Episodes

  • Beyond Project Thinking: How to Get Things Done

    Beyond Project Thinking: How to Get Things Done
    Mar 2 2025
    In this week’s episode, what’s the best way to manage projects? You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The Ultimate Productivity Workshop Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 359 Hello, and welcome to episode 359 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. From time to time, something comes along that sounds great when first described but then turns nasty. In the productivity world, that something is Getting Things Done and in particular the definition of what a project is. This is not the fault of David Allen, Getting Things Done’s author; this is how his description of a project has been horribly misinterpreted. At its essence, Getting Things Done is about categorising your work into contexts. That could be work you can do on your computer or phone. In your office or at home. It is, and never was about “projects”. Projects, at best, are a sideshow. A simple way to organise your work. Nothing more. Yet for some reason, a few early readers misunderstood GTD, wrote about it and now there’s a whole generation of people believing anything that involves two steps or more is a project and must be organised as such. And there, is the source of overwhelm, time wasted to organising stuff instead of doing stuff and huge backlogs of things to do. Before we get to the heart of today’s podcast, it’s important that I clear this misunderstanding up. If you ever bought one the fantastic GTD setup guides that was, and may still be, sold on the GTD website, you will notice that whatever task manager you are using, you set up the lists, folders or projects (depending on which task manager you are using) as contexts. Those contexts usually related to people, places or things. For example, your home, or office. Your computer, printer or car. Or your partner, boss or colleagues. You then dropped any task related to these contexts into its appropriate context. Your projects were organised in a file folder system that you kept in a filing cabinet. Current projects—the things you were working on this week or month—were kept on or near your desk for quick access. In those folders you kept all the details of the project. Notes, documents, outlines, etc. Perhaps you also had a checklist of what needed to happen next. Today, you can use your digital note app for that purpose. The key thing about GTD was it was task context driven—ie, you could only do something if you were in the right place, with the right tool and with the right people. It was never about projects. So, now you have the background, I think it’s time to hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Benjamin. Benjamin asks, How do you best manage projects using your task manager, notes app, and calendar together? Hi Benjamin, thank you for your question. I think the first place to start is to avoid looking for a way to treat any new input as a project. Most things are not. Theoretically, this podcast is a project. I need to choose the question, write the script, set up the studio, record the podcast, edit it, then publish it and hand it over to the my marketing manager for sharing on social media. That’s seven steps. Well within the definition of a GTD project. Yet, if I were to treat each podcast episode as a project, I’d waste hours just organising it. A podcast episode is something I do every week. It’s not a project. It’s just part of my work. Usually, on Thursday I will write the script. That means I go into my list of questions which is in a single note in Evernote, select a question, then begin writing the script. Then on Sunday morning, after my coaching calls have finished, I set up my little studio, and record the podcast. Once recorded, I edit it and then publish it. The only tasks on my task manager are a task on Thursday that reminds me I need to write my script and a task on Sunday that reminds me to record the podcast. Two tasks. That’s it. I don’t need a project folder for any of this. There is one other thing I do that relates to your question, Benjamin. I have a two hour writing block on my calendar on a Thursday for writing the script and a two hour block on Sunday for recording it. So, there in essence you have all three tools working together. I have a single note in my notes app with the title “podcast questions”. That makes it easy to search for. My task ...
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    14 mins
  • Where Are You Spending Your Time?

    Where Are You Spending Your Time?
    Feb 23 2025
    Where are you spending most of your time? Are you planning or doing? That’s what we are looking at this week. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin The Ultimate Productivity Workshop Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 358 Hello, and welcome to episode 358 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Podcaster Chris Williamson has recently caused a bit of a stir in the productivity world with the phrase “the productivity rain dance”. Cal Newport picked this up and it’s something I’ve written and spoken about for many years. If you are obsessing about productivity tools—apps, techniques and systems—you’re not doing the work. You’re doing the productivity rain dance. It’s organising, planning and searching for new tools in the hope that somehow the work will get done. It won’t. And while you are wasting all that time planning, and playing, the work continues to pile up. This week’s question is linked to this in that it’s about tools and organising work and I hope, my answer will help you find the balance between collecting, organising and doing. Before I hand you over to the Mystery Podcast voice for this week’s question, I’d like to mention that the first Ultimate Productivity Workshop of 2025 is coming. On Fridays 14th and 21st March I invite you to spend two hours with me learning how to create a time management and productivity system that’s focused on doing the work so you have time for the things you want time for. In the workshop, we will cover getting control of your calendar and task manager . Then in week two, I will show you some simple techniques to get control of, and more importantly, stay in control of your communications—email, Slack/Teams messages AND the all important daily and weekly planning sessions. Places are limited so, if you would like to develop a personal productivity system that is focused on doing rather than organising and planning, get yourself registered today. The link to register is in the show notes. Okay, back to this episode. Let me now hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Alastair. Alastair asks, hi Carl. I recently came across your work and wonder how you avoid getting caught up in the wonderful world of productivity apps. I never seem to able to stick to anything and I know I am wasting time. Hi Alastair, thank you for sending in your question. I’m not sure you are necessarily wasting time looking for the right tools. If you are at the start of your productivity journey, finding the right tools is inevitable and yes, it can be confusing. There are so many. However, there comes a point when you need to stop and settle down with a set of tools. Those tools are: A calendar, a notes app and a task manager. The good news is the built in tools that comes with your computer will do. You don’t need expensive subscriptions to so called AI enabled tools or collaborative project management tools. What are you trying to do when you decide it’s time to get organised and be “productive”? It’s not about getting more work done. That’s a bit of a misnomer about productivity. It’s about getting the important stuff done and eliminating the less important. Getting your kids up, dressed, fed and ready for school each morning is important at 7:30 am. Checking email and messages is not. There’s a time and place for those messages, but 7:30 am is not the time. The world we live in today has made communication incredible fast and easy. Forty years ago, the only forms of communication were letters and telephone calls. (Although some offices had fax machines too). If you were not next to a telephone, no one could contact you. And if you were not in the office, you didn’t know what surprises were contained in the correspondence waiting for you. It was therefore easier to compartmentalise your days. Today, it’s much more difficult because you can be alerted to problems instantly, and those problems can derail your day very quickly. The challenge therefore is to be able to quickly sift through all the stuff coming at us and to decide what is important and what is not. When things are coming at us all day, they appear loud and urgent. But urgent is not necessarily important. If you have a thousand emails backlogged in your email system and your boss is demanding you send in your ...
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    13 mins
  • Manage Your Time, Not Tasks.

    Manage Your Time, Not Tasks.
    Feb 16 2025
    This week, why managing your time is better than managing tasks. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 357 Hello, and welcome to episode 356 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. There is a scene in the movie Apollo 13 where astronaut Ken Mattingley, played by Gary Sinese, is trying to find a way to power up the Command Service Module to bring the three in danger astronauts through the earth’s atmosphere and safely back to earth. All they had to play with was 16 amps; that’s it. Sixteen amps isn’t enough to boil a kettle. And we’re talking about life support systems and navigation that was critical to bring Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise back to earth safely. In the scene, we see Ken Mattingley testing every switch in every possible combination so they do not exceed 16 amps . It’s painstaking; it takes a lot of time, but eventually, they devise a sequence that the astronauts can use to power up the command service module within the 16-amp limit. We know that Apollo 13 landed, or splashed down, safely to earth after five days. Each day, you, too, are dealing with a similar situation. You have a limited resource—time—and that’s it. You get the same 24 hours every day that everybody else gets. How you use that time is entirely up to you. The problem is you don’t have 24 hours because some critical life support measures require some of that time, including sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, that will have a subsequent effect on your performance that day; you won’t be operating at your most productive. This is one of the reasons why it is crucial to have a plan. No flight ever takes off without a flight plan. They know precisely how much weight they are carrying. They can estimate to some degree of accuracy the weight of the passengers, and they know precisely where they’re going and what weather conditions to expect. Yet many people start their day without a plan; they turn up at work and email messages. Bosses, customers, and colleagues dictate what they do all day, and they end up exhausted, having felt they’ve done nothing important at all. And that will be very true. Well, not important to them. This week’s question is about getting control of your time. So, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Tina. Tina asks, Hi Carl, I am swamped with all the stuff I have to do at work and home. It’s never-ending and I don’t have time to do it all. Do you have any tips on getting control of everything? Hi Tina, thank you for your question. There’s an issue when we focus on everything that we have to do. We forget that ultimately, whether we can or cannot do something will come back to time. Time is the limiting factor. There are other resources—money, ability, energy, etc but if you have all those resources, and you don’t have time, it’s not going to get done. Things get even more messy when we consider that as humans we are terrible at estimating how long something will take to do. There are too many variables. For instance, as I am writing this script, my wife is messaging me and Louis, my little dog, is looking at me expectantly, hoping I will give him his evening chewy stick early. When I began writing, I thought it would take me a couple of hours, I’ve already spent an hour on it and I am nowhere near finishing it. One place to start is to allocate what you have to do by when you will do it. This helps to reduce your daily lists which in turn reduces that sense of overwhelm. I recommend starting with a simple folder structure of: This Week Next Week This Month Next Month Long-Term and on Hold. When something new comes in, ask yourself: What is it? What do I need to do and when can I do it? The questions what is it and what do I need to do will help you to classify the task. Classifying a task is helpful because it will allow you to group similar tasks together. For example, if you walk into your living room and notice the windows are looking dirty, you may decide to create a task to clean the windows. The next question is when will you do it? The best time to do this kind of task is when you do your other cleaning. Grouping similar tasks together work to prevent procrastination. When I was growing up, my grandmothers and my mother all had what they called “cleaning ...
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    12 mins
  • Achieving Your Goals With Dr Kourosh Dini

    Achieving Your Goals With Dr Kourosh Dini
    Feb 9 2025

    This week, Dr. Kourosh Dini returns to the podcast to discuss how we can ensure that the goals we set are achieved.

    Here's how you can learn more about Dr Dini's work.

    Newsletter: https://wavesoffocus.com/Your-First-Step-to-Breaking-Free-from-Force-Based%20Work/ Waves of Focus https://wavesoffocus.com/ on SMART goals https://www.kouroshdini.com/lay-off-the-goals-a-bit-would-you/
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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • Does Journaling Help You Be More Productive?

    Does Journaling Help You Be More Productive?
    Feb 2 2025
    Should you take up journaling, and if you do, will it help you with your time management and productivity? That’s what we’re exploring this week. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 355 Hello, and welcome to episode 355 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. This year is the 10th anniversary since I took up consistent journaling. And it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever taken up. Not only is it one of the most therapeutic things you can do, it’s also one of the best ways to organise your thoughts, work your way through problems and vent your anger towards those who really wind you up. Over the years, I’ve also found that journaling has helped me to achieve my goals because each day I am writing about how I am doing and if I find myself making excusing, the act of writing out my excuses exposes them for what they really are—excuses. So, this week, I’ve chosen a question related to journaling and I hope it will inspire you to invest in a quality notebook and pen and start doing it yourself. And if I can inspire just one of you to take it up and become a Samuel Pepys, I’ll be very happy. So, to kick ups off, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Tom. Tom asks, hi Carl, I’ve heard you talk about your journaling habit numerous times. Do you think writing a journal has helped or hindered your productivity? Hi Tom, thank you for your question. To answer your question directly, I can say with certainty that journaling has contributed to my overall productivity. To explain further, I write in my journal every morning, no matter where I am. And one of the things I always write down is my two objective tasks for the day. Those objectives are the two non-negotiable tasks for the day and by writing them down at the top of my journal entry, I have a way of ensuring I did them when I write my journal the next day, But more powerfully, writing them down each morning focuses my mind on what needs to be done and how and when I will do them. Those tasks are also in my task manager, but it’s the act of writing them out by hand that gives me the focus. Writing a journal is much more than being an aid to productivity. It’s also a form of therapy. Like most people, I feel frustrated, overwhelmed and stressed at times. Those feelings need an outlet. A negative way to do that is to get angry, shout, and scream. Sure, that blows off steam, but it also transfers your negative feelings to others—your colleagues and family. Not great. Instead, if you have a way to write about these things, you start to find ways to solve whatever the underlying issues are. Writing slows down your thinking, and if you were to step back and analyse why you sometimes feel stressed, frustrated and overwhelmed, it is because you feel—incorrectly—everything has to be done right now. That slowing down helps to bring back some perspective and you can decide when you will do something and what can be left until another day. When it comes to achieving your goals, a journal is perhaps the best way to track progress. It can also help you establish new, positive habits. When I developed my morning routines around eight years ago, I chose to track them in my journal. I always draw a margin on left of the page, and I list out the six items I do as part of my morning routine: make coffee, wash face and teeth, drink lemon water, write my journal, clear my email inbox and do my shoulder stretches. I write them down at the top of my journal entry for the day in the margin. And, for the dopamine hit, I check them off too. I exercise in the late afternoon and, again, I will write out what I did in the margin of my journal. Now, I could spend a lot of money on habit-tracking apps, but with my journal, I’ve found no need. I have my record and can review it at any time. Over the years, I’ve been asked what I write about and if I use any prompts. The answer is no. Well, apart from writing out my objectives for the day. Now, prompts can be helpful when you first start—you can think about them as those little stabilisers we put on kids’ bikes to help them learn to ride. Sooner or later you want to take them off so you can experience the freedom of riding freely. I write whatever’s on my mind that morning. If everything’s going ...
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    13 mins
  • What's the Rush? Slow Down and be More Productive.

    What's the Rush? Slow Down and be More Productive.
    Jan 26 2025
    Do you feel you are rushing from one task to another while not getting anything important done? Well, this week, I’m going to share with you a few ways to change that. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 353 Hello, and welcome to episode 354 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. What’s the rush? This is one of those powerful questions you can ask yourself when processing the things you have collected in your inboxes. It’s easy today to feel that everything you are asked to do must be done immediately. While there is a category of tasks that require quick action, most of what comes across your desk (or pops up on your screen) does not fall into that category. The trick, of course, is knowing which is which. This is where developing confidence in your judgement and abilities helps. But that can only come from establishing some “rules”. In a way, automating your decision-making. I recently heard an interview with President J F Kennedy, in which he said as president, the kind of decisions you make are always high-level. Anything smaller will be dealt with at a lower level and rarely reach your desk. That’s an example of government in action. The president or Prime Minister cannot decide everything. Lower-level, less urgent things can and should be handled at a department level. That’s the same for you. Most of your decisions should be automated. What kind of emails are actionable, and what can be archived or deleted, for example. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Edward. Edward asks, Hi Carl, I recently read your newsletter in which you wrote about slowing down. Could you explain a little more how to slow down and still be productive? Hi Richard, thank you for your question. One of the disadvantages of technology and how it has advanced over the last twenty years is the speed at which tasks can now be done. While technology has speeded up incredibly, our human brains have not. That causes us many issues. The biggest issue is because everyone knows how quickly we can reply to an email, they expect almost instant replies which ignores the fact we might being doing something else. For example, when I am driving or in a meeting or on a call, I cannot reply to an “urgent” email or message. I am doing something else. In the days before email, there was a natural delay. I remember when I was working in a law firm, email was very new and lawyers didn’t trust it. So, we continued writing letters. This meant, if we received a letter in the morning, we had until 4 pm to reply—that was when the mail went to the post office. If we missed the post, that was okay, we could blame the post office. And that was accepted. Other lawyers knew this as did our clients and the clients of the other lawyers. This also meant we had time to think about our response, talk to a colleague if necessary or escalate to our boss if the issue was complex. Today, we often don’t feel we have that time. The truth is you do. One thing I’ve learned is when someone sends you something they are secretly hoping you do not respond quickly. They’re snowed under with work too. If you reply quickly, you’ve just given them more work to do today. You’re not going to be their favourite person. One of the easiest ways to reduce some of this anxiety is to put in place some rules. Let me give you an example. I receive around 100 to 150 emails a day. Most of the mail I receive comes through the night. I therefore process my inbox each morning before I start my work. The goal of processing my inbox is to clear it as fast as possible. There’s no time for applying the legendary two-minute rule (where anything that can be done in two minutes or less should be done). All I need is ten emails where I could apply the two-minute rule and I’ve lost twenty minutes. No thank you. I want a cleared inbox as quickly as possible. I’ve applied this rule for over ten years now and can clear 150 emails in less than twenty minutes. My record is 380 (ish) emails cleared in 36 minutes. Then around 4 pm, I will go to my email’s Action This Day folder. Begin with the oldest email and work my way through that for an hour. I aim to respond to any actionable email within 24 hours. And I would say I have a 95% success rate ...
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    12 mins
  • MPP - Maximum Procratination Protection

    MPP - Maximum Procratination Protection
    Jan 19 2025
    This week, how to reduce procrastination and why you don’t want to completely remove it. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 353 Hello, and welcome to episode 353 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. We recently asked what’s the biggest thing that ruins your productivity on my YouTube community page. 58% of participants said procrastination. In a way, that doesn’t surprise me. When you see the statistics on how many people spend time planning their days and weeks, I am actually surprised that the number isn’t higher. I’ll explain shortly. Now, procrastination has been around for a very long time. Leonardo Da Vinci only managed to finish a small number of paintings. Of the twenty paintings attributed to him, around five were finished. Leonardo was a serial procrastinator. Yet, it was that procrastination that led to many of his inventions. If he had not procrastinated as much as he did, we would have many more of his paintings but very few of his notebooks full of drawings and diagrams. The good news is, there are a few practices you can do that will reduce procrastination and enable you to be more internal about your days. To get us started, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question. This week’s question comes from Carlos. Carlos asks, Hi Carl, what advice do you have for overcoming procrastination? Hi Carlos, thank you for your question. As I alluded to, procrastination and daily and weekly planning are linked. When you are clear about what needs to be accomplished you will procrastinate less. The problem when you have no plan is you waste a lot of time trying to decide what needs to be done. And then, it’s likely you will pick the easiest thing to do in the hope it will get you started. It’s true, you will get started, but you will be doing low value tasks leaving behind the higher value ones. The ones you don’t know what needs to be done or what the first action is because you don’t have a plan. And that leaves you at the end of the day looking at a list of important, high value things you didn’t do. One way to overcome this is to be very clear about what the next action is. In my next YouTube video, coming out on Thursday, I explain why “think about” tasks are not really tasks and will be the ones you will sacrifice the moment your day becomes busy. The reason why these get put off is because it’s not clear what the real action is. For example, if I had a task like “think about what to buy mum for her birthday”, I would procrastinate. It’s too much effort and is not the real task. The real task might be to talk to my brother and sister about what they re getting my mum. Or I could talk to my father and ask him what he thinks she would like. Which task would you most likely do: Think about what to buy mum for her birthday, or, call my brother and ask him what he’s getting mum for her birthday? One is actionable the other is wishy washy. The wishy washy task is the one you will procrastinate on. You will procrastinate because it’s not clear what needs to be done. This is where planning comes in. When you have a plan for the day and are clear about what needs to be done, you will be less likely to procrastinate because your brain is subconsciously planning ahead for you. You’re doing one task and your brain is thinking, subconsciously, about what you will do next and how to complete the task. This prevents your brain from going offline and procrastinating. However, when you don’t have a plan for the day, none of that happens. Instead, you procrastinate. You are always on the lookout for something interesting to do, and anything that does not fit the mood you’re in will be skipped for something more interesting. So, the first practice to develop is to plan your day. This does not take a long time. It can be done in five minutes. And the ideal time for maximum procrastination protection is to do it before you finish the day. There’s something more intentional about starting your day knowing exactly what it is you want to get accomplished. Now, there is a caveat here. If you are an early riser, you can do your planning for the day as part of your morning routine. After all, it’s only five minutes. So how do you effectively plan your day? Step one. Look at your appointments for the day. How much ...
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    13 mins
  • The Lessons I Learned From My Minimalist Project

    The Lessons I Learned From My Minimalist Project
    Jan 12 2025
    What happened to my 2020/21 minimalist project, and where am I today? That’s the question I am answering today. You can subscribe to this podcast on: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify | TUNEIN Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Subscribe to my Substack Take The NEW COD Course The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl’s YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script | 352 Hello, and welcome to episode 352 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. Towards the end of 2019, I decided that in 2020, I would go all in on a minimalist project. I had played around with it for a number of years, but it wasn’t until 2020 that I formally turned it into a project and began the process of clearing out a lot of stuff I had collected that was no longer benefiting me. And yes, four or five years ago, minimalism was a thing. Everyone was talking about it, and there were thousands of videos of people showcasing how bare and minimal their workspaces were. It was a trend, and while that trend appears to be forgotten, I learned many things that I still practice today. So, it was a nice surprise to find a question about it in my inbox a few weeks ago. I realised it was a good time to tell you about what I learned and what I am still practising today. So, without further ado, let me hand you over to the Mystery Podcast Voice for this week’s question… Which I realise I’ve already told you. This week’s question comes from Milos. Milos asks, hi Carl, I remember a few years ago, you mentioned that you were about to start a minimalist project. How did it go, and are you still a minimalist? Hi Milos, thank you for your wonderful question. Like most projects, or goals, designed to change how you do things, once you complete them, it’s easy to forget you ever did them. My minimalist project was such a project. I changed a lot of things that I do automatically today, so your question caused me to reminisce on how things used to be. I should point out that I wasn’t into extreme consumerism. I would replace my phone, iPads and computers when they stopped functioning in a way I needed them to do. For example, my old Intel computer became very slow over a year when Apple switched from Intel chips to their M series. So much so that it took up to an hour to render a fifteen-minute YouTube video. When I changed my computer to an M series one, that time came down to around six minutes. However, I think I am a bit of a hoarder, and I had boxes of old papers from my teaching days I no longer needed. I was always reluctant to throw away old clothes, believing one day I might regain the weight I had lost and would require those bigger sizes again. My wardrobe, drawers and other cupboards were full of stuff I no longer needed and would never need again. So that was where the project began. Clearing out old clothes and papers I no longer needed. As with all endeavours like this, I did go a little extreme. My desk, for instance, was stripped of its soul—well, it felt like it. All I had on there was my computer, keyboard and trackpad. I found it became an uninspiring place to work. So, gradually, I added some things back. An analogue clock—a tool I use to prevent time blindness when I get into a focused zone and a few little mementoes to bring some character back. The biggest part of the project was clearing out drawers, cupboards and my wardrobe. That was liberating and I was surprised how much space I had once everything was cleared and either thrown away or taken to the recycling. I moved house at the end of 2021, and that was an opportunity to complete the project—well, the clearing out of the old part of the project. However, the biggest change was in the way I approached purchasing. I stopped buying electronic gadgets. I am in the Apple ecosystem and Apple’s products, on the whole, last a long time. For example, I have an iPad mini for reading ebooks, magazines and the newspaper. I’ve had the same iPad mini for the last five years. And I have no intention of replacing it any time soon. Another change was to apply some rules to my purchasing. This was inspired from how the British gentry in the early 1900s approached buying clothes and personal consumption items. In the 1920s (and 30s), aristocrats bought clothes and necessities once. For instance, a young aristocrat would purchase a set of luggage that would last a lifetime. If something broke or the leather tore, they would fix it. A new suitcase was not necessary. These repairs added character and gave these items a unique look. It was also a much more ...
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    14 mins