I’ve been helping small business owners and their teams maintain a work-life balance since 2007. I work from home, I don’t email my team, we have few meetings and I don’t work on Fridays!
My projects: ✅Nozbe to-do app and 📖#NoOffice book
Side projects: 🖋Journal, 🎲Dice, ▶️YouTube watcher and 🇺🇦FCKPTN
⭐️ Featured article:
⭐️ My favorite USB-C gadgets of 2025
In one of my earlier blog posts I mentioned that now I’m striving to get USB-C all things, meaning whenever I get a new gadget it must be powered using just a standard USB-C cable. This way I don’t collect useless additional chargers and can always add juice to my devices. Practical and environmentally friendly. Here are my top picks for this year and great ideas for gifts for nerds like me - send this list to your partners, people.
Topics on my blog:
Latest articles and posts:
⌚️ 🗯 Design is how… Apple Watch doesn’t work?
Design is how it works, right? This used to be Apple. Now they’re managed by Excel-obsessed Tim Cook and designers seemed to have forgotten how stuff works at all. Here’s the latest Apple Watch 26.2 and the “notifications” indicator keeps telling me that I have new notifications even if I’ve seen them all…
🕹️ ✈️ What’s in my USA trip tech pouch in 2025?
This week I’m traveling to the USA on business as I’ve been offered a quite unique opportunity to meet one of my business gurus - Nathan Barry - and record a podcast with him - the Nathan Barry Show. It’s a quick trip as I’m staying in the US for only 3 nights. And it’s a long trek, as I’ll be flying close to 20 hours each way. For this trip I decided to pack ultra-light and get only the most necessary tech:
🕹️ 🗯 Life finds a way… to USB-C with adapters for Braun and Phillips…
Turns out in technology, if you dig deep enough, life… uh… finds a way as Jeff Goldblum would say. After my USB-C all gifts post I got lots of cool suggestions for more USB-C powered gadgets, but I also inspired people to search for solutions to their old appliances. One of my good friends, determined to keep using his Phillips shaver, found an adapter that converts their proprietary charger to USB-C and right after, he sent me one for Braun:
🎙 No Office FM #88: Is Nozbe the Secret to Cutting CRM Expenses?
Do you ever find yourself searching for client information all over the company? Or wondering who last sent an email, prepared a proposal, or scheduled a meeting? Do you need a simple system to manage clients but don’t want to invest in a complicated CRM? In this episode, we show how to use Nozbe as a CRM. Nozbe is a task management app, project management app, and team collaboration app that in practice works perfectly as a lightweight, fast, and effective CRM.
✔️ 🕹️ 🗯 Using a mouse with left hand… is right?
🐭 I’m using a mouse with LEFT HAND, even though I’m RIGHT-handed?! Do you know why?
🎙 No Office FM #87: Intentional Work: How to Rescue Your Productivity
Can you work intentionally while keeping your productivity healthy and pressure-free? How do you find the vision you truly want to pursue—and how do you make sure your system supports it instead of overwhelming you? This conversation will help you rethink productivity from the ground up: aligned with your goals, strengths and energy - not someone else’s expectations.
🔗 Shortcut to Post on Mastodon
I’ve been using Mastodon for more than 2 years now and this is my new place to hang out socially with other nerds as I’m done with posting on Twitter/X. As a heavy Shortcuts user, based on a Shortcut I found on the Internet I built my own one called “🐘 Toot!”.
✔️ 🗯 Kindle before bed instead of iPhone
I’ve recently had trouble falling asleep. 😴 On average I’m sleeping fewer hours than last year. So I decided to fix my “good night” routine by getting rid of my iPhone for the night and changing it for a book read on a Kindle - here’s why…
📖 ⭐️ 10 books that changed my life
In a world that rewards busyness over progress, these 10 books taught me how to go fast while slowing down and create more with less. From the micro improvements of Atomic Habits to the focus of Deep Work, from the clarity of Essentialism and The One Thing to the structure of Getting Things Done and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — these ideas reshaped how I think, work and live. Better yet, these books are helping me design my app - Nozbe - that thousands of smart business owners use to get their professional and private life organized in a simple way. Below you’ll find how each of these 10 books impacted me personally and why I come back to them every so often:
🔗 How to manipulate JSON Dictionaries in Shortcuts
I love tinkering with Shortcuts on iPad or iPhone and one of my most powerful one is the Journaling Shortcut. I’m using this to journal every day and turns out other people are also using it and they had some feedback for me. One of the suggestions was to make questions in the Shortcut more customizable. Before I implemented it I wanted to create a proof of concept - how would editing (creating, changing or removing) questions look like? Turns out, it’s not so easy with Shortcuts, but I figured it out.
🎙 No Office FM #86: Calm Productivity with Mike St Pierre
Feeling overwhelmed by endless tasks? Discover the secret to staying calm while getting more done! In this episode I’m joined by a special guest and my good friend Mike St Pierre who shares the qualities of calm productivity—from being flexible and organized to mastering massive projects without the stress. Ready to transform your work life with simple, powerful habits? See how calm — not chaos — can be your ultimate productivity superpower.
📲 🎬 My first dubbed iPhone Air video review - do I still love it?
On Fridays I co-host one of the most popular tech podcasts in Poland, Nadgryzieni with Wojtek and Tomek. With Wojtek we sometimes collaborate on creating extra videos for their Polish YouTube Channel, just like I did for the Mac Mini. This time I reviewed my favorite iPhone Air. I recorded the video in my mother tongue - Polish, so if you are Polish, you’ll hear my voice, but if you’re not, you’ll hear me auto-dubbed by YouTube - what do you think?
🎙 No Office FM #85: From Chaos to Clarity – 10 Books That Changed My Life
In a world that rewards busyness over progress, these 10 books taught me how to slow down, focus better, and create more with less. From the micro improvements of Atomic Habits to the deep focus of Deep Work, from the clarity of Essentialism and The One Thing to the structure of Getting Things Done and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People — these ideas reshaped how I think, work, and live. Better yet, these books are helping me design my app – Nozbe – that thousands of smart business owners use to get their professional and private life organized.
📲 ⭐️ Air - first impressions of the thinnest iPhone ever…
Now that I’ve been living for a little more than a week with the latest iPhone Air as my main phone, how is it? Is it really THAT thin? Does the battery drain quickly? Does it bend or break? Is the (one) camera any good? And how does it compare to my iPhone 15 Pro or the super thin iPad Pro M4? Here goes:
🎙 No Office FM #84: Stop Blaming Tech for Bad Communication — It’s You
Many leaders think that the newest tools and fancy tech will magically fix productivity and make teamwork effortless. The hard truth is that: it won’t. Without a clear communication agreement and shared rules everyone actually follows, even the most expensive apps are just digital chaos in disguise. Here’s what really makes a team click.
🐘 Follow me on Mastodon or see what I’m up to now
Hi, I’m Michael Sliwinski, the host of this site. Are you a fellow small business owner? Make sure to give Nozbe a try - my app will help you and your team get your professional and private life organized in a simple way. It’s FREE and you’ll get a bonus of $15 for Premium version by signing up below:
