Hi, I'm Selda...Welcome!

Want to make more time for the things you love without sacrificing your already limited downtime? Me too! I'm so glad you're here!

Author image - hanging out in New Zealand (one of my fav places on Earth!)

Thanks for stopping by!

I’m a mum of two with a penchant for penning notes about how to get more out of what feels like a very short life.

I started this newsletter on a whim.

I’ve been writing on LinkedIn on and off for years, always in between my regular work as a management consultant.

Turns out I bloody love writing!

After almost 20 years of working across multiple industries, the topic I know most about is efficiency and how to optimise ways of working or get into a peak state of flow. But I have a wide range of interests, from AI to food, health, and wellbeing.

In this newsletter, I share one practical and actionable tip each week (usually Mondays) to help you make more time, give you more energy, and help you stay grounded (literally) to the life that you want to live.

Some of my most popular posts so far have been about how to say no, a simple 2 minute exercise for increasing focus, tips for taming distractions, and 3 unusual ways I reclaim my to-do list.

Want to know more about me?

Keep reading!

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My story

I think I must have been around 11 years old when I started working in my parents’ restaurant. It was a fun place, delicious food and terribly busy. I started work in the kitchen, gradually making my way up from diligent pot washer to sous chef. The pressure of working in a kitchen taught me the basics about how chop a zillion vegetables without chopping my fingers off, and how to cope with a lot of different tasks all happening at the same time.

In the restaurant business, this is called satisfying 110 hungry customers.

Of course, I was still at school. So, my life was also about figuring out how to get my schoolwork done around my family responsibilities and kitchen work.

After spending four interesting years at University of Reading (UK) and Universität Regensburg (Germany), I went straight into a tech company and learned fundamentals that would steer my career on course, to squeeze value out of every nook and cranny. Often called Lean, Six Sigma, Agile and Design Thinking.

I’ve spent the best part of 20 years in consulting implementing, training and coaching people in these tools to help them do more with less resources.

And I’m really passionate about giving everyone these tools to create the kind of life they want to live.

I met a wonderful man, I’ll call him Mr. S. And, after 5 years of dating, we got married and had two wonderful, amazing, capable children – Bean and Blueberry (not their real names, but rather their comparable fruit/veg size during pregnancy).

During lockdown I was on maternity leave with Bean, when a calling at 5am woke me up (oops, sorry no that was a leaking nappy), and gave me the idea of starting an e-commerce company that helps parents find the right nappy for their leaking babies. About the same time, I was offered a cool job that aligned with my aspirations, and suddenly, I was a mum, with a business and a full-time job.

Oh, I also decided at this point, that I really wanted to author a book, but I’ll come back to that later.

This stage of life demanded that I be so organised and efficient, even more so than feeding three courses to 110 hungry customers in a two-hour window, that I had to create different structures and routines to help me cope.

Writing a book helped to synthesize my thinking and years of experience. I’m hoping to publish it before the end of the year🤞.

I like simplicity.

There are many ‘gurus’ out there that will have poured over every productivity system, done an analysis to show their flaws and then peddle their overly complex methods on the science of getting more done.

I’m not one of them.

I don’t believe in overanalysing and making productivity more complex.

People’s lives are busy enough.

I believe simple is best.

Life is supposed to be enjoyed not endured, and there’s just not enough hours in the day that make me want to spend time learning about the latest planning app (but hey, if that’s your bag, you should definitely do that!).

The whole point of my newsletter is to maximize every minute - yes. But that is so that we can spend more time with our loved ones, or doing things we care about, enjoy and are passionate about. Not to work more, be more stressed and try and fit even more into 24 hours.

Life’s too short.

I want to Maximize my Minutes, so that I can spend more time with my family and friends, spend more time in nature, and take care of myself by living a healthy lifestyle.

You’ll no doubt have your own aspirations.

This newsletter is about helping you create the space that you need, to achieve whatever it is in life that you want. It’s not about planning out every second of your day, so that there’s no time left to do the things that you really want to do.

Why do you want to maximize your minutes?

I have days where I haven’t done everything on my list too.

But, if I get to the end of the day, and I haven’t done anything on my personal aspirations (like a workout, having a walk, playing with my kids, eating lunch outside), then that gets me down.

That’s not a good day.

What can you expect from this newsletter?

I’d like to think that between the things I’ve learnt from working globally over the past 20 years, and experiences of growing up working, living and playing in a family business environment, that there might be some small nugget of information in my brain, that someone else might find useful.

And even if just one person finds it useful, then that’s a win in my view.

I’m not going to be writing about anything ground breaking or complex.

I like to get to the point quickly, be easy to understand, and hopefully provide value to you, the reader!

I’ll write about topics that interest me and connect the dots to productivity and how I get into a peak performance state. One week I might be discussing my latest AI experiments (to see how AI can make my life simpler), and the next I might discuss the latest health fad I’ve discovered, that improves focus.

But, if there’s anything in particular you want to see me write about, just let me know.

So, if this has piqued your interest and you want to come on this journey of self-discovery with me, click subscribe to be notified when a new post comes out.

It’s great to have you here.

Selda x

I would love to hear about why you’re here and what you’re interested in hearing more about (or less about!). Drop a note in the comments and I’ll pick it up.