Podcast 005 - Tools

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.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Cheatsheet - App to help me to learn the shortcut key combinations for the applications that I use.

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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.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 004 - News feeds

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.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Feedly -App I use to subscribe to RSS feeds
• IFTTT -Web service that I use to integrate Feedly with Instapaper
• Instapaper -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.

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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.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 003 - Email and tasks

In this episode I give an overview of how I currently handle my email and keep track of all the things I need to do. I also talk about a few ideas that have come out of recent conversations about minimalist, as well as an update on some improvements I've made towards being more intentional and productive at work.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Momentum - App for tracking daily progress on important tasks

• Trello - The web app I use for managing my work 

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You can subscribe to The Effective Minimalist through iTunes 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.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

Podcast 002 - Origins

In this episode I talk about the events and situations, both at home and at work, that led me to adopting a minimalist approach to life.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Minimalists: Let’s Play a Minimalism Game - 30-day minimalism challenge
• Twitter: It's not personal - my blog post on decluttering my Twitter feed

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

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The Effective Minimalist isn't yet in iTunes or any of the podcast directories, so if you want to subscribe to it, 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.