Mike Vardy

Here…Not There

This week I’m visiting my old stomping grounds of Southern Ontario with my son on a brief (yet much-needed) trip. So if you’re located in the Hamilton-Brantford-Toronto area and want to hang out sometime before Sunday, I’m game to do so. I’m currently plotting out my week, so drop me a line and let me […]

Powering Through

It was an awfully nice day yesterday. Sunny, warm(ish) and the type of day where you just want to be outside. My kids played outside, my wife took some time to do some outdoorsy stuff and I…well, I stayed in. 1 Why did I stay in? Because I had a lot of writing (and editing)

The Problem with Not Using Email to Manage Tasks

I’ve never been a fan of using an email application to manage tasks. That’s because I’ve tried, and know that it doesn’t work – at least not in a “standalone” manner.1 So I don’t use email as my task manager. Instead, I have used apps that are meant solely for task and project management. They

Los Angeles and Facebook

Derek Sivers on Los Angeles: “Not just LA but California is the most optimistic place on earth. The side-effects of this can confuse outsiders. When you say, “Will you come to my event?” or, “Want to help with this project?” – they will almost always say yes, full of enthusiasm, and actually 100% sincere, fully

The Wrench

The wrench is curious and versatile tool. It can be used to loosen or tighten things, which is important for making adjustments. Whenever you think of cranking widgets – which is a common productivity term – the tool being used for said cranking is…a wrench. (You may have noticed that I’ve used quite a few

So Much Help, So Little Time

I’ve got my own book coming out in the not-too-distant future, but I feel a little bit like my friend Brett Kelly does about this whole ‘selling’ business around it. 1 That said, I’d be foolish if I didn’t understand that it had to be done. So while I’m not big on hard-selling things, I

Don’t Do Anything

We can’t be powered on all the time. Even our computers take breaks — either by sleeping, shifting to screensaver mode or (unfortunately) putting the spinning beach ball or rotating hourglass on display. When our computers do that, we often get frustrated and are anxious while we wait for them to get back to doing

Looking at Your To Do List

When you close out one week and head into another, why not start really looking at your to-do list at that time…and I mean really look at it.