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How we recharged the team with a fallow week
Due to the ongoing COVID situation the team had been struggling to stay focussed and motivated. The inability to go out, the lack of change of scenery and the sameness every day has been taking its toll. To try to address this we actively encouraged them to take time off - which, given the limitations on travel, was less appealing than it normally would be.
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How to change your day with meeting plans
I recently had a day where I had about 10 different meetings - all on different subjects. I knew that I would struggle to be productive in each of them if I turned up for them unprepared and had to switch subjects each time.
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When your WPF menu alignment is wrong
I had a very weird problem where my menus on a WPF application were dropping down to the left instead of the normal to the right.
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How to easily implement successful remote team retrospectives
As part of our processes we regularly hold retrospectives. We used to do this all in a room with post-it notes - a fairly traditional approach. We would set up 4 areas: Liked, Longed, Learned and Lacked and proceed to plaster post-it notes over the different sections. Once everyone had finished we would organise each section into themes and then discuss and agree actions.
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A first encounter with sketchnoting
One of the talks I attended at the Microsoft Build conference was called “Sketchnoting 101” and given by Nitya Narasimhan. It gave a very high level view of the approach and how anyone can quickly pick it up.
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Rethinking conferences in a remote only world
I recently attended the fully virtual Microsoft Build conference. There is no way I would have been able to attend the real “physical” conference due to the location, financial commitment and time required however this gave me an opportunity to benefit from something normally out of my reach.
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Increasing productivity using a simple magnetic whiteboard
Whenever I work I am always jotting down things on pieces of plain paper next to me - this could be things to do, ideas, random thoughts, planning for meetings, etc.. Every week or so I do a cull of this stack of paper and then start on a new piece of paper.
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A quick fix for missing Gmail notifications on Android phones
I occasionally stop getting Gmail notifications on my Google Pixel 2XL android phone. I later find that I have a whole bunch of emails that I had missed. I am not sure what causes it however I have found a way to make it work again.
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The fastest way to switch Gmail accounts on Android phones
Using Gmail on Android it is possible to support multiple email accounts. The normal way you can change which account you are looking at is by pressing on the account picture in the top right hand corner and then selecting the user.
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Finally a to-do app I use ... Microsoft To Do
I have tried numerous to-do applications in the past; from the very simplest to the all-singing, all-dancing applications and they have never stuck. I used them for a week or so and realised a month later that I hadn’t used them for a while.
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