we have a YouTube
channel for the Art NetworkEngineering YouTube channel.
(22:57):
For the Art Network Engineeringthere is a long, tedious, very
confusing process on how totransfer a YouTube channel from
one account to another and I'mtrying to do that for reasons
and I actually use this mind map.
It's more of a flow chart, butto me I kept reading through all
of Google's documentation therewas like six different sites.
It would take you to in theirhelp menus and you could do this
, you could do that.
It depends on this and do yougo there Again?
(23:17):
Problem statement is my topichere transfer A1 YouTube.
The subtopic here is brandaccounts, so you can only
transfer YouTube accounts thatare called brand accounts.
And then I just went throughthe basically one, two, three.
Each of these four work streamsis a different document.
That felt kind of disconnectedto me and every time I'd read
(23:38):
one document it would point toanother and then I would get
kind of lost in a loop.
The first thing you have to dois the legacy channel link to a
brand account?
Yes, no, do other thing Is thenew channel link to a brand
account?
Yes, no, do other thing this ishow brand accounts work and how
they're tied to Google accountsand multiple owners and managers
, and how this works and why youcan move some things and not
the other, and it's it seemedimportant to me to get this
(24:00):
right because there's a caveatissued in moving YouTube
accounts from one brand accountto another.
If you do it wrong, you candelete it.
And after five years and a tonof views and a lot of
subscribers and just all themomentum that we've had over the
years, I did not want to dothis wrong, make a mistake and
wipe out our channel.
So I used a mind map toorganize my thoughts.
(24:22):
The more organized I am, themore productive I can be, so
that is why we went through thisepisode.
So hopefully in the I don'tknow somewhere between eight to
ten foundational slashproductivity enhancing tools
that we went through on thisepisode.
So hopefully in the I don'tknow somewhere between eight to
10 national slash productivityenhancing tools that we went
through on this episode.
Hopefully one or two of themmight be able to help you.
If you have any favoriteorganizational tools, let us
(24:43):
know in the comments.
Send a message.
We will be doing a follow-upbecause Jeff had a ton of really
cool tools that I wanted tolook at and, with his internet
problems at home, we justweren't able to finish this
episode together.
This is the product.
This is the favoriteproductivity tool.
Episode part one.
Part two will be coming, asalways.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for being with us.
It's been one heck of a journey170 something episodes in.
(25:06):
I love the messages that Icontinue to get from people that
say they love the show, theyget value from it.
We're helping them, they enjoyit.
We're from people saying hey, Iwas, I had this crappy job I
hated, and then I found yourshow and now I'm.
I got, I followed a lot of youradvice and now I'm in career and
this is amazing, thank you andwe try to have those people on
the show and they reach outbecause it's it's really it's
(25:27):
just so gratifying doing thisshow, so thank you for allowing
the show to continue all theseyears later.
It is truly one of my favoriteparts of working in network
engineering for me is getting tocontinue to do this show.
I'm really grateful for Jeffthat he's hopped on and helped
me continue the show.
A lot of work behind the scenesand a lot of friends reaching
(25:50):
out that have been helping thisyear, so it means a lot to me.
Thank you For all things.
Art of NetEng.
You can find all of our stuffat our link tree link, tree
forward slash.
Art of NetEng.
Check out the Discord servercalled it's All About the
Journey.
Thousands of people in therestudying.
There was just an Encore studygroup I believe it was last
night running.
There's a CCNA study group thatmeets.
There's a bunch of AI,automation and programming
(26:14):
conversations happening in thereright now.
We hopped on happy hour theother night.
I had some time, the family wasaway and I just went in our
discord in a happy hourchallenge that, hey, if
anybody's around, you want tohop in a happy hour.
A handful of people, includingMax forgive me for the other
names I don't remember, but ahandful of us hopped in Taylor
and at the end of that happyhour if you're watching the
YouTube channel Max turned me onto this Python crash course
which I just got.
(26:34):
I just started reading.
I'm really enjoying it, andwhen I get off this recording,
finish the episode and uploadthis, I'm going to go through
the first chapter here.
I already checked that.
I have Python 3 installed on myMac, which is great.
I'm going to install an IDEnext, no-transcript out with you
(27:21):
.
What else?
That's our link tree, theDiscord server.
I am working on some merchstore updates.
I got some great ideas around,some different merch ideas, so
I'm going to try to get some newstuff on there.
Other than that, it's summertimehere in the Eastern United
States.
It's super hot.
It's been like 95, 100 degreesFahrenheit every day, just
spending time running, going inthe pool, hanging out, really
(27:42):
enjoying my role in Nokia datacenter, all the friends I've
made there, and I think that'sit.
That's a lot of words, but itwas a short episode trying to
make sure we we give you avaluable episode.
So great tools in this one.
Um, as always, jeff, thank youfor being with us.
Hopefully you'll return soononce your internet is fixed.
If you want to come on the show,if you have any guest ideas, if
(28:04):
you have any topic ideas, ifthere's something you want to
hear that you haven't heard,reach out again.
Our link tree is the best place.
It has all the things you cancan DM us everywhere, send
emails all that good stuff, asalways.
Thanks so much for joining uson this episode and we'll catch
you next time on the Art ofNetwork Engineering podcast.
Hey, folks, if you like whatyou heard today, please
subscribe to our podcast andyour favorite podcatcher.
(28:26):
You can find us on socials atArt of NetEng, and you can visit
linktreecom forward slash Artof NetEng for links to all of
our content, including the A1merch store and our virtual
community on Discord called it'sAll About the Journey.
You can see our pretty faces onour YouTube channel named the
Art of Network Engineering.
That's youtubecom.
Forward slash Art of NetEng.
(28:46):
Thanks for listening.
This is the art of network engineering, where
technology meets the human sideof IT.
Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems or shaping
your career, we've got theinsights, stories and tips to
keep you ahead in theever-evolving world of
networking.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
My name is Andy Laptop and onthis Whiteboard Wednesday
episode, I am joined by the one,the only the AI-tastic Jeffrey
(00:24):
Clark.
How are you doing, jeff?
Jeff Clark (00:25):
I'm doing all right.
Ai-tastic it's a new word.
I have to look that up in.
Andy Lapteff (00:28):
AI Is that AI-tastic Now?
Can't we just make up words nowwith a little dash?
Ai puts dashes in everythingyou ever notice that You're ever
looking to see if somebody usedit for AI.
It's just.
I don't think it's a dash, Idon't know if it's an Oxford
comma, it's a really long dash.
Jeff Clark (00:42):
It's called like I ended up looking at or actually
having a whole conversation withchat GPT about it, because it
was putting them into myconversations and it's called
like an M dash, like EM.
It's weird Anyway.
Andy Lapteff (00:51):
I'll look to stop doing that.
Jeff Clark (00:53):
You sure you can tell it, it doesn't stop.
Andy Lapteff (00:55):
but you can tell it.
I told mine to stop puttingemojis in and it keeps putting
emojis in.
Dude, I don't need your littlebullseye emoji and your little
rocket ship, which, again, everytime I see a rocket ship on
somebody's post somewhere, I'mlike that was AI generated, I'm
not reading this.
All right, we are here onWhiteboard Wednesday and, just
to let the audience know, incase they didn't catch the last
(01:15):
Whiteboard Wednesday, this is anew series that Jeff kicked off,
where we kind of walk through,we do screen shares and we walk
through different tools ortechnologies or things that
we're using that are making ourprofessional and personal lives
better, more efficient, moreproductive.
Hint, hint, nod to today'sepisode.
Today we're going to talk aboutproductivity tooling.
(01:36):
I guess Jeff has some toolsthat he wants to show people and
what he uses to be productive,and I have a few things as well,
as well as some comments aroundtools that I use, have tried to
use, stopped to use, usedifferently, because it seems to
me in my experience that everytime I seem to have my
organization down and I kind ofthink this is almost like an
organizational tooling that kindof helps us be more productive.
At least that's what I'mthinking about.
(01:57):
I still haven't dialed it inright.
So I'm something you're allprofessional person.
I've studied all the things andI still don't feel as organized
as I could be and I couldalways use a productivity hack.
Where do we want to start, jeff?
I guess we'll do a screen sharehere and a reminder for the
listeners you can check out ourYouTube channel at Art of NetEng
and you'll be able to see we'regoing to try to talk you
(02:18):
through this.
So if you're an audio onlylistener, you'll be able to get
value here.
But this is going to be avisual heavy show where we're
going through the tools andstuff that we use.
So where do you want to start,jeff?
Jeff Clark (02:28):
well, I think largely the whole idea that kind
of sparked this particulartopic was we have our discord
chat that you and I are on forshow topics and that kind of
thing, and it feels likeconstantly you're mentioning
some new tool or you're showingme some screenshot from like a
brain thing that you're doing ormind map that you're doing.
And I see this with otherengineers too.
(02:50):
They've all got kind of theirown little secret set of tools
that they've been using foryears or things that have helped
them to be more productive,more organized or just kind of
works with their workflow.
So I thought, hey, we've gotthis kind of whiteboard
Wednesday idea where we're doingmore visual things.
Maybe this would be a good timefor me to show you a couple of
the things that are really,really exciting to me.
(03:11):
You keep talking about thisother tool I'm going to mess up
the name Asana or I say Asana,but it could be Asana.
I don't even know what it is.
It could be Asana.
You want to start there?
Let's start with that.
You can share your screen first.
You tell me about this thing.
I don't even know how to use it.
I just know you'll be like, oh,we'll just put this in, the
awesome thing.
Andy Lapteff (03:31):
So I'm going to share a screen.
I'm going to try to share ascreen.
I have an ultra wide, so I haveit, so I happen to be using
again, not sponsored, while it'sopen source.
So how would it be?
But this particular tool on MacOS is called Deskpad.
I can't show you this on ascreen share, because this is a
(03:52):
virtual screen, but basically onan ultra.
I have a 49 inch ultra wide andit looks awful.
When you try to screen share itit's very thin and nobody can
see it on the other side, butthey have these different apps.
So here's a tool productive.
You can see it on the otherside, but they have these
different apps.
So here's a tool productive,not a productivity tool, but you
download.
It's called Deskpad, and thenwhat I'm doing is I'm dragging
what I want to show you intothis virtual desktop.
So what does it?
Jeff Clark (04:12):
create Like a box on your screen that you drag.
Andy Lapteff (04:15):
It's a separate, so it looks like a browser
window but it's kind of like avirtual desktop, I guess, but
it's sized normally as opposedto this crazy.
I'm semi-new to ultrawides.
I got one a couple of years agoand it's really helped my
productivity.
I have different windows and Ihave like it's carved up into
six different.
There's a perfect example.
We're just going to keepstumbling upon these things.
But I used to have fororganization slash productivity
(04:37):
as a network engineer.
I used to have like three orfour different external monitors
.
I'd have secure CRT up in one,I'd have my OneNote up in
another one, I'd have email andDMs in a third, and there's
cords everywhere and it lookslike crap.
And some company laptops arebetter at others than multiple
external monitors.
I would come back the next dayand like one monitor wouldn't
turn on unless I rebooted thewhole system.
I got an ultra wide 49 inchesit's as wide as my huge uplift
(05:00):
desk.
So it's great.
And then I have to find anotheropen source tool that I got to
manage.
So ultra wide is great becauseyou have a lot of real estate.
But the downside is you have alot of real estate and how do
you organize all that.
So there's something calledrectangle that I also use.
It's another open source, butit's a screen management, the
center of my screen, the centerthird is my browser window or a
(05:23):
word document or whatever I'mworking on, and then the right
and the left.
I break up into sixths, sothere's my communication stuff
on the left, onenote, and ato-do list on the right.
Let me shut up and show you myscreen.
I realize you can't see myscreen as I'm saying all this.
Jeff Clark (05:36):
But I'm going to need to make sure I take notes
of these things.
I hope you put them in the shownotes at the end, because I'm
going to actually want to getsome of these tools you're
talking about already.
Andy Lapteff (05:43):
What you're looking at here is Asana and
this.
You have a couple of workspaceson the left.
Really, all I use for the show,to organize the show, is this
episode workflow project.
So you see, on the left herethere's projects that you can
navigate into and out of.
This is the episode workflow.
Again, in full transparency.
All the credit to AJ Murray.
He set up a lot of theorganizational stuff that A1
(06:07):
runs on.
So in order to try to get ahandle of all our show ideas,
what's been recorded, what hasto be edited, and just handle
the workflow here, that's how weuse it.
So, for instance, I justcreated, right before the show
you see this tile here.
So for the listeners, there'sfour columns.
The first one is show ideas,the second one is recorded
column, the third one's editingand the fourth is completed.
So new ideas start on the leftand work their way through the
(06:29):
system.
We are recording whiteboardWednesday productivity now, so I
can drag that over to therecorded column and then when I
hop in here I can see, okay,that one's been recorded.
I have to edit that.
I am currently editing cruiseship networking with Will
Robbins.
So that's in the edited column.
And then on the right-hand side.
These are all the completedshows.
This is back when we used tohave really fancy, nice
thumbnails.
Look at that.
I got to get back into that.
(06:49):
So, what I like about this is,as you and I are talking, let's
say, going to Discord, and we'relike, hey, I was thinking about
this particular example, right,like, hey, let's do a
productivity organizationalthing's, so many tools where to
put it.
So what I would do is I wouldjust direct you to our son and
say, hey, man, go into episodeworkflow.
If you could put it in showideas.
And then what's nice is whenyou and I have some time and
(07:11):
we're going to record some stuff, I just kind of flip through
here and I'm like, oh cool, likeI really want to do a BGP
episode because I know a lotabout EBGP and I really want
someone to walk me through thedifferences with a little lab.
Maybe another whiteboardWednesday.
I put that in here.
Jeff Clark (07:26):
Does that make sense ?
There's not.
If you go into each one ofthose, there's more stuff you
can add, cause I saw some ofthem had pictures, some of them
have links.
Andy Lapteff (07:33):
It's just a full notepad almost once you're,
let's go into an older one thatactually might have some notes
in here.
Can you see that?
I see it Perfect.
This this is when we had AlexisBerthoff on and, as you can see
in here, there's a due date, sothat's when we're going to
publish.
You can put a description inhere.
If we didn't know who Alexiswas, hey, here's Alexis and she
used to be in aerospace, but nowshe's networking and is in the
school and she works at such andsuch and there's a nice subtask
(07:56):
workflow down here.
So what do we have to do?
For each episode?
We've got to record it, edit it, name tags there's some old
stuff in here.
We used to do wins on the showand things like that Run it
through, timebolt, run itthrough.
Another idea you had, which Ilike, that I should probably add
to Asana, is a behind the show.
So, right, we're like here'sall the stuff we have to do to
get a show ideated, produced andreleased, and that's what
you're seeing Some of thethumbnail and blah run into in
(08:17):
my personal professional contentcreation.
Life is like there are so manydifferent tools, many options on
like where to put things andwhat.
I like William Collins from theCloud Gambit podcast, who comes
on the show all the time.
He has a Calendly link forguests Yep, and when you fill
(08:40):
out that Calendly link to be aguest it's so smart he asks for
your bio, for a headshot, forany questions that you'd like
him to ask, whereas you'reseeing in here kind of behind
the scenes.
I had to email Alexis.
I had to get a headshot.
I probably forgot to ask for abio and did it again.
I really like how he automatedit in his scheduling.
Jeff Clark (08:57):
That's really smart.
He would actually be good tohave on kind of the behind the
scenes stuff to.
But I'm part of a two-man teamhere.
I have an account manager, I'mthe engineer.
There's constantly stuff thathe and I have to work on
together and we have a full listof ideas, and I guess this was
called a Kanban board orsomething like that, so you just
(09:19):
kind of move it across.
This is really helpful.
Andy Lapteff (09:21):
Which I think it's all the agile methodology.
Right In networking, we'restealing a lot of guests from
dev, and that's that's reallywhat you're seeing here too, I
think.
I think this is basically aKanban board.
You can see up top here there'sactually a little thing that
says board.
I guess you could do it as alist.
I haven't really messed withthis, but there's a lot of
functionality in here that Idon't know about.
Jeff Clark (09:40):
Do you want to show?
And you've mentioned a coupleof times OneNote and I have been
at every job I've been at ahuge, huge OneNote fan, but my
problem has been-.
Andy Lapteff (09:51):
You turned me on to OneNote at Comcast.
By the way, it's your fault.
Jeff Clark (09:54):
And then what was nice was I could then share my
notes with other people as theycame in.
My OneNote became like anonboarding thing, it was.
Andy Lapteff (10:01):
And you can search it, which is, I think, the best
function of it, because I cannever find anything.
Jeff Clark (10:13):
What I have most recently been using.
Is that the reason OneNote forme I've kind of outgrown it is?
I like to take my notes fromcompany to company and OneNote
has become harder and harder totake with you and it's also
become more challenging to getout of it.
Once you're in the OneNoteworld, you can't really escape.
So what I wanted to do is Iwanted to start doing something.
I can change platforms anytimeI want, and I also wanted to
start writing in Markdown.
I don't know if you've have youdone anything with Markdown at
all?
Is this something that you'refamiliar with?
Andy Lapteff (10:34):
So I kind of know what it is, but I'm going to
have you describe it because Icouldn't describe it.
I know that in GitHubeverything's written in Markdown
and like the about me, and Ithink that there's advantages to
Markdown, but I don't know whatnotes or any kind of a text
file really well organized.
Jeff Clark (10:54):
And it's all done by simple keyboard shortcuts, and
it's similar to you've been inMicrosoft Word, where you've got
heading one and heading two andheading three and then body and
all that stuff.
Markdown is the same way, butit's done, like I said, with
keyboard shortcuts.
So, for example, if I do asingle pound and then type this
becomes a heading right, thenthis heading here I can put in
(11:16):
here with my put a dash, it'sgoing to start a bullet point,
bullet point one, two, et cetera.
If I do two hashes, it makes itlike a subheading.
Three hashes makes it a what asub sub heading.
What's nice about this, though,is these all become collapsible
parts of a document, so I can,as I'm taking notes and working
with somebody, I can take notesin a meeting really, really fast
(11:37):
, and this is all actually justsaved as a text file.
So if I go into my finder on mycomputer, all of these things
are saved in my folder calledJeffopedia.
Here's the A1 podcast.
Here's the whiteboard Wednesday.
Here's this.
I'm going to open this, just insublime text.
This is the text editor I use.
So, speaking of and you'll see,this is exactly as it's written
(11:58):
Hash these files now can bemoved from any Markdown editor
in the world.
I can take these files with me.
They're simple text files andthey're just really easy to work
with.
Andy Lapteff (12:11):
So the advantage to using Markdown is it's a
standardized language format,whatever.
And as I'm seeing it here, Ican see the last screen.
I couldn't see the dashes andthe pounds and stuff because I
guess it hides it for you.
But on the backend, markdown isa language, it's portable and
you can move it from tool totool, which is huge Because, to
(12:32):
your point, when I left aparticular company with a ton of
engineering notes I had, I lostthem all because they were
super regulated, super lockeddown.
They would walk you out thedoor if you put a USB in.
So there's no way I could havegotten anything off of that
machine, but if I had Markdown.
So how do you export this?
Let's say you're in a heavilylocked down environment, like
(12:52):
you just email yourself a textdocument.
Jeff Clark (12:54):
And in this case this is literally.
This is.
I mean, you recognize, this ishis finder on the Mac right.
This is, these are just done infolder structures.
Andy Lapteff (13:02):
So all I'm trying to think, if, if, if I left the
company I'm thinking of, I don'tknow how it would get my stuff
out.
Jeff Clark (13:08):
You'd end up with the same problem, right?
Because you're doing it locallyon your machine, and then in
that case I use Obsidian.
But there's Notion.
Notion also uses Markdown.
Notion is a web-based notesapplication, Also really good.
I happen to like Obsidianbecause it was self-hosted Go
ahead.
Andy Lapteff (13:23):
But if it was just vendor syntax commands and I
had it in Markdown and I emailedit to myself toward the end.
It would all work fine Job, itwould be okay.
It would look.
I think less.
I'm not trying to say how toget around your security stuff
at a job you're leaving, I think, for me to export OneNotes to
myself tied to the company'sOffice 365 domain.
(13:46):
Right, that's like it justseems way harder, worse and
fraught with peril than justsome text document that I'm
emailing to myself Because ifanyone were to look at it,
there's nothing proprietary init.
I'm not a dumb duck.
I'm not going to export thingsthat I shouldn't.
Okay, this is compelling.
Jeff Clark (14:01):
I like this For me it just lets me take my notes
away from a tool that I'm lockedinto and that's kind of been my
big challenge.
Mantra for myself lately is getaway from anything that keeps
me locked in.
If I can, that I have theflexibility to to move platforms
, because right now I'm usingobsidian if I was going to ask
you what are we looking at here?
This is yeah this is obsidian,and then, like I said, there's
(14:22):
another one called notion, verysimilar I kind of like the
layout.
Andy Lapteff (14:25):
It reminds me of a lot of the other note-taking
tools.
You have categories and alittle bit of city.
Jeff Clark (14:30):
You can get really, really creative with little
plugins where you can.
I've got an ai tool built intothis thing so that I set my
notifications there, ai tool soI can come and do smart lookups
for things, and but all the samestuff that you find within your
one note are in here so you cansearch your stuff in here
here's my expense report stuffand I need to know.
(14:50):
Okay, I put in my notes fordoing monthly expense reports or
whatever.
I I'm not going to stay onthese, but it makes it nice and
simple to be able to get aroundmy notes and, like I said,
because it's done in just astandard file format and file
structure, it means that I don'teven have to build it in
Obsidian.
I can literally take existingtext files that I have, throw
them into Obsidian and then theywould all just show up.
(15:13):
I might have used someformatting magic and that kind
of stuff, but anyway, obsidian,the whole idea behind it and
really the whole, the whole ideabehind markdown is just that it
gives you a more portable,non-proprietary way of keeping
notes and again kind of gets youaway from the lockdown I'm glad
you're showing screenshots,which are images, because a lot
of what I have in my one noteI'm like I'm in my lab and I'm
working on something, so, hey, Idownloaded this thing and then
(15:35):
I did this and here's the screen.
Andy Lapteff (15:36):
Images aren't a problem, I guess, right.
Jeff Clark (15:38):
Nope, not at all.
It's going to work the same wayas OneNote.
I can copy and paste them in.
Andy Lapteff (15:41):
Hey folks, andy here, Unfortunately we lost Jeff
.
The internet fairies came andgot him.
An ISP that I used to work for,that shall remain nameless, has
yet to send a tech and fix hisproblems.
Jeff, I miss you.
I'm sorry I lost you in thisepisode.
(16:02):
What I am going to do here isjust finish out the episode and
share I don't know two or threeof my most used daily driving
tools for organization, and thenwe'll wrap it up.
We covered probably three to Ithink we covered about six tools
so far in the episode.
As I mentioned earlier, onenoteis one of my favorite tools.
(16:22):
Why?
Well, mostly it's the searchfunction.
I'm one of those people thattakes a lot of notes, writes a
lot of things down and then hasa really hard time remembering
where I put them or how Iorganize my data.
So this, for example, this is aOneNote called Server HP.
I have an HP server in my homelab and there's a bunch of tabs
here.
(16:42):
I did some research.
I have some software hardware,just different categories that
I've run through over the years.
And let's say that I don't know.
I'm in here and I'm like, but Ihad a friend once.
He told me the Dell serverswere great.
This HP server is old.
I probably need to upgrade it.
Where in God's green earthwould I have put my Dell Notes
(17:03):
in here?
Just looking at the categoriesright now research, software,
raid, windows Server, servicesto run virtualization I don't
see anything in here that wouldintuitively tell me that's where
I put my Dell Notes.
So I click this little searchbar here and I can hit Dell, or
I can type Dell and hit enterand this will give me three
results.
So right here, oh good, look, Ihad a friend here say, hey, a
Dell R620 server would be greatfor home labs.
(17:25):
On the next tab here, videoediting oh look, a Dell monitor
that I had for editing Cool.
And then the third hit onhardware.
A person I used to work withtold me about their Dell and how
they had it set up and the kindof hardware and things like
that.
I have a ton of notes in OneNoteand I have a really hard time
finding things, and I love thesearch functionality.
Another tool that I love anduse every day in my professional
(17:48):
life, sometimes in my personallife, is Microsoft To Do.
There are a bunch of differentI don't know what you call them
task management pieces ofsoftware.
I've used.
Most of them I landed on to do.
Now my use case for to do is Iwill have things pop in and out
of my head and I had differentsystems.
(18:08):
I have a notebook with meusually that I can write notes
in or reminders.
I have post-it notes that I canwrite reminders in.
I have voice memos on my phonethat I can write reminders in.
I can email myself.
I can put them in calendarentries to remind me hey,
tomorrow at lunch you're goingto do such and such.
The problem I ran into is I hadno less than five or six places
(18:32):
notes and lists of things to doand invariably, let's say, it's
Saturday and I'm like oh,where's my house list of things
I want to do around the house?
Are they in sticky notes in mydesk?
Are they in one of a fewnotebooks laying around?
Is it in the notebook in mybedroom?
Is it in the notebook in myoffice?
Did I email myself?
Is it a calendar?
So, organizationally, I havedecided to go with one tool and
(18:55):
to simplify it.
As you can see on the screenhere if you're watching YouTube,
this is a to-do list calledHouse Projects, and this is just
stuff that I've been meaning todo around the house.
What you'll see, the problemwith this and this is not how I
do it today, but I want to showyou the old way I used to do it.
If you can see on the left hereI have a good number of lists
(19:16):
here Things for finance, thingsfor the house, shopping lists,
things for birthdays, things forthe podcast.
Here's just a month, june 2025.
I wonder what that is?
Different house stuff.
Here's my list for packing fortrips.
It's not great having a to-dolist with like 15 to 20 sub
lists and then again similar toOneNote, where I have lists
everywhere and I don't rememberwhere I organize them.
(19:38):
I had a heck of a time findingthings.
So my new jam is and I'm notgoing to show it here because I
use it for work and I don't wantto share my work stuff here but
I have two lists in my to-dolist now A brain dump, anything
I think of, gets thrown in there, and then a top three or an MVP
, most valuable priority list,whatever you want to call it.
(19:59):
But every day I have threethings from my brain dump list
that I bring up into a top threelist and those top three things
are my priorities for that day.
Guess what If I knock those topthree out and I need to add
more?
I have a whole list in my braindump, but it helps me capture
my thoughts as they come,because they come at different
times, different weird things.
Hey, I'm out on a run, I thinkof something, let me write it
(20:20):
down.
So, brain dump list, great.
And then when I get back to mydesk or I get back to work or
it's just some downtime whereI'm organizing I might look
through my brain dump andprioritize top three and put
them in my top three list.
That has been very helpful forme and that is my new method for
using my to-do list.
Love it.
I did take a look real quickand there's nothing in here
(20:40):
that's NDA or would be crazy toshow.
So just to show you a very quickexample.
This is what I was speaking of.
This is a brain dump list andthis is my today list.
Brain dump is just everything Ithink of when it's completed.
It goes down the bottom up top.
As an example, here's a takePowerPoint class on LinkedIn
learning.
Okay, I need to work on myPowerPoint skills Now, ha ha,
but it's on my list in Braindumpand when I get through my today
(21:03):
lists and I need something todo, I can grab one from the
Braindump into the today listand, as you can see here, here's
all the things I've completed,here's my top priorities, and
that's how I use it and I loveit.
The last tool that I use on theregular and I'd like to show you
a couple examples here, andthen we'll wrap up the episode
this is another organizationaltool that helps me visualize
problems or workflows, thingslike that.
(21:25):
It's called a mind map.
You've probably heard of it.
If you haven't, I'm going toshow you one in a moment, but my
understanding of what a mindmap is is it's a visual
representation of data.
That's it.
I am a visual person.
I think visually.
My wife makes fun of me because, as I'm thinking through a
problem.
I'm usually looking up at theceiling or the sky.
I'm not sure what I'm lookingfor, but it helps me focus and
concentrate.
(21:46):
As an example, when I got my jobat Nokia, there is a.
I work in data center,primarily in automation, and I
thought what is all the contentthat I can help create as a
marketing person?
So let me show you an exampleof this is a very busy mind map
and you won't really be able tosee much of the text, and that
is on purpose, but I think it isinstructive to show you how
(22:11):
crazy these can get.
So this is my data centercontent mind map.
I just started.
You start in the center datacenter content, right?
What do I want to do?
Certifications, communityoperating system, creative ideas
, what's our unique sellingproposition?
What makes us unique anddifferent?
Right?
What kind of events or otherplaces we can distribute these
things?
So this is just an example ofwhen I'm working through
(22:33):
problems, when I'm trying togather my thoughts.
This is a tool that I love thatenables me to kind of see a
larger, more complex problem orsomething to be worked on
visually.
As another example, based onthe podcast, we have a YouTube
channel for the Art NetworkEngineering YouTube channel.
(22:57):
For the Art Network Engineeringthere is a long, tedious, very
confusing process on how totransfer a YouTube channel from
one account to another and I'mtrying to do that for reasons
and I actually use this mind map.
It's more of a flow chart, butto me I kept reading through all
of Google's documentation therewas like six different sites.
It would take you to in theirhelp menus and you could do this
, you could do that.
It depends on this and do yougo there Again?
(23:17):
Problem statement is my topichere transfer A1 YouTube.
The subtopic here is brandaccounts, so you can only
transfer YouTube accounts thatare called brand accounts.
And then I just went throughthe basically one, two, three.
Each of these four work streamsis a different document.
That felt kind of disconnectedto me and every time I'd read
(23:38):
one document it would point toanother and then I would get
kind of lost in a loop.
The first thing you have to dois the legacy channel link to a
brand account?
Yes, no, do other thing Is thenew channel link to a brand
account?
Yes, no, do other thing this ishow brand accounts work and how
they're tied to Google accountsand multiple owners and managers
, and how this works and why youcan move some things and not
the other, and it's it seemedimportant to me to get this
(24:00):
right because there's a caveatissued in moving YouTube
accounts from one brand accountto another.
If you do it wrong, you candelete it.
And after five years and a tonof views and a lot of
subscribers and just all themomentum that we've had over the
years, I did not want to dothis wrong, make a mistake and
wipe out our channel.
So I used a mind map toorganize my thoughts.
(24:22):
The more organized I am, themore productive I can be, so
that is why we went through thisepisode.
So hopefully in the I don'tknow somewhere between eight to
ten foundational slashproductivity enhancing tools
that we went through on thisepisode.
So hopefully in the I don'tknow somewhere between eight to
10 national slash productivityenhancing tools that we went
through on this episode.
Hopefully one or two of themmight be able to help you.
If you have any favoriteorganizational tools, let us
(24:43):
know in the comments.
Send a message.
We will be doing a follow-upbecause Jeff had a ton of really
cool tools that I wanted tolook at and, with his internet
problems at home, we justweren't able to finish this
episode together.
This is the product.
This is the favoriteproductivity tool.
Episode part one.
Part two will be coming, asalways.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for being with us.
It's been one heck of a journey170 something episodes in.
(25:06):
I love the messages that Icontinue to get from people that
say they love the show, theyget value from it.
We're helping them, they enjoyit.
We're from people saying hey, Iwas, I had this crappy job I
hated, and then I found yourshow and now I'm.
I got, I followed a lot of youradvice and now I'm in career and
this is amazing, thank you andwe try to have those people on
the show and they reach outbecause it's it's really it's
(25:27):
just so gratifying doing thisshow, so thank you for allowing
the show to continue all theseyears later.
It is truly one of my favoriteparts of working in network
engineering for me is getting tocontinue to do this show.
I'm really grateful for Jeffthat he's hopped on and helped
me continue the show.
A lot of work behind the scenesand a lot of friends reaching
(25:50):
out that have been helping thisyear, so it means a lot to me.
Thank you For all things.
Art of NetEng.
You can find all of our stuffat our link tree link, tree
forward slash.
Art of NetEng.
Check out the Discord servercalled it's All About the
Journey.
Thousands of people in therestudying.
There was just an Encore studygroup I believe it was last
night running.
There's a CCNA study group thatmeets.
There's a bunch of AI,automation and programming
(26:14):
conversations happening in thereright now.
We hopped on happy hour theother night.
I had some time, the family wasaway and I just went in our
discord in a happy hourchallenge that, hey, if
anybody's around, you want tohop in a happy hour.
A handful of people, includingMax forgive me for the other
names I don't remember, but ahandful of us hopped in Taylor
and at the end of that happyhour if you're watching the
YouTube channel Max turned me onto this Python crash course
which I just got.
(26:34):
I just started reading.
I'm really enjoying it, andwhen I get off this recording,
finish the episode and uploadthis, I'm going to go through
the first chapter here.
I already checked that.
I have Python 3 installed on myMac, which is great.
I'm going to install an IDEnext, no-transcript out with you
(27:21):
.
What else?
That's our link tree, theDiscord server.
I am working on some merchstore updates.
I got some great ideas around,some different merch ideas, so
I'm going to try to get some newstuff on there.
Other than that, it's summertimehere in the Eastern United
States.
It's super hot.
It's been like 95, 100 degreesFahrenheit every day, just
spending time running, going inthe pool, hanging out, really
(27:42):
enjoying my role in Nokia datacenter, all the friends I've
made there, and I think that'sit.
That's a lot of words, but itwas a short episode trying to
make sure we we give you avaluable episode.
So great tools in this one.
Um, as always, jeff, thank youfor being with us.
Hopefully you'll return soononce your internet is fixed.
If you want to come on the show,if you have any guest ideas, if
(28:04):
you have any topic ideas, ifthere's something you want to
hear that you haven't heard,reach out again.
Our link tree is the best place.
It has all the things you cancan DM us everywhere, send
emails all that good stuff, asalways.
Thanks so much for joining uson this episode and we'll catch
you next time on the Art ofNetwork Engineering podcast.
Hey, folks, if you like whatyou heard today, please
subscribe to our podcast andyour favorite podcatcher.
(28:26):
You can find us on socials atArt of NetEng, and you can visit
linktreecom forward slash Artof NetEng for links to all of
our content, including the A1merch store and our virtual
community on Discord called it'sAll About the Journey.
You can see our pretty faces onour YouTube channel named the
Art of Network Engineering.
That's youtubecom.
Forward slash Art of NetEng.
(28:46):
Thanks for listening.
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