Podcasts about Trello

If the idea of hiring help in your practice immediately brings up fear about HIPAA, confidentiality, or losing control, this episode will bring a lot of clarity. Dr. Kate Walker breaks down exactly what therapists can delegate right now, what you should never hand off blindly, and how to protect your license while still getting critical tasks off your plate.Kate walks through real-world examples of delegation—from marketing and intake calls to email management and SOP creation—while explaining how HIPAA actually works in practice (not the scary myths most of us carry around). You'll hear why delegating the wrong things first can waste time and money, how to train VAs responsibly, and why systems—not hustle—are what allow practices to grow without chaos.If you've been trying to “build the plane while flying it,” or you know your systems need to be in place before your caseload spikes, this episode will help you delegate with confidence instead of fear.In this episode, you'll learn:What therapists can safely delegate to a VA, including marketing tasks, intake calls, email workflows, and follow-ups—without violating HIPAA.How to train and onboard virtual assistants using HIPAA education, clear boundaries, and simple SOPs that actually prevent mistakes.Why screen-recorded SOPs, Trello boards, and structured workflows work better than long written instructions—and how to set them up efficiently.If you're ready to stop doing everything yourself and start building systems that support your growth, this episode gives you a practical, HIPAA-safe place to start.If you're ready to lead with confidence, join the 2026 Supervisor Course waitlist for early access to bonus tools, templates, and fast-track grading. Strengthen your systems today with the free Supervision Onboarding Checklist, and get ongoing CEUs and live coaching inside the Step It Up Membership. You're not just building a practice, you're building a legacy.Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

In this episode of ScaleUp Radio, I'm joined by Virtyt Pula, the founder of TOML, a talent-first creative agency that's reimagining how creative work gets done. Instead of a traditional in-house model, TOML operates as a global creative collective, blending a tight-knit core team with a flexible international network of creative specialists. Founded in 2015, TOML was built to challenge agency norms, and when the pandemic hit, its remote-first model went from being questioned by clients to becoming its biggest asset. We cover three key areas in this conversation: The Business, how TOML operates with a hybrid model, builds bespoke teams for every brief, and maintains quality across a distributed network. Scaling Challenges, from earning client trust to navigating cash flow with global freelancers and shifting to a 50/50 service-to-R&D business model. Quickfire Insights, including Virtyt's views on mentorship, the importance of launching early, and why his biggest influences include Steve Jobs, Bob Iger, and The Beatles. The one key thing? Your agency structure doesn't have to look like everyone else's to work, but you'll need to earn trust fast. Quick heads-up — we're looking for a handful of founders to test our new AI-powered Smart90 Lite app. It's built to help you stay accountable and actually deliver on your goals — in just a few minutes a day. It's free while we're in testing, and your feedback will directly shape the final version. You can get access by emailing kevin@biz-smart.co.uk. Make sure you don't miss any future episodes by subscribing to ScaleUp Radio wherever you like to listen to your podcasts, and why not give us a follow. For now, continue listening for the full discussion with Virtyt. Scaling up your business isn't easy, and can be a little daunting. Let ScaleUp Radio make it a little easier for you. With guests who have been where you are now, and can offer their thoughts and advice on several aspects of business. ScaleUp Radio is the business podcast you've been waiting for. If you would like to be a guest on ScaleUp Radio, please click here: https://bizsmarts.co.uk/scaleupradio/kevin You can get in touch with Kevin & Granger here: kevin@biz-smart.co.uk grangerf@biz-smart.co.uk   Kevin's Latest Book Is Available! Drawing on BizSmart's own research and experiences of working with hundreds of owner-managers, Kevin Brent explores the key reasons why most organisations do not scale and how the challenges change as they reach different milestones on the ScaleUp Journey. He then details a practical step by step guide to successfully navigate between the milestones in the form of ESUS - a proven system for entrepreneurs to scale up. More on the Book HERE - https://www.esusgroup.co.uk/ Virtyt can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virtytpula/ https://www.tomlcollective.com/   Resources: Problem Solvers podcast - https://www.jasonfeifer.com/podcast/ Diary of a CEO podcast - https://stevenbartlett.com/doac/ The Future podcast - https://www.thefutur.com/podcast Slack - https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/ Notion - https://www.notion.com/ Trello - https://trello.com/ Figma - https://www.figma.com/ Vimeo - https://vimeo.com/ Sortlist - https://www.sortlist.co.uk/

Download the FREE Tech Stack Checklist: tiquehq.com/tech-stack?utm_source=Podcast+Episode+154&utm_medium=Podcast+Episode+154&utm_campaign=Tech+Stack If choosing a task management system feels overwhelming, this episode is for you! Jennifer chats with system strategist Sarah Wills, founder of HeySwillsy and the expert behind Tique's ClickUp Business Hub. Sarah explains what a task management system actually does for your business, how it differs from a CRM and email marketing platform, and why the right tool can completely transform the way you work. She shares the essential features to look for, and explains why some platforms fall short while others scale effortlessly with your business. You'll also hear what finally pushed her toward ClickUp, how she helps travel advisors customize their systems, and the surprising ways data tracking can save you time, money, and stress. Whether you're drowning in sticky notes, managing a growing team, or trying to keep client work from slipping through the cracks, this episode will help you understand the logic behind your systems so you can work smarter, not harder! Connect with Sarah Wills: heyswillsy.com instagram.com/heyswillsy Today we will cover: (01:30) Meet Sarah Wills; how she became a systems expert (03:45) What a task management system actually does (08:20) What to look for in a task management platform (10:25) Trello vs. Clickup (19:35) How Sarah uses Dubsado and ClickUp together (24:10) How advisors can see referrals, return clients, and true marketing ROI (29:15) How to reevaluate your process using time tracking (38:15) Team management inside ClickUp; onboarding team members or ICs (47:30) What not to use ClickUp for Check out the ClickUp Business Hub Template → tiquehq.com/shop/clickup-business-hub-template Listen to Episode 154: How To Organize And Store Industry Contacts with Kristen Heitman JOIN THE NICHE COMMUNITY VISIT THE TEMPLATE SHOP EXPLORE THE PROGRAMS FOLLOW ALONG ON INSTAGRAM @TiqueHQ Thanks to Our Tique Talks Sponsors: Cozy Earth - Use code COZYTIQUE for 20% off

Sign up for Xero ⁠⁠using my link here⁠⁠! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Sign up to The Best 90 Days Ever here! https://www.hicommunications.co.uk/best90daysever Episode 166: Being a Person Who is OrganisedIn this episode, Hannah Isted explores what it truly means to be "organised" in business and marketing. While she admits she hasn't always felt like an organised person, she shares the specific systems and mindset shifts that allow her to stay consistent and avoid the overwhelm of content creation.Hannah explains that organisation starts with a clear structure, beginning with a year-long marketing overview that identifies upcoming launches, holidays, and growth goals. She emphasises that planning ahead makes a person much more likely to follow through with their intentions. To support this, she highlights the importance of content batching sessions, which provide a "bank" of ideas and posts for an entire quarter, effectively removing the daily stress of wondering what to say.A central theme of the episode is the necessity of a dedicated "home" for your content. Hannah shares her personal reliance on Trello for organizing launches and seasonal content, though she notes that tools like Notion, Google Docs, or even a large sheet of paper can work as long as a consistent system is in place. She also discusses the benefits of using templates in Adobe Express or Canva, explaining how keeping these projects labeled and organised saves significant time when repurposing content from previous years.The episode concludes with a call to make a conscious mindset shift toward becoming an organised person. Hannah encourages listeners to gather their scattered ideas from notebooks and phone memos into one central place where they will actually be used. By putting these systems in place now, business owners can ensure that "future them" is grateful for the preparation and ease created for the year ahead.The Best 90 Days Ever: The next round of this marketing membership starts January 1st, featuring daily 10-minute tasks, goal setting, and community support via Slack.Year of Marketing in a Day: An exclusive workshop for members held on Thursday, January 8th, to plan out the entire year.Content Batching Session: A three-hour deep dive on Wednesday, January 21st, to create a quarter's worth of marketing material.Sponsor: This episode is sponsored by Xero, the small business accounting software designed to help you save time on admin and stay on top of your finances.

BONUS: Swimming in Tech Debt — Practical Techniques to Keep Your Team from Drowning in Its Codebase In this fascinating conversation, veteran software engineer and author Lou Franco shares hard-won lessons from decades at startups, Trello, and Atlassian. We explore his book "Swimming in Tech Debt," diving deep into the 8 Questions framework for evaluating tech debt decisions, personal practices that compound over time, team-level strategies for systematic improvement, and leadership approaches that balance velocity with sustainability. Lou reveals why tech debt is often the result of success, how to navigate the spectrum between ignoring debt and rewriting too much, and practical techniques individuals, teams, and leaders can use starting today. The Exit Interview That Changed Everything "We didn't go slower by paying tech debt. We went actually faster, because we were constantly in that code, and now we didn't have to run into problems." — Lou Franco   Lou's understanding of tech debt crystallized during an exit interview at Atalasoft, a small startup where he'd spent years. An engineer leaving the company confronted him: "You guys don't care about tech debt." Lou had been focused on shipping features, believing that paying tech debt would slow them down. But this engineer told a different story — when they finally fixed their terrible build and installation system, they actually sped up. They were constantly touching that code, and removing the friction made everything easier. This moment revealed a fundamental truth: tech debt isn't just about code quality or engineering pride. It's about velocity, momentum, and the ability to move fast sustainably. Lou carried this lesson through his career at Trello (where he learned the dangers of rewriting too much) and Atlassian (where he saw enterprise-scale tech debt management). These experiences became the foundation for "Swimming in Tech Debt." Tech Debt Is the Result of Success "Tech debt is often the result of success. Unsuccessful projects don't have tech debt." — Lou Franco   This reframes the entire conversation about tech debt. Failed products don't accumulate debt — they disappear before it matters. Tech debt emerges when your code survives long enough to outlive its original assumptions, when your user base grows beyond initial expectations, when your team scales faster than your architecture anticipated. At Atalasoft, they built for 10 users and got 100. At Trello, mobile usage exploded beyond their web-first assumptions. Success creates tech debt by changing the context in which code operates. This means tech debt conversations should happen at different intensities depending on where you are in the product lifecycle. Early startups pursuing product-market fit should minimize tech debt investments — move fast, learn, potentially throw away the code. Growth-stage companies need balanced approaches. Mature products benefit significantly from tech debt investments because operational efficiency compounds over years. Understanding this lifecycle perspective helps teams make appropriate decisions rather than applying one-size-fits-all rules. The 8 Questions Framework for Tech Debt Decisions "Those 8 questions guide you to what you should do. If it's risky, has regressions, and you don't even know if it's gonna work, this is when you're gonna do a project spike." — Lou Franco   Lou introduces a systematic framework for evaluating whether to pay tech debt, inspired by Bob Moesta's push-pull forces from product management. The 8 questions create a complete picture:   Visibility — Will people outside the team understand what we're doing? Alignment — Does this match our engineering values and target architecture? Resistance — How hard is this code to work with right now? Volatility — How often do we touch this code? Regression Risk — What's the chance we'll introduce new problems? Project Size — How big is this to fix? Estimate Risk — How uncertain are we about the effort required? Outcome Uncertainty — How confident are we the fix will actually improve things?   High volatility and high resistance with low regression risk? Pay the debt now. High regression risk with no tests? Write tests first, then reassess. Uncertain outcomes on a big project? Do a spike or proof of concept. The framework prevents both extremes — ignoring costly debt and undertaking risky rewrites without proper preparation. Personal Practices That Compound Daily "When I sit down at my desk, the first thing I do is I pay a little tech debt. I'm looking at code, I'm about to change it, do I even understand it? Am I having some kind of resistance to it? Put in a little helpful comment, maybe a little refactoring." — Lou Franco   Lou shares personal habits that create compounding improvements over time. Start each coding session by paying a small amount of tech debt in the area you're about to work — add a clarifying comment, extract a confusing variable, improve a function name. This warms you up, reduces friction for your actual work, and leaves the code slightly better than you found it. The clean-as-you-go philosophy means tech debt never accumulates faster than you can manage it. But Lou's most powerful practice comes at the end of each session: mutation testing by hand. Before finishing for the day, deliberately break something — change a plus to minus, a less-than to less-than-or-equal. See if tests catch it. Often they don't, revealing gaps in test coverage. The key insight: don't fix it immediately. Leave that failing test as the bridge to tomorrow's coding session. It connects today's momentum to tomorrow's work, ensuring you always start with context and purpose rather than cold-starting each day. Mutation Testing: Breaking Things on Purpose "Before I'm done working on a coding session, I break something on purpose. I'll change a plus to a minus, a less than to a less than equals, and see if tests break. A lot of times tests don't break. Now you've found a problem in your test." — Lou Franco   Manual mutation testing — deliberately breaking code to verify tests catch the break — reveals a critical gap in most test suites. You can have 100% code coverage and still have untested behavior. A line of code that's executed during tests isn't necessarily tested — the test might not actually verify what that line does. By changing operators, flipping booleans, or altering constants, you discover whether your tests protect against actual logic errors or just exercise code paths. Lou recommends doing this manually as part of your daily practice, but automated tools exist for systematic discovery: Stryker (for JavaScript, C#, Scala) and MutMut (for Python) can mutate your entire codebase and report which mutations survive uncaught. This isn't just about test quality — it's about understanding what your code actually does and building confidence that changes won't introduce subtle bugs. Team-Level Practices: Budgets, Backlogs, and Target Architecture "Create a target architecture document — where would we be if we started over today? Every PR is an opportunity to move slightly toward that target." — Lou Franco   At the team level, Lou advocates for three interconnected practices. First, create a target architecture document that describes where you'd be if starting fresh today — not a detailed design, but architectural patterns, technology choices, and structural principles that represent current best practices. This isn't a rewrite plan; it's a North Star. Every pull request becomes an opportunity to move incrementally toward that target when touching relevant code. Second, establish a budget split between PM-led feature work and engineering-led tech debt work — perhaps 80/20 or whatever ratio fits your product lifecycle stage. This creates predictable capacity for tech debt without requiring constant negotiation. Third, hold quarterly tech debt backlog meetings separate from sprint planning. Treat this backlog like PMs treat product discovery — explore options, estimate impacts, prioritize based on the 8 Questions framework. Some items fit in sprints; others require dedicated engineers for a quarter or two. This systematic approach prevents tech debt from being perpetually deprioritized while avoiding the opposite extreme of engineers disappearing into six-month "improvement" projects with no visible progress. The Atlassian Five-Alarm Fire "The Atlassian CTO's 'five-alarm fire' — stopping all feature development to focus on reliability. I reduced sync errors by 75% during that initiative." — Lou Franco   Lou shares a powerful example of leadership-driven tech debt management at scale. The Atlassian CTO called a "five-alarm fire" — halting all feature development across the company to focus exclusively on reliability and tech debt. This wasn't panic; it was strategic recognition that accumulated debt threatened the business. Lou worked on reducing sync errors, achieving a 75% reduction during this focused period. The initiative demonstrated several leadership principles: willingness to make hard calls that stop revenue-generating feature work, clear communication of why reliability matters strategically, trust that teams will use the time wisely, and commitment to see it through despite pressure to resume features. This level of intervention is rare and shouldn't be frequent, but it shows what's possible when leadership truly prioritizes tech debt. More commonly, leaders should express product lifecycle constraints (startup urgency vs. mature product stability), give teams autonomy to find appropriate projects within those constraints, and require accountability through visible metrics and dashboards that show progress. The Rewrite Trap: Why Big Rewrites Usually Fail "A system that took 10 years to write has implicit knowledge that can't be replicated in 6 months. I'm mostly gonna advocate for piecemeal migrations along the way, reducing the size of the problem over time." — Lou Franco   Lou lived through Trello's iOS navigation rewrite — a classic example of throwing away working code to start fresh, only to discover all the edge cases, implicit behaviors, and user expectations baked into the "old" system. A codebase that evolved over several years contains implicit knowledge — user workflows, edge case handling, performance optimizations, and subtle behaviors that users rely on even if they never explicitly requested them. Attempting to rewrite this in six months inevitably misses critical details. Lou strongly advocates for piecemeal migrations instead. The Trello "Decaffeinate Project" exemplifies this approach — migrating from CoffeeScript to TypeScript incrementally, with public dashboards showing the percentage remaining, interoperable technologies allowing gradual transition, and the ability to pause or reverse if needed. Keep both systems running in parallel during migrations. Use runtime observability to verify new code behaves identically to old code. Reduce the problem size steadily over months rather than attempting big-bang replacements. The only exception: sometimes keeping parallel systems requires scaffolding that creates its own complexity, so evaluate whether piecemeal migration is actually simpler or if you're better off living with the current system. Making Tech Debt Visible Through Dashboards "Put up a dashboard, showing it happen. Make invisible internal improvements visible through metrics engineering leadership understands." — Lou Franco   One of tech debt's biggest challenges is invisibility — non-technical stakeholders can't see the improvement from refactoring or test coverage. Lou learned to make tech debt work visible through dashboards and metrics. The Decaffeinate Project tracked percentage of CoffeeScript files remaining, providing a clear progress indicator anyone could understand. When reducing sync errors, Lou created dashboards showing error rates declining over time. These visualizations serve multiple purposes: they demonstrate value to leadership, create accountability for engineering teams, build momentum as progress becomes visible, and help teams celebrate wins that would otherwise go unnoticed. The key is choosing metrics that matter to the business — error rates, page load times, deployment frequency, mean time to recovery — rather than pure code quality metrics like cyclomatic complexity that don't translate outside engineering. Connect tech debt work to customer experience, reliability, or developer productivity in ways leadership can see and value. Onboarding as a Tech Debt Opportunity "Unit testing is a really great way to learn a system. It's like an executable specification that's helping you prove that you understand the system." — Lou Franco   Lou identifies onboarding as an underutilized opportunity for tech debt reduction. When new engineers join, they need to learn the codebase. Rather than just reading code or shadowing, Lou suggests having them write unit tests in areas they're learning. This serves dual purposes: tests are executable specifications that prove understanding of system behavior, and they create safety nets in areas that likely lack coverage (otherwise, why would new engineers be confused by the code?). The new engineer gets hands-on learning, the team gets better test coverage, and everyone wins. This practice also surfaces confusing code — if new engineers struggle to understand what to test, that's a signal the code needs clarifying comments, better naming, or refactoring. Make onboarding a systematic tech debt reduction opportunity rather than passive knowledge transfer. Leadership's Role: Constraints, Autonomy, and Accountability "Leadership needs to express the constraints. Tell the team what you're feeling about tech debt at a high level, and what you think generally is the appropriate amount of time to be spent on it. Then give them autonomy." — Lou Franco   Lou distills leadership's role in tech debt management to three elements. First, express constraints — communicate where you believe the product is in its lifecycle (early startup, rapid growth, mature cash cow) and what that means for tech debt tolerance. Are we pursuing product-market fit where code might be thrown away? Are we scaling a proven product where reliability matters? Are we maintaining a stable system where operational efficiency pays dividends? These constraints help teams make appropriate trade-offs. Second, give autonomy — once constraints are clear, trust teams to identify specific tech debt projects that fit those constraints. Engineers understand the codebase's pain points better than leaders do. Third, require accountability — teams must make their work visible through dashboards, metrics, and regular updates. Autonomy without accountability becomes invisible engineering projects that might not deliver value. Accountability without autonomy becomes micromanagement that wastes engineering judgment. The balance creates space for teams to make smart decisions while keeping leadership informed and confident in the investment. AI and the Future of Tech Debt "I really do AI-assisted software engineering. And by that, I mean I 100% review every single line of that code. I write the tests, and all the code is as I would have written it, it's just a lot faster. Developers are still responsible for it. Read the code." — Lou Franco   Lou has a chapter about AI in his book, addressing the elephant in the room: will AI-generated code create massive tech debt? His answer is nuanced. AI can accelerate development tremendously if used correctly — Lou uses it extensively but reviews every single line, writes all tests himself, and ensures the code matches what he would have written manually. The problem emerges with "vibe coders" — non-developers using AI to generate code they don't understand, creating unmaintainable messes that become someone else's problem. Developers remain responsible for all code, regardless of how it's generated. This means you must read and understand AI-generated code, not blindly accept it. Lou also raises supply chain security concerns — dependencies can contain malicious code, and AI might introduce vulnerabilities developers miss. His recommendation: stay six months behind on dependency updates, let others discover the problems first, and consider separate sandboxed development machines to limit security exposure. AI is a powerful tool, but it doesn't eliminate the need for engineering judgment, testing discipline, or code review practices. The Style Guide Beyond Formatting "Have a style guide that goes beyond formatting to include target architecture. This is the kind of code we want to write going forward." — Lou Franco   Lou advocates for style guides that extend beyond tabs-versus-spaces formatting rules to include architectural guidance. Document patterns you want to move toward: how should components be structured, what state management approaches do we prefer, how should we handle errors, what testing patterns should we follow? This creates a shared understanding of the target architecture without requiring a massive design document. When reviewing pull requests, teams can reference the style guide to explain why certain approaches align with where the codebase is headed versus perpetuating old patterns. This makes tech debt conversations less personal and more objective — it's not about criticizing someone's code, it's about aligning with team standards and strategic direction. The style guide becomes a living document that evolves as the team learns and technology changes, capturing collective wisdom about what good code looks like in your specific context. Recommended Resources Some of the resources mentioned in this episode include:  Steve Blank's Four Steps To Epiphany The podcast episode with Bernie Maloney where we discuss the critical difference between "enterprise" and "startup". And Geoffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasm, and Dealing with Darwin.   About Lou Franco   Lou Franco is a veteran software engineer and author of Swimming in Tech Debt. With decades of experience at startups, as well as Trello, and Atlassian, he's seen both sides of debt—as coder and leader. Today, he advises teams on engineering practices, helping them turn messy codebases into momentum.   You can link with Lou Franco on LinkedIn and learn more at LouFranco.com.

If your practice feels like it's running on chaos, Post-its, and crossed fingers, this episode is going to be a breath of relief. I'm walking you through the first five SOPs I believe every therapist should have, because these are the systems that gave me my evenings back, lowered my stress, and stopped my practice from falling apart every time I hired someone new.I'm sharing the real mistakes I made when I first started working with VAs, like assuming they could read my mind, or handing over tasks without any structure, and how simple, foundational SOPs completely changed my workflow. From weekly check-ins and shared agendas to onboarding rhythms, accountability systems, and clear “when you're stuck” instructions, I'll show you exactly how I keep projects moving without micromanaging or constantly feeling behind.If you've ever hired a VA and felt disappointed, or if you're just trying to organize your practice so it doesn't drain the life out of you, these are the steps I wish someone had handed me years ago.In this episode, you'll learn:The five SOPs that transformed my practice, including communication rhythms, shared spaces, clear action items, and a visual workflow your VA can follow.How I delegate tasks without miscommunication, using Trello, AI notes, Loom walk-throughs, WhatsApp updates, and first-attempt feedback loops that set everyone up for success.Why onboarding takes time—and what that actually looks like, including starter projects, daily accountability check-ins, and the “when you're stuck” SOP that keeps work from stalling out.If you're ready to stop running your practice on stress and start running it on systems, this is the episode you've been waiting for.If you're ready to lead with confidence, join the 2026 Supervisor Course waitlist for early access to bonus tools, templates, and fast-track grading. Strengthen your systems today with the free Supervision Onboarding Checklist, and get ongoing CEUs and live coaching inside the Step It Up Membership. You're not just building a practice, you're building a legacy.Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

In this episode, I sit down with my friend and client, Connor P. Coleman—a ranch management consultant, entrepreneur, and Enviropreneur Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Connor has one of the most fascinating blends of passions: land management, environmental problem-solving, and navigating life and business with ADHD. From childhood memories of kindergarten “Candy Land punishment” to building a thriving consulting business in the mountains of Colorado, Connor opens up about how ADHD has shaped his work, well-being and success.We explore the highs, lows, and turning points that pushed him to embrace systems, routines, delegation, and self-advocacy. Connor shares what burnout taught him, how he finally built a support team, and what shifting from “contractor” to true CEO looks like for a neurodivergent mind. His insight and honesty will resonate with anyone who's ever felt overextended, misunderstood, or unsure how to scale their brilliance.Entrepreneur attempting to do good, better Connor P. Coleman is an amateur philosopher and aspiring polymath based in the mountains of Colorado. Diagnosed with ADHD at an early age, he struggled to keep up in school, but through grit and determination, he was able to navigate college and graduate school successfully. Nearly a decade ago, he founded a ranch management advisory firm that serves conservation-minded landowners nationwide. These days, Connor relies more on systems and habits than pure grit to advance his mission.  Episode Highlights:[0:33] – Introducing Connor and his work in ranch management and wildfire-risk solutions [1:14] – What it means to be an Enviropreneur Fellow at Stanford [2:16] – The ADHD-entrepreneur connection and Connor's early path to business [2:44] – Childhood signs of inattentive ADHD and the infamous Candy Land memory [5:52] – How early school experiences shaped Connor's work-reward patterns [8:50] – The impact of having a parent in the medical field and receiving an early diagnosis [10:02] – School accommodations, testing struggles, and how support changed everything [13:04] – Academic Decathlon, discovering intelligence beyond test scores [15:29] – Transitioning into the workforce and the accidental start of his business [18:30] – The “ADHD tax,” missed billing, overwhelm, and finally asking for help [20:07] – Time blindness, doubling time estimates, and the power of realistic planning [22:29] – Learning to celebrate wins and build sustainable routines [23:41] – Burnout, lifestyle changes, and respecting energy and limits [27:12] – The importance of transitions, routines, and boundaries [29:12] – Delegation struggles, the relay-race mindset, and building a trustworthy team [32:08] – Tools like Trello, Monday, and Asana for getting chaos out of your head [33:39] – Learning systems later in adulthood and adapting them over time [35:04] – Connor's advice: own your ADHD, learn the comorbidities, and advocate for yourselfLinks & ResourcesConnor on Instagram: @connor.p.colemanResiliency Lands (Connor's business): https://resiliencylands.com Book mentioned:

In this week's episode, we take a look at six software tools for indie authors to help them write and improve their workflow. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: BLADES2025 The coupon code is valid through December 15, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook this winter, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT [This episode's content is not sponsored. Jonathan has not received any compensation for these reviews and has not received any free products or services from the companies mentioned in this episode. He does not currently use affiliate links for the products mentioned.] 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 280 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is a very snowy December 5th, 2025, and today I'm discussing six software tools that are useful for indie authors. Before we get into that, we will have Coupon of the Week and then an update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Cloak of Blades, Book #4 in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy), at my Payhip store. And that is BLADES2025. And as always, the coupon code and the link to my Payhip store will be available in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code will be valid through December the 15th, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for this winter or for your Christmas travels, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Blade of Shadows is out and it's available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store, and it's been doing quite well and gotten a good response from everyone. So thank you for that and I am looking forward to continuing that series. Now that Blade of Shadows is done, my main project is the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, which is Wizard-Assassin. I had originally planned to name it Elven-Assassin, but decided Wizard-Assassin sounded a bit punchier, so I went with that instead. I am 46,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 10 of 16. The final draft will have more chapters because one of the chapters is 11,000 words. I'm going to have to cut it up. I've also noticed that readers in general these days seem to prefer shorter chapters, so I've been trying to lean more into doing that and having books with shorter chapters. I think the rough draft is going to be about 70 to 75,000 words, give or take. So I'm hoping I can finish that next week, and I am cautiously optimistic I can have the book published before Christmas. If I can't get it published before Christmas, it is going to slip to my first book of 2026. But at the moment, and of course, barring our old unwelcome friend unexpected developments, I am cautiously optimistic I can have it out by Christmas 2025. So watch my website and listen to this space for additional news. My secondary project is Blade of Storms, which will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series and the direct sequel to Blade of Shadows. I am about 6,000 words into that, and once Wizard-Assassin is done, that will be my main project. I'm hoping to have that out at the end of January, but if Wizard-Assassin slips to January, then Blade of Storms will [of necessity] slip to February. In audiobook news, Blade of Flames, the audiobook of the first book in the Blades of Ruin series, is now out and you can get that at Audible, Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google Play, my own Payhip store, Spotify, and all the other usual audiobook stores. So if you're looking for something else to listen to during your Christmas travels this year, I suggest checking out Blade of Flames (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills). Cloak of the Embers, the 10th book in the Cloak Mage series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy)…the recording of that is done and it is being proofed right now, so I am hopeful we can hopefully have that out before Christmas (if all goes well). In fact, after I record this podcast episode, I'm going to have to convert the ebook cover of Cloak of Embers into an audiobook cover for Cloak of Embers. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. There is definitely a lot going on. 00:03:40 Main Topic: 6 Helpful Writing Tools for Indie Authors in 2025 [All Prices referenced are USD.] Now we're going to move on to our main topic this week, which is six helpful writing tools for indie authors in 2025. Last year in 2024, I did a roundup of popular software tools for writers and I thought I would give a quick update for it. Some of these tools like Calibre and LibreOffice I use, while others like Scrivener and Notion just aren't great fit for my workflow, I still want to talk about them anyways since just because I don't use them doesn't mean that they're not good and a lot of writers do in fact use them. Many writers also have complex systems for organizing their files and would benefit from tools like that. Without further ado, here are six pieces of software used for writing and writing adjacent tasks. I should mention before we get going as well that none of these tools are explicitly generative AI tools because as you know, if you've listened to the podcast over the years is my opinion of generative AI remains mostly negative. I have and continue to do some marketing experiments with generative AI elements, but I remain overall unimpressed by the technology. So with that in mind, none of these software tools I'm going to mention are explicitly AI tools. Some of them do have AI elements that you can plug in and use if you want to, but they aren't part of the core functionality of the application unless you specifically seek it out. With that in mind, let's get to it. #1: The first one we will talk about is Scrivener. Scrivener is of course essentially a word processor and project management system specifically designed for creative or nonfiction writing, unlike a traditional word processor like Microsoft Word, LibreOffice Writer, or Apple Pages. It features tools for outlining, for breaking documents into chapters, tracking word count goals and et cetera. One of the major benefits of it is a one-time cost instead of as a subscription because it seems like everything is a subscription nowadays, but Scrivener is still $60 a pop. They also offer a free trial and student discount and occasionally [it will] go on sale during peak times like the holidays. The downside of this is that Scrivener has a sharp learning curve. For myself when I write, I write either in Microsoft Word or Libre Office and I just sit down and write. When I write an outline, it's one Word document and the rough draft is another document that I write until I'm done. Scrivener is definitely a more complex software application, which I have to admit is funny to say because Microsoft Word is ridiculously complicated and has, in my opinion, far more functionality stuffed into it than it really needs. But Scrivener is a different kind of functionality and therefore the learning curve could be quite high for that. Additionally, this may not be the right software tool to work with your style of writing or how you organize your files. A couple extra thoughts with that is it's important to know yourself. Will you actually use the extra features included with Scrivener or do they just look cool and shiny? Scrivener probably is best for those who take extensive notes on their work, especially if trying to organize research based on chapters where it's needed. So if you're a nonfiction writer or if you're a historical fiction writer or a thriller writer who is very concerned about accuracy in your books, this may be useful for you so you can put in notes about the proper way to address a duke in 19th century England or what caliber of ammunition your thriller hero's preferred firearm takes. It's maybe the best for the kind of people who enjoy curating their Notion and Trello accounts and are able to think about their book in a very visual way without letting that process be an excuse to keep them from writing. I'd also say it's good for people who extensively revise blocks of text within a chapter and move chapters around a lot. #2: Canva. Canva has been around for a long time and it is a platform that makes it easy to create visual content using a drag and drop interface that provides a variety of templates, fonts, and designs to use for things like social media posts. They currently have two tiers for individuals, a limited free option, and Canva Pro, which is $12.99 a month. Some of the pros for Canva are it is well-suited for using templates for writers to create images for social media posts and book marketing material. The learning curve is not very steep, especially compared with something like Photoshop. If you've used PowerPoint before, you can definitely handle Canva. The cons: although some people use it to create book covers, many books have been flagged by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and some of the other publishing platforms for doing so. I would advise you to avoid Canva for creating book covers because of the potential for issues that could keep your book out of ebook stores. At the very least, read Canva's terms of use and the rules of KDP and the other ebook publishers very, very carefully before you would even begin to consider using Canva for this purpose. Many of the free features have been folded into the pro version such as sharing template links. The editing and design features are basic compared to something like Photoshop, though that may change as we're going to discuss a little bit here. Because Canva is so popular, there's a certain amount of snobbery out there about using its designs without significant modification. You may have encountered on social media or the Internet people who react very negatively to the presence of AI generated images and this exists to a lesser extent with Canva templates. "Looks like it was made in Canva" is sometimes used as an insult. If you want a unique style and look for your images, you'll have to work a little more to achieve that using Canva. Canva is quick for great one-time things like Facebook or BookBub ads, but I wouldn't recommend using it for book creation or book covers at this time because of the potential problems that can arise from that. For myself, I don't usually use Canva. I've had enough practice with Photoshop that I'm pretty confident in making whatever I want in terms of ad images or book covers in Photoshop, and I use Photoshop for that. However, since I organized the notes for this episode, there is a major caveat to that. Recently, Canva acquired a program called Affinity Photo Editor, which is essentially a much lower cost alternative to Photoshop. When this happened, there was a great deal of negativity around it because people thought Canva was going to jack up the price or make it into an overpriced subscription. But what Canva did surprised a great many people in that they made Affinity totally free and essentially are using a freemium model with it where you can use Affinity Photo Editor for free. It used to be, I believe like $79, possibly $69, and then any of the other features like downloading additional content from Canva would cost part of your Canva subscription. So I have to admit, I'm sufficiently curious about this, that when I write the tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin, I may use Affinity Photo Editor to assemble the cover for it just to see if it would work for that or not, because as I've said, I use Photoshop, but Photoshop is very expensive, Adobe frequently does business practices that are a bit shifty, and the idea of a freemium alternative to Photoshop is not necessarily a bad idea. So when I write a tie in short story for Wizard-Assassin later this month, I think I will attempt to make the cover in Affinity Photo Editor and see if that is something that would be good for my workflow or not, and I will report on that later. #3: Number three is Notion, which can be used to organize information, links, calendars, and reminders into one central dashboard. They have two plans for individuals, a free plan and a Plus plan, which is currently $10 to $12 per month (depending on whether you want a monthly or an annual plan). The Plus version offers unlimited file uploads, greater customizations, and integrations with Slack and Google Drive. The pros for using Notion is that it is popular with writers and content creators for being able to have project planning tools, notes, lists, links, trackers, and reminders all in one dashboard. If you enjoy customization and getting something set up exactly the way you want, you might enjoy setting up your lists, calendars, trackers, and notes through Notion. You can add images and adjust the layout and colors for a more "aesthetic" experience. It is easy to find customized templates [online], especially for writers and for things like storyboarding, word counts, and keeping tracks of sources for nonfiction writing. These Notion templates are shared by individuals, not the company and can be free or paid. Now, some of the cons with Notion. It didn't used to use very much AI, but the company is leaning increasingly heavy into AI, both as a company and in its features on the boards, if that is a concern. The amount of customization options and detail can be absolutely overwhelming. Someone who gets decision fatigue easily or doesn't want to customize a lot and might not enjoy using it. Some people are increasingly complaining that the software is getting too overloaded with features and is slow. For people who value being organized and love having complex and highly visual systems, Notion might be helpful. The downside is that maintaining your Notion boards can easily turn into what I call a "writing-adjacent activity" that gives you the illusion of productivity because of the time you spend managing and updating it aside from the business of getting actual writing done. So once again, this is a good example of "know thyself." If this is something that would be helpful for you, go ahead and pursue it. But if it's something that could turn into a tool for procrastination, it's probably better to avoid it. For myself, I am old enough that when I need to make lists and keep track of things, I have a yellow legal pad on my desk that I write things down on. #4: The next piece of software we're going to look at is LibreOffice. It is an open source piece of software that closely matches Microsoft Office, including Microsoft Word. Pros: It's free and open source. There's a minimal learning curve for those already familiar with Microsoft Word. The interface is a little different, but it's pretty easy to figure things out if you're familiar with Word or Excel. Some swear that that LibreOffice is faster than Word. It depends on the kind of document you're working on and the kind of computer you're using. So that's an area where your mileage may vary. It is also the best word processing option for privacy advocates, especially for those who are concerned about Microsoft and Google storing their work and possibly harvesting it for AI because by default, LibreOffice doesn't work with any AI elements. If you want it to work with any AI elements, plugins are available but they are not included. It's great for the writer who doesn't want to support Microsoft for any reason but still wants to be able to easily save documents in Microsoft file formats like .docx. It works. I've written entire books using it. I wrote all of Soul of Serpents and Soul of Dragons in it, and that was 13 years ago now, and the software has only improved since then. I wrote Silent Order: Eclipse Hand [using it] in 2017 and was very happy with the results, and I still use it for various projects every week, and I found a couple times if something was screwed up in the formatting of Microsoft Word, if I opened it up in LibreOffice, I could fix it pretty easily and much easier than I could in Word. It does have a few cons. The user interface compared to Word or something like Apple Pages does look a bit dated, but it's still navigable. It doesn't have any cloud storage functionality. You would need to piece it together with another storage option if you want to be able to backup stuff to the cloud. But overall, if you can't afford the Microsoft Office Suite, don't want to support Microsoft, and value your privacy, this is your best bet for word processing. Some people may not like its interface, but it's still an extremely solid piece of free software. #5: And now let's move on to our fifth software tool, which is Calibre. Calibre is a tool for ebook management. It can be used for file formatting, changing your books' metadata, or changing file formats. Many use it to create a custom ebook library. Pros include: the product is free and open source. It is easy to generate different file formats for book publication. Do you want to categorize and organize your books in a very specific way? Calibre works for that. The cons: some people find the interface a little clunky and it comes with a bit of a learning curve. To be honest, the interface does look like it came from Windows 2000 and some of the features rely on knowledge of HTML and CSS. Editing and formatting of the book itself is better done using other software. Final thoughts on that? The software is trustworthy, reliable, and has been maintained over the years. It does exactly what it says it does, without any real style but plenty of substance. And I've been a regular Calibre user for like 15 years now, and whenever I get a new computer Calibre is usually one of the very first things I install on it. #6: And now for our sixth and final tool, Inkarnate. Inkarnate is a very useful piece of software that is designed for creating maps. I believe it was originally intended to create maps for role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder and so forth. But it's also very useful for creating maps for fantasy novels. As I may have mentioned on the podcast a few times before, I really don't like making maps. I find it constraining and it makes the writing feel a bit crabbed at times. That said, I write primarily in the fantasy genre and people in the fantasy genre love maps, so I'm kind of on the hook for making maps. I used to draw the maps by hand and then import it into Photoshop and add all the locations and add colors and so forth. But that is a lot of work, I have to admit. Inkarnate makes it a lot easier, and I've used it for the last couple of maps I've made. The map of the city of Tar-Carmatheion in the Half-Elven Thief books came from Inkarnate. The map of Owyllain for Blades of Ruin came from Inkarnate, and the map of New Kyre and adjoining regions for Ghost Armor also came from Inkarnate. It's very affordable too. The subscription, I believe, is only $30 a year, and I've been using for a few years now and have never regretted it. So I'd say all the pros are all the ones I've already listed. The cons are that the learning curve is a little bit sharp, but there are excellent YouTube videos and tutorials for that. So, final thoughts. If you find yourself needing to make maps and don't enjoy the process of making maps, then Inkarnate is the software product for you. So those are six tools, software tools for indie authors that I hope will make you more productive and make your work easier. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to the Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the backup episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

Welcome to Episode 157 of Praestabilis: Excellence in Marketing Welcome to Episode #157 of “Praestabilis: Excellence in Marketing” In this episode,the topic is “From 2025 into 2026: What will you change in your life and business, and what will remain the same?” It’s important to take a close look at what you’ve been doing this year, and if your results were what you expected. I believe that we can improve exponentially year over year, and that it’s up to us to decide what to change and what results we will expect. I am sharing a live session of my “Really Simple Authority Blogging” ongoing training course with you and know you will benefit from the marketing strategies I am sharing and teaching here. Be sure to connect with me at https://ConnieRagenGreen.com or on X at https://x.com/ConnieGreen so I may serve you in the areas where my help could make a huge difference in your results. I’m going to share with you how much fun I’m having with creating simple courses using AI (Artificial Intelligence) in about 30 minutes. I know you can do the same thing. Keep it simple, and add the short course you create to a page on your existing website/blog. In this episode I’m discussing how to use keywords and search engine optimization (SEO) to grow your business. Your prospects and future clients, customers, and colleagues are waiting to connect with you, but if they can’t find you online it will never happen. Make it simple for your target audience to find you by using the keywords and phrases they are most likely to be searching for on Google, Bing, and the other search engines. The Power and Gift of Change”- We are all changing throughout each day, and I think we must embrace this change in order to grow and move forward. Changing can take many forms, and if you look back through your life you will come to understand that you are not the same person you were even a year ago. Here is a quote about this you may resonate with… “Growth lives outside the comfort zone. If it feels uncomfortable, you’re probably doing it right.” ~ Marie Forleo I believe that our businesses are based on the concept of serving others. When you start on online (or even a brick and mortar) business, your goal is to serve others with what you know and to benefit in multiple ways, including by earning an excellent income. I’m sharing several examples in this podcast about my own and experiences with clients over the years. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This morning I was reading the message written by outgoing Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. In it, he stated that his “parting prescription” for the American people is to cultivate a strong sense of community to help themselves and others. He added, “Relationships, service, and purpose are the time-tested triad of fulfillment that stands in contrast to wealth, fame, and power which define the modern-day triad of success.” Here are some other questions I want you to ask yourself: What is your commitment to yourself and to others close to you? Why are you focused on the things that are taking up your time? When will you begin to focus on goals that will allow you to create and leave a legacy? Whom do you trust to get you there? Perhaps my “Monthly Mentoring Program” is right for you. Motivation and Inspiration: What It Takes to Get Your Spark Back” During 2024 I went through a period where I wasn’t as motivated as I had been accustomed to being for many years. This gave me time to explore why I was feeling this way and to hopefully learn something that would help others. My inspiration to do all of the things I love in my business, including writing, creating, marketing, and mentoring was waning and I wasn’t sure why. Within a couple of months I was back on track and this is what I learned… Life isn’t easy, but then it isn’t supposed to be. Being challenged in so many ways on a regular basis makes us stronger and perhaps more appreciative and grateful for what we already have and what we know we can achieve if we believe in ourselves and have even one other person who knows we are special and tells us that as often as possible. Marie Forleo wrote a book titled “Everything Is Figureoutable” – https://ConnieLoves.me/FigureOutAble – Her precept is that if you’re having trouble solving a problem or reaching a dream, the problem isn’t you. It’s that you haven’t yet installed the one belief that changes everything. I’m at conniegreenhouse at yahoo dot com and want to hear from you on this topic, or on anything else. “Merging Your Life with Your Business” as a strategy. We aren’t creating a business we need a vacation from. Instead, we’re creating a “lifestyle by design” where we have the time and financial freedom to live in a way that few people are able to, and with choices around everything we do. If you’ve met me in person, heard me on my podcast, or read any of my books, you know that I am a very positive person. No matter what situation or circumstances arises, I truly believe there will always be a positive outcome on the horizon, and sooner rather than later. But I wasn’t always this way. This is a journey that continues… My first year online was 2006, and very quickly I connected with people I’m still part of a Mastermind with in Austin, Texas. I was invited to speak at an event there a couple of years later. It was hosted by Joe Vitale and Mendhi Audlin was also there. She shared a concept she had come up with that she calls “What If… UP!” The premise is that there is truly a silver lining in everything negative that occurs. I liken this to Newton’s Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. My precept and general rule for life is that we can achieve anything we want and feel that we deserve. Others want to help us to achieve our goals, but many times we get in their way by telling ourselves stories that aren’t true. Mendhi’s precept aligns with mine, and a year or so after I first met her she published a book on this… “What If It All Goes Right?: Creating a New World of Peace, Prosperity & Possibility” by Mendhi Audlin reveals the secret to turning possibilities into a tangible reality. It works! https://ConnieLoves.me/WhatIfUp I’m discussing the importance of being willing to “Better Your Best” during this new year, as well as recommending that this be the year you finally embrace AI – Artificial Intelligence – for your business. I have been a student of and someone who uses AI almost daily since February of 2022, and I’m learning from experts Andy O”Bryan and Denise Wakeman in their ongoing AI Success Club. Asking “How Are You Defining Success?” Creating a business as an entrepreneur allows you to live a lifestyle by design, with both time freedom and financial freedom. Think about how you want to live each day and then take action to make it happen. Over the years I’ve changed many things, while others have remained the same. Instead of making changes just for the sake of change, think about what you could change up and what makes sense to remain at least mostly the same. Years ago, I used to put together my blog posts on a single topic, like copywriting or list building or creation digital products into a simple document that I referred to as a ‘Focus Guide’ and gave them away to my list and to my prospects. Each of these documents contained resources and an ‘About the Author’ page that helped me to build my credibility, visibility, and profitability. For the first time ever, I am recommending that you write a book about yourself, your niche topic, and how you serve others. I first did this in 2009 and now I have written and published twenty-eight full-length, non-fiction books on the topics of entrepreneurship, personal, development, and authorship. Life can be messy. Are their ways you can keep moving forward when your personal life is turning upside down? Yes! Finding joy in helping and serving others, as well as compartmentalizing what is currently going on in your life are just two of the ways to deal with change and situations outside of your control. I recommend that you choose two social media platforms to use for the sole purpose of helping your prospects find and connect with you online. My favorite is X – formerly known as Twitter, and I also use LinkedIn and YouTube as my favorite social media sites to grow my business. Please connect with me on these sites and let me know how I may best serve you as you build and grow your profitable business. Is your list of what you are willing to do longer than your list of what you don’t want to do? I recommend a mile-long “to-do” list and a daily schedule of no more than four things that you will work on each day in your business. Find a mentor who believes in you and get started with creating a lifestyle by design that you want and deserve. I’m recommending James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” – https://ConnieLoves.me/AtomicHabits – as a book to help you alleviate your fears. We all have hopes, dreams, goals, and fears regarding our life experiences. I have found that if we build up our confidence and have faith that everything will turn out in a way that will be beneficial to all, we can continue to move forward without negative effects. Having an online business requires confidence. These are some questions to ask yourself: Who will you serve? What are your prospects pain points? What’s your idea? How will it be created, and then delivered? How will you sell it online? Creating a simple product or online course is the beginning of living a lifestyle by design. Reach out to me any time at conniegreenhouse at yahoo dot com if you’d like to know more about getting started as an online entrepreneur. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ My first online course back in 2006 was a simple one with three audio trainings and a workbook. Then, I began creating more sophisticated, but not more complicated courses. I’ve used the “Really Simple” branding for many courses at least 25 times, as well as using other terms and phrases based on the keywords I am optimizing for with each new course. Having your own online course on a topic you want to become known for will give you leverage to grow your business exponentially over time. It’s interesting to me that we as humans sometimes take things for granted that later on we know we should have appreciated in the moment. What I’m referring to here is having an online business you can run from home, or from anywhere in the world. There’s a window of opportunity that isn’t always open, and right now this window is wide open to everyone. A lot of it depends upon economic factors. I almost went back to graduate school two years ago to study economics, but decided against it because of the film and television writing I’m pursuing, but that’s a story for another time. Someone I work closely with had posted this quote from Richard Branson the other day: “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” This does NOT apply to online business, but instead refers to starting a physical, brick and mortar business. I know several people in both of my cities who borrowed against their homes, cashed out retirement savings, and sold family heirlooms to start businesses in the community, only to go bankrupt a couple of years later. What I’m saying here is that this is the time to get your online business off the ground and up and running profitably. It’s so inexpensive in comparison, and the biggest expense I incur is what I pay mentors to guide me in the right direction. Yes, I still have a mentor and recommend you do as well. This isn’t coaching, but instead a personal relationship you’ll build over time that could lead to strategic alliance partnerships and lifelong friendships. I’m at conniegreenhouse at yahoo dot com if you want to know more about mentoring with me. The four widely accepted learning modalities (or modes) are known by the acronym VARK: Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, Kinesthetic. They are sometimes inaccurately referred to as “learning styles” which implies that each learner has a “style” of learning that should be maximized in all learning situations. Focusing on consistency, productivity, and creativity makes sense for all online entrepreneurs in 2024. I’m also sharing some effective and time-proven strategies with you here that will make a difference in your business, as well as in your personal life experience. Each day I focus on writing, creating, marketing, and teaching/learning/mentoring. My writing began as short and simple blog posts and blossomed into more than twenty-five full-length books. My writing is my oeuvre, my body of work that is my legacy to family, friends, colleagues, and those who follow me. During 2023 I wrote and published more than 400 thousand words. This breaks down to one full-length book, Self-Directed: Inspire, Motivate, and Empower Yourself to the Greatness That Lies Within; the current book on marketing that is more than halfway written; 8 short reports on topics of interest to the people I work with online; one hundred thirty-eight blog posts on three different blogs I maintain; and 382 email messages to my online community. These are  practical strategies for effective time management, emphasizing the importance of creating a balance between work and personal life. Achieving work-life harmony requires effective time management strategies that allow you to balance professional and personal responsibilities. Here are some strategies to help you manage your time more efficiently: 1. Set Clear Priorities: Identify your most important tasks and priorities for both work and personal life. Focus on what truly matters and allocate time accordingly. 2. Use a Time Management System: Choose a time management system that works for you, whether it’s a digital tool like Todoist or Trello, or a physical planner. Organize tasks, set deadlines, and track your progress. Schedules vs To-Do Lists 3. Prioritize Tasks with the Eisenhower Matrix: Categorize tasks into four quadrants: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important. Prioritize tasks based on these categories. 4. Batch Similar Tasks: Group similar tasks together and tackle them during specific time blocks. This reduces the mental load of switching between different types of activities. 5. Time Blocking: Allocate specific blocks of time to different activities. This includes work tasks, personal commitments, and breaks. Stick to the schedule as much as possible. 6. Learn to Say No: Be selective about taking on new commitments. Saying no when necessary helps you avoid over-committing and allows you to focus on your existing priorities. 7. Delegate When Possible: Delegate tasks that others can handle. This applies to both professional and personal responsibilities. It’s okay to ask for help. 8. Practice the Two-Minute Rule: If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. This prevents small tasks from piling up and becoming overwhelming. 9. Limit Multitasking: Focus on one task at a time. Multitasking can reduce efficiency and increase stress. Complete one task before moving on to the next. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ You’re starting a conversation with your emails, and building a relationship with your prospects, customers, and clients over time. I’ve been online as an entrepreneur, marketer, and writer since 2006, and while much has changed, I believe that more has remained the same. Here, I’m discussing how we marketed in those early days, and why email marketing still remains top of mind. Most recently, I’ve co-hosted an Advanced Email Marketing Conference with Ellen Finkelstein. In April of 2023, I hosted my latest live marketing event in Los Angeles, and more recently I’ve hosted my Santa Barbara Retreat for those I mentor and teach. But like everyone else, I began by attending live events, and eventually virtual events in order to find my voice, connect with other like-minded people, and learn more about building and growing my online business. Guerilla marketing is a way to drive publicity and, as a result, brand awareness by promoting using unconventional methods designed to evoke surprise, wonder, or shock. Guerrilla marketing is the creating use of novel or unconventional methods in order to boost sales or attract interest in a brand or business. These methods are often low- or no-cost and involve the widespread use of more personal interactions or through viral social media messaging. This marketing method has increased in popularity with the rise of ubiquitous mobile and connected technologies that can amplify messaging and focus on target groups of consumers. Some consumers may be more attracted by guerrilla marketing campaigns as they may be more interesting and daring, while others may be turned off because of the perceived “disruptive” aspects of this style of marketing. Please subscribe and leave me a review. And connect with me at https://ConnieRagenGreen.com. Find out more about me HERE. Becoming an online entrepreneur was the best decision I ever made. I’ve been online since 2006 and now help others all over the world to do the same or something similar. We all have times where we are feeling a little down, lost, or confused. Life isn’t easy, and no one makes it out alive! These are my recommendations for how to get back on track and feeling more happy and optimistic about your future… Write! Whether you’re already a writer or are just beginning to think about sharing your thoughts, ideas, and experiences with others, writing makes sense. I write every single day and publish much of my writing as blog posts, short reports, and full-length books. Writing opens your mind to what you want in the future, by allowing you to explore the past through your memories. You can also retell and reframe your stories in a way that will serve you going forward. Start a new project! I usually create products and courses as new projects, but this can also manifest as something you build or create with your hands. I have family members on two continents that love to put together complex jigsaw puzzles. They look forward to these as a new project on a regular basis. Volunteer! Before I started my online business, I promised myself I would volunteer my time and donate money to charitable causes… as soon as I had the time and the money to do so. Once I had my own business, I realized that I had some time and a little money to do this all along. Spend time with new people! As a part of the volunteering I now do regularly, I’ve spent time with very young children, veterans, women starting over after being in a domestic violence situation, and more. This work continues to make a difference in my life. As you can see, there are many ways to get back to your “Why?” and I hope this has been helpful to you. What’s the best niche topic to cover in your blog? I know you don’t what to hear me say “It depends.” so I won’t. Lean in, and I’ll share the very best niche for you, and it’s one that is also the most profitable, will feel more like you’re just having fun, will never go out of style, and will be the one that has absolutely zero competition. Which niche topic and target audience could it possibly be? I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I learned when I began online 17 years ago that the best niche for anyone is the one that makes your heart sing and is probably a topic you take for granted. I had been teaching school for twenty years and my students were mostly Spanish and Tagalog native speakers. I told them if they wrote just a few sentences every single day – weekends, holidays, and school breaks included – their writing would improve. Those who followed my advice excelled, while those who didn’t floundered. During all those years, I seldom wrote anything unless it was required for my work as a teacher or for my part-time work in real estate. Fast forward to 2006, and I realized not only that I needed to write in order to succeed online, but also that what I’d done with my students would apply here as well. My niche for the next eighteen months was around helping others to write, publish, market, and sell eBooks. I wrote one on real estate farming – choosing and area close to home to connect with people who may need your services – as an example and sold it on my website. Back then, you had to sell eBooks on your own websites, as Amazon had not yet entered the world of self-publishing. My niche and website became “eBook writing and marketing secrets” and this topic took me to six figures. I was learning right along with the people who were learning and buying from me. I then moved that site over to https://ConnieRagenGreen.com to make a name for myself and to branch out to other topics. The bottom line is that you must begin by sharing what you already know something about and love. Blogging is the direct path to the visibility, credibility, and profitability you wish to have in your business. In my business, every idea begins as a blog post. This is where I think and research and brainstorm what’s on my mind in the very beginning. The blog post is ground zero for what could, and many times does become a product, course or program. Blog posts, while based on your idea, can be created with original content, private label (PLR) rights content, guest content, or curated content. While I immediately share my published posts on social media as “micro content” you’ll want to wait at least 24 hours before syndicating your content on Medium. I also teach this syndication strategy in my popular and ongoing Syndication Optimization training program. Next up in your content creation and content marketing strategy is a short report, which you may sell online or give away as a lead magnet. I teach all of this in my Really Simple Short Reports training. This is what we refer to as “cornerstone” content that is extremely valuable. The final step is creating “authority content” by publishing your writing as a Kindle or paperback book to increase your visibility and build your reputation as an expert on your topic. I typically discuss time management and productivity in regards to entrepreneurs, marketers, and authors, and I’ve even co-authored a bestselling book on this topic, entitled “Time Management Strategies for Entrepreneurs: How to Manage Your Time to Increase Your Bottom Line” where we outline in great details the steps you may take to reach a level of optimal productivity and time management as an entrepreneur. But what about everyone else? Doesn’t every person deserve to live the lifestyle they want and deserve, where they enjoy financial freedom and the time to enjoy every moment to the fullest? Of course they do, and that’s what I’m sharing during this podcast. When I began online as a new entrepreneur in 2006, I realized immediately I would need help with technology and graphics, as these were the areas where I had no experience or talent. I bartered for these services for the first year or so, and then began to put together a team of people to support me so my business could grow. When I look back over my lifetime, I see that I have always had a team supporting me, whether it was while I worked as a classroom teacher, or in real estate as a broker and residential appraiser. Even while I was growing up, I was surrounded by people who supported me, from family, friends and neighbors to teachers, clergy, and people in the community. Put together your team and watch your business grow exponentially! When it comes to your visibility as an entrepreneur, where may we find you to see what you’re doing? This expert status comes from your writing, videos and audios, and your social media presence on the most active platforms for your target audience. My three popular and active blogs are at ConnieRagenGreen.com, HugeProfitsTinyList.com, and at MondayMorningMellow.com. Credibility is about what you already know and what you are learning. We all started our online businesses as adults, so we brought our knowledge and experiences with us. It made sense for me to help people write, market, and publish eBooks in the beginning, because I had worked as a classroom teacher for twenty years prior to coming online, and was learning about marketing and self-publishing. Profitability means that you must ask “What’s for sale?” every day in your business. Create your own simple products and courses, recommend others with affiliate marketing, and look into buying the resale rights to sell other people’s products as your own like I continue to do in my own business. The final part of this information on your expert status as an entrepreneur includes productivity, consistency, and attention to detail. Get everything in place as quickly as possible, and your online business is sure to grow exponentially! During my first couple of years online, beginning in 2007 I connected with mentors Alex Mandossian and Raymond Aaron. When I inquired as to what they were doing together as strategic alliance partners, they gave me a brief explanation and told me that I was not yet ready to move up to this level. Over the next two years they helped me to grow and elevate my business and my mindset as an online entrepreneur so that I could connect with others in this way. Seek out the people and groups you wish to be involved with and show them that you have moved past tactics and on to strategies. It will make all the difference and as you uplevel everything you’re doing online in your business, your free time and disposable income will increase exponentially! When I work with people in my Incubator Mastermind Mentoring program, the goal is to move them into position to become a strategic alliance partner with me and others to share their message in a bigger way. WHY did you choose the career you started your working life with? WHY did you get married, have children, and move into your first home? WHY did you make the conscious decision to leave your career at some point and start your business? WHY do you want to be an author or entrepreneur, or coach? WHY do you get up every single day and do the work required to become more successful on an ongoing basis? Everyone must have a WHY and there are no right or wrong answers here. But if you find yourself unmotivated to work or if you find yourself procrastinating on projects, then it's time to re-examine the main reason for your business. Name Your Reason – or Your WHY – for Starting a Business Focusing on your WHY can help motivate you, so write down your reason for starting a business on a regular basis. Did you want to fill your free time? Did you want to earn some play money or contribute to the family finances? Did you want to pay the medical bills of an aging parent or a sick child? Did you want to pay for your child's higher education or private school tuition? In my case, my answer to “what's your why?” was always around having enough income to live life on my terms. Over time, I came to the realization that every choice I was making, and each time I could not do something that had meaning for me, was all related to me needing to earn a paycheck or a commission from the classroom teaching and real estate work I was involved with each day. I missed just about every family event, vacation, and other activities because I was working 60 or more hours a week in order to cover my bills and other expenses. I wasn't angry or resentful because I believed that I didn't deserve to have a better life during those decades. This all changed in 2005 when I began reading books and attending events based on self improvement and personal development principles. Writing these reasons down – no matter what they are because every person's WHY will be different – should help motivate you to work hard. You should feel driven to make your business a success. You should be willing to tackle things outside your comfort zone because you know the end result will help your business. If you're not feeling motivated, then you need to dig deeper. I worked closely with a woman who was struggling to make her online business become profitable, and she continued to tell me that she had no problems or struggles in her life, currently or during her younger years. Then, one day she told me about her granddaughter who had passed away at age twelve and the floodgates opened. We got to the bottom of things, she discovered her why, and her business grew by leaps and bounds, almost overnight! Be Open and Willing to Examine Your Inner Feelings Life is fluid and ever-changing so it stands to reason that your WHY would change over time as well. Even if you started your business because you didn't know what to do once your kids were in full day school, you can change that WHY to something more meaningful now. A mentor once shared with me that she started a service business because she was a single mom and needed to earn money to survive. She was responsible for lodging, food, and clothing for herself and her child. She didn't have anyone to rely on except herself. THIS is enough to make you cry and to hustle for work, knowing that if she wasn't working, she wasn't eating. What are you passionate about that will get you hustling? Are you passionate about a cause or charity that can benefit from your financial assistance? Do you need to pull yourself up out of financial despair? Don't be afraid to own that reason and fight for your business. This is how you will continue to get closer to understanding and recognizing the answer to “what's your why?” Don't be Afraid to Switch Business Gears to Discover Your “Why” One of my mentees admitted to me early on that even though she has been in a service business for over ten years, that she hadn't been motivated to create any classes or products as a source of passive income. She blamed her indecision on a lack of new ideas and a feeling and belief that everything she knew had already been said and done, but I questioned if it was because she didn't feel attached to her particular niche of online marketing. After some more discussion, she agreed and has since modified her services that align better with what she enjoys. I still suggested that she explore a deeper WHY but this is a step in the right direction. Plenty of businesses add or subtract products or services or modify their mission statement. If something about your business doesn't feel right, don't be afraid to make changes. I'm bestselling author and online entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green, and now I can confidently answer the question “What's your why?” with enthusiasm and conviction. My “why” is around the concept of helping others to achieve their goals and dreams with writing and having a profitable online business so they may follow their dreams and passions without having to do work that doesn't make their heart sing or worry about meeting all of their financial obligations with grace and ease. You can double your productivity and be success with a business, or with anything you choose to accomplish in your life, if you are willing to implement what you learn and take decisive action on a consistent basis. Many people come to me to learn how to successful and profitable as an online entrepreneur. But some of them end up saying “I already know that” and moving on to something else. I know that I am able to do more than I ever thought would be possible in my life because I am willing to learn, implement, course correct, ask questions, take massive action and keep moving forward with consistency. Others may be smarter or more knowledgeable, but if they hesitate to take action they will not achieve the results they are hoping for in their business or with anything else. As long as you are specific and intentional with what you want to achieve, you can do it all as an entrepreneur, just not all at once. And we must throw perfection out the window. I have a new saying… The more perfecter your goal, the less purfeckt your results. “Everything we do in our lives is preparing us for something that will arise in the future, even though we don’t yet know what that will be.” ~ Connie Ragen Green Our stories are the fabric of our life. A story sets you apart from everyone else, makes you unique and memorable, and is all you have when it's all said and done. When I was a young child a neighbor girl, seven or eight years old at the time, interrupted my mother in the middle of a story she was telling to ask, “Why do you have so many stories?” My mother hardly skipped a beat, informing the girl that “You'll have stories too, when you get older.” On that evening a part of me became a storyteller in training. Sure enough, it wasn't long before I was telling stories about everything from what I did in school that day to what happened in the neighborhood. I wore my storyteller's hat with pride and now I see that this one aspect of my life was preparing me for what I now do in my business and derive great joy from every single day. The word “praestabilis” is from the Latin and means outstanding, excellent, and extraordinary and this is the goal for you as you make your way in the online world. It took me until age 50 to step into the light and live an empowered life. I achieved this by leaving a job – classroom teaching – and a career as a real estate broker and appraiser to come online as an entrepreneur. I have no regrets about waiting so long, as everything unfolds once we are open to receiving it. There are three top strategies to help you move closer to an empowered life and they include… Writing – Every day, I want you to write! This includes blog posts, outlines, emails to your prospects, clients, and potential joint venture partners. Also, write short reports and white papers to show others who you are and what you know. Finally, write a book to solidify your expertise in your niche, and follow that up with additional books over time. Writing is crucial to our process of standing out from the crowd by sharing what we know and believe. Reach out to me if you’re interested in coming aboard for my “10 Week Author” program. Recent posts on my three blogs are at: “Broken Compass Stories We Tell Ourselves” – https://mondaymorningmellow.com/broken-compass-story/ “The eBook That Changed My Life” – https://hugeprofitstinylist.com/ebook-that-changed-my-life/ “Marketing Secrets from Creative Sources” – https://connieragengreen.com/marketing-secrets-from-creative-sources/ Speaking – I was the reluctant speaker, but once I got past my fears and insecurities you can’t get the microphone away from me. Speak about yourself and your topic to anyone who will listen. I began by speaking at my Rotary Club and I continue to recommend service organizations as a way to break in to speaking. Now I speak all over the world, in person and virtually on a variety of topics. Masterminding – Connecting with others for the sole purpose of reaching your full potential is crucial to life success. Find a Mastermind group to join, or start your own by inviting thought leaders to connect with you in this way. I have a group called the Incubator Mastermind that may be of interest to you. Hopefully, you can see that what I’m sharing with on each podcast will make a difference for you as you build and grow your business as an entrepreneur, author, and marketer. Make sure to think of marketing as a priority and get into the habit of sharing your best ideas and resources with the people who are on their way to becoming your raving fans! I’m always just an email away at conniegreenhouse at yahoo dot com if you’d like to connect with me. I promise to help you keep it simple while you grow your online business. Get started with your own eBook empire by learning how to write an eBook from the person who continues to guide me along this lucrative journey. Take a look at How to Write and Publish Your Own eBook…in as Little as 7 Days from expert and author Jim Edwards. Thank you for this opportunity to serve you as I share my beliefs, perceptions, and experiences as an author, online entrepreneur, and marketing strategist with you. Marketing has become the joy of my life as I continue to learn, grow, and share concepts with others. I'm bestselling author, marketing strategist, and online entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and I would love to connect further with you to help you to achieve your goals. If you are interested in learning how to optimize the syndication of your content, please take a look at my popular Syndication Optimization training course and consider coming aboard to increase your visibility, credibility, and profitability.The post Praestabilis – Excellence in Marketing – 157 first appeared on Connie Ragen Green Podcast.The post Praestabilis – Excellence in Marketing – 157 appeared first on Connie Ragen Green Podcast.

André och Erika diskuterar varför många upplever att de har struktur och får saker gjorda på jobbet, men att det ofta är mer kaosartat hemma.Varför är det svårare att vara strukturerad hemma?Skillnader mellan arbetsplatsen och hemmet: tydliga rutiner, zoner för fokus och externa krav på jobbet, medan hemmet ofta präglas av spontanitet, fler distraktioner och otydliga deadlines.Det är vanligt att man har olika identiteter och roller på jobbet jämfört med hemma.Hemma finns ofta en oändlig mental att-göra-lista, medan arbetsuppgifter på jobbet är mer avgränsade och går att avsluta.Tips för att ta med sig struktur hem:Skapa gemensamma rutiner, t.ex. veckomöten eller en digital att-göra-lista (exempel: Trello).Sätt tydliga deadlines även för hemuppgifter.Dela upp ansvaret efter vad som känns lättast för respektive person.Våga be om hjälp, både hemma och på jobbet.Identifiera och hantera “tidsjuvar” – småsaker som stjäl tid i vardagen.Testa att göra tråkiga uppgifter tillsammans (“surdegseftermiddag”/”power-hour).Skapa system för ansvar och uppföljning, t.ex. ansvarskompis eller påminnelser.Kom ihåg!Anpassa strukturen efter vad som fungerar för just dig och din familj – det finns ingen universallösning.Det är okej att inte vara lika effektiv hemma som på jobbet, och att också prioritera återhämtning.Veckans prova-på: Prova att ta med det som fungerar på jobbet hem, men ha tålamod och var snäll mot dig själv om det tar tid att hitta rätt.Nästa avsnitt: Strukturpoddens årliga julkalender med korta strukturtips.Tips eller tankar? Skriv till oss på hej@strukturpodden.se eller i vår Facebookgrupp eller bli månadsstödjare på Patreon för fler tips!Musik: Simon Lundberg Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Guys are celebrating 20 YEARS of the podcast! News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage is making a landmark move to Whole Genome Sequencing for its at-home DNA test. See https://blog.myheritage.com/2025/10/myheritage-upgrades-its-dna-tests-to-whole-genome-sequencing/ for more details. MyHeritage has released a major update to its Theory of Family Relativity with 103 million new theories. MyHeritage announced that the 1921 England & Wales Census is now available to search online. MyHeritage has added 95 million marriage records extracted from newspapers using advanced AI on MyHeritage. Legacy Family Tree Webinars has expanded to offer a new series of webinars in Spanish. Newspapers.com and Gannett Co., Inc., are partnering to make hundreds of newspapers available online. [Gannett Co., Inc. has just rebranded as USA Today Co.] FamilySearch added 21 million new records in October and 18 million new records in November. Listener Email Hal Barker writes to encourage people to use the Korean War Project website (https://www.koreanwar.org/) for research on military ancestors and family members involved in this conflict. Julia writes to inquire about organizing a genealogy society project about the Roe Institute. Drew recommends Trello as a preferred project management software package. WikiTree will conduct a WikiTree Challenge in which volunteers will deep-dive into George's family tree and hope to break down some walls with new information. You can watch the Kickoff Meeting at 12:00 PM (Eastern Time) at https://wikitree.zoom.us/j/83430757286, and you'll want to watch George's results Reveal on 17 December 2025 at 8:00 PM (Eastern Time) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2Ea6XxZFRY. You can see Drew's WikiTree Challenge videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDAtp16w5pU (starting at the 31 minute 18 second mark) and the reveal at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lmu1Lc-fVM. Registration for RootsTech 2026 is now open at https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/registration. Drew discusses his work with MyHeritage's Theory of Relativity matches. Please let us hear from you at genealogyguys@gmail.com with your questions and comments.

Level up your church's social without spending a cent. From scheduling and analytics to project management and planning, today's episode is all about the best $0 tools churches can use to streamline their work and improve results. Let's upgrade your workflow and keep costs at zero.   ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro 0:36 - Instagram Insights 10:44 - Buffer 14:00 - Trello 15:09 - Linktree 16:16 - The Launcher by Nucleus 17:54 - Coschedule Headline Analyzer 19:58 - Auphonic 21:41 - Canva   IMPORTANT LINKS - Buffer: https://buffer.com/ - Trello: https://trello.com/ - Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ - The Launcher by Nucleus: https://www.nucleus.church/the-launcher - Coschedule Headline Analyzer: https://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer - Auphonic: https://auphonic.com/ - Canva: https://www.canva.com/ - PNAS NEXUS Article: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/11/pgaf327/8285703   THE 167 NEWSLETTER

AI Assisted Coding: Swimming in AI - Managing Tech Debt in the Age of AI-Assisted Coding In this special episode, Lou Franco, veteran software engineer and author of "Swimming in Tech Debt," shares his practical approach to AI-assisted coding that produces the same amount of tech debt as traditional development—by reading every line of code. He explains the critical difference between vibecoding and AI-assisted coding, why commit-by-commit thinking matters, and how to reinvest productivity gains into code quality. Vibecoding vs. AI-Assisted Coding: Reading Code Matters "I read all the code that it outputs, so I need smaller steps of changes."   Lou draws a clear distinction between vibecoding and his approach to AI-assisted coding. Vibecoding, in his definition, means not reading the code at all—just prompting, checking outputs, and prompting again. His method is fundamentally different: he reads every line of generated code before committing it. This isn't just about catching bugs; it's about maintaining architectural control and accountability. As Lou emphasizes, "A computer can't be held accountable, so a computer can never make decisions. A human always has to make decisions." This philosophy shapes his entire workflow—AI generates code quickly, but humans make the final call on what enters the repository. The distinction matters because it determines whether you're managing tech debt proactively or discovering it later when changes become difficult. The Moment of Shift: Staying in the Zone "It kept me in the zone. It saved so much time! Never having to look up what a function's arguments were... it just saved so much time."   Lou's AI coding journey began in late 2022 with GitHub Copilot's free trial. He bought a subscription immediately after the trial ended because of one transformative benefit: staying in the flow state. The autocomplete functionality eliminated constant context switching to documentation, Stack Overflow searches, and function signature lookups. This wasn't about replacing thinking—it was about removing friction from implementation. Lou could maintain focus on the problem he was solving rather than getting derailed by syntax details. This experience shaped his understanding that AI's value lies in removing obstacles to productivity, not in replacing the developer's judgment about architecture and design. Thinking in Commits: The Right Size for AI Work "I think of prompts commit-by-commit. That's the size of the work I'm trying to do in a prompt."   Lou's workflow centers on a simple principle: size your prompts to match what should be a single commit. This constraint provides multiple benefits. First, it keeps changes small enough to review thoroughly—if a commit is too big to review properly, the prompt was too ambitious. Second, it creates a clear commit history that tells a story about how the code evolved. Third, it enables easy rollback if something goes wrong. This commit-sized thinking mirrors good development practices that existed long before AI—small, focused changes that each accomplish one clear purpose. Lou uses inline prompting in Cursor (Command-K) for these localized changes because it keeps context tight: "Right here, don't go look at the rest of my files... Everything you need is right here. The context is right here... And it's fast." The Tech Debt Question: Same Code, Same Debt "Based on the way I've defined how I did it, it's exactly the same amount of tech debt that I would have done on my own... I'm faster and can make more code, but I invest some of that savings back into cleaning things up."   As the author of "Swimming in Tech Debt," Lou brings unique perspective to whether AI coding creates more technical debt. His answer: not if you're reading and reviewing everything. When you maintain the same quality standards—code review, architectural oversight, refactoring—you generate the same amount of debt as manual coding. The difference is speed. Lou gets productivity gains from AI, and he consciously reinvests a portion of those gains back into code quality through refactoring. This creates a virtuous cycle: faster development enables more time for cleanup, which maintains a codebase that's easier for both humans and AI to work with. The key insight is that tech debt isn't caused by AI—it's caused by skipping quality practices regardless of how code is generated. When Vibecoding Creates Debt: AI Resistance as a Symptom "When you start asking the AI to do things, and it can't do them, or it undoes other things while it's doing them... you're experiencing the tech debt a different way. You're trying to make changes that are on your roadmap, and you're getting resistance from making those changes."   Lou identifies a fascinating pattern: tech debt from vibecoding (without code review) manifests as "AI resistance"—difficulty getting AI to make the changes you want. Instead of compile errors or brittle tests signaling problems, you experience AI struggling to understand your codebase, undoing changes while making new ones, or producing code with repetition and tight coupling. These are classic tech debt symptoms, just detected differently. The debt accumulates through architecture violations, lack of separation of concerns, and code that's hard to modify. Lou's point is profound: whether you notice debt through test failures or through AI confusion, the underlying problem is the same—code that's difficult to change. The solution remains consistent: maintain quality practices including code review, even when AI makes generation fast. Can AI Fix Tech Debt? Yes, With Guidance "You should have some acceptance criteria on the code... guide the LLM as to the level of code quality you want."   Lou is optimistic but realistic about AI's ability to address existing tech debt. AI can definitely help with refactoring and adding tests—but only with human guidance on quality standards. You must specify what "good code" looks like: acceptance criteria, architectural patterns, quality thresholds. Sometimes copy/paste is faster than having AI regenerate code. Very convoluted codebases challenge both humans and AI, so some remediation should happen before bringing AI into the picture. The key is recognizing that AI amplifies your approach—if you have strong quality standards and communicate them clearly, AI accelerates improvement. If you lack quality standards, AI will generate code just as problematic as what already exists. Reinvesting Productivity Gains in Quality "I'm getting so much productivity out of it, that investing a little bit of that productivity back into refactoring is extremely good for another kind of productivity."   Lou describes a critical strategy: don't consume all productivity gains as increased feature velocity. Reinvest some acceleration back into code quality through refactoring. This mirrors the refactor step in test-driven development—after getting code working, clean it up before moving on. AI makes this more attractive because the productivity gains are substantial. If AI makes you 30% faster at implementation, using 10% of that gain on refactoring still leaves you 20% ahead while maintaining quality. Lou explicitly budgets this reinvestment, treating quality maintenance as a first-class activity rather than something that happens "when there's time." This discipline prevents the debt accumulation that makes future work progressively harder. The 100x Code Concern: Accountability Remains Human "Directionally, I think you're probably right... this thing is moving fast, we don't know. But I'm gonna always want to read it and approve it."   When discussing concerns about AI generating 100x more code (and potentially 100x more tech debt), Lou acknowledges the risk while maintaining his position: he'll always read and approve code before it enters the repository. This isn't about slowing down unnecessarily—it's about maintaining accountability. Humans must make the decisions because only humans can be held accountable for those decisions. Lou sees potential for AI to improve by training on repository evolution rather than just end-state code, learning from commit history how codebases develop. But regardless of AI improvements, the human review step remains essential. The goal isn't to eliminate human involvement; it's to shift human focus from typing to thinking, reviewing, and making architectural decisions. Practical Workflow: Inline Prompting and Small Changes "Right here, don't go look at the rest of my files... Everything you need is right here. The context is right here... And it's fast."   Lou's preferred tool is Cursor with inline prompting (Command-K), which allows him to work on specific code sections with tight context. This approach is fast because it limits what AI considers, reducing both latency and irrelevant changes. The workflow resembles pair programming: Lou knows what he wants, points AI at the specific location, AI generates the implementation, and Lou reviews before accepting. He also uses Claude Code for full codebase awareness when needed, but the inline approach dominates his daily work. The key principle is matching tool choice to context needs—use inline prompting for localized changes, full codebase tools when you need broader understanding. This thoughtful tool selection keeps development efficient while maintaining control. Resources and Community Lou recommends Steve Yegge's upcoming book on vibecoding. His website, LouFranco.com, provides additional resources.    About Lou Franco   Lou Franco is a veteran software engineer and author of Swimming in Tech Debt. With decades of experience at startups, as well as Trello, and Atlassian, he's seen both sides of debt—as coder and leader. Today, he advises teams on engineering practices, helping them turn messy codebases into momentum.   You can link with Lou Franco on LinkedIn and visit his website at LouFranco.com.

Want a more organized teaching life without overcomplicating things? Spoiler: The best tools are often the simplest. In this episode, I'm sharing four tools that have become mainstays in my ELT life. They're simple, they work, and some I've been using for over a decade. A tiered file sorter for class materials A desk caddy for supplies Google Calendar for time-sensitive tasks Trello for organizing digital resources The common thread: They keep me organized so I can focus on teaching. Are any of these on your essential tools list too?   For full show notes of this episode, visit https://www.eltresourceroom.com/podcast/80-4-tools-i-continue-using-because-they-keep-me-organized  Stay up to date with the podcast and more: Sign up for my newsletter to get more organizational tips like in today's episode that will help you build the thriving ELT life you're longing for >> https://eltresourceroom.ck.page/a29bcd1017  Connect with Heather: Website LinkedIn Facebook  

This week, we're plugging into the mainframe to explore how the tech revolution has fundamentally reshaped the comic book industry—from the way we read and create to the very stories we tell. The "Tech Era" isn't just coming; it's here, and it's changing everything.Join Our Patreon: http://patreon.com/vvclifeGrab Some Gear: http://vvcmerch.comGeneral Talk:“Be honest — if AI could perfectly draw your ideas exactly how you picture them, would you use it? Or would that feel like cheating?”(The lead in to our main topic later)The Precious: JS-1: https://amzn.to/4nROHrqFame: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cameraintelligence/caira-worlds-first-ai-native-mirrorless-cameraJaelyn: https://amzn.to/3X0ia7USloan: https://amzn.to/4r43mTeCommercial #1Guest: TJ Sterling & Ade Heru: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tjsterling/musa-lion-of-maliMUSA: LION OF MALI - A 120 PAGE HISTORICAL EPIC FANTASY! (Kickstarter Campaign) Riddle Me this: Commercial: #2Games:Next Soul PleaseZeverlandIrene The Window Main Topic:  Drawn to the Future: Comic Books in the Tech EraWhat tools every comic artist should try in 2025Sketchpad    https://help.sketchbook.com/docsApple Pencil   https://a.co/d/2MPVk93How tech can help indie creators publish and market their comicsCanva (graphic design & social media visuals) Mailchimp (email marketing/newsletter)Hootsuite or Buffer (social media scheduling + analytics) — Manage posts, schedule ahead, and keep up with engagement.Notion or Trello (project-/content-planning) — Organize your campaign, coordinate art + promos + timelines without cost.Google Analytics (tracking performance) Kickstarter or Patreon (platforms to fund + engage audience) Does AI threaten or empower comic book artists?Faster Creative Workflow but Copyright & Artistic Integrity RisksAccessible Inspiration & Collaboration but Job Displacement & DevaluationNews: The use of the word “Black”Bringing Back VinePlaystation ShutdownFlying CarThe science of witch craft?Stephen King UniverseMeta will read emailsFuture debit cardSteam HardwareHumanoid robotGoogle Text booksAutonimous racing league.Instagram:  http://instagram.com/blacknerdpodcast  facebook:   http://facebook.com/blacknerdpodcastReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/blacknerdgang/s/uftLsO0Ad9website: http://blacknerdpodcast.comhttp://twitter.com/vvcradio   http://instagram.com/js1thasupplier  http://instagram.com/fameplanbhttp://instagram.com/jaelynaleisehttp://instagram.com/sloan_tempest

Sometimes you just need another agent to say what everyone else is thinking. In this Q&A episode, Katy and Alissa are answering the real-life, in-the-trenches questions Realtors are navigating every single day. We're talking client expectations, boundaries, broker advice that doesn't make sense, and what actually works in today's market. When y'all send questions to our inbox, you never disappoint. And this batch covers everything from inspections to communication issues to luxury listings to motherhood to what we'd do if we didn't work in real estate. It's honest, funny, and full of practical advice you can use immediately. Here's what we chat about in this episode: Should Realtors go to inspections (and why brokers sometimes say not to) What to do when clients break agreements or try to cut you out The triggers we use to stay on top of communication Whether you really need a second phone or Google Voice Email marketing: what actually works and what your clients don't care about What to charge when covering showings for another agent Rental property updates from Alissa And what job we'd take if we ever left real estate Key Quotes & Takeaways "You're not the inspector just because you showed up. You're the professional who guides your client through the process." —Katy "If someone doesn't want to work with me, I'm not going to fight them about it—but I am going to enforce the contract." —Alissa "Most boundary problems disappear when you communicate like a professional from the very beginning." —Katy "I'm not trying to be right, I'm trying to be happy—and sometimes that means letting people be wrong." —Alissa "There is no such thing as an easy closing. That's why clients need us." —Katy Products, People & Previous Episodes Mentioned: Email Templates 101: http://emailtemplates101.com Agent Systems 101: http://agentsystems101.com Hustle Humbly Newsletter: http://hustlehumblypodcast.com/newsletter Trello training inside Hustle Humbly Community Want to toast someone on the show? Send us a voice or video message with your name, who you're toasting, and why! Email it to team@hustlehumblypodcast.com. Leave us a review at http://ratethispodcast.com/hustlehumbly Get your FREE Database Template: http://hustlehumblypodcast.com/starthere Email Templates 101: http://emailtemplates101.com Agent Systems 101: http://agentsystems101.com All Resources: http://hustlehumblypodcast.com Submit your topic ideas and toasts to Team@HustleHumblyPodcast.com Music: Straight A's by Connor Price → https://connorprice.shop/ The Good Life by Summer Kennedy → https://soundcloud.com/summerkennedy/the-good-life Be The One by Matrika → https://uppbeat.io/t/matrika/be-the-one

Running a content marketing agency means wearing about 15 hats before lunchtime… strategist, editor, designer, writer, project manager, and sometimes therapist (to yourself and clients).To keep everything flowing (without burning out), having the right tech stack is non-negotiable. Over the years, my toolkit has evolved with my business - from solo freelancer to agency owner managing multiple clients, team workflows, and creative outputs across platforms.So in true “teach what you do” style, here's a look behind the curtain at the tools that power Content Queen, from content planning and editing to scheduling, communication, and client delivery.If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah. ⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS

Sign up for Xero using my link here! http://www.xero.com/hicommunications Join my free Christmas content workshop here - https://noble-lab-369.myflodesk.com/ze3s8lznjxThe Best Marketing Podcast Ever - Episode 164: The content system that will save your business this ChristmasIn this episode, Hannah shares the "Christmas Content System" she has developed that has been a game-changer for reducing stress and saving time during the busy festive season. The goal of the system is to create a foundation of reusable content that saves "future you" time and allows for strategic flexibility in December.The Purpose of the SystemSaves Time and Prevents Stress: The end of the year can be stressful, especially for product businesses focused on sales or service businesses trying to make their offers seasonal. This system is built to help you look after your future self.Enables Flexibility: Having a bank of ready-to-go content allows you to choose your strategy for the upcoming year—whether you decide to push hard on launches (like last year) or pull back into "maintenance mode" (like this year).Creative Freedom: When the foundation is sorted, you gain the brain space to come up with new, creative ideas.Focus on Audience Sentiment: Even if your service isn't seasonal, the way your audience feels will be seasonal. The system helps you address their current thoughts around end-of-year tasks, Christmas content, or January planning.Building Your Content SystemChoose Your Platform: Hannah uses a Trello board to store all her festive content. Members of The Best 90 Days Ever also use platforms like Notion, Air Table, and Google Docs. The key is to pick a platform that works for you.Capture Reusable Concepts: The system is for capturing content ideas that resonated with people in previous years.Go Back Through Your Work: Look at content from previous festive seasons that either grew your audience or resulted in sales.Repurpose, Don't Just Copy: You don't have to copy and paste old posts. Use the system to save a good concept, hook, or visual that can be reused and updated (e.g., turning an old idea into a new Reel).Current Offers and PromotionsFree Workshop: Join the free workshop, "Help, I've got no Christmas content" , on Wednesday, November 19th, at 12:00 UK time. It's designed to help you create a library of content you can reuse every year. If you miss it, you can still sign up for the recording.The Best 90 Days Ever Membership: The next round of the membership starts on January 1st. You can join the wait list to receive a weekly email with one of the tasks currently being done by members to get a taste of the community.Episode SponsorThis episode is sponsored by Xero. Xero helps small business owners streamline and supercharge their business by simplifying admin like invoicing, expenses, and chasing payments. Use Xero to get paid twice as fast and make tax simple.

In part one of this Building Better Foundations interview, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche talk with Greg Lind, founder of Buildly and OpenBuild, about bridging the gap in software development through AI, automation, and collaboration. Greg shares how modern teams can overcome silos, strengthen communication, and build transparency into their workflows — creating stronger, more adaptive foundations for success in today's fast-paced, AI-driven world. "We wanted to bring developers and product managers into one tool—so they could build together rather than as two separate teams." — Greg Lind About the Guest — Greg Lind Gregory Lind is an American software developer, author, and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in open-source innovation, software efficiency, and team transparency. He's the founder of Buildly in Brooklyn and co-founder of Humanitec in Berlin, helping organizations modernize systems through collaboration and automation. A frequent speaker at Open Gov and Open Source conferences, Greg advocates for open, scalable solutions and smarter software processes. His upcoming book, "Radical Therapy for Software Teams" (Apress, 2024), explores how transparency and AI can transform how teams build software. Bridging the Gap Between Teams and Tools Greg's journey toward bridging the gap started years ago while working with Humanitech in Berlin, where he saw firsthand how poorly connected processes caused frustration and inefficiency. Traditional Agile frameworks, while once revolutionary, began to buckle under the pressure of multi-repo, multi-cloud, and AI-driven development. "Agile started to break under the pressure—especially when we introduced AI-driven tools and CI/CD pipelines. The cycles just weren't fast enough." — Greg Lind To solve this, Buildly introduced a Rapid AI Development (RAD) process — a modern evolution of Agile that supports faster, release-based cycles rather than rigid sprints. It's an approach designed to keep pace with today's distributed teams and complex workflows. Bridging the Gap Through Automated Communication At the heart of Buildly's philosophy is a belief that communication shouldn't slow developers down — it should empower them. By integrating tools like Trello and GitHub, Buildly connects product and sprint backlogs into one transparent view. Developers' commits, issues, and updates automatically feed into team dashboards, reducing the need for endless meetings and manual updates. "You shouldn't have to explain what you did yesterday. Your commits already tell that story." — Greg Lind This approach allows teams to focus on outcomes rather than overhead — building trust, visibility, and true alignment across departments. It's automation as a bridge, not a barrier. Using AI to Bridge the Gap Between People and Process While Greg embraces AI's potential, he warns against depending on it too heavily. AI is great at identifying tasks and patterns, but humans still bring creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking to the table. "AI can tell you what's urgent, but it can't understand what's important." — Greg Lind In Greg's view, AI should be a co-pilot — helping teams filter information, automate repetitive work, and focus on higher-value decisions. By balancing automation with human insight, teams can bridge the gap between efficiency and innovation. Empowering Developers to Bridge the Gap Themselves Greg encourages developers not to wait for leadership to fix broken processes — but to take initiative. Automate your own workflows, visualize your backlog, and demonstrate how better systems can look in practice. "Even if you have to automate your own backlog—do it. Show your team what better looks like." — Greg Lind This proactive mindset transforms teams from reactive to adaptive, ensuring that everyone contributes to bridging the gap between communication, accountability, and delivery. Bridging the Gap Toward the Future of Development Greg Lind's insights remind us that bridging the gap in software development isn't about adopting the latest framework — it's about reconnecting people, process, and purpose. When teams share context, communicate openly, and use AI responsibly, they build stronger foundations for innovation. As this episode shows, the future of software isn't about faster code — it's about better collaboration. And bridging the gap is where that future begins. Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, there's always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at info@develpreneur.com with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let's continue exploring the exciting world of software development. Additional Resources Useful WordPress SEO Plugins Product Catalog: A Deeper Dive Into Customizing WordPress Plugins Manage WordPress Plugins Building Better Foundations Podcast Videos – With Bonus Content

Ever blink at 4 p.m. and wonder where your day went? We've been there—busy all day yet weirdly light on results. This conversation lays out a distraction detox that replaces chaos with clarity using two simple moves: track the curveballs that hit you and cage the squirrels you chase. The payoff isn't just productivity; it's the calm that comes from finishing what matters most.We start by exposing curveballs—emails, calls, texts, “got a minute?” visits—that shred focus. By writing each one down and reviewing at week's end, you'll spot repeat sources and install better systems: scheduled check-ins, shared priorities, response windows, and clearer urgency signals. Fewer drive-bys, fewer pivots, more deep work. Then we turn inward to the squirrel cage, where ideas and impulses hijack momentum. Instead of fighting creativity, we give it a home: a capture list that preserves the spark without blowing up the plan. You can explore later; right now, you execute.We also walk through the Daily Domination Board, a simple Trello or paper setup that helps you commit to a realistic daily limit, move tasks to Done, and earn a reward: no squirrel time until the essentials are complete. That tiny rule rewires motivation and kills the “busy but not done” cycle. To seal it, we share a surprisingly effective bonus: visible do-not-disturb cues. A red headset, a desk sign, or a clear status teaches your environment to respect your focus, especially during morning deep work.If you're tired of scrambling, try this: track curveballs, cage squirrels, protect your best hours, and let systems carry the load. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a friend who's drowning in distractions, and leave a quick review to tell us what you'll implement first.Set the stage for an amazing new year with the Self First Framework.https://calendly.com/jesse04/self-first-webinar Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Behttps://www.depthbuilder.com/books

This week on Its The Bottom Line that Matters, cohosts Jennifer Glass, Daniel McCraine, and Patricia Reszetylo reveal the real-life tech stack choices that power their businesses—and how you can make smarter moves too.Whether you're drowning in software options or worried your tools are running you (instead of the other way around), this episode gives you answers you won't find in generic “top 10 software” lists. Together, the hosts dissect:Why your tech tools are only pieces of your system—and how to avoid letting them run the showWhat actually works for productivity, communication, CRM, and planning—straight from their own businessesInsider advice for security, GDPR, and protecting your data as your stack gets biggerForget one-size-fits-all advice. Jennifer, Daniel, and Patricia get honest about what flops, what fits, and why stacking up your perfect tech-system is a path to more confidence, freedom, and business growth. Listen in for permission to build a business that works the way you do.If you're tired of the grind and ready to win back your time, subscribe now — and join us each week for smarter strategies.Speaker Bios: Jennifer Glass brings a wealth of business acumen to the show, with a strong focus on the practical side of technology for entrepreneurs. She manages her own tech stack using platforms like High Level and a suite of Microsoft products, while staying security-conscious after personally experiencing a cyber-attack. Jennifer's insights are always grounded in real-world challenges, from project management and communication apps to compliance with GDPR and FTC guidelines. She's passionate about helping other business owners select the tools that truly fit their needs, and even offers support as a Microsoft partner.Daniel McCraine is a seasoned entrepreneur and small business owner, always looking for practical technology solutions that simplify daily operations. On the podcast, Daniel shared his experience building a streamlined CRM company for small businesses, emphasizing the importance of using software that does what you need and nothing more. He's a fan of Google Workspace for collaboration, Trello for project management, and Groove for marketing and websites. Daniel is strategic in his tech decisions, often seeking expert recommendations for security, especially when it comes to choosing content delivery networks. His approach is all about utility, integration, and minimizing unnecessary complexity.Patricia Reszetylo is the creative force on the podcast, known for her hands-on experimentation with tech tools for planning and brainstorming. She's a power user of ChatGPT for everything from project layouts to writing and advice, often pairing it with Google Drive and Canva to organize and visualize her work. Patricia isn't afraid to try new platforms—whether it's switching her calendar from Calendly to Go High Level or testing project management tools like Monday.com, Asana, and ClickUp. She prefers systems that let her see everything at once and adapt as her workflow evolves, demonstrating a flexible, solution-oriented mindset for businesses navigating modern tech choices.Together, Daniel, Jennifer, and Patricia deliver practical advice and personal stories, helping listeners build a tech stack that supports business growth and success.Keywords: tech stack, small business technology, Its The Bottom Line that Matters, Jennifer Glass, Daniel McCraine, Patricia Reszetylo, group podcast, entrepreneurship, business podcast, business tips, productivity tools, CRM, GDPR, systems, software for business, 2025 trends, community podcast

Ever wish your client workflow could run a little more smoothly — without you spending hours managing inquiries? In this behind-the-scenes episode, I'm sharing the exact automation that saves me hours every week as a Nashville family photographer.You'll get a step-by-step look at how I connect Dubsado, Zapier, and Trello to automatically organize new client leads — so nothing falls through the cracks and every client gets the same consistent experience.Whether you're a visual learner who loves Trello or a systems-curious creative ready to automate more of your business, this quick tutorial will walk you through the full process (and yes — I'm holding your hand the whole way through!) Want the FULL blog post of this podcast? Click HEREResources & Links Mentioned In This Episode▸ Watch the YouTube video version of this Podcast (so you can get a full visual of how I break everything down): https://youtu.be/iRSX8mf8HCA▸ Dubsado (30% off affiliate link):http://dubsado.com/?c=dollydelongeducation▸ Showit (affiliate link):https://showit.com/r/40ggld0m▸ The Contact Form That Wows Training (Free!):https://systemsandworkflowmagic.com/create-a-contact-page-that-wows▸ The Ultimate Family Photographer's Workflow (Coming Soon) (or you can check out my shop here)Connect with Dolly DeLong Education

What if the fastest way to grow isn't doing more, but letting go—carefully? We pull back the curtain on how we hired and trained two very different assistants, one in Texas and one in the Philippines, and the systems that make those partnerships smooth, secure, and genuinely business-changing. From the first grading task to a multi-role teammate, and from a five-hour bookkeeping trial to dashboards, course ops, and content workflows, this is a real-world blueprint for delegating without losing your mind.We walk through the decisions that matter: how to choose between 1099 and W‑2, where to source talent (and what marketplace reviews actually tell you), and how to set pay based on skill, scope, and outcomes. Security and ethics are baked in—NDAs, HIPAA training when needed, and password managers like LastPass so you can grant access without giving away the keys. You'll hear how simple, living SOPs turn chaos into consistency: short Loom or Camtasia videos, Trello checklists, and clear definitions of “done” that make handoffs clean and quality predictable.Communication is the backbone. We explain why one primary channel and a weekly check-in beat scattered pings and why screenshots with specific notes eliminate rework. We also share candid red flags—vanishing act replies, task-dumping without initiative, and hidden subcontracting—and the green flags that signal a pro: proactive problem-solving, honest updates, and resilience when life or weather hits across time zones. Most of all, we make the case that delegation is an investment, not a cost. Start with five to ten hours, document one process, ship it, and use the time you get back for higher-leverage work—or real rest.Ready to turn overwhelm into a system that scales? Listen now, subscribe for more practical playbooks, and leave a review with the first task you plan to delegate.Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.

Ever felt like your to-do list was running your life instead of the other way around?  This week, Tamara sits down with Erika from Trello, who went from being part of a 10-person product marketing team to leading a two-person powerhouse and somehow became more productive in the process. They unpack how to set real boundaries, build systems that scale (without burning out), and turn chaos into clarity. From choosing the right tools and saying no to endless Slack pings, to developing intentional rituals and co-creating SLAs across teams, Erika shares practical ways to bring sanity back to your workflow. If you've ever wrestled with a launch that didn't hit its mark, struggled to get cross-functional buy-in, or wondered how to make your messaging actually resonate, this is the episode for you.  Follow Erika: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erika-storli/ Follow Tamara: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaragrominsky/ Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

Launching your subscription box shouldn't require a tech degree or a six-figure software stack. Yet too many new subscription box owners spend weeks stressing about tools. Or worse, skip setup until launch week. Let's fix that. In this quick Friday Fuel episode of the Launch Your Box Podcast, I'm walking you through the exact tech tools you actually need to launch your subscription box. Nothing fancy, nothing extra, just what works from Day 1. The 4 Core Tools Every Subscription Box Business Needs Before you launch your subscription box, you need four core systems in place: Website Platform – Shopify or WooCommerce Payment Processor – PayWhirl or Stripe Shipping Software – Shopify Shipping or ShipStation Email Marketing CRM – Klaviyo Hire Out the Tech or DIY? If setting up checkout flows and automations makes your eyes glaze over, you're not alone. You don't get bonus points for doing it all yourself. You can hire someone for a few hundred dollars to get your tech stack up and running, or take it step-by-step yourself.  The key is that everything works before you go live. Test Like a Customer Testing your tech isn't optional. Walk through your own site like it's your first visit: Can you place a test order from start to finish? Do your emails send automatically? Are your shipping options correct? Do recurring payments process properly? Do your confirmation emails look professional? Click every link. Test every flow. You've worked hard to get people to your site, don't lose them because of a broken button or missing email. A Bonus Tool for Staying Organized Is your desk covered in sticky notes? It's time for a free project-management tool like Trello, Asana, or ClickUp. Use it to organize launch tasks, email prep, or even box curation. Each has a free version and will save you serious stress. Take Action Carve out an hour to audit your tech stack. Set up your storefront, payment processor, and email CRM. Run a full test order from start to finish. Make sure every piece, from opt-in to order confirmation, works flawlessly. You don't need the fanciest tools. You just need tools that work.  Keep it simple, get it tested, and be ready when subscribers start clicking “buy.” Join me for this quick, practical episode and walk away with a clear, budget-friendly tech plan that's ready for launch day. Join me in all the places:     Facebook Instagram Launch Your Box with Sarah Website  Are you ready for Launch Your Box? Our complete training program walks you step by step through how to start, launch, and grow your subscription box business. Join the waitlist today! 

AI is disrupting every facet of the law, and understanding how to engage with AI technologies is essential for all attorneys and law students. Dennis and Tom talk with April Dawson about her experience researching and teaching about ethical, effective AI uses in the legal world while preserving vital learning skills for law students. They discuss AI challenges in law schools, AI governance considerations, new applications for AI in access to justice, and much more.  As always, stay tuned for the parting shots, that one tip, website, or observation that you can use the second the podcast ends. Have a technology question for Dennis and Tom? Call their Tech Question Hotline at 720-441-6820 for the answers to your most burning tech questions. Show Notes: NCCU's 4th Annual Law and Technology Summit on October 17, 2025. April Dawson on LinkedIn Voice Memos organized by ChatGPT! Trello (explained by ChatGPT!) AI prompt – “What am I missing?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI is disrupting every facet of the law, and understanding how to engage with AI technologies is essential for all attorneys and law students. Dennis and Tom talk with April Dawson about her experience researching and teaching about ethical, effective AI uses in the legal world while preserving vital learning skills for law students. They discuss AI challenges in law schools, AI governance considerations, new applications for AI in access to justice, and much more.  As always, stay tuned for the parting shots, that one tip, website, or observation that you can use the second the podcast ends. Have a technology question for Dennis and Tom? Call their Tech Question Hotline at 720-441-6820 for the answers to your most burning tech questions. Show Notes: NCCU's 4th Annual Law and Technology Summit on October 17, 2025. April Dawson on LinkedIn Voice Memos organized by ChatGPT! Trello (explained by ChatGPT!) AI prompt – “What am I missing?” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Take Command of Your Day with the Daily Domination BoardGear up for the new year The fastest path to real high performance isn't a new app or a 4 a.m. alarm—it's a cleaner day. We walk through a lightweight Daily Domination workflow that gets tasks out of your head, into a simple Trello board, and moving from To-Do to Done without drama. No complex frameworks, no calendar chaos—just a clear loop you can trust: dump, sequence, execute, reflect, and bucketize.We start by capturing everything—client work, admin, errands, and even the tiny tasks that clog your attention. Then we show how to order your day for leverage, move one card at a time into Doing, and use the Done column to build visible momentum. The heart of the conversation is reflection: measuring your say–do ratio with honesty, finding the tasks that stall, and deciding whether to split them, schedule them, or delete them. You'll hear how to protect evenings if planning triggers late-night work, and why consistency beats sophistication every time.From there, we dig into bucketizing with labels—Work, Chores, Family, Fitness, or custom categories like Client Delivery, Pipeline, and Broadcasting. Color coding makes patterns obvious so you can steer your time toward what actually matters. You'll learn how to evolve labels on the fly, personalize the system to your world, and use weekly reviews to course-correct without beating yourself up. Along the way, we share community wins, practical caveats, and the small habits that keep the board useful when life gets loud.Ready to trade overwhelm for clarity? Grab the Daily Domination template, try a single day of the loop, and tell us what changed. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a friend who drowns in to-dos, and leave a quick review so more pros can find their flow.Download a PDF copy of Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Behttps://www.depthbuilder.com/books

Tune in as the team discusses:The importance of adopting tech to scale your land business without creating another job.Beginner must-haves: LG Pass, GeekPay, Google Workspace, Slack, Trello, and MailChimp.How Zamplo brings list-building, pricing, and mapping into one unified system.Tips for creating a virtual office setup for future delegation.Why learning the process yourself before outsourcing gives you leverage.Key tools for marketing, CRM tracking, and payment automation.Real talk about early struggles, outdated methods, and the game-changing role of automation. TIP OF THE WEEKRyan: Don't outsource what you don't understand.Before you hand off marketing or tech tasks to a VA, make sure you've done it yourself at least once. Mastering the basics gives you clarity, confidence, and control when it's time to delegate. WANT MORE?Enjoyed this episode? Dive into more episodes of AOPI to discover how to build real passive income through land investing.UNLOCK MORE FREE RESOURCES:Get instant access to my free training, a free copy of my Bestseller Dirt Rich Book, and exclusive bonuses to accelerate your land investing journey—it's all here: https://thelandgeek.ac-page.com/Podcast-Linktree."Isn't it time to create passive income so you can work where you want when you want, and with whomever you want?"

Chad Rubin is the Founder and CEO of Profasee, a dynamic pricing platform enabling brands to predict the optimum price for every product. He has built several successful companies, including the Prosper Show, Think Crucial, and Skubana, which was acquired by 3PL Central. As a speaker and world-class Amazon expert, Chad gives presentations about e-commerce, SaaS, and Amazon at global conferences and webinars. He is also the co-author of the Amazon bestseller Cheaper Easier Direct.  Jason Swenk is the Founder of Agency Mastery 360, a company dedicated to helping digital agency owners grow and scale their businesses. With over 20 years in the agency space, he has built and sold his agency, and he now leverages his experience working with brands like AT&T, Hitachi, and Lotus Cars to mentor other agencies. In addition to hosting the Smart Agency Masterclass podcast, the #1 podcast for digital marketing agency owners, Jason has developed a framework for growing agencies from nothing to eight figures. His unique perspective, shaped by his extensive experience and monthly interaction with over 100 agencies, provides valuable insights into navigating market disruptions and achieving sustained growth. Todd Taskey is a Partner at Tower Partners and an M&A advisor at Potomac Business Capital. He has been an entrepreneur, business owner, investment banker, and business finance advisor for more than 20 years. In addition to providing M&A advice, Todd has been a founding investor, board member, or part of the management team of several business ventures. He helps CEOs and entrepreneurs develop a successful exit strategy through his knowledge of the mid-market investment banking process. In this episode… The pursuit of success often hides a quieter struggle — the constant tug-of-war between ambition, attention, and alignment. Entrepreneurs chase growth, yet time, focus, and meaningful connection remain their scarcest resources. What if the real edge in business isn't doing more but refining how we think, learn, and connect? Chad Rubin, Jason Swenk, and Todd Taskey reveal the books, tools, and habits that keep them grounded while driving exponential growth. Chad credits The 4-Hour Workweek, Atomic Habits, and Lost and Founder for reshaping his view of time and leadership — and shares how AI tools like WisprFlow and Readwise help him communicate faster and retain key lessons. Jason points to Giftology and Never Lose a Client Again as blueprints for loyalty, pairing them with Trello's visual workflow to stay organized and creative. Todd highlights the Same as Ever and The Psychology of Money as reminders that human behavior never changes, pairing wisdom with everyday apps like Maps and Genius Scan to keep life simple and efficient. In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz talks with Chad Rubin, Jason Swenk, and Todd Taskey about the books, podcasts, and tools that shape their leadership and innovation. They discuss lessons from entrepreneurship, the power of AI for productivity, and how continuous learning and curiosity fuel lasting success.

✨ Register for the 2026 Planning Party at simplescrapper.com/plan26In this episode, I'm chatting with four of our Simple Scrapper staff and team members to reflect on what's truly working well in our scrapbooking lives. We shared the systems, creative ideas, and little victories that keep us inspired, from embracing hybrid approaches to finding joy in our stash of supplies. Our conversation highlighted the importance of celebrating progress, staying organized in our own unique ways, and giving ourselves permission to take time to create. Most of all, we reminded each other that it's about having fun and carrying forward what brings us joy into the new year.Links MentionedProject Life App: Apple | Google ShutterflyPhotoshop ElementsAli EdwardsJust JamieConnie PrinceElle's Studio: https://shopellesstudio.com/?selling_plan=9235628287Keynote: https://www.apple.com/in/keynote/Canva: https://www.canva.com/Trello: https://trello.com/Watch Cheryl Scrap on YouTubeNicole Mackin on YouTubeSteak Goddess on YouTubeIKEA RaskogAli Edwards One Little Word

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, the $50BN software giant behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Since founding the company in 2002, he has scaled it to over 300,000 customers globally, generating more than $5BN in annual revenue. Atlassian now employs over 10,000 people across 13 countries and is one of the most successful bootstrapped-to-IPO stories in tech history. Mike is also a leading climate investor and co-owner of several major sports teams. AGENDA:  00:00 Why Unreasonable Men Win in Startups 07:22 How to Make Co-CEOs Work  13:22 Are We in an AI Bubble? Is Everything Overvalued? 26:46 The Future of Software Development: More or Less Devs 32:53 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI 34:02 The Future of Vibe Coding… 36:35 Does Defensibility Exist in a World of AI 42:09 Is Per Seat Pricing Dead in a World of AI 49:01 The Founder Journey and Leadership 54:28 Quick Fire Round: Parenting Advice, Relationship to Money  

Send us a textIn this episode of The Inspired Podcast, Ms Amber Red, Adrienne, Sasha, and Aubrie are diving into the power of Excel and Google Sheets for your business—yes, those “boring” spreadsheets can actually change the way you run your beauty or PMU business!Sasha shares how she used ChatGPT + Excel to build customized analytics sheets and pivot charts to track our email marketing data. Since Kajabi doesn't give in-depth email analytics, Sasha created a smarter way to see exactly when our email list is opening, what subject lines are working, and what links are getting clicked. She even customized formulas to fit Inspired's needs—covering everything from tags, courses, coupon codes, forms, links, and more.Aubrie jumps in with her love for Google Sheets and how she used it in sales to keep track of follow-ups. Adrienne talks about how she uses Excel for inventory, client management, and finances. And of course, we end with a fun round of the programs we absolutely cannot live without—Sasha swears by Trello, Adrienne and Amber both love CapCut, while Aubrie shouts out ChatGPT and Canva.This episode is a mix of practical tools, business hacks, and real talk about what's actually working for us behind the scenes. If you've been looking for ways to streamline your workflow, boost productivity, and finally make sense of your email and business data, you'll love this one!Support the showFollow Ms Amber Red on all social media platforms: IG: InspiredByMsAmberRed - https://www.instagram.com/inspiredbymsamberred/ IG: MsAmberRed - https://www.instagram.com/msamberred/ TikTok: MsAmberRed - https://www.tiktok.com/@msamberred?_t=8We7Q2Gtd0&_r=1 FB: MsAmberRed Permanent Makeup - https://www.facebook.com/Msamberred FB Group: Inspired by Ms Amber Red - https://www.facebook.com/groups/inspiredbymsamberred Website: http://www.inspiredbymsamberred.comSupport our podcast here! - https://www.buzzsprout.com/2235069/support Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of Ms Amber Red & Inspired by Ms Amber Red. The material and information presented here is for entertainment purposes only. “Inspired by Ms Amber Red" name and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, service or view.

Join hosts Dee Kei and Lu on this episode of the Mixing Music Podcast as they dive into the timeless mantra: "Preparation Meets Opportunity." Kicking off with hilarious travel stories—from grueling flights to Russia with layovers in Turkey to epic childhood road trips—they quickly pivot to real-talk advice for music producers, engineers, and artists.Drawing from personal anecdotes (without naming names), they break down common pitfalls in recording sessions, like unprepared templates, poor communication, and failing to control a chaotic room. Learn practical tips for smooth workflows: practice your DAW templates, prioritize artist needs, and think "for the art" to capture those lightning-in-a-bottle moments.The conversation expands to mixing and mastering—handling client notes without ego, organizing projects with tools like Trello, and daily communication to avoid "falling through the cracks." For live sound pros, they cover feedback prevention, rider communication, and making quick decisions with no room for revisions.Things get philosophical toward the end, exploring branding, professionalism, humility, and clearing your conscience to build trust and reliability in the industry. Whether you're battling self-doubt, seeking validation, or just wanting to stand out, Dee Kei and Lu emphasize dignity, honor, and purposeful action to turn preparation into lasting success.Perfect for aspiring mixers, producers, and live engineers—tune in for actionable insights, laughs, and motivation to level up your music career. Subscribe for more episodes on music production tips and industry stories.Our Sponsors:* Check out Aeropress and use my code MMPOD for a great deal: https://aeropress.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/mixing-music-music-production-audio-engineering-and-music/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode of Grow a Small Business, host Troy Trewin interviews Paige Wiese, founder of Tree Ring Digital, shares her journey from freelancing after the GFC to building a 16-person digital marketing team. She reveals how the company doubled during COVID, overcame recent dips, and stayed resilient through challenges. Paige explains the importance of prioritization, transparency, and smart financial management in scaling a business. She highlights why being industry-agnostic has given Tree Ring Digital a competitive edge. Her story is a blend of perseverance, adaptability, and strategic growth every small business owner can learn from. Why would you wait any longer to start living the lifestyle you signed up for? Balance your health, wealth, relationships and business growth. And focus your time and energy and make the most of this year. Let's get into it by clicking here. Troy delves into our guest's startup journey, their perception of success, industry reconsideration, and the pivotal stress point during business expansion. They discuss the joys of small business growth, vital entrepreneurial habits, and strategies for team building, encompassing wins, blunders, and invaluable advice. And a snapshot of the final five Grow A Small Business Questions: What do you think is the hardest thing in growing a small business? Paige Wiese said the hardest thing in growing a small business is having the confidence and resilience to stick with it through the ups and downs. She emphasized that challenges and setbacks are inevitable, but staying committed and pushing forward makes all the difference. What's your favorite business book that has helped you the most? Paige Wiese shared that one of her favorite business books is “Do Less”, which helped her understand the importance of not saying yes to everything and focusing on what truly matters by getting unnecessary tasks off her plate. Are there any great podcasts or online learning resources you'd recommend to help grow a small business? Paige Wiese emphasizes learning through mentors, self-teaching, and real conversations over traditional study. She's been featured on Mission Matters (digital asset control), Building the Business (slowing down to speed up growth), and Grow My Accounting Practice (scaling with marketing). Paige highlights the value of extracting small, actionable insights from books, podcasts, and networking. She also recommends shows like Masters of Scale for growth strategies and Manager Tools for leadership and team development. What tool or resource would you recommend to grow a small business? Paige Wiese recommends using practical tools and systems to support business growth, starting with digital asset management to secure domains, websites, and brand accounts. She highlights the value of QuickBooks for financial tracking and project management tools like Asana or Trello to streamline workflows. To grow smarter, she suggests leveraging Google Analytics and Search Console for data-driven decisions, while also emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, mentorship, and checklists to stay resilient and adaptable. What advice would you give yourself on day one of starting out in business? Paige Wiese said the advice she would give herself on day one of starting out is: “You can do it. It's going to come with some challenges, but you've got this.” Book a 20-minute Growth Chat with Troy Trewin to see if you qualify for our upcoming course. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your small business to new heights! Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.     Quotable quotes from our special Grow A Small Business podcast guest: Prioritization is the key to delivering real value, not just checking off tasks – Paige Wiese Know your numbers—without metrics, you can't measure true growth – Paige Wiese Success is producing quality work while building long-term relationships – Paige Wiese  

The latest In Touch With iOS with Dave he is joined by Jill McKinley, Chuck Joiner, Eric Bolden, Marty Jencius.  We cover Vision Pro leaks, iOS 26 fixes, and Apple's smart glasses strategy. The panel also discusses Wallet delivery tracking, new ringtones, CarPlay Ultra pushback, privacy screens, and iPhone 17 market trends. Expect sharp insights and plenty of laughs—like Jill watching underwear ads on a plane, Marty's Brick House ringtone fail, and the crew dubbing Apple rumor fans “The Germaniacs.” The show notes are at InTouchwithiOS.com  Direct Link to Audio  Links to our Show Give us a review on Apple Podcasts! CLICK HERE we would really appreciate it! Click this link Buy me a Coffee to support the show we would really appreciate it. intouchwithios.com/coffee  Another way to support the show is to become a Patreon member patreon.com/intouchwithios Website: In Touch With iOS YouTube Channel In Touch with iOS Magazine on Flipboard Facebook Page BlueSky Mastodon X Instagram Threads Summary Episode 389 of In Touch With iOS kicks off with host Dave Ginsburg and the full panel—Jill McKinley, Marty Jencius, Jeff Gamet, Chuck Joiner, Eric Bolden, and Ben Roethig—fresh off celebrating a Cubs playoff win. The conversation dives into Vision Pro updates and Apple's latest security patches, including a quirky “malicious font” bug. From there, the panel dissects an FCC leak that revealed a refreshed Vision Pro with an M5 chip—sparking jokes about the government “protecting secrets by giving them away.” Debate follows on whether Apple's reported pivot to AI-powered smart glasses is a strategic win or just creepy. Jason Snell's VisionOS review gets praise as thoughtful and balanced, while the panel adds their own takes on environments, widgets, and gaming controller support. iOS 26.0.1 and watchOS 26.0.2 are unpacked, addressing iPhone 17 connectivity and battery bugs, while macOS Tahoe gets flak for lingering Electron app slowdowns. Jeff delivers a mini public service announcement about Slack, Discord, and Trello devouring system memory. The panel shifts gears to Wallet app delivery tracking, which impresses some while frustrating others with inaccurate status updates. A lighter segment celebrates Apple finally adding seven new ringtones, prompting stories: Marty blasting Brick House in a faculty meeting, Jill rocking '80s ringtones, and Jeff's Futurama theme drawing smiles in public. Other highlights include:     •    CarPlay Ultra controversy — Ford pushes back, Jill's Subaru story about passengers killing her map, and Chuck's take on carmakers clinging to “unique” interfaces.     •    Privacy screen protectors — Jill recalls spying underwear ad designs on a plane, Jeff insists “just don't show sensitive info in public,” and Marty questions if this “solution” solves a problem at all.     •    Market trends — iPhone 17 Pro demand surges while the iPhone Air lags, with trade-in deals and China demand influencing sales. Topics and Links In Touch With Vision Pro this week.  About the security content of visionOS 26.0.1 FCC Accidentally Leaks Apple's Next Vision Pro - MacRumors Apple Shelves Vision Headset Revamp to Prioritize Meta-Like AI Smart Glasses visionOS 26 Review: Keep moving toward the future Beta this week.  Apple Releases iOS 26.0.1 With Fixes for Wi-Fi, Cellular, and Camera Issues on iPhone 17 Models Apple Releases watchOS 26.0.2, visionOS 26.0.1 and tvOS 26.0.1 iPhone Cell Network Bug Fixed With iOS 26.0.1 Update Apple Notes in iOS 26.1 adds new swipe gesture for power users How to fix iMessage activation issue on iOS 26 iOS 26.1 release date: Here's when to expect the next iPhone update  In Touch With Mac this week Apple Releases macOS Tahoe 26.0.1 With M3 Ultra Bug Fix Electron apps causing macOS Tahoe performance problems Other Topics iOS 26: Track Emailed Orders in Apple Wallet iOS 26 added seven brand new iPhone ringtones, listen here Ford CEO Provides Update on CarPlay Ultra - MacRumors Best Privacy Screen Protectors For iPhone 17 Pro Max  News New iPhones See 'Stronger Than Expected' Demand With One Exception Apple Watch Series 3 lineup and iPhone 11 Pro Max now 'vintage' T-Mobile's Satellite Service Now Works With Popular Apps Apple TV+ reveals the trailer for the upcoming documentary event “Mr. Scorsese” Apple TV+ extends its deal to be the exclusive streaming home for 'Peanuts' until 2030 YouTube TV & NBC Reach a Long Term Deal To Keep NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, & More Announcements Macstock 9 has wrapped for 2025. Attendees will receive a link for the session recordings when  they're ready in 30-45 days. If you missed Macstock we missed you! Why not purchase a digital pass to relive all the amazing presentations? Click the link below to purchase the digital pass. Macstock X has already been announced July 10,11,12, 2026 hopeful you all can join us.  Macstock IX Digital Pass Our Host Dave Ginsburg is an IT professional supporting Mac, iOS and Windows users and shares his wealth of knowledge of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and related technologies. Visit the YouTube channel https://youtube.com/intouchwithios follow him on Mastodon @daveg65, , BlueSky @daveg65  and the show @intouchwithios   Our Regular Contributors Jeff Gamet is a podcaster, technology blogger, artist, and author. Previously, he was The Mac Observer's managing editor, and Smile's TextExpander Evangelist. You can find him on Mastadon @jgamet Pixelfed @jgamet@pixelfed.social and Bluesky @jgamet.bsky.social‬ Podcasts The Context Machine Podcast  Retro Rewatch Retro Rewatch His YouTube channel https://youtube.com/jgamet Marty Jencius, Ph.D., is a professor of counselor education at Kent State University, where he researches, writes, and trains about using technology in teaching and mental health practice. His podcasts include Vision Pro Files, The Tech Savvy Professor and Circular Firing Squad Podcast. Find him at jencius@mastodon.social  https://thepodtalk.net  Eric Bolden is into macOS, plants, sci-fi, food, and is a rural internet supporter. You can connect with him by email at eabolden@mac.com, on Mastodon at @eabolden@techhub.social, on his blog, Trending At Work, and as co-host on The Vision ProFiles podcast.   Jill McKinley works in enterprise software, server administration, and IT A lifelong tech enthusiast, she started her career with Windows but is now an avid Apple fan. Beyond technology, she shares her insights on nature, faith, and personal growth through her podcasts—Buzz Blossom & Squeak, Start with Small Steps, and The Bible in Small Steps. Watch her content on YouTube at @startwithsmallsteps and follow her on X @schmern. Chuck Joiner is the host of MacVoices and hosts video podcasts with influential members of the Apple community. Make sure to visit macvoices.com and subscribe to his podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @chuckjoiner and join his MacVoices Facebook group. Ben Roethig Former Associate Editor of GeekBeat.TV and host of the Tech Hangout and Deconstruct with Patrice  Mac user since the mid 90s. Tech support specialist. X @benroethig and all other social media @benroethig.   Website: https://roethigtech.com/

Think cloud security is boring? Think again. Daniel talks with Tom Orbach, Director of Growth Marketing at Wiz and creator of the Marketing Ideas newsletter. His mission? Make “boring” impossible to ignore. Tom reveals the three-step framework he's used to turn a quiet cybersecurity brand into a social-media magnet: Humor. Participation. Status. He drops real examples you can steal: a CISO Toy Store, a cybersecurity musical, even a meditation app for stressed-out security leaders. These stunts turned brand awareness into fuel for sales and made Wiz the name everyone in cloud security knows. Whether you market SaaS, finance, or any “too serious” industry, this conversation proves “boring” can be exciting if you know how to Market your brand. If you want your brand to get noticed, talked about, and remembered, this episode is for you.  Atlassian is made for teams. Organize, collaborate, and manage work with a suite of tools that include Jira, Confluence, Trello, and more. To learn about how Atlassian can change the game for your team, go to https://www.atlassian.com/ Follow Tom: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomorbach/ Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter: www.workweek.com/brand/the-marketing-millennials Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit: www.workweek.com

In this episode of the Grow A Small Business Podcast host Troy Trewin interviews Rosy McEvedy, founder of Ivy League Drips, shares her journey of turning a $5K savings into a fast-growing health business with over 200 licenses across Australia. She reveals how her passion for health, combined with grit and discipline, fueled 125% growth in just three years. Rosy discusses the challenges of hiring the right team, managing taxes, and learning the financial side of business while staying true to her vision. She also emphasizes the importance of consumer understanding, nurturing workplace culture, and trusting intuition. Her story is a powerful example of building success from scratch with resilience and purpose. Why would you wait any longer to start living the lifestyle you signed up for? Balance your health, wealth, relationships and business growth. And focus your time and energy and make the most of this year. Let's get into it by clicking here.   Troy delves into our guest's startup journey, their perception of success, industry reconsideration, and the pivotal stress point during business expansion. They discuss the joys of small business growth, vital entrepreneurial habits, and strategies for team building, encompassing wins, blunders, and invaluable advice.   And a snapshot of the final five Grow A Small Business Questions: What do you think is the hardest thing in growing a small business? Rosy McEvedy shares that the hardest thing in growing a small business is maintaining consistency while wearing multiple hats—balancing sales, marketing, finances, and customer service all at once. It's challenging to stay focused on growth while handling daily operational fires. What's your favorite business book that has helped you the most? Rosy McEvedy shares that her favorite business book is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, as it reshaped her mindset about testing ideas quickly, learning from failures, and scaling sustainably without wasting resources. Are there any great podcasts or online learning resources you'd recommend to help grow a small business? Rosy McEvedy shares that some great podcasts and online learning resources she recommends are How I Built This with Guy Raz, The Smart Passive Income Podcast by Pat Flynn, and online platforms like Coursera and HubSpot Academy, which provide practical, actionable knowledge for entrepreneurs. What tool or resource would you recommend to grow a small business? Rosy McEvedy shares that the tool she'd recommend to grow a small business is Trello (or Asana) for managing tasks and team collaboration, along with Canva for easy, professional-looking marketing content. Both help small businesses stay organized and build a professional presence without huge costs. What advice would you give yourself on day one of starting out in business? Rosy McEvedy shares that if she could give herself advice on day one of starting out in business, it would be: “Focus on building relationships and delivering value first, don't chase perfection, and remember that consistency will beat speed in the long run.” Book a 20-minute Growth Chat with Troy Trewin to see if you qualify for our upcoming course. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your small business to new heights! Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.     Quotable quotes from our special Grow A Small Business podcast guest: Consistency, not speed, is what truly builds a strong business foundation – Rosy McEvedy Every failure is simply a faster way to learn what actually works – Rosy McEvedy Relationships and value come before profits and perfection – Rosy McEvedy      

Ask Jac & Ben A Question!Have you ever felt like your business would thrive if only your brain would cooperate? For wedding professionals with ADHD, running a successful business often means navigating a mind that feels like "sitting in Times Square trying to do Chinese algebra."In this illuminating episode, we welcome ADHD systems specialist Caitlin Blair who transforms what looks like chaos into strategic success for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Drawing from her experience growing up in a household filled with ADHD family members and working with numerous wedding professionals, Caitlin shares insights that go beyond typical productivity advice.We dive deep into why traditional business systems often fail for those with ADHD, and how "organized chaos" can be harnessed rather than eliminated. Ben shares his personal journey with ADHD, offering a raw glimpse into how it affects decision-making, focus, and the emotional landscape of running a wedding business. From the anxiety that often accompanies neurodivergence to the transformative power of proper diagnosis, we explore the full spectrum of the ADHD entrepreneurial experience.You'll discover practical strategies tailored specifically for the ADHD mind: visual planning systems, how to approach tools like Trello without getting overwhelmed, time blocking techniques that prevent hyperfocus on single tasks, and methods for tackling those dreaded administrative duties every wedding professional faces. Caitlin also walks us through her process of creating custom systems that don't just organize your business, but actually work with your natural thinking patterns.Whether you have ADHD yourself or work with someone who does, this episode offers compassionate understanding alongside actionable strategies. The noise in your head doesn't have to be your business's downfall—it might just be your greatest creative asset when channeled properly.Subscribe to Wedding Empires to continue exploring the unique challenges and opportunities of running a wedding business, and find Caitlin at VirtuallyVitalCo to learn more about her specialized services for neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Support the show

Dans cet épisode, on est de nouveau avec Louis pour parler d'organisation : ce qui marche pour nous, ce qui ne marche pas du tout, et toutes les méthodes qu'on a testées avec plus ou moins de succès. On partage nos routines, nos astuces (comme la méthode Pomodoro ou les to-do lists), nos contradictions, et notre besoin de rester souples. En bonus, on vous raconte la routine (très) matinale d'Amélie Nothomb et le joli projet musical que Louis a mené grâce à sa régularité. Interactive Transcript and Vocab Helper Support Easy French and get interactive transcripts, live vocabulary and bonus content for all our episodes: easyfrench.fm/membership Open the Interactive Transcript (https://play.easyfrench.fm/episodes/s0f1ra5b93po5zk3s1yj0) Download transcript as HTML (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/s0f1ra5b93po5zk3s1yj0/easyfrenchpodcast159_transcript.html?rlkey=3d7rl31ursev1xdiag5gkie1y&st=wufmm5ms&dl=1) Download transcript as PDF (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/occmnsjfhjkgohy96o1hz/easyfrenchpodcast159_transcript.pdf?rlkey=j0yi2z4t0waopxxe8oottp0et&st=avjm00hv&dl=1) Download vocab as text file (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9mee6vzp7tnnxf5xaetp8/easyfrenchpodcast159_vocab.txt?rlkey=a7fj7fxio0r3c7w3vk74z6e52&st=xtdde15b&dl=1) Download vocab as text file with semicolons (https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/eoobsqyzij8yf0i8jwd7t/easyfrenchpodcast159_vocab-semicolon.txt?rlkey=5qa57wwhb5jbywb30xdwwk96u&st=v5ro6xc6&dl=1) (for flashcard apps) Subscribe using your private RSS feed to see the transcript and vocabulary helper right in your podcast app while you listen. Show Notes

We've put together the ultimate list of 49 free tools churches are using right now. And here's the best part — these aren't just our picks. Every single tool comes directly from churches like yours, already putting them to work in real ministry.   ENTER 'The $11,988 Fall Kickoff Giveaway' HERE: https://prochur.ch/enter   ============================= Table of Contents: ============================= 0:00 - Intro 3:17 - Communication 9:05 - Project Management 11:58 - Creative Resources 17:25 - Audio 20:43 - Production 24:50 - *Free, Not Free* 28:30 - Most Popular Tools   IMPORTANT LINKS - The Church Smartphone Photography Masterclass: https://youtu.be/KaUPT9o4Lus - WhatsApp: https://www.whatsapp.com/ - Slack: https://slack.com/ - Invite Everyone: https://inviteeveryoneapp.com/ - Messenger: https://www.messenger.com/ - Asana: https://asana.com/ - Trello: https://trello.com/ - Notion: https://www.notion.com/ - Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/ - ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ - Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ - Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ - VSCO: https://www.vsco.co/ - YouTube Video Downloader: https://y2mate.com/ - 4K Video Downloader: https://www.4kdownload.com/ - Coolors.co: https://coolors.co/ - Motion Array: https://motionarray.com/ - Tally Forms: https://tally.so/ - Adobe Express: https://www.adobe.com/express/ - Noun Project: https://thenounproject.com/ - FontBase: https://fontba.se/ - Audacity: https://www.audacityteam.org/ - Loop Community: https://loopcommunity.com/ - Adobe Enhance Speech: https://podcast.adobe.com/enhance - MacWhisper: https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper - Otter.ai: https://otter.ai/ - Chrome Remote: https://remotedesktop.google.com/ - Bitfocus Companion: https://bitfocus.io/companion/ - PowerPoint: https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/powerpoint - Keynote: https://www.apple.com/keynote/ - Presenter: https://www.worshiptools.com/en-us/presenter - Life.Church Open Network: https://open.life.church/ - Smash: https://fromsmash.com/ - Meta Business Suite: https://business.facebook.com/ - Google For Non-Profits: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/ - Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ - ImageOptim: https://imageoptim.com/ - OBS: https://obsproject.com/ - Freeshow: https://freeshow.app/ - CapCut: https://www.capcut.com/ - DaVinci Resolve: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve - Canva: https://www.canva.com/   THE 167 NEWSLETTER

Looking for some clever blogger collaboration ideas to help you grow faster and easier? Well, you're in luck, as in this episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast, we'll be going over 10 clever strategies that can help you gain instant visibility while growing your blog's traffic, email list, and income! By the end of this episode, you'll understand: How to collaborate with other bloggers beyond the usual guest posting Blog collaboration ideas specifically focused on fast business growth How to reach out to bloggers to collaborate (template included!) Ideas for collaborative events that can accelerate blog growth And more! Bonus: At the end, I'll also share some important implementation tips to help you see success with collaboration!

In this episode, host Dr. Bradley Block picks up with Dr. Cheryl Chase for part 2 on enhancing executive functioning for physicians and high-performers. They explore self-monitoring tools like tone tapes (or music playlists with varying intervals), buzzing devices, timers, and apps such as Brick for blocking distractions. Dr. Chase discusses visual timers for better time perception, productivity apps like ToDoist, Trello, and Notion, and prioritization using the Eisenhower matrix to sort tasks by urgency and importance. She emphasizes delegating to free up time and replenishing the "EF bucket" with mindfulness practices (e.g., box breathing), exercise, sipping glucose-rich beverages, sleep, and nurturing relationships. Drawing from Dr. Russ Barkley's insights, these strategies help anyone—not just those with ADHD—optimize focus, persist through tasks, and maintain work-life balance. This episode wraps up the series with essential tips for thriving in demanding roles.Three Actionable Takeaways:Enhance Self-Monitoring with Tools – Use tone tapes (or playlists with varying song lengths), buzzing watches, or timers to check in on your focus at random intervals; for distractions, try apps like Brick to physically lock social media until you complete tasks.Prioritize and Delegate Effectively – Apply the Eisenhower matrix to categorize tasks by urgency and importance, focusing on high-impact items first; delegate non-essential duties after investing time to teach others, freeing up your schedule for what matters most.Replenish Your EF Bucket – Before EF-heavy tasks, practice box breathing (inhale/hold/exhale/hold for 4 counts each) or mindful minutes; incorporate exercise (20-30 minutes, 2-3 times/week), sip glucose-rich beverages while working, prioritize sleep, diet, and social connections to boost cognitive fuel.About the Show:Succeed In Medicine  covers patient interactions, burnout, career growth, personal finance, and more. If you're tired of dull medical lectures, tune in for real-world lessons we should have learned in med school!About the GuestDr. Cheryl Chase is a licensed clinical psychologist in Independence, Ohio, specializing in assessments and treatments for ADHD, learning disorders, and emotional challenges across the lifespan. She's an international speaker on executive functioning, dyslexia, co-regulation, and performance improvement in work and school settings. Her strategies help high-achievers, including physicians, enhance efficiency and balance.Website: https://chasingyourpotential.comAbout the host:Dr. Bradley Block – Dr. Bradley Block is a board-certified otolaryngologist at ENT and Allergy Associates in Garden City, NY. He specializes in adult and pediatric ENT, with interests in sinusitis and obstructive sleep apnea. Dr. Block also hosts The Succeed In Medicine  podcast, focusing on personal and professional development for physiciansWant to be a guest?Email Brad at brad@physiciansguidetodoctoring.com  or visit www.physiciansguidetodoctoring.com to learn more!Socials:@physiciansguidetodoctoring on Facebook@physicianguidetodoctoring on YouTube@physiciansguide on Instagram and Twitter This medical podcast is your physician mentor to fill the gaps in your medical education. We cover physician soft skills, charting, interpersonal skills, doctor finance, doctor mental health, medical decisions, physician parenting, physician executive skills, navigating your doctor career, and medical professional development. This is critical CME for physicians, but without the credits (yet). A proud founding member of the Doctor Podcast Network!Visit www.physiciansguidetodoctoring.com to connect, dive deeper, and keep the conversation going. Let's grow! Disclaimer:This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical, financial, or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional for personalized guidance.

If every new hire feels like it hijacks your entire month, this episode is for you. Today on Recruiting Conversations, I walk you through how to create a structured onboarding system that removes you from the center without removing your presence. Because if you're still doing 90 percent of the onboarding work yourself, you're not just overwhelmed. You're the bottleneck. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Episode Breakdown [00:00] Introduction – Why onboarding feels overwhelming and why that's actually a systems issue [01:00] The Real Problem – Leaders treating onboarding like a one-week event instead of a repeatable system [02:00] Introducing the 4P Framework – People, Process, Playbook, Personalization [03:00] P1: People Assign ownership for tech, CRM, marketing, culture, support Move from shared ownership to clear ownership Use peer mentors and onboarding coordinators [03:30] P2: Process Map out day 1 through day 90 Use tools like CRMs, Trello, shared docs to organize the flow Filter every step through these questions: Does this build clarity? Confidence? Connection? [04:30] P3: Playbook Document what you say and do so others can repeat it Include logins, workflows, rhythm calendars, and short videos When it's not written, it's not real [05:30] P4: Personalization Welcome notes, calls, gift boxes, and personal check-ins Structure creates consistency, personalization creates belief [06:30] The Pushback – You say you don't have time to build this. But you don't have time not to. [07:00] Start Small – Use your next hire to document everything you already do [08:00] Beyond Tasks – Onboarding is not just about information. It's about belief Did I make the right decision? Do I belong here? Can I trust this team? [08:30] Final Challenge – Build a 30-day onboarding play. Start with what you already do, then improve it Key Takeaways If You're Doing It All, You're the Bottleneck – Scale happens when systems replace memory Structure Doesn't Kill Culture – The right systems free you up to lead with presence Clarity Creates Confidence – Documented onboarding builds momentum faster than ad hoc training Don't Just Transfer Knowledge – Transfer belief, identity, and purpose Use Every Hire to Improve the Process – Each round gives you a better playbook for the next one The best leaders don't just recruit well. They onboard with purpose. They build systems that scale their time, protect their culture, and create confident, connected team members from day one. Need help creating an onboarding system that reflects your leadership and scales with your growth? Subscribe to my weekly email at 4crecruiting.com or book a session at bookrichardnow.com. Let's remove you as the bottleneck and build a system that lasts.

In this season of Building Better Developers with AI, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche revisit a past topic: 'Transform Your Projects: The Ultimate Guide to Effective User Stories.' This episode offers a fresh perspective on how teams can achieve greater success by writing better user stories. The hosts initially tackled this subject in an earlier season, but they return to it because the challenge remains timeless: poorly written user stories continue to derail software projects. This time, they dive deeper into lessons learned, customer-centric approaches, and frameworks that make user stories truly work. Why Writing Better User Stories Still Matters Rob opens with a familiar frustration: sitting in sprint planning and realizing the user stories don't make sense. Vague requirements create confusion, rework, and wasted effort. A user story is not a specification—it's a promise for a conversation that builds shared understanding. By writing better user stories, teams maintain focus on outcomes, rather than implementation. They deliver features that users actually need, instead of technical solutions that fall short. The Philosophy of Writing Better User Stories User stories should always: Stay customer-centric by focusing on what the user wants, not the technical details. Break down work into small, manageable chunks that improve agility and estimation. Emphasize outcomes over implementation, avoiding the trap of data tables and CSS classes too early. Rob illustrates this with the ATM example: “As a customer, I want to withdraw cash so that I can access money in my account.” This keeps the story grounded in the user's experience. The Anatomy of Writing Better User Stories At the core of writing better user stories is a simple formula that makes requirements clear and human: As a [user role] I want [goal] So that [reason] This framework ensures that every story is tied directly to a user's perspective, their needs, and the value they'll receive. However, strong stories extend beyond this sentence structure. Rob and Michael highlight two key frameworks that add depth and clarity: The Three C's – Card, Conversation, and Confirmation, which explain how stories spark dialogue and define “done.” The INVEST Model – Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable- is a checklist that helps teams evaluate whether a story is ready to move forward. Finally, one important reminder: each story should only have one meaning. If a story can be interpreted in multiple ways—or contains “if/then” scenarios—it should be split into smaller, more focused stories. This keeps the backlog clean and avoids confusion later in development. The Three C's of Writing Better User Stories 1. Card The card represents the user story itself. Traditionally, teams would write stories on index cards. Today, tools like Jira, Trello, or Asana take their place. The key is that the card is just a placeholder for a conversation, not the entire requirement. It captures the essence of the story but leaves room for discussion. 2. Conversation The conversation is where the real value happens. Developers, product owners, and stakeholders discuss the story, ask clarifying questions, and uncover details that weren't written down. These discussions ensure that the team shares a common understanding of the user's needs. Without this step, the story risks being too vague or misinterpreted. 3. Confirmation The confirmation defines how the team knows the story is complete. This typically takes the form of acceptance criteria or test cases. Confirmation transforms a story from an idea into a verifiable piece of functionality. It answers the critical question: What does “done” look like? Card captures the idea. Conversation builds the understanding. Confirmation proves the work is complete. The INVEST Model for Writing Better User Stories The INVEST model is a simple but powerful checklist that helps ensure user stories are clear, practical, and actionable. Each letter represents a quality that a strong user story should have. Independent A good user story should stand on its own. That means it can be developed, tested, and delivered without being blocked by another story. Independence reduces dependencies and keeps projects moving smoothly. Negotiable User stories are not contracts carved in stone—they're open to discussion. Teams should be able to negotiate details, scope, and implementation during conversations. This flexibility encourages collaboration and prevents rigid requirements that may not fit real-world needs. Valuable If a story doesn't provide business or user value, it doesn't belong in the backlog. Every story should clearly tie back to outcomes that matter for the end-user or the organization. This keeps the team focused on delivering impact, not just features. Estimable A story should be clear enough that the team can estimate the effort to complete it. If it's too vague or too large, it can't be accurately sized. Estimable stories make sprint planning realistic and help track progress more effectively. Small Stories should be small enough to complete within a single iteration. Large stories, sometimes called “epics,” should be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces. Small stories are easier to understand, estimate, and test. Testable Finally, a user story must be testable. The team needs to know how to verify it's “done.” This often takes the form of acceptance criteria or test cases, ensuring the functionality can be validated from the user's perspective. The INVEST model keeps stories clear, focused, and actionable. If a story fails any of these tests, refine it before moving forward. Lessons From the Trenches: Writing Better User Stories in Practice Michael highlights a recurring issue: customers often don't fully understand their “why.” They may use outdated paper trails, redundant processes, or even misuse tools they already own. Sometimes developers must reverse-engineer requirements by observing workflows, asking why at each step, and uncovering hidden pain points. Rob adds that trust plays a huge role—stakeholders may initially follow the “official” process, but only reveal their real practices after rapport is established. Avoiding Common Pitfalls Even with good intentions, stories can fall short when they are: Too vague or incomplete. Disconnected from actual business processes. Written without acceptance criteria. Michael stresses that implied requirements are dangerous. Developers should always strive for clearly defined acceptance criteria that leave no room for ambiguity or uncertainty. Practical Tips for Writing Better User Stories The hosts wrap up with actionable guidance for developers: Speak up – Don't code vague tickets without asking questions. Push for the “so that” – The business value matters most. Write acceptance criteria – Define what “done” means. Break down big stories – Smaller, testable stories are easier to validate. Stay user-focused – Keep technical details in subtasks, not in the story. Example: Bad: Add a contact form. Good: As a potential customer, I want to fill out a contact form with my name, email, and message, so that I can get in touch with the company about their services. This richer story sparks the right questions: Which fields are required? Should multiple contact methods be supported? These clarifications lead to solutions that match real needs. Final Thoughts By revisiting this subject, Rob and Michael remind us that user stories are more than backlog items—they are bridges between developers and customers. Writing better user stories keeps teams aligned, prevents rework, and ensures projects deliver meaningful results. Implied requirements are not good requirements. Defined requirements are good requirements. Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you're a seasoned developer or just starting, there's always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at info@develpreneur.com with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let's continue exploring the exciting world of software development. Additional Resources Updating Developer Tools: Keeping Your Tools Sharp and Efficient Building Your Personal Code Repository Your Code Repository and Ownership of Source – Consulting Tips Using a Document Repository To Become a Better Developer The Developer Journey Videos – With Bonus Content Building Better Developers With AI Podcast Videos – With Bonus Content

A 22-year-old made a splash recently when he published a Wall Street Journal op-ed claiming that work-life balance makes you mediocre. He went on to brag about how sleeping less than 4 hours a night and gaining 80 pounds helped him become a millionaire. In this episode, Cal wades into the furious debate this article sparked. He argues that once you look past the author's dorm bro bravado, the kid does actually ask a good question. It's just that his answers are lacking. Cal then tackles listener questions and reviews the books he read in August.Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here's the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvoVideo from today's episode:  youtube.com/calnewportmediaDeep Dive: I Want Work-Life Balance. Am I Doomed to Mediocrity? [1:06]Is it possible to stay focused when having to check my phone for text messages? [42:20]When did you switch back to your teaching schedule to your summer schedule? [44:05]How has your deep life evolved since Episode 1? [49:22]How can I stop obsessively checking my work email? [53:47]Can you summarize how values and strategic planning documents, birthday projects and lifestyle centric planning combine? [58:14]CASE STUDY: Organizing household admin [1:01:44]CALL: How to tame Trello cards [1:06:39]AUGUST BOOKS: The 5 books Cal read in August 2025 [1:13:26] Boundless Realm (Foxx Note)Collisions (Alec Nevala-Lee)Before the Birds Sang Words (Ken Bruce)Desperation Reef (T Jefferson Parker)Shift (Hugh Howey)Links:Buy Cal's latest book, “Slow Productivity” at calnewport.com/slowGet a signed copy of Cal's “Slow Productivity” at peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/Cal's monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX1XHMlX1J0Thanks to our Sponsors: ridge.com (use code “Cal”)drinklmnt.com/deepshopify.com/deepcalderalab.com/deepThanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering.

Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite! The Dental A-Team is seeing a lot of burnout across practices we visit, so Kiera's here to offer tips about delegating. Just because you can do a bunch of tasks doesn't mean you should. Kiera provides DAT insight on the best/easiest way to delegate, how to fill the time you've delegated out, and what the delegator and delegatee should absolutely not do. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript Kiera Dent (00:05) Hey everyone, welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.   Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A-Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.   Dental A Team listeners, this is Kiera and you guys I hope today is a great day for you. I am car casting today I am headed down to see my parents for a little bit today and Decided you guys know me when I drive between that Nevada, California state line I love to podcast if you have not heard about the time I was headed to my little sister's graduation and I was Car casting with a microphone. They have an agriculture check   point and go take a listen to that one. If you don't know which one that is, email us Hello@TheDentalATeam.com guys. just want to say a massive, massive, massive thank you to all of you who have been stepping up, taken on our review challenge and honestly leaving us reviews. I've seen you guys posting on our Google reviews to help deadly team. Get the word out. You've also been posting on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. I have been seeing those and I just want to say thank you. Shout out today. I saw Annie.   had posted and gave us a massive five star review and Annie, thank you. There's so many of you that have been listening in. Brooke Birdie saw your review as well on iTunes. And I just want to say guys, number one, it feeds my ego. So thank you. I am a words of affirmation girl. So that definitely is the best way to give back to me and make me feel like a million bucks. That's number one. So if you really want to make my day, please leave us a review and just tell us how great we are. I would love that. And number two,   Thank you guys for helping us help more practices. We have actually been seeing an upward trend on our podcast downloads. That is kudos to you guys. ⁓ Massive, massive, massive boosts on our downloads. And I just want to say thank you to all of you for doing that, because this is helping us help more practices. You know, when I started working at the dental college, the dean asked me why I wanted to take on this position. And I said, you know, I want to find a way to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. That's honestly why we   I did my job at the college and then that's also why I decided to ⁓ take on and work with the consulting company. And then that's why we started the podcast. So you guys, the only way for us to reach every dentist in the world is by you guys helping spread this. I think that that's the way we'll be able to positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. So guys, keep hitting those downloads, keep leaving us review, keep sharing these.   When I see you guys on social media platforms where you're sharing our podcasts with people, it's been so helpful. So thank you guys for taking that on. So today's topic is how to delegate. I know I've chatted about this a few other times, but it's just been coming up more and more. And I know a lot of offices are struggling. I'm seeing more and more burnout amongst team members and owners. And so I thought that this would be a very applicable topic for you guys today. So basically number one, when it comes to delegating,   We've got to look to see what is the reason for delegating? Are we trying to find more time for ourselves so that way we can be more balanced? Are we trying to grow team members into another position? Or are we just trying to ensure that all team members are being utilized throughout the day? Maybe you have another reason you want to delegate, but oftentimes I find that the number one reason we don't delegate is because we're concerned about losing our place in our job.   and the value that we're bringing to the practice. When in actuality, I think it's let's get people into their zone of geniuses so we can work more effectively and consistently together. So for me, I think one of the best and easiest ways to delegate is for everybody just to do a brain dump on the tasks that they're doing day in and day out. Now the reason I like a brain dump rather than a time journaling is because oftentimes those things that we put on a brain dump are going to be the things that we can actually think about.   that are for for for front of our mind. So those things tend to be the ones that are consuming the most of our time. There might be other things on there that we don't think about, so you can always add back to this list. But what I really love to do is I love to brain dump all the information and then after I brain dump, I go back through, you guys know if you don't know, my favorite color is pink, and I go back through with a pink highlighter and I literally look at all the tasks that only Kiera can do. A lot of times the tasks that I'm doing are not things that only I can do.   Or if they are only things I can do, I might need to train. So for example, I used to be the only person who could podcast on our team. So we decided, Hey, the consultants actually have a lot of great information that they could be sharing. And it doesn't necessarily have to just be Kiera. So we decided to start training the consultants to see could the consultants ever podcast if something were to ever happen to me. And the answer is yes, I trained them about the microphones. I taught them how to podcast. taught them how to do cadences, but I realized.   That was something that only Kyra could do before, but you guys, I am looking to try and have a baby. We've been talking about this forever, but guys, don't worry. I'm a walking bag of, I feel, lethal hormones right now. We are starting the process of IVF and ⁓ if you haven't done it, that's great. Congratulations. If you have gone through it, please send me help because I literally feel like a lethal bag of walking hormones and don't even know how to control myself right now. It's like one minute I'll be fine. The next minute I'm bawling my eyes out. And I heard even after you have babies,   this doesn't go away. I don't, I don't quite know what to do. But the bottom line is our team had to be able to start delegating things to our other team members that they could do just as well, if not better than me. But that also came up with, I had to realize I needed to start training. So delegating, we've got to look at like, what's our ultimate goal. So for me, my ultimate goal was I wanted to ensure that Dental A Team could continue to grow, bless people's lives, positively impact the world of dentistry in the greatest way possible. And for me,   to also be able to be a mom. So in order for those two things to happen, I had to start delegating and utilizing it. I realized I don't delegate that much. I like to swoop in and save the day because I think I can do it faster and better. Well, the answer is yes, I theoretically can, but that doesn't mean I should. Okay, I'm going to say that again. Well, yes, I theoretically can do everything potentially faster and better. That doesn't mean I should because what that does is that actually means that I'm a one man team.   rather than a multiple person team. So I want to have all of the people on my team working super well. And I want to ensure that they're all able to do the task. And it's not just me. So I would say that you guys are going to be able to start looking for your why of why you want to delegate. So once you have figured out your why as to why you want to delegate and the plan,   Then we go through, like I said, and you highlight all the tasks that are actually tasks that only you can do. Like I said, some of those tasks that only you could do, maybe if you trained, you could actually get those tasks passed off your plate. But I really like you guys to ensure that you know exactly why you want these tasks to be completed, why you want to delegate. I think having a strong why helps you realize that that's what you're actually going to do rather than it just being a wish that you're hoping one day will come true.   Like I said, I'm not a great delegator and I realized that because I like to swoop in, save the day, make everything better and theoretically I can do it better, faster. However, I can't ever grow the company. I can only grow as big as I can grow. So realizing that sometimes delegation also will be an avenue for growth for your practice is one of the best pieces of advice I could ever give any of you. So realizing that when you delegate, you allow other people to blossom and shine, you allow yourself to blossom and shine and grow to a larger scale.   Now I will say some people I watch them delegate and then they get lazy. They will pass all their tasks to other people. They'll grow everybody else, but then they forget to grow themselves. So when you delegate off of your tasks, say if you're an office manager and you get a front office lead and then you get a clinical lead, well, sometimes you as an office manager, no longer know what you should do. This is where you start diving deep in the areas. Maybe you don't know. Let's talk about the business aspect. What are the financials of your practice? What about overhead? Do you know how to adjust that?   You're going to start thinking like a business owner. Also go to your dentist and figure out what's on their plate. Have them brain dump and look to see what tasks you can take off immediately and what tasks you need to learn and grow into. So making sure as you delegate, you don't get lazy. You don't pass too many things there. Also before you delegate, I want to make sure that you've built an admin time into your schedule. So doctor time, you can have that as CEO time. You can have it as admin time. You can have it as golden time. I don't care what the heck you call this time, but it's set block time every single week in your schedule.   Oftentimes the practices all notice that they'll want to hire somebody else before they put in this admin time. I chatting with a front office team. Typically we like to have one front office team member per doctor, unless it's a solo doctor, then I for sure want two front office people just so we avoid any temptation of embezzlement or fraud or anything of that nature. So what happens is a lot of times people feel like they need to get more people upfront, but they don't realize you can delegate tasks that would actually make the patient experience better. For example,   chairside treatment plans on an iPad, taking fluoride payments in the hygiene operatories that make it so much faster and easier for every single person in the practice. What about tasks like insurance verification? That might take a long time and it might actually be cheaper to outsource that. So looking at that, but also before we even consider that, I want to see, you actually doing ⁓ that admin time every single week?   And if you're not, that might be a critical place to start before we even start delegating. Because a lot of times, a lot of those projects that we want to delegate, if we just had one or two hours in a week where it was dedicated, not interrupted time, we could actually crank a lot of those things out and be super hyper productive. So for me, I have a business focused time. I have a three hour block every Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. My team knows, do not even think about scheduling something there. Don't do it. It's not good for you or for the business.   So that is my blocked golden time and I work on big project items. So for me specifically, I work on, I'm looking to bring in a different position in our company and I'm mapping that out, talking to mentors, figuring it out, writing job descriptions for it. Other things like I'm not going to use that time to podcast. As much as I love to podcast, I have that built into my schedule in another place. I'm not going to use that time to answer my emails. Instead, I'm going to use that time to work on high level.   most productive projects. For some dentists, that's where you might be designing cases. So getting all that ortho completed or designing those cosmetic cases that you know you need to get completed. That's where we're going to be able to have a much more successful and productive schedule if you actually block that time. For office managers, this time might be where you actually go through your one-on-one employee check-ins. It also might be where you work on maybe sign development or looking at all the KPIs.   and figuring out what KPIs need to be adjusted, doing a deep dive on the numbers. For billers, this is the time where you call on those collection calls. You work on your AR, that's the deeper projects, the ones that have to have a ton of time dedicated to solving them and figuring them out to get them paid. That's where we utilize this time. For our scheduling team, this is the time when you call all those unscheduled re-care calls. Same thing for treatment coordinators. We call those unscheduled treatment lists.   Just think of every person did this. ⁓ I forgot the clinical team. Let me give the clinical teams some ideas. Don't want to let you guys feel left out. So for our clinical team, we might want to give them some block time to maybe get those crowns or those ortho cases done. This might be the time that our team actually orders for the practice. It could be the time ⁓ for a lead hygienist. This might be the time that you create like the perio protocols or review the numbers on your hygiene, on your hygienist and see.   How is their fluoride ratio? How are their perio numbers? This is the time when you'll deep dive in there. It's not the time we dedicate for sharpening scalars. This is the time where we literally are maximizing and doing those high level projects that will move the practice forward. Hey, Dental A Team listeners. You guys have heard the early bird gets the worm, right? What does that even mean? Well, it means that the early bird is the person who maximizes on benefits.   optimizes their practice and they take advantage of great deals. So guys, right now, this week, last chance to save on Dental A Team's virtual team summit. It's all about optimization and execution with an emphasis on full team. And then Saturday is all about leadership. So guys, don't miss out. You know, you're going to come. So you might as well pop on over to TheDentalATeam.com snag those early bird tickets, because once they're gone, they're gone and you'll be paying more for the same event. So head on over to TheDentalATeam.com.   Snag your early bird virtual summit for April 22nd and 23rd, and I'll see you there. So again, before we ever delegate, I want you to make sure you have that time built in. After that, I want you to figure out why you want to delegate. What's the bigger purpose as to why you want to delegate these tasks. Then what we do is we come up with a game plan of, fantastic. This is what we are going to delegate. This is how we're going to delegate. This is why we're going to delegate.   then we actually have to delegate. Okay? So we have to delegate guys. That's part of the game. That's what we have to do. Now people get really nervous to delegate because why? We don't want to what? Dump on somebody else and make their life stressful. Well guess what? They might already be doing half of what you're doing and if it just was their project, you might make their life a lot less stressful. Let's just pivot that a little bit. Also, we might be able to do things like, ⁓ we might be able to find efficiencies.   I will tell you if I give Shelby a project that I've been working on for quite a while, Shelby is way more efficient and organized and structured than I am. And so she usually can come up with a better way of doing it than I can. That's going to create ease and efficiency for our entire team. So when we go to delegate, we can check in with people, ask how much time and say, hey, here's the list of items. First and foremost, you can have a team meeting and be like, here are all the items up for grabs. Who wants to own this section? Now.   I say to team members who are being delegated to one of the number one ways for you to lose confidence in your practice, the person who's delegating to you is by not following through. If you say, yeah, I'll take that on, but then you never actually do it, I do not want to delegate to you again. I lost trust. So when people do this, I'm going to say you've got to own it with integrity. So if I say, yes, I'm going to take this on, I don't care how I've got to remember it. I don't care how I need to figure it out.   my job because I committed, I'm going to own this process. I'm going to own the fact that I need to do this because I committed to it and I own my word. It's not accountability. You don't your office manager following up like, okay, Kara, I know you said you take on ordering. Did you get it done? The answer is yes, the office manager should still do that. But me as a person who took this on, I need to have an attitude of ownership in my practice where I don't need somebody to come follow up with me.   check in because I know when I say I'm going to do something, I will fall through a hundred percent. So team members, leaders, everybody listening, check yourself. Are you a person who actually owns your word, takes ownership of the things that you commit to doing with your job, with your personal life, all those areas. Do you actually take ownership of it? Do you take ownership of your health? Do you take ownership of your happiness? Do you take ownership of your financial wellbeing? Do you take ownership of the schedule if you're a scheduler?   Do take ownership of making sure every doctor hits goal every single freaking day if you're a treatment coordinator? Do you take ownership as an office manager that you will continually hit a minimum of a 10 % growth rate every single year and make sure that your team is super happy and content? As a doctor, do you take ownership that you are going to produce and increase your clinical skills so you can be the best provider that there ever was? As a hygienist, do you own that you should be producing 3.3 times   or 3.5 times your pay or 3.0, I don't care guys, choose your number and stick with it. There's a million of them. Minimum three, maximum 3.5 and less your fee for service. Then I for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure want you to be producing at least 4.5 times your pay. Okay? Do you take ownership that it's your job, not the scheduler's job to ensure you're hitting your production every single day, that you're mixing your schedule, that you're maximizing, that you're getting a 98 % reappointment percentage?   Assistance, do you own the fact that you should not be getting up in a procedure to go get something because you didn't set up your operatory? Do you own your job? Do you own that you should be looking for same day treatment you can add on because you look at their treatment plans. You don't just robotically do what's on the schedule. You actually proactively look for things and own that as your job. Okay, so if you're not there, let's start there. That way when people come to you to delegate to you, you know that you can count on yourself to.   own whatever is coming to you to delegate. So then once we delegate, we pass it off. We have to make sure we've got clear expectations of when we want people to follow back up with us. So for example, I passed a task to Shelby. I wanted to find out a report on our consultants. That was something guys that was on my to-do list for about nine months. Yes, nine months and I did not complete it. So I decided this is something that is not just a Cura only task.   Shelby is probably much faster and could probably get this done faster for me. So what do I do? I pass it to Shelby. I asked her, Hey, this is what I need done. What do you need help with me? I gave her all the resources and tools so she could actually execute on it very well. And then I asked her, okay, what will you need from me? ⁓ she told me, and then we said, what date could you get this completed by? Shelby had to methodically think about, Hmm, this is going to take me a while. I have a lot of tasks on me. I think Kiera, I could get this done by the end of Q1.   does that work for you? So that means March 31st. And I said, totally no problem. We put it in, we have a task organizer. We utilize a CRM. So it's kind of like your guys's Dentrix open dental. And it's where all of our clients are housed. Plus it's where all of our tasks are housed. So we have it there. Shelby and I put the deadline on there. And then when she gets it done, she checks it off. If you guys don't have a task manager or things that these projects, I would suggest you get one. For practices, I've seen the software Asana or Trello.   or Google Docs all work really, really well when we're assigning out a bunch of projects and needing to have deadlines on them. So those would be the ones. Some offices love Basecamp, other offices love monday.com. For me, Asana is probably your easiest, fastest one to set into place. Or a simple task manager, ⁓ Google Docs is honestly going to be your easiest one. And then just make sure you review it every week and check it off. We noticed with our team, we were delegating. Our team was taking ownership of it.   However, we didn't have a consistent follow-up process. And I would say that's the next piece of delegation that oftentimes fails in a practice is we don't follow back up. So for us, we just said it as Friday morning at our morning huddle. We pull up the task sheet and we pull up our Asana board. And we go through every single task that should be done and everything headed up for the next week to make sure our team stays responsible and they don't forget. And we have a consistent follow-up process. So that way it's not sitting here thinking, well, I'm sure Shelby will do it.   We actually have a set process in our company where we follow up every single week. That was because we realized we were passing out tasks. Our team was doing a great job. But then we all kind of would get sidetracked and forget what we had committed to doing. And we need to have a place where we could have everybody aligned. So those are some of the key pitfalls that I see with delegation. Those are some of the solutions that I've seen work well. But at the end of the day, we can sit here, we can talk about it, we can create solutions, all these different things.   But what really is the number one piece is actually doing it and then following up. Those are the two most paramount pieces with delegation. I will say having a strong why is going to make you delegate faster and more consistently than just talking about it until I decided, Hey, I'm getting pregnant. Hopefully fingers crossed. I didn't really see the need to delegate. Yes, I did for my own mental sanity, but until I had that why.   And other times when I've opened up a second practice, instantly I've got a strong why that I need to delegate these tasks so that way all the information can come back to me as a regional manager and I'm not having to micromanage or check in all the time with my team. Guys, there is a different between micromanaging and checking in. Checking in, keeping track of all the projects is not micromanaging, period. Micromanaging is where it comes sit over your shoulder and tell you how to do your job. That's micromanaging.   but checking in with you to ensure that you're actually doing your projects, that's just called running a business. That's called running a team. That's making sure all the team is growing in the same direction and the team knows the set expectations. So guys, try delegation. I see it happening. You can make your team work so much more effectively and efficiently. So I suggest, one, get a list of all the things that could be delegated. Two, let's pass it out to the team and ask people who can own it. Three, let's make sure we have a set time of where we can actually follow up as an office.   and ensure all projects and tasks are being completed and done. And four, create a culture of ownership where when we say we'll take something on, we own it, we don't drop the ball. I want to sing this song to you guys like, we own it. You can go look it up. I didn't do it justice and I'm not going to sing karaoke for you guys. However, get your team to own it, delegate, rise everybody up, make sure that you guys don't have a set process for it and realize how much more effectively your team can operate when all of us are working together.   growing the company in the way that's best for the company to grow. All right, guys, as always, so much love to you. Thank you for being a Dental A Team listener. I super appreciate it, guys. So thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.   that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.  

If you've ever felt overwhelmed, boxed in, or just plain bored by traditional business plans as a small business owner with ADHD, this episode is for you! Host Diann Wingert is here to reimagine business planning in a way that's actually ADHD-friendly—lean, flexible, visual, and, most importantly, useful. Whether you're new to entrepreneurship or tired of winging it and hitting hidden roadblocks, Diann guides you through a business planning approach that celebrates how the ADHD brain works best. Get ready to create a plan you'll actually want to use!Episode highlights: The Big Lie:Your ADHD brain thinks planning cramps your style—but done right, the opposite is true. Planning can be the external structure that fuels freedom, creativity, and calm in your business. The trick? Ignore the boring templates and create a plan tailored to how your brain truly operates.Why Traditional Business Plans Don't Work for ADHD Brains:The pitfalls of rigid, lengthy plans and how they trigger resistance and procrastination.Why our tendency to wing it isn't always as productive (or painless) as it feels.The Hidden Costs of ‘Winging It':Missed opportunitiesWasted energyUnfinished projects.Introducing the ADHD-Friendly Minimal Business Plan Framework:Four simple pillars (instead of 40 pages)North Star: Your “why,” distilled for everyday decisions.Revenue Reality Check: Getting real with three simple numbers.Zone of Genius: Maximizing what energizes you and minimizing the rest.Next Three Moves: Concrete, short-term steps—no five-year forecasts here!Making Your Business Plan Visual & Flexible:Why a one-page, visual dashboard beats a document you'll never open again.Tools and formats—Trello, Canva, voice-to-text, and more—that play to ADHD strengths.Get it Done (Without Overwhelm) with The Sprint Method25 minutes a day, one pillar at a time, over four days.Walk away when the timer rings—even mid-sentence.No giant blocks of time, no perfectionism, no overwhelm.Homework:Take 25 minutes this week and pick ONE pillar to focus on—whichever feels easiest or most fun. (Money anxiety? Start with your North Star instead!) Next week, another pillar. Within a month, you've got an ADHD-friendly business plan that you will actually use! Share your ADHD-friendly business plan with Diann Email: diann@diannwingertcoaching.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diannwingertcoaching/SpeakPipe voice messaging: https://www.speakpipe.com/AskDiannAnythingAbout the Host:Diann Wingert (she/her) is a former psychotherapist turned business strategist with a passion for supporting neurodivergent entrepreneurs. With real-world experience as both a clinician and a business owner—and her signature no-BS, motivational style—Diann specializes in helping business owners find strategies and systems to balance their passion and purpose, with profit, and avoid burnout in the process. Be sure to subscribe/follow so you don't miss future episodes full of practical, ADHD-friendly business advice!© 2025 ADHD-ish Podcast. Intro music by Ishan Dincer / Melody Loops / Outro music by Vladimir

Scott and CJ go full productivity nerd, swapping notes on their favorite web apps for writing, coding, planning, and more. From terminals to to-do lists to dumb phones, it's a deep dive into the tools powering their workflows. Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax! 00:35 Brought to you by Sentry.io. 01:56 Text to speech or speech to text. 02:20 Superwhisper. 08:29 Kiro. 16:16 CJ's current editor preference. 17:59 Finding the right editor. 18:47 Terminals. 20:22 Ghostty. 24:16 Note-taking. 26:32 Obsidian. 30:24 Logseq. 31:03 Todo lists. 31:08 Tweek.so 34:42 Trello. 37:25 Notion Calendar. 38:55 Email. 43:21 FairEmail. 43:43 Dumb phones. 45:10 Olauncher 47:39 Audio Bookshelf. Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads