Productive Living: Productive Business Communications, with Elizabeth Pearson – TPW471

Managing business communications is a key element of a productive professional life

I'm excited to share with you my conversation with author, speaker, and executive career coach Elizabeth Pearson as part of our Productive Living series.

Who is Elizabeth?

Elizabeth is an executive career coach who helps women navigate job changes, succeed in male-dominated fields, and launch their own companies. Elizabeth has contributed to Forbes, Entrepreneur magazine, Yahoo, and HERMoney.com and has been an expert guest on national networks including NBC News.  She has been a keynote speaker for women in business talks at Meta, Oracle, Marriott, Northwestern Mutual, Amazon, and many more. Elizabeth recently released her first book Career Confinement: How to Free Yourself, Find Your Guides, and Seize the Fire of Inspired Work, and is the host of the Working Moms' Guide to Sanity Podcast. 

How Elizabeth got started

Elzabeth's professional background is in corporate sales, where she spent about 15 years in consumer package goods sales.  Then one day, like a lot of women, she wondered whether this was all there is. She seemed to have everything she could ever want but it still didn't seem like enough, no matter how hard she worked to convince herself. She was a working mom who was secretly suffering, going through a sort of spiritual bankruptcy. Elizabeth was angry with herself for not feeling as fulfilled as she thought she should, but also recognized that her dissatisfaction came from suppressing an entrepreneurial spirit she had had for many years. Elizabeth finally decided to make some major changes by moving her family to central California and leaving her safety net behind to follow her dreams. She is now an executive career coach helping women at all stages of their lives and careers.

A typical day for Elizabeth

There really is no typical day for Elizabeth and she enjoys it that way. However, a usual day for Elizabeth starts between 5:30 and 5:45 in the morning. She walks to Starbucks first thing (a 3-mile round-trip walk), listening to an audiobook or music along the way. Once she's back at home, she'll get the kids off to school, shower, and get ready for her day. Regardless of the work that goes on during the day (client meetings, interviews, or writing), she tries to be wrapped up by 4:00 and focuses on family and personal activities. She enjoys watching TV, writing or journaling, cooking, and spending time with her daughters. In the evenings after getting her kids to bed, she tries to be in bed herself no later than 8:30 or 9:00. Sleep is incredibly important for Elizabeth and she strives to get as much as possible. It's one of the most important things that contributes to her productivity.

Productivity tools Elizabeth recommends

Elizabeth uses a mixture of pen and paper and technology to manage her busy days. She makes a daily to-do list because she enjoys checking boxes and crossing things off.

She uses habit trackers to see where she is spending her time, which is something she writes out and color codes on paper.

Elizabeth likes to use calendar blocking to set aside time to do specific things, like creating social media posts (specifically LinkedIn, which she likes to treat as a personal website where she represents herself and her brand.) Elizabeth encourages women to regularly post on LinkedIn, write articles and posts, and optimize the website to the point where they can be recognized by industry leaders if they are looking to fill a position.

Managing our in-box

"the overwhelming nature of email overload often stems from the illusion of...