The Weekly Briefly went on accidental hiatus as I’ve been spending all my time over the past month with the launch of the Focus Course . Now, on the heels of that launch, and a relatively busy year, I’m taking some time off to be with family and plan for the next season of the show. I’m putting a pause to the Weekly Briefly podcast for the next few weeks and will be back in late August. Talk to you then!
I’m back from San Francisco and am glad to return to the podcast microphone. Yes, I hear you, I could have taken my podcast rig with me, but I went to SF to meet with friends and peers in the industry and drink delicious coffee and so I had very little time for “work” stuff. I’m bad at multitasking. On today’s show I talk about the highlights from the WWDC Keynote (there are many), Apple Music, and my thoughts on Apple’s new publishing platform slash RSS reader slash news aggregator, Apple News....
On this week’s show I want to unpack the topic of money. I’ve been asking people what’s their biggest challenge is when it comes to doing work that matters. And a lot of people say money. As in, a lack of money. I wrote about this on shawnblanc.net this past Wednesday. Today I want to share more about my own personal approach to money and how it helps me to do my best creative work. I also want as share some ideas to think outside the box for those who see money as a hurdle for doing work that m...
Just a short note that there’s no real episode this week. Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll talk to you next time.
On today’s show I want to talk about doing your best creative work. What does that even mean? Here’s a picture of someone doing her best creative work: She shows up every day. When it’s easy and when it’s hard. It doesn’t matter. She is committed. This is something only she can do. Yet even still, it might not all work out as planned. There is no clear path about comes next. There is a lot of guessing. There is fear. Some days the work is so much harder than others. Some days everything comes to...
Today’s show I want to talk about “learning”. More accurately, I want to talk about how thirsty you are to do your best creative work. Because it takes more than just showing up every day to do our best creative work. And if we focus too much on just the output we are doing (without taking time to learn and grow) then it can easily lead to burn out. Sponsored by Wired In : Eliminate Distractions. Stay focused. Get a custom, wireless, LED ‘Busy’ sign from Wired In. The awesome members of shawnbla...
The best musicians in the world practice every single day. For hours a day. And they don’t just practice their favorite songs and coolest licks — they practice the techniques and scales and fills that they’re bad at. I studied martial arts for over a decade, and we did the same stretches and basic moves at the start of every class every time. Even after I received my black belt, we were still practicing basic front stance and middle punch. You write a book by writing it. Thinking about it, outli...
I began wearing a watch several years ago — maybe four years ago — because I was tired of constantly pulling my pone out of my pocket in order to check the time only to find myself suddenly checking email, Twitter, etc. I’ve had an iPhone since the beginning. It’s my favorite gadget of all time. Literally for like 8 years this thing has never been more than an arm’s distance away. But the advantages of the technology also bring some disadvantages. It’s not so easy to be bored anymore. Like, you ...
A short and sweet episode this week, with some food for thought regarding our choice to choose and why it’s so important.
Today I want to talk about the purpose of (and the science behind) lifestyle practices and daily habits. This topic is one of the most important issues of my life. I have a personal commitment to live with intentionality in as many areas of my life as I can. I want to be intentional in my marriage and in how I raise my boys. I want to be intentional with my business and family finances, with my creative work, with how I spend my time, with my diet, and more. A daily habit / a lifestyle practice ...
This week’s episode is longer than normal because it’s jam packed with stories and advice from the past four years of making a living online. I share ins and outs, fears and motivations, challenges and victories. Highlights include: Why I quit my job to write shawnblanc.net for a living. The launch of my members-only podcast and how I thought it was so audacious to charge $3/month. The shift I see related to advertising as a significant business model. Building and launching Delight is in the De...
On my weekly newsletter, The Fight Spot , I ask people what their biggest challenge is related to focus and doing their best creative work. One very common issue is the issue of having more ideas than time. People have so many interesting, exciting, or important projects they are working on that they don’t know where to start. They feel overwhelmed by options. They have too much to do. And so one very common question is “How do I get it all done?” I often have to ask myself this question. How am...
Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar: You’re stressed out at work, because there’s a big project coming up. The deadline is looming. So you cancel your plans Friday night and work late. You go in to work on Saturday and Sunday, working over the weekend. And then come Monday you stay all through the week. Why is it that when things get tough and work needs more attention, we so quickly deem everything else as less important? In order to do our best work as fast as possible, we cut out relatio...
Raise your hand if you can relate to this statement: “I can easily get so caught up a project that it becomes the only thing I think about all the time.” Examples: You’ve started a new personal project, and when you’re at your work or when you’re with your family, all you can think about is when you’re going to get back to working on your project. You’re buying a house, and it’s all consuming. You’ve just met someone special and he or she is all you can think about. (Not that a person is a proje...
I believe the reason people dislike Mondays is because they wasted the 48 hours in their weekend — they didn’t get any true rest, and thus never recharged. They are more worn out on Monday morning than they were on Friday evening. Benjamin Franklin When men are employed, they are best contented; for on the days they worked they were good-natured and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good days work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and q...
On today’s episode: thriving in the midst of the tensions between our time, ideas, and focus. Links Honesty, Clarity, and Action The Power of a Focused Life The Fight Spot Newsletter The Procrastinator’s Guide to Progress Sponsored by Sprint.ly : help your team ship faster. The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: Their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility. Show Notes I’ve read a lot about productivity. Methodologies, best-practices, secrets, habits, etc. And honestly, I love it. ...
There is a good, common practice when it comes to debt elimination called The Debt Snowball. The goal of The Debt Snowball is to pay off all your credit card and consumer debt as quickly as possible. In some cases this could take several months if not several years, and so it can be easy to lose momentum along the process. Many people think they should try to pay off the credit cards which have the highest interest rate first. But there is a better way. To do The Debt Snowball, you put your cred...
On today’s show: creativity, fear, and procrastination. I think we can all agree that fear is the biggest enemy to creativity. We’re born creative, but we learn to be afraid. After we’ve been hurt, wounded, scolded, rejected — we know learn what pain feels like and we become afraid. We don’t want to do something that could cause the pain again. And we know that courage isn’t the absence of fear — it’s the ability to carry on even though we’re afraid. And the more we carry on in the midst of fear...
A few days ago I announced a new email newsletter I’ll be sending out every week. On this week’s show (which, my apologies that it’s a few days late) I answer the question of why I’m doing an email newsletter when I already have a blog to publish to. If you’re interested in joining the newsletter, you can sign up at shawnblanc.net/newsletter/ . Sponsored by The awesome members of shawnblanc.net: Their support makes the work I do a sustainable possibility....
If you ever were to take a week or a month and keep track of how you truly spend your time every day, you might cry a little bit on the inside. Many times the most important things we should be doing are ones which also feel mundane and tedious in the moment. And so we often distract ourselves from important work to do instead whatever seems more interesting or urgent in the moment. There is more than one way to help us keep on track with doing our most important work day in and day out. And it ...
Last week’s show was about technology. But, more specifically, how technology helps us to do our best creative work. Today’s show is about another aspect of doing our best creative work: our inner work life. When we have a healthy inner work life then we are poised to be at are our best in terms productivity and creativity. And so, how do we stay happy and motivated so we can be productive and creative? That’s what today’s show is all about. Sponsored by Macminicolo: Celebrating ten years of Mac...
Technology can hinder us from doing our best creative work. We get addicted to checking our email, our Facebook feed, our Instagram likes, our Twitter @replies and we never get to that valuable time we set aside for creating. And then, once we finally do sit down to begin creating ( if we ever do sit down), in come the push notifications and the distractions. Text messages, Facebook messages, friend requests, piles of paper on our desk, open browser tabs and windows, and more. But technology is ...
It’s been 90 days since the re-design of Tools & Toys went live , and compared to the same quarter last year we saw a 3x growth in pageviews, unique visitors, and site revenue. And so, on today’s show I wanted to share more about why we decided to redesign the site, what our goals were, and what has contributed to the site’s growth (beyond just a redesign). Sponsored By: Harvest Forecast: A whole new way to plan your team’s time. Artisanal Software Festival: No bundles, no gimmicks: just gre...
The pursuit of “the best”. Who doesn’t love to find the best tools, the best coffee, the best food, the best experiences, etc? I know I do. But I realize that this can, at times, be an unhealthy pursuit. Too much focus on only ever doing and experiencing “the best” of something can lead to disappointment and complaining when we don’t have “the best”. Which is why being content — and making each unique experience “the best” — is a choice. See also: Episode 24: “Investing in Quality” Sponsored By ...
For the last episode of 2014, I wanted to talk about planning for the next year. It’s not nearly as lame or tedious as it sounds — in fact, it’s something my wife and I have done for the past 3 years and we look forward to it. A good annual plan should help you: identify what you want to do identify what you don’t want to do discover what you need to do And then, give yourself permission and freedom to do those things you want and need to and stop doing those things which you don’t want/need to ...
This is the last episode until after Christmas, and so I wanted to give a challenge for everyone heading in to the holiday time off. Rest well. It’s easier said than done, to be sure. But wouldn’t it be awesome to come back from your Christmas vacation with energy and motivation to do your best creative work? Wouldn’t it be awesome to come back feeling fueled up instead of tired and worn out? Here are a few ideas for how to rest well (and I’m not just talking about taking long naps): It’s okay t...
On this week’s episode of The Weekly Briefly I’m joined by my former podcasting partner in crime, Ben Brooks . We talk about (a) what sort of camera you should buy if you want to upgrade from your iPhone, and (b) how to increase your chances of snapping a few awesome photos of friends and family during the holidays (and pretty much any other time). Notes and links: Fuji XE2 Fuji X100T Olympus E-PL5 and E-PL7 Olympus E-M10 Panasonic GM1 Casey Liss’s photo of Erin and Declan Ken Rockwell’s X100T r...
To be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable using my iPhone 6 without a case — especially now that the colder winter weather has arrived. And so, I’m trying out a few different cases for the first time ever. This is literally the first iPhone I’ve ever owned that I’ve sought out a case for. In today’s show I talk about the two current contenders: The impossibly thin Spigen 0.4mm case in Air Skin : a matte plastic case that doesn’t add much protection, but does remove the slipperiness of the iPhon...
An early episode because it’s Thanksgiving week. On today’s show: The glories and the perils of running your own business. Why showing up every day is important for building an audience. Why trust and transparency are important for keeping an audience. And why doing our best creative work has very little to do with the tools we use, and quite a bit to do with knowing where our best creative work is born. Sponsored By TOM BIHN bags: designed and made in USA since 1972. The awesome members of shaw...
Hiring help should be seen as an investment in your company, and on today’s show I talk about hiring help (employees or contractors). I share about the people I’ve hired to help me with my websites, how I found them, and why I brought them on. I also discuss knowing when it’s the right time to hire help, and how you can get out of the way so that the people you’ve brought on are empowered to do their best work. Sponsored by: TextExpander touch 3: Now with custom keyboard. Yosemite: The Apple con...
