April 2020 Summaries

I'm Lisa Smith, I'm an engineering manager for Zapier's developer platform, and I'm An Old. I've been working in tech since before there was a Google. In a previous life, I was a librarian. The kind that touches actual hard-copy books. I recognize that tech has an ageism problem, which affects not only the person being discriminated against but also the larger company culture. It deprives the company of needed perspective and tools. The tech workforce is predominantly young, with 82 percent of workers under 40, so it's essential to have a plan to stay relevant unless you're Gen Z. I offer a three-step process: learn things, meet people, and apply for jobs. Learning new skills can help you stay relevant, meeting people can provide valuable connections, and applying for jobs can lead to opportunities despite perceived skill gaps.

Customer support is hard`, especially in remote environments where the line between work and personal life blurs. To make the most of this role, it's essential to keep a journal of accomplishments, be proud of one's work, take regular breaks, ask for feedback, and when all else fails, entertain oneself with a GIF. By adopting these strategies, customer support professionals can improve their productivity, self-respect, and overall job satisfaction.

The text discusses the benefits of simplicity and how it can be an advantage over complexity, citing the example of 1970s tractors that are increasingly popular among farmers due to their simplicity and reliability compared to modern tractors. The author also draws parallels between these tractors and text documents, which have been a reliable and simple way for writing articles for years. The simplicity of text documents allows for control over storage, editing, and formatting, making them a future-proof option that doesn't rely on proprietary cloud services or software. The article concludes by suggesting that the best tool might be one you already have, with some creativity and customization, rather than necessarily using a dedicated app or software. This mindset can be applied to various aspects of life, including productivity systems, journaling, and even buying a tractor.

Highly productive people prioritize their attention on meaningful and impactful tasks, rather than getting bogged down in less important ones. They use a combination of strategies to stay focused and avoid distractions, including taking back control of their choices, narrowing their focus, putting their most important work into an ordered list, resisting distractions, and scheduling time for their top priorities. By implementing these tactics, individuals can make meaningful progress on their most important tasks and achieve greater impact in less time.

This article discusses how Zapier, a 100% distributed company with over 800 employees worldwide, has adopted flexible remote work schedules to boost productivity. Employees like Grace Montgomery and Rob Hubbard rise early for focused work periods, while others like David Brownman sleep in and work later in the day. Some people, like Roy Olende, adjust their hours to have a break on certain days. The company's flexibility allows employees to find their chronotype and schedule their productivity around it. Batching productivity is also a strategy used by some remote workers, such as Tabitha Karcher, who takes regular breaks to maintain focus. Additionally, Zapier employees often adjust their schedules to accommodate personal needs, such as napping during the night for Kangzeroo, and update their Slack status and calendars to keep coworkers informed of their availability.

The author of the text is looking for a way to stay informed about current events, particularly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, without feeling stressed by the constant news updates. They find that reading information from primary sources such as official government websites and health organizations can be helpful. The author provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up an automated workflow using Zapier to receive daily emails with links to news releases from trusted sources like the CDC and WHO, allowing them to customize their feed and stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.

The author of the text, who works at Zapier, initially found it absurd to focus on a single priority every week due to the numerous tasks and challenges in their role as an app integration team member. However, they tried it and found it essential for finding ways to focus on core priorities despite the difficulties. They started each day by thinking of the most important things they needed to get done and prioritizing them based on why they were crucial. The author believes that setting a priority has a name, "eat that frog," which means working on your most important work first. By doing so, they can avoid ignoring company top priorities and make their days more productive. They acknowledge that this approach can be challenging mentally but believe it's worthwhile for personal productivity and aligning with company goals. The author also emphasizes the importance of considering one's own environment and team culture when setting priorities, rather than trying to force a single priority method.

During a crisis, productivity is often severely impacted due to distractions, stress, and suppressed prefrontal cortex activity. To maximize time, energy, and attention during this time, it's essential to intervene and make deliberate adjustments to process, tools, and mindset. This involves identifying tasks that trigger the limbic system and replacing them with those that trigger the prefrontal cortex, doing less when possible, taming distractions, strengthening attention, and reactivating the prefrontal cortex through techniques such as writing down wandering thoughts or using the Pomodoro Technique. By making these intentional adjustments, individuals can flatten the inverted productivity curve and regain some level of productivity during a crisis.

Zoom has become a common tool for remote work, but like any software, it can be used for both good and nefarious purposes. To avoid privacy concerns and unwanted virtual guests, users can require meeting passwords and use waiting rooms to control who joins their calls. Additionally, using unique meeting IDs instead of personal meeting IDs can prevent accidental overhearing or eavesdropping. It's also essential to default to having audio and video off when joining a meeting, ask for permission before recording, and be cautious about what is shared in private chats. By following these tips, users can stay secure on Zoom and maintain their trust with colleagues and clients.

Nora Abousteit successfully transitioned her business CraftJam from in-person classes to online classes, dubbed WebJams, during the COVID-19 crisis. To achieve this, she followed a set of guidelines that included automating processes with Zapier, having a detailed "run of show" and operational manual, measuring success through customer feedback and Net Promoter Score (NPS), and making customers happy by being proactive and welcoming. Nora's approach prioritized flexibility, adaptability, and continuous improvement, ensuring that her business not only survived but thrived in the online environment. By focusing on these key elements, she was able to maintain a high level of quality and customer satisfaction, ultimately leading to the expansion of her market to include people worldwide.

When working remotely, it's not just about being free from the constraints of a traditional office environment, but also about managing your schedule, communicating effectively with colleagues and avoiding anxiety-driven self-sabotage. To achieve this, one must be mindful of their communication style, learn to distinguish between urgent tasks and non-urgent ideas, and maintain a sense of purpose and identity outside of work. By adopting these strategies, remote workers can avoid the pitfalls of feeling disconnected from their colleagues and company, and instead cultivate a healthy balance between work and personal life.

The author reflects on how difficult it is to stay informed about current events without feeling overwhelmed by social media and news updates, which can lead to excessive screen time and decreased productivity. To combat this, they suggest using automation tools like Zapier to streamline their news consumption, such as sending relevant links to a static place or creating an email digest of tweets from specific accounts. They also recommend building a routine around when reading the news, setting aside dedicated blocks of time for it, and using apps that limit access to certain sites during focus blocks. Additionally, they suggest leveraging automation tools to curate a personalized reading list, making it easier to stay focused on what's important without feeling overwhelmed.

Dollar Flight Club successfully launched its hotel product, The Hotel Project, by leveraging the expertise in membership-based subscription business models, and presenting a well-designed pitch deck that showcased the benefits of their solution. To create urgency, they offered priority placement positioning in their directory for the first hotel partners, making the product seem scarce and attractive. By using tools such as Canva, Unsplash, WordPress, Zapier, Stripe, and Mixmax to automate processes and manage tasks, the team was able to operate more efficiently with limited bandwidth, ultimately launching a scalable hotel product with over 100 paid customers and nearly 1,000 paid members within four months.

In late February 2020, a client called to cancel their event, leading to a swift loss of revenue for Museum Hack, a business that leads unconventional tours of the world's best museums. The company quickly repositioned its entire business and is now on track to recover, having identified a new revenue source in virtual team-building services. To achieve this pivot, Museum Hack utilized Google Trends, a free tool that helps identify new revenue sources by analyzing search trends, to mine for opportunities. The company also made significant changes to its spending, cutting costs and investing in new initiatives such as virtual team-building activities and automated processes. By leading with patience, listening, and understanding, showing gratitude, doing the work, and operating at level 10 integrity, Museum Hack's leadership navigated the challenges of a crisis, ultimately finding new revenue streams and emerging stronger.

The article features advice from Zapier employees on how to stay productive and connected while working from home, sharing tips such as wearing shoes in the morning, taking breaks with liquids, and using virtual backgrounds to separate work and personal space. Some employees also share their own quirks, like wearing silly hats or having a five-minute dance party at their desk, while others suggest using tools like Slack keywords to lurk on channels or crowdsource ideas. These tips aim to help remote workers feel more connected and productive, while also acknowledging the awkwardness of video meetings and the importance of personal boundaries.

La De Da gift shop in suburban Chicago has implemented a Google Form to offer personalized recommendations to customers, maintaining the personal touch despite social distancing measures. The owner's son helped set up the form, which allows customers to input their preferences and receive tailored gift suggestions. This strategy has resulted in comparable sales numbers to pre-pandemic periods. In another example, Books with Pictures comic shop in Portland, Oregon, uses a Google Form to serve as a personal shopper for customers, digging deep into their media tastes and preferences to make recommendations. The Ruby Tap wine bar in Milwaukee also took steps to maintain the personalized experience, offering curbside pickup of growler flights and bottle packs while still providing expert recommendations. Customers can input specific preferences, and the team will create a mix tailored to their tastes. These businesses have demonstrated creative ways to adapt to social distancing measures while preserving the personal touch that local businesses are known for.

The Perk, a coffee shop in Winter Park, Colorado, had to quickly adapt its business model when the state instructed restaurants to temporarily switch to pick-up orders only. Automation played a crucial role in helping them continue serving customers during this time of transition. The co-owner, Austin Gray, used Zapier to build an online ordering process that allowed baristas to create beverages for customers without seeing them in-person. This automation enabled the coffee shop to follow new regulations and keep its employees safe while still providing great customer service. Additionally, Gray also evolved a subscription-based eCommerce business by building multiple Zaps that integrated with Shopify, Mailchimp, Google Sheets, Slack, and Proof to streamline their workflow and improve productivity.

Google Meet is missing several features compared to Zoom, but the Meet Enhancement Suite Chrome extension can add some of these features to Google Meet, including push-to-talk, a grid view, and the ability to leave your camera and microphone off when joining a meeting. Installing the extension allows users to turn features on and off with a click, making it easier to manage their meetings. While these features cannot be turned on mid-meeting, they can be useful for streamlining meeting processes and reducing distractions. The extension is available as part of Product Hunt, and users who want to automate Meet can use Zapier to schedule meetings automatically based on certain triggers.

Time is an illusion right now, and with the addition of a new segment by Fox 8 in Cleveland, a clarifying tool called What Day Is It? By Zapier has been introduced to help people determine the day of the week. This proprietary date detection system sends a text message every morning to users' phone numbers in the US and UK, providing them with accurate information about the current day. The system is also compatible with other messaging apps such as Slack, email, and Discord, making it a useful tool for individuals who want to stay organized and informed about their daily schedule. By leveraging Zapier's automation capabilities, users can create their own "What Day Is It?" bot using pre-made Zaps and customize the notification message to suit their needs.

Staying organized at work is crucial for managing stress levels, and automation through tools like Zapier can greatly aid in this process by automating tasks such as storing attachments, tracking starred emails, and more. With pre-made workflows known as Zaps, users can save time and reduce stress by setting up automated workflows to save attachments to cloud-based storage systems, track action items from email or chat apps, and even automate meeting follow-ups.

Working remotely means having the freedom to create a schedule that suits you, but without a routine, it can be easy to fall into bad habits such as constant work or social isolation. A well-designed routine helps maintain a healthy balance between work and life by setting clear boundaries with family and workspace, allowing for breaks and time away from work, and automating discipline through established schedules and habits. By establishing a consistent daily routine, remote workers can stay focused, avoid distractions, and build meaningful connections with colleagues and others.

At Zapier, they've identified the essential tools for remote workers to tackle challenges such as reliable internet access, secure connections, and efficient collaboration. They recommend mobile hotspots like the Karma or Verizon Jetpack MiFi for stable Wi-Fi on-the-go, along with remote desktop software like Microsoft's Remote Desktop client or TeamViewer for seamless computer access. For team communication, they suggest using Slack or other team chat apps, while screen sharing tools like Slack's built-in feature or Chrome Remote Desktop facilitate collaboration and troubleshooting. Video conferencing apps such as Zoom or Google Meet enable face-to-face interactions, online office suites like G Suite or Microsoft Office Online offer cloud-based productivity, and cloud storage services like Backblaze provide secure data backup. Additionally, focus-enhancing tools like the Pomodoro Technique, writing apps like OmmWriter or iA Writer, security software including encryption tools like 7Zip and password managers like 1Password help protect remote workers' digital lives.

Charlie Carlisle, owner of La De Da! gift store in suburban Chicago, wanted to help his mother Jill keep her business running despite social distancing measures. He created a simple eCommerce-light solution using Google Forms, Zapier, and PayPal to enable online ordering and follow-up emails. The system allows customers to fill out a form, receive text alerts, and email updates with order details, making it easy for Jill to manage orders and stay organized. Charlie's automation mindset made it possible for him to create this solution without needing extensive technical knowledge, demonstrating that anyone can automate simple business processes using tools like Zapier.

We've researched and spoken to a variety of small businesses around the world to find out what they're doing to get through this uncharted territory, with one main takeaway: flexibility. Small businesses are expanding their market, offering new ways to deliver products or services, partnering with other businesses, and staying connected with customers through virtual channels. By being creative and adaptable, resourceful small businesses can survive and even thrive during social distancing. Many are finding new opportunities for growth and innovation, such as making hand sanitizer, offering online browsing options, and providing virtual classes and tours. By investing time and effort into automating processes, creating high-quality content, and engaging with customers virtually, small businesses can position themselves for success when things settle down.

You can take screenshots and videos on your Nintendo Switch, but there's no official way to upload images to cloud storage services like Google Drive or Dropbox. To solve this issue, you can create a dummy Twitter account, connect it to your Switch, set up an automation using Zapier that grabs screenshots and videos from Twitter and uploads them to your preferred cloud storage service. You can use the shared Zap template provided to guide you through the process with Google Drive, but you can also set it up with other apps like Dropbox or Discord.

A massive experiment in remote work has been conducted among over half of employed Americans, with a significant majority feeling more productive while working from home but still missing the office environment. Many employees are adjusting to remote work quickly, with most not feeling pressure to be more productive or prove they're working, and instead relying on tools like video conferencing and team chat to stay connected with their teams. Despite some challenges, workers are finding ways to adapt and thrive in a remote setting, with many using productivity tools and software automation to streamline their work.

Zoom's virtual background contest was recently started by the video conferencing tool. Ben Peter, a senior engineer at Zapier, won the contest in March 2020 with his creative and elaborate backgrounds. He discovered Zoom's feature in 2018 and initially used it to create a green screen background, which he later refined over time. The evolution of his backgrounds was a self-expressive way for him to express himself during calls. Ben has shared his tips on how to make a successful Zoom virtual background, including using Google Slides, considering aspect ratio, getting lighting right, and even drinking Diet Mountain Dew. With the recent addition of video backgrounds, Ben hopes to up his game and share his knowledge with others.

You're a personal trainer with multiple clients and various tasks to manage, such as marketing efforts, client workouts, and administrative tasks like adding clients to your training app. To streamline these processes, you can use Zapier's automated workflows, also known as Zaps, which connect different apps and services, eliminating the need for manual data entry. With pre-made templates, you can automate tasks like adding new clients to your personal training software, sending welcome packets or workout reminders, tracking client workouts, and updating calendars with fitness activity data. Zapier's vast app directory allows you to connect with thousands of apps, including popular fitness services, making it easy to customize workflows that meet your specific business needs. By automating tedious tasks, you can focus on providing high-quality training and personalized attention to your clients.

We're Zapier, a 100% remote company since 2011, offering automation solutions for tedious tasks in web apps, connecting them with automated workflows called Zaps. We help people make their work life easier by automating repeatable, boring processes that happen regularly. To survive and thrive as a remote worker, you need to set a routine, stay focused, resist the urge to become a hermit, manage your to-do list, cut distractions in chat tools like Slack, build social time in your day, monitor productivity without micromanaging, keep staff motivated, organized, and engaged with each other, and maintain work-life balance by setting boundaries and automating tactics for avoiding burnout. Our solutions include integrating with Zoom/GoToMeeting/Google Hangouts Chat, running effective remote meetings, and finding balance when work, home, and family are present all the time.

Zapier can help streamline webinars by automating tasks such as registering attendees, sending information, and tracking registration data. By using pre-made Zaps or creating custom ones, users can automate the process of sending information from one app to another, reducing administrative hassle and allowing them to focus on engaging their audience. With thousands of connected apps, including popular webinar tools like Zoom, GoTo Webinar, Demio, and more, Zapier provides a convenient solution for webinars and event management. Automated workflows can also be used to follow up with registrants and attendees, adding new leads to CRM systems and sales or marketing funnels.

Automating meeting action items can help streamline and track tasks without creating extra work, by automatically creating shared documents, adding notes to other apps, and sending reminders through chat apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. This can encourage transparency and action, and make it easier to follow up on tasks after a meeting.