Creator Comments | Mike St Pierre – Non-profit Productive
Chris,
The thing I am passionate about and the reason why I started this blog, podcast and YouTube channel is i want to help people be more effective with their time and their lives. I keep deepening my understanding of this and simplifying how I explain it. I mean proactively and intentionally taking a wholistic approach to organising yourself and you use of the resources that you have. An approach that considers many, many things beyond just our work and the essential chores of everyday life, but that seeks to do so in a way that is appropriate. As I have developed this myself, there are many people who’s own content creation in this area has really helped me and so I am going to do a mini-series of posts called Creator Comments in order to point you to them. Today, Creator Comments | Mike St Pierre – Non-profit Productive.
A small word of warning
In introducing you to different creators, I am aware that for some of us, this will just end up being yet more blog posts, videos or podcasts that further bloat our to-read/watch/listen apps beyond the point of ever catching up. Confession time! I listen to a lot of podcasts but my phone ran out of storage last week as I had well over 800hrs of downloaded podcasts that I hadn’t listened to yet. At the rate at which I listen, it will take 3 years to catch up.
With that warning against bloat aside, let’s look at Mike St Pierre and Non-Profit Productive.
Also, none of the people I am going to ‘comment’ on know I am doing this and none of them have asked me to. I genuinely have found their work helpful and in the interests of helping others, I wanted to share it.
Mike St Pierre – Non-profit Productive
Mike is an Executive Director in the non-profit sector in the USA. That’s his day job. In addition he has a website and a YouTube Channel. On the website you will find his blog and his podcast. Recognising some of the unique challenges that face those who work for non-profits, his focus is primarily geared towards helping people in that sector to be more productive. That said, a lot of what he says is not specific to that and much of the stuff that is, has helpful principles that apply to anyone.
There is much I could talk about, but the thing that has resonated most with me is his take on calm productivity and the 8 pillars of calm productivity. This post is a great place to start on this. I would also recommend that you listen his podcast and in particular Episodes 24 (introduction), 26,27, 30, 31, 32 & 33 (which go through the first 6 pillars).
Let me quote Mike on Calm Productivity:
Calm productivity is a way of being productive. It runs counter to the always on, hustle-till-you-drop culture that permeates our contemporary approach to work. Calm productivity pushes pause on the guilt of unfinished tasks on your todo list. Finally, it’s wonderfully at peace in a world that is, ahem, quite stressful.
Mike St. Pierre
I don’t want to try and explain it all myself when you could, and should, go to Mike’s post linked above and read it, but here is a list so you can see what the pillars are:
Philosophy
Preparedness
Planning
Appreciation
Reflection
Simplicity
Project-based
Propensity for action:
The next thing I have found valuable is Mike’s interviews with other productivity creators. He has even run a few productivity summits where he has videos of interviews with David Allen, Mike Vardy and Tiago Forte to name but a few. Full disclosure – Mike did interview me in one of his ‘Expert Interviews’ Series and you can see that here.
I find Mike’s approach really well thought through and the calmness he promotes, the teaching, training and tools he provides to help us achieve that calmness in what could otherwise be a frantic and stressed out existence has really helped me. I also like that his podcasts will communicate in 5-10 minutes what it would take me 20-30 minutes to get across. His style of communication, is clear, thorough and succinct. Something I need to learn.
So check out his material – Creator Comments | Mike St Pierre – Non-profit Productive.
