An Interview With Lisa ~ The Retro Housewife Goes Green

February 28, 2017 By Deanna Piercy 4 Comments

I have a treat for you – a second interview for the month of February! This one is with Lisa Sharp who blogs at Retro Housewife Goes Green. And she just happens to be my daughter. I often say that if you do it right, you can raise kids who in turn teach you. Lisa is my inspiration to live an eco-friendly life.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Life With Dee!

LWD Interview: Lisa Sharp, Retro Housewife Goes Green

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your blog, Retro Housewife Goes Green.

I’m a homemaker living in a small town in Oklahoma with my wonderful husband and our Great Pyrenees/Anatolian Shepherd rescue dog.

I started blogging in 2008 as a way to share the things I was learning about green living and real food. Over time I found I also really enjoyed sharing my love of homemaking. Now I share all about homemaking, green living, cooking from scratch, and my other love, vintage.

2. When did you first become interested in environmentalism?

It’s always been there on some level. When I was around two years old my dad went to throw away my baby food jar and I told him “no daddy, we cycle.” To this day my family still often says “we cycle.”

It became more of a passion for me as an adult. I watched An Inconvenient Truth and started researching what was going on with our environment more and became very concerned.

I knew I had to do something so I started volunteering with the local recycling coalition, and ended up helping to bring curbside recycling to my town. I also started blogging and sharing green living tips to help others do their part.

3. In addition to your blog and your Green Oklahoma website, what sources would you recommend to someone interested in living a more eco-friendly life?

Two of my top book suggestions would be The Story of Stuff and My Plastic-Free Life. They are very informative and give some great advice. For homemakers, I also highly recommend Organic Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck.

Some of my favorite green living blogs are:

My Plastic-Free Life
Groovy Green Livin
Mindful Momma,
Dr. Karen S. Lee
The Crunchy Chronicles
Bren Did
A Modern Homestead

They all share a wide range of information from organic food, reducing waste, gardening, natural health, and DIY.

4. What advice would you give to someone who wants to be more environmentally conscious but doesn’t know where to begin?

Start small! It can be easy to want to do it all but that is a recipe for disaster. It will become overwhelming and expensive.

Figure out which small steps will make the biggest impact in your family. Do you use a lot of disposable water bottles? Invest in some reusable water bottles.

Reusable bags are another thing I recommend. Buy them slowly and put them where you will remember them. You can save some money over time as many stores now give discounts for reusable bags and you will have less bags to stuff in a cabinet or dispose of.

The biggest thing is to take one thing at a time, let it become a habit, and move on to the next.

5. What has been your biggest challenge in living a green and eco-friendly lifestyle?

Giving myself grace. I have spent years feeling guilty anytime I wasn’t perfect. This is not a good way to live and not practical.

Last year I started really taking note of this. There has to be a balance between doing your part and being stressed all the time.

Now I try to follow more of a 80/20 with my eating and green living in general. Sometimes I eat fast food and sometimes I dye my hair. If most of the time I’m doing really well I have no reason to stress about the other time.

I wish I could be perfect but I really don’t want to live off the grid, raise all of my own food, and live a zero waste life. Maybe for a week and then I’d want to sleep for a week. There are some that can do all of that but I can’t.

6. I know you try to eat a mostly organic diet. Can you tell LWD readers why you started doing this and any benefits you have seen from it?

Several years ago I started suffering from a lot of health problems. I have fibromyalgia and it had gotten very bad. Most weeks I’d have at least one day I ended up in bed all day.

Conventional medicine hasn’t come up with good treatments for fibromyalgia right now. Your options are basically pain medicine and sleep aids. I didn’t want to go this route if at all possible so I started researching natural ways to treat it.

One thing I found is many people had a lot of success with eating an organic/whole food diet. Since I grew up eating a pretty natural diet, including having some organic food before it was popular, this was pretty simple.

I started by removing the worst ingredients and making more and more from scratch. I lost weight and started to feel better. My husband also saw health benefits from this change.

I’ve tried many things over the years to improve my health and reduce fibromyalgia symptoms and my diet changes are one thing that has stuck and made the biggest impact.

7. Do you make any of your own cleaning products? If so, do you have links to the recipes?

I don’t make that many cleaners because I clean almost everything with hot, soapy water. It’s very simple but has been shown scientifically to work. I just fill a bucket or sink with as hot as I can stand water and add a bit of Dr. Bronner’s castile soap.

I do make a daily shower cleaner spray and my own laundry detergent. I also use vinegar for windows and glass and anything that’s a bit smelly.

8. Organic food and “green” products can sometimes be expensive. Do you have any suggestions for “going green” on a budget?

Meal plan. We waste a lot of food and that can cost a lot of money! When meal planning be sure to check sale flyers and look for coupons. And be flexible. My last shopping trip I found grass-fed ground beef was on sale for almost half of what I normally pay. My meal plan had a fair amount of chicken in it but I decided those meals would wait and got a lot of ground beef instead. This saved me a lot of money on meat for the month. And of course reducing your meat intake will help. Try Meatless Monday for an easy way to reduce your meat intake.

Otherwise being green should overall be about using less. You don’t need all the latest “green” gadgets. When buying something consider buying used and when buying new, buy products that will last.

Ditching disposable products and gradually buying reusable ones will also save you a lot of money over time. I rarely buy paper towels anymore because I have a paper-free kitchen, I don’t buy bottled water, and one bag of plastic sandwich bags will last me years. These changes add up.

9. Where can LWD readers connect with you?

You can find me on my blog – Retro Housewife Goes Green, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, and my Facebook group – Homemaking for Everyone.

10. Do you have any upcoming projects or anything new in the works for Retro Housewife Goes Green?

Soon I will have a spring cleaning challenge series. You will get tips and tricks delivered to your inbox to help you get your house in great shape for the spring. I will announce it on the blog and social media soon.

~~~~~

Thank you, Lisa! I appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions and share so many great resources.

Lisa’ Bio:

I’m Lisa. I’m a homemaking, vintage loving, green living, blogger, living in a small town in Oklahoma.

I’ve been married since 2005 to my wonderful husband, Justin. We have a Great Pyrenees/Anatolian Shepherd Dog rescue named Patience. She’s terribly spoiled but also very sweet.

I love to bake, craft, go antique shopping, listen to local music, and of course spend time with my friends and family.

Lisa’s Links:

Retro Housewife Goes Green

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

Homemaking for Everyone

Reusable Shopping Bags

An Interview With Terri – Blue House Journal

February 21, 2017 By Deanna Piercy 7 Comments

I am very happy to introduce LWD readers to Terri Cheney of Blue House Journal. I first became acquainted with Terri back in 2005 when I started reading her newsletter, Penny Ann Poundwise. I don’t think she knows this but I used to print out her newsletters and have them collected in a three-ring binder. In fact, it was this newsletter of hers, as well as “Laine’s Letters” which initially inspired my first newsletter, “Tea With Dee“, which then led to my first blog.

Terri is one of my main inspirations for frugal living so I knew she would be a perfect choice for an interview this month.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Life With Dee!

LWD INTERVIEW: TERRI CHENEY, BLUE HOUSE JOURNAL

Note: I’ve added a few personal comments. One of these days perhaps I’ll be set up to do actual audio interviews and have a genuine conversation with my interviewees. But I didn’t want to allow the lack of that setup to hold me back now.

1. Please tell LWD readers a bit about yourself, your blog – Blue House Journal – and your history of blogging.

About 11 years ago I started blogging under the name Penny Ann Poundwise, at the urging of my 12 year old daughter. I’d been writing an email newsletter under the same name and blogging was new at that point. My daughter has always been a little more aware of current trends than I. I’m glad I listened to her!

Eventually I evolved from Penny Ann Poundwise to Blue House Journal. I wanted to be free to express more of who I am beyond just the things I do to save money. I wanted to incorporate many of the things that I felt made my life rich and full, those things that went beyond being frugal. As we have neared retirement age, the blog has evolved yet again, but the ultimate fact of living well on a budget is still the same.

Deanna: As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I’ve been a reader since the old Penny Ann Poundwise newsletter days. I can’t recall how I initially found it. I wonder if we might have been in a Yahoo Group together. Terri, do you recall?

2. You blog about frugal living. Have you always been frugal?

No. I grew up with some frugal concepts surrounding me but no understanding about WHY being frugal could benefit my life. I lived poor for many years, despite having plenty of money at my disposal because I’d never learned to handle money properly. My parents managed money poorly. I grew up with the idea that more money was the answer. If you don’t know how to manage what you have, then MORE is not the answer.

When I became a single parent and had no child support coming in I learned to manage my finances better. Later, when I’d met my second husband and I had to leave a job situation that had grown far too stressful, I had to learn to manage on less. When there was NO money to spare I began to truly live in a frugal way and the more it was necessary the better we lived, which sounds crazy but it’s the truth! Eventually I was back at work. At one point I sat down and figured out what I made and what it cost us for me to work. That was very eye opening and I was making a decent wage at that time.

My husband and I talked it over and I came home. I have been a stay at home mom and wife now for over 20 years. We’ve lived on one income for all those years. John and I figured with the cost of living increases and the lack of raises in his position that we’re probably making about the same income we began on 20 years ago. And yet, we’ve managed to become debt free. We enjoy a vacation most years. We’ve had to replace a roof and air conditioner, buy new appliances and furniture. We’ve bought cars. We don’t finance through big finance companies. We finance ourselves and we pay it back as quickly as we can.

3. Where do you get your ideas and inspiration for living a frugal life? Can you recommend some resources for LWD readers (ie. books, websites, etc.)?

Inspiration can be as simple as having the desire to do something fresh and new in my home and then figuring out how I might use what I have to accomplish it. Sometimes a quote will inspire me, sometimes a situation that arises in another’s life. I find inspiration from my Bible readings some mornings. It’s amazing where inspiration for a frugal life can be found!

I don’t know very many frugal folks who haven’t read The Tightwad Gazette Books (note from Dee: Initially these were printed as a series of three books and those are what I have. Now they are available all-in-one). Those really started me on my frugal journey. Many of Amy’s essays helped me rethink some of the ideas about money I grew up with, and I learned to view finances differently. I also incorporated some of the things I’d watched senior family members employ as a result of living in the Depression Era. Jonni McCoy’s books were also inspiring and helpful. I love the vintage Heloise books because she really had some great ideas for both saving money and time. But I’d have to say that Tracey McBride’s book, Frugal Luxuries, was the transforming book of my frugal life. Suddenly I realized that living in a frugal way did not mean a life of deprivation but a life that could be lovely. I simply had to look at new ways to acquire the things that made my heart sing.

When I began writing my newsletter there were just a few forums online for people who needed and wanted to really save money in every way possible. I’ve discovered some really wonderful seasoned frugal bloggers. I loved reading an email forum from Laine of Laine’s Letters. Those are archived online now. Annabel Smith of The Bluebirds Are Nesting, Patsy at The Working Pantry, Brandy of The Prudent Homemaker all come to mind right away as inspiring bloggers who pursue frugal lives and live beautifully. I’ve been friends with you online for many years and follow along with your blog and your daughter’s. I have followed Rhonda of If You Do Stuff for many years and we’ve become close friends over that time.

Deanna: Laine’s Letters are a treasure trove of frugal inspiration. Like Terri’s newsletters, I also printed Laine’s and have a huge amount of them. I was disappointed when she quit writing them and then when her site disappeared I was deeply saddened. Fortunately they are now archived online.

4. What would you consider your greatest asset in living frugally? What is your biggest challenge?

My greatest asset in living frugally has been being debt free. When my husband first broached the idea of paying off all our debts, I didn’t see how we possibly could do it. It took all he was earning and all I could do to stretch it to meet our needs. But gradually, with lots of prayer and seeking wisdom, we managed to pay off one big debt after another. We discovered that $3 saved here and $2 saved there could add up to a nice extra payment by month’s end. It meant making some sacrifices. We gave up little things and saved those sums and eventually we paid off our first debt. Then we snowballed that amount over to the next debt, continuing to add in those small savings all through the month.

Within three years we’d paid off $20,000 in debt and then we began to tackle our mortgage. We had a windfall amount come in that was substantial following the sale of a piece of inherited property. We didn’t think twice about using that money to pay off the house, even though many financial experts advise against it.

Deanna: We received an inheritance which allowed us to buy our current home, mortgage-free. We, too, received advice from “experts” not to do that. However, we have never regretted than decision

It’s an incredible feeling to know that the home I live in and everything within these four walls are mine. For someone whose earliest memory is watching the household goods being loaded onto a truck because they were being repossessed, followed by moving from our home, which we’d also lost…That was a huge thing!

My biggest challenge is to not to let poor thinking intrude. We do have a small income. We do have a limited amount of resources. It’s easy to lose perspective and focus too hard on those things. In fact, we are blessed. I have a skill set that will see us through the hardest seasons. And they are just seasons. I have to remember seasons have a limited amount of time to run.

5. What advice would you give to a young bride (or anyone else, for that matter) regarding setting up and adhering to a budget?

For a newbie, I suggest taking it one step at a time. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed with information. And once you’ve done one thing, then add one more. Living frugally is really about acquiring a new set of skills. You can’t learn it all at once, but you can gradually build up those skills, just as you build muscle by exercising.

And I think it’s important to emphasize that it’s not easy. It takes a lot of work sometimes, when it’s far easier to just pay for the service or buy the product. If you fail, just go right back to what you were doing. I found a quote the other day about being in debt that just seemed to cover frugal endeavors very well:

“Getting out of debt is hard. Staying in debt is hard. Choose your hard.” — Jessica Garbarino

It isn’t easy but it’s worth it.

6. What is your current blogging routine? Do you have certain types of posts on particular days of the week? Are you doing any type of challenge right now or in the near future?

I guess am a creative type in some ways in that I don’t stick to the same routines ad infinitum. I get restless and shake things up but the essentials of my blog don’t change: I write about how I save money, about my home life, about God, about the things that I find enjoyable in life.

What is working for me at the moment is a sort of schedule. I start my week with “This Week In My Home” where I’ll list menus, goals for the weeks and my plans for my leisure time. I find sharing my plans keeps me focused on what I want to accomplish and holds me accountable. On Friday’s I have “Frugal Friday”. I give a daily account of things I did that week to save money as well as ways I enjoyed the week. About every other week I have a Coffee Chat where I ‘talk’ about things I’ve pondered or special things I’ve encountered during my week. For the rest of my posts during each week I tend to focus on some inspiration area and try to carry that theme through the week but I also will do random posts about things I’ve learned about.

Currently I am working on a monthly challenge called Eating on a Tight Budget. A blog reader lost her home in a fire the day before Thanksgiving and I pondered on how it would be if I lost my home. I realized that my pantry and freezer would be gone, which I’ve always considered an emergency fund. How would I manage without those? How would I rebuild? What if my husband lost his job or couldn’t work? What if our savings were wiped out? How would we manage then? I began to look at various bloggers online who claimed they fed their family for small amounts per week but to a woman each relied upon a deep pantry and deep freezers. So that led to the current series of posts I’m working upon.

In January I posed the question of a $20 a week budget for two. It was tough! In February I allowed $30 a week and it was still hard but to put together three meals a day for two on that. To flesh out the posts I actually used some of the menu plans, made some foods from scratch, and shared my experiences. I also encouraged readers to participate and share their experiences.

Deanna: Do check out this “Eating on a Tight Budget” series. It is truly inspiring!

7. What are your future plans for Blue House Journal?

I see Blue House Journal as a ministry to reach and teach others. I want to share my personal testimony of my faith walk but also to encourage and inspire anyone who must live on a tight budget. It’s so easy to believe the hype that you can’t own a home or be debt free on a single low income but it can be done! There are a lot of financial folks who tell us we need a couple of million to retire. Well it’s not going to happen here. The fact is we started over from scratch in our late 30’s and raised five kids. We bought a home, paid for cars. We’ve a savings account but reality is that at any moment that could be gone. So that’s why I keep sharing. We’ll retire on a low income. We’ll make a life on what we have. I will keep sharing to encourage others to get up every day and do what they can.

I also enjoy the community we as bloggers are able to build between ourselves and other bloggers, with our readers. I want my blog to continue to foster that. Many people want a feeling of neighborliness that once permeated real life. They still seek that. It’s important to build that sense of community online, I think.

And to have fun along the way. It’s all about balance. So that’s really my future plans for Blue House Journal. It may evolve into something more at any point. I’ve discovered that blogs grow with us if we let them.

~~~~~

Thank you so much, Terri, for taking the time for this interview. For LWD readers who don’t already follow Terri, she has a brand new grandson who has needed a little time in the NICU. Meanwhile, Terri has been helping with the baby’s older brother. I truly appreciate her making time to share her frugal story here in the midst of a busy time. Please join me in sending prayers and good thoughts for baby Isaac.

If you’d like to read Terri’s series, Eating on a Tight Budget, here is the link to the first post in the series:

Eating on a Tight Budget: Challenge #1 Mother Hubbard

Terri’s Bio:

For years now I’ve shared my frugal skills while raising a family. Now we’re empty nesters and are looking ahead to those retirement years. These days I’m honing my old frugal skills, learning new things and doing my best to live well today while saving for tomorrow.

Terri’s links:

Note: The “Tea With Dee” newsletters I mentioned above are still available to read if you are interested. When I started this blog I changed the name of the newsletters to “Life With Dee”, thinking I would use that same format for blog newsletters. I ended up starting my current email newsletter (sign up available at the end of this and every blog post) instead but if you’d like to see where it all began, here is the link:

Tea With Dee/Life With Dee

An Interview With The Productive Woman

January 31, 2017 By Deanna Piercy 2 Comments

Welcome to the first LWD interview! I plan to make this a monthly feature and am so pleased that Laura McClellan of The Productive Woman podcast graciously agreed to this interview.

I can’t recall how I first found Laura’s podcast but I do know I’ve been listening since the fall of 2015. Whenever I decide to listen to a podcast hers is the first I look for. I’m always delighted when I see there is a new episode. Laura is informative and truly a pleasure to listen to.

January’s theme here on LWD has been organization and productivity so it’s only fitting that on this last day of the month we learn a bit about my personal favorite resource for productivity information – The Productive Woman.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Life With Dee!

LWD Interview: Laura McClellan, The Productive Woman

1. Please tell us a bit about your background and how you came to start your podcast, The Productive Woman.

I grew up in western Washington state, oldest of six kids. I met my husband in a music group when we were students at rival high schools. We married less than a year after graduation, and had our first child a couple years later.

Many years and several kids later we moved to New York so I could attend Cornell Law School. After graduation I started my law practice with a large firm in Dallas, Texas. Our five kids are grown, and we still live in north Texas.

I started my podcast in mid-2014. I was looking for something to do outside my law practice. I had discovered podcasts, which I listened to each day during my long commute to and from the office, and thought podcasting might be something I’d enjoy. I took an online podcasting course (Cliff Ravenscraft’s excellent Podcasting A to Z course) in December 2013 and a few months later launched The Productive Woman.

2. Have you always been interested in productivity and time management?

I actually have. Even clear back in junior high I enjoyed reading books about time management and organization, and entertained myself organizing my room. I’ve always loved creating checklists and charts, and as I got older got into planners and notebooks. Kind of geeky, but all the stuff I learned turned out to be a big help later in my life when I was managing a growing family and then going back to college and then law school.

Deanna: Ah, so I’m not the only weird kid who enjoyed organizing my room. 😉

3. What would you say are your greatest strengths in regards to productivity? Your greatest weakness?

I think I’m pretty organized. I have a knack for seeing how to break down a project into its component parts, organize the resources and tasks, and create a plan to get them done. I’m generally pretty efficient—I’ve had to be, managing a family and school and a busy career—and I actually enjoy finding ways to save time and create functional, organized, pleasant spaces.

On the other hand, I can waste time with the best of them. For one thing, can get totally sidetracked and carried away trying different tools and systems. I also constantly battle both perfectionist tendencies and impostor syndrome (the former being a common symptom of the latter).

4. What are some of your favorite productivity tools?

Oh, this could take me so long to answer. I could recommend specific products, but really the basic productivity tools are a calendar and a to-do list. I tend to favor digital tools that I can access from any of my devices (I’m an Apple fangirl), but when things get crazy I revert back to a plain old legal pad and mechanical pencil to create a working to-do list.

As far as specific tools I use, I rely heavily on the digital calendar on my iPhone. I like Calendars 5. I sync all my calendars through it: my work calendar, my personal calendar (which I share with my husband through iCal), and a separate iCal for The Productive Woman matters—planning future episodes, guest interviews, mastermind meetings, and coaching sessions.

My primary task manager is OmniFocus, a robust digital task manager that lets me enter and organize and view my projects and tasks in any way that makes sense to me. It’s Mac & iOS only, though, and since at the law office I have to use a Windows-based computer, I’ve tried a couple other digital task managers there. I love Nozbe, but currently I’m experimenting with Todoist. Either of those options lets me access my work projects and tasks both on my office computer and on my iOS devices, absolutely critical for me to be able to manage all my projects for clients.

Aside from the basics of calendar and task manager, I could not be productive without tools like Dropbox (where I store most documents I’m working on, including legal forms and documents, and share recordings of mastermind meetings, etc.) and Evernote (my external brain, where I store anything I need as a reference—receipts, research documents, running lists of podcast topic ideas, etc.).

For a more complete list of my favorite productivity tools, your readers are invited to download my “Productivity Toolbox” by going to The Productive Woman/favorite apps.

Deanna: I really encourage you to go download this helpful resource.

5. Your podcast tagline is “making a life that matters”. What does that mean in general and for you personally?

What a great question. What it means to make a life that matters is, I think, going to be different for every person. For me, it’s living a life in which I’m able to make a positive impact on the world around me—my family, my friends, my colleagues, and beyond. The fact is, we all have an impact on the people we come in contact with. I just want my impact to be a positive one. I think I’ll feel I’ve made a life that matters if I’ve made the world a better place, in however small a way, for the people who know me.

Deanna: I love this aspect of Laura’s podcast. She frequently reminds listeners that productivity for productivity’s sake is not the point. It is simply a means to help “make a life that matters” or as I say, “create a beautiful life”.

6. One of the questions you always ask your podcast guests is how they handle a day where things have gotten away from them. What about you? Do you have a specific way of getting back on track?

Way to turn the tables on me, Deanna!

When everything falls apart on me, when I’m overwhelmed and stressed out, I have a little protocol I follow. It’s most likely to happen at work, so it’s easiest to describe in that context, but the same process applies whether at the office or at home. First I stop, close my eyes, and breathe for a minute. Just a few deep, slow breaths in and out, to calm myself and slow my heart rate. Then I clear the decks—clear off my desk or workspace, get all the clutter out of sight, in a cupboard or box (I put a task on my to-do list to pull it out and deal with it after the crisis passes). Then I close all my screens, put aside my phone, etc., and sit down with a legal pad and pen or mechanical pencil, and quickly list everything that’s on my mind and making me crazy and distracted—every task I need to do, call I need to make, etc. I get them all out of my head and onto paper, where I can look at it all.

Then I take a short walk, maybe down to the kitchen to get a cup of tea, or outside for a minute if I can. When I get back, I look at the list, add anything else that has come to mind, and then read through the list and see what can be deleted or deferred (I’m just not going to do it now), what I can delegate to someone else, and what absolutely has to be done now, by me. Then I pause and close my eyes and do another minute of deep breathing. When I open my eyes, I pick one of the must-do tasks and simply get to work. When I finish that one, I take a short break and then pick another one.

That’s how I power through when things are stressing me out and I simply must get things done. Sometimes, though, when a day has fallen apart and I’m exhausted and no longer able to work effectively, I simply acknowledge that, accept that I’m human, and give myself permission to quit for the day, get into some comfy clothes (or my pajamas), grab a cup of tea or a snack, and curl up with a book or a Netflix movie . . . or just go to bed! Tomorrow is another day, as the great philosopher Scarlett O’Hara once said.

Deanna: I was hoping this is what Laura would share. She did a podcast on this back in September 2014 and it was one of the first I listened to when I discovered The Productive Woman in the fall of 2015. It inspired me to write this post, 9 Steps to Take Control of Your Day.

7. What is your number one piece of advice for someone who has decided that 2017 is the year she is going to “get organized”?

Hmm. Probably to take a moment to think about what that (“get organized”) means to you and why you want to do it. Having a clear vision for what you want to accomplish, and having a personally compelling reason for why it matters to you, are both absolutely necessary for success in any sort of endeavor. Once you have those, get a plan in place, and get started!

8. Can you recommend a couple of favorite books about productivity? What about websites or other podcasts?

There are a ton of books I love, but the two I recommend most these days are Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and Gary Keller’s The One Thing. Both have had a powerful impact on my thinking about what it means to be truly productive, and they’re a great place to start your reading about productivity.

Deanna: Essentialism was one of our October LWD book club selections. I must admit it is still sitting on my shelf unread. Soon, though!

There are so many excellent podcasts about productivity. I’ve always liked Erik Fisher’s Beyond the To-Do List and Mike Vardy’s Productivityist. One I’ve been binging on lately is Lisa Woodruff’s Organize 365 Podcast—a great one for that person we were talking about earlier who’s decided this is her year to “get organized.”

9. What is your favorite thing about podcasting?

I enjoy researching and preparing and recording the episodes, but my favorite thing has to be the people I’ve been privileged to meet because of the podcast. The podcasting community is extraordinarily generous and supportive of each other, and just generally a nice bunch of people. Most of all, my favorite thing is hearing from and communicating with the listeners. It never gets old to receive an email from a listener sharing a challenge she’s working on, and I love the conversations in the TPW Community Facebook group. It’s a privilege to get to be part of these women’s lives.

Deanna: I feel the same way about the interaction I have with LWD readers. It always makes me happy to see an email from a reader in my inbox or a comment on the blog or Facebook page.

10. Tell us a little bit about your mastermind groups and your Facebook community.

I launched the TPW Mastermind groups last year as a way to work more directly with TPW listeners. These are paid masterminds, so they’re comprised of women who are ready to invest their time, energy, and money in their own personal growth and their journey toward making a life that matters. Each group is very small—I accept only 5 women into each mastermind group, so each member gets sufficient support and input. We meet weekly for 12 weeks, via video conference on Zoom. The groups’ purpose is to provide each member with support, encouragement, ideas, and accountability with respect to her personal and professional goals. It’s been so awesome to see the things these women accomplish—and the relationships that develop. Some members of past groups have remained in contact, continued to support and encourage each other, and even been able to get together in person in some cases! Facilitating these mastermind groups might be one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.

The Facebook community is a closed group, for TPW listeners only (and only women), that I launched last year as a way for us to all communicate more. I love the podcast, but that’s just me talking. The Facebook community provides a way for listeners to ask questions, share ideas, support and encourage each other. It’s so fun for me to see how the community jumps in to answer each others’ questions, and I love being part of the conversations there.

Deanna: I love the TPW Facebook community group and someday I intend to join a mastermind group.

11. What’s on the horizon for you and The Productive Woman? Any new projects in the works?

Well, I of course plan to keep putting new episodes out there, hopefully providing content that’s helpful to the listeners. The Winter 2017 TPW Mastermind groups are in full swing, and new groups will be forming soon to start meeting in late April or early May. I’ll soon be opening up some time in my schedule for a few more one-on-one coaching clients. And I’m working on a goal-setting workbook that I hope to release later this year. Beyond that . . . we’ll see. I dream of one day putting together a TPW retreat, so that’s something I’m noodling on for maybe next year.

Deanna: A TPW Retreat! How exciting!

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I want to say a huge thank you to Laura McClellan for doing this interview with me. With a full-time law practice, podcast and mastermind groups, she is a very busy woman and I greatly appreciate her taking the time to answer a few questions for LWD readers.

If you aren’t already a listener, I encourage you to go check out The Productive Woman podcast. Here are a few of my personal favorite episodes to get you started:

Laura’s bio:

Laura McClellan is a lawyer, a writer, a productivity enthusiast, and a tech geek. Married for 37+ years to her high school sweetheart, with whom she’s raised five amazing kids, she’s passionate about encouraging women in their individual journeys as people, wives, mothers, citizens. Laura blogs occasionally at I Was Just Thinking . . . and Real Estate Law Blog and is working on her first novel. Connect with Laura on Twitter as @LauraMcMom.

Laura’s Links:

The Productive Woman website

Twitter

The Productive Woman Facebook page

The Productive Woman Community Facebook group

You might also enjoy these LWD posts:

9 Steps to Take Control of Your Day

7 Podcasts That Will Change Your Life

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown

The One Thing by Gary Keller