Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life

Focus, sleep, and stress all run on the same 90-minute cycle — and Dr. Christian Poensgen argues that's where productivity that lasts actually begins. He's a scientist turned executive coach whose doctoral work was on the relationship between stress and performance, and co-author, with Eric Partaker, of Ultraproductive: The 90-Minute Method to Optimize Focus, Sleep, and Stress.

Christian's own wake-up call was t...

Simplicity and decision fatigue are the focus of this conversation with Roy Schwartz, co-founder and president of Axios.

Roy Schwartz co-founded Axios and Axios HQ after helping build Politico, where he first saw how much of modern work is just noise competing for attention. His dyslexia forced him to compress everything down to the core just to keep up — a coping strategy that became the foundation for Smart Brevity and,...

Marriage communication looks different when both partners are neurodivergent — so Jackie Kelley and her husband built their own rules from scratch.

Jackie Kelley is a neurodivergent storyteller, illustrator, wife, and mother based in Gilbert, Arizona. Through her social media content and viral "Marriage Rules" videos, she helps couples build communication rhythms that actually fit their lives. Her book is S...

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 ...

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 fol...

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 worksho...

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-o...

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 ch...

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 wo...

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: creativ...

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 sh...

Time management and time abundance are at the center of this conversation with Laura Vanderkam, bestselling author and time-use researcher.

Laura Vanderkam has spent over a decade studying how people actually spend their time — tracking her own hours for 11 years and collecting data from thousands of others along the way. Her new book, Big Time: A Simple Path to Time Abundance, makes the case that time isn't the scarce re...

I’m excited to revisit this conversation with Charlie Gilkey on his book, Team Habits: How Small Actions Lead to Extraordinary Results. Charlie is the founder of Productive Flourishing, a company that helps professional creatives, leaders, and changemakers take meaningful action on work that matters. He is an internationally recognized thought leader on productivity, planning, strategy, and leadership, and is also the au...

I'm excited to revisit this conversation with Claire Diaz-Ortiz discussing her book, One Minute Mentoring, co-authored with legendary leadership expert Ken Blanchard. Claire is a keynote speaker, author, and former head of social innovation at Twitter who helps individuals and organizations build more intentional, meaningful connections — and this conversation is one of the most practical we've had on the show when it co...

What happens when you delete every app off your phone for 21 days? In this solo episode, Erik shares what he discovered during a Christmas break internet break — and what the research says about why so many of us feel like we can't put the phone down in the first place.

In this episode, Erik covers:

• How We Got Here Without Deciding To: The boiled frog drift into five-to-seven hours of daily screen time wasn't a choice ...

I’m excited to welcome back my good friend Dr. John Drury for part two of our conversation on the rule of life and how ancient practices can help us live and work with more intention. John is a New Testament scholar, professor, and thoughtful guide when it comes to integrating spiritual rhythms into ordinary life. In this continuation, we move from the big-picture ideas we introduced in part one into the practical how-to of b...

I'm excited to revisit this conversation I had with John Drury to the show to discuss how ancient spiritual practices can reshape the way we approach productivity, rhythm, and life itself. John is a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University's School of Theology and Ministry, holding an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a close personal friend of mine for over 25 years.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Rethin...

Welcome to the first episode of 2026! If you’re feeling that “new year, new me” pressure: goals, plans, fresh calendars, the whole thing—this one’s for you. Because when life inevitably punches your perfectly color-coded week in the throat, the issue isn’t your planning… it’s what you thought planning could control. This episode is all about Control vs. Agency—and how to stay p...

I’m excited to welcome Mike Vardy back to Beyond The To-Do List for one of our ongoing traditions: Productivity A-Z!

This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation — and we split it across both shows. Part 1 is over on Mike Vardy’s podcast, A Productive Conversation. You can also watch the whole two part video here.

Here on Beyond The To-Do List, we pick up the thread and cover le...