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One of the things that used to feel like a black hole of time and energy, especially in my business, was my email.

Seriously, there was so much of it.

I regularly had 100 unread emails and most of those were weekly newsletters or updates from businesses or people I wanted to stay connected with.

But a lot of it was just stuff that I hadn’t sorted through yet and some were things that needed to be decided or done.

About once a month I would turn on the TV to a series or movie that I’d seen many times before and spend a couple hours on my laptop going through it. And I’d be frustrated by the things that I should have already responded to or interesting things I’d missed because I didn’t decide on it (or see it) when it arrived in my inbox.

This changed for me about three weeks ago. And I currently have under 20 emails in my inbox and a majority of them are from today or the long weekend.

Let’s talk about managing your email for this week’s (well, tomorrow’s) Wednesday LIVE with Evie.

I’ll share what I changed that allowed me to go from normally having over 100 emails to under 20.

Let me know your email frustrations and I’ll make sure to cover that tomorrow on the LIVE.

Check out the Facebook event here.

Update: You can watch this Wednesday LIVE with Evie here.

Last week there was no Wednesday LIVE with Evie because, as I shared, I couldn’t come up with a topic.

What I didn’t share was that I wasn’t feeling great and focusing on anything beyond the surface level at the beginning of last week wasn’t happening.

So, lots of things that I wanted to get done last week didn’t get done.

And it’s okay.

A few years ago this would have completely thrown me into a tizzy. Because all the things needed to get done!

I would have felt behind.

Part of that is because of how I viewed productivity and specifically my productivity.

Then, productivity was all about getting as many tasks done as possible and spending every minute of work toward that endeavor.

And this is fine if you work in a widget factory and your task each day is to connect part a to part b. Then your focus should be on how to connect more parts each hour.

However, neither of us work in widget factories and your day-to-day is much more involved (and hopefully fun) than connecting widget parts.

For entrepreneurs like us, productivity is really about knowing the important tasks you want/need to accomplish and getting them done.

Which is really easy to say, but how do you do that?

Especially when there are so many things that you want to and could do.

Let’s talk about that for this week’s Wednesday LIVE with Evie (at 1pm CDT).

Update: You can watch this Wednesday LIVE with Evie here.

It happens every couple of months.

I sit down to write this article to you and decide the topic of the week’s Wednesday LIVE with Evie and nothing comes. No topic or article will show up.

It happened yesterday.

It happened today.

Nothing.

However, I did have an idea early today.

I could not do Wednesday LIVE with Evie and offer complimentary Productivity Coaching Calls to a couple people.

I mulled the idea around. “Nah,” I thought, “I’ve committed to do this every week, I’ll figure it out. I always do.”

And the idea that kept popping up was offering coaching calls.

So, I’m offering five 60-minute complimentary Productivity Coaching Calls this week.

On the call, we’ll talk about what your main frustration with your productivity is right now. And by the end of the call, you’ll have clarity and your first steps to eliminate that frustration.

And Wednesday LIVE with Evie will return next week.

Last Thursday I attended a 2 hour “Getting Things Done” training preview.

“Getting Things Done” is a book written by David Allen in 2001 and he became the “productivity guru” as a result. He has since developed training around the concepts in the book.

I probably got my original paperback copy around 2004. And absolutely loved it.

Even then I didn’t do everything that was suggested in the book. However, it has made a huge difference in how I approach getting my things done and you can see the fingerprints on what I teach and coach.

As part of training preview, we all got a copy of the updated edition of the book (it came out in 2015). I’m looking forward to reading it.

My biggest take away from the training was around the habits of capturing tasks and ideas (and that refreshers are helpful for everyone).

For this week’s Wednesday LIVE with Evie, let’s talk about that.

Check out the Facebook event here.

Update: You can watch this Wednesday LIVE with Evie here.

This morning I drove over to the Fox River to go on a walk. The river is very high from all the rain that we (and upriver) has had over the past week or two. It’s at flood stages or past.

Where I go, there are paths on both sides of the river. The path on the west side is several feet higher than the path on the east side.

The park that I’ve been starting from (on the east side) was closed due to the height of the river, as was the park on the other side of the road (same side of the river).

However, there’s a small parking lot on the other side of the river and I generally walk on the west side anyway (there’s no park with bathroom on that side or pavilion). So, I parked there.

After my walk I sat and watched the river, there’s a lot of water and it’s moving very quickly.

As I’m driving away, I notice two bicyclists on the east side of the river. They were lifting up the caution tape blocking the park and bike path entrance and going under. I also notice that the bike path just further down was flooded for a short length, maybe 7 feet. This particular spot is near the bottom of a dam, meaning the water is churning not far from where it’s flooded over the path.

I was worried for them – the path was blocked for a reason. I slowed down and saw them bike through the water safely.

But I wondered if they knew that if they would have taken the sidewalk up about 100 feet and biked through a parking lot they could have safely avoided that water on the path and joined the path about 1/8th of a mile up (seriously, not very far).

And I couldn’t tell, but I wondered if the path was blocked further up because of the height of the river.

I hope that they stayed safe.

And I can’t help but wonder why it was sooo important to bike on that side of the river?

Was there something further up the trail that was their end destination?

Did they not know that there’s a trail that goes north on the other side of the river?

Or did they just have it in their heads that this was the path that they were biking this morning?

And the fact of the matter is, I don’t know their reasons.

But as I was sitting at my desk this morning, wondering what I was going to write you and what this week’s Wednesday LIVE with Evie was going to be, I thought of those bikers.

Now, in your business, you’re probably not going to find yourself in a situation where you’re potentially putting yourself in harm’s way because you’re SOOO focused on something.

But maybe you’ve been sooo focused on a one way of doing something or how you expected something to work out, that you missed that there were other easier options (like the bikers going up the sidewalk and through a parking lot or taking the path on the other side of the river).

So, this week let’s talk about being flexible with our expectations for Wednesday LIVE with Evie. Check out the Facebook event here.

Let me know where you find yourself getting tunnel vision or being overly tied to one way of doing something or a specific expectation.

Update: You can watch this Wednesday LIVE with Evie here.