Beyond the To-Do List: Unlocking Productivity Secrets with Erik Fisher

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 150. 

I just got off the interview recording with Erik Fisher. And I can tell you now that you're going to learn about the value of crafting a roadmap for your success, and how to do that in a way that takes into account all the busy seasons and busyness of your life. Eric has been the producer and host of the popular podcast Beyond The To Do List for over 10 years. He has talked with productivity experts as they share how they implement productivity strategies in their personal and professional lives. His mission is to explore all aspects of productivity as a means towards the true end, which is living a meaningful life. You're going to hear all of Eric's productivity secrets in this show. So let's go listen to the episode now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn about powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together. So that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. 

Hello, my friends. It's Dr. Christine Li, and I am back this week with a very special guest. His name is Erik Fisher. He and I are new to each other. But I've known of him for many, many years. And I'm looking forward to getting to know him in this interview and to sharing his wisdom and genius with you too. He is the podcast host of the Beyond The To Do List podcast. And I'm going to just give the mic over to him since he's such a pro at this and have him tell us more about him.

Erik Fisher  2:20  
Yeah, thank you. Well, let's see, I've been podcasting now for over 10 years. In fact, more than that, because I was co hosting on different shows before I started my own show, which will have hit Its 11th birthday in August of 2023. And thank you very much. And it's called Beyond The To Do List. It's a show where basically I talk with productivity experts and how they implement productivity strategies in both their personal and professional lives. And the overall goal of the show is just to dive deep on all aspects of productivity, basically as a means to an end of the end goal being living a meaningful life and how can we use productivity without being used by productivity?

Christine Li  3:04  
That's wonderful. Congratulations on the longevity, your commitment to your work. And to your audience. I think that's fantastic. Thank you. Could you please give us the origin story for how you got to be interested in the topic of productivity. And in podcasting, also?

Erik Fisher  3:25  
Yeah, it was kind of go hand in hand in a certain way. So in the year of 2005, I was working a data entry position in a cubicle. It was the summer and I happen to get an alert from iTunes from Apple saying there's an update. And I thought, well, that's great. I'll click yes and go freshen up my coffee, and, you know, use the bathroom and come back and sit down and get started on the next wave of stuff. So I did and I sit back down. And I look over in the sidebar. And there's this new tab called podcasts. And I'm like, what is that? I don't know what this is. And so I click in and I start to dive around and start to play things and and see what, you know, has any appeal to it. And this was early days, obviously. And there wasn't, you know, as many as there are now but I realized, Oh, this is like TiVo for radio shows. I can pause and play will much like Netflix to come in the future. And this means I don't have to just listen to music in my cubicle anymore. So I can be entertained or I can be educated. And I knew right away having done internships at radio stations, and being a communications major back in the day in college. I was going to do one at some point. So it took a little while. I started branching out getting into you know, finding my fan fan base as I became a fan base part of a fan base for different shows that were early back in the day and started to interact and jump in and leave me searches on shows and get feedback from them. And eventually to the point where I was interacting with a lot of podcasters. And was eventually, in the mix of CO hosting some shows, started co hosting a show in 2007. It was a comedy show, most people don't know this. That year, a friend of mine and I who worked in the same office as me, we'd drive home to his house, we would record a show. And then we would eat lunch after we got back to our cubicle desk. And so we just kind of fit it in and it was, you know, is what we did. And that just was kind of the beginning. And then at some point there, you know, started a show with somebody called Social Media serenity, talking about how to do social media without going crazy. Man, there's there's early days, like 2007 to 2010 11, somewhere in that range there, where social media was still very much in its infancy, compared to where it is now. And then at some point, that show kind of phased out and immediately the beginning of it was January 2011. I said, Okay, well, I guess I'm gonna maybe go start a blog. And I was kidding myself, because that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to do a podcast. And so over the course of the next six months, I kind of decided, well, what do I want to do? I've always been interested in this and that and was coming up with different topics. And finally hit me I was like, well, you are always trying to optimize time, find out how to do things better. Figure out a new workflow or hacker, learning from somebody had read David Allen's getting things done, I was listening to, you know, as many Mac productivity podcasts, although they weren't called that they were like tips and tricks and tools for how to use your computer better. And it hit me on like, well, I want to talk to people about how they manage their time, how do they stay creative, when they don't feel like it? How do they get done the things they need to get done, even you know, when again, when they don't feel like it or all of that. And it hit me I'm like, Well, that sounds like a productivity show. But it sounds like it's a productivity show that's beyond the to do list. And I said it out loud, and knew that it was the title, and so it locked in.

Christine Li  7:07  
Okay, lovely. And that cubicle reference. And the early days of social media and podcasting, that feels like so long ago, I was not an early podcast adopter, but I've fallen in love with the entire zone, because it really is a wonderful source of entertainment and education, as you've said, and it's kind of a world of creativity. So, again, kudos to you for staying involved staying creative, and being such a force with your podcast. May I ask if you've had productivity struggles of your own? And might that have been the origin of your interest in the area?

Erik Fisher  7:50  
Totally, yeah, because one of the things actually, that I forgot to mention was that same summer, I was diagnosed with ADHD. And so I had that and fought against that and tried to make it work my whole life up till that point, and just didn't know that that's what it was. But once I discovered that I did try some medication, and it did work to a certain extent, but it was also wreaking havoc on my sleep. And so I thought, Well, I'm just going to, and I, in recent years, have thought, you know, I should revisit that and see if there's anything out there that would help better now without affecting my sleep, because that's crucial thing when it comes to productivity, and just mood and everything else. And so, I just wasn't willing to give that up. Now, I think. And one other thing is that was also the first summer that we had our first child. And so I think that was also playing a factor into it, not just for me, but for my wife. But yeah, that was how that came to be. So up until that point, I was somebody who, though I wouldn't have said the word productivity, I was always carrying around a notebook in high school in college, trying to figure out in, you know, young adult life as that was in 2005. And trying to figure out how to capture what I needed to remember, make sure I put it into a system or checked in on myself enough times to make sure things were done had reminders on the calendar or because we didn't have smartphones just yet at that point, right. And so it was all about the tools that we had at hand. It was basically laptops or desktops and, you know, paper planners like Franklin Covey planners and things like that at the time. But once I had kind of worked in that space a little bit and thought about it, and, and all of that, that was definitely something that grew to be a big part of my awareness. And then obviously, while doing the show over the course of the past 11 years, thinking and talking about it so much, obviously it's like, oh, there's still some strike. Everybody struggles with productivity. It's not a it's not a one and done. It's not a you take the course and then you've graduated kind of thing. That's just not how it works. seasons of life happen and you move from season to season and in different seasons, you have different hats that you're wearing due to different expectations. And so there's been a lot of recalibrating and reprioritizing over that course of time.

Christine Li  10:16  
Yes, I would absolutely agree that productivity is not a course that you can graduate out of, I think there's so much to it and to knowing yourself. And it sounds like the diagnosis and the podcast together and the change of life for you with your child, was really the start of a whole creative period. Also for you. Yes. Could you share with us some of your major learnings from being a host just from doing the podcast, really focusing in on this topic? And what were some of the major shifts that you noticed within yourself and how you saw yourself?

Erik Fisher  10:59  
I will say there's a couple of things I learned one was, I felt pretty confident as a, just an interviewer as a conversationalist that could, you know, get on we at the time, we I mean, for the most part, for the longest duration of recording, we weren't really using video. So that wasn't really something you didn't have to think about how you looked, when you were recording, it was all about the audio. And so that was just easy to jump in and do. But I think one of the things that I learned because it was a one man shop the entire time for so very long, was I was the one who was booking I was the one who was connecting, I was the one who was recording, editing, publishing all that stuff. And so I think that helped me grow in a way that I was unaware I was going to, in a lot of ways, and what's great is having gone back and listened to early early, very beginning episodes, and hearing it the show still good. But the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours where you just keep doing it and doing it and you just get better and better that practicing in public really forced me to up my game. And I think one of the things, again, I would tell anybody who's starting out, now, if you have somebody who can edit for you use that free up that time, however, I learned to be a better conversationalist, and recorder and podcaster by doing my own editing, because then I had to listen back to myself, I had to, you know, it's like with writing, you do your draft, and then you're the editor also, you go back through and fix it and you know, you do something, you know, better? In other words, better craft those words. So, yes, unlike editing text that can be can be reconfigured, and change the meaning and all that that shows one and done. It's in the past, just do better for the next time. And that's what I've learned over and over again for you know, 500 episodes plus now.

Christine Li  13:05  
Okay, so definitely have patience with yourself in the beginning, and do the deep work as you're going through it sounds like what have you learned from your? Yes? And what major themes have there been across

Erik Fisher  13:21  
guests? And I can definitely hint at that. I think I've hinted to that already that one of the most major themes that's come up for me has been just this idea of seasons, that at any given time, I've had people reach out and say, I love all your guests, they teach me a lot I learned a lot from you and from them. However, I'm in this specific instance, or circumstance, and a lot of what you know, is said or given as best practice doesn't necessarily apply. In that regard. I'm thinking of, you know, somebody who is now a stay at home mom, how productive can they be? is kind of the question or should I expect myself to be they ask. And I always try to say as much as you are able. But again, it's your definition of success. It's your definition of productivity, like if you're able to take care of yourself enough if you're willing to get a nap. If you're able to, you know, which I'm a wholehearted, you know, proponent of naps. That's one of the major themes is that again, the place that you're in this the situation the season specifically that you're in right now, will not always be the same. Whether it's the physical weather season, whether it's the job hat you wear, the relationships you have, who you're responsible to whether you're caretaking for parents or children, all those different things reconfigure over time. And so it's not about finding what works always or what works for somebody else. It's about picking and choosing and trying and inspire lamenting yes on what what you hear from other people in terms of whether they are an early riser or they're, they do things in the evening, or they fit it in in the middle of the day, that's just one example. But find out what's going to work for you for now, instead of worrying about what's working for others, or what you think should be working for you, but you just can't make it work. It's got to be an amount of, of grace given and forgiveness on yourself. And in other words, don't make productivity a burden, make it a tool.

Christine Li  15:32  
Wonderful advice, I absolutely agree, you need to get some sort of flow going. And oftentimes, by being kind to yourself, you can find the easiest and quickest source of flow. I think when we're blocking ourselves or getting all ramped up about things. Procrastination tends to come knocking, and then our productivity is nowhere to be found. And we're all kind of gaining when we are being productive, I think. And it's very personal, as Eric is sharing what you want to make with your productivity. But the view has to be about what's going to happen next, what are we going to do with this flow? What do we want to create? How do we want our lives to be feeling? Once this is all throw? So thank you for sharing that. Let's talk about longevity. That was one of the topics that we spoke about before we pressed record. And can you talk about that? How do you stay? The course, when you don't want to when the weather's bad when you're just feeling irritable? When the tech isn't working? What do you do? What are your tricks?

Erik Fisher  16:40  
Yeah, one of the biggest things that I learned early on was to kind of try and have as much of a roadmap as I possibly could, for any given type of again, like I've mentioned, seasons, is to have a roadmap for a season and say, okay, like I learned early on, I did not like recording, at home, during the summer, when everybody else was home from school, it just didn't work very well. It was constant like, Okay, I'm recording on this day, at this time, we need everybody out of the house so that the Wi Fi isn't, you know, we didn't have a strong Wi Fi or Internet back, then we have stronger now. But I still try to say, hey, everybody just kind of, Don't everybody be doing something all at once. During this one chunk of time, it's being very proactive about that. And so that was one of the things I learned was, well, then, if I want to avoid recording as much as possible throughout summer months, then I need to really batch process and record as much as possible. During seasons, I also found that I don't like recording a lot of podcasts during the late November through to early January time of year either, because there's a lot going on, I've always had a day job while I'm also recording this podcast. And so that has a priority. And so having that kind of approach and insight there made a pretty big impact in terms of basically designing that and being able to sustain that. Because ultimately what happens is, you're like, Oh, well, if you're gonna batch process, it's already tough enough, I POS get podcasters I totally get it. It's already tough enough to record one episode, once a week and then put it out. How are you going to do two or three in a week or four or five. And I realized that it was kind of something I borrowed from a friend of mine, Mike Vardy, where he would seem a day. So he would say, Okay, I'm going to record two to three on this day, and stretch it out. So it's like one in the morning, one in the late morning, one in the afternoon or whatever, again, whatever works best for you. And then that way, suddenly, there's three done instead of one, and you're two weeks ahead. And so if you can figure it out, and then maybe that's not a sustainable thing every single week, but it was being able to figure out one how to first and foremost, do a bunch of reach out, do a bunch of scheduling, do a bunch of recording and have those banked but then, but then you're not even done yet. But at least that was one of the things that I noticed was, you know, in terms of long term and I'm talking basically I'm talking systems and setup. You have to keep those things in mind. I was I did say I didn't like recording a lot during the summer. That doesn't mean I can't add it. So, you know, think about which pieces are the hardest pieces to pick up, which are the hardest to leverage, which are the hardest parts that always have got, you know, you suddenly think about it and you're like, Oh, I feel drained, just thinking about it. You know, as much as you love the thing that you're doing. There are components, identify those components. And then you can figure out ways to alleviate the weight that that has on you psychologically, mentally, emotionally, etc, physically, even because of those other things. Yes, and then Suddenly, you can move forward.

Christine Li  20:02  
Yes, I love the two tips that were in there, the two major tips, one, have a roadmap. And I love the idea of having a roadmap across time that you're even looking at, let's forecast what the end of the year is going to look like. And I'm also noting that you and I have very opposite systems. I love recording in November and December, because it's really quiet. And maybe I'm not invited to enough parties, but it's but I really liked that time of year to, to grab people for an interview. And then the second tip was to know what lights you up and what causes you to feel drained or like you're carrying a burden, and to really be mindful and purposeful about when you're going to pick up those items, those heavier, more difficult stickier items. Because if you feel like you have an overall roadmap, it's going to make it easier for you to just land every stop and get to your destination. So I love, love, love those strategies. And we can see from your longevity in your podcast and your attitude here, that everything has gone really well for you with this strategy. So I'm really glad to hear all of this. Can you talk about the concept of leading a meaningful life? Because I know you've mentioned that productivity isn't just for productivity, productivity is, is a means to more meaningful life. Could you talk about what that means for you? And what you think it might mean for others as well?

Erik Fisher  21:41  
Yeah, I mean, productivity is a means to an end, it's a set of systems, it's a set of beliefs and perspectives that lead to actions that aren't just, you know, checking things off on a list of busyness. It's, if you're not taking the pulse, if you're not pausing, if you're not taking time to actually say, Well, where am I going? In other words, you can have a map, but if you don't really know where the end goal is, on that, then what do you do? And so I've talked to a number of different guests where we've talked about not just life planning so much as, you know, setting goals like long, big, overarching goals. And we're not just talking like, I want to accomplish this or that it's, we're talking into the nitty gritty of like, who as a person do you want to be? What kind of character do you have? What do you want people to have said, about you at your funeral? In other words, and then reverse engineer from there, that, you know, I want to be a person of character, I want them to have said that I was trustworthy, that I was caring that I was kind that I was, you can go on and on. And you know, and it kind of stems from your values, your beliefs. But by having those things and reverse engineering and saying, Well, what are the components of you know, that what relationships do I have right now? What relationships will I have in the future? And by reverse engineering that and saying like, so for example, my daughter is graduating, or I should say she did graduate, high school, she's going to college. And so that's one of those things that we've thought about and said, Well, what kind of impact do we want to have on her in terms of parenting before, she's less than less around us? And off on her own? And so the time to be asking, that isn't right now and she graduated? It's years and years and years ago. And no matter who you are, as a parent, you're going to be thinking, Okay, I hope I did the best that you know, and you can see evidence of that. And we've seen that, but it's that end in mind, kind of quality of living a meaningful life. And then reverse engineering with those, again, relationships or things that you said yes to versus no to. And having all those in mind and having kind of that roadmap, especially the end destination, not the destination itself, but who you were through the journey kind of planned out and mapped out. To the extent that you can accept it. A lot of people, they don't want to plan out that far. But I say, well, this isn't about, you know, where you're going or where you're getting to, it's about who you are on the way.

Christine Li  24:20  
I'd love that. 10 years ago, when you were beginning all of this, Could you have imagined the person you've become and how you feel today? Back then what is the difference? What happened?

Erik Fisher  24:35  
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would say that the answer is no, I you know, I had no clue. Again, I was jumping in trying to do something fun and interesting and just start something and have it be a hobby, but maybe, hopefully at some point not. And I just knew I had to do it, because it was part of you know, who I am and what I do and how I wanted to be and yeah, over the course of the past basic Like 10 plus 11 years now, it's been very different. I mean, my son was one year old when I started the show, and now he's gonna be turning 12 and a month. And that's very different. And again, my daughter graduating and different things like that. And so it's, it's been a very different, you know, and the landscape is different. Like, at the time I started, again, we're talking 2011, Facebook had gotten to become a very, you know, normalized thing in our lives. But we didn't have any concept of the effect it would have on our consciousness, you know, on a global scale, we didn't even at that point, we had BlackBerry's and even the iPhone existed, but it hadn't yet become the ubiquitous pocket computer that we had on us at all times. Even at that point that was still to come. So I don't know, it was still wrestling with all those different things. But I, you know, I would, I would hope, and say that I'm more confident, and I feel more knowledgeable. And I've learned a whole lot. And, and again, I've learned a whole lot enough to know that. I also know I don't know everything. So,

Christine Li  26:08  
yeah, lovely. And I think I want to insert a point that, although we want to know where we want to get to, we don't always have to be so wedded to who we're going to be because so much can happen. And we can go through so many different transformations personally, that you may not recognize yourself at the end of the journey in the best of ways. So don't, I guess, freak yourself out is my my addition to this conversation because you're capable of the long haul creative, inspiring journey. And I'm so happy to have gotten to know you during this call. It was a lovely conversation. Thank you so much, Eric.

Erik Fisher  26:54  
You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Christine Li  26:57  
It was a pleasure. Please let us know how our listeners can stay in touch with you and where they can find you. Yeah,

Erik Fisher  27:05  
well, the best place is to just go to beyond the to do list.com. That's where the podcast is. And you can search for topics there or names of people in case you want to say hey, Zia, has he ever talked to this person or that person or talked about sleep or prioritizing, or parenting or because that's that those are some of the things that are coming up yet again, we revisit topics all the time. And then all the social media connections are there as well. And you can even send me a message through there through the contact form.

Christine Li  27:34  
That'd be great. I was reviewing the podcast, and it's fantastic. And I was jotting down names of books that I need to get now into my bucket of books. And Eric, thanks again for being a maker of quality products and podcasting and for being a leader in this field. Thank you so much for being here.

Erik Fisher  27:56  
Thank you so much for having me. It's been my pleasure.

Christine Li  27:59  
Okay, everyone, we've wrapped another lovely episode. Thank you so much for being here on the Make Time for Success podcast. Please share this episode with a friend if you loved it. And if you loved it, loved it, please send a review as well. Thank you so much. I'll see you next week. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.

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