278: Creating Productivity in Your Workday  

Michele Williams: Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice.  Today, I'm joined by Leslie Shreve, a workload and productivity expert, and the founder of Productive Day. She's also the author and creator of Taskology, a comprehensive system designed to help manage tasks, time, email, and information. In our conversation, we'll explore the distinction between organization and productivity, uncover where time might be slipping away in your workday, and dive into much more.

Every day, empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health, and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.

Hi, Leslie. Welcome to the podcast.

Leslie Shreve: Thanks so much, Michele, for inviting me to be a guest today. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Michele Williams: Yeah, I am too. So, Leslie, we're going to talk about time, time management, productivity, all of those things that as business owners, we're looking at not only for ourselves but for our team. But before we do that, I'd love to start the podcast with hearing a little bit of your background, a little bit of your story, and what made this a passion for you or the area that you really wanted to focus your business on. So, take us back a little bit and tell us how you got here.

Leslie Shreve: Sure. So, it goes way back. It's actually interesting because when I was very little, I knew I wanted to be in the corporate world. My dad was at Black and Decker for more than 30 years. And I remember one Saturday, he asked me, would you like to come to work with me, I have something special to do there, and do you want to accompany me? And I said, sure. And he was just going to be there for a little while to do something. He wanted me to help him, put little playing cards on all the executive desks. And so, he had gotten a whole deck of cards made, it was the Ace program. I had no idea what it was, but I went to help him and I was probably 8, 9, or 10. I went in there and I saw this big corporate office and I saw this amazing navy blue carpet and the plush offices and all the lighting, and I thought, wow, I want to be in corporate someday. So, my career path was always aimed towards business, and As I got through college and got my business degree and I was working at places like Black Decker and McCormick & Company, you know, during the summers and the winter breaks and everything, I got out of college and landed right in corporate. Didn't predetermine that industry, if you will, but I landed in purchasing and contracting and material management, something very different than what I do now. So fast forward 13 years and I got to a place of maybe feeling stagnant or that I just wasn't using my innate talents in a way that could help serve others. I decided to quit and start my own business, and what's funny is that when I told my sister that I was going to do that, I said, guess what I'm going to do. I thought it was really obvious because I am, you know, organized and productive and efficient and effective. I thought she might understand that I was starting my business way back then to help people get organized. I'll come back to that in just a second. But the very first thing she said was, you're going to be a home decorator. I said, thank you, but no, because I do love decorating my home and helping people with that, but it isn't something I would do formally or professionally, but it was a nice compliment. I said, no, I'm going to help people get organized. So fast forward another year and in that first year, I thought, wow, this is not for me because I was working with folks both in homes and in businesses. This was 21 years ago. So, we just celebrated 21 years this month. And I look back and I think, wow, I learned really quickly that it really was corporate that is near and dear to my heart. I love working with business owners and leaders to help them not just become organized but be more productive. So, the lesson I learned quickly was, sure you could, you could find or file something in three seconds or less, but that's not going to do you any good if you're buried in email if you can't get the time you need to work on your most important strategies, and if you can't gather or plan or prioritize all of your many, many tasks and follow-ups, you are so behind the eight ball. So, I quickly dispensed with the whole notion of getting organized because that's not it. That's not even the first step. That's not even a step. It's a byproduct. Because when you learn how to become more efficient, effective, and productive, automatically you're going to be more organized, but the name of the game really is helping people be more productive. And yes, I am very, very passionate about this because it always has been something that's a part of me. Now I just love serving others and helping them streamline their workday so that they can actually get back to what they want to do with their time. Because I'm pretty sure it's not going to be spending one more minute in the email inbox.

Michele Williams: Yeah. One sentence I wrote down, that I pulled from that and you tell me if you think it is true based on what you said, organization is a byproduct of productivity.

Leslie Shreve: That's true.

Michele Williams: You know, I am relatively organized myself. I'm a high achiever and a high producer. My mother jokes with me. She's like Michele, you do more in a day than I do in a week. And you know, sometimes she's right and sometimes not. I mean, you know, she's totally effective at what she does. She has a slower pace than I do and I just move fast. I remember where things are and what they're doing. And I'll say something that I learned in college. My degree is in management of information systems. So, MIS and administrative management. So, let's just take all the information and workflows and put them all together. My first job was working for Dun and Bradstreet Software, which was Management Science America when I went and then we merged with our number one competitor, which was McCormick and Dodge, to form Dun and Bradstreet Software. And so, it was just information overload, but there was a lot of organization and workflows. What's most important, is what has to be done before anything else has to be done. What's a critical path like that was just constant. And I remember my professor, even before I got to that stage, he said to me, he said that in his practice he had seen most people had an innate ability to either assimilate or to dissimulate. So, to take all the pieces and put them together or to take the whole and break it apart. And he said it's a special talent to be able to do both. I have the talent and the ability to do both. I can see pieces and I can see what the whole is going to become. I can see the whole and I can break it down into its pieces. I think it's like an engineering type of brain. Right?

Leslie Shreve: That's fantastic.

Michele Williams:  Yeah, it really is. And I didn't appreciate it when he told me. I was just like, yeah, that's cool. I mean, I was 21 years old. I don't think that life had really kind of played in enough for me to understand that. And so, interestingly, as I have matured and grown and run multiple companies, I can see now, like, to me, when I look at things, it bubbles to the top. I can tell what's important, I can tell what's a critical path, I can tell what needs to be done, where I need to spend a lot of time, where I don't, and how to prioritize it. It is almost so well-honed if you remember the old. When I was in corporate, we had. That was it, Oh, gosh. What is the book where you had to learn A, B, and C? And these are your A's. And these are. Oh, it wasn't Covey, was it?

Leslie Shreve: Well, that is Franklin, one of them.

Michele Williams: Franklin Covey. We had the little, the little leather books and.

Leslie Shreve: Me too.

Michele Williams: Right. They sent us through all of that training to learn all of that back in the night, the late 80s and early 90s. Uh-huh.

Leslie Shreve: Me too.

Michele Williams: And, ah, I mean, I understood it was good for what it was. But you, you know, any process is only as good as the way that we apply it and stay consistent with it. It's the inconsistencies that usually catch us. It's not the lack of the process itself in most cases. Sometimes it is, but not often it's our ability to stick with it, but I would be curious to hear you share with us once you determine the difference between organization and productivity, because, in some ways, I kind of think we merge those two words and they really are very different.

Leslie Shreve: Very.

Michele Williams: Well, why don't we start there, Leslie? How about giving us just a real brief definition of organization and productivity so that as we go through the rest of the podcast, all of the listeners are kind of in the same place as we are with that?

Leslie Shreve: Sure. So being organized is really about being able to find what you need when you need it. It's going to be in the same place every time. And when you store things, you're going to put like. With like, meaning you're not going to put the same item or the same bit of information in two or three or four different places, because that's a disaster. So, when you're organized, you're definitely going to be able to find something in a place where you can count on it, you can trust it, it's a reliable system. When we talk about productivity, productivity is about the finished product out the door. So that could be a finished task, could be a finished product, could be anything that you can start and finish, whether it takes a little bit of time or a lot of time. But it's really finishing something you start and wrapping that up, whatever it is. I'll add a third one to the mix here, and that is efficiency, and when you're efficient, which is really the name of the game, along, you know, sort of, connected very tightly with productivity is how much time and energy and effort you're spending to get something done. So, you want to be super-efficient by spending as little time and as little energy and effort as possible to get something from start to finish.

Michele Williams: Okay. So, I know that we have people listening that are overwhelmed. As I shared with you before we came on the podcast, the majority of listeners to my podcast are business owners, which that right there can be overwhelming regardless of what the business is. But the business that we're in, the industry that we're in is detail-heavy. Like tiny little detail heavy. Every little thing. We're managing thousands of pieces and parts to either build the home, architect the home or the space, design the home or the space, and then furnish it, and then install it. You know, just managing the light fixtures in the house is a lot of moving pieces and parts. And so, the amount of emails that come in that are, I'm going to say just within the business itself, the generalized information. Then we've got communication that happens with our clients. We have communication with our vendors, we have communication with our subcontractors, and the people listening. I know right now their inboxes are just blowing up. I know their to-do list. I used to always joke that mine has. Mine's like rabbits and have babies at night. Like, every time I come in, there are 10 more things on the list. I'm like, how did that get there? But I know that they're in a very similar predicament and they want to be productive. They want to get things done, and they want to get the right things, the right things done, not just get things done. And I'm going to speak for myself. I use Asana as my task management software. I love seeing that unicorn fly across that screen like it does something to my heart. So even sometimes when I kind of get off my plan and do five things that were not on my plan, I write them down so that I can check them off so that I can see him fly across the screen because it makes me feel better. Right. You know that I actually got those things done. But I know that our listeners are feeling very overwhelmed, and they really want to focus on the right things at the right time and, kind of, have an idea of what can, what can be left, or what will naturally work its way out as the byproduct, because we tend to want to jump right into that email. We want to go for what I'm going to call the low-hanging organizational fruit. For me, when I get like that, I'm like, let, me clean up my desk. Let me go put the pillows in the chairs properly. Let me do something external to me that makes me feel like I'm in control. And so, you're saying that that's not even the first place to start, or maybe the second or third. It is a byproduct. How did they know where to start?

Leslie Shreve: That's an interesting way to look at it.

Michele Williams: Because they're shaking right now at all the things they have to do. So, we just need to tell them how to get started.

Leslie Shreve: That's right. It's interesting the way you put that; you were talking about small, achievable things that make you feel good before you dive into something maybe perhaps a little deeper. And that's all of us, really, what folks are looking for is a way to dig into the huge amount of things they have to do in a day and just keep that ball rolling, you know, keep that momentum going. And what people are running into is sort of that getting things done in fits and starts, and they get something done, but then they're interrupted or they try to get something done and then there's a distraction or they have to pick up the phone or, you know, and there's kind of running around chaotically in the day because so much is going on. And it makes it very hard to keep your momentum and to keep that focus and work in the zone if you know what I mean.

Michele Williams: Yes.

Leslie Shreve: So what you're looking for when you were talking about, you know, crossing something off the list or even fluffing the pillows before you really dig into work, what happens is that when a lot of people use, whether it's, you know, a planner or, or they've got big pads, little pads, spiral pads, notepads, post it, note, legal pads, it doesn't matter, Word documents, Excel, spreadsheets, whiteboards, it doesn't matter what you're using as a tool. One of the biggest challenges is that when a person selects that tool, there isn't total clarity of all their tasks and their follow-ups. What I mean by that is that first of all, if they are choosing paper, it's not a digital approach, which makes it very difficult to keep track of and plan and prioritize things to do because it's on paper and paper is a tool, not a system. So if you think about putting things on a legal pad, you've got a gazillion things listed, but they're not going to be in any kind of order. There also might be a mix of big things, little things, ideas, multi-step tasks, projects, and teeny tiny follow-ups. You know, it's just like a grab bag of things going on there. So what people do when they have a list like that in front of them is that they instinctively kind of hold back from those things that are too big or that they say, well, I don't, I don't even know where to start that today, or oh, I need Joe for that today, and he's not here, so let me go to the next thing. And that's, you know, I can't wrap my brain around that. And they go for something small and achievable. Happens every single time. So in the system that I teach, everything is small and achievable. And not only that, but we get it all into one single inventory. What I mean is that when we build the task list that we build in our system, it's going to bring everything together, everything you need to do, have to do, want to do, even dream of doing, but not all in one list or all in one day, but all in one system. We talked earlier about some of the places where time and productivity are hiding in your workday before we hopped on the podcast today. And this is one of the major areas where time and productivity are hiding, and that is how you're doing task management.

Michele Williams: Okay.

Leslie Shreve: A huge deal.

Michele Williams: So, I'll just, I'm going to be very, just open and real here. Okay. I have always been a list maker. I get things done, but I have things on the list. And that's what keeps me from forgetting. I think I used to tell myself when I was younger that I could remember everything that was happening. And for a while, I could. But the more that started coming in, the more that I had to manage not only, you know, myself, but then I got married. And then I had a marriage and a home and then I had children and then I had a business, you know, and then pets and school schedules and dental. There was just no way. So, I kept everything on a piece of paper. And to your point, it was high level, detail level, follow-ups with the dentist, right alongside creating a new brand approach. Like it was all right there together, right? Just one big thing here's what I have to do. And my approach was to look at it each day and try to do the ABC method. What do I think I need to get done today? What would be nice if I got done today? What doesn't need to get done today? But every day I was wasting my time honestly in some ways, going back through that list, and then at the back of it I had a list of all the things that I wanted to get to but knew that if I put them on the list they weren't going to happen. But I didn't want to forget them. So, I wrote them on the list at the back. And then at the end of maybe every two days it would look like chicken scratch where I'd marked everything off, and then I couldn't read the three things that were left because of everything that was marked off. Even though I felt good about that page, I ripped it out because I needed it to be clean so that I could think, flipped it, wrote those three things again, and immediately filled up the rest of the page with all the to-do's which were of not equal status. I went through that for a while. Then I even went to the point that I produced a planner for a few years and sold my planner and it was a little better. It at least broke things out into sections. And so, these are the things I'm doing for my health. These are the follow-ups, here are the dream items. So, it broke things up, but it was still paper. I was still marking, marking, marking. Finally, I want to say it was about four years ago. I guess I'm in my fifth year now. I moved over to Asana and put everything in there as projects, tasks, subtasks, or 15-minute tasks. Because I could put my name next to it, I could put somebody else's name next to it, I could put a due date next to it.  And it just fed me every day. It fed me what I needed to do. But I still even sometimes find that there's plenty more that I've not captured, as I mentioned earlier. But it's like I've been working through the system, if you will, the whole time, trying to find something that I thought I couldn't give up paper and pen. I could totally give up paper and pen because I could get things done faster. Like I don't care if a unicorn flies or if I get to mark it off. Both make me happy.

Leslie Shreve: Right.

Michele Williams: Talk to us a little bit about how we or let's go back. You mentioned that productivity is hiding in unsuspecting ways. Tell us some of the places outside of that or maybe even define that a little bit more and how productivity, because I do. I waste time even though I think I, Look, I can't even imagine how productive I would be if I didn't waste time. I probably would be able to get off work earlier and go do something else instead of working more. Yeah, but sometimes I think we just think we're doing everything we can do. We think there's no way out that we think there's no better, different way because it's how we've always done it.

Leslie Shreve: Right.

Michele Williams: So tell us where we can start looking or even evaluating to see what we're doing that we don't need to do.

Leslie Shreve: Right, sure. What we can do is just start with task management. Since we already talked about it a little bit, let me just go a little deeper into that one because that really is the driver of our progress every single day. Task management is huge. It's everything in our day. So that is one of the leading places where time and productivity are both hiding. That's because the first thing that I think people don't realize is that tasks are coming from more than 10 different places in our workday. Email is just the most annoying, and it's huge because it's flowing in every minute of the day. It just buries you; it just scrolls off the screen and along with it you could lose information, you could lose tasks, follow-ups, opportunities, events, contact information, you name it. It's just scrolling away if you're not fast enough at capturing it. So, the tasks that are coming from these more, you know, more than 10 different sources. It's going to include email and phone, and we have texting now. We have papers and files on our desks perhaps as reminders of things to do. We've got meetings and hallway conversations, social media on and on and on. And when people get in some of their company spaces, when they get a project management system or a Teams system, that's just one more place that people have to look. And so, a lot of the executives coming to me now and business owners say, you know, I don't want to make just one more place for us to look. We talk about how their task management approach really needs to be centralized. And yes, it does need to be digital, but the key here is that it also needs to be complete. And this is the one thing that people aren't doing, no matter if they have a planner because then it's impossible as you can't get email in there because that's paper. Or you've got Asana, Trello, Todoist, or whatever. My system is not software. Mine actually rests on whatever technology somebody has. So, I say it's a methodology for the technology. When I work with my clients, almost all of them have Microsoft Outlook, which I know a lot of people can't stand, but nevertheless, it rests on that.

Michele Williams: If you're hanging out in corporate, that's what a lot of people have.

Leslie Shreve: They're stuck with it, and it makes my heart sing. So, what I do is we use the task management area in there. Not the to-do list, but the task management area. Not the default screens, though. And this is why it's proprietary. It's because I move things around and I simplify it for people. Because even when they use that, and maybe it's not Asana Trello or Todoist or something else, they use it and they say, Leslie, I tried that Microsoft Outlook thing, and it didn't work for me. So, I went back to my Franklin Covey planner. And so, the message there is, that you need a methodology. It doesn't matter what tool, or what bright shiny object you might have picked. People right now are not only overloaded and overwhelmed, but they have turned finding a solution into a hobby, almost. Like they're always looking for tactics and tips and shortcuts and hacks and apps and everything.

Michele Williams: The next thing. Right, right, the next thing.

Leslie Shreve: Because what happens is they try it. Now, you've made Asana successful for you. But I know a lot of people who have tried a gazillion things. They literally come to me and say, “I’ve tried everything under the sun”. And the reason these things aren't sticking is because they might get so far into it and go, wow, this was more complicated than I thought. Or they get into it and say, wow, this is taking a lot longer than I thought to implement. Or, wow, I’m not getting my work done. I'm spending all my time on these bells and whistles and colors and categories and even the project task subtask thing that can get overwhelming because I specifically simplify that for people so that everything is a teeny tiny task even though it's part of a larger project. There's a formula for how to create a task in my system so that everything is almost not equal but it's mathematically going to fit into your time, and it makes it easier to make that task time connection. And also, we're not burying information so we don't want to see the project first and then have to click and double click and double click to get down to what you need to see. Because you want to be able to reprioritize things very easily by comparing them with all the other tasks on your plate. And if you can't see them, it's really hard to prioritize them or to pivot. You know what I mean?

Michele Williams: Oh, I do, I do. My brain is going, because I use Microsoft Outlook, I'm a corporate girl, you know, I'm still on the PC and Microsoft. So, I've got my Outlook going and every day I do. I have three. Well to start with, I have to manage myself. I have three things open; I have Outlook open, I have my Google Calendar, and I have Asana. I am going back and forth between the three so that if I see something in my calendar that says I have to do it, I go over to Asana and type it in. I say when I'm going to do it and put my name so that it shows up in my daily task list in Asana. But then I'm also looking over at my Google Calendar to see if there's anything there that's not. I don't use the calendar in Microsoft, I don't use the calendar in Asana. I use a third-party calendar because I've found those work better for me. Now part of it could be because I didn't know how to use them well or because they don't play well with others. I will say this over time, technology, I own a software company too so I know this to be the case. Technology improves and different connections are made. So, like at the time Outlook did not do what it needed to do with the calendar that Google would do. So, then I invested in getting Google, you know what I'm saying we're all doing that. Yeah, I've gone into bigger systems and then come back down. I don't spend time huge amounts but I do enough color coding that I can look at things. But I remember somebody at one time having like a digital calendar, Leslie, to your point, and they were putting stickers on every day and I'm like, if you got enough time to sit down with your calendar and put little fuzzy stickers, like digital stickers, digital pictures on every day, like I need to give you something else to do because that just went over the limit to me. Color code it so that you know how your brain needs to think. But to your point of small tasks and bite-sized pieces, that's so true. Because sometimes I only have a 15-minute block between one. Let's say even a podcast and a podcast I might have a 15 or 30-minute block and I'd like to be productive and get something done and if by the time I go find it, it's not broken into a small piece I can get to quickly, I don't even have time to get the task done.

Leslie Shreve: Right. Right. What's interesting is that you are using three different tools or systems when you could be using all of them in Microsoft Outlook. I understand what you're saying about the Google Calendar though, because a lot of people do prefer that. But usually, when I'm teaching clients, everything's already in Microsoft. And again, it's because people need a guide. They really do need someone to show them. It's like the difference between handing somebody a book on Microsoft Excel which is about that thick, it's like two and a half, three inches thick. And instead of just telling them what they need to know, they don't want to trudge through a book. But then when they're left to their own devices trying to figure out the Trellos and the Todoists and the Asanas of the world, it could be completely overwhelming. So, we simplify it for people. When I work with my clients and we pull all of these, tasks away from the sources, that's the first step. What professionals don't realize is that it's impossible, impossible to efficiently and effectively plan, prioritize, and accomplish tasks, trying to manage them only from their sources without missing, losing, or forgetting something. So, here's what I mean. You're looking at the email inbox, you look at what you starred, you look at what you flagged, and then you look at the desk, you go, okay, what's the most important thing there? Okay, let me look at my legal pad. What's the most important thing there? All, right. Let me check my voicemail and look at my text. What's the most important thing here? And then they're trying to plan and prioritize in their head, and that's when things start to go south. So, it's too easy for things to be missed or forgotten when you're trying to look in all these different places, and that's why we want to centralize it so we pull tasks away from all of their sources. So, the very first day, when I work with clients, it's a game changer, and I do everything virtual, even, like 10 years before the pandemic, because back then we didn't have Zoom, we had GoToMeeting. So that's what I use. So, we clear the desk, basically, I talk them through it, because we're really looking at, what do you have? Is it something you can file or toss? But we're looking for those tasks. You know, what have you left out as a reminder of things to do? And so, by the time we finish our first call, all of that has disappeared and they've got their real estate back on the desk. Then their mind starts to clear and they start to feel less stressed and more clarity and more awareness of everything that they're responsible for. Now, I think the reluctance of people to do this, and I want to caution everyone, nobody wants to get it all down on black and white paper, you know, and see it all in black and white, it gets overwhelming. But the truth is, you really have to do that in order to be able to compare and contrast the many things that you have on your plate. It actually makes prioritizing easy. And what I mean is that when you're looking at all these things that you want to remember to do, or that you have to do today or tomorrow or next week, suddenly when they're all in the same bucket, it's a piece of cake to know exactly what you have to do now versus tomorrow, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, next week, next month, oh, I'll follow up in next February, whatever. But the great part is that it's already captured. It's in the system. It's on the list. It is planned for another time. So to your point earlier, when you said you kept looking at the same list every single day to kind of cherry-pick what you wanted to do, all that goes away because you don't have to look at that same stuff every day. You've already made a smart decision about how to spend your time because you've compared it to all the other things on your plate. And now you've made a decision, I don't need to see that until December. Whatever. Not only that but there's no writing or rewriting of to-do lists anymore. So, we save that time. And on top of that, it's much, much faster to plan and prioritize because everything is digital, it's central, and when you build the list completely, because, after that first day, the only thing we've left out is email, because that comes later in the program. so, then you've got an incredible sense of awareness, and you've got your speed going up, up, and up and up, because now you can get all of this done faster because it's right in front of you. I call it mission control. And it makes it easy to see not only this, but you gain even more time back when you do finish a task and you say, okay, great, now what? What's next? And my clients call this regrouping. They say they save an enormous amount of time. They don't have to regroup anymore because what they used to do was finish a task and then fumble and figure out, where do I go next? They get sucked into their email inbox or they get lost on the desk again. And now they're looking for that third legal pad that they started, you know, and they're trying to figure out, okay, where do I go next? And a lot of time is lost in that process. So, we eliminate that process. They know exactly where to go because it's all on our task list, the Taskology task list. And so they go right back there because they're like, yep, I can cross that out or I can. Actually, we don't cross out in Taskology. We delete it because it's a single-action step. And it's probably a little bit more complicated than that. But in any case, they move on to the next task very, very quickly because it's right there. It's exactly where they know it's going to be.

Michele Williams: You know, it's interesting how much time is taken up, and I share this with my clients forever how much time is taken up trying to remember something. I know back before we had a lot of digital planners and digital task lists, like before all of that even came out, right? I'm trying to even remember. I can't even remember the name of some of the stuff like 10 years ago, it was literally the same task list that you would write on paper, and that was as far as you could go digitally. But the amount of thinking, thinking that we have to do, the mental load of not forgetting and it's what happens, from my experience, is those tasks spin and spin and spin, and then mentally I'm adding on to them, I'm subtracting off of them, but they tend to get bigger and bigger and bigger, and they almost then become stumbling blocks for me moving forward or getting things done because they've taken on this much bigger life than they really are if I were to just write it down on paper, I, you know, my focus and my coaching practice is primarily on the financials as a lever to where we're going to go and what we're going to do. And the same thing happens there. We don't always want to look at those numbers either. But if we can get all the numbers down on paper, we can see the truth of what is, you know, not just what we think is, but what is, and then make the next decision is the same with our tasks from what you've just described, the more we can get everything down. Now we are in a power position of being able to say what really is most important. Now let's do the comparison versus, oh, gosh, well, if I had known that was important or if I had known if I had remembered that I needed to do that. Leslie, what I see, though, and what I have gotten feedback from some of my clients before is, let's say, Taskology, your methodology, or some other methodology, just for the moment, a slightly different thing. They have a methodology. They have, an Asana, a Monday, a Trello, a Base Camp, whatever it is, fill in the blank, outlook, it doesn't matter. This is what they want their team to use and they start getting pushbacks. And everybody on the team wants to use a different way of doing things. Like, they have a very difficult time sometimes instituting. This is how we're going to manage information in the firm so that we can all manage it well. I mean, certainly, there is some uniqueness in and in and around the work itself, right? But here is a method like, like, let's take yours. Taskology. If they were to come in and say, we're going to implement Taskology, and not only am I just gonna, I'm not just gonna hand you a book, but we're going to pay to have it done and to do it well and to really implement it so that we can be more productive, reclaim some of our time and do all these things that we're talking about. How do they handle it when their teammates, the people who work for them, do a lot well, I only know Asana well. I love Basecamp. Don't take away my Google. Like how do they handle that? I'm sure you see it.

Leslie Shreve: That is actually a twofold question. Yeah, so let's break that down because at first when you were talking about all the different methodologies and tools out there, and it was a general approach to your question, I would answer it by saying the reason people push back on that is because the business owner, the leader, is making it an organization-wide change. Not unlike a CRM for a sales team, for instance. So, take Salesforce or something similar. And what happens is they're making the whole sales team use it and they get pushback on that because they're saying, you know, I spend all my time loading up, the system with all the information and all the journaling and everything that I've done and I'm not actually getting the work done. The reasons that CRMs are put into place are so that leaders can see where their teams are with regard to clients and prospects and leads and pipelines and all that jazz. So, they can see the information. They really want the reporting from that.

Michele Williams: Right.

Leslie Shreve: When you talk about construction and contracting, which is another industry I work in, they've got their systems for the same thing, you know, their job systems or whatever else. If there's another company that's got a project management system, just something like Asana or Trello, and they institute or even Microsoft Teams or Microsoft Projects, I don't remember what they have, but they've got their own thing too and they institute it, the reason they're getting pushback is that they're making everybody do it because of the information and the reporting. It's a documentation-type system. Would you agree or disagree?

Michele Williams: Yes.

Leslie Shreve: So that's the first thing I'll say. And because I don't get involved in that sort of thing, I actually don't know how they handle that. I'm sure it's messy. My situation is a little different because over the years I have had Taskology for teams training since about maybe five years into my business, I created. So, I've been doing that for about 15 or so years. And the difference is, is that the clients and the leaders that I work with or the business owners start by learning it themselves in my private consulting. And then they say, oh well, I love Taskology now I want my management team to learn it, or my sales team, or they put together kind of a random team and they make it opt-in. They do not force it on everybody. They take the approach of, well, if you want to, and they show the results, and this is one of the reasons why a lot of people opt-in because they're actually extolling the virtues of here's what you're going to get. You know, if you're tired of working nights and weekends, or you're tired of digging out of email or missing things that are costing you and the bottom line of the company, or you're hurting client relationships or missing out on prospects because you're forgetting follow-ups. You know, if you want all this stuff to go away, here's a way to do it. Because Taskology includes everything, tasks, time, email, and information. So, it's everything. And so, the whole workday can be easier and more efficient. And I get a lot of people saying that. And of course, we know the stress goes down by up to 90%. Our average is a 50% drop in stress right across the board. But people tell us they sleep better because they're not missing, losing, and forgetting things. And they're able to do so many things with their time now and really get back to what they love to do. So, because these team leaders or C-level leaders are making it opt-in, then what happens is the first group goes through it and then somebody outside of the group goes, wow, how did you get to zero in your inbox? Or hey, your office is completely redone, you know, there's nothing on the desk. Are you leaving? Or hey, I see you're not coming in as early as you used to or staying late or whatever it is, or oh, you look happier, whatever it is, it's like, well, I'll have what she's having. And then they might opt in if we do a second round at that company. And that has happened before where people are seeing the improvements and the benefits are very different than when you want to institute an entire, you know, team with your institute CRM with an entire team or a project management system with an entire team. Because then that's true, you'll probably get some pushback. So, we handle it a little bit differently with Taskology, if that makes sense.

Michele Williams: Yeah, no, I think that's great. And I think what it also shows is what we said at the beginning, you know, a system or a methodology is only as good as we follow it and stay on top of it. I know, we're doing a lot of work right now in my coaching on leadership. And so, when the leader takes the time to dig into the methodology and to put it into practice and to be able to like you said, extol the virtues of here's what it's done for me, or here's the verifiable, quantifiable results of this methodology. Here's what my day looked like before or my weeks here were my stress points. They no longer exist, or there are different stress points that you would expect. I don't think we ever go stress-free if we own the company, but we can certainly use it. It's manageable. It doesn't wake us up at 3:00 am. And so, being able to show that and to implement it. But I think you made another point, quite often we try to go through, and I'm guilty of this as well, putting in a new system or a new methodology and having very little time to do it and kind of half doing it or not getting, the help that we need to get it done, I would say quickly and more efficiently. Like, tell me the shortcuts, give me the Cliff Notes. I have always read the whole book kind of gal, but sometimes it's nice to get those Cliff Notes and to get in and start using it and then come back and finish it up. I think we don't have to always understand every single thing we do. If we've hired somebody who's professional, who says, just do this and trust me and then come back and check behind me, you'll see what you, it will make sense.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah. You need a guide.

Michele Williams: You need a guide.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah.

Michele Williams: Let me ask you this. You've mentioned Taskology, we've mentioned it a couple of times, but I don't think we've really introduced it. Tell the listeners what Taskology is. I know we've said it's a methodology but talk about it a little bit. So, they have an understanding of what we're referring to.

Leslie Shreve: Sure. So “Taskology, The Science of Getting Things Done” is the name of the system. I trademarked it back in 2010, and it is a system that has four components. Actually, sometimes I say three. It's task management, time management, email management, and information management which is tucked into the time management piece, and I can explain that in just a second. The system is reflective of all the major processes in a professional workday. So really, when folks are looking for tips, tactics, tools, shortcuts, apps, and hacks. I tell them we are the anti-hack. There are no shortcuts here because there are really no shortcuts in life or business. If you really, truly want to master something or be successful with something, you really do have to know the ins and outs and you really have to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. And sure, as a guide, I can simplify it for people because it is very complicated when people do try to do it on their own, they go down a path. It can get confusing and overwhelming. They might have no one to ask questions. And so, a lot of people back up from what they just tried and said, well, I'm sliding back into my old habits, you know because there is no, there's no one there to help them and there's, there's no easy way to implement. So, when we implement Taskology, it's simple, logical, easy to use. It's, those are words that our clients use. They say it's a game changer, a difference maker there. I'm able to help people get one to two hours back in their workday every day, help them spend up to 50% less time in their email inbox every day and get to zero and learn how to keep it that way, and not only gather but plan, prioritize and accomplish all of their tasks and follow-ups a lot faster and easier and with a lot less stress. They can move their projects and initiatives forward. They're not missing, losing, or forgetting anything. And they're not giving up all their personal time to make the progress that they can make in their workday. So, all total Taskology starts with task management, and I walked through a little bit of that at the beginning where we centralize your tasks and make an inventory so that nothing is left out, it's airtight. And then you don't have to use big pads, little pads, spiral pads, notepads, post-it notes, legal pads, and all that stuff. All that goes the way. I mean, paper has a place in the workday, but it's a tool, not a system. So, the occasional Post-it note is fine. Using a pad or a notebook for taking meeting notes is fine. But we go through all that when we go through the system, then we get to time management because people will say, sure, love the task list, but now I have no time to work on it. And that's because they're in back to back to back to back meetings all day, which you really can't do if you expect to be able to keep up with the two most important processes of your day, which are task management and email management. So, you've got to have time built in, not only flex time, but just time for you to work and actually get things done during the day, and so, we talk about that. We have a time-blocking methodology that is way more, in-depth than just the occasional, oh, I'll throw a time block on my calendar once in a while. No, there's a lot to it. I help my clients understand how to do it, where to do it on the calendar, how many days a week, how many times a day, how long the block should be, and what to do when things go wrong. Then we talk about the other way to get time back in your day, and this is saving time. We haven't talked about this, but this is the second of the three places where time and productivity are hiding in your workday. I help my clients save time, but not like saving it in a bank for later on, but saving it from being lost in the first place. What I mean by that is that professionals are losing far too much time in their workday looking for things they know they have but just can't find. So that could be to-do lists, legal pads, tasks, and follow-ups. They're looking for post-it notes, they're looking for emails, email attachments, they're looking for papers, files, contact information, whatever it is that they're looking for, they're spending way too long looking for it. And time is just slipping away. And so, we do look at E-documents on the hard drive. We do talk about the remaining papers and files if there are any. After we finish building the task list, we talk about contacts, we talk about all those different reference systems in your workday because we want to make sure back to the idea of being organized. We want to make sure that you can find what you need when you need it, and you don't have to fumble around so that you can finish that task, or you finish sending that email because you know where that attachment is. So, once we finish all that, then email is always, always last in the system. And that's because everything that comes into an email inbox really must go someplace else for the best management of that information or that task. So, as we mentioned, there are a lot of different reference places in your workday. You have files for physical papers and files, you have the hard drive or a place in the cloud for your E-documents. You've got a Contact system for contacts, etc. There's going to be a lot of those, but there should only be one place for managing tasks and follow-ups. And for us, that's the Taskology task list, wherever it rests. Because I have built it in Todoist a couple of times for folks who bring these things to me so it can really go anywhere. So, we have that one place for tasks and no place else. So again, we're pulling all of those tasks away from where they came from because, by the time they make it onto the task list, it doesn't matter where they came from anymore. And you use the formula to build and create the task, which is just like you said, you type it up in Asana, but we have a very, structured way to build that task so you can actually do it and do it easily and quickly. Then I teach my clients how to get those tasks and follow-ups out of email and onto the task list, but without using the flag. So, if we're in Microsoft Outlook, we're not using the flag, we're not marking an email as unread, so it stays bold in the inbox anymore. We're letting go of all of those inefficient ways to manage email and we're literally pulling it out of the inbox and getting it on the task list so that you can again do that effective comparison of everything that's on your plate. Because I guarantee you, every email that comes in, even if somebody says, oh, my inbox is close to empty, well, if they've got 20 left over, they're all reminders of things to do and they don't need to be staring at those every single day. So, we get those out of there and we get to zero. Because I teach my clients how to get the information into the systems where they're going to reference them again. Or we get the tasks out and onto the task list and then I teach them how to keep it that way so that as more email keeps rolling in, they know exactly what to do. I turn them into decision-making ninjas. So now they know how to make decisions constantly and get that information out and on to where it needs to be. Because nothing is best managed while it's still sitting in the inbox. Yeah, so when I finish learning all of that, now they're getting their time back and they're using it more effectively and they can move their projects forward faster.

Michele Williams: I was just looking over at my bookcase with my 5,000 books on it. You said something that triggered there. There's a book, I'm sure you're familiar with, "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. I could remember David and couldn't remember the last name. That's what I was looking at. And it was written before a lot of this technology came out. And I remember one of the things that he taught years ago was when you touch information, you touch it one time and you make a decision, right? When you go to the mailbox, you open the mail, you make a decision, are you going to keep it? You don't lay junk mail out for the next person to read it and look at it. That struck me because it's similar to the approach of when you're looking at your email, and making a decision. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to ignore it? Well, then just ignore it. Is it just the information you need to file it? File it where you need to file it. Do you need to do something with it? Then, you know, using your Taskology, set it up so that you can actually do something with it. Because there is nothing worse than getting close to zero and having those one or two that you keep looking at. And you are right, it's because I just, I've not moved them over to a task list or I know I need to do something about it, and I either don't have the information to do something about it, or I don't want to do something about it yet. And I'm still trying to ponder and think through what I am going to do. So either I don't want to do it, I don't have the information I need, or I don't want to make a decision on it. Like there's something hanging out there, right? Sometimes I get up to the point where it's like the last minute and then I can make a decision. Quite often I can get to zero. I like a zero. I didn't have a zero for a long time and I accidentally in Microsoft Outlook hit archive. Something hit archive. And I thought it was like deleting my entire inbox. But Leslie, it freaked me out. And then I saw that there was a little archive up there, but you know what it did? It was the gift that kept giving because it cleaned the slate. Now, I could have moved all those back over and I made the choice not to move them back. I made the choice to start with zero. I knew that I knew they were there and if I needed them, I could go get them like it was a safety net, right? They were moved. I could get them. They weren't deleted. But it. What it did for my focus was to look at an empty email inbox and be able to do it. Like I am supporting that, that idea. And that, you know, method that you're sharing, because it changes your outlook. I had a friend in this business, she had like 385 unread emails, sitting in her inbox. And that was overwhelming for her. And she hired somebody to sit and go through them and give them, here's how I need you to organize it so I even know which 50 to look at and where to spend my time. And then you start to feel so overwhelmed that you can't do anything. It can shut you down because you don't even know where to start. I talk about it. It feels like, I don't know, if you ever saw “Finding Nemo”, Did you ever see “Finding Nemo”?

Leslie Shreve: I did, a long time ago.

Michele Williams: Okay. There is a scene where they're, like, at the end of the dock and there are all these little birds and they're pecking and they're going, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. And it's like, I don't know, a hundred little birds down there trying to get a piece of the pie. And that's how it feels. Except I feel like there's a hundred birds pecking me going, you know, And I'm like, stop, stop.

Leslie Shreve: I'll feed you.

Michele Williams: I'll take care of it. I'll do what I need to do. But I can't even get to it because of all the different ask or the pools or the directions, you know, come here, go there. And then one last thing I'll say before, you jump in is that feeling of not. Of not having a block of time that is honored on the calendar to be able to do all the tasks so that everything constantly feels like it's being crammed in between meetings. I know in corporate this is even worse than, you know, I have some control over my schedule, but in corporate, sometimes you don't. People are just scheduling meetings on top of meetings on top of you, and you open up your calendar and there are three meetings all scheduled at the same time. And now you've got to decide which one to go to. I get that. But if we don't give ourselves white space and time, we are, I swear, it feels like we're the Yellow Pages and everything is just on one page at one time. It's too much.

Leslie Shreve: It is too much. I was going to reach back to our conversation about email. I want everybody to understand that you don't want to organize email. That is not the goal. Because if someone like the lady that you spoke of earlier, had like 350 unread emails, that's great that she had somebody sit with her to go through it, but the truth is there are two things that always hold people up from doing something with email. Two really big productivity pitfalls. The first one is knowing whether or not they need something. Like really understanding, do I need this? What is this about? Is there a task here? You know, just really being able to think through and make that first decision of what is it? And that's because people are moving too quickly or they're overwhelmed or some people, especially in corporate, they're not really clear on either their role or their job or their responsibilities and they might not know whether I need that or not. And they kind of waffle a little bit. So, all of those are part of that first step of really understanding what you need, what you don't need, and why. So that's number one. Number two, if someone does know, yes, I totally need this. The second problem is where do I put it? That's the biggest question I get, Leslie, what do I do with it? What do I do with this? And if it's a task, well then, it's going to go on the task list. If it's a bit of information to reference in the future, then we will find the place it needs to go. And that's the only part of getting organized that we do. That's it. It's just making sure that you have trusted systems that you can rely on, you know because you never want to just start putting stuff in random email folders. Not only that but there is such a thing as over-organizing. I have met with clients and started working with them only to discover that they have a gazillion email folders on the left side of the screen and way too many than they ever needed. And a lot of them are empty because they wasted time trying to come up with every folder under the sun that they thought they would need. They got that crystal ball out. No, you don't want to do that. Only create a folder when you actually have a need for one. And never, ever, ever put anything in a folder that is action or that you need to do as a follow-up or anything like that, because that is not the place for action items. Those folders on the left are purely for reference. That's it. There should be nothing active over there. And, that is the third place, by the way, where time and productivity are hiding. So, the three places are in your task management process, your information management process, and your email management process.

Michele Williams: I can see it. It's funny, I'm over here sitting, looking, and thinking. I learned a long time ago. I tried one time, but it did not work well. So, I'll just go ahead and give you the outcome. But I had a folder of action items, and I would move things over, but because it was out of my sight and because it wasn't written down on a tickler file that kind of said, hey, you should be looking at that. I could easily miss things. They were not in any order. They were in the order that they were, I guess by date when they got slid into that folder. And it just never worked for me. I mean, kudos to anybody that can make that work.

Leslie Shreve: Please don’t try!

Michele Williams: If you're already doing it, like, I'm not going to be the one to tell you not to. But I wouldn't try it. I wouldn't start it. It did not work for me.

Leslie Shreve: I would say for the people who are using it that they're. They're kind of asking for trouble. It's a very shaky ground to be on.

Michele Williams: It really is. It really is. There is something about and I think what I'm also hearing you say is bite-size pieces, like if we narrowed it way down. Right. One, we. We usually call it one source of truth. So, we’ll say, one task list, one source of truth, pulling from all the other informational sources into one source of truth for prioritization, we'll say. And then, having that one source, having it where you can see it and where you can do some type of comparison so that, you know, making sure you're building time into your calendar to even go to that source to get things done instead of having ourselves so jammed up. I usually call them just business development time, or, you know, task management time. Call it whatever you want to call it and then build white space into your day so that there is time to breathe in the middle of it. Even though some days I am extremely effective, and I get a lot done, I am exhausted at the end of the day and my brain won't even think because it's just been like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I like it when I get a lot done, but it feels like I was at a little bit of an easier pace. And the pacing comes from being careful about which tasks I mix together in a day. You know, I like to, if I'm going to do webinars and podcasts, I like to do them all in one day because I can think that way. Some people can only do two or three of those in a day. They can't do five. I can do five. That's my max. But I'm hyped up for that day. It's kind of like when you're going up on a stage, I can do it for a day. I cannot do that for two or three days in a row. It's too much for me. And so, some of this too, I'm gonna assume, and then I'm gonna ask, so, if I'm wrong, you can let me know, we all know what that assumption does. But I'm going to assume that there's also some conversation in the implementation of Taskology at a more personal, unique level that says, what is your personal way of getting things done? What can you handle? How can you manage information in a day? Because there are some days that I cannot, like I said, I can't manage at that level of external visibility, if you will, consistently in multiple days. I know even on the financial side, there are some people who say if I've got to do a financial deep dive or analysis, I have to do it in the morning. And I have other people who say I have to do it in the afternoon because I don't wake up. Like, I'm more of a late-day processor of numbers. And so really understanding their unique ability to how they engage with the work so that we can create the time frames around that, that support the way that they handle information.

Leslie Shreve: They absolutely can do that. And I actually don't even go that far. I don't even get involved in that because by the time I teach them how the system works, they're off and running and making it. They make those decisions.

Michele Williams: They're just automatically making it their own because of their understanding.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah, because they understand the rules.

Michele Williams: Right. And I think that's the difference too, between a methodology and a firm system. I know I am certified in Profit First, and there are people very similar who go by the book or they listen to a couple of videos and they go to implement it, but they don't understand the nuances of how to implement it. They don't understand the structure that it's built upon to implement it. And so, they will implement it, I'm going to say, at face value, based on what the book says, without understanding how finances flow in their own firm and when income is captured and the whole thing. And so then they say, well, that system didn't work without understanding that it's a methodology that is to be applied to the way that you process financials in your firm. And so, it's that if you could work with the Profit First certified coach, we would show you how to do that, because it really does work if it's implemented properly.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah, that's true for Taskology too.

Michele Williams: That's right. That's what I was thinking.

Leslie Shreve: When it comes with a methodology. Yes. Right.

Michele Williams: There's a system there and it's not a one size that fits all.  If I was like Leslie, I absolutely have to use Asana because I've got my Christmas list out there from the last five years for every person I've ever bought for, with their budgets and everything I've ever bought for them, and I just want to use it. My guess is you would be like, okay, so here's the system, here's the methodology. You just have to do it all there. Don't be using Monday over here and Motion over there and Trello over there and Base Camp over there and then getting upset because your Asana doesn't show everything it needs to show because it can't when you're spreading the love across way too many task management locations. And so that's the thing. It's about knowing how to implement it. You know that that helps. Tell me, it looks like you. You have a paperback book out here, don't you? Don't you have a book on Taskology?

Leslie Shreve: I do. It's right behind me. “Taskology, How to Unleash The Power of Your Most Productive Workday”. Actually, I'm going to write another book. I'm planning to do that next year.

Michele Williams: Oh, good.

Leslie Shreve: I am excited about that. But yes, this was my first book. I actually published it back in 2016, and I have a variety of programs and consulting for people. So, we've got a little something for everybody here at Productive Day.

Michele Williams: Awesome. Well, I will definitely put links to all of this in the show notes, but Leslie, tell everybody where they can find you.

Leslie Shreve: Sure. So, it's very easy. The company is called Productive Day, and the website is productiveday.com. I can be reached at Leslie@productiveday.com.  I would offer two fun free gifts that we have on our website. One is a really great quiz called "What's your number one productivity blind spot"? And I say it's fun because it's a little diagnostic and at the end, you'll find out if you're a giver, a marker, a jumper, or a detector. So that one's cool because it does follow up with your own unique results report and you know, based on how you're experiencing challenges in your workday and what your exact challenge or blind spot is. Then we will follow it with a report from me about how you can fix it. The other thing I'll offer is the Productive Day Smart steps, which is a great series of 52, one per week, little two-minute, three-minute audios from me, with tips and strategies straight from Taskology. And if you want to get one of those every week, week, we have that on the website as well.

Michele Williams: Those are awesome. I'm gonna go get them right now as soon as we hang up. Well, Leslie, you know, for somebody who considers themselves pretty productive and gets a lot done, I got a lot of great takeaways and things that I want to go back and ponder and think on and really see if I'm using my own systems well. Right. Or where they can be enhanced and, and where they can be better. I'm getting ready to have a grandbaby and I need those two hours a day back.

Leslie Shreve: Congratulations.

Michele Williams: Thank you. So, I'm going to look to find my two hours back every day.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah. Because I mean, the folks I work with are high achievers. I mean, we're talking about people who are at the top of the company. They own the company, you know, presidents and C-suite leaders. You guys are experts at what you do. And the problem is there's another side to the workday called workload management. And it's literally like when your workday isn't working, it's literally stealing time from the part of your day that you could be doing what you do best.

Michele Williams: That's exactly right.

Leslie Shreve: Yeah.

Michele Williams: Well, thank you so much for your time today.

Leslie Shreve: Thank you so much for inviting me to the show. It was great to talk with you, Michele.

Michele Williams: You as well, Leslie. Thank you so much for joining us here. I am super excited to go take the quiz and find out my own scores and some opportunities for improvement, and I'm going to go grab your book. I also want to offer those of you who are listening today and are thinking about your financial systems, to give me a call. Let's sit down and go through and organize your financials the same way that you're going to organize your email and the productivity of your day. In our CFO2Go program, we sit down with you three different times and go through and help you structure your financials in a way that allows them to be supportive of your strategic plan. Every day. We have to choose to be profitable, whether it's our time or our money, or both. Because profit doesn't happen by accident. Profit is a Choice is proud to be part of the designnetwork.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening and stay creative and business minded.