The Paul Minors Podcast: Productivity, Business & Self-Improvement

A lot of task management tools give you the option to assign high, medium or low priority status to a task. Personally, I find this pointless and I’ve never liked assigning a priority to a task. In this episode, I explain why.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/210

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

On my recent episode of Minor Updates, I shared that I’ve now hired my friend Warwick as a full-time contractor within my business. I’ve been working as a solo-operator since I started my business in 2015 so this is a pretty significant change to how I work. Many of the people who follow my work are freelancers or consultants, like me. So I decided to share how I went about making this decision in case you’ve ever considered doing something similar.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/209

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

I was recently contacted by the author, Adii Pienaar, wanting to share his new book all about 'life profitability'. As someone who prioritises building a business that supports the lifestyle you want, this concept of 'life profitability' really got my attention!

Adii mentioned that he'd been in contact with one of my online business heroes, Paul Jarvis. You might remember that I interviewed Paul on the podcast all about his book 'Company of One' and building a business that doesn't prioritise growth. This was all the convincing I needed so I decided to get Adii on the podcast to chat about his ideas!

Adii is a family man, entrepreneur, writer, runner and wine-drinker from Cape Town, South Africa. He was the co-founder of WooCommerce which he sold to Automattic in 2013. He then co-founded the conversion rate optimisation agency, Conversio, which he later sold to Campaign Monitor in 2019. And now he's working on an email marketing platform, CM Commerce.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/208

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

Welcome to episode 3 of Minor Updates. In this video, I share some updates on what I've been up to in the first quarter of 2021. Enjoy!

Linked and resources mentioned in this video

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/207

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

Email continues to be one of the main time-sucks for the average knowledge worker. Every morning I’m greeted by about 20-30 new messages. This is a lot less than some people and I still have to schedule time each morning to process my inbox.

In the past, I’ve shared some tips on how to save time on email. In this week’s post, I’d like to drill down into one point in particular, how to get less email.

Because if you can reduce the volume of email coming in, this makes processing your inbox a lot quicker.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/206

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

Tell me if this sounds familiar – When you plan your time, do you ever over-commit and run out of time to do your work? Especially when it comes to doing deep work that generates results but requires real focus. It’s so easy to say, “I’m going to spend the day working on X” only to get bogged down with other admin tasks and distractions.

I’ve been caught out by this more than a few times…

It’s easy to start your week with good intentions to be proactive and do meaningful work. But often we get pulled into a more reactive mode as urgent tasks and last-minute stuff comes up.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/205

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

About 6 months ago I started ‘Floating’ on a regular basis. Floating is where you lie in a tank of warm, salty water in pitch dark and absolute silence. The high-density of the saline solution makes you feel weightless and the absence of light and sound eliminates all distractions. This is known as ‘sensory deprivation’.

What’s the point in all this?

When you eliminate all senses this supports deep relaxation, stress relief, and even creative thinking.

I did my first float a number of years ago just to give it a try really. But lately, I’ve been floating once a month and have come to really enjoy the benefits.

In this episode, I’d like to share my experience with floating and if you’ve never tried it before, I’d highly recommend treating yourself to at least one session to see if it’s something you can benefit from.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » paulminors.com/204

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

It seems like every day there’s a new tool coming out that supposedly helps you to get more done and be more efficient. And if we’re not careful, shiny object syndrome tempts us to try these new tools because we feel like that’s the answer to better productivity. In reality, the tools we use really aren’t as important as the principles and HOW we actually use the tool.

That said, whenever I’m tempted by a new tool or app, I think through the decision very carefully.

Recently I was tempted to sign up for Basecamp’s new email service [Hey]. And this got me thinking about the process of signing up to a new tool and how I go about making the decision. Basically, I conduct a simple cost/benefit analysis to determine whether the effort of switching is worth the hassle. Here are some of the things I think about...

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/203

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message

We all know about the importance of quality over quantity. And what I find interesting is to think about what you prefer (quantity or quality) as it relates to different areas of your life.

We often assume that quality is the better alternative. But this doesn't always have to be the case. The key is to be aware of what type of person you are and be proactive about making the right choice for you. And if you find yourself quite far to one end of the spectrum to ask yourself what it would be life to go the other way. And a bit life efficient and effectiveness, often we need a balance between the two.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/202

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

If you want to be more productive, it’s pretty simple… A lot of books, courses and other resources show you how to build these elaborate systems that help you to be more organised, prioritise your work and plan your time. The reality is, if you want to get more done, it’s quite simple…

You need to be disciplined and show up to do important work that matters. That’s it.

Show notes (please leave me a comment with your questions and feedback) » https://paulminors.com/201

If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love it if you could leave me a review.

Intro/Outro Music: "Synthia" by Scott & Brendo

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paulminors/message