Category Archives: Productivity

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Episode #064: Multiply Your Time by Procrastinating on Purpose with Rory Vaden

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Rory VadenToday my guest is Rory Vaden, New York Times bestselling author of Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success.

His new book is Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time.

Unlike most productivity books, this one is not based around tips and tricks, tools and technology, or calendars and checklists.

For example, you will not read techniques like: create a schedule every week, determine your priorities, take a break every few minutes, do the hardest thing first, turn off your email while you are working on your computer, or any of the other “tired” techniques that nearly every article or book on “time-management” refer to.

Instead, you will read about the fascinating dynamics of how human emotions such as guilt, fear, pressure, and worry drive our decisions of how to spend our time each day. Most of all, you’ll learn how to manage those emotions to make different decisions about how to use your time. This book isn’t about what to do with your time; it’s about how to think differently about time.

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Episode #063: Read More in Less Time: My 5 Favorite Reading Apps

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Umano LogoEver feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to read as much as you’d like?

Chances are, it’s one of the reasons you listen to a podcast like this one.

It’s not just about reading more in less time, mind you. It’s also about smartly leveraging what might otherwise be wasted down time.

Today’s episode focuses on some of my favorite apps for doing both.

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Episode #057: Improve Your Focus, Boost Your Energy and Make the Most of Your Time with Erik Fisher

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Erik FisherTo say today’s guest and I have a lot in common would probably be an understatement.

Erik Fisher is a podcaster (check), speaker (check) and coach (check). In the past year, he has added Productivity Author to his list of accolades (maybe author will be something I too can add one day).

Erik’s speaking gigs include Podcast Movement (August 2014), a conference I was also fortunate to speak at, as well as this October’s Social Media Success Summit and 2015’s Social Media Marketing World.

And, Erik became an author last fall with the release of the first in a three part series on goals called Ready Aim Fire!: A Practical Guide To Setting And Achieving Goals (Beyond The To Do List Book 1).

This year, Erik and co-author Jim Woods, have followed it up with the release of Hit The Mark!: Improve Your Focus Boost Your Energy Make the Most of Your Time (Beyond The To Do List Book 2).

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Episode #052: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less with Essentialism author Greg McKeown

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Greg McKeownToday, I have the pleasure of bringing you one of my new favorite books.

In fact, the author collaborated with Liz Wiseman several years ago on one of my top five favorite books of the last five years. I’m talking of course about Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.

As the inside front cover of the books states, Essentialism is more than a time-management strategy or a productivity technique. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution toward ht things that really matter.

Essentialism is not about one more thing. Instead, it’s a whole new way of doing everything. It’s about doing less, but better, in every area of our lives.

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Episode #033: Chris Ducker, Author, Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business

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Chris DuckerUntil I met Chris Ducker, author of the new book Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business and a widely-recognized Virtual Staff expert, I hadn’t thought about hiring a virtual assistant for myself.

It was then that Chris pointed out that, not only had I thought about it, but I had already utilized a virtual assistant more than once. Wait! What?!

He was right. While not what I traditionally think of as a virtual assistant, I had indeed hired virtual help through 99Designs to create the logo for the Read to Lead Podcast. Once I realized this, the idea of of hiring a virtual assistant – something that felt intimating in the past – now seemed like a no-brainer. Call it my “Duh” moment.

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Hiring a designer through 99Designs, as I did back in June of last year, was an enormously pleasant experience. Not only that, but I saw so many more options and designs than I would have had a gone a more traditional route. Could hiring virtual staff be right for you and your business? Only you can answer that. I’d be willing to bet though that the answer is yes.

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