Reclaiming Time Without Burnout: Real-Life Productivity That Works

Episode Summary:
In this episode of Clear & On Purpose, Christina shares her top 10 productivity strategies that helped her stay sane and successful while juggling nonprofit leadership, homeschooling, and running a coaching business — without burning out. If you’re tired of feeling like you’re always behind, these practical tips will help you take back your time, protect your energy, and get more done in less time.What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why getting more done doesn’t always make you feel more productive
• How to prioritize your highest-leverage tasks each week
• The simple email habit that saved Christina hours every week
• Real-life examples of time-blocking, batching, and creating communication templates
• How to set boundaries that protect your focus (and your sanity)
• Ways to work with your natural energy instead of pushing through

Who This Episode is For:

• Working moms balancing life, work, and purpose
• Entrepreneurs or remote workers looking for better time management
• Anyone craving a productivity system that supports life, not just more hustle

Resources Mentioned:

• Join The Village: Click here to connect with our community.
• Sign up for the Momentum Challenge: Click here to get started.

Resources & Links

• Follow Christina @christinaslaback
• Email us at hello@christinaslaback.com
• www.christinaslaback.com

Transcript

10x Productivity

Christina: [00:00:00] I was doing it all on part-time hours. I absorbed every productivity hack I could find. It wasn't until I started working remotely that I realized how much work was bleeding into every other part of my life. That line between work and personal time had become almost invisible.

In the last episode, we talked about summer schedules and working with kids at home, and one key point was about setting boundaries, particularly in terms of work. And today I wanna go deeper. I'm sharing the tips. Mindset shifts and boundaries that help me 10 x my productivity without sacrificing connection, fun, or my own sanity.

Welcome to Clear and On Purpose, the podcast design to help you cut through the noise and get back to what matters most. If you're feeling stuck, but needs to take intentional action, you are in the right place. I'm Christina Slayback, homeschooling mom of two and life and business coach, helping you drop in and align with your values and [00:01:00] create more space.

Each week I'll be sharing practical insights and simple. Actionable steps to help you find clarity, boost your energy, and design a life that balances ambition with mates. Let's dive in and get clear on purpose.

We all want to be more productive to get more done in the time we have. But here's the trap. As your productivity improves, you may start checking more off your list, and yet the work just keeps expanding. You're still behind, still chasing that elusive feeling of caught up. I get it. As a homeschooling mom and the director of a local nonprofit, I was struggling everything.

Member communications, event planning, marketing, finances, partnerships, strategy, and I was doing it [00:02:00] all on part-time hours. I absorbed every productivity hack I could find. It wasn't until I started working remotely that I realized how much work was bleeding into every other part of my life. That line between work and personal time had become almost invisible.

In the last episode, we talked about summer schedules and working with kids at home, and one key point was about setting boundaries, particularly in terms of work. And today I wanna go deeper. I'm sharing the tips. Mindset shifts and boundaries that help me 10 x my productivity without sacrificing connection, fun, or my own sanity.

So let's dive in. First, get laser focused on priorities. If you're running a business or reporting to a boss, zoom in on the highest leverage actions that actually drive the results. If you do a strategic planning, review your goals. If you don't look at your job description, project goals or metrics, [00:03:00] what's actually being evaluated?

Where are you actually looking to create the most movement in your company? And then brainstorm all the supporting tasks that could move these goals forward. Get it all out. Just start creating a whole list of all of the things that you could do, but then. Star, your top five priorities. These are your non-negotiables, the top five things that are actually going to move the needle.

When you look at those priorities, there's always more that we could do, but this list keeps you centered on what matters most and then. Do the most important work First, it's tempting to start the day by checking the emails going into your messages, but the moment you do that, your focus shifts to other people's priorities.

Instead, give yourself a minimum of 30 to 60 minutes of uninterrupted time to work on those non-negotiables. First, if you are [00:04:00] waiting on a specific email to move forward, then fine, check that one thing. Then close your inbox and get back to work. But create the intention of going in and getting started moving the things that are your own personal priority, and doing that right away.

Doing that first. That leads me to scheduling time for emails. This one changed my pro productivity drastically. I stopped reacting to every ping and notification, and I started checking email only twice a day. Usually, usually around 9:00 AM. After I'd had a set time to be able to work on those high priority goals, I usually got in early and then again in the afternoon, a couple of hours before I left.

And that switch reduced constant context switching, and it saved me so much time. We think that we're really good at multitasking, but in reality, the time that it takes to shift back and forth between tasks. Really adds up and it really can reduce your productivity. So [00:05:00] if you are looking at setting aside specific time to be able to check in on emails, messages,any kind of incoming content that will give you the opportunity to focus for more extended periods of time and actually be able to get more done efficiently.

and obviously this is gonna be job dependent. If your job requires quick responses, then you might have to schedule those more frequently. But having those scheduled times and communicating that to your bosses, to your clients, that you're blocking focus time and that you're gonna check those emails periodically in an attempt to really be able to hone in on those priorities.

That way, everyone's on the same page and you're setting expectations. You can even set up an autoresponder, which is something that I did with a phone number for true emergencies. So letting people know that you're checking these periodically. You can even set the times that you check email, and then giving a phone number in case there is something that really needs [00:06:00] to be responded to right away.

And honestly. Most people are gonna self filter on what an emergency is when given the choice, so something that they might have thought needs to be done right away or wanted a response to right away. When given the option to call for that, they're probably going to realize that maybe it can wait a little bit longer.

And anticipate and automate frequent questions. If you are answering the same questions over and over again, create a simple FAQ and put it on your website or even just an internal doc that document that you can link to. And link it in those replies. You can also create email templates, which is something that I did all the time.

So if I knew that there were questions that I frequently got somebody asking about,membership information, asking about sponsoring or vending at an event that we had coming up, any of these things that I got frequently, I would just create a template and save it in my drafts, in my email, and then I could.

Easily grab and copy and [00:07:00] paste and just personalize it for that person instead of having to continually redraft those email responses over and over again and send better emails. Emails are so time consuming, But sending better emails, once I really got better at this, it created so much.

Less back and forth. I think that a lot of times when we look at an email, one of the reasons why we do that is that we can quickly get that off our list. It's something that we can quickly check off. So if you do a quick response to an email that somebody sends you, then you the ball's in their court and they can feel really productive.

But those back and forths eat up everyone's time. So instead of just simply responding with questions or. Partial thoughts in your emails. Get really intentional about what the goal of the email is. This will take a [00:08:00] little bit more time in the beginning, but as you get better at it, it'll go faster and faster and it'll will really decrease the amount of back and forth that you have.

So be really clear and specific about what you need. What is the intention of the email? If you're sending an outgoing one, if you have a response, then give all the information that you need in that. Use scheduling links instead of the endless, what time works for you. This is especially true for any groups or when you're trying to get a bunch of people together.

Those emails are so counterproductive and just create so much more hassle for everyone involved. And then give specific information in the email. So when you send an email, if you're looking for responses, give. What your potential proposed solution is in the email. So don't just ask for thoughts.

Actually think about what you want and where you might go with the E or with this problem that you're soliciting input on, and then put that in there and then. In the email say, if I don't hear back from you [00:09:00] by whatever date, I'm gonna move forward with this option. It really gives some people something concrete to be able to respond to, and it eliminates the need for a response if it's just gonna be able to go right to this.

So you don't have to wait on the back and forth. You don't have to have this endless waiting on, sense of projects. You have a specific. Intention of what you want the email to do. You have proposed solutions and you have a timeframe in which you're gonna move forward and only loop people in who actually need to be included.

Be really specific about who needs to be involved in this email, and don't just CC everyone or CC a whole group that's just cluttering up everyone's inbox. And then it makes it less likely that they're gonna think that they need to respond to it. A lot of times people can think that other people are responding and then nobody responds.

And that brings me to making meetings intentional. If you're setting [00:10:00] up the meeting, only meet when necessary. I. If it's an update, it probably can just be an email. When you're looking at what the meeting is, look at what the intention of the meeting actually is and send out the agenda ahead of time.

Create an agenda and identify the action items. What are the items that need to be discussed? What are the decisions that need to be made, and focus on those first. If you're doing updates and action items, make sure your action items are on top, so in case anybody has to leave early or the meetings tends to run long, you have those things done first.

Schedule meetings for a time that actually works for them. Don't just schedule an hour because that's typical. If the meeting will get, it can get done in 25 minutes instead of 30, do the 25 it, it can get done in 45 minutes instead of the hour. Schedule it for the 45 and then use those last 15 minutes that you would typically just be chatting at the end of the meeting Anyway, to summarize and assign those action items.

Then you can actually create notes [00:11:00] after every time. Make sure that after meetings, whether it's an hour or, or whatever the time period is, but take time at the end of the meeting to look through. To recap all of the discussion that was had and to identify action items and whose responsibility they are, and if you can send that out to the meeting participants right away afterwards and identifying that next meeting date already in there.

Identifying the meeting date before you leave the meeting is a really good way to avoid that scheduling issue. So you have all the information. You have, who's responsible for what, and you have the next meeting date, and you can send that out to all participants. Getting that on your to-do list, that doesn't get forgotten in the.

Rush to the next project or the next meeting that you have to go to, and that it's I, it's identified for everyone that's involved and we're all on the same page and look at ways that you can theme your days. So I really found it helpful that. It used to be that I would have meetings sporadically set up [00:12:00] throughout any of my days and all of my days that I was working, but when I really tried to have more con control over my schedule and look at what worked for me, scheduling my meetings back to back with those little breaks in between for the intention setting, I.

Was really helpful because then I had all of my meetings at one time, and then I had these chunks of time where I could actually just sit and work through all the to-dos that I had rather than 20 minutes here or 30 minutes here, or having to get ready for this meeting over here and having people come in early.

And so I lost a lot of time. When I had them just spread out all over the week. So really trying to intentionally create either days that I focused on, on my meetings on or at least times of day. So even if I had it on multiple days, I would try to do them in the morning or all set up in the afternoons.

And this works for blocking out other things too. So setting aside a day that was, for membership activities and just focusing my time or a few hours where I just focused on membership. a [00:13:00] time when I just focused on admin and getting caught up, or finance and accounting things that I had to do, and just having a chunk of times in the week that I was focused specifically on that, a time that I was focused specifically on events and what needed to be moving on for the next events that were coming up.

And that allowed me to be able to have this rhythm of knowing what to expect, and it never set, left me sitting and staring at my desk wondering what I should be working on next when everything seemed important because I had little chunks of time that I would just be able to work through the next thing on that list, evaluate any new projects wisely.

 When looking at adding something potentially to your plate, when looking at, at adding something for your organization, before you say yes, ask yourself how does this align with the current goals? What will need to fall off of my plate to make space. It's really easy to just continue to add and add and add and bring on new things because it all sounds good, especially if you [00:14:00] have a shiny object.

I would love a new project. I love the idea of getting started. I love the creativity and the buzz from it. So I would often say yes to a lot of things, but what I found is that I was stretching myself too thin. So by looking at and evaluating the new project and realizing that if I took on. This new project, then something would inevitably have to move down on my priority list and fall off my plate.

That allowed me to really go in with more with. More intention and to really be able to stay focused on those bigger priorities and communicating that with my team or my partners before taking on anything new. If your boss is asking you to do something new, uh, to take on another project to look at it and say, yes, of course I'd love to take on this project, and also by doing this, I'll have less time to focus on this.

So. Is this the priority now? And getting that confirmation and having that communication so that everybody is aware of the constraints of time and energy that we have, um, and that we're all focused on this new thing. [00:15:00] And protecting your personal time. So setting boundaries around your availability. Turn off work notifications during personal time, and if you're tempted to respond, use the schedule sent for emails so that they go out during your next work period, so that way you're not setting expectations for you to be available 24 7.

And honestly, it reduces stress for other people on your team as well if they're seeing you send out emails late. Then they're gonna think that they need to respond at that time. So by creating an atmosphere and an environment where work is during work hours and personal time is personal, it's really hard in this age where most of us have that ability to be in constant communication, and we have everything on our phones, but really trying to delineate and to make.

Those boundaries yourself around when your personal and your your professional time is, and it really will give you the space to be able to take that personal time [00:16:00] and use it to restore and refresh and give yourself the relief that you need and that time off. So you come back into the office and you come back into the work setting time with more energy.

You're able to get more done and less time if you're constantly. Going between work and personal and you're just in this constant state of stress, then you really do need to look at and see how you can identify and how you can save yourself, um, or set aside those boundaries so that you can give yourself that time to be off.

It bleeds into your family life as well. You know, if you're constantly on or if you're stressed about things at work, and it's not even a work time. We're supposed to be having family time that will bleed into all of our stuff, so. By having those boundaries and just being able to give yourself that space, you're actually doing yourself good in the long run, even if it seems like it might be better to constantly be on top of things and close the end of your day with a brain dump.

So before you [00:17:00] shut down or before you leave the office, do a quick brain jump of everything that's still swirling in your head. Look at all the things that you didn't get done for the day that you wanted to get done. Outline any of the nagging thoughts that are coming in. Look at what tomorrow's top tasks are and set that priority for that focus time in the morning, and then close the laptop and let it go.

You're gonna come back clearer and mo more focused. But by giving yourself that space at the end of the day to really just get everything out, you're gonna be less likely to be waking up in the middle of the night thinking about all the things that you don't wanna forget that you need to do.

And work with your energy, not against it. Some evenings after the kids were in bed, I'd get a burst of creative energy and I just wanna get into a project or I'd really want to be able to make a lot of headway And other seasons, I worked early, early in the mornings to free up the afternoon. It doesn't necessarily matter [00:18:00] what your hours are.

If you have the flexibility, then work with your energy, but make sure that you're doing it intentionally and not just fitting in work. Into these spaces that might be left available or fitting in personal time and what's left over. Really look at and think about how you work best, what would work best with your schedule, and then try to stick to something that is going to make you feel more energized.

There were also times when I would think. I needed to get more stuff done or I would think that I, that I was being really productive in the evenings, but it really was just like an ongoing anxiety and stress that I was trying to alleviate by just constantly working. It wasn't actually because I had this creative first of energy, because I was actually really focused on something.

It was just the fear of constantly missing something or the fear of, of not. Being able to get everything done that I wanted to get done. So that was when I wasn't setting intentions around what I was working on, when I [00:19:00] was allowing all the projects to try to get done, and that was just unrealistic by actually stepping back and focusing and crafting the intention.

Then I was able to better use all of these productivity hacks and all of these strategies and actually be able to have it work for me, and I was able to get so much more done and so much less time. It was because I was coming back refreshed because I actually had set that up in a way that worked with my life so that I could have more of that work life balance rather than just trying to constantly do it all.

Because it's not about doing more, it's about doing what matters and with focus, clarity, and purpose.

I hope that you found some of these strategies useful. I hope that you are able to implement some and be able to create more work life space in your own life. And if you're having issues or you wanna [00:20:00] reach out to get more help and prioritizing and getting that clarity and focus on what you are wanting to do and really be able to utilize.

Your skills to get you to that next level while maintaining work-life balance. Reach out and connect with me. I'd love to be able to work with you one-on-one and be able to dive really deep into what your ideal work-life balance is, because it's your life and you have the opportunity to make it the best that you can. Thank you for tuning in to clear and on purpose. If you're ready to take intentional steps toward a more fulfilling life and wanna customize the approach, I'd love to work with you. Visit www.christinaslayback.com to schedule a free consultation or explore current offers designed to help you gain clarity.

And reclaim your energy. And don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with a friend if you found it helpful. It helps others find the show and grow our [00:21:00] community.