From Overwhelmed to Organized: Strategies for Reclaiming Your Time and Boosting Productivity

If you’ve ever struggled to keep up with the endless demands of tasks, emails, and work projects while staying productive, happy, and healthy, then today’s guest is a must-hear resource. She is Leslie Shreve, Founder & CEO of ProductiveDay and the mind behind Taskology, a unique and proprietary system for improving productivity. Leslie has over 20 years of experience helping hundreds of business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs save hours daily by streamlining their systems and processes.

In this episode, Leslie shares how her proven system can help busy entrepreneurs and professionals reclaim their time, reduce overwhelm, and find balance. Whether you’re drowning in emails or struggling to prioritize tasks, Leslie’s actionable insights will show you how to work smarter - not harder.

In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover the following:

• Strategies for easily saving up to 10 hours a week.
• The key to protecting your time, and achieving personal and professional success and fulfillment.
• How to identify and eliminate "hidden time traps”, and reorganize your system for ultimate clarity and focus.
• And so much more!

Feeling stuck in a cycle of endless tasks? Want to make time for what truly matters? Visit www.productiveday.com to learn more about Taskology, her proprietary system for improving productivity, and explore Leslie’s free resources:

• A productivity quiz to uncover your number 1 blind spot and receive tailored insights to improve your workflow.
• Smart Steps Audio Series, a year-long guide with weekly 2–4 minute tips to boost your productivity.
• A special report, “7 Surprising Secrets to Saving Time,” for actionable tips for regaining control of your day.

 To be a guest on our next podcast, contact us today!

Do you have a brand that you’d like to launch or grow? Do you want help from a partner that has successfully launched hundreds of brands totaling over $2 billion in revenues? Visit HarvestGrowth.com and set up a free consultation with us today!

Transcript

Jon LaClare [00:00:00]:
I had today's guest on the show for selfish reasons. She's a productivity expert and I feel like I never get as much done in a day as I would like. I often end each day with important tasks remaining on my plate. In today's interview, you'll learn how to get more time out of your day, to become more productive, to better manage email, and to achieve better results in your career.  

Jon LaClare [00:00:42]:
Welcome back to the show. I'm excited to be speaking with Leslie Shreve. Now, she's the founder and CEO of ProductiveDay.com among other things, she does a lot, but in a nutshell, she helps us all to be more productive and a lot of other things, too. We're going to talk about some tips and techniques or strategies that she likes to recommend or use. So I would encourage you please listen to this interview and learn how we can all be more efficient. I am really excited to have this conversation because I certainly need it in my life. Leslie, welcome to the show today.

Leslie Shreve [00:01:12]:
Thank you, John. It's great to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Jon LaClare [00:01:16]:
So along with Productive Day, you also run or developed a unique system called Taskology, the science of getting things done. Can you talk a little bit more about what that is?

Leslie Shreve [00:01:27]:
Certainly. Taskology is a unique and proprietary system that I created many years ago and have been teaching for more than 20 years. And it has four components that really represent the four main processes of your workday. That's task management, time management, email management, and information management. What it does is it ties all those together with a methodology for your technology. So it is not about software. No matter what kind of software you have for those different processes, it ties together all of the thinking and decision making, making and executing that a person needs to do in their workday to be more efficient, effective, and productive.

Jon LaClare [00:02:05]:
So maybe some pointers or advice. I'll give you my. I should show you my calendar. It's a disaster. I have. It's kind of the way I do things. And like you said, software maybe doesn't matter. I have my techniques that work for me, but I come in every day and I've got, I don't know, 50 things, like, all lined up on my calendar and I get things done.

Jon LaClare [00:02:22]:
But I always feel like I'm leaving a lot on the table and it stresses me out and, you know, kind of the norm of running a business. It's a complex life for sure. So what are some, I guess, techniques you use or recommend for people to overcome when they've just got simply too much going on in terms of tasks to be able to manage it all?

Leslie Shreve [00:02:38]:
So typically people will come to me because they don't have enough time, which is a common problem. We all go through it. I mean, I go through it too. Gotta follow my own advice. But we need to protect more time rather than letting it be stolen or instead of giving it away too quickly. So I do teach my clients how to protect more time on their calendars, not just like a random time blocking thing. Because everybody listening today would be like, well, I know how to block time. But our methodology goes a lot deeper into how often to do it, how many days a week, how many times a day, how long the block should be, and what to do when things go wrong.

Leslie Shreve [00:03:15]:
So we go into extensive rules of the road on that one so that my clients get more time back. Actually, there's two ways. We get time back for our clients so that they end up with one to two extra hours per day every day, so that they can actually use that time more efficiently and effectively. The other way is by better information management. So but that's not really the star of the show. The star of the show, because it's called taskology, is task management. Because even email management is task management in disguise. It's also information management in disguise, but because email seems like its own animal, its own thing, we call it email management.

Leslie Shreve [00:03:52]:
But what you're really doing is managing tasks, opportunities, information, events, things like that. So one of the biggest things that I think is helpful for people to understand is that in order for you to be more efficient with your time, you have to be more efficient with how you're managing tasks. So we centralize those, which is sounds really simple. And people might be thinking, well, I put all my to DOS on one Legal Pad or I've got an app on my phone, or, you know, they've got some way right now that they're trying to centralize tasks. But trying is the key word. It really does have to be a complete central digital task list. So no matter what you're using, whether it's Microsoft Outlook or Google or Todoist, Asana Trello, like I could list them all. It doesn't matter what the platform is.

Leslie Shreve [00:04:39]:
Although I will Say some are better than the others. What you really want to do is pull your tasks away from their sources. What are the sources? Email, phone calls, meetings, hallway conversations, papers and files on your desk. Could be anything because they come from a lot of different places. Social media is another one. But you need to pull them away from their sources and get them all into one single digital inventory. I call it mission control. But that's the taskology task list, no matter where you build it.

Leslie Shreve [00:05:06]:
Now once you pull all those away, well then we also have to talk about the tools. Because a tool is like big pads, little pads, spiral pads, notepads, post it notes, whiteboards, Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, planners. Like we try to use, you know, apps. We try to use a lot of different tools to keep up with everything that is going on in our day. But until you see it in all in one place, you really can't efficiently and effectively plan and prioritize and accomplish those tasks because you don't have full clarity. A lot of people are flying blind. So we have to pull them away from those tools, get rid of all the pads and the planners and the whiteboards. All that stuff goes away from my clients.

Leslie Shreve [00:05:42]:
As a matter of fact, I just did it this morning with a brand new client. And the first call is always building that task list. And so he did away with his legal pad. You know, no more stuff on his desk. You download it from your memory and get it all into one central place. And that's when you can start planning and prioritizing. And just another tip about that, this is not a digital legal pad. We actually group the tasks by action date.

Leslie Shreve [00:06:04]:
And that's what's missing from a lot of the pads and whiteboards and Word documents is an actual action date, not a due date, not a deadline. But when are you going to do it? So our due dates are do dates. So it's when are you going to do those tasks? So, and then there's a limit to how many you can plan in a day. You can't try to do like this much when your time only allows for that much. So we have a lot of, a lot going on in taskology to kind of get that structure in place. So there's a lot to learn, but it's very simple and logical and easy to use. And once we get all those tasks in your clarity, in your awareness, it makes it so much easier to know what needs to be done now versus later. And then you always have a plan for future days, weeks and months.

Leslie Shreve [00:06:47]:
So my clients have anywhere from 30 to 150 tasks on their task list. But they're not all for today or this week or even this month. So it allows them a place to put them, plan them, prioritize them and then accomplish them without missing, losing or forgetting anything.

Jon LaClare [00:07:02]:
And for our audience, you can definitely check out productiveday.com to start to learn more. We'll talk at the end of the interview on how to get a hold of Leslie to learn more. A lot of this I'm sure Leslie is done on a one on one basis. It sounds like right to get things sorted out because we all have our own unique issues or unique way of doing things and finding that best approach does take a conversation. So we'll talk about how to get a hold of you later in the interview as well. You mentioned email, so I'm sure many of our listeners and viewers like myself are inundated with emails. Right. So it's easy to delete the ones that are easy to delete.

Jon LaClare [00:07:35]:
Right. The spammy ones, whatever. But it's, there's tools to do that. But any, any advice on general email management? I think what you've said so far and again, you got to dive in on a one on one to really get all the answers. Of course. Right. But any sort of things to start thinking about to do a better job with our emails?

Leslie Shreve [00:07:50]:
Absolutely. Like I said earlier, it's really, it's task management in disguise. You know, too many people are trying to flag emails to keep up with them or mark them as unread so they stay bold or they print them and put them on their desk. You know, everybody's trying really hard to keep up with what's rolling in instead of chasing it off the screen and trying to find it again and then figure out what to do. So as you know what's happening today, if you are flagging or doing something similar, you all are losing time rereading emails you've already seen but couldn't do anything with. And that just kills me because I know it doesn't have to be this way. So what I recommend is, you know, usually there's like three camps for email. There's inbox zero and then there's I keep it all and I'm just going to search because I don't really want to do anything with it, but I'll just search.

Leslie Shreve [00:08:38]:
And then there's the people in the middle who are so proud and excited. They're like, oh no, I don't have hundreds, I don't have thousands. I've only got like 15 or 20. And I say, well, good job on that. However, those 15 or 20 are left behind because they all represent something you want to do. And this is where we come down to it. So even the email that contain tasks and follow ups, they come over to the Taskology task list. We get those tasks and follow ups out of email, but without using the flag or anything else, get them on the taskology task list so you can effectively prioritize them there.

Leslie Shreve [00:09:11]:
Because that's the one thing you can't do with those emails in the inbox. You can't plan them, you can't prioritize them. And it's really hard to take action because half the time you don't even remember why you flagged it, right? So we get those out of there. So that's pulling it away from that source. And then after that we of course are getting everybody to zero because all the information is out and all the tasks are out. So the best way to start is by looking at all the old emails that you have in there. So if you do have hundreds or thousands, my first recommendation is always going to be set up a folder on the left side of the screen. Doesn't matter how many years it goes back.

Leslie Shreve [00:09:44]:
Let's say it goes back to 2019, set it up and call it 2019-2023 emails or 24, you know, because we're almost finished with 24 and just move them out. Like, don't even waste your time looking at older emails. It's not the best use of your time. In Taskology we only look at the most recent three months and that is it. Unless somebody wants to go back further for another reason. But the most recent three months are going to be the ones where all the hot stuff is. That's where all your important tasks and follow ups are going to be. And that's where all the most important information is.

Leslie Shreve [00:10:16]:
Now can you search the folder once all those are out of there? Of course, it's just 2019. It's just like an archive. But we want to name it like let's give it the years so we at least know how many years it is. That's always step one in the future. I do recommend setting up folders for specific things that you are working on right now. So whether it's jobs or projects or initiatives or it's clients you're working with, whatever it is, you're going to need a couple of folders, a handful. So we recommend a certain number of folders on the left side of the screen so that you're not always scrolling and searching and you know, wasting time looking through a really long list of folders because there is such a thing as over organizing. So going forward you'd want to have those folders so that immediately when you're finished with an email, whether you're just reading it or maybe you've read it and replied, but now you can file it, get it out of the inbox, like stop using the inbox as a file cabinet or a to do list and get those things in the proper location.

Leslie Shreve [00:11:09]:
So what I tell people is that you're going to have a lot of reference locations in your workday. You're going to have the hard drive or the cloud where you're going to save your attachments, you're going to have email folders for saving emails that, you know, it's nice to have but don't need to be saved, you know, anywhere else really. And then you get the tasks and follow ups out, you know, but the reference information there's going to be a lot. Another good one is contacts. A lot of people leave contacts in an email and then they say, oh, I got to call Bob, oh no, I got to look for the, for the information. Well, we have contact systems and CRMs for that. So let's get that information in the best location that's really meant for managing that type of information. Don't leave it in the email because you're just making it harder for you to do your task.

Leslie Shreve [00:11:48]:
So get everything in the proper reference locations where those items belong and then there should only be one place for tasks and that is the task list that we build in taskology. And wherever you put that, whatever software you use, you're going to want that to be mission control for everything that is a task, an action step, a follow up, even an idea that you want to think about maybe in February, you know, you want to get that all on there. So that's how we get to zero, is we make decisions. I turn my clients into decision making ninjas because we want to know, okay, we know what to do with it. And we don't want the holdup to be, well now, where do I put it? So we got to have those two elements. Do you need it or do you not? And then if you do need it, where are you going to put it? And so we handle that to make sure that everything has a place and then you can quickly make decisions and process email and get it back to zero every single day. But that's where you Start get the old stuff out.

Jon LaClare [00:12:37]:
I love it. It's great advice. And it's. I'm sitting here thinking, you know, I feel like I spend every weekend, not the entire weekend, but like a Sunday night or whatever. I'll start doing calendar for the up coming week or whatever. My system obviously needs some work for a lot, a lot of reasons, a lot of things to do, right. And I by bucket them on days like, oh, if I have time on Tuesday, then I'll do these five things. But anytime I say that, I never have time for that, right.

Jon LaClare [00:12:58]:
There's never extra time. So I love the structure of like really figuring out, okay, what needs to be done, getting them in order and finding a path to getting stuff done without getting distracted by rereading or moving things around or whatever it might be. So it's a great tool to advise. I just read an article this week. I think it was from Elon Musk's ex wife or somebody that was in his life years ago, maybe a girlfriend, whatever. I don't know, personal life. You know, you could always talk about Elon Musk. It's a very interesting life.

Jon LaClare [00:13:24]:
But he does a lot, right? We can can't argue that he does more than probably anybody I know of, right. In the ecosphere. And he, one of the ways he gets things done, she's. She talked about how he relentlessly says no to things, right. So saying no, you have to do it at times. You can't say no to everything, right? You got to do the important things. But does that come into play in kind of your structure like learning? Is there a process or a decision tree that helps you know what to be able to say no to?

Leslie Shreve [00:13:52]:
Not really a decision tree, no. Because it's different for everybody what their yeses and no's really should be. But we do talk about where their time is going and how to protect more of it because they're very vocal about, I wish I had more time to do xyz, you know. And so we talk about that, you know, what are the most important things you feel like you're not fitting in right now? And let's get those in there, not only on the task list, but on the calendar if it's a true event, you know, because we don't put tasks on a calendar. Two separate things going on there. So if they want to protect more time to do something in particular, whether it's health and fitness and working out or they're trying to spend more time with their kids, I mean, I really don't get too involved in the personal management of time. But it kind of is, I guess, a bonus of structuring your day in the business hours more effectively. So when we protect more time in the day to actually help them get their work done, they automatically have more time in the evening for family, for personal time, for health, fitness, or even sleep.

Leslie Shreve [00:14:50]:
So we definitely have a correlation there because a lot of people do come to me and say, leslie, I'm really tired of working nights and weekends. I just can't, I can't do it anymore. It's not sustainable. I don't want to do it. I miss my family, they miss me, you know, whatever it is. And so we do want to make more time for life, basically.

Jon LaClare [00:15:07]:
Absolutely. I love the phrase you're using protecting your time. It's a very positive way of saying it. And it is, it's important.

Leslie Shreve [00:15:14]:
Right.

Jon LaClare [00:15:15]:
None of us have the time to do everything, especially as business owners. There's just so much being tugged in every direction. We've got to be able to find ways to protect ourselves or protect our time. Right. Have you in your working with so many people over the years, is there like, what kind of. I don't know if there's an easy answer. I'm sure it's different for everybody, but there is sort of a norm of like, how much time can you save simply by changing systems? Of course it's different for everybody. But any, I guess, success stories or things you've heard from people where you've saved me X number of hours per week, week or whatever it might be.

Leslie Shreve [00:15:50]:
We do have a lot of client stories and testimonials on the website. So 99 is where we are right now waiting for that 100th. Because even though I've been doing this for more than 20 years, we haven't been always so great with collecting those testimonials and client stories. But so what you'll find when you go there is that a lot of clients are saying, I've saved at least an hour a day or 30 minutes or two hours. And so that adds up, and we have that as part of our marketing is that you can save between or, you know, have gain, regain one to two hours a day, every day. So up to 10 hours a week. Sometimes it's more for some people, sometimes it's a little less. It depends on how they want to use that time.

Leslie Shreve [00:16:27]:
Now we might have protected it and saved it, but now they're using it for something else and they don't feel like they're, you know, kicking back and sipping on champagne or something all day. No, they've actually filled it up and now they're using it more effectively. They will have more personal time though, unless they decide to go, okay, I've got it dialed during the day now I can use my evenings for a special project that's always been on the back burner, you know, so they're not necessarily going to say, well, I've saved, or I've, you know, I've got this free time now because they're busy entrepreneurs or they're business owners, executives and they want to fill it up with something else. So it's different for everybody how they want to tell me. But a lot of most people do say I've saved at least an hour or two hours a day. So that's why you'll see that on the website that time comes from the three processes that we're streamlining. Believe it or not, it's not all about protecting the time. The other things that contribute to regaining time are mastering and streamlining the three processes in your day that are task management, email management, and information management.

Leslie Shreve [00:17:25]:
When those are dialed, you get a ton of time back because now you're not spinning your wheels or being reactive or looking for things you know you have but just can't find. And you're not spinning your wheels in the email inbox anymore.

Jon LaClare [00:17:37]:
Love it. And it's, you know, you think about an hour to two hours a day, which is significant. But when you think about that on a weekly or monthly basis, 10 hours a week, it's a full day. Right. That you gain or can gain back by simply having better systems and processes. Well, Leslie, I think this has been really helpful, as we talked about before, to really dive deep on this. It becomes a one on one conversation. I think you've given some great advice that people I'm sure are listening to and hopefully will improve and get more efficient on their own.

Jon LaClare [00:18:04]:
But if they want to get a hold of you to learn more how they can work with you, what's the process?

Leslie Shreve [00:18:10]:
So they can reach out to me in an email. LeslieRoductiveDay.com L E S L I E Certainly I'm on LinkedIn and you can go to productive day and read up on, you know, either me or the system or whatever. So there's a lot of information there, but we also have some free gifts on the homepage that people might want to take advantage of. And the first one is our productivity quiz. It's called what's your number one productivity Blind Spot. And I love this quiz because it's only eight questions and once you take it, you find out on the other side if you're a giver, a marker, a jumper or a detective and you'll get your own unique results report. And on top of that, a few days later you'll get another special Insights report from me which is a deep dive into your particular blind spot. So you find out what's really going on with that particular blind spot, what's really happening in your workday and what to do to fix it.

Leslie Shreve [00:18:59]:
So I offer that because that one's a lot of fun. That's on the homepage for sure. The other one is the Smart Steps, the Productive Day. Smart Steps is a 52 week audio series of 2 to 4 minute audios from me with strategies straight from taskology and you'll get one in your inbox every week for a whole year. So that has a lot of juicy information in it. I encourage everybody to sign up for those. We also have a special report called the 7 Surprising Secrets to Saving Time and that is just, I don't know, maybe a short insights report, maybe 10 pages, 12. I'm not sure, I don't remember.

Leslie Shreve [00:19:28]:
But it's a good one and it will tell you a little bit more about where this lost time is going in your day. We talked a little bit about it today, but this is a deeper dive so I welcome you to take advantage of those or just reach out to me for a conversation because what I've been doing for 20 years is one to one private consulting with C level executives, business owners, you know, EVPs, entrepreneurs and that's mainly what I do. I also have taskology for teams training. So if you're in corporate we have that too. But one to one is really my favorite. And you know we have a lot of good things on the horizon too. Another a new program coming out. So more on that another time.

Jon LaClare [00:20:02]:
Well, that's all exciting. I sure do appreciate you taking the time today. I have taken some notes during this conversation that I'm going to implement. We need to talk to and improve my own life and if efficiency hopefully it's a wake up call for a lot of our listeners. We can all be more efficient in our lives. We can all do better. Which means we can either get more done or more have, have more free time or more time with our family or whatever it might be but still being effective, right? Without losing that effectiveness in our day to day life. Getting things done still but being able to have more free time getting the important things done along the way.

Jon LaClare [00:20:32]:
I do want to say to our audience, did you know you can meet with a member of my team absolutely free for a 30 minute strategy consultation? We've launched and grown hundreds of products since 2007 and learned some of our strategies while growing OxiClean back in the Billy Mays days. We're here to help, so please go to harvestgrowth.com and set up a call if you'd like to discuss further.