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

04/08/2025

Top of Mind - August 4th
Pictured: Anna & MH are back from their month in France so there was lots of Anna / Daddy time this week as she was delighted to be back home. I've been working on some Halloween 3D items, but also getting out to see people in different bars for a change.

With a mad scramble to clean the house earlier last week, I more or less had the place ready for Anna and Marie-Helene returning from their month in the north of France. Anna was excited, emotional and very happy to see me and the feeling was definitely mutual so lots of time together followed for the rest of the week.

Even after only a few weeks she's grown and become more confident and her level of French, as well as her appetite, have come on leaps and bounds. So as the girls settle back in we've been taking it easy and staying at home mostly to catch up and chill together.

The house is now much more lively and strangely this has actually helped me to focus and I managed to get some tricky networking and IT problems solved which had been eluding me for a while so always a plus. At the same time, the chaos of a young girl running around can already be clearly seen with teddy's and toys everywhere. :D

I did still get a couple of opportunities last week before they got back to pop around a few places and catch some friends, and had a great old laugh with Ro from Pawn Shop as well as some more of the industry people before they headed off to All Together Now. Part of me was jealous I haven't done those festivals in years, but I also don't think I'm up for camping and dancing in the rain. :P

For the little 3D business I've been working on some custom orders as well as some designs for Halloween products, while also finally finishing some Irish / Dublin related items that hopefully will do well when launched.

I've a few repeat assignments to mark this week as well as prepping some new content for the coming term, but at least I have plenty of time so I'm not going to focus too much yet.

28/07/2025

Top of Mind - July 28th
Pictured: Anna literally burying herself in the the French beaches along with a trip to the Dragon of Calais as she gets ready for her last week over there. I spend too much time working on 3D printed products, while also catching up with some old friends.

With only a few days left on the long trip to France, Anna is getting in as much excitement as possible, between trips to the beach, ziplining and seeing the famous Dragon of Calais, the entertainment doesn't stop. That along with an impromptu celebration for Papi-Dou's birthday it's mostly keeping her mind of wanting to be home.

Back at the ranch, I've been working on a new product for the business which took me far longer to design than I had anticipated, but hopefully it will do well as I'm fairly pleased with how it came out as well as how much I've learned about CAD and graphic design in the last few months. Watch this space as it will be launching soon.

With that in mind I've had to stock up on filament for the machine to be sure that when orders do come in I've plenty of supplies and everything can be produced pretty quickly.

Still though taking some time to get out and about and caught up with some old friends on Friday evening in the form of Paddy and Anne which is always chaotic, fun and interesting all at once. Brought me back to old Gypsy Rose and very early RIOT bar days. :D

This week I'll have a lot to get done before the girls get back from France. Between cleaning the house and getting everything ship-shape to marking repeat assignments I'll have my hand's full the next few days. The emails from students contacting about the repeats at the 11th hour are coming in thick and fast so always a stressful time.

Other than that I plan to be mostly off the grid for a bit to catch up on some sleep debt that I've accumulated over the last while as well as fixing some servers and techie stuff I've been putting on the long finger. My inner geek / OCD head will thank me later....🤪

21/07/2025

Top of Mind - July 21st
Pictured: The girls are still having a ball over in the North of France and enjoying the sun, food and family. While at home, I'm prepping an order for another retail store to take the 3D products, as well as doing some coding for the first time in ages...

The house is still kinda quiet with Anna and MH still in France, but I've been blaring rock classics around the place for the last couple fo weeks and binge watching TV shows that I've been meaning to check out for ages, so while I'd love to say I'm being really productive, it's mostly chillout this coming week now that I've finished another module for the college.

We got another retail store stocking our 3D printed products this week and I worked around the clock, or at least the 3D printer did, to get the order ready as quickly as possible, and this morning I delivered it so watch this space for the next shop selling my designs!

I'm already gearing towards the Christmas period and hoping that some of the festive and gift related products will do well including reusable gift boxes for small items and jewellery. I'm working on some other ideas but it's early days for them at the moment.

In the meantime, I've been meaning to work on a couple of useful projects for my home lab, so took a couple of days to do some vibe coding. For those not in the know, this is AI assisted coding as I'm very rusty, but after a couple of false starts I finished off a couple of useful pieces of webcode to help me around the house and with other projects, including a web based 2 factor authentication backup tool incase I ever lose my phone.

The plan is more of the same for this week and maybe divert to looking at some designs for Halloween for the Etsy store, but I want to make sure I don't neglect some of the more popular ideas and designs.

I'll also be marking some repeat assignments and papers, and doing some more coding, so nothing exciting planned, but at least I'll be kept fairly busy during the day.

14/07/2025

Top of Mind - July 14th
Pictured: A new product launched in our Etsy store in the form of a reusable gift box. The girls Whatsapp calling me from France. Delivering anther order to one of the retail stores, and the temperature spiking upstairs in the house during the heatwave. 🥵

After 4 long weeks of evening classes, I've finally finished teaching for the summer, again. Assuming the college doesn't ask me to take on anything extra. Now I have the fun task of marking repeat assignments and exams, but hopefully this will mean some time to work on my own side projects for the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, Anna and MH are still enjoying the food, weather and fun over in France, but calling every day to check in and keep my spirits lifted. Anna is having a blast, despite occasionally missing home. Having her cousins there helps though, but reminds her sometimes why she's glad she doesn't have siblings.

I've been struggling a bit with the heat ove here, and in particular during the last few days with the heatwave, and on the top floor of the house there were times when the place went above 31 degrees which made sleeping difficult so my routine is all over the place at the moment. At least with nothing pressing to get up for in the morning, I can binge watch tv at night and crash during the day as needed.

Elsewhere I've been working on a couple of ideas and products for the little side business, with an eye towards Christmas and Halloween. The reusuable jewellery sized gift boxes will hopefully be a hit when the gift giving season starts, but for the moment I'm looking at designing things with a more local or Ireland focus.

We're still working on getting our products into more stores, and I've another order to drop off today into a local place and will follow up on some of the potential new places this week along with fulfilling some adhoc requests.

For the rest of the week I'll focus on odd jobs at home and hopefully get a little sleep if the temperature drops.

07/07/2025

Top of Mind - July 7th
Pictured: Anna & Marie-Helene have gone to France for a month to spend time with cousins and grandparents and enjoying the sun, fresh air and kids cocktails. Meanwhile, I'm working on products and useful items for the 3D business including a hurley mount...

The house is very quiet at the moment as Anna and MH are over in Calais for the month to spend time with the French side of the family. While Anna was initally sad to leave, she's adapted quickly and is having a ball with her cousins and enjoying the weather, the beach and the amazing food.

Marie-Helene took some of our products over with her to get some photos in the sunshine there and this has meant some great photos and reels on Instagram. The pace slowed down a little the last couple of weeks, so I'm keen to get pushing again this week to see about getting into more stores.

In the meantime I've also been working on some new products and ideas for the rest of summer and looking ahead to the halloween period which could be really interesting for the business if I can come up with some cool products.

For the house though, I've been doing some bits and bobs and creating things to make the place more streamlined, so you can see now a hurley mount in the hallway to keep Anna's gear off the floor, and I'm looking at making that design available too.

There's also some new posters and banners ready to go into the shops as 1 has asked, and hopefully now that we have them others might be interested, but for now I want to touch base with our existing retailers early this week to keep on top of them and ensure they're still happy.

Other than that, this week I'm continuing to teach an entrepreneurship module at the NCI and will be taking a small break at the weekend to go back through my other modules' content to have it all prepared and updated for the new term in September, so no rest for me.

Also looking this week at getting stitches out after having some scar tissue removed from my face.

30/06/2025

Top of Mind - June 30th
Pictured: Another Anna centric week with the last day of school and everything that comes along with it. We've been comparing photos from day 1 of this year to her last day, plus we went from the apartment to the new house! She's also now been to space! :)

While I toil away at creating content and delivering evening classes, Anna has been having a ball between her play dates, school tour and the last day of term she's been more than ususally busy and it was so fun to compare the first day of school photo to the last day. (Bottom left).

On her last day, unlike most kids who would have asked for McDonalds or something like that, she wanted to have her celebration lunch in our local tapas place, Mi Casa where she sampled her usual favourites as well as some other items. Are we surprised that my girl has expensive taste???

She and MH got out on Saturday for her GAA family fun day while I spoke at an open day in the NCI, and we all met up in town later to catch a little bit of the Pride Parade and to get Anna a new camera before she goes on holiday to France for the next few weeks.

Elsewhere, as part of her membership to Crunchlabs, a Youtube based STEM program for kids, she got her selfie projected onto a satellite in orbit and a photo of that taken and beamed back down to Earth, so her face as been officially in space!

For this week I have another module to deliver as well as write very rapidly to be honest, while the girls pack their bags and get ready for their month in France. Anna is looking forward to heading over and seeing her cousins and grandparents, but also is apprehensive about leaving me for the summer, but I know she'll be distracted by all the activities over there.

We've also managed to get our 3D printed products into a 3rd shop this week, with Manor DIY in Stoneybatter now stocking our keyrings and we've another couple in the pipeline. Hopefully we can keep this momentum up and really make this little enterprise work!...

23/06/2025

Top of Mind - June 23rd
Pictured: Anna's plants in the garden are starting to bloom. She and I took an Anna / Daddy day to go shopping and get lunch, while at home we prepared a new order for another shop we've got our products into. At the weekend Anna showed off her new styles.

Last week was a bit chaotic for me as, at short notice, I was asked to teach an evening class Monday to Thursday, and although it's a topic I'm familiar with I still had to scramble to create slides and notes for the sessions which kept me very busy.

This allowed Anna and Marie-Helene to get in plenty of trips out, shopping and several play dates in the house, so at least Anna was kept occupied while I worked, but the poor thing found the heat very trying at times.

To say thank you for her patience I took her shopping on Saturday afternoon since there was no acting class, and she picked up a new sun hat, some accessories, a book on Taylor Swift and we capped it off with lunch at Eddie Rockets. MH had some friends over in the evening so we disappeared and watched a movie until it was her bed time. :)

This week will be her last week of school, so there's plenty of activities organised as well as her school tour before the break and prepping for her trip to France to visit grandparents and cousins.

Meanwhile, we've managed to get our 3D Print Dub products into another shop in town, so watch this space as you may be seeing more of our items about the place over the next few weeks. We had a small initial order which was delivered this morning so hopefully they'll do well and we'll get a bigger one next time, but all in all it's going better than expected.

Again this week I'll be teaching in the evenings, and it looks like I'll have another module for the next 2 weeks also, so on top of correcting assignments, exams and dissertations I'll be kept out of trouble for the most part.

For the rest of this week though I'll be finishing off content and working on some new, unique product ideas.

16/06/2025

Top of Mind - June 16th
Pictured: Had a good presence at the Stoneybatter Festival for the 3D Print Dub side hustle, from signs, to plaques and some designs I did for them. Meanwhile Mammy-Johanna visited to catch up with Anna giving myself and MH a chance to get out for a drink.

The focus for the week was on the 3D Printing Business and I was busy making posters, banners and designs for the Stoneybatter Festival. From providing their volunteers with badges to designing some posters for the barriers and entrances as well as creating plaques and prizes for the events, we managed to have a pretty visible appearance at the weekend's festivities.

We had a pickle crown for one of the food competitions and a best road plaque for the 'Pride of place' event and I rushed a pull up banner to have in the background on the stage for parts of the day. Hopefully this will help get the word out about the local products that we're offering. :)

To help out with the weekend, Mammy-Johanna paid us a visit and Anna got to show her around as well as watch the 'Woofstock' dog show during the festival. It also meant that myself and Marie-Helene could get out for a quiet drink on Friday night, catch some of the artwork in the pubs and have a bit of time to unwind.

The week wasn't without other work though as I've been asked to deliver an evening course over the next 2 weeks at very short notice. Thankfully it's very similar to some of the other modules I've taught, so there's a small distance to cover, but with it being condensed to 10 days, I'm scrambling to get content written and ready for Monday evening.

The downside to teaching evening courses is that it does mean less opportunity to get out and enjoy the longer evenings, but it's always good to have another string in my bow and it does mean that I'll still have time during the day to get out and about assuming I get all the material finished. Did also missed a few of my gym days this week so this will be fixed this coming week.

09/06/2025

Top of Mind - June 9th
Pictured: Very much Anna's week, with art work, sports day, and her poster chosen by Dublin City Council for cycle week. Meanwhile, the 3D printing side hustle is unexpectedly vert busy with online and wholesale orders, so lots of new products in the works.

As I continue to settle into a very repetitive and dull routine during the summer, (by choice by the way!) all the focus continues to be on Anna who is learning new art and painting techniques to create presents for her Aunts and Cousins, while also being very active at GAA practice and sports day.

She's also been proudly featured in the school newsletter after winning the DCC Cycle Week art competition and having her post displayed around the city. While I struggle to get out of bed in the morning, she seems to have boundless energy as always and is always working on something new and excitiing.

Our little 3D printing side hustle (3dprintdub.ie) has taken off much more than expected and the orders, both online and wholesale, are coming in thick and fast and it's been a challenge to keep up, so there is a debate as to whether or not to invest in a second printer. If I do, I'll likely look to see if there's one with more functionality and speed to increase what we can produce.

It seems like we've found a little bit of a niche though as the products are getting lots of attention in our local area and some guerrilla marketing in Stoneybatter has been fun and beneficial, such as creating miniture versions of the local signs and sticking them on for people to see (and sometimes take).

This week we'll have a visit from Mamie-Johanna which will keep Anna entertained and we'll hopefully have a small presence at the Stoneybatter Festival at the weekend. At the very least some of the products will be on display in unusual places.

I'll be busy this week working on a new module for the college which they've asked me to deliver over the summer at short notice so that will keep me out of trouble.

02/06/2025

Top of Mind - June 2nd
Pictured: Anna celebrating winning a Dublin City Council Bike Week art competition and getting her swag bag. Our new rooster neighbours waking me up. Anna customising her t-shirts. Lots more orders for the little side hustle and taking care of our plants...

Anna was very proud of herself having her art work chosen for Dublin Bike week and displayed all over the city as part of the safety and promotional efforts and got herself a little DCC swag bag as a result, so is delighted having won something so cool!

We have new neighbours in the form of 2 roosters in the stables across from us, who are either very confused or know I'm a light sleeper, as, as well as first thing in the morning, randomly crow in the middle of the night just to keep me up. Not sure their purpose yet, but if it keeps up, it might be my dinner.

Elsewhere Anna spent much of the week crafting and making setups in her room, from customizing t-shirts with her axolotl designs, to a diarama of 'under the sea' she's always working on something new and exciting.

This matches me as I've been busy at work with 3D Print Dub as we had another large-ish wholesale order so I've been designing, printing and working around the clock to get the keyrings, magnets and everything else prepared and shipped. It's going much better than anticipated and I'm going to have to increase the amount of raw material I keep on hand.

This coincided with the final week of exams too, which meant I had to spend some very late nights grading papers and having everything ready to hand back to the college at short notice, so I was very pleased to be finished the last paper at 3am on Friday morning.

Now that those are out of the way I'm intending taking a few days of r'n'r to recharge and will take the summer to catch up with people and polish off some jobs around the house. If you're free to catch up over the next few weeks, feel free to hit me up to arrange something as I'm overdue seeing a lot of people.

26/05/2025

Top of Mind - May 26th
Pictured: Out with some friend for a leaving do, catching the live action Lilo and Stitch at the cinema with Anna, while elsewhere she and Marie-Helene got to play with some foster pups. All the while, I try to maintain my gym routine while being very busy.

Some bitter sweet drinks on Friday evening to see my friend Julia off to Australia, but it was nice to see people gathered from near and far to wish her the best and always a fun evening with this crowd!

Anna was feeling a bit stressed this week so asked for a cinema trip to see the Lilo & Stitch movie. She really enjoyed it and had her own Stitch in tow all the while. For me, while there were some fun moments in the movie, I still wonder about Disney's practically shot for shot remakes of their animated movies, but it was good all the same.

During the week, Anna and MH got to visit a friend who regularly fosters puppies, and as you can see everyone had an amazing time and unfortunately this has reinforced the idea that Anna really wants to get one over the summer holidays. Much as I love dogs, with all the activities we have on, I'm not sure we'd give it the full attention it needs, but we're still mulling it over.

I'm trying to take some time to focus on my health now that term is finished also. Taking it slow as the last time I tried to get back into shape I over did it and ended up setting myself back instead. So with that in the front of my mind, I'm working with the 2 day rule, so I can't go more than 2 days without exercising.

I'm hopeful that this will help me feel a little less tired, but also might be a boon to help with some mental health wobbles over the last few weeks as well as a bout of insomnia and restlessness.

This week there's lots of ideas planned for the 3D printing business and the name and domain are now all fully registered and I'm looking at designing some products for fathers day as well as the Stoneybatter festival, so please check it out: www.3dprintdub.com

19/05/2025

Top of Mind - May 19th
Pictured: Doing some needed weeding on the back wall of the garden. Printing off lots of keyrings for the upcoming stoneybatter festival. The new Instagram page for the side business and Anna out and about enjoying the sun and sights up and around the area.

Last week started on a low note with the funeral of a close friends' sister which was tough, but always puts everything else into perspective, so for the rest of the week I spent most of the time at home doing very ordinary things and tried to just enjoy some quiet time.

With that in mind, the back wall in the garden needed to be weeded and it was an opportunity to a) try out the new telescopic ladder I got and b) push myself out of my fear of heights, so after a couple of hours the wall looked as good as it could be and all that's left is a pile of plants and leaves to compost, and I didn't fall and break anything either...

While I was working on things in the house Marie-Helene worked on the Instagram page for the printing business as well as making touch with the Stoneybatter Festival. With a bit of luck you'll be able to see some of the signs at the event, but in the meantime, we've done some guerilla marketing and posted a few of them up around the neighbourhood.

Along with that we're mass printing keyrings now as they've been asked about quite a lot, so there may be some of those handed out in Stoneybatter on the day!

Anna again had a packed week, but still took the time to have a few moments to herself to read and work on some of her projects. She loved seeing one of the street signs stuck up on a power box on the way to school!

This week I've to scramble yet again to get some paperwork and assignments submitted to the college for the end of the year, but in the plus column I'm seeing lots of stories from students who are finishing up and really excited to see the next chapter in their career.

Other than that I'm going to try and catch up with a few people later this week. :D

Address

Smithfield
Dublin

Telephone

+353856969133

Website

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

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