A photo of guest Ellen Faye wearing a blue shirt next to the front cover of her book

Episode 218 – Productivity for how you’re wired with Ellen Faye

Would you love to be more productive with your time, but are you struggling to find the right system to work for you? In today’s podcast we’re talking to guest Ellen Faye, about her book, Productivity for how you’re wired.

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Transcript of this podcast episode

[00:00:00] Ingrid: Would you love to be more productive with your time, but are you struggling to find the right system to work for you? In today's podcast, we're talking to guest Ellen Faye, who has written a book called Productivity for How You're Wired. To find out more,

[00:00:18] Hello and welcome listeners to episode two 18. I am Ingrid, and if you're new to the Declutter Hub Podcast, you're so welcome here. What you'll find here is reality, empathy, and advice by the bucket loads. And if you're listening, have been listening in for a while. We really appreciate you being here. We also wanted to remind everyone that you can also now watch the podcasts on on YouTube, on our YouTube channel.

[00:00:44] So go out and find out more if you want to not only listen, but also watch, and you can go to declutter hop.com/ 2 1 8 to find out more. Now in today's podcast, I would love to introduce my really good friend, Alan Faye. Alan is a certified productivity leadership coach and the past president of Nap O.

[00:01:08] That's the National Association of Productivity and organising Professionals. In the US and I met Ellen when I was president of the association here in the uk and I went to the napal conference in Atlanta back in 2016. Now, Ellen has recently written a book called Productivity for How You're Wired, and that's what we're diving into in today's podcast.

[00:01:32] So welcome Ellen. Thank you for being here. 

[00:01:36] Ellen: Thanks, Ingrid. It is just really good to be with you. Thank you. 

[00:01:39] Ingrid: I, I've just confessed to Alan that I'm a bit nervous because I've got so much respect and, um, admiration for Alan. I'd be like, oh, I'm doing a podcast with her. I really need to make sure I'm up to scratch today because oh, I want to do a good job.

[00:01:56] Ellen: But I told Ingrid I feel the same way about her. So we're going to just have a great time, aren't we? 

[00:02:01] Ingrid: I hope so too, Ellen. Well, you've only recently just launched your book. It, it only came out a couple of months ago and um, I'm so excited about it. But let's start maybe with an obvious question. What is productivity activity?

[00:02:17] Ellen: What a great question. So in its barest essence, to me it is the intentional use of time. That you're deliberate, that you're mindful, that you've thought through what is important and what will help you live your best life, fullest life. So you're spending, like, if you think about time, like you think about money, it's a finite resource.

[00:02:47] And actually there's less, you know, time is more finite than money, so we want to be really mindful of what we spend it on. And if we fritter it away on, on insignificant, unimportant things, there's not going to be time to do what really matters. 

[00:03:04] Ingrid: I love that. And I think you're absolutely right and productivity almost sounds a bit like a term for people who work in business and in offices, but it also goes for.

[00:03:16] Us who are at home in our homes, isn't it? 

[00:03:20] Ellen: A hundred percent. So, um, I started out my business as a professional organiser in 2001. So I've been there with you in your home for many, many years and my business just over the years evolved and now I'm doing more coaching. So, For people who want to improve their productivity, but we are always looking at this holistically from a big picture of your whole life.

[00:03:44] So if you have a job or a career, or you volunteer, because Ingrid and I know that volunteering is a real job too, or however you care for children or for parents or whatever your. Time commitments are you have a finite amount of hours. You have 168 hours in your week, and we want you to. Get to the point I want you as a writer to get to the point of being able to enjoy the time you're not working, as opposed to sitting there on the sofa watching TV saying, oh, but I really need to get up and do this.

[00:04:24] And you never relax and you never can really enjoy life. So to me, this is a quality of life issue and it's about enjoying life. At work, at home, in your, in your volunteering, in whatever aspects of your life you have. 

[00:04:40] Ingrid: I love that so much. And I was. Honored enough to be asked to write a little quote for your book.

[00:04:48] So I read it way back when, when it was still draft 16 or 18, I can't remember. And it is just so amazing to see your book now published and with all the fantastic people who support it, and it's just absolutely incredible. So, Why did you call the book Productivity For How You're Wired? Because that is interesting.

[00:05:12] It's normally, when I think about productivity, I think about to-do list and I think about action and, and you say, but you need to do it on how you're wired. I was like, oh wow, okay. I need to know more. 

[00:05:23] Ellen: So here's more. So we have to back up and we have to understand who we are, what works for your boss or your partner or your.

[00:05:33] Parent or your child or the neighbor next door may not work for you. We are all different. We all have strengths, we all have weaknesses. We all have things we need to overcome, and we all have things we're really, really good at. So what if I were just to write a book of what works for me? It would probably apply to about 25% of the universe, right?

[00:05:57] I didn't want to do, I wanted a book that anyone could pick up. And say, wow, there is hope. I now have a vision. I know how I can be more intentional, mindful, get done, the important things so I can relax and enjoy my life. So the name productivity for how You're Wired, references the brains wiring. We're all wired differently, and I will tell you guys that all the marketing people said, oh my gosh, the name is too long.

[00:06:28] You need a quick name like, Wired, you know, but the reality is I wanted somebody to look at the title and understand, understand what this book can do for them. The subtitle is Better work Better Life. So when you improve your productivity, it has ripple effects in your life. 

[00:06:52] Ingrid: And we, uh, what comes really forward in your book is that productivity solutions are not a one size fits all.

[00:07:00] Right? What works for one person will not, possibly not work for the other. They need a different structure, a different idea, different plan, 

[00:07:10] Ellen: right? So this is the beginning of the book. I introduce, um, my concept. That I'm really, um, excited that I was able to put into words on what I call structural preference.

[00:07:23] So what may, like I said, what works for one person won't work for the other. That's where we get the one size does not fit all, which is really a pillar of this whole book. It's really core to that is to understand that. What works for your boss may not work for you or what works for you may not work for someone that works for you or with you or even your kids, right?

[00:07:45] So, um, Based on a lot of, I'm a kind of a psychology like buff, and even though I don't, I don't have, uh, a higher degree in, in psychology. I've studied it for all these years and I know the work of all these human behaviorists and psychologists and I kind of kept absorbing it. And I came up with this concept of structure preference, and it's kind of reflective of some of the work, some of the human behaviorists did.

[00:08:15] In the, you know, um, like 1980s, nineties, seventies on leadership and, and as a leader, they're saying, Um, you don't have a leader is dif good in different situations. So I kind of took that situational structure concept and brought it to productivity. So what we do, the beginning, the first section of the book is, is understand and it's about really the psychology of time.

[00:08:44] And it's understanding who you are and discusses all those things that are kind of uncomfortable and like that we don't want to really want to talk about why you procrastinate. You know, what more about boundaries and burnout and what about perfectionism? So this is all things that we're going to talk about that are applicable to every human out there, right?

[00:09:08] Even though I wrote this book for, you know, they say you always have to pick an audience. All of us have these issues around time in our heads, and it, there's a, um, in chapter two, there is an, a self-assessment and some information for you to read about. Are you, do you thrive? Do you do your best work? Can you be your best self to do that?

[00:09:32] Do you need high structure, very detailed, um, almost rigid systems and processes. Do you need moderate structure? Some systems and processes, but not so inflexible that you can't be creative and innovative and kind of have fun with it. And then some people need low structure to do their best work that they just need to, she shell 'em an idea and then they can work within that.

[00:09:59] So I explain all of that, and then throughout the book, I apply every single. Tool and tip and concept. We talk about if your high structure try this. If your moderate structure try this and if fur low structure, try this. So just even the simple idea that, wow, I don't have to be really meticulous for me to be my best.

[00:10:23] Maybe you need to do less and that your system should be less structured. 

[00:10:27] Ingrid: It's important. It does. It also depends if people, um, With, for example, that are very creative, do they need less structure or doesn't it matter if you're creative or very perfectionist or very, does it depend per person and then you actually figure it out along the way?

[00:10:48] Well, 

[00:10:48] Ellen: there are some tra some patterns, yeah. That I've seen from people. That my more creative minded clients tend to fall into that moderate structure category. Mm-hmm. However, I think it's really important that no one feels like put into a certain bucket that may or may not fit them. So what I do in the book is I say, here is take this little assessment.

[00:11:19] Let's use this as a starting point. Now read these descriptions, where do you feel you match? And then as you go through the book and you start applying that structure preference to a particular tool or system, you may find, oh, for this I need moderate high structure. Or for this, I need moderate low structure.

[00:11:41] And then I have some creatives that really do want that support of the high structure and. Maybe for 18 things. They want moderate structure, but for two things, they want high structure. So you are, this is a science experiment. I always tell my clients, we are experimenting to find your winning conditions, your best success.

[00:12:04] And we might have to try and experiment a little bit to get it, but the book is going to show you, it's going to give you ideas how you can do that. Mm-hmm. Because let's say you are a moderate structure and you say, Hmm, maybe I want a little more. Then you read the high structure part, you pull a couple tips from that and you blend it with the moderate and you see where you are, you try it and if it doesn't work, you tweak it and you try it again.

[00:12:26] But there's lots of ideas for you. So 

[00:12:29] Ingrid: does high structure automatically. Um, Mean more rules or more explanation or more, how can I see that this the high, medium, and low structure? So, 

[00:12:41] Ellen: Yeah, it's more detailed. So first of all, there's all these examples in the book and then there's these, I have a, a supplemental time tools, um, hidden page for you.

[00:12:52] And you can see like examples of what does a, and we'll talk about this, a time map. Look for somebody who's moderate, low and high structure. You'll get examples of all of them, but one of the, um, Tools I teach and here is to get really clear on what's important. We do a goals and intentions exercise. Yeah.

[00:13:14] And for somebody who's low structure, we may just do three months. What is the one most important thing in your life areas? Whereas for someone moderate, we're going to identify their areas, their life areas, their focus areas, and it might have them do three priorities at a goal for each life area. But someone who's high structure, we can take that and we might break that out into quarterly actions.

[00:13:40] So if you want to achieve this, the first quarter, I'm going to do these three things, and the second quarter I'm going to do these three things. So we, it's more about detail. I see. And planning and thinking through. That you, you, if, if somebody's going to react to planning that you know, oh, I, they were just going to push back.

[00:14:00] We're not going to overplan. But if somebody looks at that and says, oh my gosh, once I plan, like this is me, once I plan that, all I have to do is execute. And the hard part is stopping thinking it through planning, and then I just work the plan. And for someone who likes high structure, It's 

[00:14:20] Ingrid: great for me.

[00:14:21] Yeah, I think that's, that's me. That's me as well. Ellen. I think I liked lecture a lot. 

[00:14:26] Ellen: Yeah. Cause then you just, you're like, you and your podcast schedule, like, I got this, I got this boom, boom, boom. But um, for somebody who's moderate structure, they could look at that and they could, oh my God, that is just too much.

[00:14:39] Just too much. So I don't. I don't care about projecting what I do. I want to find what fits for that. Yeah. So that's why there's all these options that I 

[00:14:49] Ingrid: present. Yeah, I love that. I absolutely love that. And it was also so clear in the book as well, and I, and I think one of my favorite things in the book is the, all the examples that you give mm-hmm.

[00:14:59] Which really make it all come to life. The stories from your clients, the. The, the, the things that you describe in the book. And I think I was like, yeah, okay. I see what she means now for me, I thought that was the best part of the book. I loved. Of course you wrote 

[00:15:13] Ellen: that for me. Thank you. Yeah. But you're right.

[00:15:15] So, so, um, I think it's important that your listeners know that there's these sections called in real life and, um, they're all real stories of people I've worked with in the last 22 years now. I've changed their names, but the stories are true. So you can then, you know, we always learn so much better from stories, so you can just read it and this, oh, I, and you know, if you just read text and concept, it's hard.

[00:15:42] But when you apply it like, oh, I see what, what Julie meant by when she tells about Julie's story. That makes sense. So, um, I, uh, thought it was really important 

[00:15:55] Ingrid: to share. Yeah, yeah, I think so too because I think when you read a lot of the books about all kinds of business concepts or time concepts, they don't use the real life example.

[00:16:06] So it almost seems a bit too much on paper and you think, but I dunno how to use it for myself. So I think that really came. So I think that's for the listeners, really good to know that they can really understand the concepts you talk about because you give so many amazing examples. Oh. So I also want to talk about, um, uh, especially because we're still talking about the first part of the book.

[00:16:30] You talked, you touched upon procrastination, you talked about, uh, perfectionism, but I want to talk about the impact of stress on productivity because, We do talk about procrastination and, and perfectionism a lot here also in the declar hub. Right. But stress is, is still, I think, a very not mind territory, I think.

[00:16:53] Ellen: Okay. So I will explain this in real simple terms, um, because we don't need to know more than the, the basics here to get the point. So. The brain. Um, you have two key parts of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, which is in the front of like behind your forehead, and that's where you do your thinking. And then a little further in is the limbic system.

[00:17:20] That's the emotional part of your brain. From an evolutionary sense, the limbic system is much, much older than the thinking brain. So it's able to, when the brain feels, when you as a human being, feels threat under, under threat or, or stress or anxiety, all of those things, it moves you physiologically, moves you out of your thinking brain into your emotional brain and.

[00:17:52] We know that in, like we've studied from caveman days, if you are, um, sitting there cooking dinner in your cave and the baby is laying in the basket next to you and a wolf comes into the cave, your body, you want it to jump into that fight and flight to save your baby. Well, because the limbic, the emotional brain is so much older than the thinking brain.

[00:18:19] That when we feel that threat and too much stress or too much anxiety, or we're worried about something, we are then moving out of our thinking brain into the emotional brain where we get brain fog and things lock up and we can't think, and we're not clear and we can't remember, and then we say, what's wrong with me?

[00:18:41] Well, what is happening is a physiological response to too much stress. And all of a sudden, your body goes into that fight and flight response. So to be productive, you have to create conditions for you to be your best self. And it's about self-care and it's about self-compassion. And it's about creating systems and processes and tools, which is what we talk about to help keep you in your thinking brain.

[00:19:13] So what, for your listeners for today, when you feel that start to like that feeling of maybe a little panic or over anxiety, just say, oh, this is a normal physiological response. This is what my body is built to do. There's nothing wrong with me. Stop. Take a couple deep breaths, relax. Make me take a little walk around the building or around your street, whatever you need, yoga, whatever you need.

[00:19:43] Just even a few deep breaths that'll calm your nervous system down and it'll put you back into your thinking brain where you could go get your work done. 

[00:19:53] Ingrid: Oh my gosh. I absolutely love that. I love it how you've explained it to me because I, I, I did think when I was reading that part of the book, I was like, okay, I'm hoping I can talk to Ellen about this.

[00:20:04] And she give that a little bit more, um, explanation for me. And so thank you so much for explaining that. Listeners, I'm going to take a quick break because I've got lots more questions for Ellen. So let's take a break and we're going to come back after this short break.

[00:20:19] Hello, listeners, welcome back to this podcast where I'm talking to. Ellen Faye, who's written a book, pro Productivity for How You're Wired. And before the break we've been already talking about so much about productivity, about why it's not a one size fits all her different structures that she's written about In her book, we've talked about stress impacting your productivity and still a lot more things to go through, Ellen.

[00:20:45] So I would love to know more about your productivity flow framework. So, Awesome. 

[00:20:54] Ellen: So we just talked about section one of the book. Now we're going to move into section two. So Section one was understand. Section two is create. Now we're going to help you create some systems and processes, tools to help you use your time more effectively and intentionally.

[00:21:14] Which is what productivity is. And then remember, each of these tools I talk about in the book, it explains if you're low structure, try this. If you're moderate structure, try this. If you're high structure, try this. So, um, there are five elements. I call it a framework because it's just like a picture frame.

[00:21:32] Mm-hmm. Without you in the center, it means nothing. And I give you some templates and people are like, you're giving those templates away. Well, without you and your personal use of them. They're just spreadsheets with blanks. Right? But the book tells you how to fill it in from your, from your who you are.

[00:21:53] So we do five things. One, the first part is goals and intentions. And I was talking about that a little earlier. It's, you know, so many people call and say, I just don't know what my priorities are. Even at work. So this is really about getting clear what is important, what is important for now. So it's what are your goals and intentions.

[00:22:14] And it's not just goal setting because you know, a goal can be, I want to make X amount of money, or I want to write this book by X date. And those are very tangible, but an intention is more about how you want to live. I want to be a be be there for my kids. I want to, um, live a healthy, happy life. Those are much more intentional.

[00:22:40] They're not endpoints. It's just how you want to be. So this exercise helps you, uh, just gives you the opportunity to pause and think through what is it I really want. It's not, you could do it in a, in a very quick amount of time. I do it with my clients less than an hour. And I remember when I worked in corporate America and they said, go do your goals.

[00:23:02] You have six months to do that. It does not take six months. We'll do this and just trust your intuition. Listen, write it down. If you want to change it later, you can. So that's what we do with goals and intentions from that. The next exercise, and you don't have to go in order, but I teach it in order because you going to do something, right.

[00:23:20] So time mapping is, You could look at it one of two ways. Um, a vision board for your time. I don't know if you've ever made those vision boards where you cut up pictures, why want my house to look like this and I want my car to be this? And, um, whatever you want in your life. I want a garden that looks like this.

[00:23:37] So this is taking a, making a visual picture of in an ideal week, this is how I want my, my week to be. Another way to look at this is a budget for your time. Because like we said before, time is finite and if I want to have time to read three times a week, where am I going to put that in? And if I want to have time to exercise and if I want to have date night?

[00:23:59] So you kind of plan out all those priorities. Again, I show you low structure, moderate structure, and high structure examples from that. And we also make sure that if you say in your goals and intentions, that you want to have time to learn a new language. That you have time blocked into your ideal week into your time map.

[00:24:20] To learn a new language because you're not going to learn a new language unless you plan and create a process and a structure for you to get there. We then take all of those things on your Time app and we look at them when we say, oh, look, what are your essential structures for being your best self?

[00:24:37] Because that time app is just a thinking tool. I would never expect anyone to follow that as a schedule. Mm-hmm. But we pull out from that. Oh, I need eight hours of sleep, five nights a week. I need to make time to plan my meals so I eat right so I can live a healthy life. I need to go to bed. At this time so I can wake up at this time so I could exercise before the kids wake up.

[00:25:05] So those kinds of, I call them winning conditions for your yes list and guardrails for your no list. I don't want you to fall off the road. So here's the things we're saying no to, and here's the things we're saying yes to, and I give you tons of real life examples so you can start thinking it through for 

[00:25:23] Ingrid: yourself.

[00:25:25] So Ellen before, can I ask you a question? Um, yes. Do we all over schedule do, if you do this exercise with your clients and I read it about it in the book about the mom who wanted to do so much, she could like sleep for two hours. Do you see that a lot? Do we all over 

[00:25:42] Ellen: commit? I see a lot of over committing.

[00:25:48] And then I also see that when people do this, they say, wow, as long as I do this and this, I really can do more and I really can have time for that art class and I really can have time to go bike riding with my family. But if you just, if you don't plan it, if you don't think about it, You are just going to fritter your time away.

[00:26:12] Yeah. So remember this is about the intentional use of time. So this helps you think it through and be intentional. And what I really see is that people think sleep is magical. That if they say they're going to wake up at six in the morning, Either. Maybe some people like to work out before work, others like to, or their day starts.

[00:26:33] Others like to work out during the day after, at the end of the day. But they always have like this ideal, here's the things I want to do first thing in the morning. Well, to get up at six. And they know they need seven hours of sleep. That means lights out is at 11, but they still think that I could go to bed at one or two and still get up at six.

[00:26:54] And this, this, uh, shows them. What they need to do to really. Yeah, that all 

[00:27:02] Ingrid: fit. Yeah. Yeah. I love that because we, um, we talked a little bit in the Declutter Hub because we have a lot of, uh, members who are also still in full-time employment, and they're like, how am I going to get all this decluttering done?

[00:27:15] And we said, well, let's look first of all then at the weekends, let's, because you know that during the week you are gone from. You know, with getting up and getting people ready and you're gone and in the evening you probably want to do dinner, you do a bit of a tidy up, you might need to help with housework or homework.

[00:27:32] So you've got seven blocks over the weekend, a Friday night, three blocks on sun. Sunday, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon, Sunday, and then suddenly went. Yeah, because I think we said don't see it as whole days, but see it as blocks and you can do something in each of the blocks and you can, yes, definitely put in relaxation time or going out time or going for a bicycle ride, but instead of kind of seeing it as the weekend start to be more intentional.

[00:28:07] Intentional about the how you're going to use the time. 

[00:28:11] Ellen: Exactly. Exactly. And somebody would say, I don't want to organise all weekend. Well, I know from when I was, um, professional organising, I might see a client three hours every week or even three hours every of the week over a period of time. And you could get a lot done.

[00:28:28] So if you said, I'm going to do three hours every Saturday morning, get it done, I'm going to do, I'm going to organise from eight 30 to 1130. You still have your whole rest of the weekend. So, or if you are the kind of person, I'd rather do it Saturday night or Friday, whatever you want. Whatever works for you. But if you don't, if you're not intentional, I keep using that word, but that's what it is.

[00:28:53] If you are not. Going to plan your success, you are not going to have 

[00:28:58] Ingrid: success. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So we talked about goal and intention setting. We talked about the time mapping and essential structures. Shall we go on, on your um, flow 

[00:29:10] Ellen: framework? Sure, sure. I'll just touch on them lightly. The priorities task list is my approach to a to-do list, and it's not, I'd say in the book method first tool second.

[00:29:22] There's a billion tools you can use, but I want you to start thinking about organising your to-dos by priority. So you are, if you put it into, I have to do it Monday and Monday passes and you haven't done it, you have failed. We don't want you to fail, we don't want you to copy it over. We don't have you forget about it.

[00:29:40] So it goes in this critical list and then you pick out what you could reasonably accomplish. So it's more sequencing your to-do list. Kind of think of it like a conveyor belt that's feeding you your tests in order, and you do the most important ones first. Mm-hmm. And then at the end of the day, your conveyor belt stops and you kind of, the next morning you reassess and take two, two or three minutes.

[00:30:07] You say, okay, these are the important things for today. And they just come to you in order. Once a week you look it over and you'd be sure it's still correct. So the last step of the flow framework is daily planning to assess what's most important for today, two, three minutes max. I mean, there's some other things you could do.

[00:30:25] I talk about that. But really pulling out what is the most important things I achieved today. And then the same thing for the weekly. Giving it a once over for, uh, on a weekly basis. That's the whole framework, and if you do it, Things will be much better because you're now planning. And being deliberate about how you are going to achieve what it is you want to achieve.

[00:30:48] Ingrid: I love that. So it's really all about the, not only to think about, Leslie and I talk a lot about daily and weekly resets, so the things you need to do in your home to kind of stay on top of things. But it's the same what you do with your tasks as well. You prioritize what are your non-negotiables. Our listeners will have probably heard that terminology from us.

[00:31:09] What are your non-negotiables? What do you need to do today to make sure it all just runs that, just that little bit smoother? Instead of going, okay, I got 24 things on my list, and then what do I do first? You, you, you can never do 24 things on a whole list, and then you don't 

[00:31:24] Ellen: know what's important either.

[00:31:25] Yeah. When you have 

[00:31:26] Ingrid: 24 things on your list. Exactly. I. Love this book in case you, in case you were wondering listeners, I absolutely love this book and it's so helpful and it is so positive. It's exactly what Ellen just said. It's not about thinking, oh, I failed because I didn't do something. Let's think about what we can do and how we can change and how we can make small tweaks along the way and be realistic about we have, be intentional with our time and just move forward.

[00:31:58] So, Oh very. You know what? There's not even enough time in five podcasts to go into everything that Ellen put in this book, so I can definitely recommend to everyone have a look. But I want to share with you my favorite quote of the book, and it is, boundaries are what you say Yes to and what you say no to, and.

[00:32:25] I have learned that the hard way, Alan, I have learned that the hard way. I'm still not very good at saying no, but I'm really getting better and um, I think it really helps you if you think for yourself. What's important to you, those are the things you want to say yes to, and that means you have to say no to other things.

[00:32:46] And we talk about it a lot in the membership to say, I really appreciate you thinking of me, but I'm going to kindly decline. Or can I think about it? Instead of immediately saying, oh yeah, I'll do that. Just be kind and say, okay. Okay. I'm, I'm, I'm, I've got a very full diary. I want to take your question into consideration.

[00:33:05] I'm going to think about, I'm going to get back to you tomorrow or the day after or next week. You don't necessarily always have to say no in the moment, but also be careful that you don't fall in the trap of saying yes to everything. 

[00:33:17] Ellen: Right. Right. Because I always say the only thing worse than a no is a yes.

[00:33:25] That the person can't do it or follow through. 

[00:33:28] Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah. And that's when you get unrealistic expectations and you put the pressure on yourself all the time and you feel that you're maybe not the right person, but they've asked you to do it and you don't want to let other people down. But you think to yourself, I dunno if I'm up for it.

[00:33:43] And then there's a lot of. Um, stress involved in that as well, isn't it? 

[00:33:48] Ellen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, I just want to comment on that, um, sentence that you said was your favorite, which is one of my favorite too, because I always struggled with boundaries. I was always so challenged by that, and then I finally figured out, This all we're doing is creating a list of, this is what I say yes to.

[00:34:06] This is what I say no to remember in the, um, flow framework. It's your winning conditions and your, uh, guard ribs. But like, um, one of the things I have learned to do is say no to talking to anyone before nine in the morning. I have all these things I need to do to take care of my business and my house.

[00:34:25] So when I sit down at nine o'clock, I can be fully engaged and focused on either my client or whoever I'm talking to. So that's just a really simple example. Yeah. But it's what I do. It's like my self-care. 

[00:34:38] Ingrid: Yeah, very good. Because self-care is so important, we have to make sure that we are okay because then we can be.

[00:34:47] A, a better version of ourselves, but also to the people around us, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:34:52] Ellen: And it's really hard when you have little kids. Yeah. So be kind to yourself as well. We talk about 

[00:34:57] Ingrid: self-compassion too. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Um, last question for you then, Ellen. Um, any favorite time hacks that you would like to share with our listeners?

[00:35:07] Ellen: Sure. I have a bunch and it's. I could go on for hours, but let's just talk about maybe two or three. So one is I want you to think about planning as a gift of self-care. It is a gift to yourself. All these things are things so you can live better and have a better quality of life. I had one client, she says, I didn't think I had time to plan, but now this is the ultimate expression of self-care.

[00:35:36] Okay. Yeah, so that's what planning is. I'm breaking big things down into small chunks, so they're manageable. You know, like we were talking about the to-do lists give you 24 things. It's like you feel so overwhelmed that flips your brain right into that fight and flight, and you can't do anything. But if you, if you have a big project, instead of saying, oh, I'm going to work on the school carnival today.

[00:36:01] You break that down into, here are the 10 things I need to do for the school carnival, and the first one is to put make a flyer to get volunteers. Oh, I can do that. It's so much easier. To do one thing, like a flyer than it is to work on the school carnival. Yeah. Um, do you guys have school carnivals in the uk?

[00:36:22] Ingrid: Um, I think they're probably like school fairs we call them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

[00:36:27] Ellen: Same thing. I just realized that I used a US term, so, um, what else? You know, think about what's in your control and what's not in your control. It helps keep you focused on. In that, in that healthy thinking mind, because there are things that we can't control.

[00:36:46] But if there's things you can do, like you can't control what your kids eat at their na, at their friend's house. But if you say, I want to have healthy snacks in my house and I am going to plan when I go to the grocery, what do you guys call it? The market. Yeah. Yeah. Supermarket. Yeah. Buy these things and then I am going to take the time to cut up the red pepper and clean the grapes so my kids can grab that.

[00:37:15] You can control those things, but the things you can't control, you going to let go of, take time to think through to plan. Your routines for morning, for bedtime. You know, I, this sounds so silly, but sometimes I'll just, if I have to incorporate like a new product into my morning routine or evening routine, I'm going to take a post-it and I'm going to write down the steps and I'm going to put it on my bathroom mirror so I don't have to think about it every single time.

[00:37:47] So create. Tools to help you be successful, like, and don't hesitate to write them down till you learn them. A lot of the tools we talk about, there's a dashboard in the um, section three, which is apply. We talk about like how you learn a new routine, how you incorporate a new habit. So you might want to do some self accountability and create a little dashboard with the steps.

[00:38:12] That's how you integrate that routine so it goes on autopilot so you don't have to think about it the rest of your life. 

[00:38:19] Ingrid: Absolutely amazing, um, um, examples. Ellen and I absolutely love it and we haven't even touched upon the, the, the last part of your book, it's Productivity at work, about emails and working remotely and, uh, being productive in teams and making decisions.

[00:38:36] But unfortunately we have run out of time in this podcast. But I would love for our listeners to find your book. So where can they find your book, Ellen? 

[00:38:45] Ellen: Very simple. Go on Amazon, uh, productivity for how you're wired. Or you could search under my name, which is really even more easy. L n E l l e n, Faye, f a y e, or go to my website ellen faye.com and it'll link you right to Amazon.

[00:39:00] You'll see it all over my site and just it's kin available Kindle and paperback. I'll do an audio at some point, but right 

[00:39:08] Ingrid: now, yeah, I hope so. Yeah, that would be amazing. Um, I will of course put all of this in the show notes because I don't want anyone to, um, miss out on that. So if you go to declutter.com/ 2 1 8, you will find.

[00:39:23] This, uh, recording in audio form, you will find the, uh, YouTube, um, recording. We'll put in all the show notes, what we've talked about, and of course I will put it on the links. Thank you, Ellen, for being here and for telling us about your amazing book. 

[00:39:38] Ellen: So glad to. It is, you know, it's just, I just hope it helps everyone have a better quality of life.

[00:39:47] And I'm so, um, honored and privileged to be with you. So thank you for giving me this opportunity and being able to share this message with your listeners. I know, I know. 

[00:39:56] Ingrid: It's so important because I think so many of us feel overwhelmed and that there's a book that can really understand how you are wired on the inside and that you are.

[00:40:07] Not a lost course. You just need to have the right structures in place to be more productive. So thank you so much for being our guest listeners. Oh my words. I would love to know what you think about this podcast episode. Please tell us in the comments. Again, go to declutter.com 2 1 8. You can fill in comments.

[00:40:26] More and more listeners are leaving us comments. We love it. We respond to. All of you. I would love to know if this podcast was helpful for you, and I would love to know what you've taken away. And if you are now excited about reading Ellen's book and if you're going to have a look at it, please let us know.

[00:40:43] Next week we're talking about the 10 Things or organised people do. We look forward to seeing you then. Thank you, Ellen, for being here and hopefully till another time.

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A graphic of various organisational items surrounding a heart

THE 5 PILLARS OF PRODUCTIVITY – A GUEST BLOG BY ELLEN FAYE

These 5 pillars of productivity are core to your productivity success. Whatever you learn, whatever you do, keep these in mind and build from here.

Productivity is a Quality of Life Issue

Productivity is a quality of life issue. When we don’t know what is important, we end up doing unimportant things. We spend our weekends thinking we’ll get work done, yet we’re exhausted and don’t. We end up more stressed and less effective come Monday morning, worried about the work we didn’t do. Finding a way to work better brings greater ease, peace, and happiness to both career and life.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Each of us is wired differently, and what works for one person absolutely may not work for someone else. Being willing to experiment and discover productivity solutions that fit YOU is essential.

If It Isn’t EASY, It’s Too Hard

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when trying to improve their productivity is making their systems too complex. Too many steps and the systems are destined to fail. Too much time to learn the systems and more time is spent on the tool, with little time spent on the task itself.

Not All Work is Equally Important

Pareto’s principle, the 80/20 Rule, supports the concept that you can achieve 80% of the results in 20% of the time. Learning how and when to apply the 80/20 rule helps free up time for important things, in and out of work. Be deliberate in how you invest your time.

20% of your work/clients contributes to 80% of your profits
20% of your apps are used 80% of the time
20% of your meeting time achieves 80% of decisions
20% of your time yields 80% of the result

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

Taking the time to plan is the secret sauce to productivity. If you think you don’t have time to plan, you don’t have time NOT to plan. Investing a little time for planning drives the shift from overwhelmed to productive.

The greatest benefit of planning may be the process of thinking things through. Winston Churchill may have been right when he said “Plans are worthless, planning is priceless.” Yes, sometimes plans go awry. However, things go much more awry without them.

Planning helps you stop worrying about missing a deadline or an opportunity.
Planning helps you to anticipate so surprises are minimized.
Planning helps you prioritize tasks moving you towards focused success.
Planning helps you use your time well. When you say yes to something off–plan, you are saying no to working on–plan.

If you would like to know more about Ellen and her work check out her website.

Useful Links and Resources

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Episode 261 – The power of slow in a fast world with guest Carl Honoré

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Fae Urban says:

12 December 2022 at 2:53 AM

Loved this Podcast and all Ellen Faye shared! I definitely would like her book for more details. What she was open to sharing was very beneficial. Thank you for sharing!

Reply
1. Ingrid Jansen says:
  
  12 December 2022 at 6:52 PM
  
  Thank you Fae for letting us know! So glad you found this podcast so helpful. The link for the book is in the useful links and resources section here in the show notes above the comments.
  
  Reply

Episode 218 – Productivity for how you’re wired with Ellen Faye

THE 5 PILLARS OF PRODUCTIVITY – A GUEST BLOG BY ELLEN FAYE

Productivity is a Quality of Life Issue

One Size Does Not Fit All

If It Isn’t EASY, It’s Too Hard

Not All Work is Equally Important

Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan

Episode 261 – The power of slow in a fast world with guest Carl Honoré

Episode 260 – How to get things done with a list

Episode 259 – 10 Organising products worth investing in

Episode 258 – The transition from young adult to home-maker with guest Penny Moyses

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