I ended up taking some time off during the holidays, but will be getting back into the swing of things tomorrow. Expect a new episode of the Effective Minimalist by next Monday at the latest!

In this episode I clarify a point I raised last episode about reducing the scope of my work, and mostly talk about news and some of the reflections and adjustments I've been making to how I seek out, process, and act on news.

In this episode I share some of the challenges I've been having with minimalism and how I've been feeling that my efforts at both minimalism and productivity have plateaued.

An update on what I've been up to, and why it has been so long since I put out an episode.

I wanted to let everyone know that I have NOT given up on this podcast! :)

Why the delay for a new episode? The short answer is that I had every intention of continuing to release new episodes through August and the start of the fall semester, but life intervened... in a good way!

In hindsight, I should have declared August as a summer break and not committed to putting out a new episodes. It would have been less stressful for me as I wouldn't have had to deal with feeling that I wasn't living up to my commitment to my listeners.

Same probably goes for September and the start of the fall semester. It is a very busy time at the university where I work: lots of prep, presentations, and demands on your time.

And while the start-of-the-semester rush has begun to die down, I'm still not ready to make a commitment to exactly when a new episode of The Effective Minimalist will be released. The reason is that I have another exciting Big Thing™that I'm involved in and that I need to focus my attention and energy on. I'm hoping to be wrapping that up by the end of October. Once I do and things get back to normal (ha!), I plan on resuming my podcast and getting episodes out to you on a regular basis.

In the meantime, I will be sharing updates, thoughts, and links to interesting content over on the Facebook page for this site. If you've enjoyed this podcast so far, I encourage you to head over and "like" that page. Getting feedback and interacting with listeners are for me some of the most rewarding and motivating aspects of podcasting, so I hope that I'll see you there.

In this episode I share my ideas about how I plan on organizing my work so that I can stay focused on my priorities and ensure that I have enough space and time to do good work.

After roughly a month hiatus, I decided it was time to put out a new if short episode to give an update on the reason for my absence and to renew my commitment to putting out this podcast on a regular basis.

The title of this episode refers to the fact that after a month or two of being in crunch mode to get a major project out the door, I’m finding myself having to rework and rebuild the habits I had been working on to minimize the clutter in my life so that I focus on what matters. I’ve decided to see the last two months not as a failure or as a set back but rather as a learning opportunity, one that has helped me to identify the shortcomings in my systems. Over the coming weeks I’ll be putting things back in place and sharing my experiences in future episodes.

Thanks for listening!

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If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

In this episode I share a few updates about work, explain why there was no episode last week, and explore some of the insights I've had about how minimalism can be applied to my work.

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To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.

If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

In this episode I talk about some of the challenges I’ve been facing at work that have left me feeling overwhelmed much of the time. I’ve also been thinking what I said about purpose in the last episode, and share some of the doubts I’ve been having as a result.

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To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.

If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, or connect with me and other listeners on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

In this episode I talk about purpose, about how having a sense of purpose relates to minimalism. I share some of what I've been going through as I struggle with finding my own sense of purpose at work. I explore the role of purpose in helping me to work towards tenure, my use of minimalism to try to get things back on track, and the role that I feel purpose and minimalism will play in helping me to move forward with my work from here.

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To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.

If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, connect with me on the Effective Minimalist page over on Facebook.

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.

In this episode I talk about how although we likely see each ourselves as part of the solution, each one of us might in fact be part of the problem. I think this is a topic that I'll be coming back to every once in a while, because while self-improvement is a laudable goal, it shouldn't come at the expense of the people around us. More importantly, the best way to bring about lasting change is to change not only ourselves but the culture of the our workplaces and communities in which we live.

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To subscribe to The Effective Minimalist, see the Subscribe page.

If you have any feedback or questions, you can leave a comment under the show notes for this episode below, send me an email at [email protected], or connect with me over on Twitter (@edbilodeau)

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Music: Close Tracking from Learning Kurve.