What Kids’ Phones Can Teach You About Product Design

Some of the coolest gadgets on the market today are smartphones. Devices designed for kids are particularly impressive. Not only do they fit sensitive components in a small-yet-sturdy package, but they tailor an “adult” product to a niche audience.

Product designers can learn a lesson or two from these devices. Even outside of the tech sector, designers are always looking for ways to differentiate their products, make them more durable, and deliver functionality without feature-bloat. 

Before putting together your next product, take note. These six tips inspired by cell phones for kids are anything but child’s play:

1. Put a premium on safety.

If a product isn’t safe to use, it doesn’t matter what other features it has. Spending money on something that puts you or others at risk simply doesn’t make sense. 

The designers behind Gabb Wireless’s Z2 kids phone made safety their starting point. Because kids are experts at bypassing or disabling restrictions, the Z2 takes away the need for parental controls. 

While the Z2 can call and send texts, it can’t access the internet, social media, or app stores. Kids can still take photos and listen to music on the Z2, but there’s no need to worry about them seeing dangerous content online or developing a social media addiction. And without internet access, there’s less risk of cyberbullying or child predators.

When designing your product, approach it the same way. Before worrying about the bells and whistles, make sure the core product doesn’t put the user at risk. 

2. Question norms around form. 

Who says a cell phone has to be rectangular? Who says it even needs a screen? While there are reasons for these design choices, the point is that innovative designers question assumptions about the shape, look, and feel of the product. 

The Relay Kids Phone is a gadget that breaks the rules. This screen-free walkie talkie lets kids leave their family and friends voice messages, which they receive immediately. 

Your product shouldn’t look like a carbon copy of its competitors. Design something different: It just might be the next big hit. 

3. Make it easy to use.

There’s a reason most apps for children are designed for tablets and not phones. Because their motor skills are still developing, not all kids can navigate something as small as a phone screen.

Although the Jitterbug Flip is often marketed to seniors, it also makes a great phone for kids because of its easy-to-use design. With large buttons and no touch screen, this device makes it easy to text, call, and take photos. Plus, it doesn’t connect to the internet — another feature parents love. 

Easy-to-use products aren’t always the coolest ones on the market. But what’s even less cool is a product that is difficult or unpleasant to use. Put usability before pizzazz when designing your own product. 

4. Go back to basics.

Some of the best designs are out of sight, out of mind. Think about your home’s HVAC system: You wouldn’t want it making noise or needing adjustment all the time, right? You’re probably happiest with it when it heats and cools your home without extra fuss.  

The designers behind the Light Phone II took this same approach. With it, you can call, text, set alarms, play music, and listen to podcasts — and that’s it. There are no social media apps, ads, email, or news feeds. 

Basic doesn’t have to mean boring. This phone’s sleek look and simple design are similar to the iPhone. Unlike the iPhone, however, the Light II isn’t packed with distracting or unnecessary features. 

5. Consider the “fun” factor.

The best products aren’t addictive, but they do keep users coming back for more. In your design, look for ways to help users have fun. It could be as simple as a color-changing screen, or as complex as a built-in game. 

Preloaded with 44 games, the VTech KidiBuzz is the perfect example of this design principle. While it does allow calling and texting, parents control the contact list and which websites and applications are accessible. That way, even younger kids can enjoy it safely. 

With this design tip, balance is key. You don’t want to add so many fun features that your product becomes unusable, but you should find small ways to make it engaging. 

6. Don’t forget about durability.

There’s nothing worse than spending a fortune on something, only to have it break six hours later.  Especially if your product is used outdoors, on job sites, or by children, make sure it can withstand a few bumps and bruises. 

Famous for their durability are Nokia phones. A great choice for kids is the Nokia 6.1, which features an all-metal build milled from a single block of series 6000 aluminum. It’s water-resistant, and it features a Gorilla Glass screen that is unlikely to crack or shatter. Users appreciate the long-lasting battery, which is often one of the first things in a phone to go bad. 

Your product doesn’t need to be bulletproof, but it should be well built. When in doubt, check in with your users: How do they plan to use the product? How long do they hope to own it? If they’ve owned similar products in the past, at what point did they need to be replaced?

Designing a great product is difficult. You have to get the form and function right, but there are dozens of deeper considerations as well. Is it built to last? Is it fun and easy to use? Does every feature add something to the core product?

When it comes to their design, kids’ phones are anything but child’s play. For your next design session, ask your son or daughter to borrow their device. It just might be the inspiration your product team needs.

Image credit: Andrea Piacquadio; Pexels

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Discover Local Food Through Personalized Recommendations with Famished.

You know that feeling when you’re SO hungry that you need your food to be here, like, right now? However, when you start to look up meal options, you’re quickly overwhelmed by just how many options are out there. The fact that the listed menu items are pretty vague doesn’t help, either. You could scroll through endless lists of restaurants and picture-less menu items, or you could try Famished.

Famished is a mobile app designed to help people discover delicious local food through a personalized experience. Their goal is to help you spend more time enjoying your next meal and less time looking for it.

Did you know that people waste approximately 240 hours per year looking for food? With hundreds of menu items to choose from, the choice paralysis is real. Additionally, the price for the dish can vary by 20% depending on the app you use to order, even though it’s the exact same dish from the exact same restaurant.

Current food ordering platforms also feature only basic search functionality and little to no personalization. Menus are boring, photos and videos are missing, and there’s inadequate information to help you make a decision.

Famished, on the other hand, shows you vegan and vegetarian meals from top-rated restaurants in Los Angeles based on your food preferences and more. It also includes high-quality photos or videos to help make your decision even easier.

Features
Famished includes a variety of helpful features that make the app easy to use and help you decide what to order.

AI-based food recommendations: Famished uses artificial intelligence that gets smarter over time in order to recommend the food you’re most likely to enjoy. The app takes into consideration your dietary restrictions, taste profiles, past orders, what your friends like and even the weather outside to provide recommendations of local food.

Photos and videos: Famished includes high-quality photos and/or videos in their recommendations of individual dishes so you get a better understanding of the menu item.

Meal information: The app also includes key information about each menu item, such as the ingredients, price, and whether it’s vegan or vegetarian. (However, you can easily skip through the info if you’d rather just look at the pictures).

Healthy food: Famished currently focuses on vegan and vegetarian dishes from the top-rated restaurants in Los Angeles, but people without dietary restrictions are welcome to use the app, too.

Beta: Famished is currently in beta and is looking for new users. Early adopters will be able to provide feedback, vote on the features they’re most interested in, and generally shape the final product before it officially launches.

Interested?
Having a lot of food options is great, but having personalized recommendations with high-quality visuals and helpful information is even better. Stop scrolling through your food ordering platform wondering, “what even exactly am I looking at?” Instead, turn to Famished to find local food you’re going to love. Want to try Famished for yourself? Visit famished.io to sign up for their beta version.

Photos
Famished

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How to Search Emails in Gmail by Specific Time

Gmail supports a plethora of search operators to help you instantly find that elusive email message buried in your mailbox. You have size search - like larger_than:5mb - to find the big messages in your account. File search - like has:attachment filename:doc - will locate email messages that contain specific file attachments. This graphic illustrates all the known Gmail search operators that work both on Gmail website and mobile.

Search by Date in Gmail

Date search in Gmail helps you locate emails sent or received during a specific period. Here are some examples:

• newer_than:7d from:me - Emails sent in the last 7 days
• after:2020/10/15 before:2020/10/20 from:uber - Emails from Uber received between October 15 and October 20.
• newer_than:60d older_than:30d - All emails received in the previous 30-day range.

The date in the Gmail search query is specified in the YYYY/MM/DD format.

Search Emails by Specific Time in Gmail

Gmail supports an undocumented time-based search option that lets you find emails sent or received during a specific hour, minute or event second. For instance, you can limit your Gmail search to emails that were received between October 10 8:15 PM and October 10, 2020 8:45 PM.

To get started, convert the date and time to Epoch time and then use the timestamp with the standard after or before search operator of Gmail.

For instance, the Epoch time for October 10 8:30 PM is 1602774000 and that of October 10 8:45 PM is 1602774900. Use the search query after:1602774000 before:1602774900 to:me in Gmail and you’ll get a list of all emails that were received during that 15-minute period.

Epoch time is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970 (UTC). Use the Epoch converter to represent a human readable date and time in Epoch and use that timestamp with the before or after search operator of Gmail to find that elusive email.

Date and Time Search with Google Script

Here’s a little snippet that will automate your Gmail search by time using the Gmail API. It will fetch all email messages that were received between 12:15 PM and 1:30 PM.

const emailReceived = () => {
  const secondsSinceEpoch = (date) => Math.floor(date.getTime() / 1000);
  const after = new Date();
  const before = new Date();
  after.setHours(12, 15, 0, 0);
  before.setHours(13, 30, 0, 0);
  const query = `after:${secondsSinceEpoch(after)} before:${secondsSinceEpoch(
    before
  )}`;
  const messages = Gmail.Users.Messages.list('me', {
    q: query,
  });
  Logger.log(messages);
};

Also see: Mail Merge for Gmail

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Why Business Leaders Should Talk About Their Mental Health

For those of a certain age, I’m sure that being transparent about your mental health was taboo. Take my friends’ father, who’s a boomer, as an example. He never opened up about how he was feeling until one day he lost it. The stress, and the emotional and physical toll it took on him, finally came to head. And, he just started crying. I was floored. I mean I was always told that boys don’t cry. Here is why business leaders should talk about their mental health.

There’s been a sea of change when talking about mental health, and we can all learn from the shift.

Take Gen Z. They are more likely to seek help then other generations. Unfortunately, that figure is still low with only 37% reporting that they’ve received help from a psychologist or mental health professional.

Considering that some 450 million people suffer from a mental disorder, we still have a long way to go. And, this is particularly true for those in a leadership role.

For starters, as noted by the World Health Organization, “mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide.” As a consequence, this can affect people’s behaviorally, emotionally, and physically, such as:

• Feeling down
• Reduced ability to concentrate
• Mood changes
• Excessive worrying
• Inability to cope with stress
• Insomnia
• Changes in eating habits
• Substance abuse
• Trouble relating to others
• Increase in heart disease and cancer

The Link Between Mental Health and Work

Economically, mental health costs the global economy $ 1 trillion per year in lost productivity! Aetna Behavioral Health has also found that employee mental health costs rise twice as fast as other medical costs.

More specifically, mental health can be negatively affected by businesses:

• Performance and productivity
• Engagement
• Communicating with others
• Physical capability and daily functioning.
• Absenteeism

What’s more, via the CDC, “Depression interferes with a person’s ability to complete physical job tasks about 20% of the time and reduces cognitive performance about 35% of the time.”

Besides impacting your bottom line, there’s another reason why you need to prioritize mental health at your company; employees demand it.

One study has found that 62% of employees want leadership to speak openly about mental health. But, other research has found this to be higher.

“Mental health is becoming the next frontier of diversity and inclusion, and employees want their companies to address it, write Kelly Greenwood, Vivek Bapat, and Mike Maughan over at HBR. “Eighty-six percent of our respondents thought that a company’s culture should support mental health.” However, it “was even higher for Millennials and Gen Zers, who have higher turnover rates and are the largest demographic in the workforce.”

“Half of Millennials and 75% of Gen Zers had left roles in the past for mental health reasons, both voluntarily and involuntarily, compared with 34% of respondents overall — a finding that speaks to a generational shift in awareness,” add the authors. “It is not surprising then that providing employees with the support they need improves not only engagement but also recruitment and retention, whereas doing nothing reinforces an outdated and damaging stigma.”

How to Promote Mental Health Wellness in Your Workplace

So, yeah. Mental health needs to become a priority for your business. By being transparent and removing the stigma around mental health, you’ll improve every facet of your organization. And, to get started, here are the steps you should take.

Change the culture.

“Changing the culture is a top-down process,” writes Greenwood, Bapat, and Maughan. “It starts with transforming leaders into allies. Encourage executive teams, managers, and senior employees to share their experiences (or those of close family members or friends) at all-staff meetings or in other interactions with their teams.”

“Modeling disclosure and vulnerability as strengths, not weaknesses, goes a long way toward reducing the stigma and setting the tone for transparency,” they add.

Considering that almost half of entrepreneurs have experienced at least one form of mental health condition during their lifetime, you probably already have first-hand knowledge of this struggle. The challenge is to be open up about your experience. Once you do, this will help remove the stigma and encourage others to be more open about their struggles.

Additionally, if you want to change the culture, then you need to walk the walk. That means setting an example by showing others that you are addressing your well-being. For example, take breaks throughout the day and eat a healthy lunch. Most importantly, offer suggestions on how you addressed your mental health. If you spoke with a counselor, then refer an employee to that mental health professional.

Create an employee wellness program.

If you’re unfamiliar, an employee wellness program simply encourages healthy habits within the workplace. More importantly, it helps create a culture where health and wellness is a top priority.

To get started though, Howie Jones in a previous Calendar piece suggests using a Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) to assess your needs. “This is a questionnaire that reviews lifestyle practices like smoking and exercise,” explains Howie. “You could also conduct an interest survey and have your team rank what they would want the program to include.”

With this information, you can then design a program that works best for your company. For example, if a majority of your employees have admitted to dealing with a mental illness, then you may want to select a health insurance plan that covers mental health. You could also offer gym memberships, support services, or training to help them combat stress.

Focus on early intervention/prevention.

Let’s say that your bathroom faucet has a drip. You keep ignoring it thinking that it’s no big deal. Eventually, you may have to replace your sink because of water stains. Leaky faucets may also deteriorate caulk, grout, and damage ceilings and floorboards.

In short, don’t wait to solve this problem before it gets any worse.

The same is true with mental health. Educate your team on how they can cope with stress and anxiety. Provide support services, even if it’s paying for an app like Headspace. And, don’t punish them if they need to take a mental health day or leave early to speak with a therapist.

Enforce working hours.

Promote a healthy work-life balance by establishing boundaries. For instance, limit communication outside of office hours. That means not emailing an employee at midnight asking them a question that could wait until the morning.

You should also encourage them to set an out-of-office message in their calendar. Google and Outlook calendars have this feature. And, it’s a simple way to automatically reject event invites when you’re not available.

Cultivate a healthy and positive work environment.

Besides boosting productivity, healthy and positive work environments can improve morale and decrease turnover. Best of all, it’s not all that complicated to implement if you do the following:

• Establish organizational guidelines that prevent bullying and harassment.
• Show your gratitude and appreciation to your team members by recognizing their hard work.
• Invest in your team’s well-being by investing in ergonomic furniture, providing healthy snacks, and placing plants throughout the workplace.
• Help your employees curb vices and unhealthy habits.
• Never motivate your team using fear.
• Celebrate milestones and have fun through games and volunteering.

Frequently check-in with your employees.

Yes. You’ve got a million things to do. But, spend quality time with each team member. Get to know them better and ask how they’re doing. You don’t want to pry into their personal lives. But, checking-in with them builds trust. That means if they do have a mental health concern, they won’t be afraid to come to you for assistance.

Grant autonomy and flexible schedules.

Don’t micromanage your employees. Even better, provide flexible schedules and working arrangements so that they have opportunities to attend to their well-being.

Help them solve their time management problems.

Finally, help your team members improve their time management. That may not sound like much. But, if they’re struggling in this area, then don’t have the time to attend to their mental health. For example, help them prioritize their time so that they aren’t taking their work home with them. In turn, they’ll have more availability to work with a mental health professional or engage in healthy habits like exercising or meditating.

Why Business Leaders Should Talk About Their Mental Health was originally published on Calendar by John Rampton.

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How to Change the Reply-to Address in Mail Merge

When you send an email campaign through Gmail, you’ve an option to specify a different reply-to email address for your emails. When the email recipient hits the “Reply” or “Reply All” button, the To field in their email reply will be automatically populated with the email address that you’ve specified as the Reply-to email at the time of sending.

You can even specify more than one email addresses in the reply-to field, separated by commas, and they will all show up in the To field of the reply field. For instance, you could send emails from your own email address but the replies would be received in your email inbox as well as the support team.

To get started, open your Google sheet, go to the add-ons menu and choose Mail merge with attachments.

Next click on the Configure menu to open the Mail Merge sidebar.

Here go the Reply-to address file and type an email address. If you wish to receive replies on multiple email addresses, type them all here separated by commas.

Now when you send the email campaign, open one of the emails in the sent items folder, expand the message header and you should see the specified email addresses listed in the reply-to field.

Why is Google Ignoring the Reply-to Address

If you send a test email to yourself, you’ll get the email in your inbox. If you hit the reply button in that message, you may notice that that reply-to field contains your own email address and not the custom email address(es) that you’ve specified in your mail merge.

That’s the default behavior in Gmail if the “from” address on an email message is the same as the “to” address or is one of your own email aliases. To test your reply-to functionality, you should send emails to an email address that is not connected to your current Gmail account or set the “From” address as a non-Gmail address.

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Download Gmail Messages as EML Files in Google Drive

This Google Script will help you download your email messages from Gmail to your Google Drive in the EML format.

What is the EML Format

The .eml file format is popular for transferring emails from one email program to another since it complies with the RFC 822 standard and thus can be natively opened inside Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. You can even open EML files inside Google Chrome by dragging the file from your desktop onto a new browser table.

EML files contains the email content (email body, header and encoded images and attachments) as plain text in MIME format.

Download Gmail message as EML Files

Inside Gmail, open any email thread, go to the 3-dot menu and choose “Download Message” from the menu. It will turn your current email message into an eml file and save it your desktop.

However, if you wish to automate the process and download multiple emails as eml files in your Google Drive, Apps Script can help.

const downloadEmails = () => {
  const sender = 'sender@domain.com';
  const threads = GmailApp.search(`from:${sender}`).slice(0, 10);
  threads.forEach((thread) => {
    const subject = thread.getFirstMessageSubject();
    const [message] = thread.getMessages();
    const rawContent = message.getRawContent();
    const blob = Utilities.newBlob(rawContent, null, `${subject}.eml`);
    const file = DriveApp.createFile(blob);
    Logger.log(subject, file.getUrl());
  });
};

The script searches for emails from the specified sender, gets the first email message and downloads it your Google Drive.

Forward Gmail as EML Attachment

If you are to forward an email message as an attachment, the .eml format may be recommended since it preserves all the formatting and attachments of the original email thread in a single file that can be attached to the email.

const forwardEmail = () => {
  const messageId = '123';
  const message = GmailApp.getMessageById(messageId);
  const rawContent = message.getRawContent();
  const blob = Utilities.newBlob(rawContent, null, `email.eml`);
  GmailApp.sendEmail('to@gmail.com', 'This email contains an eml file', '', {
    attachments: [blob],
  });
};

Also see: Download Gmail as PDF Files

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Smidge Simplifies Customer Interviews with Instant 1:1 Video Chats

When it comes to product research, customer interviews are crucial to the success of your business. They not only give you clearer insight into how customers actually feel about your business and products, they help you understand the strengths of your solutions as well as determine areas you may need to improve. However, emails to customers often go unanswered, trying to set up a calendar invite at a time that’s convenient for both parties to talk can be tricky, and customer surveys just aren’t as effective as they could to be. Instead of trying to reach customers the old fashioned way, try Smidge.

Smidge is a video chat tool that sits in your web app. It allows you to talk with people when they are already online, so you can conduct product research and customer interviews instantly rather than waiting around on survey responses or scheduling user interviews.

The ability to segment users makes it easy to immediately chat with the people you’re most interested in talking to at any given time. By chatting in your app, you can skip the emails, calendar invites, chatbots and surveys and instead have a face-to-face conversation that leads to real human connection and adds real value to your company and users.

To start using Smidge, simply install the widget on your web app and let Smidge gather some helpful metadata. Next, you’ll segment the users you’d like to talk to and press the chat button to start the conversation. Customers will receive a call with a preview of your face, name and title so they know who the call is coming from. Smidge lets you conveniently chat with people from within your web browser.

Features
Smidge offers a variety of features to help you make the most of the app and your conversations with customers.

1-to-1 private video chat: This ensures your communication takes place in your app or webpage rather than getting sent to a customer’s spam folder.

Customizable messaging: Creating personalized messages tells customers you’re a real person, not a robot, and gives you the ability to add context to your call.

Push communication: Your communication is sent directly to users. There’s no need for them to first download a third-party app and spend time trying to figure out how it works.

Face-to-face connection: Putting a human face to your company helps customers build a connection to you and encourages relationships through conversation.

No more scheduling meetings or waiting on email replies: Smidge lets you find users who are currently active.

User segmentation: You can group users together to ensure you’re talking to the right people about the right product features.

Call log and dashboard: These tools help you save time and keep track of your efforts.

More chats: By spending just 5 minutes per day talking to customers via Smidge, you can talk directly to more than 250 people per year.

Interested?
Product research and customer interviews are important, but it’s also helpful for them to be convenient. Want to learn more about how Smidge can improve your customer interviews through one-on-one video chats? Visit smidge.app.

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Operations Team Productivity: What They Do (and How to Build and Improve Yours)

Even with the most competitive offerings or the most capable people representing them, it’s almost impossible for companies to achieve great things without reliable operations.

Not all small and mid-sized businesses have dedicated operations support, of course. Until they grow more sustainable, smaller companies might integrate operations into other divisions instead. But the danger there is allowing your teams to work in silos. And “by denying the opportunity to collaborate and cross-pollinate ideas,” says The 20 Media founder Pratik Dholakiya, “businesses contribute to their own speedy demise.”

Guess what helps reconnect those dots to keep everyone working toward the same goal? A dedicated operations team.

If you think it’s time to scale your operations workforce, you’re in the right place. In this post, you’ll learn how ops teams run businesses like well-oiled machines and the best ways to build your own.

First, the basics: What are operations, and how does this business function work?

The Operations Team Productivity: Roles and Responsibilities

Would you climb Mount Denali without a guide?

It’s a little easier to climb a behemoth like Denali with a trained mountaineer who can plot the course, gather all the right supplies, and plan for emergencies like bad weather.

In a company, that’s the operations team’s job.

An ops team’s #1 mission is to manage and optimize the details that keep its organization running profitably. That means delivering the resources that enable other departments to do their job – at peak efficiency and effectiveness – and cost-effectively converting their efforts into products and services that meet customers’ needs.

Phew. Let’s break that down a little. Here are a few examples of how the team supports each of the company’s stakeholders:

Employees

Operations might be responsible for keeping plenty of talent in the recruitment pipeline, promoting interdepartmental communication, supervising other teams’ activities, and figuring out how to best leverage resources to prevent and solve problems.

Executive team

Operations also lead business predictability by helping the C-Suite plan KPIs and holding them financially accountable. Some ops professionals are specifically trained to neutralize legal issues, too.

Customers

Ops teams rarely come into direct contact with customers, but it’s still their responsibility to make sure the company delivers the right products to the right customers on time. The product team relies on operations to recommend improvements, as ops are best positioned to weigh customer feedback against the company’s capacity.

Vendors

As any great ops professional will tell you, ensuring quality output means ensuring value at the source. To do this, the ops team focuses on acquiring inventory and services that maximize productivity, minimize risk and costs, and deliver on customer expectations.

You might have noticed a common thread here. For just about all activities, operations teams prioritize quality management. Not necessarily Steve Jobs-level attention to every detail of the business, but enough to:

• Produce what needs to be produced without delays, errors, or rework.
• Drive down failure costs, both internally and externally.
• Find the best possible solutions to problems in any situation.
• Ultimately inspire all stakeholders to champion the company’s value.

Before it can manage the quality of other business units, of course, operations must first manage itself. What’s the best set-up to achieve all these goals?

How to Build an Effective Operations Team

Step 1: Start from the Top Down.

A functional and well-run operations team relies on great support from the top down. Beyond the usual traits of great leaders, your ops manager will need a solid grasp of:

• Various processes across the company, so your team can confidently coordinate and develop new methods.
• Supply chain management, including knowledge of manufacturing, logistics, and transportation, if you’re a product-based company.
• Problem-solving means pulling information from both an analytical and creative perspective.
• Learning how to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.

Sure, all leaders need to communicate and solve problems. But an ops manager uses these skills on a bigger scale to unite people and processes seamlessly across the entire organization.

TIP: You can make your ops manager’s job much easier by making lines of communication easy to access. Digital channels (like project management or messaging apps) should be accessible for your ops teams to use on the go when they’re on a call, for example, while regular meetings can be a powerful way to sync up teams (as long as they’re not too regular). A written manual on communications processes can help clear up any confusion.

With those resources in place, you’re ready to think about the structure of the rest of the team.

Step 2: Organize Your Operations Team Structure.

In their book, The Practice of Cloud System Administration, three Silicon Valley-based authors describe the three sources and categories of operational work:

Sources of work Life-cycle management or the functional work — means to run a service within the company. Stakeholder interaction means meeting the needs of the people who use the service. Process improvement and automation mean the operational work needed to improve and upgrade various processes continually.

Categories of work Emergencies like power outages or emergency requests from other teams. Standard requests include questions about how to use a service or reports of the problems users experience. Project work, or the projects that automate and optimize team/company systems.

“It can be tempting to organize an operations team into three subteams, each focusing on one source of work or one category of work,” the authors write. But that creates those dreaded “silos of responsibility.”

Luckily, there’s a much simpler way to organize your team: Make project work the priority.

If you want to run your ops team at peak efficiency, you’ll need to focus most of its bandwidth on projects. Projects save them running from emergency to emergency until they burn out, or from slowing down to deal with interruptions (a big productivity killer).

How do you prioritize project work while responding to emergencies and requests promptly? There are two ways:

1. Assign an emergency response team. If one person owns emergencies, and other standard requests, means that the rest of the team is free to focus all its energy on projects. TIP: Make sure the ERT emails out reports to the rest of the team, including alerts logged, action taken, trends noticed, and recommendations going forward.
2. Take turns. Using a useful calendar management tool, you can move the team through a rotation for on-call duty (emergencies) and ticket duty (standard requests). TIP: Schedule each shift for no more than a week. Say you had a team of eight people; this would give each member a full six weeks of the cycle to focus on projects.

Depending on the size of the team’s workload, your ops manager might want to assign both on-call and ticket duty to one person or multiple people to one task. As long as they cross-train all team members, you’ll always be able to cover unexpected absences.

Bear in mind, though, that it’s best to limit each rotation to one person for a smoother hand-off to the next. Involving entire teams might lead to unnecessary meetings. It’s also good practice for the ops manager to include him- or herself in the rotation so they can keep tabs on what’s going on.

Step 3: Optimize Your Teamwork.

Congratulations: you now have a well-organized ops team.

But team-building doesn’t end there. It’s a journey – starting with every team member’s commitment to using the following six practices.

A knowledge bank

By documenting and sharing processes and templates across the team, you can streamline project management, cut time and effort wasted on reinventing the wheel, and ultimately ensure customers get the best results.

TIP: As with your communication channels, make it as quick and easy as possible for everyone to find these resources – using a tool like Box, for example.

A system of delivery

Take a standardized approach to deliver high-quality products and services by establishing bite-sized, repeatable processes in which everyone knows their role.

TIP: Projects are best accomplished in small teams. While solo projects disconnect team members and inhibit feedback, large teams face setbacks from decision-making challenges.

A system of measurement

Collect objective data on everything you do. How else can you improve your team’s output?

TIP: Google’s Objective and Key Results (OKR) is a great model to use. The aim is to set aggressive quarterly or annual targets, create incentives for your team to hit them, then stack up against your results against your forecasts.

(Keep in mind that because they’re so aggressive, you should only run 70% of your OKR goals.)

Productivity tracking.

To meet their many demands, operations teams should focus on getting the most done with as little time and resources as possible. Enter: time-tracking and productivity tools.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Team building.

Team-building activities are beneficial for many reasons, including productivity. Think of opportunities to bring the team together to take a break, reconnect, celebrate wins, and have a little fun.

Team sports are a simplified example and one of the best ways to foster teamwork and personal connections.

A safe space to vent.

Operations are one of the most complex and demanding functions of the business. That’s why it’s also the most in need of transparency.

There will be times when team members need to deliver criticism, hold others accountable, and admit their own failures to reach goals. The most important lesson they can learn, though, is that effective team performance isn’t always about hitting numbers. It’s about being agile enough to deal with missing them and confronting sensitive issues for the collective good of the team.

Is everyone on board with all six practices? Remember: Feedback makes the dream work.

Final Thoughts

By now, you should have all the ideas you need to build a capable operations team, assign smart roles, and streamline operations over time.

That leaves us with one last important question: What happens when challenges arise?

Nobody enjoys finding shortfalls in their teams or processes. But especially in operations, where one mistake sets off company-wide chains of events, it’s the name of the game. As the leader, your goal should be consistency: bringing underperformers up to standards, encouraging top performers to keep doing their very best, and keeping burnout at bay.

Does your company have a small operations team? What other best practices do you use to improve team performance? Share with us what worked for you in the comments.

Operations Team Productivity: What They Do (and How to Build and Improve Yours) was originally published on Calendar by John Rampton.

The post Operations Team Productivity: What They Do (and How to Build and Improve Yours) appeared first on KillerStartups.

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Google Drive Monitor - Get Email Alerts When Files are Deleted in your Drive

When you delete a file in Google Drive, it moves to the trash folder and stays there indefinitely until you manually empty the bin. That is how it has always been but, sometime this month, Google made one important change to how the trash bin works.

Under the new policy, files that have been in Google Drive’s trash bin for more than 30-days are automatically deleted. This automatic cleanup does help reclaim space but if you happen to accidentally delete some important files or folders from your Google Drive, there’s no way to restore them from the trash after the 30-day window.

Monitor Google Drive Files

If you are like me who is terrified at the prospect of forever losing important files that were deleted by mistake, Google Drive Watch can help.

Google Drive Watch is an open-source Google Script that automatically monitors your Google Drive and sends daily email notifications with a detailed list of files that were deleted the previous day.

Here’s a sample email notification sent by the Google Drive Watch program.

The email includes the file link, the date when the file was first created, and the name/email address of the Google Account that last modified and deleted the file. It monitors files in your regular Google Drive as well as Shared Drive folders.

Watch your own Google Drive

Here’s how you can set up Google Drive watch for your own Google account in few easy steps:

1. Click here to make a copy of the Google script in your own Google Drive.

2. Inside the script editor, go to line #9 and specify the email address where you want to receive the Drive notifications. You can also put multiple emails separated by commas.

3. The script, by default, will create a cron job that will run once per day at the selected hour. If you however wish to change the frequency so that the notifications arrive, say, every 5 days, you can specify 5 in line #10.

4. We are almost there. Go to the Run menu and choose “Enable Drive Watch” to enable the monitor for your Drive. Allow the script to access your file and you are all set.

Important: The first email notification will only arrive the next day at the selected hour.

How Google Drive Monitoring Works

The source code of the Google Drive monitor script is available on Github.

Internally, the script uses the Google Drive API with Google Apps Script to watch for changes in your Google Drive. It then sets up a daily cron job, using triggers in Google Scripts, that sends the email if new file changes are found.

When you first run the script, it gets a starting page token and all changes made to Google Drive after this token is fetched will be monitored by the script. We set supportsAllDrives to true since the script should monitor folders in Team Drives as well.

function getPageToken() {
  const store = PropertiesService.getScriptProperties();
  const token = store.getProperty('token');
  if (token) return token;
  const { startPageToken } = Drive.Changes.getStartPageToken({
    supportsAllDrives: true,
  });
  store.setProperty('token', startPageToken);
  return startPageToken;
}

The change.list endpoint of the Google Drive API fetches all changes made to the authorized user’s Drive since the start page token. We also set the fields property to limit file properties that are available in the response. The newStartPageToken returned in the response will become the new page token for future calls to the Drive API.

const fields = `newStartPageToken,
  items(file(id,title,labels(trashed),
  iconLink,mimeType,createdDate,ownedByMe,
  lastModifyingUser(emailAddress,displayName,picture(url)),
  alternateLink, fileSize))`;

const { newStartPageToken, items = [] } = Drive.Changes.list({
  fields,
  pageToken: getPageToken(),
  includeItemsFromAllDrives: true,
  pageSize: 100,
  supportsAllDrives: true,
});

if (newStartPageToken) {
  propertyStore.setProperty('token', newStartPageToken);
}

The items array holds a list of files that have been modified since the last run. This also includes new files that have added and old files that were edited by the users. Since we are only interested in the file that have been trashed, we’ll filter all files from the response except the ones that have been trashed.

const filteredItems = items
  .map(({ file }) => file)
  // Only interested in files where "I" am the owner
  .filter(({ ownedByMe }) => ownedByMe)
  // Only interested in files that have been "trashed"
  .filter(({ labels: { trashed } = {} }) => trashed === true)
  // Only return fields that are sent by email
  .map((file) => {
    const {
      iconLink,
      alternateLink,
      title,
      lastModifyingUser = {},
      createdDate,
      fileSize,
    } = file;
    return { iconLink, alternateLink, title, createdDate, fileSize };
  });

Now that we have an array of files that have been deleted by the user since the last run, we can use the Gmail service to notify the user.

Also see: Google Drive URL Tricks

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How to Kick Yourself Out of a Slump

We all get in slumps. Sometimes it’s because you’re under the weather. Or you’ve got that summertime sadness feeling. But, what if you’re really in the gutter and you don’t know why?

It happens to all of us from time-to-time. However, that doesn’t make it any easier. When your mood plummets, everything from your health, relationships, to career suffer. Even worse, you may not want to get better. It’s just easier to close yourself off and stay down. But, that’s no way to live. Instead, you have to kick yourself out of your slump so that you can enjoy your life and get back to being your bad-self.

Saying that from the outside, though, is easier said than done. But, I’ve been there more times then I would care to admit. And, through some trial and error, I used the following tricks to break free of my downward spiral.

Be on the lookout for red flags.

I’m going to tell you all an embarrassing story. Not that long ago, I was walking my dog before going out for the night. In my hurry, I didn’t pay attention to where I was going and tripped over a flowerpot. It happened so fast that I didn’t realize I was falling until I crashed to the ground.

Sometimes, that’s the case with slumps. There’s so much going on that you don’t realize that you’re down in a hole until you’re already in it.

Now and then, check-in with yourself so that you can spot any potential warning signs. While this varies from person to person, here are some of the more common symptoms that you may be in a slump:

• You’re bored day, in-and-out.
• You’re stuck in the past.
• Daydreaming eats-up too much of your time and energy.
• You refuse to get out of your comfort zone.
• You continuously don’t feel well.
• No one asks for your advice or feedback.
• You put others ahead of yourself.
• Business isn’t thriving.
• You’re searching for an escape, like vacation deals or selling your business.

If any of these ring true, then it’s time to admit that you’re in a slump. From there, you can begin to get to the root of the problem so that you can dig yourself out. For example, if the main culprit is your business, then maybe it’s time to consider selling it and moving on to a new venture.

Prioritize yourself.

There’s nothing wrong with helping others. Helping others is a proven way to increase your happiness. Which, in turn, can pull yourself out of your slump. But, you still need to take care of yourself.

Always putting others first is exhausting and can impair your work performance. What’s more, “when you put yourself at the bottom of your to-do-list, you’re more stressed and less energetic and creative,” writes Angela Ruth in a previous Calendar article. “Your sleep is impaired, and you may turn to other vices.” Overall, without engaging in some self-care, you’re harming your physical and mental health.

So, how can you prioritize yourself so that you don’t drive yourself into a rut? Angela suggests:

• Take a “me” moment, like blocking out specific times for you to something that you enjoy.
• Increase your emotional intelligence.
• Swap out the negative self-talk with more positive and supportive language.
• Take a social media break.
• Recite empowering mantras.
• Remove the toxic elements from your life.
• Get comfortable setting boundaries and saying “no.”
• Remember your “why.”
• Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses.
• Schedule downtime.

Decline your invite to the pity party.

Have you ever received an event to a function that you really don’t want to attend? You probably don’t hesitate to decline the invite.

Take the same approach whenever you have the urge to throw yourself a pity party. I know that it’s easy to fall into this trap and wallow. But, as Helen Keller correctly put it, “Self-pity is our worst enemy, and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world.”

Get your fill of inspiration and motivation.

Being in a slump sucks. There’s just no other way to put it. You’re not in a good mood. Energy and productivity have been drained. And, the things that you usually enjoy doing just don’t cut it anymore.

A simple way out of this? Surround yourself with as much inspiration and motivation that you can.

Inspiration and motivation are different for everyone. For me, I know that when I’m down, I might watch a comedy like “Step Brothers.” No matter how many times I’ve viewed it, it busts my guts every time. And guess what happens next? I’m in a slightly better mood and want even more. The next thing, I’m climbing out of my descent.

Whether if it’s a movie, song, podcast, book, or going for a hike, turn to the things that lift your spirits and give you a zap of energy.

Shock your system.

One of the easiest ways to get yourself in a rut is by staying within your comfort zone. You know how it is. Every. Single. Day. Is.The. Same.

The best way to counter this? Change things up. For example, instead of going to your office every day, try working somewhere else — even if it’s just one or two days a week. Try out a new exercise program or restaurant. Wake-up a little earlier so that you try out a new morning routine. Try out a new hobby, or do something that scares the crap out of you.

In short, shake things up so that you don’t get stuck in the same routine. And, if this is too nerve-racking, start small and work your way up. For example, instead of going to the same grocery store every Sunday morning, visit a local farmer’s market on Saturday morning.

Reach out to others.

The worst thing that you can do when you’re down is to keep it to yourself. As long as you’re reaching out to others because you’re looking for a way out of your slump — you’re not going to be bothering anyone. They are probably more than willing to listen and offer advice.

Don’t hesitate to pick up the phone and calling a trusted friend or family member. In my experience, a family member or best friend should always be your go-to. If they’re not around, consider reconnecting with an old friend. If that’s not an option, then please consult a support group or mental health professional.

Practice gratitude.

Research has found that gratitude has the power to change you and your brain for the better. Most notably, because it comes with psychological benefits like unshackling us from toxic emotions.

Best of all? Practicing gratitude doesn’t have to be a complicated activity. It’s a simple activity that you can do daily. Examples are writing in a journal, saying “thank you,” and spending quality time with your nearest and dearest.

Play hooky.

Of course, you don’t want this to become a frequent occurrence. But, everyone could benefit from taking a mental health day now and then. It’s most beneficial when you’re feeling rundown or don’t have any time off planned.

Whether you feel guilty about taking the day off, or don’t want to pry yourself from the couch, make the most of your day-off. You don’t have to go all-in like Ferris Bueller. But, definitely go out and have some fun. Indulge in a little self-care. You might take a moment to catch up on some cleaning or reading. Or, meet-up with a friend for lunch.

You’re going to survive, and work will be just fine without you for an hour or two or half a day. When wake-up the following day, you’ll find yourself refreshed and in a better state of mind.

Squash the ANTs.

And, finally, get those pesky ANTs out of your mind. Coined James Phu, these are Automatic Negative Thoughts that ruminate and prevent you from getting out of your rut.

The first step is to try to keep those thoughts from occurring in the first place. James suggests you can do this by avoiding toxic people, office gossip, and the news.

The next step is to become more self-aware so that you can catch any negative thoughts as early as possible. Some techniques that James has used are meditating, breathing exercises, and checking-in with yourself throughout the day. He also recommends using the rubber band trick. Whenever a negative thought pops in your head, “pull that elastic band and release.” That small amount of pain reminds you to stop and focus on something more positive.

Finally, find ways to defeat the negative. Gratitude, mindfulness, and keeping yourself busy are all great options. You can also try putting things in perspective and challenging these thoughts. For example, let’s say that you gave a presentation and made a couple of mistakes. You may tell yourself that it was a complete disaster. But, in reality, you got a standing ovation.

How to Kick Yourself Out of a Slump was originally published on Calendar by John Rampton.

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