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Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Erik Fisher
Beyond the To-Do List is a productivity podcast hosted by Erik Fisher. Each week, Erik sits down with experts, authors, and creatives to explore time management, habits, focus, deep work, work-life balance, mindset, and what it actually means to live and work well. The show has featured guests like David Allen, James Clear, Cal Newport, Gretchen Rubin, Seth Godin, and Daniel Pink — covering everything from getting things done and morning routines to burnout, procrastination, creativity, digital minimalism, goal setting, and intentional living. The premise is simple: productivity isn't the point. It's the means to a whole life.
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- 6 days ago45 min
Work-Life Balance for Working Parents: What You Can Let Drop with Sarah Armstrong
Work-life balance and boundaries are at the center of this conversation with Sarah Armstrong, author of The Art of the Juggling Act.Sarah Armstrong is the head of Global Marketing Operations at Google and the author of The Art of the Juggling Act: A Bite-Sized Guide for Working Parents. With a career spanning McKinsey, Leo Burnett, and two decades at Coca-Cola, she writes and speaks about what it actually looks like to show up for both work and life — and how to decide which is which.In this conversation, we cover:The 5-ball framework: Work, family, friends, health, and spirit — Sarah's framework for identifying which balls in your life are rubber (they bounce when dropped) and which are glass (they don't), and why that distinction is more useful than any calendar hack.Defining balance on your own terms: Why balance isn't a fixed state you achieve once and maintain, why imbalance is inevitable (not if, but when), and how deciding what balance means for you is the work before the tactics.Saying no without explaining yourself: The story of a colleague who turned down a request with no justification — and why the absence of an explanation wasn't rude, it was the skill.The Grace block and the Sunday list: Two low-friction practices that protect non-work time — a standing calendar block that signals you're off, and a Sunday habit for parking unfinished thoughts so your brain can actually stop carrying them.Outsourcing and the transference of hours: The cost-value equation for deciding what to offload, and why the real question isn't what something costs — it's what you'd do with the hours you get back.If you're a working parent who feels like you're failing at everything simultaneously, this conversation is worth your full attention. Sarah doesn't promise balance — she helps you figure out what yours actually looks like, and gives you the tools to protect it. Find her book, The Art of the Juggling Act, at the links below.Connect with Sarah:saraharmstrong.comThe Art of the Juggling ActConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist: http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 1 weeks ago56 min
Goal Setting: Why Your Values Decide What You Finish with Chris Bailey
Goal setting, intentional living, and following through are at the center of this conversation with Chris Bailey, productivity author and co-host of the Intentional AI podcast.Chris Bailey's work traces a decade-long arc — from The Productivity Project to Hyperfocus to How to Calm Your Mind. His new book, Intentional: How to Finish What You Start, pulls that thread together, arguing that following through has less to do with discipline than with knowing what you actually value. He returns to the show for the seventh time, going all the way back to 2014.In this conversation, we cover:Values as the real engine of follow-through: why a scientifically validated values test (Schwartz's 12 values) predicts what you finish better than any goal hack.The CP-atone trap: how the idea of a goal — waking up at 5 a.m. — seduces us more than the daily reality of living it, and how to catch yourself doing it.Editing vs. dropping goals: treating a goal like a draft you revise, and why quitting can close the loop rather than mark a failure.Why SMART goals don't hold up: the research Chris expected to endorse and ended up taking apart.Islands of intention and the rule of three: small daily practices for stepping off autopilot and lining up your actions with what matters.If you've ever pushed through a goal you no longer wanted — or quit one and felt guilty about it — this conversation reframes both. You'll leave with a way to check your goals against what you actually value, plus a couple of small practices to make tomorrow more deliberate than today. Start with the book, Intentional: How to Finish What You Start, and Chris's free 12-values overview at chrisbailey.com.Also on the show: Laura Vanderkam on time scarcity, and Chris's Intentional AI co-host David Sparks.Connect with Chris:Chris Bailey — chrisbailey.comIntentional: How to Finish What You Start (swap in your retail/affiliate link)Intentional AI podcast, with David Sparks (confirm show URL)Connect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist: http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 2 weeks ago55 min
Creativity and Play: A Fuller Life Beyond Productivity with Rachael Renae
Creativity, play, and intentional living are at the center of this conversation with Rachael Renae, artist and author of Prioritize Play.Rachael Renae is an artist, workshop facilitator, and self-described "creativity hype gal" based in Detroit. After more than a decade as an engineer and years running a handmade stationery business, she now helps people reconnect with their creativity through play — through workshops, one-on-one coaching, and a creative community called The Juice Box. Prioritize Play is her debut book, and she narrates the audiobook herself.In this conversation, we cover:Play over productivity: Why Rachael reframes creativity as "play" — low-stakes, no expectations — and why that shift reaches the people who insist they're "not creative."The monetization trap: What running a handmade stationery business taught her about pouring all your creative energy into a side hustle, and why a passion doesn't have to become a job to be worth your time.Create more than you consume: How endless inspiration-gathering — Pinterest boards, research, getting ready to get ready — masquerades as creativity, and why imperfect action beats it every time.Structure that supports, not restricts: Using "scaffolding" instead of rigid schedules, loosening the rules so the habit actually sticks, and working with your brain — ADHD included — instead of against it.Self-trust and "salad bar energy": Building confidence in your own decisions by trying things and setting them aside — plus permission to be "mid interested" in something without having to master it.If you've hit every success marker and still feel depleted — or you've quietly decided you're "not creative" — this is an invitation to put play back on your plate. Rachael's challenge is small and immediate: make a seasonal play list, or take the free hour a canceled meeting hands you and spend it on something that fills you instead of the next chore. Grab Prioritize Play wherever you get your books — and if you liked her voice here, she reads the audiobook herself.Connect with Rachael:Prioritize Play (book)rachaelrenae.comInstagram: @rachaelrenaeChaotic Creatives podcastConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 3 weeks ago57 min
Self-Awareness: The Birkman Method and Working With How You're Wired with Lisa Marker-Robbins
Self-awareness, mindset, and personal productivity are at the center of this conversation with Lisa Marker-Robbins, a Master Certified Birkman Method coach — one of the roughly 3% of consultants at that level.Lisa has taken more than 4,000 people through the Birkman assessment over 30-plus years. She runs an executive coaching practice for adults and founded Flourish Coaching, where she helps 15–25-year-olds find career clarity before they spend years and tuition on the wrong path. She started out as a teacher, and the through-line — helping people understand how they're built — never left.In this conversation, we cover:What Birkman measures that most assessments miss: Not just how you behave, but what you need from other people, and how you react when those needs go unmet.The four colors and nine components: Why your "usual," your "needs," and your "stress" scores tell three different stories about the same person.Working with your wiring instead of against it: Why, as Lisa puts it, you shouldn't "should" on yourself — and what to build instead.Introversion, assertiveness, and restlessness: Erik's own scores become the worked example, and what they explain about energy, recharging, and a renewed ADHD diagnosis.Career clarity as a productivity tool: How knowing your wiring narrows an overwhelming field of options down to a first step that actually fits.This one's for anyone tired of trying to fix themselves into someone they're not — and curious how they're actually wired, so they can work, lead, and live more like themselves. Self-awareness isn't the finish line here; it's the thing that makes the rest of your life work better. Find Lisa's work below.Connect with Lisa:Executive Coaching — LisaMarkerRobbins.comFlourish Coaching — Career Clarity for 15–25-year-oldsLinkedInConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Aug 17, 202646 min
Mindset: Why Fixing Your Habits Won't Fix Your Self-Trust with Lester Clowes
Self-trust and identity are at the center of this conversation with Lester Clowes, executive coach and author of Stop Lying to Yourself.Lester Clowes spent a decade running a school system before building a coaching practice around the exact motivational content he used to be hooked on himself. His new book, Stop Lying to Yourself, examines the quiet lies capable, organized people tell themselves right up until nothing changes.In this conversation, we cover:Promise debt: How years of small broken commitments to yourself compound into a negative balance — and why that balance, not your system, is usually the real problem.Act as if, not fake it till you make it: The difference between performing someone else's identity and architecting your own, and why one has an off-ramp and the other doesn't.Self-trust vs. self-reputation: Why the feeling and the record are two different things — and why feelings always snap back to match the record, no matter how good the pep talk was.The desert: The unglamorous middle phase between enthusiasm and momentum where most people quit, and why learning to act independent of your feelings is the whole game.Seasons, not sweeping change: How naming what season you're in — and giving it a boundary — restores the agency that an over-engineered system can't.If you've built the system and you're still, four years later, the same person — just better at being busy — this conversation is for you. It pairs well with Erik's solo episode on agency versus the illusion of control if you want the fuller framework behind why control was never really the goal.Connect with Lester:defytheaverage.comConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Aug 6, 202652 min
Burnout: Why Thought Load, Not Workload, Is Draining You with Liane Davey
Burnout, energy management, and decision fatigue are at the center of this conversation with Liane Davey, organizational psychologist and the "teamwork doctor."Liane Davey is a New York Times bestselling author and CEO advisor with 25+ years researching what makes teams work. Her latest book, Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work, argues the number we've been tracking wrong all along isn't workload — it's the mental and emotional weight underneath it. She previously joined the show to talk conflict; this time she's back with the framework underneath the exhaustion itself.In this conversation, we cover:The Thought Load Equation: cognitive demands plus emotional burden, divided by your energy reserves — and why managers can see your workload but not this.AI and the Hidden Cost: why offloading tasks to AI hasn't lightened the load — it's shifted the hard part to judgment and discernment, and added new anxieties of its own.Output vs. Outcomes: the trap of chasing productivity (did I produce?) instead of effectiveness (did I move the needle?) — and why AI makes this trap worse, not better.Three To-Do Lists, Not One: Liane's system for separating your quest, helping others, and side quests — and matching each to the right hours of your day.Emotions Aren't the Problem, the Story Is: the "dragon and treasure" framework for catching an emotional spiral before it becomes a 2 a.m. spiral, plus why rest alone doesn't cure burnout.This one's for anyone who's done everything the productivity playbook told them to do and still feels like they're drowning. Liane's central point lands right at this show's: winning back your thinking time and energy isn't the finish line — it's what lets you show up for the rest of your life. Get the book and take the free thought load assessment at thoughtload.com.Related episode: Ep 261 — Conflict: Productive Conflict and How to Make Disagreement Work for You — Liane's first appearance on the show, on fighting well at work.Connect with Liane Davey:LinkedInWebsiteThoughtload AssessmentThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Aug 3, 202653 min
Creativity: How Rest, Wonder, and AI Redefine Productivity with Natalie Nixon
Creativity, rest, and mindset are at the center of this conversation with Natalie Nixon, author of The Creativity Leap and Move, Think, Rest.Natalie Nixon has spent two decades as a creativity strategist advising Fortune 500 companies on innovation strategy — work she calls being a "creative whisperer to the C-Suite." She's the founder of Figure 8 Thinking, and her two books make one connected argument: creativity means toggling between wonder and rigor, and rest isn't procrastination — it's fuel for better thinking.In this conversation, we cover:Rest that looks like nothing: Why Natalie assumed her best thinking — staring out the window, taking a slow walk — was procrastination, and what finally convinced her it wasn't.Wonder and rigor, not "creative types": The real definition of creativity as a toggle everyone already uses, and why "I'm not a creative person" misses the point entirely.The 90-second daydream break: The neuroscience of the default mode network, and how a short, timed pause can unstick a problem that's had you stuck for hours.What her father taught her about rest: A weekly Saturday ritual that was equal parts self-care and discipline — and why the work still got done anyway.Flourishing over productive: Why the right question about AI isn't "how does this make us more productive," but "how does this help us flourish."If your calendar rewards constant output and treats stillness like a red flag, this one's for you.Connect with Natalie:Figure 8 ThinkingConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Jul 27, 202647 min
Energy Management: What Johnny Carson Knew About Saying No with Mark Malkoff
Energy management, decision making, and knowing when to walk away are at the center of this conversation with Mark Malkoff, author of Love Johnny Carson.Mark Malkoff is a comedian, filmmaker, and interviewer who spent eight years and nearly 400 interviews building The Carson Podcast. That work became his first book, Love Johnny Carson, written with biographer David Ritz and a USA Today bestseller. He's back on the show fourteen years after his first appearance — back when he was the guy making viral creative stunt videos.In this conversation, we cover:Guarding your energy: Why Carson stayed alone all day and showed up minutes before showtime — treating energy as the one thing worth protecting — and what that means for anyone who has to perform without burning out.Saying no to protect the work: He turned down film roles and refused to chase trends, because staying number one meant declining almost everything that wasn't the show.Making other people look good: Carson's rule was that the guest gets the laugh, and the same instinct drove how fiercely he protected and publicly thanked his staff.The cost nobody edits out: An honest look at the reviews he couldn't let go of, the drinking, and four marriages — and why Mark won't hold Carson up as a life to copy wholesale.Walking away, and the power of asking: Why Carson left at the top to go actually live, plus Mark's own craft — the long game, the homework, and the curiosity behind nearly 400 impossible interviews.If you make things — if you write, record, build, or perform — this one's for you. Carson is that rare figure who's both a model and a cautionary tale, and the line Mark keeps returning to is the one worth carrying out the door: follow the curiosity, and don't mistake the work for the point of the work. Grab Love Johnny Carson wherever you buy books, and start on The Carson Podcast for the interviews underneath it.Connect with Mark:WebsiteThe Carson PodcastConnect with Erik:LinkedInThreadsFacebookBlueskyThis Podcast is Powered By:Brain.fm - 20% off your first monthDescriptDescript 101CastmagicEcammPodpageRodecaster ProGrab Shortcasts from Beyond The To-Do List by Blinkist:http://beyondthetodolist.com/blinkistSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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About Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
Beyond the To-Do List is a productivity podcast hosted by Erik Fisher. Each week, Erik sits down with experts, authors, and creatives to explore time management, habits, focus, deep work, work-life balance, mindset, and what it actually means to live and work well. The show has featured guests like David Allen, James Clear, Cal Newport, Gretchen Rubin, Seth Godin, and Daniel Pink — covering everything from getting things done and morning routines to burnout, procrastination, creativity, digital minimalism, goal setting, and intentional living. The premise is simple: productivity isn't the point. It's the means to a whole life.
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