Alexis Haselberger, Do More Stress Less

Michael Whitehouse: 00:00

Alexis Haselberger 00:40.28 Well thank you so much for having me on I'm I'm excited to be here and excited to talk about my favorite things which are organization time management productivity.

Michael Whitehouse: 01:08

Alexis Haselberger 01:21.22 Yeah so I I feel like this is an interesting question and I am awesome because I'm supremely accountable I think you know being accountable is the thing that I value most in people that I work with and and often most to myself and and what that just means to me is. That I do what I say I'm going to do by when I say I'm going to do it.

Michael Whitehouse: 01:39

Alexis Haselberger 01:43.70 Um pretty much all the time I don't make a promise I can't keep because I have all sorts of strategies and and tactics and systems that help support what I do and I have I I Also don't. Pack my days So full of things that I'm not going to be able to account for the the new and the unexpected right? I think that a lot of times we we plan and then we realize well like something new came up or something else and like that messes with my plan. But you have to build you have to build them in buffer so that you can account for those things.

Michael Whitehouse: 02:40

Alexis Haselberger 02:52.20 Yeah so I mean I think you know I I'm going to start way way back. The beginning like I have always been even since I was a little kid someone who is very concerned about ah roi on my own time like I never wanted to waste time doing things that were not important to me and I consider myself.

Alexis Haselberger: 03:11

Alexis Haselberger 03:27.55 That was always important like I was the kid who at 8 years old I would grab a graph paper and this tv guide. You know the physical tv guide because I'm old right? and and I would cross reference them and I would find like the best half hour of tv that I was allowed to watch during the time and like create a little schedule for myself. Um.

Alexis Haselberger: 03:44

Alexis Haselberger 04:02.72 Always doing I Like to say I did everything except for sales and engineering So I was the person that you know was doing H R and operations and you know dealing with legal and finance and like all of the the moving parts that just that aren't the core that that aren't the core that is out in front of everybody but just like all the back.

Michael Whitehouse: 04:18

Alexis Haselberger 04:20.14 Back office right? They're like I make sure you get paid right? like I make sure you get paid and make sure the whites are on like and all back. Um and what I found over that time was just that you know working in really fast pace startups people are working really long hours. People are burning out and like that just was never okay with me I mean 1 of the things. My mom told me when I was young was never work more than forty hours a week because then they will expect it and that were really stuck with me I think and so you know of course it's not always possible but I just became really fine like how am I going to get.

Alexis Haselberger: 04:57

Alexis Haselberger 05:12.62 And I was not working the crazy hours that people were working I was not at the office past dinner I was not working on the weekends I was not checking email at ten zero P m or on vacation or anything like that and so over time like I just like the things that I was gravitating to was like oh alexis figure out. Yeah this new thing figure out how to make it work and roll it out to everyone. It kind of systems and processes and then eventually you know I had ah I had a ceo that I was working for that was like hey do you think you could just do a productivity workshop for our company I think it seems like you've got this under control like do you think you could do this for everyone else and.

Alexis Haselberger: 05:48

Alexis Haselberger 06:05.89 Realized that the thing that was most fun to me the thing I geek out about most is like how do I be excellent and have a lot of time to do whatever I want and that that was a thing that a lot of people lacked from a skill set perfects perspective because nobody teaches it like you know you don't get taught this stuff in college or in high school or anything else and. Some people just have you know do it naturally and some people learn it along the way and a lot of people really struggle. Um and and I realize it great. Not they learned that they can get through it right? Um and so so yeah then I decided I would open a business.

Michael Whitehouse: 06:30

Alexis Haselberger 06:43.14 Ah around these things and just see if I could help people live more like lives that seem to be more fulfilling for them because they felt in control of their time.

Michael Whitehouse: 06:48

Alexis Haselberger 07:10.40 I Got to get a website because if I have a website then I'm legitimate I like get then I can point people in that direction and I was like also business cards. Those are important you got to get website and business cards and then I just started I started saying like okay well I know a lot of things right? like I have a lot of strategies I have a lot of processes like I know a lot of things.

Alexis Haselberger: 07:29

Alexis Haselberger 07:49.40 Like I can like I can take all of this stuff and I can package it up into kind of a framework into modules that I can then teach people systematically and help people to kind of achieve the same things and so I I ended up getting you know a first coaching client and he had excellent results and that led to more coaching clients.

Alexis Haselberger: 08:08

Alexis Haselberger 08:27.64 Online courses came around because yeah udemy you know the online course purveyor reached out to me and they said hey we found you online. We don't have a great time management course for our udemy for business product like would you want to create 1 and at the time I had. Never taken an online course when I got let alone made 1 right? But I said sure why not and so so I did that and and you know I think like a lot of things your business just kind of evolves based on the things that you excel at and when when you have clients who are getting really good results.

Alexis Haselberger: 09:01

Alexis Haselberger 09:06.94 Um so a roof up. Um right.

Michael Whitehouse: 09:20

Michael Whitehouse 09:40.13 And kind of creative and you know realize you had a solution and that stepped out you know to be able to do that. So what are some of the the. What's what's the the first thing everyone needs to know or you most often find people need to know that that if they stop listening in two minutes

Michael Whitehouse: 09:56

Alexis Haselberger 09:56.85 Yeah stop relying on your memory just stop it. It doesn't work. It feels stressful. You're definitely going to miss stuff. Stop stop stop. You don't need to rely on memory. It's not like a badge of honor to have a great memory.

Alexis Haselberger: 10:15

Michael Whitehouse 10:26.97 So so what if you write it down but then you write it down in places you can't find it. Ah.

Alexis Haselberger: 10:33

Alexis Haselberger 10:52.63 Everything else funnels right? So your email funnels into it you know and then we talk about ways that that happens like if if tasks come out of slack at funnels there things that are in your brain funnel into there. We have 1 place because the reality is we can only do 1 thing at a time and for all of you out there who are thinking no.

Alexis Haselberger: 11:11

Alexis Haselberger 11:28.10 Being able to have something in 1 place where you can prioritize the nearly based on the time that you have available is really key because otherwise you know it's like a lot of times when people come to me. It's like where are they wear are your task and it's like okay well I'm using a sauna and also I've got this paper list here and I've I've got some posted notes all over my desk. And really they're really half of it's in my head right? and when that is happening. It's just so so hard to prioritize because you have to keep grasping at all these different places.

Michael Whitehouse: 11:56

Alexis Haselberger 12:19.20 The the app that I recommend most frequently and that most of my clients end up Usings is called Tick Tick not tick tock that is definitely not for productivity. Yeah but but Tick Tick T I C K T I C K and the reason that I that recommend this app so frequently is that it is free. The free version is great. It S sinks.

Alexis Haselberger: 12:38

Alexis Haselberger 12:57.78 When people say task system project management system. There's just like too many fields right? Like you've got to you got to spend more time managing this stuff than actually doing it and we want to have a system That's so easy and so intuitive that.

Michael Whitehouse: 13:07

Alexis Haselberger 13:12.10 There that of course you have to maintain any system but that the maintenance is very very minimal.

Alexis Haselberger: 13:22

Michael Whitehouse 13:32.52 Um would know I.

Alexis Haselberger: 13:36

Michael Whitehouse 13:39.64 If it's a series of questions then then it's prompt. Okay question answer question answer question answer like that keeps on task but pauses kill me because you if it pauses for more than it's probably 6 or 8 seconds I started to think maybe I should do something else while I'm waiting.

Michael Whitehouse: 13:59

Michael Whitehouse 14:16.81 I figure that 1 I'm doing good and I've I've no post notes. so yeah so I not bad forty 1 I'm rocking this yeah out by the time eighty I will have a town so all right? So but you but you so whatever works.

Alexis Haselberger: 14:50

Alexis Haselberger 15:05.78 And then what happens is you find yourself opening a task or a project that you haven't worked on in a week and you spend the first fifteen minutes saying like where did I leave off right? What was I doing and so having just a small place to comment of not a big long thing but just like send the email to so and so on this you know whatever it timestamps it for you.

Alexis Haselberger: 15:24

Alexis Haselberger 15:59.86 But what what I find is when people try to use paper as ah a task system. It just gets real messy really fast and you're kind of scrolling through pages to look for what's there or you're writing and rewriting all the time. Um and you can't really keep track of what you've done or when you're going to do it. It's more like a list than it is a system.

Alexis Haselberger: 16:18

Michael Whitehouse 16:38.54 And a to do list and then I had a specific um and and then of course what happened is I'd get to a time and I'd look at the top item on its due list and I'd say oh that's more that's too long that's longer than I have time for so I can't do that right now. Well I'll go the second 1 But.

Michael Whitehouse: 16:54

Michael Whitehouse 17:14.47 Um and I finally ah 2 weeks ago the day that I blocked out to be free ended up getting taken because I needed a day to like go do a day long thing. So my get all the stuff done for the weekday went push gone at the end of the week I'm like this sucks I'm not getting anything done I'm not making progress and I finally said I need to calendarize I need to actually.

Michael Whitehouse: 17:32

Alexis Haselberger 17:47.80 Um right? yeah yeah I mean I'm a huge believer in and time blocking right? and ah in your calendar because I think you're exactly right that like when you look at a list. There's 2 things happening right.

Michael Whitehouse: 17:51

Alexis Haselberger 18:04.13 1 is that you're making these in the moment decisions and we usually don't make the right 1 right? because we're doing what are like kind of like if I ask you hey do you want to do your taxes right now like there would never be a time when you would say yes right? like we need to separate the planning from the doing right to pray guys our future selves. Um also things in a list.

Alexis Haselberger: 18:22

Alexis Haselberger 18:42.79 Is that there are other things right? like so. So for instance you might I might have 15 things on my task list today and the few of them are like an hour long so those are blocked specifically and then I might have a block for quick tasks that I've assigned for this day which are all like you know email this specific person to follow up on this email. You know do. All these little things that we need to follow up on I don't want to block individually those things on my calendar because then it starts to look really messy for me right? and then there's also stuff like you know what I need to renew my passport in 7 years and I'm not exactly sure what hour of the day I'm going to do that. It's from now.

Michael Whitehouse: 19:16

Michael Whitehouse 19:28.30 Um Boom boom.

Alexis Haselberger: 19:35

Michael Whitehouse 19:38.62 Yeah that that makes lots like yeah I've run into that sometimes where something's off the end of yeah as ever do the passport in 7 years I can put on the calendar but or or you know this this bill is you know this annual payment is going to hit my credit card for 3 hundred dollars I want to see this coming. Well it's an appointment at 5 in the morning.

Alexis Haselberger: 19:46

Michael Whitehouse 19:58.60 Ah so it's because it's it's got to go on the calendar somewhere I think Google Calendar finally added an events feature so there is a a thing you can put on there that is a thing that happens on the day. Not at a time. You're pretty good. Yeah yes.

Alexis Haselberger: 20:07

Alexis Haselberger 21:25.47 And yeah how do we? How do we kind of manage in this new environment. How do we work from home productively et Cetera so I do a lot of workshops and then I also do coaching for you know for clients as well. So sometimes you know I have a company who will hire me to do a couple of workshops and then they'll they'll buy a block of coaching hours and so employees can then come and do. You know I okay I did the workshop now I'm focused on this I need specific help on this and then we'll come in and do some tactical coaching there.

Michael Whitehouse: 21:50

Michael Whitehouse 22:09.46 Um and I definitely talk to you from the court world to say you know the the day would be 6 hours of meetings and 2 hours of whatever else. Um and so is that some of what you you do is is kind of making that time use more efficient and.

Alexis Haselberger: 22:21

Alexis Haselberger 22:39.16 Totally useless for most of the participants and so yeah I definitely work with companies to help them say. Okay let's do a calendar out. Let's just see are these things a good use of your time of people's time and then once they are you know I call it like the 3 r's of of calendar management or calendar audit which is first we got to see what we can remove.

Alexis Haselberger: 22:58

Alexis Haselberger 23:16.56 And so that we can make sure that we're not just meeting for meetings sake and that we actually have the right amount of time on the calendar and then after that what can we do to rearrange so that we don't so that basically our calendar doesn't look like Swiss cheese with you know just half an hour or hour long blocks where it's actually really hard to get any deep work done for anyone.

Alexis Haselberger: 24:06

Alexis Haselberger 24:44.87 It's going to be coding right? and things like that. So it's like whatever is is the kind of core central thing that you do that We often don't make time for because there's all this just other ancillary things that we think have to be done.

Michael Whitehouse: 24:55

Michael Whitehouse 25:13.96 And leaves a 3 hour hole and then I can just kind of work or you know occasionally I have weekend days open not often anymore and I'd work on a Saturday and I just have this day with nothing on it I could just work on whatever comes to me I feel like writing I can write if I feel like.

Alexis Haselberger: 25:24

Michael Whitehouse 25:31.59 Ah designing a website can design a website and and just this this this feeling of flow and freedom that comes in those long blocks which is which is very powerful is that just me or that other people too. Okay.

Alexis Haselberger: 25:53

Michael Whitehouse 26:48.80 Right? Yeah now I Love that concept Actually I had a social media strategist named Elizabeth pampoone on the podcast a few a few weeks ago and and I came up with this idea I call the pampoone day which maybe I now need to call a pampo and hasselburger day. Um.

Michael Whitehouse: 27:06

Michael Whitehouse 27:26.40 You're just working on 1 project for eight hours following a system getting it done and of course I then looked at my schedule and rise I had 1 immovable obligation on every day of the week and I'm like yes let me block out my day and then oh there's all for crying out loud. Um but but i.

Alexis Haselberger: 27:41

Michael Whitehouse 27:44.69 What Wednesday is my my almost clear day I have 1 meeting which is which is actually a really fun high energy networking group. So it kind of actually helps against me like fired up for the day and then the rest of the day is no meetings. Oh.

Alexis Haselberger: 28:12

Michael Whitehouse 28:22.24 Yeah but it seems like you know even just something like no meetings before 10 a m or no meeting before 11 a m.

Alexis Haselberger: 28:30

Michael Whitehouse 28:38.42 That makes sense.

Alexis Haselberger: 28:49

Michael Whitehouse 29:01.76 That makes sense. Yeah now I find for myself I'm more productive in the morning have more energy. My wife says she's more productive as more energy the morning is that a like human thing or is that we just both have me morning people. Okay.

Alexis Haselberger: 29:13

Alexis Haselberger 29:30.97 Like waking up has been the hardest thing that I've had to do since I was 5 years old and had to start waking up with an alarm I am much better later in the day but you know what I have kids and I have to get up early because I have to drive them to school and so you know there's periods of time where we have to do these things and so I I do think that it's really important to.

Alexis Haselberger: 29:50

Alexis Haselberger 30:09.14 Meetings are not going to bring up their energy but for extroverts meetings really do and so so being able to say okay like actually I know that I have a dip I'm an extrovert I mean I'm not but like I'm an extrovert I have a dip in the afternoon. Actually I should schedule meetings at that time because I know that's going to bring my energy up right.

Michael Whitehouse: 30:26

Alexis Haselberger 30:26.78 And so really thinking about those things. Yeah yeah great. Yeah so you're doing it. Um.

Michael Whitehouse: 30:42

Alexis Haselberger 30:52.57 Um yep. Are.

Michael Whitehouse: 31:00

Alexis Haselberger 31:17.95 Um right? Yeah yeah yeah I mean I think it's so important to like know who we are right and to build the strategies around that I mean that's what I work on with clients is like let's just.

Michael Whitehouse: 31:20

Alexis Haselberger 31:35.53 Figure out who you are on a bunch of different dimensions first and then try to build strategies around that instead of trying to follow exactly what you know? Cal newport says in deep work or exactly what david allen says in getting things done or exactly what you know all of these things because those are all great resources to pick and choose strategies from.

Alexis Haselberger: 31:55

Alexis Haselberger 32:12.75 But it wasn't written for you necessarily. There are a lot of great things you can pull from it. But you're not going to do. You're not going to implement it exactly like someone else does.

Michael Whitehouse: 32:35

Alexis Haselberger 32:37.90 Um right are right? um.

Alexis Haselberger: 32:53

Michael Whitehouse 32:53.95 Is the authoritative truth once and for all.

Alexis Haselberger: 33:09

Alexis Haselberger 33:25.33 You know there there is no Pat answer if there was like if I had a magic wand and I could just be like that's it I mean I would be a very rich person.

Michael Whitehouse: 33:32

Alexis Haselberger 33:46.20 Um yeah.

Michael Whitehouse: 33:52

Alexis Haselberger 33:53.97 Yeah but easier. Yeah it's just it's a smooth experience I mean and people if you are if somebody says well I use this ona and I love it. Don't switch right use. The thing you love use that you are most likely to continue to use right.

Michael Whitehouse: 34:06

Alexis Haselberger 34:11.19 Um yeah yeah I mean you could make it easier for yourself right? like things that sort by date. Automatically that's helpful. Yeah.

Michael Whitehouse: 34:23

Alexis Haselberger 34:27.36 All or be able to sort in multiple dimensions right? But. Um I think so um.

Alexis Haselberger: 34:41

Michael Whitehouse 34:41.54 Might be here to stay definitely yep! So is is there 1 final bit of advice you would like to leave our listeners with.

Alexis Haselberger: 34:47

Michael Whitehouse 34:51.40 Um guests.

Alexis Haselberger: 35:05

Michael Whitehouse 35:10.58 I.

Alexis Haselberger: 35:22

Michael Whitehouse 35:25.66 Yes yes.

Alexis Haselberger: 35:42

Michael Whitehouse 35:42.96 Yes no I Love that? Yeah yeah that's why my my phone isn't doing absurd mode almost all the time. My wife will call me. Why did you answer I now doesn't can expect me to answer because it doesn't rain I Yeah yeah.

Alexis Haselberger: 35:47

Michael Whitehouse 36:01.41 Yep yeah and yet I still do end up seeing these things because somehow I ah must be a virus something Facebook keeps popping back up like I close it and then it's open again I don't know how it got open I certainly didn't open it. But now it's open again. How to get there who knows.

Alexis Haselberger: 36:09

Michael Whitehouse 36:16.30 I think it's just russian hackers are coming in and popping Facebook back up my because they're trying to interrupt because I'm very important to America and they're trying to disrupt the american economy by disrupting my my productivity um or it could be the aliens trying to disrupt the entire world economy. Yes I need to be more careful about this aliens.

Alexis Haselberger: 36:20

Michael Whitehouse 36:36.26 Well it's been awesome to have you on the show I have I have learned a lot I've learned that I'm doing much things right? which is really cool and a couple of really good tips as well and you see your website correct me I'm wrong is alexis hasselberger dot com yep and it's spelled exactly like it sounds 1 s okay yes.

Alexis Haselberger: 36:46

Michael Whitehouse 36:56.22 Um but it will be in the show notes. So if you can't figure it out for some reason it will be in the show notes there and so thank you very much for being on the show is that the best way to reach you or is anyplace else. People should should break you down.

Alexis Haselberger: 37:05

Michael Whitehouse 37:13.26 Nice and and of course if they message you you'll respond to them 2 weeks later. Okay at during the time when you do that? um.

Alexis Haselberger: 37:20

Michael Whitehouse 37:35.67 That is fantastic. Well thank you very much been great to have you on the show.

Alexis Haselberger: 37:39