Andy Byrne

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Andy Byrne

🚀 Empowering Productivity, Elevating Mindset, & Mastering Business 💼 | Entrepreneurship📈 | Success Hi there!

I'm Andy, and I've spent the last 25 years working in sales, training and running small businesses and now I'm looking at ways to share my experiences with a wider audience. This page will showcase my content around productivity, mindset and essentialism. In the last few years I've flipped my perspective, and how I work to be happier, healthier and make more money overall and here I'll talk about

some of the steps that I took to turn around some of the more challenging parts of my life. I'll show how I've become more productive, focusing on things that I'm really passionate about as well as spending more time with the people I care about and what is essential in my life. I hope you'll join me as I discuss some of the systems and processes that have worked for me, as well as some of the challenges and opportunities that we all face. If you like my content, please feel free to follow me on my other social media accounts all available here: https://linktr.ee/andyssmartlife

03/08/2026

Top of Mind – 3rd Aug
Pictured: The girls are well and truly back from France so some shopping and a smash burger in RIOT were in order. While I worked on some house wiring and organizing, Anna built a little miniature study and caught up with her games now shes back in her room.

Now that everyone is back from France, we're now split between doing our best to enjoy the rest of the summer and at the same time trying to get stuff done in preparation for going back to work / school in September.

I've been busily working on things around the house, while Anna, delighted to be home, but also missing her cousins and grandparents, is settling back to her toys and games and looking at setting up playdates and activities already.

The shop front for our little home business is also back open and over the coming week we'll be touching base with all of our retail shops and seeing if they need any more orders and hopefully we'll also be back looking at new resellers before the end of summer to. In the meantime, the printers a slightly more quiet except when I'm working on ideas and parts.

During the weekend, wanting a break from the incredible French food we'd become accustomed to, we decided on something completely different and Anna insisted on a smash burger. She managed to devour a full bacon double cheese burger which would make most grown adults pause, but she clearly enjoyed it and it was definitely a change from what she'd been having over the previous weeks.

We also took in some shopping, mostly to replace old or too small clothes, so nothing extravagant, but it was also an excuse to get out and get some air as the house is still very warm.

I'm still waiting to hear back from a role I interviewed for a couple of weeks ago, and have reached out, but I'm getting less and less optimistic so it may be time to look further afield from my college soon, but I've committed to some modules in the next term so I'm not in any rush. This week will be mostly at home with the usual Wed out.

27/07/2026

Top of Mind – 27th July
Pictured: Settling back in to Dublin after 2 weeks in France. Lots of travel to get home, nice to see some updates in the neighbourhood and being welcomed home by some cuddly toys while I wait for Anna and MH to come back too. A week of r&r for me overall.

Some pretty mundane pictures this week as I've been either at home or catching up with friends for the last week. If I haven't been in front of the PC working on my AI agent I've been either watching movies or catching people at the end of the bar in RIOT so nothing major to report overall.

Being home in the empty house was a bit strange, but it did mean I had a few days to work on some 3D models I'd been thinking about while also catching up on horror films that I can't watch with a miniature human around normally. Also the quiet time has given me some opportunity to reflect on what I'd like to be working on and doing this time next year.

I'm currently waiting on the outcome of an interview in the college for a role, but I'm not putting all my eggs in that basket and part of me thinks it may be time to look further afield for the next year or so. I'd be gutted if it came to it, but the priority really needs to be building back my savings after the house et al.

The girls will arrive back on Tuesday night which gives me just enough time to tidy up a little bit and hopefully get some food in so that they have something to eat when they wake up the next day. I'll also be doing the domestic stuff like laundry and cleaning today and tomorrow so that will be so much fun. :D

For the rest of today though I'm working with Jarvis, my agent to connect to more of my accounts and systems so by the end of summer I can had off many of my routine and day to day tasks to it to look after so I can spend more time with Anna and updating my content for the coming term.

I'm down a module this coming term unfortunately due to scheduling, and although this gives me more free time, it does add a little to the pressure.

20/07/2026

Top of Mind – 20th July
Pictured: Getting some bowling and arcade games in with Anna and her cousins to do stuff with the kids, while taking in some shows at night and even spending some time flexing my old mobile phone skills by fixing some old devices belonging to MH's parents.

Week 2 still in France and time to do some more things with the younger members of the extended family, so a game of bowling was in order. Anna ended up coming in 2nd overall and was delighted, and we let them all play some arcade games before pottering around the shops and picking up some little treats and bits and pieces.

I even managed to find a pair of trousers in Primark (Pennys) here that I couldn't find in my size in Dublin, so a win all round. Who'd have thought I'd have to come to France to find clothes that suit me, but it seems to be a recurring theme.

After another visit to the Dragon of Calais, we went a little further afield to see a water and light show which was impressive but too short for the long distance we had to go to see it, and by the time we got back to the house we were all wrecked and ready for bed.

Anna and her youngest cousin Victor insisted on watching as much of the World Cup as possible and were devastated when France were knocked out but still wanted to stay up and watch the other semi-final and the very long finale. While I was rooting for Spain, they preferred Argentina since they were still bitter about Spain's win over France so weren't too pleased with the end result.

Elsewhere I got to flex my old Carphonewarehouse and Vodafone muscles as MH's dad brought out some old mobile phones, some I had previously given them years ago, to be fixed, reset or just prepared for recycling. I got a bit of a laugh when after all their attempts to open the back of an old Nokia 3310, I did it almost on autopilot like it was yesterday the last time I looked at one.

I'm now prepping for the journey back to Dublin, but Anna and MH will stay around here till the end of the month.

13/07/2026

Top of Mind – 13th July
Pictured: A well earned break to France to visit family, so planes, cars and lots of travel later, we arrived in Calais where we were greeted by the giants machines, dragon and lizard, good food and drinks and lots of fun times together in the sun for all.

While the journey from Dublin to Beauvais then on to Calais and the little village where we stay is never too much fun, we did our best to make the most off the journey and keep in good spirits, and it was worth it as we arrived safely last week at MH's parents house where we have indulged in great food, games and trips to the coast while Anna gets to spend some time with her cousins and grandparents.

I always love seeing the giant Machines of Calais in the form of huge mechanised reptiles which roam the beach and let you ride while spitting fire and shooting water at passers by. We've also tried some great cuisine along with going to Anna's favourite Monsieur Wok, an Asian buffet which she loves and stuffed ourselves at. Always seems strange to come to France and have that, but there's also plenty of home cooking, fresh fish and meat and cheeses.

While I'd hoped to completely switch off while here a couple of work things came up at the last minute so I'm doing my best to balance the time at a desk with time with everyone here and having a bit of a break, but I also have time in the afternoon while everyone rests to work on some of my own stuff and play around with some code I've been working on and occasionally get a nap in.

This week will be busy as we have more family visiting and we've also arranged to take all the kids to bowling and arcades on Wednesday and I have an important meeting on Tuesday which will hopefully lead to big things in the college in the coming year.

Weather here is very similar to Dublin so I'm trying to keep out of the sun where possible, but at least the house is well cooled and there's a bit of a breeze. It will actually be strange to return to Dublin after all this.

06/07/2026

Top of Mind – 6th July
Pictured: With school off we continue our quests with Anna as our dungeon master. While our printers are silent for the first time in over a year as the business takes a short break, but just in time to print a TARDIS for a new Doctor Who fan who loves it!

With school well and truly out for the summer and the heat outside getting to us a little we've spent lots of time in playing board games and chilling out. Anna continues to rule over the Hero Quest board as our guide and game master and we've completed several quests already and the enjoyment is huge from everyone.

We've even taken to creating dice towers and items to enhance the experience and Anna is quickly learning how to make the most of her spells and monsters against our heroes. She really doesn't give us any quarter and is really thinking logically and strategically when playing.

Elsewhere her new found love of Doctor Who has meant I've had to print a large TARDIS which doubles up as a container for various items and now takes a prominent place on one of her shelves. We're at the end of season 3 at this point, so she's just been introduced to the Master, so she can't wait to see what happens next.

Elsewhere, our 3D printers have fallen quiet as the business takes a small summer holiday. This also coincides with us all going off the grid for a couple of weeks to recharge and catch up with some family. This will mean replies to emails and messages will be a bit more sporadic over the month of July, so don't be surprised if we don't follow up on anything until August.

This is a good time for me to unplug also as there's been a lot going on both in work, family and elsewhere so I too will be turning the phone onto 'do not disturb' for a bit and keeping my head down until I've fully recharged. I'm going to take some time to focus on some personal projects, catch up on some reading and hopefully get ahead of some stuff before the new semester in September.

With that in mind I'll catch you soon!

29/06/2026

Top of Mind – 29th June
Pictured: Anna getting a GAA medal from the Lord Mayor of Dublin. Our keyrings and desk signs for Pride, a new dungeons and dragons style board game for Anna from when I was a kid. I answer queries at the NCI open day & weeding the back wall in our garden.

After the excitement of the Stoneybatter festival the previous week, we were all in need of a little down time, so there were a few movie nights and take aways to help us unwind, but that didn't mean we weren't still active.

Anna had her end of year concert in school on Friday morning, followed by playdates and on Saturday the end of year GAA celebration hosted by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who must be getting sick of seeing us at this point, but he was there to give his friend Anna her medal for 2026.

It really feels like Anna has the most active social and activity calendar of all of us these days. She's also been thinking about joining the school's D&D club so to give her a sense of it I bought Hero Quest, which is a game I played a lot when I was younger and hopefully this will give her a sense of what to expect.

I was relatively busy last week to with some small orders for the business and the last of our Pride products to give out, while at the same time I finally got around to getting up really early on Wednesday and weeding the back wall. We have a recurring issue of old plants and trees growing through it, but this time hopefully I've managed to get out the roots so we'll see what happens. It was incredibly overgrown and I was starting to worry about the wall and my shed underneath.

On Saturday I missed most of the Pride celebrations as I was hosting at the NCI open day and answering questions for perspective students. It was fairly quiet since the Luas wasn't running, but still an enjoyable time.

This week Anna will finish 3rd class & we'll be looking at the summer activities while I continue to work on home tasks and perfect my home made AI assistant which is helping me code projects.

22/06/2026

Top of Mind – 22nd June
Pictured: 3D Print Dub making a splash at the 10th annual Stoneybatter Festival. From our stand to supplying all the prizes and badges we had a ball on Sunday and we can't wait till next year for more. Thanks to everyone who visited or bought on the day...

Last week was crazy busy with new clients as well as preparations for our first festival stall. Huge thanks go out to the Festival team who provided us with a stand and gazebo for the event and we were able to showcase our collections and answer questions about 3D printing, the technology, design and what we do as a business on the Sunday.

Myself, Marie-Helene and even Anna manned the stand for the day and the experience was great and even Anna got into the selling and chatting to customers. She was also delighted to show off some of her own products which she could sell on the day and there was so much interest and admiration for her ability from everyone she spoke to.

We got some decent social media coverage on the day too with supplying everything from badges, keyrings and trophies for the organizers and events so hopefully this will lead on to even bigger things over the next few months.

It's almost strange now to have the printers not running around the clock to prepare for the event, but it's nice now to focus on the open orders and client requests for the next couple of weeks in advance of taking a short break in July.

Elsewhere I've some prep work to do on repeat assessments for to college along with some faculty meetings over the next few weeks, but again there'll be a break at the end of this month to decompress and focus on some personal projects.

I've also been continuing to up my coding and in particular with the help of my new local assistant which I've obviously named Jarvis who has helped me create some tools for keeping track of the business better while also getting me back in a techie mindset.

This week will hopefully be chilled & I'll stay out of the sun and get back to the gym.

15/06/2026

Top of Mind – 15th June
Pictured: My mate Damo got tickets for Keanu Reeves' band Dogstar at the Olympia. Prepping lots of products for the Stoneybatter Festival this coming weekend and working on some DIY and coding projects at home to automate some tasks for house and business.

In between lots of product designing and printing things I managed to take some time last week to get out and about for something different. My mate Damo took me to see Dogstar at the Olympia and even setting aside that it was cool to see Keanu Reeves in person, the gig was a lot of fun and definitely a break from the norm.

This was also a welcome distraction from a funeral on Monday morning of an old friend which really came as a shock, but the one positive that came out of it was catching up with people that I hadn't seen in a long time, just horrible that it comes on the back of something so terrible.

Elsewhere my terrible soldering skills were at play to fix some stuff around the house including a 'cosmic lamp' in Anna's room and I took the opportunity to work on some other projects and continue to move a lot of my smart home automations and systems in house rather than running everything through the cloud.

This has had the added benefit of giving me time to refresh and redo some of the systems and automations I had before and make them better as well as tying some things together, but primarily I want to reduce my need for 3rd parties as well as keeping my data more private and secure.

I've also probably done more coding this last couple of weeks than I'd done in years, and not gonna lie, having an onsite AI agent to help me has been really beneficial and productive and I now have much less use for paid subscriptions and services now that I can build them myself! :D

The main focus though is the Stoneybatter Festival this coming weekend and with a stand for the business ready we've been busy printing and preparing hundreds of products in the hope that it's a sales opportunity for the business.

08/06/2026

Top of Mind – 8th June
Pictured: Another batch of hours spent fixing an issue with one of our machines but worth it to see our products on display in shops around the city. Also busy prepping products for the Stoneybatter Festival while still hitting the gym as often as possible.

Another very quiet week at home, so please don't expect too much drama from this post! Most of the week has been deliberately planned as 'boring' as I'm making an effort as much as possible to keep a quiet existence over the summer.

That being said, it doesn't mean I'm not keeping busy. On top of fixing a very small broken part on one of the printers, which turned into a much bigger job than expected, all our machines needed some kind of servicing this week, but this is to be expected with the volume of products we're printing at the moment.

We've signed up another couple of really cool retail partners and it seems like the orders are coming in steadily over the summer and it's amazing to see some of the new products on display around the place as well as an increase in the number of enquiries about what we do.

On top of that there's preparation for the Stoneybatter Festival at the end of June. We have been given a stand by the festival in exchange for creating some designs and products for them, so the machines are running 24-7 to create stock for the day in the hopes that we'll have a productive day and can really get some of our ideas out there. I've just got my fingers crossed that the weather on the day is good so that we get a big crowd.

For myself I've been trying to continue the routine of getting to the gym as often as possible, and while I'm not 'seeing' any direct results yet, it's definitely helping clear my head, and I also get to learn at the same time with a pair of AR glasses I can watch everything from the news to design and 3D modelling tutorials while I work out.

This week I have some unexpected events popping up so it will be busy so hopefully I can keep on top of everything.

01/06/2026

Top of Mind – 1st June
Pictured: I've been spending most of the week either designing new products or making use of Ikea pegboards to organize my tech. At the same time, I'm still trying to hit the gym regularly and eat lighter, particularly in the current heat which I find hard.

As it's the 1st of June, I feel finally like my summer break has finally begun. Although it's been a couple of weeks since the end of term and exams etc, I've had paperwork, exams and the like to finish off as well as some orders for the business so today will mark the start of me focusing on some of my own projects and organizing my stuff at home.

With that in mind, I've put up several Ikea Skadis pegboards around the house in strategic places to help sort out things. My current favourite one is under my standing desk where I've put my laptop, cables and adapters for all my tech needs and it means everything is at hand, but somewhat hidden as it's under the table.

I'll also be spending more time in the gym in the next month as I've been trying to get back into the routine and definitely have been neglecting my fitness for a long while, so fingers crossed my resolve will continue and I won't end up procrastinating or making excuses. This is combined with the fact that I'm doing my best to eat lighter and snack less which, as mentioned above is definitely better with the heat. For those who don't know, I run a little hotter than most people, so any type of heat and I struggle very quickly.

On a completely different note, I've been watching with disappointment at the number of Meta layoffs this last few weeks and it's reminded me that it's now 3 years this week since I left, and unfortunately the march of redundancies have not declined. Almost everyone I previously worked with has been impacted at this point, and it again brings up a lot of the conflict I have about AI, it's usage and the cost. While I love technological innovation, as someone who has been personally affected I am very conflicted.

Address

Smithfield
Dublin

Telephone

+353856969133

Website

http://www.andyssmartlife.com/, https://linktr.ee/andyssmartlife

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