The Best Productivity Strategies
in a Moment of Crisis with Tessa Sanders

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #575: The Best Productivity Strategies in a Moment of Crisis with Tessa Sanders

Jeff Sanders
Imagine this scenario. You're suddenly busy and overwhelmed. Your boss needs you right now. Your coworkers are still waiting on you to deliver your next part of the project. Your own personal projects are falling behind yet again. It's getting messy. Very messy. What's the next best move? Well, we're going to figure it out. This is the 5 a.m. Miracle, episode number 575. The best productivity strategy is in a moment of Crisis with Tessa Sanders. Good morning and welcome to the 5 a.m. Miracle. I am Jeff Sanders and this is the podcast dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast. My goal is to help you bounce out of bed with enthusiasm, create powerful lifelong habits, and tackle your grandest goals with extraordinary energy. I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer, specialize in delivering high energy, interactive, and action-oriented presentations and workshops, focused on productivity, wellness, and personal and professional growth. If you want to learn more, head over to jeffsanders.com slash speaking. Now, in the episode this week, I will chat with my wife, Tessa, about what to do when chaos ensues. An unrelated side note, Tessa and I actually get very fired up during this conversation. It's fast. It's furious. but definitely enthusiastic because we really both love bantering about productivity. I'm not kidding. Okay, on with the show. And welcome back to the 5A Miracle Studios. I am here once again with my lovely wife, Tessa. Welcome back to the studio, Tessa.

Tessa Sanders
Hello.

Jeff Sanders
It has been not as long this time. This is our last interview. I mean, we were like 18 months. for a huge break, and then we had, we chatted recently, which is good. Yeah. So, welcome back. And we are here because of you, by that I mean your idea for the episode this week. So I'm going to let you take the reins on some of this more so than before. I talk a lot on this show. Great. We'll let you do a little more this time. But we are here because of your idea, essentially through this kind of thought process around overwhelm and how to manage a crisis. So lay this down for us. as far as what the concept is that you want to dig into. I think it's really critical to a point you made before we started recording, which is that today's conversation kind of ties in. All the best of the 5 a. miracle has discussed for 11 plus years, all kind of in one little nutshell. So let's take that angle of this moment of crisis.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. So I lately at work have had a lot of things sort of converging at the same time. Lots of different tasks and responsibilities all sort of kind. coming together. And I had this moment, like, I don't know, a couple weeks ago where I was like, wow, I am very overwhelmed. I'm just overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to do, the amount of time I have to do it. I'm having like a crisis of overwhelmed. I don't know if it was a crisis, but it was more than just like a moment coming out of a meeting or something like that. It was like, I am deep in this place of like stress and confusion, messiness. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like, I'm a lot. I feel in academia where I work, toward the end of the semester, always kind of, there's a moment where you're like, wow, I am like, things are not going super well. And so my thought was, wow, I need to do the things that we teach about all the time. I need to do all of the 5A miracle things to sort of get myself back on track so that I am not experiencing such overwhelm. And it brought the question to mind when you sort of get your head out of the weeds for a moment and realize, wow, I am overwhelmed. What do we do?

Jeff Sanders
I had this thought recently in a similar way with the, I guess the answer to your question would be the fundamentals, the basics, the easy stuff, right? Like, if you're thirsty, you drink water, you know, just run around wondering why you're thirsty. And I feel like that's what happens when you're overwhelmed is the obvious answers seem far away because you're caught up in a moment. Things are, it's harder to think. It's harder to make decisions. And so you make terrible decisions when you should be making the easy ones that would solve the problem, prevent the problem altogether. And so from my perspective, it's always the question of what tends to always work? And are you doing those things? Because if you're not, then that's where you start.

Tessa Sanders
And what are the high leverage things? So like, when all this stuff is happening, what? is like my first move or the most impactful move for me to make. But I think before we talk about like what to do in that situation, let's talk for just a moment about like, how did we get here? So as a productivity expert, what would you say is happening when people come to you and are saying, wow, things have just really gotten out of control. I need help to get back on track. How did we get there?

Jeff Sanders
I mean, there's a few different ways to view a crisis. this one that I thought of when we were doing our planning for this was this idea of kind of an overlapping Venn diagram of circles where you have four or five different projects and for some reason they all need your attention immediately. And I mean, what overwhelm is is trying to do too much in a time frame that will not fit. And so you're not going to be stressed out if you have 24 hours to do one thing that's easy. But you will feel stressed out if you have 24 minutes to do 75 projects. It's just a math problem. And when you have everything overlapping at once, what you feel is that tension of, I can't do it all right now because everything feels like a number one in the list, which is just mathematically impossible. And it's not true. And you end up lying to yourself believing that everything matters and everything has to get done now. And that's kind of like the high achievers lie is that we think that we have to be the solution to all of our problems immediately and for everyone. And it's just ridiculous. And so we set our bar way too high. And so it becomes this question of like, how did we get here? Well, in some ways, we said yes, to too many things, which is totally possible, totally likely for most people. And, but you also may just kind of circumstantially find yourself with these things happening that you didn't ask for it. It's just a lot of people all of a sudden need your attention or things just are happening right now. So it's really more of a question of part of it maybe you did to yourself. And part of it is because of life, things are just happening. And then what do you do in those moments?

Tessa Sanders
Right, definitely. My experience recently was I have said yes to a lot of things that I sort of thought I could manage time -wise. And then suddenly in like one week, all of them have action items right on top of each other. All of which I said yes to and would be happy to do.

Jeff Sanders
Individually. Individually.

Tessa Sanders
Yes. With an appropriate amount of time. But trying to do them all at the same time quickly is what. With a high-quality bar. Yes.

Jeff Sanders
is impossible. Yeah,

Tessa Sanders
I think that's another piece of like, how did we get here? Perhaps for some people we got here because we have some perfectionist tendencies coming in saying I have to do everything for everybody quickly and at a super high quality bar. And there's just no give in that scenario.

Jeff Sanders
Well, I mean, one thing I thought of recently was, you know, I used this kind of very strict boundary for myself, which is inbox zero that I adhere to every 24 hours and I have for, I don't know, 15. 20 years. And it works for me really well on most days. And then there are days it does not and it backfires gloriously because I feel this need to maintain this certain bar that doesn't make any practical sense on that day. But then if I all of a sudden feel the need to get the task done and respond to the emails and maintain this, you know, this Jeff Sandersism for no other reason than just I've done this before, therefore we'll do it again. It doesn't add up and just makes me feel worse. It's not productive.

Tessa Sanders
Right. And I think that's where it's a time to say, I have these systems or these practices, are they serving me? Are they helping me meet the goals that I have in this sort of season of my life? Right.

Jeff Sanders
So, I mean, there's that example of we think we need to do everything well. But there's also this kind of we got here because we could have done things better far ahead of the time. Your example of the end of the semester, you know that you're going to have another semester and then another and another and another. And we plan ahead for these things. Like lack of planning plays into it because to a certain degree, there's no reason to be like, wait, it's Christmas again. How did this happen? Well, it happens every year. Well, I shouldn't be surprised by it. And one thing I've done a lot recently is add a ton of reminders into Noseby, my task manager, to have these annual reminders for things that obviously will happen every year. And there's no reason for me to be surprised by them every single year. And I feel as though if I am caught up at a moment of overwhelm and I didn't plan ahead when I could have. Now I feel guilt on top of this moment of crisis, but it's an opportunity to do things better the next time around. And so I tend to lean on that idea that there is the moment I can fix today and there's the long-term vision I can also work on.

Tessa Sanders
Right. And I think also to your point about feeling guilty in addition to that, I think when we talk about how did we get here, often that overwhelm is like contributing to negative self-talk or negative emotions. Yes. Or not only do I feel. like I'm behind. Now I feel guilty for being behind or

Jeff Sanders
the idea that I don't want to have to apologize for doing poor work. One thing that I lean on is I don't ever, I rarely send emails saying I'm sorry for being late. I don't send those because I'm not late. But if all of a sudden I find myself in that position where I might be, then I feel bad. Now I'm emotionally like feeling like what do I do in this moment to avoid having to apologize or make a mistake or drop a ball because I don't want to be that guy. A big part of this is just how you view yourself, like your self image is like, are you a productive person? Are you a high achiever? That's great, but it doesn't mean you're he man. You're not superman. This is not going to be some perfect world of productivity. You're human.

Tessa Sanders
And it's normal to feel feelings like that when a lot of stuff is going on. It's normal to feel overwhelmed when you have a lot of competing priorities. It's normal to feel frustrated with your systems or with yourself when you feel balls and to sort of be able to move forward and act in a way to sort of fix some of this stuff while setting emotions or our strong emotions to the side, I think can be really helpful.

Jeff Sanders
You know, one note that you made earlier was that, you know, how we got here was basically slacking off during our slower seasons. Can you explain more about that one?

Tessa Sanders
Yes. So I think, you know, we have all these productivity strategies that we use. But every now and then, I have seasons where I don't need to sort of be working on my all the time. And so, you know, maybe in the summer when I don't have quite as much on my plate, I might get a little bit lax on some of my systems. And that might be totally fine for the summer or a season where there's not as much going on. But when things get really busy, I feel like I have this moment where I realize I need to like double down on my systems and make sure that they're working and use them because I'm so busy. So in that moment where you're like, I am too busy to spend time reflecting or I'm too busy to create a like logical work plan. That's when you really need to stop and do some reflection or create your work plan because you are so busy.

Jeff Sanders
You know, at the end of my 5A miracle book, I have a 30 day action plan with an action you can take literally once a day for 30 days. And a very common response I get to that is overwhelm because people think like, I don't have time for 30 action steps, let alone one every single day. And I can't, how do you do all of these things at once? And the very simple answer, I mess this up in the book. I should have had a job of this, is that it's not designed to be a thing you do all of all the time, right? It's a toolbox. You have access to things and you can choose which ones are best for this moment. And then if I need a focus block of time today, that's what I'll leverage. If I need inbox zero today, that's what I'll leverage. But I'm picking and choosing the right tool for the moment for what is contextually correct. And when you get good at that, you can solve your problem and have access to a ton of tools and strategies and not feel this need to do everything now with all the tools.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. And I think you have to be aware of when the situation changes. So, oh, something has changed now. So I need to revisit my systems instead of just keep doing them the same way.

Jeff Sanders
Which is kind of an idea of not just, you know, having your head in the stand and continuing to work. It's taking a pause to strategize, restrategize and make a new better plan going forward. I feel like in a moment of crisis, that's also extremely necessary to quickly reflect and like, wait a minute, now it's going on. What's changed in the last few minutes? And let me pivot as needed as we move through this. Yeah. Another idea we had on how we got here were basically just distractions in general that led to the crisis to begin with.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. So I think, again, for me, when I'm in a season where I'm not so busy, I am sort of more open to distractions. Somebody calls me. I'll pick up the phone. I'm more able to respond to emails as they're coming in. I can take a break from something, talk to someone who walks into my office and then go back to it because I have a lot of sort of extra flex time. But when I'm really busy, those distractions are really detrimental to what I'm trying to do. And they make me feel like I've gone through the whole day, sort of addressing things as they come up, but not really getting to the stuff that's the most important. So at the end of the day, I feel like I haven't done anything because I've let the distractions sort of. of run wild. So I think for me, it's that, again, I sort of need to shift systems. Like during this phase, it's okay to have distractions and to be open to stopping what I'm doing to go attend to something else. But there might be a time or really need to get a handle on my distractions and really prioritize focus.

Jeff Sanders
Well, I think that distractions and prioritization kind of play together well because essentially a distraction could be, let's say, for example, an email pops up you need to reply to or a phone call or a coach. coworker, and that could represent another task on your list of things to do. But it's a pretty good chance that those things are less important than you're previously decided upon priorities for the day, meaning that if you wake up on a Tuesday morning and you have three important things to do that day and you do them in order, like the big rocks first, the most important thing first, then second thing second, third thing third, and you don't let the distractions intervene in that process, you're not actually overwhelmed by it. In fact, you feel really productive because you did the things in the right. order like that we're trying to get to that kind of systemization that rhythm of doing what matters and the distractions act as this kind of jar in your system to kind of throw you off your game and now you're doing something way down the list and in lieu of the thing that's higher in the list and and then that's when overwhelm kicks in because now you feel I didn't get it all done I feel bad about it I was busy as heck but nothing actually got done

Tessa Sanders
right and I think there are productivity strategies that actually make that problem worse. So I think this idea of inbox zero can make you think I need to stop what I'm doing to attend to my emails. Right. The other one, this notion in the productivity world of like if it takes less than two minutes, just do it now. But if that's my mantra, I'm never and I have a lot of those things pop up today, then I'm spending two minutes, two minutes, doing all this stuff instead of my most important things. So that's why I feel like it's really important to say which of my productivity strategy. are helping me right now and which do I need to get rid of?

Jeff Sanders
I had that exact thought about the two-minute rule just recently. So we're in the middle of working on all these house projects. I discussed in the podcast, I think it was two weeks ago, this whole crawl space project and house painting now and all this things. It's a lot going on. But one of the things that's true about this particular, let's call the house painting phase, is that I'll notice like, oh, there's a little spot on the wall. I missed. Oh, there's a little piece of trash over here. I'm noticing all these things related to the project. But let's say it's 9 a.m. on a Thursday morning and I have work to do. But yet I see these little two-minute projects everywhere. Those things need to wait. But of course, knowing me, I want to go fix them right now. Take care of the issue. But they're not the most important thing in my list today. And if I don't like really adhere to my plan, the discipline of saying number one is number one and do it first. And then this flex time, free time can show up where those little things can be there. It's that leveraging of what's the context, what really matters now, and holding yourself to that boundary of saying, I made a plan, I have these rules, I'm going to follow the ones that are really effective and not kind of let myself, you know, scratch that itch to do the little fun stuff. Okay, so we've discussed essentially how we got here. And there's a lot of reasons how we got to this place. Life is messy. There's a lot that can happen. So the big question, of course, the thing I love the most about all the things I do in the show, is the action steps of what are we going to do about it. We've referenced a few of these things, but let's be a little more specific here. So you mentioned this scenario that you basically find yourself at a moment of crisis, like life is crazy. What do you do first step, Tessa, go?

Tessa Sanders
We have thought about this a lot. And we, you know, our first, my first reaction is sort of double down, do the things, like go faster.

Jeff Sanders
So your inclination is just move quickly. and keep working. Do

Tessa Sanders
the work. Yeah. Do it faster. Wake up earlier, get there before everybody, try to squeeze something that should take three hours into an hour and a half. That sort of like pack my schedule full and just be a little energizer bunny. Just go, go, go, go, go.

Jeff Sanders
Just chug the coffee and keep moving.

Tessa Sanders
Right. Because I think it's intuitive to say if I have a lot of stuff to do in a short amount of time, then I just need to do the stuff and have each thing take a short amount of time than I'm actually able to do it in.

Jeff Sanders
So the funny thing is that that's logical. So it makes complete sense that if I just move faster, everything will get done. But, of course, the actual, like, output of this is more stress. There's always more to do. And you just burned yourself out doing it.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. It's a recipe for burnout.

Jeff Sanders
Yes.

Tessa Sanders
So that's not what to do.

Jeff Sanders
What not to do. We covered that one well.

Tessa Sanders
So I think after some sort of banter about this, we have landed on. the first thing to do is to block yourself off some time to make a plan for how you're going to tackle this situation.

Jeff Sanders
So essentially a, let's call it like a one hour focus block of time to get yourself together.

Tessa Sanders
Which sounds simple, but you have to be willing to stop the work that you're supposed to be doing.

Jeff Sanders
Yes.

Tessa Sanders
And think about the work at a high level.

Jeff Sanders
Yes.

Tessa Sanders
Which can be a struggle sometimes.

Jeff Sanders
Well, I just felt that during this whole house painting thing. I literally, I'm redoing the entire house, all these different rooms. And I had this moment of, I want to keep painting. I want to keep on to the next room, on to the next thing. But I knew that like there is an order of events for this project to be most efficient, most effective. And I knew in the moment I need to stop and redo my list of objectives and make it smarter, like restrategize so that I feel better about it. And I had to, I fought myself on do I keep painting or do I go re-stratage? the painting project. And I re-stratized. I did pause and I did it. And it was, I felt emotionally better almost immediately. There's an immediate response to that.

Tessa Sanders
In the moment when you feel like you do not have time for everything, you need to pause, rework your priorities, rework your calendar, whatever it is, make a plan so that you can move forward.

Jeff Sanders
So the focus block of time then becomes the first step. And part of what we had mentioned that before, in our notes, was this idea of positive self-talk being directly integrated into this particular focus block. Why is that important right now?

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. So I think, as we mentioned, when you are in a state of overwhelm, you might have some negative self-talk. This is my fault. I'm never going to get out of this hole that I've dug for myself. How did I let this get so bad? Are people going to, you know, see me as the, I don't know, messy person that I am? And those types of thoughts are not super helpful. They're normal. Many people have those types of thoughts, but it's not super helpful when you're trying to make a plan for moving forward. So my first thought is in this FBot, take sort of a moment, maybe take some breaths, and sort of reframe your self-talk so that it's not so negative, it's not so judgmental, it's not so emotional, and sort of say, this is the situation that I'm in, I have the tools to sort of get myself out of this situation, and I'm going to work a plan right now. I'm going to come up with the plan right now that's going to help me. And sort of acknowledge your emotions and your feelings and your internal narrative, but set it to the side or sort of approach your planning process with a bit more neutrality.

Jeff Sanders
Which is a skill set. I mean, the idea, it takes practice to do this. I just read a book recently called Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty, and I've not discussed it in the podcast at all yet, but a big component of that book is this idea that monks are intentionally objective, right? They're not overly emotional if things are really positive or really negative, their response in theory is the same every time. Just as like through line down the middle, I've got this, we'll figure this out. And in the middle of an emotional crisis or a productivity crisis, the last thing you want to do is bring your emotions down. But that's the only way you're going to get through it without kind of going nuts.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah.

Jeff Sanders
So let's imagine you've done this focus block of time. You've spent, let's say an hour, you're outlining things. The real, from my perspective, my go-to in that process of saying, things are crazy. I tend to lean on cutting. I want to remove as much as possible because I am a, I'm a visual guy. So if I look at my to-do list and I see 45 things, that's stress-inducing. If I see four things, I feel way better. And so I tend to lean on removing things as fast as possible. What's your like go-to in these moments when this happens?

Tessa Sanders
Well, I think it kind of goes with that. But first, we have to figure out what are all the things?

Jeff Sanders
Right.

Tessa Sanders
So some of those things might be in my mind. if I haven't been using my systems very well. Some of these things might be on my calendar. Some of these things might be on a post-it note or a napkin or whatever. So I think the first step is like, what are all the to-dos?

Jeff Sanders
So really it's a consolidation of all of your ideas, writing these things down so you can visually see it on a list.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. And the way I do it is I do it by hand on a piece of paper, which I know not everybody does, but I just write down all the things without any sort of prioritization, no sort of, no judgment, no ranking, no sequence, just like anything that is on my mind. mind. This

Jeff Sanders
is Julia Cameron's morning pages concept, what you're talking about. Okay. Which is basically a free write of whatever's on your mind. You get it out. That concept is one of you do it every single day. It's like a journaling technique, which also is very helpful for mental health. But this can also be effective here, especially.

Tessa Sanders
When I think in, for me, it's like the systems are not working. I haven't been putting everything in my task manager or on my calendar. So I have stuff in all these different places, which makes me feel overwhelmed. And so to put it all on a piece of paper, again, without any sort of judgment or sequence, just first come first serve in my mind, get out on the paper helps me to sort of be able to look at like, what are all the things I need to sort of find a place for?

Jeff Sanders
So with that in mind, I'm just then in theory, that's what I would do, the cutting. Then you can

Tessa Sanders
cut. So I can start to say, or if I'm not going to cut them, I can also bump them. Be like, these can happen like a month from now.

Jeff Sanders
Yes.

Tessa Sanders
So like I'm going to put them. And

Jeff Sanders
that's part of the cutting process is you're cutting for today, for this moment when you feel, like things are on fire. It's my question I was asking myself is what is due today. And actually in my task manager in Noseby, I use a color coding system now where things are red, orange, or blue. And in the moment of crisis, I only want to see the red things, which are things that are due right now. And anything else is technically not due today, therefore I'm going to ignore it right now. And I always feel better when that's the case because the list gets shorter immediately, which is really helpful.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. Well, and when I'm doing this, I can also think. ask myself, like, which of these tasks that I have on my list, first of all, just like, don't need to get done at all. But also, which ones of these are related to my biggest priorities? Which ones are actually part of my job are actually things I need to do instead of sort of things that I might be interested in? Or for me, I'll notice something that needs to be fixed and I'll just take it up on myself to try to fix it. But it's not actually my job. You

Jeff Sanders
know what's funny about that? This was probably like 15 years ago. I was working one of my one of my ram day jobs in my 20s. And my boss, I had many bosses at the time, but one of my bosses had said, you know, Jeff, I need a status update on this random project. And I remember telling him to his face, I'm not doing that because if I don't do it, you're not going to fire me. But if I don't do this other thing, you will. And I remember him looking at me thinking, oh, you're kind of right. And I had prioritized things based on who's going to fire me and for what. And so I made sure to not lose my job as my first priority and everything else was secondary. And it was an interesting kind of way to prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance for whatever matters the most to you in that moment.

Tessa Sanders
Right. And I think when you are spending your time doing the things that are aligned to your biggest priorities, you're going to feel better about what you're doing.

Jeff Sanders
Yes.

Tessa Sanders
If you're spending a lot of time doing stuff that doesn't really matter to your main goals, it's going to make you feel.

Jeff Sanders
Well, you'll feel frantic. You'll feel busy. Like, it's one of those, like, there are plenty of days where I like doing lots of things. If they're unimportant, if it's a Saturday, that's fine. Today is a chill Saturday. But if it's a Monday morning and there's things due, it backfires.

Tessa Sanders
The other thing that I think is helpful is to identify which of these tasks do I have people waiting on me to complete? Yes. So if I know that there's a group of students who are waiting for my feedback so they can move forward with their research, that feels stressful to sort of have it hanging over my head, to know that it's an incomplete task for me. Whereas I have certain tasks that are more, really, they just impact me. And I need to do them. They are required. But I don't, you know, no one is really going to know when I complete it exactly. That is going to feel like a lower priority.

Jeff Sanders
I mean, that's one strategy I've used for years that I did on accidents was to prioritize client work first. And it's obvious in the moment. Like, if I get an email right now, if my client says, you know, I've got this project and it's due by tomorrow morning, I'll stop what I'm doing. I don't care what it is. and I'll take care of it because I'm not going to have my client mad at me or whatever the case may be. And I feel as though that's one of the most immediate stress relievers for me is to make sure that whatever stress is internal, not external. Like, I'm fine to handle my own stress. I don't need someone else's stress also in my life.

Tessa Sanders
Right. But I mean, I think as with all of these productivity strategies, you have to take it when it makes sense. So if you are getting a lot of requests from clients or people waiting on you, and answering those requests is keeping you from doing your big rocks, your most important items, then you need to come up with the system to sort of batch those. So I will respond to student request or to client request at certain times of the day or at certain times of the week. But I'm not going to stop what I'm doing and address them if I'm working on something that's more important.

Jeff Sanders
There's a dance here. Yeah. Yeah. This is the kind of the art as opposed to the science of productivity. There really is a skill set and a judgment call being made in the moment every single day. And that's one of those reasons why productivity always fascinates me because it doesn't matter how good I am today. Tomorrow's a new day and a new challenge. And it's always something else to have nuanced my way through.

Tessa Sanders
Right. Okay. So we are taking this FBot. We're starting with a couple moments of awareness and positive self-talk or at least neutral self-talk. And then we're listing out all of the tasks that we have. We're cutting the stuff that's just not important. We're delegating or bumping stuff that either other people can do or that we can do later. We're prioritizing which pieces are for clients or other people. We're identifying which of these pieces are our big rocks, our most important tasks aligned to our big goals. Then what?

Jeff Sanders
It's time to do the work.

Tessa Sanders
Well, and I think that in some situations, it might be that you don't know what the work is. So you might need to take some of your tasks and break them down into like subtasks and put those subtasks. start to do the subtasks.

Jeff Sanders
So this is a concept I just discussed recently on the podcast because I was really getting bad at it basically. And the example that I used before was when I wrote one of my books, I kept thinking about writing a whole book as opposed to writing a sentence or a chapter. A chapter isn't even too much. Like literally, a sentence, a paragraph, a small piece. And one of the best ways to kind of snowball yourself into productivity and getting things done is to start as small as possible. Like that's where you're going to feel more like that tangibility. of I'm now in motion, things are happening. It doesn't come from saying, like, freak out there's a big thing happening because you're not going to do a big thing. You're going to do a small thing next. The order that is, is actionable, should be fairly simple to do, and you can just go into that simply in the next moment.

Tessa Sanders
And it's possible that you're staring at this list, you identify some of the biggest priorities, you realize that that is a huge task and you don't really know where to start. It's possible that you need to plan another FBot just to map out that task. So if my big item on my to-do list is plan a conference, okay, I might not in this F-Bot be able to list out all the individual tasks or even the first task that needs to be done toward that bigger goal. So putting some time to lay that out can be helpful too.

Jeff Sanders
I mean, that's basically an F-Bot to plan other F-bots, which is necessary. That's what planning really is. My weekly review process, I'm looking ahead and asking for this next week, what are my big rocks, when will they happen, where will I be, how can I guarantee focus? and to answer all those questions, I need a focus block of time to schedule the focus blocks of time. And then when I get to that moment, let's say now it's a Wednesday afternoon and I'm working on my conference planning. Well, I have set aside time for it. This is now the most important thing to do in that moment. I can ignore the rest of my life and just do that thing. I know for me to emotionally not feel overwhelmed when I work on something, I want to know this is where all my energy should be going. This is the most important next best use of my time. And if I emotionally feel that way, I'm totally fine to ignore the rest of the world for a while. Because, I mean, the definition of making a decision is to cut off all other options. And to do that effectively means you need to be emotionally okay with other things not happening in the moment. That to me is the hardest part. Saying no to everything else is always the hardest part. It's not saying yes. We can do that all day long. But being able to comfortably say no and do one thing at a time.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah, which is the idea of the FBOT, a focus block of time. So I would say once you got your list, you figured out what you want to do, put those on your calendar, put them down as F bots, and then do a true F bot. I call this a hard F bot. Because I have times in my life where I might say, okay, I'm going to work on conference planning for the next three hours. But if you need to ask me questions, if you want to come in or if someone text me, I'm often to that. I mean, by definition,

Jeff Sanders
that's not enough bot. Right. Well, it's

Tessa Sanders
a block of time. Let's call it that. But I might be in a situation where I'm like, wow, I really, and this is actually what has. happened to me a couple weeks ago. I was like, wow, I really need these work times to be F-bots. I need them to be hard F-bots, meaning I really am blocking out. Yeah, yes. So I had kind of gotten in this habit of, well, I keep my email on all the time and the little number ticks up so I can see when I get a new one. And lately I've had to be like, I'm going to turn off my email or my email notifications for two hours so that I can work on this. Really sort of reinforce those boundaries of the FB.

Jeff Sanders
One thing I do when I record podcasts, usually the ones that are by myself, is I use my computer to record. My script is on the screen. And, of course, when I'm looking at my computer screen, anything that could have the little red dot to show up and distract me from my work. I have to turn all those things off. The texting notifications, the email, everything has to be turned off. My phone's in another room. Like, it is an absolute, like right now, you and I are in an FBot. Like, that's what we're doing. Like, nothing is going to stop us unless our house burns down and we're in it. But now we have new Wi-Fi alerts for that, so we're great. But long story short is that it requires that level of discipline to say, if this next task matters that much to me, I'm going to do the steps that it takes to guarantee that focus because it's only then that you can give yourself the leverage to actually lean in and do it. Because otherwise you're not going to. Something else will show up and you'll have another excuse to not do it. And that feeling of like letting yourself procrastinate endlessly, like eats away at you. And it's amazing how much better you feel emotionally by just doing the work. And then you finished it, whether you wanted to do it or not. If it got done, you're like, hey, I did it. And it was great. I'm going to do it again. And it's reinforcing and it's fun and it's fulfilling. Like, that's why I love productivity because I just, that endorphin rush of doing great work is an addiction.

Tessa Sanders
And that's when you start to get yourself out of this hole of overwhelm that you sort of let yourself slide into.

Jeff Sanders
Overwhelms an emotional thing, right? It's not a practical tool-based focus block of time thing. Overwhelm is the feeling more than anything else. Like, yes, you could point to you actually tangibly have a lot to do. But if you walk through it with a level head, you're going to be okay. If you walk through it, your hair's on fire, it's going to be a disaster.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. So we've got our F bots. We're using them as like true F bots. I think when I move to a hard F bot or like a really distraction free F bot, I then like the next piece of that is I do need to find a time to attend to my emails to talk to the people who would have walked into my office. So for me, that means putting an F bot on the calendar and also putting time for those things for my batched email. Yes. For talking to people. Like I need, if I'm going to move those things out of my work times, my FBots, then I need to put them somewhere else. So it's really about like reconfiguring your calendar so that you've got your FBots that are focused on your big things. But then you also have time to do the other things.

Jeff Sanders
If I'm correct, this was in the book, ReWork, which came out like 15 years ago, where the author was talking about the company that he ran where they had individual time in the morning and then social co-working time in the afternoons. so you could not schedule meetings in the morning. It had to be solo work time. His company did a lot of coding, a lot of computer work, and so solo time was very valuable for them. But it was a necessary thing to say company-wide in the mornings, we only do individual work, and then the afternoon, you are then open up and available to do meetings. To force people into this box of saying, I will have focus and I will have time for the meetings and social time. And it's guaranteed. It's on the calendar every single day. And then you're able to easily filter when to schedule. schedule things. I love the boundaries from that perspective of if I know ahead of time, here's how the calendar is laid out. I can divvy up, what goes down where. Otherwise, if you don't have that, every day is up for grabs. Every moment is up for grabs. Am I focusing right now? Am I not? I don't know. And that's exhausting to not know what the day looks like ahead of time.

Tessa Sanders
Right. And I think sometimes when I am in this moment where I realize, wow, I'm really overwhelmed. It's because I'm in a phase where more stuff is popping up that is unexpected than typical. Yes. So, like, as a professor, I am available to my students. If they have issues, they're welcome to email me or call me or set up a time. Well, toward the end of the semester, or in this case midterms, but towards the time when grades are due and the final papers are due, they are more likely to contact me. And so when I'm, again, looking at my calendar, I might have reserved some time for things that pop up. Well, in these phases, I might need to allocate more time to stuff just popping up can't always anticipate. I can't anticipate that stuff is going to pop up that I didn't anticipate.

Jeff Sanders
Does that make sense? Oh, yes. I mean, you're predicting chaos in a lot of ways. And that's, that kind of intentionality on your calendar, it really pays off in those moments. And you realize it, you've done it sometimes, but that's why you're able to get through it and feel good about it. I mean, the other piece of this we wrote down was for like, for the future. Like, what do I do for preventing these types of things? I mean, building in margin into your calendar is an necessity, right? There's a rule people have used for a long time about underplanning your calendar by a significant margin. Like, I will plan the next week, but only 40% of my time and leave 60% wide open, which is extreme, right? But also, it's one of those cases where you are acknowledging that maybe a lot of your work is responsiveness. And if a lot of what you do is attending to others, you need to have that kind of open time or else you will become overwhelmed by their requests. And so it's acknowledging what that number looks like for you and your work. But, having that number ahead of time gives you that sense of attentionality to say, I know it's coming, it's pre-planned, when it shows up, it won't be surprising, I have time for it.

Tessa Sanders
And you can adjust it. Like, I've definitely been in times where I'm like, why did I block up all this time, block off all this time for margin? Like, nothing is coming up. I could have had a plan for what I was going to do during that time. So you can, you know, feel free to adjust it if the amount of margin you have set for yourself isn't working in either direction.

Jeff Sanders
I mean, those people in those scenarios wouldn't feel bad about, oops, I have more free time now. But you can leverage it. And there's always more work to do. So it's really a question of how the work gets done and what order it gets done in and with a system and a rhythm that works best for you. So it's all very contextual and subjective. And it really matters based on how you want to live your life. But if you can be intentional about that and map these things out with purpose ahead of time, then these moments of crisis are probably less likely to occur.

Tessa Sanders
Right.

Jeff Sanders
I would hope.

Tessa Sanders
Or

Jeff Sanders
when they do show up, you have a strategy.

Tessa Sanders
Right.

Jeff Sanders
Which is the real big kind of, like, I think, takeaway from all of this.

Tessa Sanders
Yes. We're not trying to anticipate every single thing that's going to happen in the future. And if you try to do that and map it all out exactly, you're just going to be disappointed.

Jeff Sanders
Right.

Tessa Sanders
But to say, I have tools. I know how to sort of move into this phase of busyness with a plan.

Jeff Sanders
So let's shift now into the big takeaway section that we officially wrote down because we have even more thoughts to this. So the first one we did say was to. to use your tools and strategies during your crisis. And what I wrote down here, I wrote down most something something highest level. My notes are terrible.

Tessa Sanders
Great. I think the big idea, one of them at least, is that you can use your productivity tools to get yourself out of a place of extreme overwhelm. We have the tools. We just need to work the system.

Jeff Sanders
I got it. What I wrote down was when you're the most busy is when you have the highest need for the tools. Yes. And

Tessa Sanders
sometimes when we're teaching about productivity strategies, people will say, my gosh, that seems like a lot of work. That system seems like a lot of work. I don't need to do that. That doesn't seem like a good use of my time. But when you're really, really busy and really feeling overwhelmed, perhaps that is the time when some of these things that feel like a little too much when you're not as busy are really going to have an impact.

Jeff Sanders
Yes. Second big takeaway is to build the skill sets to prioritize, especially around big rocks. So one thing, I mean, the 5A miracle concept by itself is in effect a big rock strategy because you're basically asking the question, if at 5 a.m. tomorrow, I choose one activity that matters the most to me, and I do that one thing. It is a way of acknowledging that a big rock is being attended to, whether it's for your health, the business project, personal goal, but you're doing a big thing first. And it is a skill you can improve. Not just a discipline and a rhythm of life of having your alarm clock set, but specifically like the discipline around saying like I have built this up over time to where I'm now good at doing things that matter and good at ignoring things that don't. And it doesn't emotionally throw me off. It doesn't make me feel stressed. In fact, I feel better doing the things that matter most first. And shifting into that rhythm of life is, I think, is the goal in so many ways.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah. I think other sort of big takeaways are, you know, use your weekly reviews. Use your monthly reviews to say, what is coming up? Do I anticipate this is a time where I'm really going to need to work these systems? Because some of these, we can see them coming. Yes. And we don't need to be surprised by them. And I think that's where putting reminders on your calendar, but then also reflecting regularly can help you say, how did it go? And how is it going to go in the future?

Jeff Sanders
Right. And our final big takeaway was to just plan ahead with more intentionality for the upcoming chaos. I mean, one thing I mentioned as earlier that in my task manager, I plan ahead for the annual stuff. And I have found now that reminders that are intentionally set for all the things you may be doing, though it may be a lot of work up front to build a system and building reminders, is the most like stress-free thing to do for your future self. Because it says, like, I'm not going to forget this. It's guaranteed. It's in the system. And this really is a David Allen methodology of get it out of your head onto paper, whatever you're worried about. or stressing about or find yourself caught up in the moment doing, write it down and make a plan for it. One piece at a time, over time. And as that happens and you go through seasons of your work and your life, the next season will be easier because you thought it through already. And that is going to make whatever you're doing next that much easier to do and that much less stress inducing. But that takes a level of intentionality to say, I value reminders, I value systems. I value the work that I put in because I know what the output will be long term.

Tessa Sanders
Yeah.

Jeff Sanders
Final thoughts from you?

Tessa Sanders
Okay, I have one more thought.

Jeff Sanders
Go.

Tessa Sanders
My thought is about sort of burnout, preventing burnout. So it's one thing to be overwhelmed for a moment. It's another thing to be overwhelmed for like a few weeks. Like I knew this was going to be a busy time. I'm okay with like putting in a little bit of extra time. But you cannot expect to be running at a super busy, completely packed pace all year round. That will lead to burnout. out. And so I think as we are talking about sort of getting yourself out of overwhelm, you need to at some point plan for rest. Do you have time to rest? And I'm not really talking about like a day off to go to the mall or to go to the mountains. I'm talking about in your work life and in your family life, perhaps, are there seasons where you're really busy and you're really working the systems and every single moment counts? And are there also moments or seasons where you have a little bit more sort of flexibility and a little bit more margin and a little bit more relaxed state. And that could mean, you know, planning a day off or having a vacation or whatever. But I think it's more important to look at just the sort of cadence of work. And if your plan is to be operating at this super productive, urgent pace all the time, it's just a recipe for disaster. So when you can sort of get out of this moment of overwhelm, step back and say high level, like what does my year look like? When are my seasons of busyness going to happen? And when are my seasons that are a bit more sort of moderate going to happen?

Jeff Sanders
Yes. I mean, that is absolutely necessary. I think one thing that's funny to me is that this current like house renovation painting thing I'm doing is a response to a slower season. So I have less going on at work at the moment. so I'm doing more on this, which was intentional, but it's to a certain degree, like, I find it relaxing just to paint. It's not necessarily. Oh,

Tessa Sanders
you love it.

Jeff Sanders
I mean, I do. I do. And I think it's interesting that what we choose to do when we have time that shows up. I think that reflects our values. It reflects our norms. And one thing that I want to do is, to your point, if I just finished a season of stress and I'm intentionally slowing things down on purpose, which is a necessary like mental health strategy, the question I would ask, is like, what is your go-to activity? What do you think of most? Because I tend to think of times, like, I want to go to the trail. I want to hike. I want to run. I want to be outside. And if that's what I want to do, then I feel the need to build that in all the time, in small doses maybe, but to ensure that I'm getting that sense of rest frequently throughout my life as a tool to prevent the burnout and the stress. Right. To acknowledge, like, what refills me is this, therefore, it's part of my daily routine. It's part of my lifestyle, not just a thing I do once a year because I have a vacation week, but it's literally part of who I am now.

Tessa Sanders
Right. And I think in some work cultures, there's this idea of like, I work super, super hard, nonstop, around the clock, and then I take a week off and go to the beach. And to me, that is not a sustainable way to do it.

Jeff Sanders
No.

Tessa Sanders
Versus saying I might have some busier times, and I'm happy to put in the work during those times because I know there's a season of either rest, or just like more sustainable pace coming my way.

Unknown Speaker
Right.

Jeff Sanders
Yeah. I mean, it really is life as seasons. And to acknowledge the one you're in and to leverage it intelligently, that's what this is all about. And so, yeah, I think we hit a lot. We hit a lot just now.

Tessa Sanders
All the things.

Jeff Sanders
We did all the things. I had this, you know, clock next to us to remind us, we have to pick up our girls from daycare in just a few minutes. And so this conversation, as lovely as it is, we'll have to come to an end. So, Tessa, thank you again for me on the show, The last couple of times you've been on, we've had some really good, I'll call them aggressively fast-paced, hard-hitting conversations. It's exciting. It's great stuff. And we need more of this. So if you are, I don't know, if your ears are exhausted by us with this pace.

Tessa Sanders
We get really fired up about productivity.

Jeff Sanders
We do. We do. It's a lot of fun. We should probably find a way to slow the pace next time. We'll get there. Eventually. Or we just won't. I don't know.

Tessa Sanders
Maybe I shouldn't drink coffee right before.

Jeff Sanders
That's an idea. Yeah. Good. All right. Well, thank you.

Tessa Sanders
See ya. Yeah.

Jeff Sanders
And for the action step this week. Make a plan now for your next moment of crisis. You will be busy. Stress and chaos are coming. Do you have a plan now to navigate the next busy season? Well, you can and you should have a few tools, strategies, and plans outline now to smooth, the path when the waters get rough, because we all know there is always another storm on the horizon. The good news is that when the next one hits, you'll be ready. Of course, subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app or become a VIP member of the 5am Miracle Community by getting the premium ad-free version with exclusive bonus episodes at 5am Miracle Premium.com. That's all I've got for you here on the 5am Miracle Podcast this week. Until next time. you have the power to change your life, and all that fun begins right and early.

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