In this episode I clarify a point I raised last episode about reducing the scope of my work, and mostly talk about news and some of the reflections and adjustments I've been making to how I seek out, process, and act on news.

The Effective Minimalist

Podcast 018 - The Value of News

In this episode I share some of the challenges I've been having with minimalism and how I've been feeling that my efforts at both minimalism and productivity have plateaued.

Podcast 017 - Plateau

An update on what I've been up to, and why it has been so long since I put out an episode.

Podcast 016 - Return

In this episode I share my ideas about how I plan on organizing my work so that I can stay focused on my priorities and ensure that I have enough space and time to do good work.

Podcast 015 - My ideal week

After roughly a month hiatus, I decided it was time to put out a new if short episode to give an update on the reason for my absence and to renew my commitment to putting out this podcast on a regular basis.The title of this episode refers to the fact that after a month or two of being in crunch mode to get a major project out the door, I’m finding myself having to rework and rebuild the habits I had been working on to minimize the clutter in my life so that I focus on what matters. I’ve decided to see the last two months not as a failure or as a set back but rather as a learning opportunity, one that has helped me to identify the shortcomings in my systems. Over the coming weeks I’ll be putting things back in place and sharing my experiences in future episodes.Thanks for listening! ⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 014 - Starting over

In this episode I share a few updates about work, explain why there was no episode last week, and explore some of the insights I've had about how minimalism can be applied to my work.⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 013 - Update

In this episode I talk about some of the challenges I’ve been facing at work that have left me feeling overwhelmed much of the time. I’ve also been thinking what I said about purpose in the last episode, and share some of the doubts I’ve been having as a result.⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 012 - Reflections and second thoughts

In this episode I talk about purpose, about how having a sense of purpose relates to minimalism. I share some of what I've been going through as I struggle with finding my own sense of purpose at work. I explore the role of purpose in helping me to work towards tenure, my use of minimalism to try to get things back on track, and the role that I feel purpose and minimalism will play in helping me to move forward with my work from here.⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, connect with me on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 011 - Purpose

In this episode I talk about how although we likely see each ourselves as part of the solution, each one of us might in fact be part of the problem. I think this is a topic that I'll be coming back to every once in a while, because while self-improvement is a laudable goal, it shouldn't come at the expense of the people around us. More importantly, the best way to bring about lasting change is to change not only ourselves but the culture of the our workplaces and communities in which we live.⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com, or connect with me over on Twitter (@edbilodeau)⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 010 - Am I part of the problem?

In this episode I continue the discussion on minimalism at work, focusing on the pushback that you are likely to get when you try to adopt a minimalist approach. I want to share some of the questions and ideas that I've be thinking about as I try to understand where this pushback is coming from and what I can do to deal with it.⁂To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com, or connect with me over on Twitter (@edbilodeau)⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 009 - Pushback

In this episode I take a step back and share some of the issues and questions that have come up as I've been reviewing the past few episodes. I talk about some course corrections that I need to make and why I do believe that what I'm trying to do can be called minimalism. I also start to unpack the topic of privilege as it relates to having the power or agency to be able to make decisions required by minimalism, specifically at work.⁂You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes or Stitcher, or you can right-click and copy URL for the show's RSS feed and paste it into the subscribe function of your favorite podcasting app.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below or or send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 008 - Minimalism and privilege

In this episode I talk about taking a minimalist approach to my commitments, to "declutter" the things I've currently committed to and to make sure that going forward I'm spending as much of my time as possible  making a real impact on the things that matter.I also provide a short update on where I'm at in terms of improving my email and task management, and what my next major area for improvement is.⁂Mentioned in this episode:The Macs Apple was selling in 1996 ⁂You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes or Stitcher, or you can right-click and copy URL for the show's RSS feed and paste it into the subscribe function of your favorite podcasting app.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below or or send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 007 - Commitments

In this episode I talk about using minimalism to reduce the amount of time and energy I spend on so-called overhead activities at work, so that I can focus on the things that matter to me and to my organization.I also provide a short update on my (lack of) progress in making improvements over the past week, and how I plan on addressing that.⁂You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes or Stitcher, or you can right-click and copy URL for the show's RSS feed and paste it into the subscribe function of your favorite podcasting app.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below or or send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 006 - Overhead

In this episode I discuss how I’m applying the concepts and approaches of minimalism to improve my efficiency and effectiveness with the various applications that I use to carry out my work.I also give an update on my efforts to improve my effectiveness, which in the past week has had me focusing on trying to fix performance issues with my laptop. Here again, I’m turning to minimalism to help guide my efforts, and the results so far have been positive.⁂Mentioned in this episode:Cheatsheet - App to help me to learn the shortcut key combinations for the applications that I use.⁂You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes or Stitcher, or you can right-click and copy URL for the show's RSS feed and paste it into the subscribe function of your favorite podcasting app.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below or or send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 005 - Tools

In this episode I wrap up my overview of the tools I use at work and describe how I currently use Feedly (news reader), Instapaper (reading), and IFTTT (integration) to keep of track of news and developments in areas that are important to me.The purpose of these overviews (see Episode 3 for a discussion how I manage email and tasks) was to describe how I handle some of the key areas to my work so that going forward you will have some context when I talk about how I need and am trying to become more effective in these areas.What that done, I think we can expect the coming episodes to get back to talking about the practices of minimalism and how I am trying to use them to improve my life.⁂Mentioned in this episode:Feedly -App I use to subscribe to RSS feedsIFTTT -Web service that I use to integrate Feedly with InstapaperInstapaper -App I use for reading blog posts and other content that I've flagged in Feedly or come across elsewhere on social media or on the web.⁂You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes or Stitcher, or you can right-click and copy URL for the show's RSS feed and paste it into the subscribe function of your favorite podcasting app.If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below or or send me an email at edward.bilodeau@gmail.com.⁂Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 004 - News feeds

The Effective Minimalist is a podcast on working towards and living a good life. In each episode, I share my experiences, questions and ideas as I try to apply the concepts and approaches of minimalism to my life, to get rid of the clutter and make space and time for the things that truly matter.

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The Effective Minimalist

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