Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life

Mental strength isn't toughness. Psychotherapist Amy Morin makes the case that it's what gets you through stress, burnout, and the hard seasons when you still have to show up for work.

Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and the bestselling author of 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, with more than a million books sold and a TEDx talk past 25 million views. About a year into her career she lost her mother, and three years later to the day she lost her husband, then went back to sitting across from her own clients. The tools that got her through became her new book, The Mental Strength Playbook: 50 Tools to Cope with Stress, Thrive Under Pressure, and Gain a Competitive Edge in the Workplace.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Strength vs. toughness: Why pushing through and shoving everything down backfires, and how mental strength works across what you think, feel, and do.
• Act as if, not fake it: The night before her first big stage, and why acting like your most confident self is different from pretending to be someone else.
• Naming your inner critic: Meet Fretting Phyllis, plus getting the noise out of your head and onto paper (and into the trash).
• Emotions at work: Why a bad mood makes for a bad negotiation, the "smell the pizza" breathing exercise, and scheduling time to worry so worry stops scheduling you.
• High performers vs. strategic contributors: The tension in a book that promises a competitive edge while talking you out of the grind, and how to reset boundaries that have quietly eroded.

If you're carrying something heavy and still have to walk into Tuesday's meeting, this one's for you. Amy closes with one question to ask at the end of each day, which is as good a place to start as any. Find The Mental Strength Playbook wherever books are sold.

Connect with Amy:

• Website
• The Mental Strength Playbook
• Free reference guide to all 50 plays
• Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin
• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Most deep work doesn't fail at your desk. It fails in the team around you, which is what leadership researcher Shawn Vanderhoven spent three years studying.

Shawn is a partner at The Wiseman Group, where he works alongside Liz Wiseman, author of Multipliers. With his wife and co-author, Anne Vanderhoven, he wrote Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World, built on interviews with more than 400 people about the leaders who made focus possible for them, and the ones who made it impossible. Partway through the research, his own team told him which kind he was.

In this conversation, we cover:

• The table slam: the workshop moment that started the research, and why Shawn says personal productivity advice aims too low when one ping from a manager can undo the whole system.
• Permission vs. sponsorship: why "feel free to focus" crumbles under pressure, and what changes when a leader puts their own reputation behind protected time.
• Pausing up: a managing-up move anyone can make, asking your boss for advice on your priority list instead of quietly trying to do all fifteen things.
• Majors and minors: how to give important work you can't drop a smaller, fixed share of your time so it stops crowding out what matters most.
• Clearing your desk: how leaders lose good people first to distraction, then to departure, and what one act of full attention did for Shawn.

If you've ever built a system that worked right up until the first message from your boss, this one's for you. You don't need a title to start: Shawn's first step is to write down everything you're carrying, put rough percentages beside it, and talk it through with one other person. Less of your attention goes to work you never chose, and more is left for the rest of your life. Find Pause and the free resources at pausebook.co.

Connect with Shawn:

• Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World
• LinkedIn
• The Wiseman Group

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Optimism isn't a mood you're born with, and it isn't a mindset you can summon on command. It's a set of habits you practice, especially on the hard days. That's the case Michelle Gielan makes in her new book, Resilient Optimism: The Science of Sustaining a Positive Mindset in Tough Times.

Michelle is a positive psychology researcher, a former CBS News anchor, and the bestselling author of Broadcasting Happiness. She holds a master's in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and runs GoodThink, a research and training firm, with her husband, Shawn Achor. She left the anchor desk after years of reporting recession news to study the opposite problem: how people find a path forward when things are hard.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Three minutes of bad news: Her study with Arianna Huffington found that three minutes of negative news in the morning left people 27% more likely to call their whole day negative six to eight hours later. Pairing problems with solutions made people 20% better at creative problem-solving.
• The best-moments text: A one-to-two-minute nightly practice that swaps "was today good?" for "what was good today?" and trains you to notice what's working.
• Stress and meaning: Why stress usually points at something you care about, and how asking what's behind it changes what it does to you.
• Commitment triage: Sorting your commitments into a core impact list, a secondary list, and a not-to-do list. Plus what to do when you don't control your own schedule.
• Recharging smarter: Why resilience isn't about how much you can endure, and why ten-minute daily recharges matter as much as the vacation.

This one's for anyone running a full life on a low battery. Michelle hopes none of this ever gets mistaken for a productivity hack. The point is protecting your energy so you can actually live the life you've built. Find the book and the resources that go with it at resilientoptimism.com.

Connect with Michelle:

• Website
• Resilient Optimism
• GoodThink
• LinkedIn

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Focus, sleep, and stress all run on the same 90-minute cycle — and Dr. Christian Poensgen argues that's where productivity that lasts actually begins. He's a scientist turned executive coach whose doctoral work was on the relationship between stress and performance, and co-author, with Eric Partaker, of Ultraproductive: The 90-Minute Method to Optimize Focus, Sleep, and Stress.

Christian's own wake-up call was the quiet kind. No ambulance, no emergency — just an 80-hour week, seven hours in bed, and the feeling every morning that a truck had hit him. He had the PhD in stress and performance and still walked into near-burnout. What he found on the way out is the spine of this conversation: three levers that carry most of the weight, and a body clock that was running underneath all of it the whole time.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Pseudo-productive busyness: Why long hours and a cleared inbox can leave the things that matter untouched — and why an inbox is really a to-do list other people built for you.
• Working the edges of the day: Deep focus is hardest between nine and five, so Christian makes the case for claiming 15 or 30 minutes before or after, and the 3-3-11 rule for finding your own best windows.
• The fight phase: Why the first five to ten minutes of focused work always feel lousy, for everyone, and why that resistance is a sign you're about to do something good rather than a sign to stop.
• Junk sleep: Seven hours in bed is a quantity. Deep and REM sleep are the nutrition — and Christian found he was getting under 30 minutes of deep sleep a night while doing everything "right."
• Stress as a signal, not an enemy: Nearly everything worth having arrives with some stress attached. The line that matters is duration — and the exhale is the fastest way back down.

If you've been doing all the right things and still feel like you're running on empty, this one will make sense of why. Christian's practical takeaways are small enough to start today: a full exhale when stress hits, and ten minutes of bright light in the morning. The deeper framework is in the book.

Connect with Christian:

• Ultraproductive.com
• Christian's writing at IMD

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook

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Simplicity and decision fatigue are the focus of this conversation with Roy Schwartz, co-founder and president of Axios.

Roy Schwartz co-founded Axios and Axios HQ after helping build Politico, where he first saw how much of modern work is just noise competing for attention. His dyslexia forced him to compress everything down to the core just to keep up — a coping strategy that became the foundation for Smart Brevity and, later, his new book Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less, co-written with his Axios co-founders.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Confront, Delete, Amplify: Roy's three-step framework for finding where your time actually goes, cutting what doesn't serve your real goals, and redirecting that time toward the few things you're genuinely good at.
• Why delete is harder than it sounds: the evolutionary pull to accumulate — meetings, reports, obligations — and why saying no requires deciding what you're protecting time for, not just what you're cutting.
• Decision fatigue and the handcuffs method: how removing small daily choices (clothing, groceries, consumables) frees up mental bandwidth for decisions that actually matter.
• AI as both the problem and the fix: why the same tool producing more content than ever can also become your most honest editor — if you give it the right instructions.
• The four levers of a whole life: relationships, fitness, diet, and sleep — and why Roy ranks relationships first, even in a book built by a productivity nerd.

This episode is for anyone who feels like their calendar, inbox, or life in general has gotten away from them and suspects the answer isn't a better system — it's fewer things. Roy's framework gives you a place to start today: one decision, one meeting, one "no."

Connect with Roy:

• Simplify — the book
• Smart Brevity free resources

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Marriage communication looks different when both partners are neurodivergent — so Jackie Kelley and her husband built their own rules from scratch.

Jackie Kelley is a neurodivergent storyteller, illustrator, wife, and mother based in Gilbert, Arizona. Through her social media content and viral "Marriage Rules" videos, she helps couples build communication rhythms that actually fit their lives. Her book is So You Married a Human: The Totally Doable, Unconventional Guide to a Thriving Partnership(Zondervan, 2026).

In this conversation, we cover:

• Self-regulation before communication: Why you can't talk through a fried nervous system — and what "getting yourself right" actually looks like before a hard conversation happens.
• The email rule: How writing instead of talking transformed the worst season of Jackie and her husband's marriage, and why the format matters as much as the content.
• Microwave vs. crockpot: What happens when two people process emotions at completely different speeds — and how to stop mistaking slow processing for passive aggression.
• Tell me more: The practical shift from "why are you being so difficult" to getting curious, and why it works especially when neither person is actually wrong.
• Marriage on autopilot: How couples quietly lose the fact that they like each other, and what scheduling intentional fun actually gives back.

If the standard marriage advice has ever felt like it was written for someone else's brain — or someone else's relationship — this conversation is worth your time. Jackie makes a genuine case that building structure into a marriage isn't the opposite of romance. It's what makes room for it. Grab So You Married a Human wherever books are sold.

Connect with Jackie:

• soyoumarriedahuman.com
• @stayathomejackie on Instagram

Connect with Erik

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Work-life balance and boundaries are at the center of this conversation with Sarah Armstrong, author of The Art of the Juggling Act.

Sarah Armstrong is the head of Global Marketing Operations at Google and the author of The Art of the Juggling Act: A Bite-Sized Guide for Working Parents. With a career spanning McKinsey, Leo Burnett, and two decades at Coca-Cola, she writes and speaks about what it actually looks like to show up for both work and life — and how to decide which is which.

In this conversation, we cover:

• The 5-ball framework: Work, family, friends, health, and spirit — Sarah's framework for identifying which balls in your life are rubber (they bounce when dropped) and which are glass (they don't), and why that distinction is more useful than any calendar hack.
• Defining balance on your own terms: Why balance isn't a fixed state you achieve once and maintain, why imbalance is inevitable (not if, but when), and how deciding what balance means for you is the work before the tactics.
• Saying no without explaining yourself: The story of a colleague who turned down a request with no justification — and why the absence of an explanation wasn't rude, it was the skill.
• The Grace block and the Sunday list: Two low-friction practices that protect non-work time — a standing calendar block that signals you're off, and a Sunday habit for parking unfinished thoughts so your brain can actually stop carrying them.
• Outsourcing and the transference of hours: The cost-value equation for deciding what to offload, and why the real question isn't what something costs — it's what you'd do with the hours you get back.

If you're a working parent who feels like you're failing at everything simultaneously, this conversation is worth your full attention. Sarah doesn't promise balance — she helps you figure out what yours actually looks like, and gives you the tools to protect it. Find her book, The Art of the Juggling Act, at the links below.

Connect with Sarah:

• saraharmstrong.com
• The Art of the Juggling Act

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Goal setting, intentional living, and following through are at the center of this conversation with Chris Bailey, productivity author and co-host of the Intentional AI podcast.

Chris Bailey's work traces a decade-long arc — from The Productivity Project to Hyperfocus to How to Calm Your Mind. His new book, Intentional: How to Finish What You Start, pulls that thread together, arguing that following through has less to do with discipline than with knowing what you actually value. He returns to the show for the seventh time, going all the way back to 2014.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Values as the real engine of follow-through: why a scientifically validated values test (Schwartz's 12 values) predicts what you finish better than any goal hack.
• The CP-atone trap: how the idea of a goal — waking up at 5 a.m. — seduces us more than the daily reality of living it, and how to catch yourself doing it.
• Editing vs. dropping goals: treating a goal like a draft you revise, and why quitting can close the loop rather than mark a failure.
• Why SMART goals don't hold up: the research Chris expected to endorse and ended up taking apart.
• Islands of intention and the rule of three: small daily practices for stepping off autopilot and lining up your actions with what matters.

If you've ever pushed through a goal you no longer wanted — or quit one and felt guilty about it — this conversation reframes both. You'll leave with a way to check your goals against what you actually value, plus a couple of small practices to make tomorrow more deliberate than today. Start with the book, Intentional: How to Finish What You Start, and Chris's free 12-values overview at chrisbailey.com.

Also on the show: Laura Vanderkam on time scarcity, and Chris's Intentional AI co-host David Sparks.

Connect with Chris:

• Chris Bailey — chrisbailey.com
• Intentional: How to Finish What You Start (swap in your retail/affiliate link)
• Intentional AI podcast, with David Sparks (confirm show URL)

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Creativity, play, and intentional living are at the center of this conversation with Rachael Renae, artist and author of Prioritize Play.

Rachael Renae is an artist, workshop facilitator, and self-described "creativity hype gal" based in Detroit. After more than a decade as an engineer and years running a handmade stationery business, she now helps people reconnect with their creativity through play — through workshops, one-on-one coaching, and a creative community called The Juice Box. Prioritize Play is her debut book, and she narrates the audiobook herself.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Play over productivity: Why Rachael reframes creativity as "play" — low-stakes, no expectations — and why that shift reaches the people who insist they're "not creative."
• The monetization trap: What running a handmade stationery business taught her about pouring all your creative energy into a side hustle, and why a passion doesn't have to become a job to be worth your time.
• Create more than you consume: How endless inspiration-gathering — Pinterest boards, research, getting ready to get ready — masquerades as creativity, and why imperfect action beats it every time.
• Structure that supports, not restricts: Using "scaffolding" instead of rigid schedules, loosening the rules so the habit actually sticks, and working with your brain — ADHD included — instead of against it.
• Self-trust and "salad bar energy": Building confidence in your own decisions by trying things and setting them aside — plus permission to be "mid interested" in something without having to master it.

If you've hit every success marker and still feel depleted — or you've quietly decided you're "not creative" — this is an invitation to put play back on your plate. Rachael's challenge is small and immediate: make a seasonal play list, or take the free hour a canceled meeting hands you and spend it on something that fills you instead of the next chore. Grab Prioritize Play wherever you get your books — and if you liked her voice here, she reads the audiobook herself.

Connect with Rachael:

• Prioritize Play (book)
• rachaelrenae.com
• Instagram: @rachaelrenae
• Chaotic Creatives podcast

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook
• Bluesky

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Self-awareness, mindset, and personal productivity are at the center of this conversation with Lisa Marker-Robbins, a Master Certified Birkman Method coach — one of the roughly 3% of consultants at that level.

Lisa has taken more than 4,000 people through the Birkman assessment over 30-plus years. She runs an executive coaching practice for adults and founded Flourish Coaching, where she helps 15–25-year-olds find career clarity before they spend years and tuition on the wrong path. She started out as a teacher, and the through-line — helping people understand how they're built — never left.

In this conversation, we cover:

• What Birkman measures that most assessments miss: Not just how you behave, but what you need from other people, and how you react when those needs go unmet.
• The four colors and nine components: Why your "usual," your "needs," and your "stress" scores tell three different stories about the same person.
• Working with your wiring instead of against it: Why, as Lisa puts it, you shouldn't "should" on yourself — and what to build instead.
• Introversion, assertiveness, and restlessness: Erik's own scores become the worked example, and what they explain about energy, recharging, and a renewed ADHD diagnosis.
• Career clarity as a productivity tool: How knowing your wiring narrows an overwhelming field of options down to a first step that actually fits.

This one's for anyone tired of trying to fix themselves into someone they're not — and curious how they're actually wired, so they can work, lead, and live more like themselves. Self-awareness isn't the finish line here; it's the thing that makes the rest of your life work better. Find Lisa's work below.

Connect with Lisa:

• Executive Coaching — LisaMarkerRobbins.com
• Flourish Coaching — Career Clarity for 15–25-year-olds
• LinkedIn

Connect with Erik:

• LinkedIn
• Threads
• Facebook

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