Hello and welcome to another episode of the Working Conversations podcast where we talk all things leadership, business communication, and trends in organizational life. I'm your host, Dr Janel Anderson.

Are you curious to know how I managed to balance my professional ambitions with my personal well being? Some of you are in this behind the scenes. Ask me anything episode. I'm pulling back the curtain on my own strategies for goal setting, productivity and maintaining healthy boundaries between work and life. We'll delve into my personal tips and routines that keep me grounded, focused and energized.

Whether you're striving to achieve your career goals without sacrificing your personal life or looking for inspiration to enhance your productivity, join me for an open and honest conversation that just might offer some insights and change the way you approach your professional and personal balance.

All right, this is the companion episode to last week's episode where I addressed topics from the podcast that I get lots of questions on, and this week, we're going in deep on four main areas, productivity, mindset outside of work, and some personal insights. So I took the questions that came in that were more about my personal slash professional life, and group them into those four categories. So we're going to take them in order.

And I am so excited to share this information with you. I don't get a lot of chances to kind of go behind the scenes and tell you about me personally. Usually we're focused on content here on the podcast. So this is really fun for me, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

All right, the first category we're diving into is productivity. So I got asked, what tools or apps do you use to manage your time and tasks? This one might surprise you. The most important thing for me is a wall calendar. Yes, that is right, a wall calendar I have up on my wall, it's from the dollar store. I just get the wall calendar with like puppies on it, or something like that. And I cut it apart into all 12 months, and I put all 12 months up on the wall, and all of my speaking engagements go up on that calendar. And that, that is a ride or die calendar. For me, I have to know what's on that calendar.

Now, a very close second to that would be my Google Calendar, because everything that is up on the wall, including hold for speaking engagements that haven't had contracts written, where they might be considering me and several other speakers hold, and if it's a hold, it's on a post it note, and if it is confirmed and there is a contract in place, then it goes in on that calendar with a Sharpie. And I have different colors for different sectors. So if it's a government sector, it's in this color. If it's an Association Conference that I'm, you know, conference that I'm speaking to, an association, it's in this color. If it's a corporate event, then it's in a different color. So I can add a glance look at my calendar and know I also put a star, an actual, like Sticker Star, on the ones that are in person events, versus the ones that are virtual events. So I can look at my calendar at a glance and know exactly what's happening.

Now it is july 2024 when I'm recording this, and I had just gone to the dollar store very recently, because the 2025 calendars just came out, and I have things and whole holds and confirmed events on my calendar for 2025 and I really needed that 2025 calendar to be up on the wall too. So it kind of is old school, but it keeps me grounded.

Now, if I'm going to be traveling, I will actually take photographs of the wall calendar to have on my phone so that I don't miss a thing when I'm traveling. Because what sometimes will happen otherwise is I'll get a request for like, you know, February 22 of next year, and I might just pull up Google Calendar while I'm traveling and look at February 22 and say, Oh, I'm open that day, but I might be in like, Boston the day before and Atlanta the day after, in which case, it's not really practical for me to take an event on February 22 so it's really, really important that I'm able to see the larger context. So that's why the paper calendar, okay, and again, second most, the Google Calendar.

Now, as it relates to day to day work, then I use Clever Fox. You've maybe heard me talk about Clever Fox, which is a planner, and it doesn't have the dates pre written in it. So if I decide not to use it, or if I'm on vacation or whatever, I'm not losing a week, sometimes I will take a break from Clever Fox and not use it for a couple of months, and then I'll come back to it. So I use Clever Fox. It's it's a hefty thing, though, so I don't like to always travel with it, so that's why I sometimes don't use it for a while. I absolutely use the Notes app in my phone. I am constantly in there with a to do list and a prioritization process in that to do list where I put a little asterisk next to thing, and I love to check things off. So once an item is done, I put a little check mark in front of it, and that just feeds my soul.

I also sometimes will just use a paper list of things, especially again, if I'm on the road, if I'm traveling a lot, or if I'm on a break from my phone, and I just don't like to be using the electronics all the time, I will just be making paper lists.

So now the second question, which is related to that follow up question, is, how do you prioritize your daily tasks? So I need to look at the whole week and the very next day. I also need to look at the whole month, because sometimes there's something that's coming up later in the month that I need to get, like slides into a client, or need to get some pre work done on a project that's coming up later. So I really do need to be taking that big picture. And then when I zoom in to prioritize my daily tasks after I've looked at the whole month and the week and really the next day.

Then if I am hard, usually, what I will do is I will choose my top three. These are the three things that have to get done today, and I will work on them first, and then what else needs to come and fill in the rest of the day. Now, if I have a lot on my plate, or I have overextended myself, then I do time blocking in 30 minute increments. So I will take the whole day from like 8am when I if, if I'm really hard pressed, I'm going to be starting my workday at 8am in a time timeframe like that, and working probably right up until five o'clock, 530 and I will time block my day in 30 minute increments.

Now sometimes I'm working on something for 90 minutes, so I'm blocking out 30 minutes of them, or I have a call with a client that's 60 minutes, or an executive coaching call with a client that's 60 minutes. So I will be blocking two of those 30 minute increments for that. But when I do that, I also make sure to put in time for breaks to recharge, because in those times when I'm overextended, I am more likely to burn out or drop things or whatever. So I like to put those breaks in the calendar in again, 30 minute breaks, like a 30 minute break for lunch and maybe a 30 minute break in the afternoon or in the morning where I'm going to go walk around the block or do something to just really clear my head so that I can come back with great amount of focus. Also, when I have things that are really tight deadlines, I do make sure I get those in my Google calendar so that I don't miss them all right.

And then also, related to productivity, the third question I'll answer here is, can you share your process for setting and achieving goals? And this one is really straightforward, and I'm not going to a huge amount of detail on it, but I follow the Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS. This is outlined by Gino Wickman in his book called Traction Get a grip on your business now.

You don't have to be an entrepreneur or business owner like me in order to find value in this book and this methodology. So I strongly encourage you to grab a copy of traction if you're not familiar with the Entrepreneurial Operating System or EOS at a high level, there are annual goals that are set usually tied to revenue targets, but there are also things that I put on my annual goals that aren't necessarily tied to revenue targets, and then those annual goals break down into quarterly rocks.

And the idea behind rocks is, you know, the metaphor of, if you've got like, a bunch of bigger rocks, pebbles and sand and water, and you don't put them in the jar in the right order, you don't have room for the big rocks, so the big rocks go in first. So those are the quarterly things. And I historically, have always had, like, 10 of them, and there's just two. There's not enough time in the day to get 10 big projects done. So I have as of late been limiting myself to three to five rocks per quarter, and really, really working on nailing them because it feels so good when they get done and you get to check them off. But again, the book is called Traction Get a grip on your business by Gino Wickman, We'll link that up in the show notes. Highly, highly recommend that book, even if you are not an entrepreneur.

Okay, the next couple of questions are all about mindset. So one of the questions is, what practices do you use to maintain a positive mindset? And I have three practices that I do on an almost daily basis to keep me in a positive and growth mindset. The first one is journaling. Almost every single day I journal, and I follow the Julia Cameron artists way method of journaling, which is just clearing out the cobwebs of your mind. She calls it morning pages. And I usually do mine first thing when I wake up in the morning, and in Julia Cameron's model, it's like three long hand pages of of a notebook. I use a notebook that's a bigger notebook.

So I usually do two pages. If I'm hard pressed for time, I do one. It takes me around anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes to do those pages. And it really does get me in a positive mindset, because I might just be emptying out garbage or frustration or anxiety or something about something that's happened in the past, or something that's happened in the future, and as I write about it, I just get clarity. It's just like the clarity downloads from the universe, or I'm able to set aside something or process something that happened that didn't go the way I wanted it to.

So journaling is my first practice, meditation is my second and I use SAM Harris's app called waking up. And we'll also link that in the show notes, and I can give you a free 30 day trial of that app. It is a paid app. It's not very expensive, but it is a paid app, and you can use it for free for 30 days to see if it's a good fit for you. Inside of it, it's got a ton of additional content. It's almost like podcast after podcast. In there tons of spiritual and meditative leaders giving their lectures and thoughts and so forth. As well as you can do a guided meditation from Sam Harris, and every day there's a new guided meditation. You can set it for a 10 minute meditation or 20 minute meditation. I always do 10 because I got a lot going on in my morning routine, and then there's also a meditation timer in there, which is what I use for my next daily practice, and that is a visualization practice.

So I set a meditation timer for five minutes. Now this is not guided by Sam or anything. It's just there's a bell that goes off every minute. And I have five things that I'm visualizing for the future for myself, some of them are personal and some of them are professional, and I'm not going to share with you what they are that gets a little little too personal. I will share one from the past, though I was visualizing when we moved into this house that we've now been in for three and a half years. When we very first moved in here, I really wanted a swimming pool, and part of the reason we bought this particular house is because it had a backyard that afforded the space to put in the swimming pool. And I visualized a pool in that backyard. Is right out my office window, right over there.

If you're watching on YouTube, it's right over there. And I visualized me sitting by the pool, me entertaining at the pool, and all the things, and ladies and gentlemen, and anybody who does not consider themselves a lady or a gentleman, who is listening to the podcast, there is a swimming pool outside my window, and it has been there for a good solid two years. So my visualization practice literally brings things to life. Okay? So journaling, meditation and visualization.

So journaling takes me about 30 to 45 minutes that meditation, I set the timer for 10 minutes and then it's a five minute visualization with one minute me visualizing my future self doing something, or experience something, or being something somewhere, like my swimming pool. So all told, that takes about an hour every morning, and that is my practice. You don't have to do it in the morning, but that's what I do. That is the biggest thing that puts me in a positive mindset for the day.

And then the next question I got, also related to mindset, is, how do you cultivate a growth mindset in your professional life? And I'm going to say yoga. Now, it is my yoga mat metaphor that I'm talking about here. Now, of course, I do yoga, and I'll talk about that a little bit later, but what I'm talking about here is, if you've ever heard me do the program that I do on mindset, which is based on Carol dweck's work. She's my colleague in she's at Stanford University, retired from Stanford University, who wrote the book, like literally wrote the book on mindset. And so I use her work in my own program on mindset. And I when I'm doing that program, I use the metaphor of a yoga mat.

So when you're standing on a yoga mat and in a yoga class, it is so easy to compare yourself to others and think like I'm not as flexible as that person, or as I'm not as thin as that person, or I certainly can't hold the poses as long as the instructor can. And when I get myself into that comparison trap, it really ruins the practice for me. I don't get as much out of it, physically, emotionally, spiritually, anything. And so what I need to do when I find myself in that experience is I need to focus on the four corners of my yoga mat and keep my attention inside my own mat.

And so that's how I cultivate a growth mindset in my professional life. Is when I find myself comparing myself to, let's say I really wanted to speak at a major Association event, and I was in the running, and I was one of the finalists, and then one of my speaker colleagues, whom I admire terribly, gets it. And by terribly, I mean positively terribly good. I have a lot of admiration for the people I lose business to and but in if, when I'm feeling envious or frustrated or sad or anything, I'm often not in my own yoga mat. I'm often over there feeling envy towards somebody else outside of my yoga mat. So what I do when I'm disappointed, frustrated, angry, irritated, any of those things, basically any negative emotion, is I recognize it first of all, because if you just try to push it away, that is not going to work.

In fact, one of my mentors, and who I was sort of, am certified as a coach through, is Martha Beck. The Martha Beck, and she said in oh my gosh, it's been, what, 10 15, years, close to 15 years since I did my my coaching training with her, but what she said and so is true, what we resist persists. So if I'm just resisting those negative emotions, they are going to hang out and probably do some damage. But instead, I need to accept them, metabolize them, understand them, and then I can move on from them.

So with that yoga mat metaphor, whenever I'm experiencing those negative emotions, just really letting them in and letting myself process them, and then I can move on from them, and then I can focus on the four corners of my yoga mat, and what's happening inside my yoga mat, all right?

Well, this leads nicely into the questions around outside of work. So there were a handful of questions about outside of work. So the first one, what hobbies or activities do you enjoy outside of work? I like to garden. I don't have a big garden. I have a small garden. And I also have lots of pots on my patio with flowers and vegetables and things growing in them. So gardening definitely, and of course, that's seasonally based. Here in Minnesota, I have some indoor plants as well, but it's just not the same. It's gardening outside.

Swimming. I love to swim. I mentioned our swimming pool. I am also a member at the local fitness club, where there is an Olympic sized indoor pool. That's where you'll find me swimming laps most of the time. Our pool is decently sized here at home, but it's not great for swimming laps. I still prefer to swim laps at the gym.

Yoga. You already heard me talk about yoga, so I try to get in a yoga class. I wish I could do it more often than I can, but my schedule only allows for once, maybe twice a week, if it's a really if it's a week where I have a little bit more discretionary time.

And then walking my dog, of course, you've probably heard me mention on the podcast different times, or seen pictures on social media of Bailey and I out for our walks. Do that every single night right after dinner. It's so good for your metabolism to walk right after a meal. That's a whole different thing.

But okay, and then watching my kids play in sports or performing in whatever activities they're in is just so much fun. So my son is an avid baseball player, and so we are in still in the throes of the travel baseball league here. It's coming to a close soon. My daughter is a cheerleader, and then my oldest son just staying caught up with whatever he is up to or wherever he is traveling to, is like requires a full time personal assistant to just drag him, but just keeping track of what, what, what's going on with my kids and attending their events is another thing that I do, again in my personal time, hobbies I enjoy outside of work, was really the question.

All right, so, uh, next question in this category, how do you handle the demands of being a podcast host and a keynote speaker while ensuring you have personal time? Don't I wish I had the magic bullet answer for that question, but here I'll tell you what I do. All right, they both take a lot of energy, podcasting and my speaking business. Balancing these two is a feat of calendar management and a little bit of magic thrown in to make sure there's always the next episode ready to go every single Monday, especially when the speaking business is hot and heavy, and those months are coming up here soon, September, October, November are really busy months for speaking.

And then so again, is February, March, April, and in fact, May and June. So the first, really half of the year tends to be really busy. So but what I do to help manage those two things with my personal time is that when I'm off, that is not working. I am totally off, totally off. So again, it's a bit of a balancing act to make sure that the speaking engagements and the podcast are all getting done once I have that covered and I'm off again, I am totally off.

So if I am at my son's baseball game, I'm not checking email when I am watching my daughter cheer at a high school football game. I'm not picking up work phone calls or texts or even thinking about work when I'm with my oldest son, Andrew, and we're off doing something, I am totally present with him, completely or if I'm talking to him on the phone, totally present with him. When I'm out to dinner with my husband, phone is off, or at least, and do not disturb.

My kids calls can get through if I'm on, do not disturb, and so can my mother's calls. But if I my phone is on, do not disturb. I don't get texts or calls from anybody else. If I'm at the gym, my phone is in, do not disturb or just not even with me. So I have very, very clear boundaries around that when I'm working, I'm totally in it. When I'm off, I am totally off, all right?

And then this is somewhat related. Again, I kind of sequence these in order. What strategies do you use to disconnect from work during your off hours again when I am off, I am off completely. When I am on vacation, I delegate as much to my staff as possible, and I do as much work in advance and work ahead of thing, ahead of time where I can so podcast episodes, scheduling social media posts, getting programs lined up in advance, slide decks in and so forth for my client, way in advance when I'm going to be on vacation, and because I'm a small business, I haven't fully mastered disconnecting for more than a few days without a quick check of email to see if there's any issues or any new businesses coming in.

I don't want to leave a new prospective client left unattended, so I'm a work in progress as it relate as it relates to that, but I am not the person with the laptop on the beach. Absolutely not. I am the person who gets up early before my family while on vacation and sneaks off to a coffee shop or somewhere private while they're still asleep, and I answer a few high priority emails in 15 minutes or less, and then I'm back in vacation mode immediately. And lots of times they don't even know that I did that.

So again, when I'm off, I'm off, with a small exception of on vacation, I will steal a couple little slivers of time here and there, just to make sure I'm not dropping any balls all right?

And finally, a couple of questions that are more in the, I'll call it personal insights category. The first one, what book has had the most significant impact on your professional life? Now, I have a hard time because of the work I'm doing, distinguishing because between my professional my personal life, they are so intertwined. I mean, the reason that I work on the future of work and who we are at work and how we communicate at work is because I think it is so intrinsically related to who we are as people, and that is so important to me to bring those two things together. So I couldn't necessarily come up with just a book about my professional my professional life, or that impacted my professional life, and I couldn't, as you would probably guess, couldn't limit it to just one.

So I've got three books, and they have all impacted my personal and professional life tremendously. Okay, the first one, and I came across this book when I was a very young adult and if you're watching on YouTube, I'm holding up the books, okay? Because these are books I have. Okay. The this book by David Campbell, who's a PhD, is called, If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else.

Now, I think I got this book. Let me put my glasses on and see if I can see. I think I got this book at my college bookstore in like when I was a freshman back in 1998 and get this, if you're watching on YouTube, you can see the price tag. This book set me back $4.95 so you know, it's been a while. It's been a hot minute. But as the name of the book suggests, if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going to end up somewhere else. One of the best things that I read in this book is that in this is like within the first couple of lines of the book, that your life changes more between the ages of 17 and 27 than it will ever in your life. And I was between the ages of 17 and 27 when I picked up this book. I was probably 18 when I picked up this book. And this book has just been tremendous.

Okay, the next one. Oh, philosophy book. Here, folks, okay, by Alan Watts, the book on the taboo against knowing who you are. The book, again, the subtitle on the taboo against knowing who you are, this is, and you can see, oh my gosh, if you're watching on YouTube, I have got bookmarks in various places in this book. One of the bookmarks is a paper, a paper boarding pass from Delta. I mean, when was the last time you used a paper boarding pass? All right, so that's tucked in here one place, and then and where was I going? I was going to Orlando.

And I've read this book. Look, look at this. The cover, my friends, is falling off this book. I have had this book for, gosh, probably also since I was a college freshman. I think my oldest brother Scott gave me this book. And then I also have in here a voucher from Delta. Oh, this is an international flight where, oh, shoot, I never used this $25 off $100 so there's a travel ECE credit in here. I must have been on a delayed flight, but that one is bookmarking something else later in the book. Anyway, love this book. And I this is a book that I periodically reread from time to time, the book on the taboo against knowing who you are, by Ellen watts.

And then this book I mentioned earlier when I was talking about journaling, this is The Artist's Way, a spiritual path to higher creativity, by Julia Cameron. And it's in this book where she talks about morning pages, and that is one of the journaling techniques that I use. I also use different types of journaling techniques as well, but most often it is The Artist's Way style. Morning pages just clear out the cobwebs. So I couldn't limit it to just one, but those are three, and we'll link those up in the show notes if you want to follow up and go read those books yourself.

And then the final question for this episode, what is the best piece of advice you ever received? This is a piece of advice I received from my dad, and I think I was probably 10, maybe younger, when he told me this, and I can't remember the exact context. I remember exactly where in our house, I was when he shared this with me, which is weird, but I don't remember what the specific circumstances were, if I was disappointed by something or upset by something, or maybe he was disappointed or upset by something, but he said, these 10 two letter words will transform your life or something To that effect, and the 10, two letter words are, if it is to be, it is up to me. If it is to be, it is up to me, all right. And I just love the personal agency in that.

Now, I think sometimes I've taken that a little too far, and I have refused to accept help or ask for help and so on. But that's not what's meant by it. It's just like you have to envision for yourself the possibilities that lie ahead and what you want to create that's up to you to chart your own course and to define your path. If it is to be it is up to me.

I can't leave it up to somebody else to chart my future or make plans for me, or set goals for me, or any of that. So I think that's a great way to end this Ask Me Anything episode. If it is to be it is up to me. My friends these two past episodes, Ask Me Anything or so much fun.

If you did not catch episode 175, yet, you're going to want to go back and do that, because those are questions more about my content and how I stay up to up to date on content and the things that go into my podcast and what's coming in the future of work and trends and leadership and so forth. So if you didn't catch that one, you want to make sure you go back and hit that one again.

These two were so much fun, and I will be doing more Ask me anything Episodes, in fact, we just put up a page on the website for you to send in your questions for the next Ask me anything. So it's Janelanderson.com/ama for Ask Me Anything.

You can go ahead and submit a question there. We're going to try to do these a couple times a year. All right, my friends, remember that the future of work is not only about technology. It's about the values we uphold, the communities we build, and the sustainable growth we all strive for, we need to keep exploring, keep innovating and keep envisioning the remarkable possibilities that lie ahead. Because, my friends, it is up to you. All right, as always, stay curious, stay informed and stay ahead of the curve.

Tune in next week for another insightful exploration of the trends shaping our professional world. If you learned something on this podcast, or you simply enjoy this content. Please subscribe on my YouTube channel, or subscribe to the podcast on your professional platform of choice and follow me on social media. These are all excellent, no cost ways for you to support me and my work over on YouTube. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and then knock that little bell so that you get notified every time there's a new episode out, you'll find me at youtube.com/Janel AndersonPhD wherever you're listening or watching, please leave a review. It helps other listeners find me, and it helps me know that you're along for the ride until next time, my friends be well.