In today’s personal productivity episode, Joel Lindstrom and Matthew C. Anderson discuss lifelong learning, and why you should be self-taught.

Joel’s five tips for learning a subject:

1. Read a variety of types of literature

2. Make connections

3. Read books that are 5-10+ years old

4. Make a list (maybe)

5. Set a deadline

Sometimes input from others is necessary before you can complete a task, and if those people aren’t responsive, it can become a roadblock to your productivity. In today’s episode, we discuss how you can get more control over these tasks by strategically predefining outcomes.

Joel shares an Outlook productivity tip about quickly archiving emails, and we also discuss habit stacking–grouping things you have to do with things you like to do to motivate yourself to do the things that you need to do.

When you are writing, blogging, podcasting, or some other creative endeavor, one of the most difficult things can be coming up with ideas for content and translating those ideas to a presentation or article. In today’s episode, Matthew Anderson and Joel Lindstrom discuss techniques that they use to create content.

Topics discussed:

Finding ideas from your life experiences

Overcoming common fears

Self-imposed deadlines

Minimum level of proficiency

Stages of competence

A few episodes ago we discussed personal mission statements. In this episode, Matthew Anderson talks about his personal mission statement and techniques he found to get to the why.

In this episode:

Frying turkeys

Personal mission statements revisited

Essentialism

"Personal philosophy" vs. "mission statement"

How do values fit in with mission statement?

Detect vs. invent

Bland and concrete mission statement

Leaving room for new experiences in your concrete mission statement

In this week’s ProdCast (brought to you by KingswaySoft), Marius Agur Lind (The CRM Viking) joins us to talk the challenges of balancing work, family and still finding time to give back to others through community contributions.

Topics discussed in this episode of ProdCast:

Evernote

Digital Wellness controls in IOS and Android

Update on goals

Deep Work

4DX

Reading challenging books

In this episode (brought to you by Maplytics by Inogic) Matthew and Joel follow up the recent episode about attending conferences and look at productivity as a conference presenter:

Finding a topic for your presentation

Preparing the content for your presentation

PowerPoint tips

Presentation delivery tips

We also follow up on our recent episode about reading nonfiction with a discussion of why you should read fiction, and how reading fiction is different than reading nonfiction.

In this episode (brought to you by KingswaySoft), we revisit The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and talk about how relevant it is today. Much productivity advice focuses on making your production more efficient but ignores the production capacity.

P/PC balance

Seeking to understand, then be understood

Sharpening the saw--in what areas are we doing well, what do we need to focus on more

How does P/PC balance apply to people working with Dynamics 365?

Personal mission statements

n today’s productivity episode we talk about productivity at conferences–how to pick your sessions, build relationships, balance work responsibilities while at the conference, and how to pace yourself.

Other topics discussed:

Windows timeline support for Chrome and Firefox 

Improvements in Edge browser

Turning Kindle Fire into a full Android tablet 

The productivity of wearable technology

In this episode of ProdCast (brought to you by KingswaySoft), Matthew and Joel talk about how focused intensity can help you accomplish more, and why you should sweat the small stuff.

Joel talks about his experience after a month on Android, subtle features that are great, and some areas where IOS is more polished.

Also discussed–productivity tools, including Windows 10 cloud clipboard sync.