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It’s not hard to have a clean and clutter-free workspace. You just need to de-clutter and squash bad habits. This is my desktop and Spaces.

I was one of the first people on the list when Basecamp announced HEY. I was intrigued, and excited and couldn’t wait to get my hand on a simpler email workflow.

Paid for the first year, got a fantastic alias and there I was using Hey for the year. But, the year wasn’t without issues, but I persevered and it worked out fine.

‍Yet, after the year was almost done, I found that I wasn’t using the features as intended. And if you know me, I love email, and the simplicity of the technology as well as being accessible to all.

‍So I didn’t renew my subscription and went back to my trusted Apple Mail app.

‍Over the following year, I found that it was becoming more reliable. And the features were getting better. So at the beginning of the year, I signed up for it again hoping that my workflow would get with said new features.

‍But alas, no. I found myself struggling with too many clicks to do the simplest of things. Also, I know how to use email.

Heck, I even get hired to help those in need of email simplicity!

‍So after a month or so, I gave up.

‍It’s not you HEY/Basecamp, it’s me. I prefer simplicity over complicated/over-engineered tools.

I’ve been using Vimeo to host my videos for many years, and have been happy with their service. I even toyed with their live streaming tier for a while.

However, this last week I heard something from the company that simply pissed me off! After a search, I found others who were equally annoyed. So the search for a new video hosting company began.

‍Man, I so fucking hate the bait-and-switch some of these SaaS companies employ!

Anyway, after checking out a few, and not being happy with any of them, I chose Odysee.

UPDATE: I moved over to Bunny.net soon after.

‍I’ve been watching videos on Odysee for a while, even had a few channels set up for myself, but never really used it, as I was pretty happy with Vimeo, as I already mentioned.

‍This last week, I started testing out a few of my videos, and after I was happy, I uploaded my library of work onto it. So all my videos will be hosted on Odysee moving forward.

‍It’s simple, easy to navigate and friction-free when doing anything in the backend.

‍My videos will still be embedded on my website like they were, but with an archive library being on Odysee, it’ll help with future projects. And as it’s on Blockchain, they’ll always be available and accessible.

As you know, I don’t use a conventional CRM for my business. Yeah, sacrilege if you’re running a business! Yet, I’ve always been able to keep up with my clients and leads with no issues.

I find CRMs to be bloated and have no place in the way I work, and being a Tech Minimalist, that piece of software isn’t needed.

‍But last year when looking to see what was around at the time I found an app called Mogul. I even had a conversation with Chris, the founder to talk a little about it.

‍’If it made it to my dock ‘it’s awesome’ – Quote from Nicki in The Masters group where I’m a member.

Yesterday, Basecamp pushed an update with some handy tools. A most welcomed feature is called Lineup, where now you can add start and end dates to projects, and they show up on the Home Page.

Not only that, but this Lineup feature gets a dedicated page too, where you can view all projects, past and present, in a handy little timeline.

They’ve also released many other great features, and the one I’m personally pleased about is their commitment to better security and privacy.

Learn more about the full update by clicking here.

Here’s my Mac dock. Simple. On point. And very, very versatile. What’s in your dock? I’d be interested to know.

People always gravitate towards good art. The constant battle to ‘game’ the algorithm is all in vain. Nothing will work, no matter what you do to your post, page or bio.

People always gravitate towards good art. The constant battle to ‘game’ the algorithm is all in vain. Nothing will work, no matter what you do to your post, page or bio.

The secret to online marketing without being ‘salesy’?

‍My take:

• Great content.
• Simple structure.
• No hashtags.

People always gravitate towards good art.

The constant battle to ‘game’ the algorithm is all in vain.

Nothing will work, no matter what you do to your post, page or bio.

So…

• Do good shit. People will remember you.
• Do shit… shit. People will remember you.

‍So, what shit would you like to be remembered for?

With the work that I do, I have to go and find software solutions, basically, any kind of solutions, for my clients.

And what that entails is me using that software for a particular amount of time to make sure that I’m happy with how they work, how they function and whether it would work for any of my clients.

Everyone’s time is valuable. But we don’t really think about what that means. And I think I, after 50 odd years, have realised what time means to me.

P.S. If you’re struggling with time in your business, we should talk.

I frequently discuss simplicity, Tech Minimalism, and all things that streamline life. However, one topic I rarely touch upon is happiness and its meaning.

Want to simplify?

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I love the fact I can connect with people around the globe. But hate the grind and the complex it is now.

Emma Wilson’s Post

Update:
This experiment has turned into something better than I ever could imagine!

My daily (yes daily, and people stay subscribed) newsletter has become my personal ‘social media’ filled with professionals whom I actually interact with and have great conversations with… Via EMAIL!

No algorithms, no fluff, just great connections!

Click here to subscribe to my newsletter

Time is the most valuable asset you have. So why make yourself busy for mundane tasks when you could spend that time to do the things you love.

Want to be the master of your time? Click here!

It’s great to be liked by everyone around you. But if you’re appeasing, how is that being genuine?

It’s great to be liked by everyone around you. But if you’re appeasing, how is that being genuine?
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Stop trying to make everyone happy and be yourself.
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If you piss off a few billion people, don’t fret. There are the other billion that will and always like who you are and what you stand for.
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Besides, how many ‘friends’ do you need?

Business is about being genuine without being a dick. So as long as your work is on point, you’re not rude, and you still to your principles, you’ll find an audience.

I’m writing this as I see so many slimy posts from a bunch of back-slapping from people in different industries, and when you speak to these people ‘off air’, they are nothing like what they appear to be on LinkedIn.

It’s a shame.

So don’t worry about what you see on social media before you post. Post what you want, when you want and about what you want. And don’t give two shits what others think.

Be genuine, and you’ll find your audience.

I’m not too fond of slides. they take away from the story you’re trying to convey, and they often don’t look right. So for the past week, I was thinking of using slides. But in a way, that didn’t take away from my story.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to talk at the KREW Community of Creative Entrepreneurs.

Even though I’ve been asked before, and in fact, I make videos and podcasts, this was my first actual talk.

Yet, I was being asked by Marc for slides. He wasn’t pushing for it, but with every message, there was a friendly prompt.

I’m not too fond of slides. they take away from the story you’re trying to convey, and they often don’t look right. So for the past week, I was thinking of using slides. But in a way, that didn’t take away from my story.

Today, the day of the talk, I came up with a lo-fi version. I have been thinking about it in the past and used it in my videos when demoing apps on my phone.

Why not share my iPhone screen, and point it to my website? After all, my website has all the information in the headings.

Simple.

This was my first ‘slide’…‍

And, this was my last ‘slide’…‍

See, you don’t have to go full-on slide deck. People remember moments and stories. More than they will ever remember slide desks with text, images and god forbid you to use them… GIFs!

What do you think? Am I crazy, or does this work?

Some ask me why I send out my newsletter to my subscribers on a Friday. Well, other than the fact that the majority of the people taking my survey told me so. It’s because every day should be a personal day.

Some ask me why I send out my newsletter to my subscribers on a Friday. Well, other than the fact that the majority of the people taking my survey told me so. It’s because every day should be a personal day.

Let me explain.

We only get 7 days in a week, 2 of which are ‘personal’ days. Why is that? Why can’t we live with all 7 of them being personal days with a bit of work thrown in, rather than the other way around?

People these days are working way too much. I can understand why that might be, but life is about living, not working all the hours given to you. You should be out there enjoying your day, not fretting over the things that can wait.

When we’re young we all pretty much had nick-names. Some good, some bad and some definitely ugly. And I, unfortunately, fit into the last category.

When we were young we all pretty much had nicknames. Some good, some bad and some definitely ugly. And I, unfortunately, fit into the last category.

I won’t go into it. But let’s just say it was the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in the UK.

When I grew older and left school, I didn’t encounter the ‘ugly’. However, my name is pretty hard to say for most, so I had different names.

This is how the evolution of my name began.

One day I went to the bank with my stepmother to open an account. I had to come up with a signature. What? Now? I thought.

I created a signature with the first three letters of my name ‘Kia’ and last name ‘Kamgar’ under it. With the second ‘K’ merging into the ‘i’ from my first name. I know it’s stupid, but hey I was like 12. Give me a break.

So ‘Kia’ it was until I started working at my first ‘real job’ in a bank. However, they had problems pronouncing my name, so I came up with ‘Tony’, which was my best friend’s name at the time. I was ‘Tony’ for about 4 years.

After my banking role, I had various jobs and one was as a receptionist. There, I had to sign off on documents quite regularly. And it was then when I reverted back to ‘Kia’. After some time my signature got shortened to just ‘K’ as it was easier to sign. And that’s how the name ‘K’ was born.

So why is ‘Kia’ pronounced ‘K’?

Well, I write it as ‘Kia’ because a one-letter name is not a great thing to write in a professional setting, but whenever I’m asked how to pronounce it…

I just simply say, K.

Now you know.

We struggle to keep our day free of distractions.‍ We struggle to find quality time for our loved ones.‍ We even struggle to find answers to easy questions.‍

We struggle to keep our day free of distractions.‍ We struggle to find quality time for our loved ones.‍ We even struggle to find answers to easy questions.‍ But are we looking in the right place to fix these things?‍ I doubt it. I know, because I felt the same way many years ago.

We struggle to keep our day free of distractions.
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We struggle to find quality time for our loved ones.
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We even struggle to find answers to easy questions.
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But are we looking in the right place to fix these things?
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I doubt it. I know, because I felt the same way many years ago.
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To keep our day from being filled up with distractions, we simply need to banish certain things from our lives.
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To make sure we have enough time to do the things we love with those we love, we need to utilise our time in a more efficient way.
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To find the right answers, we need to make sure, firstly, to ask the right questions, but also to ask the right person and in the right place.
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We all struggle with these things, especially when we’re running our business and needing to wear different hats in the process.
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Imagine a world where you could save 40% of your time by fixing all your distractions by banishing anything that may cause you any form of anxiety.
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Have a great day/evening/morning, wherever you are!

As business professionals and humans, we always have the urge to help someone, and that’s never a bad thing. However, there’s a reason why on planes, they tell you to put on your own mask first before helping someone else.

Want to simplify your workflow? Click here!

Have you ever thought, “This should have been a Podcast!” I know I have!‍ I’ve had so many GREAT conversations with so many different people.

Have you ever thought, “This should have been a Podcast!” I know I have!

‍I’ve had so many GREAT conversations with so many different people. Be it clients, prospective clients, people interested in what I do and general discussions that turn into a treasure-trove of great information. That information, the delivery, the warmness is always lost as it’s never recorded or shared!

‍Wouldn’t it be great to have all that information for others to hear?

As you know, I have a Podcast, however, I’ve been thinking about doing a more in-depth long-form Podcast about things I generally talk about but with some ‘guests’ added.

My idea is to have a conversation, like a fly-on-the-wall style Podcast, where you, the listener, are interested in two (or more) people just shooting the breeze and sharing our knowledge of what we know.

‍This idea has been running around my head for a LONG time, but I wasn’t sure if ‘yet another Podcast’ would make a difference. But I’ve concluded that we all have something beneficial to share. And we all share things differently, so why not!

Pay it forward if the theme I’m going for.

‍It’ll be a weekly event, so I’ll have to work hard to find people who would like to come on and share their knowledge, what they do and how we, together, can help the listener.

‍Let me know your thoughts and whether you’d like to be a guess or know of anyone who’d be a perfect fit for a Podcast like this.

‍You can just hit reply if you’re subscribed and received it via email, or get in touch here.

I’m not for metrics, never have been, although there was a time, many moons ago, that I wanted to know everything that happened on my site. But looking at the numbers gave me anxiety!

So in the past few years, I stopped counting. I stopped tracking and stopped thinking about it. However, sometimes it’s good to know what’s happening, so I’ll tip my toe into the metrics I do have.

I use Fathom for my website, Transistor for my Podcast, and Bunny.net (for my videos) the latter two have their own built-in tracking.

My Tech Minimalism content is quite a niche, so I don’t expect it to be that high, nor do I have numbers to compare to anything, but I was pretty surprised at the numbers for my Podcast.

So you’re telling me that between the period of Jan 2020 to Jan 2021, there were around 3.5k listeners?! WOAH, I wasn’t expecting that. It’s not huge (I guess?), but happy that some are enjoying it.

There was a lull over the summer months due to me having some time off, but I feel this year the numbers will be higher.

So, are metrics just a vanity thing, or are they useful?

Well, I have to be honest, in the past they were vanity, ‘oh look, someone on my site!!!’ Now they help me understand what works and what doesn’t and as long as you use that data without harm to the visitor, listener or watcher, then it can help you see if your content works the way you need it to.

I’m now on a mission to make content for people who want to learn more about my niche.

There’s a downside to not having all the metrics some providers give you though. For instance, HEY World doesn’t give you any metrics at all, other than the number of people subscribed to get it via email.

So you have to ask for feedback.

I hate the ask and love it at the same time. It gives the reader the opportunity to reply so you can have a conversation without thinking of numbers that generally don’t mean anything.

It’s engagement that matters, not vanity metrics.

Having data and communication all over the place can make you feel unproductive and, at times, anxious.

I know because this is how I felt when I started coaching, but with Basecamp, I was able to tame and have a single source of truth.

We collect, gather and hoard way too much data that we need to. Have you thought about the impact it’s having on our mental state? And the energy we use to keep data that we will probably never need or use?

Article by Karina Meerman (Dutch)

This is an ongoing theme with online marketing, and I’ve come to realise I need to adhere to this rule, because my content marketing, emails and the things I post have been all over the place, even though it’s still tech-related.

This is an ongoing theme with online marketing, and I’ve come to realise I need to adhere to this rule, because my content marketing, emails and the things I post have been all over the place, even though it’s still tech-related.

• You can talk directly to them
• You can provide the right value
• You can make the right content

This is an ongoing theme with online marketing, and I’ve come to realise I need to adhere to this rule, because my content marketing, emails and the things I post have been all over the place, even though it’s still tech-related.

So how do I ‘fix’ this?!

It’s been a long hard brainstorming session with myself and the internet, a bunch of sleepless nights and my inner ghostly voice saying… ’let go’.

Letting go of things is hard for anyone, even though I talk about this with my clients when coaching and implementing the right tools for them to use, it’s hard to let go of something you’ve been used to for years.

So what am I letting go of?

MacJunky, my brand and company that I’ve built over the past 14 years has been the centre of my work life and has enabled me to work with some amazing clients, but it’s not a brand that screams ‘Tech Minimalism’ or anything I do right now in a way I’d like it to.

I am The MacJunky, I will always be The MacJunky and I will still keep The MacJunky name, however, Tech Minimalism is something I want to focus some of my time on.

As you’ve probably noticed, if you’ve been a follower, I’ve toyed with a bunch of ideas, different names and branding, and the only one that works for me is me, my name, my full name!

Because no one can be ‘you’ right?

So, now you know a little history, it’s time to wind down the MacJunky email list that I’ve been running over years as it’s more an ‘Apple-related’ list, even though I’ve been trying to pivot it, it hasn’t worked successfully, so starting a new list, with fresh faces, ideas and the right content for the right audience is the best way to move forward.

Let me know what you think by replying to this email (if you’re reading this via email) or contact me via my site as I’d love you to be on this new journey of mine!

We all love human interaction. The warmth of the voice, the glee we feel when we’re wanted.

But at what cost?!

HEY has a Screener feature that I love and can’t imagine ever going back to a ’normal’ email client/service. It’s made my email life so much simpler by weeding out unwanted or unimportant emails.

The company I’ve run for the past 14 years has accumulated over 6000 clients, and it’s been a fantastic journey. Still, alas, I’ll be sunsetting MacJunky pretty soon as my current venture is taking me in a great new direction, so I’ll need to focus more on that.

So having all my past clients contact me via telephone is distracting me from helping my new clients. So I was thinking of a way to quash the ‘can I ask you a quick question’ type of calls I continuously get.

Don’t get me wrong. I love hearing from people, but… I’m not always available, and I don’t think it’s fair for the client I’m currently with for me to drop everything off and pick up a call, right?

If the phone is constantly ringing, the caller can also get a little annoyed. So I’ve decided to delete all my contacts from my phone.

The reason for this is so I can use the Silence Unknown Callers feature on my iPhone (shown above)

This will send the caller that’s not in my contacts directly to my VM so I can focus on the task I’m on and get back to the caller when I’m not so busy. I’ll experiment with this and post an update in a month or so.

One might say, why just not accept the call? Well, the phone ringing is a distraction in itself, and if you’ve been following me and my videos, you’ll know that I think notifications of any kind are a distraction to your life.

Basecamp is a company I follow very closely, not only because I use their products, like Basecamp & HEY, but for their amazing knack for writing copy that draws you into the product, and makes you understand it quickly, with no sales-y’ BS!

Well played Basecamp, well played!

Getting the right workflow takes time and thought, just like playing chess. You need to understand your opponent and win by understanding your needs; otherwise, you’ll lose.

Click here to simplify your workflow