Basecamp: The Reasons

so hello and welcome to the second video

in the series that I'm doing this week

of our base camp and in this video is

going to be the reasons and I've

actually got three reasons why I believe

base camp can really help you in

organizing and kind of calming your work

flow those reasons of notifications

activity and communication and I'm going

to basically touch on those three things

what this episode isn't it's not a

how-to video it's not this button does

this it's just three reasons why I

believe can actually help you or and

your team to actually have a karma

work relationship basically with how you

work within the office so we're going to

go over to my computer and I'll show you

base camp so this is actually my demo

account its my account and I've created

a demo user and I've called her Lucy and

we don't have that much information on

here but the three things that I want to

touch on first thing is notifications

now notifications you can actually get

in the top right here by click on it

clicking on the on your face basically

on your on your avatar and here change

your settings in this window the way

that they've set the set out this pages

is just really good there's three

sections to it what how and when so what

do you want to be notified with they're

basically just two two options one is

notifying me about everything and only

notify me when someone pings me and I'm

going to talk about pings in a moment

and when someone mentions me and I've

basically set it to ping and @mentions

these are actually a copy of my personal

settings on my account now how do you

want to be notified now the whole point

of using Basecamp is to stop receiving

email and stop getting too many emails

in your inbox and

it's work-related and you're in an

office and you're working with all with

you're working with a client on your own

if you're working on that project

everything basically should be in one

place in Basecamp so there's no reason

for you to get emails

so basically I've turned off all of

these options the first one is email

notifications I don't want to be told

about emails I've turned up the pop-up

notifications because again the whole

point of notifications is to curb it not

to actually have more notifications and

this is a personal preference this last

part it's it's all to do whether you

want to see the number how many unread

items or you want to see just the little

dots and as you can see up here I've got

it just there's a dot so I've basically

turned that off because I don't want to

see the number there's no point now

the next section is when when do I when

do I want to be notified now you can

actually set it to always no matter what

just send me absolutely everything but

again if you're working in an office

environment or you want some sanity you

don't want to be notified at all times

now depending on the type of project

you're doing and what what you're

working on that might come in handy but

I would say work can wait feature would

probably be the best so choose the time

for me it's actually between 11:00 and

they don't want to be disturbed with my

base kind of stuff now it doesn't mean

you can't go into base camp it just

means you're not going to get the

notifications as to when something

happens for you when you get pings or at

mentions you you just don't want to be

this stowed between these hours and

again I've set it to Monday to Friday

and the weekends I've turned it off now

again you can just go into base camp is

because I'm running a membership site

within base camp I actually go in and

check it regularly anyway but I wanted

to set some times and people know the

times that I'm actually available and

the last feature here is catch me up if

any anything

after house again I turned it off I

because I check my Basecamp quite

regularly and just having those settings

really does calm the experience of not

being notified about everything and

having a more focused timeframe to

actually do your work so you focus on

your work and not waiting for

notifications or anything like that so

that's the notifications the next area

is just saving yep so the next area is

kind of activity now what do I mean by

activity again I'm not going to go

through every part of this activity this

is the button that I clicked here it's

just a timeline I'm going to go through

the timeline it's a timeline of

everything that's happened in the

projects that you are you have access to

so it's kind of like a bird's-eye view

of what's going on just like all the

other features in this section here

which again I'm not going to go through

once you have an overview and a

bird's-eye view of what's happening it

kind of gives you that sense of I know

what's happening I don't need to ask

anyone I can go to a specific project if

I need to know more about that project

but this latest activity tells me what's

happening who's commented on what and so

on in fact if you look up at this Hey

menu and hey menu is basically where

your notifications are these are all the

notifications that that happen now

Martin might I'm sorry

Martin he basically just sent me this

message in our members site so I can

basically click on that and go straight

now I can also in the my latest activity

click on that file as well sorry on that

link and go directly to

that section where I can just read the

yep the posted a comment that he made so

the point I'm gonna underneath that

because I want to do that on my own

account

later I need to read that so the point

is that you have an overview of

everything so there's no reason to annoy

your colleagues and go up to them and

actually take time away from them the

point is to be focused and you don't

want to be annoying as I said somebody

when they're focusing on work if you

need information and everyone puts

information into one place then you have

a timeline of it you know where the

projects are and you know all the

information to do with that project and

it's actually all in that one place so

that's the activity bar now the

communication part again it's partly to

do with the activity but it's again to

do with how you want to communicate now

I've talked about slack before and how I

don't feel that it's good for general

organization of communication for a

project I think things like slack of

chat apps are great for very quick hash

outs but when you're actually focusing

and trying to work on a project with

information you need context and the

only way to get context is like what

these guys say base account guys say it

needs to be written out so people

understand what's happening in context

of what's going on in a project so there

is lots of different ways of

communicating in in Basecamp you can

communicate yeah you can comment on I

should say want to do is you can comment

on posts documents you can pretty much

comment on absolutely everything and

again when you comment in fact I'm gonna

go through and show you in this

membership site in fact let me go to

this let me go to this so this is a post

that I made and it's one of the videos

posted and I post all my videos in my

membership site but people basically

then commented about that video about

the content of that video so again if

this was a project and information

relating to the project everyone has

access to and whoever has access to that

project can see everything and all the

comments underneath it and they can also

comment as well so that's the best part

of the the calming of communication in

your business because you're not again

disturbing other people with

notifications and trying to figure out

what's going on these chat apps the

problem with them is that you probably

get bunch of notifications you can turn

them off that's fine but you go back in

and you see the notifications of what's

happened beforehand now a lot of these

chat apps don't have threading so

there's no real context as to what's

going on and even if they did have

threading sometimes you lose the order

of the conversation because I don't

think these chaps are great for actually

hashing out long-form information it's

very quick kind of you know can you give

me the hash color for this for this logo

whatever okay that's stuff you can get

but again even that small question is

actually annoying the designer because

the designers probably have has this

file somewhere in Google Drive or Docs

or whatever but just doesn't know where

it is whereas if you have it all if you

have it all in one place whoever needs

that color that hash color can actually

go to that project and find all the

files and all the communication to do

with that project so all the

communication is actually all in one

place now

they're going back to base camp now this

is communication in long form and

obviously in I've called it the hub and

this is kind of like the what do you

call it the message board effectively

but you all

so have I'm going to create a very quick

project because I'm just gonna die let's

call it website design and you have

different features different tool sets

per base camp okay

now you have six tools now message board

which we just spoke about to do is Doc's

etc they all make sense campfire is

basically your slack replacement

and when I say slack replacement I don't

think campfire should be used that often

for any kind of communication your long

form of communication kind of thing it

could be that quick oh where did you put

this thing type a question but it

shouldn't be for communicating about the

project so other people could see

because I mean other people can

obviously see campfire but it's

literally it's hard to explain it but

basically it's quick quick hashing out

things and if it's gonna turn into a

conversation then you would basically

make a thread about it so other people

can communicate about that about that

subject in that thread I'll leave it

there the other part of the

communication thing actually is the

check-ins now we all know I mean I've

always forget Basecamp and forget that

the times I've worked in this kind of

space when I worked in a bank in I was a

state agent and so on we constantly had

meetings and I hated meetings I don't

think anything gets done in meetings and

this is back then this is like 25 years

ago showing my age maybe even longer

than that 25 35 years ago or something

like that I worked in a bank and I've

been an estate agent having meetings

hated it and I couldn't stand why people

are having so many meetings and nothing

got done you're wasting everyone's time

being in that meeting so automatic

check-ins which is I think a unique

feature this is fantastic when I'm

working with my coaching clients I use

this a lot

because then I can routinely ask my

coaching clients specific questions

relating to me coaching them and they

reply to me and and it's a rect ongoing

regular thing and automatic check-ins

actually negates the fact of having

meetings because if you're asking

questions all the time people reply then

again people go to the Basecamp and

actually find all that information so

you can create whatever questions you

want you can actually set the times that

you want let me just click here you can

actually set the times and when you want

people to be notified and and actually

ask this question so again it's another

form of communication but it's done

automatically so basically everyone

comes and puts it into one place and

again it's transparent so the whole team

actually sees exactly what's going on

so again calming your workspace the

reasons notifications the activity so

you actually know what's happening and

the different types of communication

I've only touched on these things

obviously I'll probably go into them a

bit more in depth if you want me to but

these three things are quite unique in

the way they work with Basecamp and they

work very very well and it's such a

calming way to work because then you are

not distracted because of notifications

you are not disturbed by your colleagues

asking you specific questions and if you

need any information about specific

projects you can actually just go

directly to that project and basically

have everything at your fingertips

anyway it's a bit of a long episode this

one hope you enjoyed it if you have any

questions please please do put them down

below or send me a message through my

website and tomorrow I'll be doing

another video about Basecamp and

hopefully I will see you then have a

great day and I'll see you then shouts

bye-bye

Basecamp: The Reasons

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