The Productivityist Podcast: Ideas And Tools For Personal Productivity | Time Management | Goals | Habits | Working Better

This week on the show I'm joined by Ari Meisel of Leverage. We talk about what task management app Ari uses (the answer will surprise you), the art of optimization, automation, and outsourcing, and more tips and tricks you can use to help you make more great things happen by doing less. Relevant Links Leverage | Ari Meisel Evernote FollowUp.cc Slack IFTTT Zapier Blue Blocking Sunglasses | Amazon A Complimentary Less Doing Coaching Call Cylon Compendium Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. Also don't forget to check out all of our podcast sponsors found on our podcast sponsors page. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. And if you want to have easy access to the archives of the show and ensure you don't miss the new episodes to come then subscribe to the podcast in the

In this episode of The Productivityist Podcast, I speak with Dr. Loretta Breuning from the Inner Mammal Institute. We talk about how you can retrain your brain, including some tactics and tips so that you can start building a happier and healthier brain. We dive into how to build new neural circuits, discuss the four chemicals that affect our behaviour, and how to tap into the animal inside of you so that you can embrace your “inner mammal” and craft more positive experiences. Relevant Links: Blinkist Habits Of A Happy Brain: Retrain Your Brain to Boost Your Serotonin, Dopamine, Oxytocin, & Endorphin Levels by Loretta Graziano Breuning PhD | Amazon The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor | Amazon The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin | Amazon The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in

This episode features a discussion with Jared Brown of Hubstaff. Jared and I talk about what you need to do in order to make bringing people on to work with you a more beneficial experience for everyone involved. As someone who is growing a team (slowly, but surely) I wanted to get some solid advice from an expert, and Jared certainly fits the bill. Besides offering his own insights, he also discusses some ideas that come from other sources that you can use to build a better team. Relevant Links The Productivityist Podcast 53 | Making Teamwork Work with Sebastian Klein of Blinkist Jing by TechSmith Asian Efficiency Zoom.us ChrisDucker.com Best Advice I Ever Got: Run Like It’s a Sprint But Pace Yourself for a Marathon | Inc.com The Right Way to Fire Someone | Entrepreneur Eventual Millionaire | Jaime Masters The Hubstaff Blog Remote.co Journey to $500k a Month | Groove Blog How to organize the daily chaos of running a startup | Baremetrics Due | iOS Hubstaff Jared Brown (@jaredbrown) | Twitter

On this episode of the podcast, I talk with Tony Stubblebine of Coach.me. We talk about the power of coaching, what it takes to be a coach, and several areas that people could really use coaching in so that they can take their work (and their lives) to the next level.   Relevant Links Coach.me | Instant Coaching for Any Goal Workflowing #129: Get A Lift with Tony Stubblebine Balance Schmalance | Productivityist The Priority |Productivityist Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High | Amazon Coach.me for Business Tony Stubblebine (@tonystubblebine) | Twitter Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. Also don't forget to check out all of our podcast sponsors found on our podcast sponsors page. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. And if you want to have easy

Smartsheet has been a player in the task management and project management space for a long time, and on this episode of the podcast Mike speaks with Brent Frei, the founder and VP of Marketing at Smartsheet. They talk about the present (and future) state of productivity, the subject of email, and why a smarter spreadsheet may very well be the best tool you can use to help you get things done. Related Links Brent Frei | Smartsheet Corwin Hiebert | Managing Creative People + Creative Projects Smartsheet Wins First Place for “Best Microsoft Office 365 App” Smartsheet.com Brent Frei (@B_Frei) | Twitter Brent Frei | LinkedIn Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. Also don't forget to check out all of our podcast sponsors found on our podcast sponsors page. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listene

This episode features a lengthy discussion with the host of The Productive Woman – and a productive woman in her own right – Laura McClellan. We chat about the possible differences that women and men approach productivity as well, productivity tactics to explore, and how she manages to deal with everything in her life. (And there's a lot for her to manage!)   Related Links The Productive Woman | A Podcast About Productivity for Busy Women Laura Vanderkam (@lvanderkam) | Twitter Gina Trapani | The Official Web Site Business & Babies: A Chat with Izabela Russell | TPW051 - The Productive Woman Choices for Productive Women, with Allison Sheridan | TPW029 - The Productive Woman Nozbe How To Use Multiple Task Managers | Productivityist Book Review: Essentialism | Productivityist I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short | Amazon Making Space to Think | TPW055 - The Productive Woman My Custom Home Office Tour and Setup | Pat Flynn on SPI TV Ep. 2 2 Experts Share Exactly How to Us

In this week's episode of the podcast, I chat with Todd Henry, author of the new book Louder Than Words: Harness The Power of Your Authentic Voice. We discuss the importance of delivering your work and how your voice plays a huge role in that and also talk about our favourite football team, the Cincinnati Bengals. Links Discussed Louder than Words: Harness the Power of Your Authentic Voice by Todd Henry | Amazon Inside The Jungle Podcast | Patreon Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day by Todd Henry | Amazon Workflowing #86: Will You Die Empty with Todd Henry The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice by Todd Henry | Amazon DJ ZTrip's Twitter Exchange About Die Empty Study Hacks - Decoding Patterns of Success | Cal Newport How to Deliver a "Do Over" with Jon Acuff | The Productivityist Podcast In 1967, Jimi Hendrix Opened for The Monkees | Mental Floss Todd Henry.com Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice

Being productive on your own can be a challenge with everything we face today but being productive as a team can be even more daunting – especially when they are spread out across the globe. On this episode of the podcast, I chat with Sebastian Klein of Blinkist about how his team has adopted (and adapted) Holacracy as a productivity approach to make teamwork, well, work. Links Sebastian Klein (@kl1eb) | Twitter Holacracy – A complete system for self-organization Free e-Book on Holacracy: Blinkracy A Look At Meetings | The Productivityist Podcast Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. Also don't forget to check out all of our podcast sponsors found on our podcast sponsors page. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. And if you want to have easy access to the archives of the s

Want to learn more about what makes Evernote tick? In this episode of The Productivityist Podcast, I have an in-depth conversation with Andrew Sinkov, Vice President of Marketing and Brand at Evernote. We talk about where Evernote has been, where it’s headed, and we even dive into some of the decisions the company has made (and the markets it has entered) over the years. Links How Tim Ferriss used Evernote to write The 4-Hour Body | Evernote Blog How I Use Evernote for Beer Cellaring | Productivityist The Night Owl Action Plan | Mike Vardy Evernote And The 100 Year Business Plan: Why Users Love It And Funders Hated It | Forbes andrew sinkov (@sinkov) | Twitter Want to discover some of the books mentioned on the podcast? Check out Scribd, my reading app of choice. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a rating and/or review wherever you listened to the episode. Also don't forget to check out all of our podcast sponsors found on our podcast sponsors page. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a ra

In this episode of the podcast, producer John Poelstra and host Mike Vardy continue to talk to those attending Podcast Movement 2015 in Fort Worth, Texas. They speak with Srinivas Rao (The Unmistakable Creative), Erik Fisher (Beyond The To Do List), Vickie Velasquez (Productivity Power Up Podcast), Julia Tunstall (A Bar Above & Effortless Workflow), and more. Relevant Links https://unmistakablecreative.com/ (Unmistakable Creative | Candid Conversation with Creative Entrepreneurs) https://twitter.com/unmistakableceo (Srinivas Rao (@UnmistakableCEO) | Twitter) http://www.abarabove.com/ (A Bar Above) http://effortlessworkflow.com/ (Effortless Workflow) https://twitter.com/jctunstall (Julia Tunstall (@jctunstall) | Twitter) http://beyondthetodolist.com/ (Beyond the To Do List) https://twitter.com/erikjfisher (Erik Fisher (@ErikJFisher) | Twitter) http://www.productivitypowerup.com/ (Productivity Power Up | Taking Your Productivity to the Next Level) https://twitter.com/vickstreme (Vickie Velasquez (@vickstrem

This bonus episode of the podcast features a discussion between myself and newly-minted producer John Poelstra as he asks me about what I do to make my time at conferences productive. Then I spend some time with Jaime Tardy of Eventual Millionaire and Russel Lolacher from The Upsell to talk about workflows and how they leverage their time in order to make the most of events like the one we were at...Podcast Movement 2015. Relevant Links http://podcastmovement.com/ (Podcast Movement 2015) http://romanmars.com/ (Roman Mars | Makes Radio) https://twitter.com/johnpoelstra (John Poelstra (@johnpoelstra) | Twitter) http://www.miramax.com/movie/comedian/ (Comedian | Official Site) http://mymorningroutine.com/mike-vardy/ (Mike Vardy’s Morning Routine | My Morning Routine) http://productivityist.com/theres-nothing-wrong-with-being-a-night-owl/ (There's Nothing Wrong with Being a Night Owl | Productivityist) http://www.neuyear.net/products/the-now-year (NeuYear.net | THE NOW YEAR CALENDAR from Productivityist) http://p

In this episode, Mike chats with Jared Brock, a gentleman who has lived a multi-faceted, intentional, and international life. Jared runs a charity to fight human trafficking with his wife, completed a 37,000-mile pilgrimage around the world - where he even gained an audience with Pope Francis. He and his wife also took the 100 Things challenge and now they live carbon neutral in a 1975 Airstream trailer in a forest, they don't own cell phones, and get by on just the essentials. Jared is an interesting guy and I'm sure you'll enjoy the conversation he had with Mike on this episode. Relevant Links http://amzn.to/1Io70Ol (A Year of Living Prayerfully by Jared Brock) http://hopeforthesold.com/ (Hope for the Sold –) http://redlightgreenlightfilm.com/ (Red Light Green Light) http://jaredbrock.com/start/ (Welcome to Living Prayerfully!) Want to send Mike an app, book, or something similar to discuss on the show? Email Productivityist at info@productivityist.com and we'll give it a look. Want to listen on Stitcher? h

In this episode, Mike and podcast editor John Poelstra chat with those who were gearing up for The World Domination Summit while at The Productivityist Enthusiasts' Meetup in Portland, Oregon. A bevy of guests pop by on this longer-than-usual episode, and they talk productivity and much more! (Note: Fair warning...by the time Mike asked the questions, he had imbibed a little bit. So he was in "Social Mode".) Relevant Links http://worlddominationsummit.com/ (World Domination Summit) http://www.asianefficiency.com/ (Asian Efficiency) http://heykendra.com/about/ (Hey Kendra) http://pdxgreendragon.com/ (Green Dragon Bistro & Pub) http://johnpoelstra.com/ (John Poelstra | Making sense of things and making them better) http://www.digitalphotomentor.com/ (Darlene Hildebrandt | Digital Photo Mentor) http://simplifilm.com/ (Simplifilm) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-ghGzIAuhw (Did It In Minutes: The Art of Documenting Meeting Notes | YouTube) https://twitter.com/stephenwarley (Stephen Warley (@stephenwarley) |

In this episode Mike tackles distractions. He discusses what he believes is the difference between distractions, disruptions, and diversion (and how to defend yourself against them through awareness and measurable prevention). He also talks with Saent co-founder Tim Metz about the new device that he and his team are building that is designed to help you win the battle against distractions. Relevant Links http://www.loopinsight.com/2015/06/16/apple-watch-my-most-personal-review-ever/ (Apple Watch: My most personal review ever | The Loop) http://kaptureaudio.com/ (Kapture | The Audio Recording Wristband Device) https://fizzle.co/sparkline/2-experts-share-exactly-how-to-use-a-productivity-journal-increase-productivity-by-23-fs099 (2 Experts Share Exactly How to Use a Productivity Journal (& Increase Productivity by 23%) | The Fizzle Show 099) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/saent-be-less-distracted#/story (Saent - Be less distracted | Indiegogo) https://productivityist.simplecast.fm/30 (Getting Things Don

In this episode, Mike spends some time this episode chatting with Jonathan Pearson, who aptly describes himself as "a millennial determined to leave the world in better shape than he found it". They talk about different productivity methods both of them use (and have used), the tools of the trade, his book The Productive Pastor Handbook, and much more. Relevant Links http://productivityist.com/need-take-personal-productivity-personally/ (Why You Need To Take Personal Productivity Personally | Productivityist) http://productivityist.com/category/blog/todoist-collection/ (The Todoist Collection | Productivityist) https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/02/15/use-email-reminders-power-productivity/ (How to Use Email and Reminders to Power Productivity | Evernote Blog) http://jonathanpearson.net/2014/02/26/4-things-ive-learned-from-t25-workouts/ (4 Things I’ve Learned From T25 Workouts | Jonathan Pearson) http://fitstar.com/ (FitStar) https://ifttt.com/recipes/299921-calendar-to-todoist (Calendar to ToDoist Recipe by

This episode features a discussion between Mike and Grant Baldwin. Grant is an accomplished speaker (so much so that he teaches others to become better speakers) and many of his weeks are more dynamic than what most people experience. Mike asks Grant how he organizes his week, how he deals with a hectic travel schedule, and how each speaking gig brings something different (read: challenging) to the table. Relevant Links http://www.grantbaldwin.com/ (Giving You Confidence To Find Work You Love | Grant Baldwin) http://www.grantbaldwin.com/podcasts/ (HOW DID YOU GET INTO THAT | Grant Baldwin) http://www.grantbaldwin.com/how-i-organize-my-week/ (How I Organize My Week To Get A Lot Done | Grant Baldwin) http://productivityist.com/gap-days/ (Gap Days | Productivityist) http://greghickman.me/be-productive-airplane-mode/ (Want to be productive? Get on a plane | Greg Hickman) http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/start-your-week-on-sunday.html (Get the Most Out of Your Week by Starting it on Sunday | Lifehack)

This episode features an invigorating discussion between Mike and Ben Elijah. Ben is the author of "The Productivity Habits" and blogs over at Ink and Ben. They talk about how they look at productivity in general. But they didn't stop there. They also spent time conversing about importance, mode-based work, and even John Cleese's famous talk on creativity. Relevant Links http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1907794832/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1907794832&linkCode=as2&tag=vardyme-20&linkId=TKGIYGDRQPA3JBPP (The Productivity Habits: A Simple Framework to Become More Productive | Ben Elijah) http://www.inkandben.com/#about (Ink and Ben | Ben Elijah) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804137382/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0804137382&linkCode=as2&tag=vardyme-20&linkId=A676FJ6TC7HDKBBA (Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less | Greg McKeown) https://gumroad.com/l/beyondproductiv

In this episode, Mike talks with Taylor Pearson, the author of "The End of Jobs" (due out in late June 2015). They discuss the process Taylor used to write the book – including drawing inspiration from Paul Graham's work – as well as what "the end of jobs" can mean for you...if you're willing to shift your mindset. Relevant Links http://taylorpearson.me/the-end-of-jobs (The End of Jobs | Taylor Pearson) http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html (Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule | Paul Graham) https://productivityist.simplecast.fm/36 (Efficient Writing with Jim Woods | The Productivityist Podcast) http://fourhourworkweek.com/2011/03/15/copyeditors/ (So, You Want to Be a Writer? Read This First. | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss) http://lcmike.jarono.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=podcast43/ (Learn Scrivener Fast | Joseph Michael) https://productivityist.simplecast.fm/33 (How to Deliver a "Do Over" with Jon Acuff | The Productivityist Podcast) https://rollercoasterbook.success.com/ (The Entrepreneur Roller Coast

In this discussion, Mike Vardy and Sir Joh Hargrave (author of the forthcoming book "Mind Hacking") talk about how to "hack the mind" in order to optimize productivity and what approaches you can take to start changing the way you operate today. Sir John Hargrave and Mike Vardy have a lot in common. They both like to inject humour into their work and are both fascinated with how they can change the way they operate in order to improve productivity (and their lives in the process). Relevant Links http://www.mindhacki.ng/ (Mind Hacking by Sir John Hargrave | Ebook) http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Hacking-Change-Your-Good/dp/1501105655 (Mind Hacking by Sir John Hargrave | Amazon) https://www.coach.me/plans/403192-mind-hacking-21-day-plan (Mind Hacking 21-Day Plan - Coach.me) https://twitter.com/sirjohnhargrave (Sir John Hargrave (@sirjohnhargrave) - Twitter) Want to send Mike an app, book, or something similar to discuss on the show? Email Productivityist at info@productivityist.com and we'll give it a look. Want to

Omar Zenhom is one half of the team that created The $100 MBA Show and Webinar Ninja. He's spent a lot of time defining and refining what he delivers and recently rebooted what Webinar Ninja was and created a vastly different iteration as a result. In this episode, Mike and Omar speak on the art of iteration, and how evolution and awareness are two of the biggest keys to reaching your potential. (And they also talk about they use the calendar.) Relevant Links http://100mba.net/show/ (The $100 MBA Show) http://100mba.net/mba234/ (The $100 MBA Show: How to Manage Your Calendar) http://100mba.net/mba241/ (The $100 MBA Show: Traditional Book Publishing VS Self-Publishing. Which One is Best?) http://webinarninja.co/ (Webinar Ninja- The Ultimate Webinar Software) http://100mba.net/ (The $100 MBA Website) https://twitter.com/bizrepublic (Omar Zenhom (@BizRepublic) on Twitter) Want to send Mike an app, book, or something similar to discuss on the show? Email Productivityist at info@productivityist.com and we'll give