Master Your Productivity to Reclaim Your Time - with Leslie Shreve

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:29  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show, and thank you so much for joining me this week. I am so excited to introduce today's guest and to share this conversation with you, because I know it's going to be amazing. I have today Leslie Shreve. And Leslie is a workload management and productivity expert and the founder and CEO of Productive Day. Leslie is also the creator of Taskology, the science of getting things done a unique, proprietary and all encompassing system for workload management and productivity that includes the management of tasks, email, time and information. For more than 13 years, Leslie worked in corporate office environments before establishing Productive Day in 2003 since then, Leslie has taught hundreds of C level leaders, managers, business owners and professionals from more than 30 different industries how to increase efficiency and productivity by up to 300% in as little as four weeks, gain one to two hours back in their workday every day, and spend up to 50% less time in the email inbox so they can make more meaningful, powerful progress on the projects that matter most without giving up all of their personal time to do it. I thought that it would be wonderful to have Leslie here today, because I know that we all wish we had an extra one or two hours in our day or more, because we never feel like we have enough time. And so I'm so excited for Leslie to share what she does and what she's learned, so that she can help all of us to get more time back for ourselves. So welcome Leslie.

Leslie Shreve  2:06  

thank you so much, Leanna, it's great to be here today.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:09  

Yeah, it's so great to have you. I want to pick your brain about everything and learn all the things that you have in there, because I know that it's going to help our listeners so so much. So to start off, maybe could you just tell us a little bit about yourself? I know that I just read your bio, but tell us about yourself and what brought you to this work. 

Leslie Shreve  2:26  

Sure. I'm in Baltimore, Maryland, been here all my life, and I went to college knowing that I wanted to be in the corporate world. It's very near and dear to my heart, so it was easy to know that I wanted my business degree, and I never felt the need to have a Master's, so I just moved into the corporate world, as you had mentioned when I graduated college, and that was in 1990 so I fell into a specific career, has nothing to do with what I do now. It was really corporate material management, purchasing and contracting, mostly for healthcare, so mostly for some of our health systems down here in Baltimore. I guess in 2001 or two, I started to feel a little restless, as if I already knew that there was more for me out there, somehow, that I could use my innate talents to help others. And while I loved my career in corporate, I just felt like I had hit sort of a wall. And I thought, well, that was really fun. Loved that, now let's move on to something else. And I thought that I would help people get organized; 20 years ago, that's how all this got started. But I learned very, very quickly that that is not what people need the most. What I learned when I started working with clients back then was that sure they could find or file something in three seconds or less. Great. You know, I found that paper, that E document, or that business card, but if they can't plan and prioritize tasks or even gather all of them and get them all into their vision, they are so behind the eight ball. You know, they're kind of stuck. If they can't dig out of email, they're really stuck. And if you can't get the time you need to work on your most important projects and initiatives, then you're just going to be behind forever. And that started to really pain me. So I thought, You know what? I'm seeing the gaps here. I'm seeing the inefficiencies. I'm seeing where people are not being productive with their time and not being effective with their time. And because of my experience in corporate and the use of Microsoft Outlook for about, I don't know, 30 years now, that being my favorite system, I started to realize that I was teaching my clients the same thing over and over again, and I was getting into task management and time management and email management and information management and all of that. And by 2008 the system was starting to come out of my head. It was starting to form. And I thought, you know, this is a repeatable process. This is something that I really need to get down on paper just to have the the actual system documented somewhere. And by 2010 I had created Taskology, The Science of Getting Things Done, and I trademarked it. So since then, I've been teaching the system, and I've always focused on the fact that the the name of the game is efficiency and productivity and making progress in your workday. So that's how it all began. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  5:06  

Wow. I love that story. And as my listeners know, I always love to get to know the person who is visiting us. And so I want to learn a little bit more about you, and then I want to learn all the wonderful things that you can teach us about productivity and efficiency and management. I guess what I heard you say many times was the word management. And so what is it about that that like draws you to it?

Leslie Shreve  5:33  

Management. I'm a systems and a process type person. I think routines will save you, habits and routines that are productive. I find that when you manage something in a streamlined way, in a predictable way, in a reliable way, then you know you can count on it, and whether or not it's something you're reaching for, which would go back to organization, you know you're reaching for something or you're looking for something in the hard drive, or looking for something anywhere, you want to count on the fact that it's there. For me, the time is so important because it's our most valued resource, and you can't get it again once it's gone. You know, it's not like you can renew it. I find that it's important to use our time wisely, and I wouldn't want to waste time managing something in such a way that I can't find something, or that I can't figure out how to do something, I think, something that's always been part of me, I guess, even when I was little, mom used to tell stories of the things that I would do because I don't know I wanted to save time and make it easy. And that's what I want to do for people now, is make the work day easier.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:34  

I love that.

Leslie Shreve  6:35  

I think one of the stories she used to tell my mom would say that when I went to school, which was a it had a uniform. So it was a private school down here in Baltimore. And one morning, I do not know how old I was, I want to say I was about maybe 10 or eight, and I decided that I was going to put my uniform on the night before, because I wanted to save time in the morning. She let me go to bed, I woke up all wrinkled. Oh, well, that won't do so of course, that put a stop to that immediately, because I also wanted to look polished, you know, 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:06  

Sure.

Leslie Shreve  7:06  

And not wrinkled. But she let me do it anyway, just so she could say, you know, you're gonna wake up a mess, wrinkled and everything. But I thought, well, that would make my morning easier, because then I won't have to get dressed in the morning. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:18  

Yeah, it's a very logical idea. So this is, like, very innate in you. 

Leslie Shreve  7:23  

It is.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:24  

Yeah, I think one thing I wish for all humans and women especially is that we find those things that make us so unique, that we are passionate about, that we love, and that we are able to build lives and or careers doing them. And it sounds like you've done that, and that must feel so wonderful for you.

Leslie Shreve  7:44  

It is. I think, you know, I look back and mom had also saved all of my little report cards from grade school. And after she passed away, about seven years ago it's been, I was looking through what she saved, and I realized, looking back now that all of my teachers had mentioned in my report cards how efficient I was, or good with time, or really productive, or, you know, using all those buzzwords that we use today here at Productive Day. And I thought, oh my gosh, this reaches back 40 years, maybe more, actually. And I thought, wow, this is amazing. And so of course, I saved it and I put it on our website, on the Meet Leslie page, just because I thought it was funny that even back then, they could see where I was headed, and they used all the words I use today, and I just didn't realize it.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  8:29  

Wow, that is so cool. So I know our listeners are curious about like, How can I be more efficient? How can I make better use of my time? All of our listeners are high achievers and probably very productive, you know, and feel like there's a never ending to do list and lots of things that they need to get done every day. So where should we start? What do you think would be most helpful to start with for helping people learn more about efficiency and productivity and management?

Leslie Shreve  8:58  

Well, the very first place it really needs to start is getting a grip on everything that you're responsible for. Now that sounds daunting. I know. Even I, with the system I have, there are moments where I look at at what I need to do and I think, Wow, can I just hire like five more of me to get all this done? And everybody feels that way this these days, but I think the thing that is really dragging people down and holding them back is that there are more than 10 different sources in our workday right now, and those sources of tasks are in so many different places, it kind of causes you to run around and keep checking them. So we're looking at email, we're checking voicemail, we're looking at texts now, we're looking at social media. You've got papers and files on your desk, some as reminders of things to do. And when you create a to do list on paper, like a legal pad or a steno pad or a notebook or planner, that becomes yet another source, and that's because you filled it up with stuff, plus you've got meetings and hallway conversations. I mean, it's coming at you from everywhere. What this causes people to do is check those sources like see what you flagged an email, see what's on the desk, see what's on the legal pad. And by now you're trying to remember the most important thing at each of those locations, and then you're prioritizing in your head, or you're trying to at least. And this is where things can slip through the cracks. This is where trouble comes in, because it's really hard to keep track of all that, and it's actually impossible to efficiently and effectively manage all your tasks and plan them and prioritize them and try to accomplish them without missing, losing or forgetting something. When you do it that way, you know when you're looking at those sources. 

Leslie Shreve  10:38  

So the most important thing that people can do is centralize them. Now, a lot of people try to do this, but without understanding the true concept, and I'm going to explain it, it's not something that people have an easy time of wrapping their brain around. And I think because email is such an anchor and it's so huge, that people think, Well, how am I going to get all the tasks and follow ups out of email into my task app, or onto my planner or into my legal pad, like that's just silly, and you're right when you're using paper, that would be silly because paper is a tool, not a system, and so you're never going to be able to fill up a piece of paper or a planner with those tasks. It really has to be digital and not like the little digital app on your phone. What you want to start with is a system in your computer. So whether that's your email system, you know, Microsoft already has a task list, but we'll come back to that, because most people really hate that. But everybody I work with is in corporate, so they're stuck with it, and that makes my heart sing, because I can help them. But if you have Google or something else, you've gone for Asana Trello Todoist Notion Monday, like I could list them all, and none of those are really going to help. And the reason for that is because you need a methodology for the technology, and without a method, people are spinning their wheels. So they look at something that might be a project management tool, and they've got project, and then task, and then sub task, and they've got bells and whistles and colors and categories and oh my goodness. And people are like, wow, what do I do with all this? And it starts to get complicated. 

Leslie Shreve  12:06  

Then on top of that, they think, Well, gosh, if I don't use all these features that they included, well then I'm not getting the value out of what I just purchased. And so they try, and they try to really use all these different things, but honestly, it's too much. I simplify it for my clients, you really only need to worry about two things and two things only, what am I going to do and when am I going to do it? Now, if you have due dates or deadlines, totally keep those in mind. You know. Keep that as a little note in the task. But the truth is, you need to know when you're going to take action. That's far more important than when something is due. So when you centralize your tasks, no matter what that task list is. And I know some people out there who might be challenged with technology, because I am not an IT person myself, and I do not know about all these different systems out there. There are so many I would probably tear my hair out to try to, you know, keep up with all of them, but I can tell you that the methodology works in any single one of them. If you have one, you want to centralize everything by getting them away from the sources. Get those tasks out of those buckets, if you will, you know, get the papers off your desk. Figure out which ones are reminders of things to do, build it with everything that's on your legal pad right now. 

Leslie Shreve  13:17  

Now, when you start pulling them all together like that, you're going to instantly start prioritizing in your head, going, Wow, that's really important. I need to do that today, but that can wait, you know, a day a week, a month, whatever. My clients have anywhere from 30 to 150 tasks on their task list, but they're not all for today or this week or this month. So you're going to automatically start to prioritize when you start to see them all in your vision when you have that kind of clarity, and then all of a sudden you're going to start picking different action dates for different tasks. And then it becomes really easy and really clear. In my system, I limit how many tasks you can have on a day, because people might want to say, well, I want to do this much, but they only have time for this much, you know. So that comes into play, but it's a really simple approach, and that's the best way to get started, is get them away from your sources. Now leave email last and go after everything else first, because that's going to give you the most benefit and the most sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. Get rid of all the paper because paper is holding you back. You don't want to rely on that because you can't plan easily. You can't prioritize easily, and when you start crossing things off, it gets a bit messy. So I would say to everybody, start doing that, and then build it so it's complete. Even if you say, Well, gosh, I don't have to worry about that until December. Still get it in the digital system. Because when you give it a target date of action, December 1st, whatever, then you know it's safe. It's off your mind. It's in the system, and you can get back to today.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  13:17  

I love that. And yes, I definitely have the tendency to be quite the optimist when it comes to how much I can get done in one day. 

Leslie Shreve  14:51  

All of us.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:51  

Yes. So I think that high achievers tend to do that right. We're like, I can do it. I can do all of this. And then we get to the end of the day, and we're like, oh. Oh, the day's done, and I need to sleep, and I still have some things on my list now.

Leslie Shreve  15:05  

It's true, we are all capable, highly capable people. We can do anything. What it comes down to is the time. So in my system, we have a task time connection. And there again, it's having this big bucket of things to do, and this tiny little symbol of time, and they never match up. So it's not at that point of concept of capability or ability, it's the limitations of time, and that's where it's so important to pick the most important tasks for that day, the must do's because when you're looking at 10 or 12 or 15 of them, well, you can't do all that, so you have to choose, if something must be done today, what's it going to be? Because you want to make sure you do that first. And I think the other challenge is, when folks write things down on their legal pads or in their planners or even in their task app, a lot of people are phrasing things way too big, projects, multi step tasks. It's way too big for not only doing it, but knowing where to start. So I help people break that down, because you really want everything to be small and achievable.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  16:10  

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I love the idea of just getting really clear, because it sounds so simple when it's like, what do I need to do and when am I going to do it? That sounds doable. You know, we're focusing, of course, on our work and our our career part of us, I think, for executive moms who are juggling multiple things, this also, when we learn to do something in one area of our lives, then we're able to take it and apply it to other areas of our lives, too. Because you know, when you're talking about 30 to 150 tasks, it's like, yeah, for work, and then like, I've got, you know, double that for all my home stuff and everything else I've got going on outside of work, right? And so I think for all of us who have busy lives and multiple things going on and we're active in our communities or active with our families, it's like, when we can learn to do this at work, then we can apply it in other areas. Do you find that your clients do that? Do they like to apply this in other areas as well?

Leslie Shreve  17:08  

Yes, they do, and they've told me that over the years. And what's interesting is that even when I'm working with people now and their task list, they do ask me about those personal tasks, and I will tell you that you do not want two separate lists. Now, if you're talking about groceries, yes, that could be on another list, talking about things that are exclusively done at home, you're right. That's another list that doesn't involve but if it's something you need to do between eight and five, whatever you consider your business day, if you need to call the dentist, or you need to call the doctor for your son or your daughter or whatever you need to do or make that you know, call to book that thing for that vacation coming up. If you have to do it during the day, get it on the task list. I tell my clients all the time. I mean, sure, we don't want to take a ton of time away from our eight to five. Not everything can be done at lunchtime. You know, we've got lives to live. So if you got to make a quick call, get it on that same task list, because that is your this is what I'm going to do in this business day list. It doesn't matter if it happens to be a personal task, the reason it's on there is taking time out of your day. It's got to be represented. Because when you look at that task list for today, not the whole thing, not the one with 150 but just what's for today, you've got to be able to kind of size it up very easily. And again, there is a task time connection, and because we have a formula for how to create a task in Taskology, my clients know about how long everything's going to take, and it's not scientific and it's not exact, but it's an approximation that helps them with that math of, okay, how much can I really fit into this particular day? And yes, if you're going to do a personal call, get it on there. You got to see it. You don't want to be looking at all these different places to know what you're going to do today. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:51  

Yeah, I was going to ask about that task time connection, because I think that that is interesting to think about. I have tried different systems, and often it's like, how do I estimate how long a task takes me, let's say that I need to prepare a board report. I have to get the data for it, I have to put the deck together, I have to gather my talking points. And so it's like, how much time do each of those things take, and how do I estimate that? So do you have any recommendations for people on how to figure out accurate estimations of their time?

Leslie Shreve  19:23  

So what it starts with is not necessarily the estimation, but the identification of the task, the very first one. So in our system, it's the first task to get something started, or the next action step to keep something moving forward. So these action steps are the ones that really need to be identified. So let's use your example that you just talked about. That's a perfect example. Happens all the time with my clients. What you've identified is actually like a mini project. It's a multi step task. So preparing a board report, you said the very first thing that you would need to do, because I would have pulled it out of you if you hadn't volunteered it. You said, I need to get the data. And if that's the very first thing you need to do, I would ask you, well, Leanna, how long do you think it would take for you to get the data? What would you say? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:08  

Well, actually, I think the first step is figuring out what data I want to share.

Leslie Shreve  20:11  

There's the first step. Okay, see, I pushed you back even further. But when people identify something, and I just did it because I don't know your process, but I would pull it out if a person is doing this for themselves, even if you think you've identified the first action step, try to go even farther down into that very ground level. What do I really need to do first? So you just identified it, which is perfect. You really need to figure out, what are the types of data that I need to include? So that might take you about how long just sit and kind of strategize about that? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  20:43  

Yeah, I think to identify the data that I want to share with the board, I'd say probably about 90 minutes, because I'm gonna need to look back at what data I shared before, or, if I'm new, you know, what data's been shared in the past, and then think about what important pieces do I want to share with them, thinking about that high level. So I'd say about 90 minutes for that. 

Leslie Shreve  21:04  

Okay, so even that is too big, so now I look down even more. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  21:08  

Okay, okay.

Leslie Shreve  21:09  

It's the perfect example, because you've listed off the things you would do in that 90 minutes, which is what I need to know in order to help. So what you've said is, well, I need to look back at what was shared before. Well, that might take you 15 to 30 minutes, which is perfect. That's a great, great size for a task that is your true first action step. Because what happens in the corporate world, as you already know, and everyone listening knows you're not going to get these huge blocks of time. Now, in our system, we do have a time protection strategy, so that's a whole nother thing. But when it comes to trying to get more accomplished and getting that ball rolling and getting things started and just digging in and not waiting for that 90 minute or that two hour block, you can get things rolling. And so this is a great example of getting something rolling. Because really, if you only focused on that one first step, you'd be golden. Just go figure out what was shared first, make that list first. And then if you get pulled away by a conversation, or you have to run off to your next meeting, dash off to lunch, whatever it is, you've at least gotten the ball rolling. Do you see how that works? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  22:13  

Yeah. And I think especially for folks who are juggling so many things, who already feel like they don't have a lot of time in the day. It feels a lot more attainable to be like, here's a 15 minute task than to say, Okay, I've got to find 90 minutes free in my calendar to do this, which, frankly, isn't probably going to happen between eight and five. That's probably going to be something I do after my kids are in bed, because I don't have the time during the day to do that. But if I could break it down, then maybe I could find 15 minutes in my workday to do that first piece, and then, you know, 15 minutes or 30 minutes to do the next piece, and so on, and actually get things done during the workday, yeah, instead of having to take it home.

Leslie Shreve  22:53  

Right. This is what I'm trying to save people from, is everybody says I'm working too many nights, coming in early, working weekends, I'm trying to save everybody from that, because you really want a choice. You don't want to feel like you have to. You can want to, but if you have to, that's where it gets really hard. It starts to beat down your you know, motivation and inspiration. It gets stressful, it gets tiring. It affects your sleep and your health and all of that. So I want people to be able to get more done during the day and then be able to unplug when they get home. So use that strategy of really dialing it down. Because if you think about it, when you look at a legal pad or a planner that has all those kinds of things written on it, you know, prepare the board report, well, that's huge. What happens is, you're looking at that legal pad with 20 different things on it, and you know that instinctively, you're probably going to hold back a little bit and go for those things that are small and achievable, because you want that sense of accomplishment in your day. And research shows that it's in these teeny, tiny action steps that I'm talking about that's where you'll get that steady forward movement in your day and that feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day. So make everything small and achievable. Really dial it back to the very first thing you would do. Okay.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  24:06  

Yeah, I love that, because you're right. What I would have a tendency to do is to do all the easy things, because I know that that thing's going to take me a really long time. If my task is prepare the board deck, it's like I could still get a bunch of things done today, or I can get that one thing and only check one thing off my list, and that's not going to feel as good as checking 10 things off my list.

Leslie Shreve  24:27  

Which is true, you could do but see when they're all achievable, you could still do the one good one, and then other eight little things, you know, or five or six or whatever, because once you finish gathering the data, oh, sorry not gathering it, but looking to see what they shared last year or what was in last year's board report, once you identify that and you have that framework, well, if you happen to have another 10 minutes and you don't have to go to your next meeting, you're kind of on a roll. And then you can say, Okay, well, let me see what other people maybe requested should be in this board report. Does your only take that next step? Whatever it is, because instinctively you're going to know the next step. And so when you look at your task list, it's these tasks that morph from one step to the next, and you know what it's going to be. So I want to save everybody some time right here, here's a pro tip. Do not try to sit down and write every piece of a project or a multi step task. Do not try to figure it all out. If you happen to know of a couple things you've got to do, great, get that out of your head, but do not try to get that crystal ball out and figure out every little piece of something that you're ever going to have to do for a project. Just don't. It's going to come out as you take action and just let it lead into the next action step and the next action step and so on and so forth. You're going to save a lot of time. So no, first of all.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  25:44  

Yeah, no, I love that, but my mind was going there, like, okay, so am I writing down all these little tasks? Because that seems like I would have way more than 30 to 150.

Leslie Shreve  25:53  

My clients, when they have the 30 to 150 they're all different things. So if they've got a project going on, the only thing you'll see on their task list is that first action step or the next action step. That's it. The rest is in the notes section, or it will show up when they take that first action step. Because a lot of cases, we don't know what's going to come next. You know, we have a phone call with somebody, you know, we call Bob. We don't know what's going to come out of that phone call with Bob. So let it just flow from, okay, I've called Bob, and now that I'm off the phone, here's my next action step, and then you just change it. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  26:24  

Yeah, I love that. So I've done something, then I either do the next thing, if I have time, and if not, then I just write down what the next thing is, and-

Leslie Shreve  26:31  

And you pick a new action date. Might be tomorrow, might be Friday, might be next Monday. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  26:35  

Yeah, okay, well, keep telling me what we need to do.

Leslie Shreve  26:40  

So I think the most important thing is making sure the list is complete. I think too many people start with a new tool, like Asana, Trello, Google, whatever you've got, and you try to fill it up with everything, but then you might not have the X ray vision I have on where all the other tasks are hiding, and email is one of them, where a lot of tasks and follow ups are hiding. And I tell people email management is really task management in disguise. It's also Information Management in disguise as well. But you really want to make sure your desk is clear, because those kinds of distractions really get you. They get you later on, because you might be working and in the zone and focused on something, and then if you've got kind of stacks and build up around you, something's going to catch the corner of your eye, and you're going to think, oh, shoot, I didn't do that thing that I was supposed to do last week, you know. And that's going to pull you off and down another rabbit hole. So the more you can keep your space clear, always a good thing, but make sure that the task list is built complete. 

Leslie Shreve  27:36  

Now, when it comes to email, it gets a little bit more complicated, because you really have to have a method for understanding how to get those tasks and follow ups out of there, but without using the flag or any other stars or whatever. That's going to happen in a lot of other systems, where you might star something and it automatically lands on the task list in that particular app. And that's fine, but what you really have to do at that point is don't accept the subject line from the email. Got to rephrase it, no matter what system you're in or what happens, because it can happen in Microsoft just as easily, too. And we don't use the flag or the to do list. We use tasks. But whatever you do, when you get it into that task list that you've got, you've got to change the name of that task. You've really got to identify exactly what you're going to do, because somebody else may have put in some weird subject line, and with that connection in your system, it's going to it's going to pull that over automatically, and you want to make it read what you're going to do. And I do get my clients down to zero in the inbox. But not just not to see the pretty white space. It's so you know, you've seen everything, you've made a decision on everything, and you've moved it all to better locations of either reference or action, where it's gone, archived or deleted. Now, decision making is one of those stumbling blocks that people have in email. Leslie, what do I do with this? We talk through the first thing that you really need to know about your email. How is it useful to you? Do you need it? When do you need it? If you don't need it, let it go or file it, but don't hold on to everything. Oh my goodness, because the more you keep, the more you have to manage, and the more you have to sift through in order to find the gold. 

Leslie Shreve  29:07  

So don't keep stuff unnecessarily. That's the first thing I would say. The second is, you know, when decision making gets tough, you have to remember just keep practicing identify what's useful to you. So if it's reference, it needs to go into a system that's actually already there, that is meant for helping you keep track of reference information. So what I mean by that is, you've got a hard drive or something in the cloud for all of your E documents and attachments. Start using that if you're not using it. A lot of people put things on the desktop, and then they fill it up, and then they really can't find anything, you know, so get it all off the computer desktop. Get it into one location. This is the back to the power of one. Get it in one central location where you could actually categorize things appropriately. But there we have contacts. There's a perfect example, too many people leaving contact information embedded in an email, and now it's stuck in a folder or in the inbox somewhere. But when you want to call somebody, you want to be able to go to your contact system. That's why it's there. It's meant for managing contact information. So let's use that. Sometimes you're going to print something and file it. A lot of people don't do that anymore, but some people in some industries, they still do. So you got to make sure that your paper file systems are also categorized and organized too. So there's a lot of reference systems in our day, but there should be only one for action, and for us, it would be the Taskology task list for wherever you are, it's going to be a task list in your system, but that's where you want to get those tasks and follow ups from email. And there's a couple ways to do that, of course, in Microsoft and then in other systems, there's plenty of different ways to do it, but the key is to make sure that they're all out of email, again, pulling the task away from its source and getting it into a central place where now you have 100% awareness, you have 100% clarity, whereas today you might be flying blind a little bit because things are kind of hiding, or they're buried, or they've been missed and they've scrolled off the screen. They're under a pile on the desk, you know. So you want to have that clarity, because then and only then can you actually efficiently and effectively plan and prioritize. You know, you're comparing and contrasting all those tasks, and now you're making smart decisions about how to spend your time. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  31:09  

Yeah, love that. What's coming up for me, of course, with executive moms, life happens and things happen during the work day as well, you know, so like a big client fire or employee fire comes up, right? Something comes up during the workday and it just like throws off. It takes your whole afternoon to do it. Or daycare calls and you need to go pick up your kid because they're sick. These things happen. And so I'm curious, what advice do you have for people when those things do come up, when you've had have your day perfectly planned out, and you got all your tasks laid out and planned, you know, all the time accounted for, and then suddenly you have less time than what you thought you did. 

Leslie Shreve  31:48  

Yes, happens every day, every minute of the day, and we are prepared for that. So what happens is, once you've built a complete and central digital task list with everything on it, you know, Mission Control. This gives you two things. First, it gives you the strength of a plan. Now you have to start somewhere, so everything gets a target date of action. But are you locked in? No, absolutely not, and it's exactly for the reason that you just said, because our day changes like sand in the wind, it's just moving around all the time, right? And things come up, and we have to make sure that that task list changes with our ever changing day, and it will. So the second thing you get is flexibility. So it's a strong plan, but you've got flexibility there. And this is why I love using Microsoft Outlook, because the flexibility is so much faster than it is in some of these other systems that are a little bit more clunky. So when you have something planned for today, you know, like you just said, I've got it perfectly planned out. Well, don't hang your hat on that, because things are changing and you're getting new tasks all the time. So even if you don't have an emergency, someone gives you a new task from a meeting, a phone conversation, what have you, and all of a sudden, now what you're going to be doing is comparing that new task with what was already on your plate for the day. So that's when you make a new decision. So in our system, you we can reprioritize instantly and all the time if you need to, so not to feel bad, like, oh my gosh, I'm procrastinating. No, no, it's reprioritizing, because you've constantly got new things coming in, no matter how hot they are. Now, what happens is, when you have something that's really hot, like an issue or an emergency and you have to dash off to a different meeting or go home, or whatever it is, what's nice about the task list that I'm recommending is that everything's on there. Remember, 30 to 150 it's all there. And so it's never going to be lost, always going to be there. You reprioritize and go, yep, that's going to have to wait. And not everything gets automatically dumped on tomorrow, by the way, there's a process to this, nothing I can get into right now, but there's a process where you're choosing new, more realistic days, because today's not going to make it like it's just not going to cut it for today. So it still stays on the list. It goes to a different day. It might cause you to reprioritize a little bit on those other days too, because it's kind of a trickle down effect. But the truth is, the system is so strong but so flexible that it allows you to pivot and turn on a dime, but without missing, losing or forgetting anything. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  34:21  

Love it. Well, I've loved learning all about your approach here, and maybe as a productivity expert, we can all learn how to be more productive and how to be more efficient. And so thank you so much for sharing all of this. Where can people find you? Let's say that they are looking for a guide to help fast track them, and you know, maybe in their company, where would they find you?

Leslie Shreve  34:44  

They can find me on productiveday.com and they can email me at Leslie@productive day.com L, E, S, L, I, E, so it's very easy to reach me. I do have two free resources on the website right now. One is the Productive Day smart steps, which is our 52 week audio series. And they're just little two and three minute audio clips of tips and strategies straight from Taskology, so you get a flavor of the system just by signing up for that, and get a little two minutes from me each week. Then there's also the quiz. The quiz is really fun and really it's an excellent way to start because it's diagnostic. So at the end of taking our quiz, it's called What's your number one productivity blind spot? You'll get your own unique results report about your particular workday and what your particular blind spot is, and you'll find out when you take the quiz if you're a giver, a marker, a jumper, or a detective. So I recommend everybody take the quiz and find out where your blind spot is. And once you get your unique results report, you'll also get another follow up report from me that will dive a little deeper into your particular blind spot and talk about what's really happening in your work day and what to do about it. So that's what I recommend for folks to do today.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  35:50  

Awesome. Love it. We'll link in our show notes, of course, for the episode, so everyone could go and find Leslie and find the quiz and these weekly ideas from her, which sounds so wonderful. So thank you so so much, Leslie, for sharing everything that you have today and for being here. I so appreciate it. I know everyone is hopefully feeling like they have some tangible things that they can do and walk away with to be a little bit more productive and efficient. So thank you so much, Leslie.

Leslie Shreve  36:22  

You're welcome, and thanks for inviting me to be your guest today. It was great talking with you,

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:25  

Likewise. And thank you so much everyone for tuning in, and we look forward to seeing you next week. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:35  

Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like subscribe or follow the show, so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.