Today, we're tackling an issue that hits home for so many of you feeling overwhelmed by endless to do lists, emails and the constant juggling act between work and family.

Joining us as Leslie Shreve, founder and CEO of Productive Day® and creator of Taskology: The Science of Getting Things Done. Leslie has helped professionals across 30+ countries reclaim their time, reduce stress, and boost efficiency—often increasing productivity by more than 300%!

Listen in as Leslie shares actionable strategies to help you reclaim your workday and find more balance between your professional and personal life. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a busy professional, or just feeling overwhelmed by the demands of parenting, this episode is packed with insights to help you get more done in less time while reducing your stress.

Tune in to learn how to lighten your mental load and start making meaningful changes today!

Anna's Takeaways:

• Leslie's Motivation and Initial Thoughts (01:34)
• Challenges of Modern Work and Productivity Tools (02:08)
• The Role of Tools and Methodologies (08:56)
• Defining and Prioritizing Tasks (11:16)
• Balancing Work and Personal Life (26:57)
• Implementing Taskology (27:10)
• Managing Email and Information Overload (36:51)
• Applying Taskology to Personal Life (43:56)

About Guest:

Leslie Shreve, Founder and CEO of Productive Day®, is a workload management and productivity expert who created Taskology® The Science of Getting Things Done, a comprehensive system for managing tasks, time, email, and information. Since 2003, she has helped hundreds of professionals across more than 30 industries increase efficiency by up to 300%, reclaim 1-2 hours in their workday, and reduce time spent in their email inbox by up to 50%. Leslie has been interviewed on television, radio, and podcasts, and her advice has been featured or quoted in the Baltimore Business Journal, SmartCEO Magazine, Fast Company, the Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail,  Business Management Daily, and in several books. Leslie also published her first book in 2016 called, Taskology: How to Unleash the Power of Your Most Productive Workday.

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Money Boss Parents! Welcome to Anna's Money Boss Parent podcast, your go-to resource for mastering money management while raising a family. Join me as we explore practical tips, expert insights, and inspiring stories to help you achieve financial success and create a brighter future for your loved ones. 

Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show to support our mission of empowering parents like you to take charge of their finances and build a prosperous life for their families. Let's thrive together on this incredible journey!

Links mentioned in this episode

FREE GUIDE- Kid Money Boss: School isn’t teaching my son about Money. It’s up to us Parents. Here are 9 tools I am using to team my son, everything I never learned as a kid.

Guest website

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslieshreve/

http://www.productiveday.com/

Book: Taskology: How to Unleash the Power of Your Most Productive Workday

Free resources:

1. What’s Your #1 Productivity Blind Spot QUIZ: https://productiveday.com/quiz
2. The Productive Day® Smart Steps: https://productiveday.com/free-gift
3. Special Report: The 7 Surprising Secrets to Saving Time: https://productiveday.com/7-surprising-secrets/

Welcome back to the money boss parent podcast, where we help parents like you manage your finances, stress less and build a better life for your family. Today, we're tackling an issue that hits home for so many of you feeling overwhelmed by endless to do lists, emails and the constant juggling act between work, family and everything in between. Did you know that the average person checks their email 15 times per day and spends 28% of their work week just managing their inbox for parents, the pressure is even greater, as 60% of working parents say they're juggling to find enough time for their families due to work demands. That is why I'm excited to have Leslie Shreve with us today. Leslie is the founder and CEO of productive day and the creator of Taxology, The Science of Getting Things Done. She helped professionals across more than 30 countries increase efficiency by more than 300% reclaim one to two hours in their workday and reduce time spent in their inbox by 50% in this episode, we'll explore how Leslie's proven strategies can help you as a busy parent, reduce stress, take control of your workday and create more time for yourself and your family, whether you're balancing demand and career parenting or just Keeping it all together, you'll walk away with practical tips to boost productivity and lighten your mental load. Hey, money bosses, welcome back to the money boss parent Podcast. I'm excited for our conversation today. Leslie, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Anna, it's great to be here.

I am excited, and I'll tell you the truth, this topic that we're going to dive in today is exciting, it's a little scary, it's confusing. It brings up a lot of emotions in me, particularly, and for one, is because my team and I, if I kind of embarked on a journey earlier this year, and I've taken a training course on try to figure out, how do we become more efficient with our time? And so when, when you showed up and said, I want to talk about productivity and all of those things, I said, Okay, this is really, really what I want to master my skills. So how do we like the big umbrellas? How do we get more accomplished in less time and less stress? Okay, like, I think that's like, a big questions. That's a big topic that we can, like, slice and dice, so we can take it in lots of directions, and I know there's going to be value, but I am always, always looking for ways to be more productive personally, and I'll share why, but also, like, professionally. So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about like, Why do you talk about this topic?

I talk about this because so many professionals today are not only stressed out and on their way to burnout, but they're losing time that they really want to keep personally, you know, they're working nights and weekends and coming in early and staying late and trying to get things done that they really should be able to do during the work day. If they can make their work day more efficient, more effective, more productive, then they wouldn't have to whip open the laptop after they put the kids to bed or after they have dinner to catch up on email or catch up on tasks. So, you know, I want to help those people who not only love what they do, they're passionate about what they do, but their work really matters, and they know it, and they love what they do, and they really want to get back to doing that, but instead, they find themselves spinning their wheels in their day. They're finding themselves losing time and getting frustrated with email, you know, chasing after the emails that scroll off the screen. They're having trouble planning and prioritizing tasks. Not only that, they're having trouble getting a grip on all their tasks. They're just having trouble with the way that their day is working. And so I want everybody out there to understand, first and foremost, like this is the foundation of what's going to help you become more productive. You have to understand that there are two parts to your work. Day one is where you're using your expertise. If you're a an attorney, a financial planner. You're in commercial real estate, you're, you know, whatever it is that you do and what you do best, that's the best use of your time. So anytime you get to do what's related to that, then that's going to be the very best way you're going to use your time in your day. The problem is, there's a second part to the work day and not an equal part. It should be very minimized. It's called workload management, and that is how your workday is working. So if your workday isn't working, if how you're working isn't working, it's literally stealing time from the part of your day that you could be doing what you do best. And way too many people are frustrated right now just having trouble managing the. Information, managing their email, managing their tasks, getting more time. And because of it, time is just leaking out of their work day that they could be using more effectively. And this is what's causing the stress, number one and number two, it's causing them to then have that work bleed into their personal time, because they're like, oh my god, I have to catch up, because my day wasn't as productive. I didn't feel accomplished at the end of my day. And so I'm here to help.

I know you like speaking the words into my ears, like, I Yeah. It's just like, you come to work and it's like so many things to do, and at times, you're like, Okay, I'm pushing all of these, you know, little things, and then the other day, like, what did I get done? So, and I know I looked up some, I was just curious. Like, you know, what's, you know, how many people out there struggle with it? Or, like, what statistic across across the board? And it's something like 80% of people feel stressed about this, this, you know, every day. And so, like, one, one part of this question is like, what are the first steps we can start to take to kind of like, you know, realize that this could be different. And then second, like, do you think that the current environment of life, of where you know that we live in, all the technology that we have access to, AI revolution that's happening, and just how we conduct business adds that additional layer of stress

that's interesting. It's I love that you brought both of those up, because the answer that I'm going to give you actually ties the two together in the answer. So one of the things I think is most important to understand is that even though you might be looking for, and I'm speaking to all the listeners out there who might be looking for the solution, you guys might have been looking for a really long time, some of you may have even turned it into a hobby, always looking for time management tips, always looking for ways to get organized, always looking for ways to handle email more efficiently or handle tasks better. So what ends up happening is that you're looking for these tools or these tactics, shortcuts, apps, hacks, you know, and it's a constant search for the thing, you know. So then when you find one of those new things, this new bright, shiny object, you might buy something like a sauna or Trello or notion, or Monday or to do list, or, you know, one of the many out there. And I'm just naming a few, because there's like 100 or more. You find something and you think, oh my gosh, this has to be it, you know. And you may have already felt like you've tried everything under the sun. You've been searching and searching, or maybe you've been looking at YouTube videos or listening to podcasts or reading books. You know, I had a client once who said I've been reading books for 20 years before I found the system that you offer, you know? So you find the thing, but here's the challenge, and I'll get back to AI in a minute, but let's just talk about tools. Yeah, when you find the thing and you're like, Wow, this is it, and you dive in to start making it work for you, or trying to make it work for you, too many roadblocks start to pop up. They can be complex. It might take longer than you think to make it work. You might think, oh my gosh, it has so many bells and whistles and colors and categories and, oh, I can do projects and tasks and sub tasks, and oh my goodness. And then you start going down these rabbit holes, and you're going down these long, dark, dead end hallways. And then you realize, oh my gosh, this is taking longer than I thought it would. I'm spending more time on the system than on my work. I don't know how to apply this to what I do. I don't know whether I should use this feature or not, and it gets very confusing for people. And so here's my message to everyone, no matter how long you've been looking no matter how many things you've tried, there's there are two things I want to make sure you understand. First of all, the missing piece in your workday strategy is not having a comprehensive system. The second thing I want you to know is that it's not about finding tips, tools, tactics, shortcuts, apps or hacks. Those are tools you still need. No matter what you find, you still need a methodology for your technology. And I'm here to say that the system is the key. So you really want to have a system that includes tasks, email contacts, calendar notes, etc. Yes, Microsoft Outlook has that. I know other systems probably have that too. It's just that I happen to have a history with Microsoft Outlook, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs do not like it, and I get it. We got a lot of Google people out there, but I'm telling you, yeah, I'm telling you, with Google, it's a challenge, because in the original system, they give you this tiny little task list that's the size of like a postage stamp, and that's not going to serve anybody. Now they offer GQ, which is a whole nother system. Goes with Google, but then you can also combine it with something like, you know, connect it with to do list, or many other things out there. So there are solutions, but what I want to make sure you guys understand is that you need that connectivity where, you know, the task module is talking to the email one, or, you know, it's got to be seamless, where calendars and tasks and email can all be connected. When you've got the fragmentation, that's where you're making your hard day, you're working harder than it needs to be. And so a system, and even if it's just the methodology as a system, got to have the tools talking to one another, but the key is really having the method tie it all together. So what you want is a is a method of thinking, decision making and execution that makes sense for all those processes in your day.

I thought you weren't going to go there. I was like, Okay, it's really like, then you write, there's millions of tools out there that, you know, promise to do these things, but somehow, at the end of the day, they fail because, and I, you know, I love this platform because I can, like, come clean and, you know, share personal experiences. But many times at the end of the day, I was like, okay, the to do list wherever I write it, right in the system, or just like a notebook, like, I've got the to do list done, but I don't feel accomplished. So like, what, what? And then I look, you know, net into the next day and into the next week. So, like, how in this system, and I'm assuming you go in there, how do you assign value to these things that you gotta get done? Right? Whether it's prep for the client meetings or prep for the team meetings or whatever it is, like, whatever your business requires. Am I heading in the right direction with my thinking? Because my struggle is like, what's more important? Everything?

Yeah, yeah. That is tough. That is rough because a lot of people do feel that idea of, well, I have so many competing priorities, competing tasks. They're all important. I want to get them all done yesterday. Yes, that does happen. You know, whether they learn my system or they're doing it on their own, they feel that pressure, and then it's hard for them to untangle it, because when you feel that overwhelmed, it's like your decision making starts to break down, and you just feel like stuck and stagnant, like I don't even know which way to turn because it's so overwhelming. So you're headed in the right direction. You're asking the right questions. The first thing that I want everybody to understand is that your tasks are are what is going to drive your progress? It's not project management that's going to give you the progress you're looking for. It's task management. So no matter what you're trying to do, whether it's a project, a multi step task, something that's long term, short term. It doesn't matter. Everything begins with either a first action step to get something started or a next action step to keep something moving forward. And in my system, that step is very, very small. It's small. Everything is easy and achievable. It's going to somewhere fall between 30 seconds and 30 minutes long. And this is one of the things that people are not teaching out there. I don't care what kind of productivity guru, expert, coach or consultant out there, they're not defining a task. What is a task? Even when I watch the demos on some of these systems out there, in these schools and they they they have a project field and a task field, and then a sub task and all this craziness, you really only need two things. What am I going to do? And when am I going to do it? And when they're showing these projects, and they say, Oh, you can put a task in here. And I'm like, Dude, that's a project that's huge, you know? So they're not even doing it right in the demos, because what they're stating, and they're calling it a task, it's not a task. So nobody's defining it for people, and that's what makes everybody feel like they're spinning because they know they want to get this thing done. Yes, but when I hear my clients tell me what it is they're trying to do, I say, client that's a project that's huge. Let's break it down. And we're not going to break it down and identify like everything under the sun. We don't have to get out our crystal ball here. We only need that first step or that next step, and you gotta make it small. So that's the first thing I want people to focus on, is really small action steps. The next thing is, is you were talking about value? Well, we want to be able to compare and contrast these many tasks that are on our plate. In order to do that effectively, you have to pull your tasks away from their sources. So in taskology, we build one complete central digital task list. Yes, I do it in Microsoft Outlook. We don't use the default screens. We use it the productive day way. It is proprietary. But the point is, wherever you pick to put this task list, I don't care what system it is. You really want to build it completely. And I mean, you're pulling everything away from its source. What are the sources? Email, phone calls, texts, social media, meetings, Hallway Conversations. You have papers and files on your desk as reminders of things to. Do as well. And then when you create a legal pad of to do's, or a spiral notepad or steno pad or post it notes, those are also they become sources, because now you filled them up. The problem with having them in all these different places is that it's hard to plan and prioritize. It's actually impossible to do efficiently, effectively and productively, and then be able to accomplish your tasks, just trying to manage them from the sources, without missing, losing or forgetting something. Because what you're trying to do at that point is remember the flagged emails. Remember the most important thing sitting on your desk, remember the most important thing on your legal pad, remember the most important thing you saw or heard in your email or on the text, and now you're going, Okay, which one do I go after now you're prioritizing in your head, and that's when things start to slip through the cracks, right? So with all these things spread out, not only in the sources, but now we're talking tools too, like the planners, the asana Trello, the whiteboards, the Excel spreadsheets, the word documents that people use like those are tools. So now they're even more places that you're trying to remember, and you are trying to pick. Most people try to pick a central spot, like their favorite thing is the spiral notebook, or their favorite thing is the legal pad, or this Franklin COVID planner, whatever it is, or maybe it's, you know, a To Do app on their phone. The point is, they're all partial to do lists. None of them are complete. And that's where people's awareness is down. That's where your decision making is going to be down because you don't have 100% clarity of everything that's on your plate, and without that clarity, now you're flying blind because you don't have a complete picture of everything you're really trying to plan and prioritize. Now most people think their to do list is like, well, that's just what I want to do today. That's not true. You want to build a task system that allows you to give target dates of action to everything, and that immediately makes it easy to go, Yep, I want to do that today. Nope, that's going to wait until tomorrow, next week or even next month, because my clients have anywhere from 30 to 150 or 60 tasks on their task list, but they're not all for today, and they're not even all for this week or this month, but they have to have the clarity in order to make the decision. Does that make sense?

It does. And so how do you decide? Because that's, I think for me, is the overwhelming piece is like, Well, how do I decide that these tasks are due today? And so I and this is what I've adopted. I don't know if it's perfect system, but for quite some time I have structured my week where certain days, like Mondays, for example, is all related to, like, internal business, you know, contacts, meeting with the teams like, that's where my head is at. So I sort of group these tasks or activities together, like Tuesday would be, for example, podcast recording some of, you know, work that's around that, you know, Wednesday, Thursday, or client meetings Friday, is sort of like, catch all. That's the only way I've been able to, like, okay, segregate, at least that my mind doesn't go, Okay, what do I recording on the podcast? And it's Monday, and I'm in the meeting with somebody, and I didn't send them confirmation. How? What's your take on that? Even though I feel like I know every week I come in, I know what the week would look like based on theme days, but it's still quite chaotic, quite this, like, okay, these, and you're right, these tasks are like, on my notepad there my email or my we'll get to the email that that's a beast for sure. They are in our client service management software. They are in Asana. It's like everywhere, and it's like, okay, depending on the day I go somewhere to get whatever it is that I think I need to do, right? So,

so yeah, what do you think about that. Well, it's different for entrepreneurs like us versus folks in corporate, and we may have a blend of listeners out there who are a little bit of both, because what's happening for entrepreneurs is that like you, you have the flexibility to block these big sections in your day, even entire days, right? People in corporate can't do that. They've got too many meetings, too many teams, too many bosses and direct reports. You know, they they have to block time differently. So the methodology I teach them is a little different than what I would do with an entrepreneur like you. But the truth is, no matter which way you do it, it all comes down to the limitations of time. So even though you've blocked off, say Tuesdays for podcasts and Wednesdays and Thursdays for clients, you still want to leave enough time in the day to keep up with email. I call it processing email, meaning we get our clients down to zero, and not just to see the pretty white space, but it's so you know, you've seen everything, you've made a decision on everything, and you've moved it all to better locations of either reference or action, or it's gone archived or deleted. Now that's processing email to make sure, Yep, I've seen everything, and I've got my tasks and follow ups out of email and onto the taskology task list, wherever that's built. So. So that I can appropriately plan and prioritize and say, Okay, I'm going to do this on this day versus that day. When they're sitting an email. You can't make those decisions, not only that, but when you're flagging emails, you're going back to those same emails again and again and again, and you're rereading emails you've already seen but couldn't do anything with and that's where people get stuck with the flagging or the marking it as unread so it stays bold, etc. So you've gotta get those away from the source and emails. That's just the biggest, most aggravating one. But back to the value of the task. So even though you're planning big blocks of time to do things if if you don't leave time in a day to also process your email, then that Friday is going to be all about like, just feeling like you're catching up. And I actually have worked with clients who are blocking their weeks that way because they are more entrepreneurial in nature than corporate, and they've brought me the same issue. Leslie, I can never dig out of email, because on my Friday, it just becomes all about email, and I still don't feel like I got anything done, and by the end of the day, they still have tons of email in their inbox. So we fix that, you know, because you really want to give your email and your tasks some attention every single day to make sure that you're not letting things bunch up and build up. So that's one thing, but also giving things value. So for instance, you're going to have a higher value on a prospect that's worth X amount of dollars you know, you're bringing that new client, or that new prospect in the door to have a conversation, or you're keeping current clients happy, or you're doing a money making or business building activity, those get a higher value in our system than things that are just run of the mill tasks, like, Yep, this is routine. I do this every week, or I do this every month, or I do this every day, and it keeps the wheel spinning on the business most of your tasks are going to be those regular run of the mill tasks, but on our task list in our system, you want those revenue generators to stand out, and you want it to stand out so that you go, yep, you know, what? If I don't have this much time today to actually work on the few tasks that I had planned, and I only have this much, I instantly know which one I have to do. It's the revenue generator, you know? And then we have to reprioritize the rest. So you really want to be able to pivot when your day changes and priorities shift. You really want to be able to use the system that you've built to pivot and turn on a dime, but without missing, losing or forgetting anything. Has to have that flexibility, but it has to start with a plan, like, I want to do these things today, but if my day changes, I've got to be able to quickly make decisions and change my plan, but still not miss anything. You know, yeah, I

Yeah. I'd love to learn this, this angle of like, how to give more priority to something, right? And I agree with you, you know, for, probably, for, you know, for those who are like in sales roles or business owners, if you have a side hustle, like you put more in my head, at least, I tend to put more emphasis on activities that generate revenue, versus, like, checking the email and at the end of the day, it's like, delete, delete, delete, or unread, unread, unread.

Well, that's true, but remember that your email is also a vehicle to do your work, so it's interesting that you say that, I'm glad you brought that up, because that's almost like saying that the paper or the information you get in your day or even a phone call is not as important as the revenue generating task. So that's not true, because a phone and an email, they're just vehicles, but they could bring you some multi million dollar opportunities. They're just a vehicle of communication. So don't demote email, because it seems so annoying, which it is, but it still brings opportunities, conversations, questions, events, tasks, follow ups. It brings so many things. The key is being able to make decisions very quickly, like you say, dispense with the stuff that's really useless, or it's junk, or I'm not interested, or I want to unsubscribe, great like, rock on with that. But the key is picking out those things that are still in connection with a prospect or a follow up, or a task with a client or an opportunity, and you really want to pull those out and get them on your task list so that you could do the appropriate follow up with that person or for that opportunity. So we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, you know, because email is still good. It's, it's learning how to manage it so that you can quickly distill it down to the gold, you know. So I don't want everybody to turn away from email just because it's like, well, email is not important? No, no, it is. That's like saying I'm not going to answer the phone or return any call. No, no, those phone calls are important. It's what you do with it after you hang up. It's what you do with the email after you read it and then close it. It's now what you know. So having a system in place to handle all those things that come out of an email is really. A key

I have. Maybe part of this conversation today is for me to realize, like there's something about a task that feels unimportant to me. I don't know if this is the right word, but it's just like a task thing I gotta do, and I put low, low value on it. And it maybe depends on what it is, but I like so in our I'll give you an example. In our client service management software, we have, obviously, there's workflows, because they are all attached to like, you know, client and processing client, or the, you know, the whole process of creating a financial plan. You can also have tasks attached to it, and they could be, you know, client related and or they can be business related, or Asana, for example, for the most part, Asana, to me, is like just a giant list, segregated by sections and the tasks I don't do the tasks, they seem to have less of a value to me for some reason, like tasks are not for me. I don't know why I made up my mind like that. I have a team member, Cassie, who is driven by the tasks. And I've always justified in my head is that there are these assessment tests you can do, like your personality tests, like discs or Colby. And so I've always said I am a big picture person, and these tasks are just so small to me that I value them as unimportant, where at the same time, I still, for the most part, get them done, just not in the system that exists. But at times it becomes too much because it's like all these little things are, you know, hanging over your head because

there's, there's no structure to it that actually makes sense to you. And I can, I can understand that right now. They're not only all spread out in all different places for you, but because you guys are using Asana, and, of course, I haven't seen your system and how you have that set up, I can understand why that's going to also make it fragmented, and why those tasks might not necessarily be something that would fall on your plate, whereas anything that you do in your day, whether it's following up from producing a podcast or creating a financial plan for someone you know, calling back a prospect or a client who has a question, whatever that those are All tasks. It's just that you're not using the same terminology. So to you, it's like a different, higher level kind of use of your time, and you're not using the word task for it, when really everything that is an action step that you take in your day is actually a task. Any follow up is really a task. So in our system, everything is a task. Anytime you're actually taking a step forward, it's a task. And there are going to be some that are run of the mill, like I said, and some that are going to be revenue generators, then you're going to be comparing and contrasting them all the time to make those decisions. But once you've given a value to it, you don't have to keep doing that like you see it instantly in the system. And you know, I gotta do this that can wait if my day changes, we're gonna have to do that next week instead, you know? But they're all tasks, and I think it's because of the structure of what you're seeing or not seeing in your day that has you separating the two. And it makes total sense to me. I think this is where a lot of people struggle because of the way they're already thinking about tasks, or whether they're thinking about their legal pad. Like I said to them, a to do list is just what I have to do today. Yes, not really. That's not, that's not quite right. I

try to isolate all of them, like, okay, all of these tasks out there, there's some list somewhere on, you know, Asana or CRM. I'm going to make my own list, and this is the list that's going to at the one cross everything over at the end of the day, I'm going to be like, feeling 1,000% most accomplished. And you look at it, I'm like, what about everything else out there?

I mean, right, exactly. It's like out in the ether, yeah, yeah. And it's and it's kind of hard to grasp, you know? And so that's why, in our system, we totally nail it down. Because here's where people get really frustrated. They don't have certainty. They don't have clarity, control or certainty of what's really on their plate. And that causes them not only to feel stressed out, but then they're kind of, I guess it's even worse than stressed out, because now they're afraid of being surprised tomorrow, of what I forgot today, what I forgot last week, because it's going to come around like a boomerang and slap you in the face, and then it's going to throw your day off. It's going to derail you because you wanted to do this today, and now, because something slapped you in the face, now you've got to do that, and now you're on like, a cleanup mission, and that just ruins your mood, right? Yeah, yeah. Gold was like, I'm excited about doing this today, and then you're deflated. Yes, yes. Am

I the only one out there? I feel like I'm the worst person, like, in terms of, I mean, I get all my work done, it's all good. It's just the feelings and the thoughts you're having right at the end of the day about, you know, how the day went? It's not always like that, right? There are days that it feels like amazing, and all this other weight is just like, okay. It's like, in in my head, okay, on Thursday, I'll do all the, you know, whatever client stuff, or Friday, there's going to be time, because I see the blocks, and I've kind of gotten really good with that, like, a block of time to do X, Y and Z sometimes,

yeah, you're not alone. I work with all C level executives in corporate or leaders like EVPs, directors, VPS, business owners, entrepreneurs, just like you. Everyone is an expert at what they do. They love what they do, they're passionate, they're successful, they they know exactly what they want to do, but the sort of the mechanics of the work day, you know, the how is holding them back. So what I like to say is that that taskology is like that instruction manual for your work day that you never got they definitely need, you know, because that's where people are like, Well, I'm not sure sure how to get more time so I could do my most important projects. I'm not sure how to get through all these emails. I'm not sure how to gather all my tasks. How do I prioritize all of this? This is like an instruction manual kind of thing for your day. It's the how, because once you get to the work, you know exactly what you're going to do, and you're great at it, right? You know to do. But it's then, well, I can't find this information to finish that email. I can't find this information to send that, you know, to finish that task, or send this to my friend or answer that question. You know, I can't do this, that or the other thing, because now I'm reacting, or I just ran out of time, or something, just someone just reminded me of something I forgot, and now I've derailed, and now I'm going to be that much farther behind, or, I guess I'll have to catch up on that tonight, you know, and it's just one thing after another, and then it kind of pushes you farther and farther and farther behind. And some people, not everybody, but a lot of people, feel like they're never going to catch up. And that is just the worst feeling in the world, and that kills me. Because I want to, I really want to help people like that, and then I want to help everybody who's not, you know, teetering on the edge, who's like, Yeah, I think I've got this, but I really need help, because I'm tired of wasting of wasting my time. Like, I'm seriously just like, ready to zoom ahead, but these things are holding me back. Well, I want to help those people too. Yes.

Can we talk a little bit about, like, what's your what's your system looks like? What are some of the things that, like, you can tweak now to start kind of like, seeing that improvement, maybe a smaller thing, but yeah,

absolutely, yeah. So there's four pieces to the system. The system is called taskology, the science of getting things done. It's got task management, time management, email management and information management. These are all the big processes in your work day, and we put them all together, not put them all together, but we connect them all to make sure everything is streamlined, so that you know exactly what to do and how they're all tied together in a kind of seamless way, so you can just zoom through your day getting things done and not having any of this stuff hold you up. So some of the things you can do right away, I'm going to focus on task management, because that's really the driver of your progress in the day. Like if you don't have task management nailed down everything else is just going to be hard, you know. So one of the first things I think people can do is look at your To Do lists. Look at your desk. Look at all the stuff you might have. If you're kind of paper intensive and you have files and documents and things on your desk, start looking at those things and separating the reference information, which is stuff that you'll just refer to later, versus the active information, like, yes, you know, this is left out on my desk as a reminder of something to do that, along with your To Do Lists wherever they are, get them all together and kind of make this first separation, you know, part those two To really understand. Okay, the reference information, literally can be probably filed away. Or you in this process, you might find a lot of things you can toss, shred, recycle, I don't know. You know, a lot of people do have to. And of course, as the old days, you know, there's a lot more paper, and now people are more sort of digital now. So it's also digital clutter it can build up to, but that's mostly email that causes the headaches. So we're just talking about stuff in the desk, I mean, on the desk and in the office right now. But those to do lists, you really want to compile all your to do list and not in a physical format, but pick a tool and start putting them in there, because you really want to identify what is that small first or next action step that I need to do, and then pick an action date. So we use due date doe in the system. It's really our do date. That's the date we're going to do the task. So we change the meaning of it in our system, because it's far less important when something is due than when you're going to do it. We do keep deadlines in mind, so just understand that's always at the end of the task line, like if I have to turn this in by December 1 got it, it's always in my vision. But that doesn't mean we start then we start today or tomorrow or next week. So our action date is the target and everything in our system. Gets an action date because you have to start somewhere. That doesn't mean it's locked in, though. Like I said, when your day changes, when an emergency comes up, an issue, you have to pivot priorities shift. You have to be able to have a system that shifts with you, but allows you to still hold on to everything, so you're not missing, losing or forgetting anything. So it's very flexible. You can reprioritize in an instant with what we do, and you can change your mind anytime, but you're not going to miss anything. So everything gets an action date and again, small, small, small, small, small action steps. So if you have a project, don't try to map out every single thing. Just think about how you're going to start it, or if it's already in motion, how will you continue it? And that's one of the most important things, is really to start building this central digital task list. It's a system, but it's a list, and then limit how many you're going to do in a day. So don't turn this into like one big digital legal pad. That's not the point. Everything in our system gets these action dates, which means there's going to be a limit to be a limit to how many you can do in a day. So you're not trying to do like 20. Go for like five. You know, I know that sounds small and shocking, but trust me, with the amount of meetings and calls and events and all this other stuff going on in the day, especially in corporate, you're not going to have as much time as you think. So, you know, plus fewer more important tasks than trying to, like, conquer everything, and that way your your days are segmented. Like, okay, this is what I said. I'm going to do today. I could forget about the rest, because I picked another day for that. And this is what starts to reduce the overwhelm. You're not trying to do it all in a day. Everything gets an action date, and that automatically makes it easy for you to say, Yes, I got to do this today. No, that's going to have to wait. That's where I want everybody to start. Yeah, I love

that. You mentioned this before. But in in the cases where, like, Okay, here's, you know, we've got this perfect system figure out for doing our tasks. We have meetings, phone calls, where do the emails come in? Because there is, there's a lot to it. I have signed up for this tool, honestly blanking right now what it's called, but I can put it in show notes that locks my inbox after if I go in there more than five times in a day, and it locks it only like for 30 seconds, but it removes this knee jerk reaction to go in there. Like, I have five minutes. Leslie's not on the podcast yet. I'm gonna just go in and check my email. And there's something wrong with that. Yeah, there's just wrong with that takes you in, like, lots of places to talk about email, because we get enormous amount of email, and this zero inbox policy is, is never, I've never had that. I've never been able to get to it. My husband, on the other side, is obsessed. He makes fun of me of how many email I have, two, you know, personal email and work email. I have 1000s of unread email and personal I just don't, I just don't even clean them up. And he looks at that, he has, he thinks it's the end of the world.

Well, there are two camps out there, right? There's inbox zero, and then there's, you know, I don't really care. I'm just going to leave it or I'm overwhelmed. I can't deal with it. I don't care about getting to zero. And then, of course, there's probably three camps, because there's the middle ground, there's the people who do try, but they're not quite sure you know, how to get there, and they've got folders on the left, and they got some in the inbox. And, you know, it's kind of a mix of the two. Yeah. And again, I want to emphasize this is not getting to zero just for the sake of getting to zero. This is not what this is about at all. It is so that you know your information, like reference information, is in the right place. There are places that are meant for managing certain types of reference information that people aren't using. I'll give you a good example. Contacts is one of them. So many people leave contact information embedded in the email or stuck in the inbox, or it's stuck in an email folder, and then they say, Well, I gotta call Bob Smith. Well, I gotta go dig around for his email, or I gotta run a search. Well, we have systems for that. It's called contacts, or it's your CRM, that's where information like that should be. And then there's, you know, the hard drive, or OneDrive, or Dropbox or Google Docs, or, you know, it's place for that. I call it the E Document Library, like whatever you pick for your library of documents, that's where you want to build that system. That's like home base. What's it going to be? And let's make it categorized. And let's make it easy to use too many of these attachments and documents are all over the place, on computer desktops, stuck in emails, in the hard drive, in the cloud. You know, it's hard to find something when you need to find it, if you've got that fragmented too. So because email happens to bring in all kinds of stuff like this, plus opportunities, events, to do's, tasks, follow ups, you name it. It all comes in. Remember, the email is just the vehicle. What matters is what you do with the information once you've received it. It's no different than leaving a meeting and having meeting notes and knowing, okay, this is where this information. Information goes, you know, here's how I handle my tasks from the meeting or hanging up the phone and going, Okay, I've got new information here. What do I do with the information? It's just a conduit. So when we have to do is get, get to be experts at what do I do with the information now? So that's why it's so important to recognize the difference between reference, meaning I'm going to save this in my hard drive or E document library, and I know I can find it again later, but now it's out of my hair and out of my email or this is a task or a follow up, and I gotta get it on my central digital task list, because there is where you're going to plan and prioritize it with everything else see by the time it gets on that task list, it doesn't matter where it came from anymore. You've pulled them all away from their sources. It doesn't matter where it came from. Now it's a task. And if you've used, you know, kind of a formula to determine, Okay, this is how long it should take. Here's how we describe it, because we have a formula in our system so that you know, you know how to type every task that comes along, so that it's easy and actionable when you get there. So once you do that and assign an action date. Well, now they're all in one inventory. It's everything. Can you imagine an accounts payable or accounts receivable system that wasn't complete with all the data so you had no idea what checks are coming in, or what you know, what checks you have to write, or whatever? That would be a nightmare. This is similar, where, unless you've got all your tasks in one central location, again, you could be flying blind because they're not all in your vision. So the key is get them in your vision. So pull them out of email. Because what email is doing is bringing you tasks and follow ups, and they need to be identified. And so that's why getting to zero is so important. It's not just to see the pretty white space, it's so, you know, you've pulled those tasks and follow ups out because they're important. They're still part of your job, you know. Let's not, you know, turn away from email and go, Oh, that's just annoying. We've got some real money makers in there, you know, we still have important follow ups to do, so let's get those out, get them on the task list, and then prioritize it and go, Yep, I'm going to get back to Mary today or tomorrow or Monday, and then it's in your awareness, so you're not surprised, like, oh, did I forget to get back to Mary? No, no, I saw it. I'm planning it for Friday. You know, it gives you that control and that confidence. I've seen everything, I've made a decision on it, and now I've got it in the right locations. Does that make sense?

It does make sense. And what's your advice for how often you check your email. Isn't that, like the most popular question,

it is. It's a very popular question. But here's the answer for all of my different clients. I mean, they're the way that they're going through their day, and when they use taskology, is they know, you know, how to knock out a few important tasks first thing in the morning, you know, and then go back to email. And for them, it's get back to zero, because they've already gotten there. So they may have had like, 10 or 20 roll in overnight or something, whatever, and they know how to get it quickly back to zero and then go back to their task list and knock out a few more tasks. So it's, it depends on how much time they're spending on a task or two, or whether they've dashed off to a meeting, and now they're gone to a meeting for an hour and they come back and then check their email. Depends on, you know, lunch, networking events, you know, all the other calls they've got in their day. So for them, it's they know how to work it in between meetings and calls and getting tasks done. So the cadence is different for everybody. I don't limit them and say, Nope, you can only look once in the morning and once in the afternoon. We don't do that. They've got the system now, and they're in total control, and because they know how to knock out tasks and process email back to zero, it's all easy peasy. It's cake from here on out. So they can check it as often as they want, because now they know how to get it back to zero, and sometimes there's no need to check it because it's at zero for like, a hot minute, and they can go work on something else. Yeah, no more. It's always rolling in. But,

you know, yeah, yeah, I'm not limited by that. It's not that. It's not that rigid,

yes, no, I love it. So you're in your system. You mentioned starting with the tasks and then an email like, how? So if someone is thinking about this or incorporating that, how? How do they get a hold of your discologist system? I know you have a book on it, and there's a new book coming out too, as you mentioned. So how did like? How do you get started?

So the the most important place to visit would be productive day.com. Okay, so the resources that we have available, I think, are really going to be helpful for people. The first thing I would say is on our on our homepage and in our navigation bar, we've got three free resources for everyone. One is the quiz, and this is one of my favorites, because not only are taking quizzes fun, but this one is a diagnostic quiz. It's only, I think, eight questions. It's called What's your number one productivity blind spot? And this is a good one, because it's going to tell you whether you're a giver, a marker, a jumper or a detective. And what that means is that you're going to get your own unique results report on the other end of this quiz so you can find out what is your number one productivity blind spot. After you get that unique results report, then you're going to get another special, Quick Insights report from me that's just about your particular blind spot. Lot, and it's going to go a little deeper into what's really happening in your work day because of it, and how to fix it. So that one's really great to get you, you know, kind of going in the right direction, to understand, like, what's really holding me up here. So the other free resource is called the productive day smart steps also on the home page and in the navigation bar. This is a 52 week audio series with little two to four minute audios from me with strategies straight from taskology. So when you sign up for the smart steps, you'll get a strategy every single week from us for a year. And the third one is a special report called The Seven surprising secrets to saving time. It's going to go deeper into what we talked about today, because there are, like, three major processes in your work day where time and productivity are hiding. And this report goes into seven areas where time is hiding. So that's also available on our homepage. And of course, I'll always book a call with anybody who wants a free consult, you know, really dig into what's happening in your workday, and then we can map out what's going to happen to what we can do to fix it. You know, I can, I can map it all out for you to understand what's possible for you. So I'm happy to do all of that.

Yeah, that sounds all exciting. What I'm also thinking is you're describing all of this is like, Okay, for those of you out there who have families and kids, and it's like, here's your work day, whenever you get off, maybe at three o'clock, and you take all you know, your family or your kids to various activities. Like, can this be applied there as well? Because, I mean, let's face it, it's almost like a completely different task system, a calendar system, to manage all of that. It can be,

but all of this. And I've had the clients, you know, over the years, because I've been doing this for more than 20 years, they've come back to me to say, you know, I've taken these same concepts and I've applied them to my personal life. And it's because it's a method of thinking, decision making and executing that you can use for the rest of your life, your professional career, and including the calendar, including how you're thinking about getting things done. And it's all applicable. Yes,

it is. I love that you said it's a method of thinking, and I think that's that, to me, seems a little less intimidating or threatening as a task list to get things done right? I'm a task person. I've identified myself as dad, but I'm sure it's a it's something that I can grow on and change my mindset around, because just

a belief shift, yeah, because you are getting things done every day, you're super productive. You're just not thinking of it in those terms. That's all, yes, yes,

okay, well, I hope I'm for all the listeners out there, hopefully I'm like, one of those guinea pig examples, like, hey, that's gonna be different.

You are not alone, and you're right back. So,

yes, well, hope so hopefully, but I am, yes, I'm very intrigued, and so thank you so much for sharing those resources. We'll include all of this in the show notes for anyone interested in getting in contact with you. And so out of all, what we discussed is there any last minute advice you have for our listeners?

Just remember that you want to take everything one step at a time. You really can't conquer so much in one day. Give yourself the space and the grace to know that everything you know, just keep moving forward in the direction of your dreams, but just take it one step at a time. And it doesn't have to be a big step, but just keep moving forward. You know, don't do nothing, because you can only do a little, do what you can, and take it one step at a time, and First things first.

I love it. Thank you so much. Leslie, it's been a pleasure.

It's been great to be here. Thanks so much. Bye.