SHOW TRANSCRIPT

This transcript is automatically generated by Descript.  Any errors or omissions are unintentional.

Erik Fisher: [00:00:00] you’ve got to get better at brutal prioritization. If we’re all juggling work and home life, and then maybe a side hustle and we have, you know, a social life with some friends, and then maybe we have a hobby that isn’t just scrolling on our phone like.

We’ve got all these things, but you can’t win in all of them equally, or you’re gonna be losing in all of them or most of them anyway. I mean, this is what, Michael Hyatt talks about when he’s talking about winning at work and succeeding at life. That balance doesn’t mean that we’re giving equal time to everything.

It means that we’re giving the right amount of time to the right things at the right time.

Jeff Sieh: Hello folks. Welcome to Social Media News Live. I’m Jeff c and you’re not.

Conor Brown: And I’m Connor Brown, and this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media and more.

Jeff Sieh: Have you ever questioned what it really takes to be productive in a way that actually works for you? Are you searching for the best [00:01:00] way to manage your time without feeling overwhelmed? Or maybe you’re tired of productivity hacks that don’t fit your lifestyle? If any of that sounds familiar, you are in the right place because this week we’ve got my good friend Eric Fisher, who has spent over a decade exploring what makes people truly productive.

Eric Fisher is the host of the Beyond the To-Do List podcast, and he has talked with top experts about the habit strategies and mindset shifts that lead to real results. And he’s here to share what he’s learned, break down some common myths, and help you take control of your time. So sit back, clear your schedule, clear your mind, and get ready for this week’s episode of Social Media News Live.

Eric, my friend, how are you doing today?

Erik Fisher: I am great. Thanks again for having me back. It’s been a while. I don’t remember the last time, but it’s long. It’s long overdue, so.

Jeff Sieh: yes it is. So

Conor Brown: It has been wild, but it’s always great having Eric on the show. If you don’t know who Eric is. Is you should. Eric Fisher is the producer and host of the Long Running Beyond the To-Do List podcast for over 13 years. We [00:02:00] just did the math, so we know he’s talked with experts on how to implement productivity strategies into their personal and professional lives when he is not thinking about productivity.

He’s watching Star Wars, Marvel movies with his kid singing karaoke in his head, are spending time with his wife. Eric, thanks again for being here and on the Marvel topic. I haven’t started watching yet, but have you started watching the New Daredevil at all?

Erik Fisher: I rewatched the first three seasons before the new season came out, and I am right on it every week. I love a weekly drop of a TV show, much more than a binge, so I’m right there with you. I’m loving it.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah, I watched the first two, but I just got slammed, so I haven’t watched the, the other one. So I’m excited to dive into ‘

Erik Fisher: em with you on the plane, Jeff.

Jeff Sieh: That’s, well, I’ll be studying my talk on the plane, so on the way back. On the way back, yeah, on the way back. Something to look forward to. Anyway, another thing to look forward to is our pals over.

At Ecamm, and you can find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash jeff. Use the code, [00:03:00] Jeff 15. You can say 15% on your first purchase. they are what makes the show possible and, uh, we love them for that. And it’s a great software. It’s a great community. Katie’s over there, doc is over there. All the good people of Ecamm, they answer your questions, make sure you follow them on all the socials.

They have a Discord channel, which is amazingly well. So Ecamm dot com slash Jeff, if you’re wanting to do live production or even any sort of video, you need to check them out and give them a try. But we’re talking about productivity today. And this was an interesting thing that Eric kind of, threw my way when we started talking about coming on the show.

And it’s, there’s no, shortage of people who give you productivity advice. There is some really great YouTube channels out there that have some stuff, but Eric’s coming from an in, in a way that, okay, I. He’s heard all the advice, he knows what’s kind of in the, the space of productivity, but what does it mean to make it personal for you?

Because it, if, if not, it just doesn’t work and you keep bouncing from one thing to another. So that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today, how to personalize your productivity. [00:04:00] And, I’m just gonna jump right into it, Eric, like you’ve interviewed countless experts on productivity, so what’s the biggest misconception people have when trying to boost their efficiency?

Erik Fisher: Well, people are always coming at it from this idea that, you know, once you have that thought, you know what, I need to be more productive. It, the key word there is that word more so they start going about trying to do more. So they, they make a list of all the stuff. They try out apps, they make color coded to-do lists like a, you know, kinda like a preschool thing you hang up on your.

Fridge, but real productivity doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t burn you out. It doesn’t make you think you have to do everything. Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned from talking to so many people, especially like Oliver Berkman recently, is that there’s always more that you could be doing.

And so it kind of is this existential [00:05:00] kind of question of, okay, how much is enough overall? Like, pick your compartment like of annual or quarterly or monthly or weekly or daily or hourly. How much is enough? Like where do you draw the line? And then how do you optimize to get done what you are giving your per self permission to do or ex what you know, what you’ve accepted as tasks from others.

’cause we, you know, we all have bosses, whether it’s us or somebody else. How do we square that away with them as to what’s acceptable? So you really need to, instead of going for the, be more productive and get more done, which you in fact may need to do, but it’s not about the more, it’s about the what and the how many, and being okay with that.

Conor Brown: I love that. And I love this notion of, it has to be personalized, right? Because it’s no one size fits all strategy for [00:06:00] productivity. I remember reading the book time, by um, Dan Pink, where he talks about, you know, there’s early birds who they get up, that’s when they’re at their most productive, there’s night owls, they’re productive later in the day.

But then there’s also third birds, which they get their productivity kind of midway through the day. And you have to put yourself in that position to know, I’m an early bird, I’m a third bird, or I’m a night owl. And kind of apply your productivity around that, right? You see it so much on YouTube too. It’s like, Hey, here’s this productivity strategy.

So you look at it, you’re like, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna download the na, the Notion dashboards. I’m going to get into this. And you realize this isn’t for me because it’s built for somebody else. So Eric, you talk a lot about productivity strategies that work for you. How can someone like identify the workflow that works for them?

Verse just. Seeing whatever YouTube trend is out there and, and following the, the, the crowd.

Erik Fisher: Well, you’ve already tapped into it a little bit with Daniel Pink’s book, [00:07:00] and I actually have another one to suggest for you, which is the Power of When by Dr. Michael Bruce, where he talks about chronotypes. And this is something that I revisited recently and also had him on the show back in January.

for another new book. And essentially he has different, he doesn’t just go with birds, he goes with mammals and he says, that there’s wolves and lions and bears. And then he even adds in dolphins. And so, let’s see if I can, if I can remember correctly, because I retested it myself to find out which one I was.

the, the lions were the early risers to go out and, you know, attack and forage first thing in the morning. Bears were kind of that wake up at the, you know, nor normal time and go to sleep at a normal air. Quotes, normal time wolves were the ones that were up late because they were howling at the moon.

And then dolphins, and I think this is appropriate, kind of have an, an all day, like up and down and up and down. [00:08:00] Last time I think I, when this book came out, I think it was like 20, late 2016, early 2017, I. I was a bear. And that surprised me, and we’ll get into that later because I was rising early all the time.

But these days I’m a dolphin because I find that my energy is coming and dropping. It’s like it’s rising and it’s dropping, and it’s rising and it’s dropping. And now that I know within the last few weeks that I’ve been diagnosed with sleep apnea, I don’t know that that type is necessarily true so much as the symptoms were showing themselves to be dolphin like.

So throwing that out there. But yeah, the, the key here is I, I really think productivity is so much more about, energy relation than it is time. It’s more time, it’s less time management. Productivity is way less about time management than it is about, energy management. And so if you’re trying to live somebody else’s chronotype or schedule, [00:09:00] you’re finding friction at every given moment of the day.

Your brain has rhythms and patterns and even a gear kind of shifting operating mechanism, that I even found out a little bit more about with somebody. me too ster. She talked about this where basically, so you, so to get back to your question, how do we find out when we’re our best or you know, which chronotype one, I would say check your chronotype, which I can give the link to that in a minute.

the other is. Do a time audit, but not of what you’re doing, although that is a component. So I would do that. I would write down, you know, over the course of a week what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and how you felt doing it. Was your energy high? Was your energy mid? Was it low? And so you can kind of track those energy patterns as well as kind of try to match them to the right task once you have more data.

Jeff Sieh: So on this note, Eric, like I wanna talk about like, how do your personal productivity styles evolve over time and, and the strategy you recommend for adapting those changes in your work habits. [00:10:00] Like, I really like what you said that, because I, the more I, the older I get, The less I’m worried about like, you know, time tracking it’s energy, like, like you said, the energy of to, of doing different parts of the day.

And so I used to be like a really a night owl. Like that’s what I was, because I, I worked on a fire station, we had those shift hours and all that stuff in college. But as I got older, I wanted to spend time with my wife and if I’m up all night and then she’s going to school, we were just not seeing each other and it didn’t work even though I was productive.

So I have switched to, I, I go to, I usually go to bed at nine o’clock and then get up at five or earlier and that’s just the way it works now, which people are going, oh my gosh. But I’m trying to get enough sleep in. ’cause you and I have talked and I’ve been on your show talking about how important sleep is.

So the question is like, how do these personal productivity styles evolve? Like, and what strategies do you use to know that you need to change or adapting to these, like the new chronotypes that you [00:11:00] discover by maybe reading this book?

Erik Fisher: Well, I, I mean, I think the key here, and we’ve talked about this before, you and I personally, is you’ve gotta ask the question, what season am I in right now? Like, that’s what you’ve done. Now you’re an empty nester, it’s just you and your wife. Well, it makes sense for you to optimize the time that you have around being able to connect with her.

And so you’ve kind of taken into account her as the main variable and then adjusted accordingly. So, you know, so I would go back to my previous answer and say, screw your chronotype. You can shift your chronotype.

Jeff Sieh: Right,

Erik Fisher: You can make it work. Like, like I said before, like I was testing as a bear back then in like 2016, but I was really operating more like a lion.

I was getting up at, I was getting up at five, you know, this, and I was getting two to three, four hours of work done. That’s, that’s overestimating. But getting up at five and then nobody else was up till like seven something. And I could get a good, solid two hours in and then people would awake and then [00:12:00] I would do things and then, you know, I would shift things, but then I found out, okay, I’ve gotta go to bed at like, I mean, I felt like bed at nine, it was still more like 10.

it goes back to that seasonal thing, right? Like you’re, I mean, Jeff, your season when you had, Teenager college kids slash teenagers slash junior high slash all the way down to newborns. Like, you know, things don’t work the same all throughout that time. Like your productivity, style isn’t, a tattoo.

You get one time and it stays that way forever. Right? It’s like a haircut. Your hair. I mean, I had hair at one point. Now I don’t, that’s a season, so. So it’s really all about seasons you know, and, and again, you can kind of forecast this, that’s one of the positive things about measuring things or, or tracking things quarterly or annually.

or even that five year plan, like right now we have an empty nest except for my junior hire, and that’s a whole different, and boy is [00:13:00] it a whole different season of life than it was when we had two kids. One that was, you know, finishing out high school and going to college and another that was like finishing out elementary school.

Things were way different then.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. I love that you said it’s seasonal and then we’ve got our friend, uh, but mostly Disney saying this is, that’s exactly my schedule. Plus it’s quiet in the early morning so I can, you know, edit video or read emails, you know, that was one of the reasons too, and, and, you know, I wanted to see my wife get up getting ready for the morning.

That’s when we had chit chat, but that’s, I I love the idea of. Seasons. And I think you taught me that, Eric, that like, it’s okay that your seasons change. It’s just you just have to learn and adapt. And Gary says too, yeah, he’s usually an early riser, generally more productive in the morning. And it’s really funny ’cause I was never that way, but as I get older, I’m, it’s the energy thing for me, it’s like energy.

And then I move tasks, like editing video where it’s more of a passive thing. Instead of me trying to be creative, create images, create a new course, do it, whatever it [00:14:00] is, like that, this, and I move those roles to where that energy is the most optimized, I guess.

Conor Brown: Yeah, you’re, you’re planning your day around your creativity as well and will, where you’re gonna need that energy and stuff. And, you know, time aside, Eric, you’ve come across so many different productivity styles and systems,just by interviewing people on your podcast. And I know you’ve also put yourself in, in some systems of productivity, but can you share a time if you’ve ever abandoned, and I’m putting in air quotes, a proven productivity strategy that just, it wasn’t working for you.

Maybe you went into it super optim. Mystic and you’re like, wow, this seems really great. And as you’re actually doing it and implementing it in your life, you’re like, this just doesn’t fit me. I gotta, I gotta abandon that. Has, has it ever happened to you?

Erik Fisher: Yeah, I would say, I mean this, this links right to what we were just talking about. The, and again, it links right to seasons. There was a season where I was a bear, but because of anxiety and stress over a certain project, [00:15:00] over an extended period of time where that project was not completed yet. And then finally was I trained myself or ha habitualize myself into a 5:00 AM riser.

And it didn’t matter if I set my, it didn’t matter if I said I’m gonna sleep in and set my alarm for seven to 7 35 o’clock. I. Did it, would, would not listen. I would try to, and then I went into just laying there and laying there and laying there. So I eventually leaned into it and worked with it. And then over time, that shifted and, and went away.

And I was like, wait, now I want to get up at five o’clock and do it and it doesn’t work. Like I would love, there’s been so many times. So that was like 20 16, 17 through that next few, you know, couple of years there into 2019, I think it was finally around the, pandemic hitting around 2020 where, I was able to sleep in and didn’t want to.

And it had re it had flipped. So it’s like you, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try some, [00:16:00] sometimes you get what you need. The Rolling Stones, I didn’t think I was gonna quote that, but, uh, that’s, that’s what it felt like. And so, and nowadays when I’m like this dolphin, I. And, and again, it’s due to sleep apnea.

So it’s like, I have, like, I’ll have bursts of energy and then I’m like, oh my gosh, I can’t do it. I can’t even stare at a screen. I can’t even like, and I’ll close my eyes and I need to like, like re recharge. so one of the most popular things, or, you know, I, I think the thing is when we say proven productivity, approach or strategy or method, it’s proven for somebody, but that doesn’t mean it’s proven for everybody.

So let’s caveat that. But again, this 5:00 AM early morning workup, you know, wake up and work workout or work on things method. It is not for everybody. If it doesn’t work for you, do not, you know, it, it, I mean, it, it, it may seem like it’s a scam to you and maybe it is to your body and to your mind, but you don’t have to stick with it.

You can [00:17:00] try it out and you can let it go. Find out what works for you.

Jeff Sieh: So on that note, there’s, you know, a lot of people watching this, and I know Gary, I mean, he does podcasting. He’s a, a musician. You know, Dustin, oh my gosh. He’s, he’s juggling his developers and he’s always adding new things to Magi. So a lot of us juggle multiple roles. Right. Like, what’s your advice for balancing productivity in different areas of life without burnout?

We talked about seasons. Like I, I, like, I stayed at home, like I have, my buildings outside of my house. I have a 32nd commute, so I was able to be there for the kids. A lot of people don’t have that luxury or privilege. So what do you, how do you tell people, like to balance this when you’re, you don’t want to ignore your family.

You don’t want to ignore your, the, your loved ones, but you also have all this stuff and opportunities come and, like, like Dustin, I, I like to use him as an example. He’s got, he’s worked really hard and all of a sudden it is like, it’s jumped right. He’s magi has taken off. It’s a great program. A lot of people love it.

[00:18:00] What, how do they, how do you balance this stuff when things, opportunities happen? You gotta change your schedule. You, something happens in your life, your, your parents get sick. So how do you do this without burning out? Because a lot of these productivity tools, what they do is actually add to the, the risk of burnout and not actually take away the stress and friction.

Erik Fisher: Well, first and foremost, I would say you’ve got to get better at brutal prioritization. If we’re all juggling work and home life, and then maybe a side hustle and we have, you know, a social life with some friends, and then maybe we have, we have a hobby that isn’t just scrolling on our phone like.

We’ve got all these things, but you can’t win in all of them equally, or you’re gonna be losing in all of them or most of them anyway. I mean, this is what, Michael Hyatt talks about when he’s talking about winning at work and succeeding at life. That balance doesn’t [00:19:00] mean that we’re giving equal time to everything.

It means that we’re giving the right amount of time to the right things at the right time. And so, even, uh, Greg McEwen is talking about this in Essentialism. He talks all about doing less but doing it better. And so that’s where you come back to prioritization. You have to decide like, okay, of this hierarchy.

And I go back to this with you, Jeff, like you. Centered your schedule first around your wife in this season, so that that priority was there first. Now I think there might be another there. There’s probably a, an easy, second place and third place and fourth place. And once you have those in place, and I know this sounds so oversimplified, but you can make the systems and you can make boundaries and all of that after you’ve done these big rock priorities in place first, the rest of it kind of falls into place and then it gets easier to [00:20:00] say no to all the other stuff and occasionally shift things in and out.

But you’ve gotta have that again, that brutal prioritization first.

Jeff Sieh: Mm. That’s a great point.

Conor Brown: And as we kind of transition into talking too about this energy management, we’ve talked about energy management a lot and its importance. And Eric, you just mentioned, you know, let’s do less but do it better Productivity, not just being about doing more, but also about managing your energy and, and when you want to do stuff, can, can you kind of explain how one goes about understanding their energy management, what projects need certain energy and I’m always wondering like, alright, what is a task where it’s just really boring versus I actually need a different amount of energy to, to do this task?

Right. Can, can you kinda explain how you’ve worked and, and realized, hey, I’m gonna need this amount of energy, it’s better at this time of day to this sort of project matching [00:21:00] energy to, to the tasks itself.

Erik Fisher: Yeah. So for me, oh, I can, I can try to map it and for the most part I can say that it’s typically this, this one to two hour window where I’ve got the most energy. And so at that point when I really need to have clarity of thought and make decisions, then that’s when that’s gonna happen. And so then I match tasks there and there’s usually a good window of.

in the morning, or, you know, luckily it fell kind of around now for us and this conversation. So, but that’s how that works. And so at least I know that. And then there’s another peak in the afternoon. Other people, they may, again, they may get that first peak as they’re rising early or as they’re going.

But, one of the, one of the key things, again, I mentioned, a, a neuroscientist that I talked about or talked with recently, me too. Eroni, she’s got a book called Hyper Efficient, and she basically breaks it down as to, your brain has different [00:22:00] gears. Like if you’ve done a stick shift on a, um, you know, on, on, on a manual vehicle, then you know this, like you have to put, you know, hit the clutch and then you get into one, or se you know, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and you kind of only somebody who knows how to drive one of those or then switches over to an automatic can feel.

How they work together in kind of like synergy or knows what’s going on when an automatic is automatically shifting. And I didn’t get that at first till I learned stick, haven’t driven stick in in years, but I still remember what to do with it and all of that. And that’s what this is. I mean, this, this is the best metaphor that I can give you in terms of that.

And it takes a little bit of practice. It’s kind of figuring out when those, I mean it’s, it’s kind of listing off, okay, what are the main tasks I have for a week? And kind of organizing them, playing chess with them, if you will, across the week as to, ’cause it’s not just certain days, I’ve also, or certain times of day, it’s also certain [00:23:00] days, like Monday and Friday, I don’t record podcasts at all.

That is all admin. And then I. Place them accordingly, because I have less energy on those two days and I already, and I know that. And then, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, those are days where I allow that to happen, but only during certain windows that people can like check those or, or book those. And so then, and it, and it’s always when I have kind of a peak like, creative time, and then I do other admin stuff later.

So that’s some of the example of what I’m doing, but it’s gonna be a little bit contextual for everybody.

Jeff Sieh: So we just talked about peak performance hours, right? So, you know, and, and. How to identify them. And what I’m interested in is a lot of people I know, and I’m gonna go back to Dustin because, uh, this is on top of my mind. ’cause I’ve been thinking about AI stuff all week. And the, let’s say, you know, he’s got his chronotype, he knows when he is most creative, he’s got his, his his peak performance hours.[00:24:00]

But then all of a sudden Chachi PT rolls out this, all this new stuff and he’s gotta implement it into Magi. So he’s actually taking a stick shift and instead of starting in first, he’s gotta slam it into fifth gear. And a lot of people are in that situation, like there’s life changes. We talked about season.

They may be on that cusp of like, you know, spring or fall where it’s not really a season. It’s kind of that middle kind of halfway thing. So how do they plan or structure their day to maximize the productivity when it’s, when it’s changing like that? Because that’s where the friction, at least for me in my life has happened, is when I hit those transitional periods where I, you know, I’ve got, this is where I’m productive, I know what I’m doing, but all of a sudden, oh.

Blankety blank, I’ve gotta do this because this is an opportunity, or this client needs this or this thing happened. So what do you do in those situations?

Erik Fisher: So there’s a medical term called triage, which means that you are doing a quick, scan of a person to see who’s gonna live like this. Okay, this one’s [00:25:00] gonna live okay. They don’t need treatment right now, and you move them on, or, oh, this one needs attention right now. We can’t move them till we deal with it right now.

And so having that kind of mental, I mean, again, life happens, right? So you can be as optimized as you can possibly be, and then life throws you a curve ball and you’ve gotta reschedule everything and you’ve gotta suddenly work on one thing that you don’t, it’s not the right time of day. You don’t have the right time of energy.

You already had something scheduled you were gonna do then and so on. And that’s okay. It’s gonna be okay because as again, you practice that triage mode, so you get good at being able to, like, in, in other words, you almost need to have a checklist, a triage checklist where something gets thrown at you, and based on context of who is this?

Is it you or is it someone else? Is it a client or is it, you know, you realizing something’s, oh my gosh, I’ve gotta jump on this right now because it’s a brand new thing and this is a, you know, like it’s a [00:26:00] window of opportunity that I have to grab or, you know, insert problem here. Once you’ve practiced enough of that and once you have enough of a structure, like you can lean into that and, and here, I mean, it’s, it’s kinda like, oh crap, I suddenly have this report due tomorrow and I’ve gotta pull an all-nighter.

All right, well. As long as you all had everything el I mean, now I would question your productivity system if you suddenly realized that, but it happens to everybody. Usually it’s from outside of ourselves. Back then in college days, yeah, that was a screw up and that was our own, and we had to own it. But, um, one night isn’t gonna kill you, but like a marathon of that, that suddenly, oh, you’ve gotta do this for weeks on end.

You can’t live like that. So just knowing that you can be flexible and, you know, I mean, again, let’s take the, all the, all nighter. I, I never was good at them, by the way. I would get to about two or three in the morning and I’m like, I’ve, I’ve gotta get to some sleep. I’m getting nothing done. And so you, you pound the, the Red Bull.

We didn’t have Red Bull back then, but we do now.[00:27:00]

Jeff Sieh: No dose. Remember those? No dose tablets, you would chew up the, it

Erik Fisher: Oh

Jeff Sieh: caffeine

and at Mountain Dew that would do it. Yeah.

Erik Fisher: So that’s what happens. And, and there’s even stuff, I mean, there’s, there’s a thing I’ve been using recently that’s a chan, it’s called Brain Bullet. And, and I’ve gotta a deal with them that I’m working on. But, uh, it, it, it is a cool little chew and it’s got like 80 milligrams of caffeine and then 160 of L-theanine.

So it’s like two cans of Coke, but then it’s got twice the L-theanine. And I’ll tell you, I’ll, I’ll pop it in my mouth and I’ll start chewing it, and then it’s, and it dissolves and it’s gone. And I don’t get any jitters. I just get the, like, it’s not even a jolt, it’s more like a, oh, I feel I’m, I’m present again.

So, sorry, I’m not trying to like sell products here, but I’ve been kind of fascinated with how it’s working.

Jeff Sieh: So you mentioned triage and it’s really funny you said that ’cause I have been watching The Pit, which is on Max now, which is a fabulous medical draw drama. And [00:28:00] just like last week it was the, they were triaging and they were just doing slap bracelets when they were coming in the door because they had a massive event.

And I’m not gonna ruin it for anybody. But anyway, that was a really it, the reason I like the show is, is because it’s the real most real. Er that people are saying, I have a friend who’s an e and r doctor and he, you know, this is what it is like, but how they triage, like they slap they, they do a quick assessment, they slap a bracelet on it, and it goes from there into the process.

So if you want a good example of what real triage is, like the last couple episodes of, the pit on the max is a great example of that.

Conor Brown: I am squeamish, so I’ll go ahead and, uh, avoid at

Jeff Sieh: pass on that one. Yeah.

Conor Brown: Thank you very much. we were just talking about things to kinda increase our, our, our energy levels, and I think no matter if you’re, you know, to. Put it into terms of what we’ve been talking about, a bear or a wolf or whatever. You’re gonna get into a slump for, you know, the everyday person.

It’s gonna be that afternoon slump if you’re in a nine to five sort of position. But at [00:29:00] some point throughout your workday, your productivity cycle, you’re gonna slump. Do you, both of you, I’ll ask both of you, ’cause I know you both have talked about this. Any,strategies for overcoming that afternoon slump?

I like going for a walk. You know, I like getting some sort of energy boost, but I also know, like, there are other things. Like if I go out into my living room and I watch a little YouTube just to kind of break outta something, I want something that’s going to. Get me out of the slump, but then also push me to be productive again, not further spiral into an even darker slump, which I feel like sometimes, you know, watching YouTube or, or something can be a little different.

So any productivity or any strategies around getting over that, that slump, Eric?

Erik Fisher: Well, there’s a bunch of different things you can do. I like, so I’m gonna go with the thing you just said, which is, you know, you get up. I’m assuming that if you’re sitting there and, you’re at a desk and you’re staring at a screen as your normal work mode, that then you getting up [00:30:00] outside and getting into some sunlight, really helps you out.

And, and here’s why. ’cause one, you’re flipping all the switches. You were, you were sitting, so now you’re standing, you were indoors. So now you’re outdoors. You were staring at a screen. Now you’re not. So that’s why I would almost advise against the YouTube, but I totally get you. I do that too. because it’s, you know, sitting and sitting and mindlessly letting something fun wash over you versus like intently staring at a screen can be somewhat different.

hydrating can definitely help. you were you, I mean, and oh, not just the standing, but not just the sitting, but standing, but also the stationary, but moving, that’s another switch. So it’s doing all of those and doing all of those as a break over 15 minutes. Oh, another one is, um, if you were isolated, call somebody.

Have a phone call, socialize. And so it, and it also works the other way around for someone that’s social, for their job isolate. If you were standing, go sit if you, so. You know, whatever, you know, just look, [00:31:00] make your, make up your fake panel and then flip all the switches, the opposite one, like a circuit breaker so that you turn off the expending of energy and then finish the break.

Flip ’em back, go back to work, and you will find a huge difference has happened. There are other things too. I mean, often we find that we have a slump in the afternoon. this is where you can do a nap. again, Jeff, I know you and I have both found lots of. Pacino, that’s where you, you know, either have a shot of, a caffeine and lay down.

I mean, again, caffeine takes about 20 minutes to hit your bloodstream. So that’s a good time to just, even if you don’t fall asleep, in fact, maybe not even falling asleep. Find a chair that you can lean back in, close your eyes. Maybe you have a blindfold that you use and maybe some noise canceling air earbuds or headphones or something.

And just let yourself go. Set an alarm on your, you know, go and do not disturb with your, your Apple watch or whatever you’re using. And, you know, have it wake you up in 20 minutes or, or ping you in 20 [00:32:00] minutes even if you don’t fall asleep. The studies show that if your eyes are closed and you’re not excessively focused on a problem at that moment or explicitly focused on work, that mental break.

Can have the, you know, almo, they can have the power of a nap even if you don’t fall asleep. And even if you do fall asleep, you don’t wanna go too long. ’cause if you start getting down into the beginning of REM cycles or you know, actually falling asleep, that’s when, you know, we’ve all had this,

Jeff Sieh: You wake up and you feel sick. Yeah. You’re like, whoa, I’m

Erik Fisher: So I, I, I typically will set mine for like 30 minutes because it takes me five to seven minutes to even just kinda get comfortable and then it happens. So that’s, that’s what I do. I’m trying to think of what if, if there’s anything else. Sometimes a snack, even a little bit of hydration and a, a, a very small but health, like, nuts, you know, having some nuts and, and some water or something like that.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. So for me, one, and we talked about this before, like I started to [00:33:00] wind down sequence and I try to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. ’cause I’ve read more and more how important that is. I mean, even fighting like dementia, like in your elderly years, which I’m getting elder. And so, I want to make sure to fight that off ’cause I’m already a little hoo.

But, That’s important. And it’s like I start at nine, but I like read for a while. I get away from screens and then I go to bed. The other thing, that I really like is the, I use a nap called Focus to Do. And what it does is takes my task list and then it puts it to a Pomodoro timer so I can work on that task.

It shows it to me, and then it counts down. And then I get a five minute break and I get up and I usually walk to the house or walk up and down, check the mail, do something physical. Then I come back and after so many of those breaks, it gives you a 15 minute break. And so that helps me prioritize it, especially if I can move those priorities on what I’m working on based on energy.

Like I mentioned podcasts, for me, it’s more of a passive editing thing, instead of like really like concentrating and trying to come up with a new idea or whatever. So I can move those tasks to that size. So, you know, and I wanna pull up [00:34:00] this from Dustin and he says, you know, I like it that he knows himself so much.

He goes, I’ve been out running burnout for about a year now. So on that note, like what are some signs that someone is prioritizing tasks over energy management, and then how can they course correct Eric?

Erik Fisher: Yeah. So one of the things that, man, I’m trying to think of, um, what, what you’re doing is, is is essentially if you are putting tasks over, over

energy Yeah.

You’re gonna see it, like, you’re gonna feel it, like you’re gonna feel like you’re being ruled by a to-do list, right? Like it’s gonna feel like.

What do I have to do now? What do I have to do now? What do I have to do now? Like, you’ll, you’ll constantly feel like you’re checking things off a list, which can feel good, but at the same time, you’re not gonna feel motivated. You’re gonna feel like, you know, you’re ticking boxes, but that’s all you’re doing.

And so, what you wanna do is essentially, you know, [00:35:00] you’re, you’re having headaches, you’re having fatigue, you’re even having retinal restlessness. So again, this is where you want to come down and say, okay, well what of these things are the easier things to do? Which things can I check off? that’s one of, actually, that’s one of the break things I would’ve, also suggested had I thought of it at the time, which is save some of the things that you, need to do.

If they’re fun things to do, use that as your launch back in as, ooh, now I get to do this. This is my fun, this is my fun thing. I know that’s kind of sometimes hard for us to, to equate like, Ooh, this task is fun. But invariably we can all go through our day and say, well, which of these things do I wanna do versus which of these things do I have to do?

And when it all feels like it’s have to do, none of it’s gonna happen. Or at least not happen as, as fun or as as easy. one of the other things you wanna do though is, again, you, you’re gonna match stuff. We, we talked about this already, where you’re matched the right task [00:36:00] to the right time of day, to the right, energy level, et cetera.

And it’s kind of that Venn diagram. And, and again, only from. Having done your homework as to when and what, and how can you actually start to align those and, and make the circles like as much as you want to. You want those circles to converge into like one circle where they’re so overlapped it doesn’t even matter, right?

but one of the other key things I would say is, build in like energizers to your day. And what I mean by that is, maybe it’s a quick errand that is enjoyable. You know, it’s like, or, or maybe it’s a, you know, it’s a special snack that you reward yourself with for getting through a certain time.

Or maybe

Jeff Sieh: a drink, Connor, not a drink. Okay? You gotta be

Erik Fisher: no, no, no, no. A different kind of drink or, or maybe like me, you, you bust out like a, a Bluetooth speaker and you hit like one of the real, like you play some, play a really loud Jimi Hendrix song suddenly while you go and walk around the house and [00:37:00] like get pumped up. You know, it’s like changing the stimulus instead of just stationary.

I mean, we talked about this where it’s flipping the switches, but again, most of us aren’t doing that. We are, most of us are gluing ourselves, even if it’s a standing desk and a sitting desk at the same time, and we switch between them. We’re at that desk. Maybe you need to use an iPad and maybe you need to change up the scenery and go and sit and relax and do email that way.

Maybe you need to ideate by talking it into your phone instead of staring at a screen like. All these different modalities will, because sometimes, again, if you’re in one of those modes where it’s like, I have so much to do and I, and it all just looks like gray, then you gotta break it up into, okay, well then this one’s black and that one’s white.

And that’s, that’s where I’m gonna do that. Like you have to, like, that’s what I’ve had to do. Otherwise I get bored sitting here all day.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Well you mentioned the different modalities [00:38:00] and going different. So it’s really funny you said that. ’cause I have like Blues Clues Thinking chair where I go and I, where I write my emails and stuff, like, it’s a different spot that for some reason is where I, I read and I can consume content, but then I was where I create stuff too.

It’s kind of like a creative, like, I don’t know, fortress of Solitude that I kind of have that I like to use. So I, I think, I thought that was really interesting that you said that. I wanna pull up some comments from our friends really quickly before we move on. one of the things is, you know, but mostly Disney says, I have trouble coming back from breaks.

Yeah. I, I feel your pain. And, you know, Dustin says most days is about 50% ticking boxes and 80% doing things that weren’t on the task list. But needed immediate attention. And yes, that was is the correct math. and then Rich Graham says, I get stuck in a loop. I need to do X before I should do Y. And then you know, I got to do Z.

And that relies something on Y. And like that’s a problem, especially if you’re solepreneur and you have a team or a va. How do you handle that, Eric? When you’re waiting on [00:39:00] stuff and you have to hit the brakes and you have a team, you’re waiting on this document or this image to post this thing and like it sucks the air of the energy that you’re doing on this task.

So what do you do on those types of situations?

Erik Fisher: So my brain just went in two different directions at once. So we’re gonna go with the X, Y, Z. So if I’m waiting on people to do things for me or deliver things to me so I can then do my part of it, then I have to have a list for myself. That’s just me, stuff that I can switch over to, so I’m not just sitting in waiting mode and making them an excuse as to why I’m not doing anything.

And, and again, that’s two separate lists. And so you’ve got the one where it’s circling around and you’re part of a team, or you’re parting, you are part of a workflow, but then there’s the, where you’re the only part of the workflow. So you have those two different lists, or maybe it’s three different lists, I don’t know.

But anyway, The other piece to this that answers the, well, I need to do X because then I can do do [00:40:00] Y and then I’m waiting on that for Z and and so on. One of the things that I’ve discovered is, and, and I’m really, and, and Jeff, you know this, you’ve, we’ve talked about this years ago. There was, there was a project that, uh, I had to do, well, it happened again with something else recently, but it wasn’t nearly as big.

It was a smaller thing. But it’s one of those things where if you don’t know what you don’t know about a project or a task, then it’s as big as it can fill your mind, like it will expand to fill. Oh my gosh, that’s a three hour thing. And so this three hour thing I just said, all right, you know what? I’m just gonna, what’s the first thing that I need to do about this thing?

Like, what’s the, the first thing or the next thing that has to be done with it? I started it. And got about two to five minutes into it and realized, I’m gonna be done with this after about 15 minutes, [00:41:00] and I was kicking myself because that thing I kept putting off thinking it was gonna be a three hour thing, was only a 15 minute thing, and it reawakened this.

Okay. You know what, you’ve gotta start identifying for that list of me stuff, for when I’m waiting for other people to give me and, you know, deliver me stuff. Whether it’s a client, whether it’s a, a, a teammate or a vendor, or, you know, in, insert here, my stuff can be, okay, what’s the next thing? Or what’s the one first thing that I can do for that project to kickstart it that, you know, and give myself a timer of two to five minutes to just kind of test the waters and see how deep it really is.

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. Yeah. So interesting. You mentioned a couple things. Uh, one thing is, made me think of open loops. Like I hate to have open loops. Like if there’s something in my brain that I need to do, like, you know, they were talking about in the comments, I can’t remember who exactly was. Rich Graham said it.

Like, those things bother me. And [00:42:00] so the more I can shut down loops, I think that is the, the most important thing for me to do. but that’s not always easy to handle. So I thought what you just said is, is pretty good. But something, go

Erik Fisher: let me ju, let me throw in here real quick. Sometimes when, when I was just explaining that whole, this thing gets this three hour thing, I hadn’t even touched it yet. Like I didn’t do any of work on it at all. But in my head it lived. It was an unopened loop, but it was already an open loop because I was already thinking about it and stressing about it.

And so starting to close the loop was starting on it at all. I.

Conor Brown: Right.

Jeff Sieh: And, and Connor knows this, ’cause I’ve talked to him about it too, is that I am very, I’m horrible, even after all this time of estimating how long it takes to do something right? Like we all think, oh, I can just do this and then I can bang it out and then it’s like, oh, I didn’t know I had to do this and this and this.

And that’s what. Struggles, and that’s also an open loop. But I’ll tell you something, that’s not an open loop. But if it’s been an open loop for you, you [00:43:00] need to rectify it today. It’s our friends over at Ecamm, like you could go get that today and shut that open loop down by going to Ecamm dot com slash Jeff and using code Jeff 15 to save 50% on your first purchase.

By the way, it’s an awesome program. That’s what we use to make this show podcasters love it. Eric loves it. Connor loves it. We all love it here, so check it out at Ecamm dot com slash Jeff. Alright, Connor, I’ll let you do your loop.

Conor Brown: M’s. The best. It’s, uh, help you be a better, more productive live streamer. We talk about AI so much on this show and, and how it’s changing pretty much everything, whether it’s content creation, helping us brainstorm, and then also helping us with tasks through AI automations. So many tasks are, are, are being automated.

That might have fulfilled up our to-do list, you know, a year ago. But Eric, what do you think productivity will look like with AI side by side in the next like five to 10 years? Is it gonna be something where there’s no more quote, you know, mundane tasks and [00:44:00] AI is doing it all? Or we gonna say, you know, we’re really focused on the big projects on doing them right?

Or is productivity gonna be about how many AI automations can we stack up and, and put in place? Where do you see it going in the next few years? Here?

Erik Fisher: I, I mean, again, AI is this thing that everybody’s interested in now at the moment, and I think rightfully so. I think we don’t know what we don’t know. I. When it comes to it, I think we, I think in a lot of ways we think it’s going to change things and it already has, and we know this. but, I, I think when it comes down to it, like we don’t know, like I, we, anybody who can predict or is trying to predict right now what things are gonna look like when it comes to AI and task management.

I mean, there’s brand new things. Thing is, is like. let’s go actually, let’s, let’s do some applicability here of some of the stuff we already talked about. So, in order for AI to be helpful to you, it’s gonna either need to do stuff for you [00:45:00] that you’re then not doing, or it’s gonna need to help you organize your time, your day, your energy level.

So imagine being able, but you would still need to do some of the plugging in of the data for it to then be able to, to be your assistant, your intern, like, like we know, right? So it would need to know your chronotype, it would need to know your task list. It would need to know which tasks you like to do or, or which tasks you wanna, delegate.

And, and once you can have kind of these buckets and have it be, Aware of those things as well as like reading your email. This is, this is partly why I’m kind of like, oh man, apple is still behind, again, behind is not the right word. Apple is still doing its Apple thing where they’ll, they’ve announced

Jeff Sieh: steal.

Erik Fisher: Yes. Well, they perfect, they polish

Jeff Sieh: Okay. That’s what we call it.

Erik Fisher: and they personalize. Like, Jeff, you and I did a, an episode of my show about this when they announced the Apple Intelligence stuff. The thing that I was really excited about was it being [00:46:00] able to really dive in and privately and securely know me, or at least what it knew from me, from my devices with my permission and be able to step in and offer assistance and help, et cetera.

And that’s, I still think where I want to see it go. But for now I’m very much like, okay, keep it siloed, keep it safe, and let it do its thing and figure out how to make it do its thing better over time. And I think that’s what we’re seeing.

Jeff Sieh: Hmm. So because we’ve had these massive shifts in the way we do work in the last couple years, so remote and hybrid work have shifted the way that people structure their time, right? So, I mean, now you can actually take home that work with you that you never have, were able to do before. Let’s just expect it to work from home.

So how has this shifted the way people structure their time and what, is there any new productivity challenges that have emerged from this shift that you’ve seen?

Erik Fisher: Well, even before I was fully remote, there was this thought [00:47:00] that, just because we can work anytime and anywhere doesn’t mean we should. the lines were blurring. And once, once I realized that I was, you know, I was not remote working, but I was checking my work email, at home on my phone, and I’m like, wait a second.

They’re not paying me for this time. I may be salaried, but I am not sitting in my cubicle. And, you know, so I just, I, I immediately was like, oh, you, you know what disconnect I, turned off that work email. And that was a role that, made sense to do. There are other times though, where. Having that quick back and forth, change makes sense.

I, think one of the key things when it comes to, remote and or hybrid work is this idea of communication overload. If we don’t have, way to have boundaries for those slack pings or the, you know, I mean, remember when it was where literally it was [00:48:00] Skype and email and texting and phone calls, and it could be the same person that would randomly use any one of those four things, but you didn’t know based on which one they were doing, what hierarchy of it’s, oh, they’re calling me, this is gonna be an emergency.

Hey, what’s up?

What, like, coworker, what are you thinking? Slack me? or, email. Like, if this isn’t important email me, you know,

Jeff Sieh: I did a little jig when, Skype died. I did a little dance.

Erik Fisher: Yeah So did I. So RIP Skype, so it’s, that communication overload where you’ve gotta have a hierarchy of channels. And if you’re in an organization that does not have a hierarchy, that it goes something like if it’s a phone call, ’cause people still do those, that’s an emergency. less urgent, but still somewhat important is texting or slacking, depending.

below that is email, and then below that is, I’m, not even sure what, but ultimately, keep mind [00:49:00] people are going through their day with zoom fatigue and, too many notifications and too many jumping from channel to channel to channel to channel without a hierarchy just doing these quick check-ins or Hey, can we have a five minute call?

Or, you know, so that’s one piece. The other piece is then again, because we can. Work anytime and anywhere the boundaries are eroded. And so if your laptop is with you, that’s why one of the things that I would used to do was I would use my laptop at home and then I would, when I was done for the day, I would unplug it and I would put it away in a bag and I would put that bag like under my bed or in the corner of my, closet so that I had to go multiple steps to get there.

And of course then that went away with like, well now my phone’s in my pocket all the time, like I talked about earlier with the work email.

So What are those boundaries?

Jeff Sieh: you can take your phone and freeze it in like a, a jar of water, just like a credit card. Like, you know, they used to say to get it out, so just put your phone in the [00:50:00] freezer. In a, in a glass of water, and then when you really need it, you just wait until thaw out. So that’s my tip for the day.

Conor Brown: You will be constantly buying rice to re-put it in. I don’t even know if that works anymore, to be honest. as we wrap up, Eric, it’s always, always great to talk to you about so many,productivity, tips and all this stuff. You’re always talking about the latest trends on, on your show for productivity.

So, simple question to kind of wrap everything up. What’s one productivity trend right now that excites you and what’s one trend that you think might be overhyped?

Erik Fisher: Well, I will say, I’m gonna go with the one that’s, that I think is overhyped, and here’s why I, I think it’s this whole habit tracking thing. Now I get it. habits are great. atomic Habits is a great book. Having the right habits is a good thing, but when it comes down to it, it’s really training yourself to habitually react to a certain stimulus at the right time in the right place.

And that’s great. However, I think. [00:51:00] We are much more fluid beings than that, or flexible beings or should be. And so it, you know, habits are one thing, but then you’ve gotta untrain them and retrain when it comes to seasons. And that’s why I am really, again, we’ve been talking about, I mean, the thing that I’m most excited about is I’ve been trying to figure out ways to have more energy.

And the whole energy based planning thing is something that I’ve really been leaning into in terms of those gears and the, the brain and. I’m especially excited to see how furthering that study, or, or self-management or self-assessment and self-management with that is going to go. because one of the things that I, I mean, I’ve definitely been lacking energy or, or not just lacking it, but, working through a low threshold of it, but also not paying attention to when it was rising and falling and being able to really like, you know, almost like surfing, ride the wave and get way more done with what’s [00:52:00] available to me at the time.

And then when it’s lower, still feel like I’m content with what I’m getting done there as well.

Jeff Sieh: That’s awesome. This has been such a good conversation. We’ve gotten, so many great comments, but Eric Fisher, I want, uh, uh, this last part of the show for people that I know you, you’re speaking, you’ve got your amazing podcast. So I’m gonna give you a few minutes at the end here to, promote yourself and let people know where they can find out more about you.

The floor is yours.

Erik Fisher: Yeah. Well, I would welcome anybody to head on over to beyond the to-do list.com. That’s where new episodes are coming out all the time. Great conversations that I am thrilled to have with people, some of which I’ve mentioned in this conversation. and there’s a huge back catalog, again, we did the math, it’s been almost 13 years of conversations, almost weekly, 500 plus episodes.

It’s getting near 600 now. And, so you’ll find something in that catalog to give you a new idea, a fresh creative twist or [00:53:00] whatever. And if you don’t, there’s a message at the top or a little like, contact button where you can say, Hey, do an episode on this and I will listen. So I look forward to, to seeing you

Jeff Sieh: Yeah. My favorite, he’s sat him on a couple times, is, Todd Henry. I really like the, your interviews that you’ve got him on, like what, four or five times? I think.

Erik Fisher: Yeah.

Jeff Sieh: He’s a. His books are great. So, he’s got, Eric’s got some really, really, heavy hitters over there. I mean, Eric’s a heavy hitter as well, but I mean, he’s got some really great, I always find more books.

He, he makes me buy way too many books by listening to his podcast. make sure you check that out beyond the to do list.com. Connor Brown has a new channel that, you know, I think is pretty awesome. So tell us about that Kana Brown, what you got going on?

Conor Brown: At Theme Park, happy Hour at Theme Park. Happy hour. Over on Instagram. I’m showing you where to get the best drinks in the theme parks here in Orlando. We have a new theme park coming, epic universe. I’ll be there opening day in May. If you want to go there, reach out to me, [00:54:00] Connor, C-O-N-O-R, at vacation kingdoms.com.

I can get you there and if you follow at theme park, happy hour, you’ll learn the best drinks that are there when it debuts. Eric, I’m with you on the habit tracker, but Jeff, I’d like you to get in the habit of saying, I love you, Connor, every single day. That’s all I, ask.

Jeff Sieh: I do, I look at the mirror and say that. so, I just wanna give a big shout out to all of our friends here that have showed up today, asked so good questions. Mr. Dustin out from Magi saying so good. but mostly Disney saying, great show gang. one of the things I wanted to show up, earlier that, mostly Disney said, he goes, I was literally in the car heading to the range to hit balls and turn around to come watch the show.

I’m hoping he’s talking about golf is what I’m hoping. So let’s go, let’s say it’s golf, not just any, thing. So, uh, thank you so much for watching, but mostly Disney. Thank you guys so much. We will be back next week. Thank you, Eric. Thank you everyone. Thank you Ecamm, for sponsoring the show. You can find out more about them at Ecamm dot com slash Jeff.

And with that, we’ll see you guys next time. Bye everybody.