Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The #1 To-Do list Mistake with Tanya Dalton | Clutterbug Podcast # 260

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Are you busy or truly productive?  In this week's episode, Tanya Dalton, best selling author and productivity expert, redefines what it means to be productive. Discover how to identify your "North Star", prioritize what truly matters, and set boundaries that truly matters that protect your time and energy. Tanya shares her CLEAR method to filter tasks and commitments, tips to break down big goals into manageable steps and how small, purposeful actions can lead to lasting habits. Plus, learn why decluttering your home can free your mind and fuel your productivity.  Tanya also introduces her new book, Purposeful Productivity, which offers a 60-day guide to creating a life centred on your goals and values. Whether you're overwhelmed by your to-do list or struggling to say no, this episode will inspire you to embrace intentional living. You won't want to miss this amazing and inspiring episode! Learn more about Tanya Dalton: https://tanyadalton.com/ Order Tanya's new Book, Purposeful Productivity: https://www.amazon.ca/Purposeful-Productivity-Multiply-Your-Happiness/dp/1400346622 Follow Tanya on Social Media: https://tanyadalton.com/social-media-manifesto/       You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #mondaymotivation #productivity   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think today you're going to think differently about the word productivity because it isn't about what you accomplish or how much you accomplish in a day. There is definitely a difference between being busy and being productive. And we're going to talk about that today with the incredible Tanya Dalton. I'm so excited to have her. She is a productivity expert and a best-selling author of multiple books, including On Purpose, which I love. And her goal is to help us really see the difference between being busy and being productive and simplify it, make it easy, and help you identify what your big goal in life actually is. Like, what do you really want? And how are you going to get there? Hello, Tanya. Welcome to the Clutterbug podcast. Thanks so much for

having me. I'm really excited because I talk a lot about being more productive and you are the guru. Right? You're like the, woo! The productivity master. So I'm so thrilled to have you. I have to ask though before we jump in, have you always been like this super hyper productive person? That's such a great question because I've always been very organized, but I wouldn't say I've always been productive because the truth is, like, I love, I love color coding things and I love things looking really nice and neat. But there was a period of my life where I really confused productivity with busyness. And it took some experiences, quite frankly, that were painful for me to really realize there's a big difference between being busy and being productive. And I think that's one of

the things that a lot of people confuse. They feel like the more things they get done, the more productive they are. So they run around busy, checking a million things off their to-do list, right? Falling into bed at night, exhausted and just, oh, feeling terrible. But then they think to themselves, oh, why didn't I get more done? Even though they were busy all day long, even though they checked a thousand things off their to-do list, why didn't I get more done? And that's because they weren't truly being productive, doing the work that matters. So I like to say productivity isn't about doing more. It's doing what matters most, getting really clear on what's important to you, and then really centering your day around those things. So doing fewer, better, right? It's the

quality over the quantity, which I know is something that you definitely talk about with organizing and everything else, because it is. It's not about having more things. It's really the fewer things, but deeper, richer, more meaningful things. Yeah, people are doing like that busy work and not pushing the needle forward on the big thing that they really are wanting to accomplish in life and in their day. That's absolutely right. That's the thing. It's it's the doing more, not doing the things that really matter. I love that. So how do you know? How do you know what really matters? I think that's the question that everybody wants to know is like how do you pick? I call it my North Star. So this is what I started doing is like identifying the big

amazing direction I want to go in my life. And that has been really helpful for me. Do you have a way that you can help people identify like what really is important to them? Yeah, absolutely. I actually call it your North Star also. So we're very aligned. Stop. I love that. Yeah. And this is something that I talk about in my book is really getting clear on that North Star, which I define as your mission, your vision and your core values. Your mission being why you do what you do, right? We all do a lot of things, but why do we do them, the things that really, you know, that fire us up and get us excited. Why do we do them? Where do we want to go? And then how do we want to get there? That's what your North Star helps you define. And you use that as a filter to really understand what it is

you're wanting to focus in on. And in the book, I even talk about a method that I call the clear method, which is C-L-E-A-R, clear. You can ask yourself when something is presented to you. And this is what happens is people bombard us with requests for our time, right? They want us to go and bake 3,000 cookies for the bake sale. They want us to volunteer for this project. They want us to join a board. They want us to do all these things. And we feel obligated so often to say yes. And so how do we really know what we want to say yes to because it's not about saying no, it's about finding your yes. What are the things you want to say yes to? So this clear method is you basically use your hand. It's so simple. You ask each question for the C-L-E-A-R. If it's a yes, you hold a finger up. So the first question,

C, is it connected to your North Star, your mission, your vision, your core values? If it's a yes, you go, okay, that's one finger up. Is it linked to a goal? That's your L. Is it linked to a goal? Is this something that is really important to you. If it's a yes, you hold a finger up. E, is it essential? Is this something that absolutely has to be done by me or is this something I could delegate to someone else? Right? So if it's a yes, you hold your finger up. A, is this advantageous? Is this going to be something that's really going to help me in the future? Is this an investment in the future? And then R, is it reality based? Am I telling myself a story about what a good mom does or what a good person does or what I should be doing or is this based in the reality that I desire.

Now, if you have three or more fingers up because you've said yes to three or four one of those questions, that's clearly something that's important to you. If you don't, then we need to find a way to say a kind and assertive no because kindness and assertiveness are not mutually exclusive. We can say no and still feel good about it because that's the problem is a lot of times we don't say no because we feel bad. We confuse the relationship with the request. Well, I like this person. So yeah, I guess I'll, you know, I'll, I'll be the lead for this giant auction that's going to eat up all my time, even though I don't really care about it. So it's really getting clear about the thing itself that they're asking you to do. And do you want to do it or do you not?

I love this. This is Boundaries 101, man, which I've really been working on. A big thing for me, So I have three kids and a husband. And it's all the little requests that add up to a lot of time. So my son will be like, I'm really tired, mom. Can you make my lunch for tomorrow? And my daughter will say, do you mind helping me put away my laundry? Because I've got this like, you know, play coming up and I'm feeling overwhelmed. And my husband will be like, hey, do you mind giving me a hand in the garage real quick?

And then before you know it, I'm giving a piece, a piece, a piece, a piece to all these people. because I always say yes. And then my own priorities and my own things that I wanted to do and needed to do are now on the back burner. And I'm like, I'm so behind. I didn't get anything done because I was saying yes to so many other people's things and helping. And so boundaries. It's tough, though.

It is tough. Well, and every time you say yes, you're saying no to something else. And I think getting really clear that every yes has a. a no hidden inside of it. The question is, what are you saying no to? When you say yes to doing this, oh, so you can't say yes without sacrificing something else, right? So when you start to get an understanding of that, that really helped me understanding that every yes has a no hidden inside. And most times I'm saying no to things that really matter to me. Right. A lot of times it's like time with my family or time on a passion project, working on a goal, doing the things that I know

I get fired up about and that I truly want to prioritize. So that helps to really understanding what you're saying no to because it is easy. We hand out our time like it's dollar bills. Our time is like $100 bills. I wouldn't stand on the street corner and hand out all my money, right, to everybody who passes. I need to make sure I pay the rent. I need to make sure that I've paid for groceries. I need to make sure that I've done all those other things. So if you think about your time, the same way you think about your money, it's like, oh, I wouldn't go out just handing out my money everywhere. I would make sure that my priorities were taking care of first. So shifting that thinking, because I think we have such an interesting relationship with time, right? We have this idea that time is like amazingly

abundant, that it's this, you know, giant Olympic pool size vault of just time where it's like, oh, I'll do that someday. I'll push my goals aside. I'll do that one day. One day I'll do this. One day I'll do that. And in the very next breath saying, oh, I don't have time to do anything. I don't have time to work on my goals because time is so scarce, right? So really being clear too about your time belongs to you. You own that time. So how do you want to budget? How do you want to dole it out to everybody else? Yeah. It's it's tough because it seems like, well, it's only a half an hour. it's only this or it's only, it seems like so short. But what's really cool is one day I went on chat GTP and I asked just, can you break down the average day? Because I felt like at the end of the day,

man, I didn't get everything done, but I should have. But what did I even do that was eating up all the time? So I'm like, I got to, I'm going to ask AI for help. So I asked chat GTP to write down the average what everybody spends on tasks during the day to like fill their day. And it was like a half an hour commute to and from work, you know, one hour of eating, a half an hour of meal prep. Everything was really reasonable. And at the end, I added it up and it was 26 hours. That doesn't mind. And I'm like, wait, the math ain't math. Yeah. Even AI can't. Even AI can't make it work, which was so fascinating because, yeah, it feels like we have a lot of time. But in reality, with so many daily obligations and pressure and to-does that we put on our plate, just the basics.

It doesn't leave us a lot of time to share and just waste and give away all those little extra moments. It really, I mean, I love that, that it was 26 hours. I think that says everything, right? And the problem isn't with the black and white. It's with that gray. There's a lot of gray. It's like the easy yeses are like, oh, yeah, and the easy knows. okay, it's the hard ones. It's the 99% of what's presented to you is the gray where it's not really

clear. Is this something I want to do? So I like to really tell people too, like pay attention to how you feel inside. Pay attention to that feeling inside. Do you feel when somebody asks you to do something? Are you like, oh, no, I don't want to do it. And then you say yes anyways. Whoa, that's that's out of alignment. Make sure it really feels good to you. If somebody asks you and you feel, oh, that sounds exciting. That should be a yes. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Now, here's the trick.

Sometimes people will ask you to do something and you have this feeling of like nervousness, right? Or like a little bit of fear. Fear and excitement are exactly the same. So if you have a little bit of fear, dive a little deeper. Why do I feel a little bit nervous about this? Is it because it's actually something I want? And this scares me a little bit, which is a good thing, right?

Or is it fear because this is truly a fear. something that I truly don't want to do. So start paying attention to how your immediate reaction is. What does your body do? And that'll give you a lot of information. One of the things that I like to tell people to do is when you're thinking about your day and you're sitting down and you're kind of planning out your day because I'm a big advocate for planning each day as it comes. sitting down the morning, spend 10 minutes to figure out, okay, what am I going to do today? What's reasonable? What's achievable? That's a big one, right? Because we tend to put three million things on our to do list.

What is it I want to do? But then I want you to think about how do I want to feel at the end of the day? What's the emotion I want to have at the end of the day? Because that emotion will help you determine what your priorities are. Because some days, maybe you want to feel really present. maybe your kid has a volleyball game at the end of the day or a soccer game and you want to be at that field cheering them on fully present not worrying about what's going on with work not worrying about anything else so you want to feel present okay what tasks do you need to do today so you can feel fully present

maybe you have a client presentation coming up so you want to feel prepared okay i want to feel really prepared at the end of the day okay then i'm going to work on those things instead so really think through how you want to feel. And if you start with that feeling, that dictates the entire day. So you get to that feeling. So instead of falling into bed and feeling like, oh, I'm exhausted and I'm overwhelmed and I'm stressed, instead you feel, wow, I'm really prepared. I feel good about tomorrow. I was really present at my kid's game or whatever that emotion was. And the trick here is to be really specific. Don't just say I want to feel successful. What does successful mean, right? Really get clear on how you want to feel. I want to feel prepared. I want to feel clear. I want to feel

relaxed. If you want to feel relaxed, don't pile your day up, right? If you want to feel, you know, whatever it is, get really clear on that. I'd like to take a second to thank Cozy Earth for sponsoring today's podcast. I switched to Cozy Earth beautiful bamboo bedding years ago and I'm so happy I did. They are so soft, no matter how many times I wash them, I swear they just get better. And they are lasting. They are going the distance. And my favorite part is that they are temperature regulating. But recently, I got myself a pair of beautiful bamboo pajamas from cozy earth.

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Again, go to cozy earth.com, use the code Clutterbug to save 40% and Clutterbug. Bogo to get your free set of bamboo pajamas. I have a question. This is like a personal question. I'm just going to pick your brain. You can be my therapist for a second. I have goals. And it's the same goal I have all the time, which is like, I'm going to get healthy and I'm

going to exercise and I'm going to work out. And then every day when it comes, I feel a little dread about that. You know, I'm like, ugh, I don't actually want to work out. And when we talk, you were talking about. about, you know, when someone asks you to do something and you're like, you don't really want to do it, but you say yes anyways, does that apply to yourself too asking you to do something? Because I'm like, Cass, get your bed on the treadmill and I'm like, I would rather eat glass. I know that feeling. I know that feeling. It does. It does apply to that. So the first thing you can do is think about

how you're going to feel afterwards is one way to focus on that. But I guess my question for you would be, if you don't like the treadmill, why are you doing the treadmill? Why don't you do something else? Why don't you choose something that fires you up? And I'll tell you, this is from my own personal experience. I'm not a person who likes running. I've tried running and I get all fired up and it looks amazing and I watch these people and I'm like, that's what I want. Right. It's paying attention to what everybody else is doing and you think you should have what they're doing. So I watch people running and I'm like, oh, that looks amazing. And they talk about this runners high. I have yet to have a runner's high. Not once in my life have I been like, who, runners high. Running is not for me.

So I stopped trying to run. And instead, I tried experimenting and figuring out what things do fire me up. So for me, Pilates fires me up. I love going to Pilates. It has made a huge difference in my back and how my body feels. I look forward to it. So I choose to do things that feel really good. So that would be the thing is if you're feeling, okay, I really want this, but I don't like what I have to do to get there. Can you change what you have to do to get there? Can you choose instead of the treadmill to do something else? You know, maybe it's going to a bar class. Maybe it's going for a walk.

Maybe it's doing yoga. Maybe it's, I don't know, there's five, there's five million things out there. So stop doing the thing that makes you feel, ugh, and choose to do the things that you go, I really like this, right? I really enjoy this. So called you out a little bit there. I know. I mean, I know this, but I feel like all of it. I just want the results without the work. And I do feel like this is relatable. A lot of people who are listening, they're like, I want a clean, clutter free, organized home, but I don't want all the work of decluttering. And I feel that to my core. Because as a messy person and as a person who doesn't want to work out, it feels like the goal is so big that what's the point or like, what am I, it's a waste of my time to even do something small today because it's not going to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.

So I think those big goals are difficult to get started because we can't see the end as, like I almost have time blindness where I can only see things that like I can accomplish in 15 minutes And I need it to be like a, that is obvious. So, woo, look at this. It's like it's a, it's a visual completion. And when it doesn't have a visual completion, it feels very overwhelming. And I don't think I'm alone. So what would you suggest for somebody who is like, got a mountain to climb, man?

Yeah, well, I love what you said there about like the 15 minutes because that's what's manageable, right? So what we do is we set these big, audacious. goals for ourselves that then overwhelm us. We think, oh, I'm never going to be able to do that or that's really difficult. Breaking it down and making it into bite-sized chunks. This is, this is like I break that all down in my second book and on purpose, my second book. I talk about how you take big goals and you break them down. You create these little mini milestones. And here's the thing like, okay, so let's talk about both of those, exercise and organizing. So with exercising, one of the things that we do is we're like, I have to exercise and I have to exercise every day.

Or we make it so it's so unachievable so that once we haven't worked out for two days in a row, suddenly we're the worst. We've fallen off the wagon and we just drop the goal altogether, right? We have to build some of flexibility into that. So instead of saying I'm going to work out five days a week, start off, I was actually just having this conversation with my son, who's in college, who wants to work out six days a week. And I'm like, okay, well, so far you're working out zero days a week. So how about for in January, you work out, let's say an average of three times a week. Now, you see that word average in there?

That makes a, that's a game changer, right? Because some weeks, you're going to be able to work out four times. Some weeks you might only work out two. But if you're averaging three, you feel like you're winning, right? That word average is like the magic word when it comes to goals. So I was like, let's do an average of three times a week in January, four times a week in February, five times a week in March and build up to it. Instead of going from zero to 100 in like 10 seconds flat,

let's actually build up a little bit of momentum. Because once you get going, it's so much easier. It's the first step. With something like organizing, and I literally am in the midst of organizing my pantry, I've taken all the things out. And this is something I've put off for far too long because the idea of pulling everything out of the pantry,

checking expiration day, right? It's a lot, but it was like, okay, each day, and I mapped it out for myself. I gave myself like a week to do it. Okay, I'm just going to start. I'm going to spend 15 minutes taking things out and putting them in this space, a space where it's nearby, but it's not a space that's going to drive me crazy that it's sitting, right? And then it was like, okay, next I'm going to clean off the shelves. Then I painted the pantry.

Then it was like, so I broke it down into these little 15 to 30 minute increments of what could I accomplish during that time. So if it's going to take you 30 minutes and you only have 15 minutes to empty the pantry, that's two days. Okay, I'll empty it out on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, I'm going to wipe down the shelves. On Thursday, I'm going to go through all the stuff that I pulled out and figure out what I really want to keep.

And then you move from there. Instead of feeling like it all has to be tackled right then, give yourself a little bit of grace. Give yourself that space to have the time to actually enjoy the process instead of feeling like, oh gosh, I have to do this, right? And know that you're going to pull all the stuff out of the pantry and it's going to look like a mess for a little bit and be okay with that. Like, okay, I go into preparing myself, preparing my husband. It's going to be a disaster in the dining room because everything from the pantry is in there. So it's almost like preparing yourself, just like you would your kids, right?

You prepare yourself. All right. And then you break it down. Small bite size. I love that. Your book comes out tomorrow, which is super exciting. purposeful productivity. What do you mean by purposeful? Like describe this for me. I know, but I want to hear from you what you really mean and how you define this and how we can be purposeful with

our productivity. Yeah. Well, we've been kind of playing with this theme all along, right? This idea of purposeful productivity because it is doing things that matter. Instead of trying to do all the things and feeling like that's what makes you productive and wearing yourself out, chasing your tail, having a to do list that's 3,000 miles too long, choose instead what is important to me? And then work around that. I often say that a lot of times people try productivity hacks or tricks or those kinds of things, right? And they think there's a magic system. So they put that system in the middle and they try to like wrap their life around it and they're bending and twisting and trying to make it work for them when it really doesn't. It doesn't play to

your strengths or play to your weaknesses, both of which we have to play to. Instead, getting really clear on what's important to you, spending a little bit of time getting some clarity about what is important to you. And then we wrap the systems around that so that that is front and center. And that means acknowledging what you're good at. There's certainly lots of things we're good at, but also acknowledging what you're not good at. You know, like for me, in the mornings, I feel like it's a little bit stressful and I'm not a person who's going to, you know,

fold a towel after I give the shower and make it look nice and neat. So instead of having a bunch of towel bars, I take the towel bars out of my bathrooms and I put in hooks because you know what? I will hang in on a hook and that looks a lot better than it being on the floor, right? Or crumpled in a heat thrown in the bathtub

or wherever else you're throwing it. So figuring out what works for you, that's what purposeful productivity is. It's really creating a life that wraps around who you are, what you desire, what you really envision that fits that ideal. I think so often we get caught up in what we are supposed to do, what we should do, what everybody else is doing, that we lose sight of ourselves. And especially if you have kids, it's really easy to lose sight of what you love. And sometimes you think to yourself, I have no idea. I have no idea. do what I love because I've been so busy being and doing for everybody else for so long.

So take some time and just think back. Reflect back. Reflection is such a powerful tool that we have. Go back in time and think about what were the things I liked when I was younger, especially when you were a kid. And then you asked that question, why did I like them? Why was this important to me? What was it that fired me up about it?

And start making like a little list. You'll start to see themes. You'll start to see things kind of popping up. And those themes will continue even as you're an adult, right? The things that you loved when you were a kid where you had the full freedom of not adulting, those are often things that we actually really still would love to do, but we feel like, oh, I don't have time for them or I can't do those things. When the truth is, that's the things that fire you up.

And those are the things you should be doing. So that's how you get purposeful with your productivity. It's truly centering it on what are your priorities and then the making the choices. that really fit that. Oh, I love that so much. I also think this can shift and change. So I went through a period of my life where I wanted to just like focus on my business and grow my business and like I had this hustle, but I was excited about it because it was my North Star and I was going to, you know, grow and write books and do courses. And that was like my focus. But then when I really kind of got quiet with myself in the last year and thought, what do I want more of and what do I want less of?

The first thing I thought of was when I think what I want less of, it's work. And then I was like, wait a minute, does this not fire me up anymore? Has this become like a trudge when it used to be such a joy? And I'm like, maybe I have shifted. And if I'm really trying to be more mindful of what I'm crazy, it's more relaxation and it's more of a slower. Before it was like I was craving faster and now I'm craving slower and I think that's okay too to sort of reevaluate your North Star and reevaluate you know what you're needing in this moment and maybe that's even a day to day. So every day

do you really like sit with yourself before you write your to do list or your plan and you said earlier, like, what's the feeling you want for today? Is that a daily thing for you? It is. Yep. I think about what do I want to feel at the end of the day? And one of the things you can even do if you wanting to get really serious with it is put a dry erase marker in your bathroom and think about how do I want to feel at the end of the day, write that word on your mirror as you're getting yourself dressed, right? Really solidify it in your head. So then when you're sitting down and you're planning and you're thinking about it, then at the end of the day when you're going in there to wash your face and brush your teeth, you see that word again. And you go, hey, how did I do

today? Did I do okay? If you didn't do okay, it's a chance for you to go, okay, how can I change it so that tomorrow I have more of whatever word I've got written there, right? Did I put too much on my plate? Did I stress myself out? Did I, what was it? If you did do well, then it's a moment to celebrate. But here's the thing. It's a dry erase marker. So then you just take a little, you know, piece of toilet paper, wipe it off, clean slate for tomorrow. And tomorrow is a fresh, brand new day. So treating each day as a gift is, I think, so important. And yes, I love what you said there. First of all, I love what you said about how you got quiet, because that's how we really know. It's when we're quiet. It's not more in the hustle and the bustle and we're running around and

we feel like it in the middle of the tornado. It's when we're quiet and we ask ourselves, what do I really want? And then why do I want it? Why do I want it? And it's going to change. I mean, who you are today is vastly different than who you were ten. years ago. And I mean, it's a whole different person than you were 20 years ago. So if you had the same vision of who you wanted to be 20 years ago as you have now, you have any change. You haven't evolved. You haven't grown. So that is definitely going to change. And so I, you know, I changed my day. My day. I changed my word each morning. But when I think about where I want to be, I do that each quarter. I set aside a half day and I dive into do I like where I am.

Am I happy? What does it look like? Where do I want to be? Do I like the trajectory? And if I don't, I change it. It really is that simple. You make a few tweaks and changes. Often it's just those couple of small things. And, you know, create that vision of where you want to go. I think so often we kind of put our lives in autopilot. And instead, if you're doing these check-ins with each day choosing an emotion and once a quarter checking in, hey, do I like, does, you know, a lot of people at this time of year are choosing a word of the year. My word of the year for this year is effortless. I want things to feel effortless. And so every day I'm asking myself that question, is this effortless? How am I feeling? When I get to the end of this first quarter in March, I'll say, does that word effortless still fit? Is that still what I want? I'm not locked in. That doesn't have to be my word for 12 months. I'm letting that be my word for this quarter. And then maybe I'll go, hmm, I do like this. This is good. I like where I'm going. And I'm going to continue with that. Or maybe I say, oh, I want to change my word.

I want to change my theme. And I'm going to change it. Because here's the thing. Life is choose your own adventure. You get to choose. You get to pick. It's really making the decision to make the choice. That's the difficult thing, especially if you haven't been making that choice in the past.

It's stretching that muscle a little bit. Yeah. Dreaming and making real goals is something that a lot of people don't allow themselves to do, I think, Sometimes when I ask people, I'm like, oh, like, what are your big goals for this year? I'll hear things like, I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to, you know, organize the kitchen. And to me, I used to plan and dream in that same way. It's so like, it doesn't open you up for a lot of daily things that you can do. Today, you can't lose 10 pounds.

That's difficult. Right? Today you can't get this one thing done. But when I started focusing, I love that you call it a North Star too, because, man, this really helped me. I want to be a healthier person. Yes. That opened up my day.

It opened up that I could take a step towards a goal or I want to be a person who's in control of my home. That is very different than I want to organize the kitchen. It still includes organizing the kitchen. Right. But it also opens it up for growth and allows me to have flexibility in what I do every day, but still giving me that North Star direction. So on the days where I'm like, I'm not feeling super energized today, where I'm low energy or whatever, I'm really busy, I can do like, well, maybe I'll choose an apple instead of the chocolate bar for a snack. I'm still working towards the goal without it feeling like I've failed that day.

or, you know, I'm just going to, that's okay, today I'm just going to load the dishwasher and start it before I go to bed. It still feels like a win because I'm still working towards that bigger goal. So I think readjusting and reevaluating how we think about our dreams and goals is also really important. Absolutely. I love, I love what you're saying here because I wholeheartedly agree with that. because I think so often we get caught up in the losing 10 pounds. And what happens is we lose the 10 pounds and we go, oh, I still got five more or I still got 10 more, right? When in truth, the goal really is the healthier lifestyle.

So how do you set goals that fit with that? Well, that can be working out an average of three times a week or whatever or making healthier choices with my food, packing a lunch. There's so many things that fit under that umbrella of the lifestyle. So really what you're talking about here is what is that life that you want. When you look at the vision of who you are as a person, it's not about the 10 pounds. It's how do I, again, want to feel? How do I want to feel in my body?

How do I want to feel in my home? How do I want to feel at work? And it's creating a lifestyle to fit that. Yeah, absolutely. It's really, like, and this is the thing, it's really looking at the potential of where you can go. And then figuring out, okay, if that's a potential, what's practical, what can I do today to help me get there? Yeah. I love that, that reframing of how we look at our goals.

Because we do, we get very narrow of like, I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to do, right? I want to run the marathon. I want to. And it's like so much bigger. When you open yourself up to that, life becomes so much more amazing. And it becomes richer because there's more opportunities for you to live with that intentionality. Yeah. Yeah. To be purposeful every day with something else that's still under the umbrella. I have ADHD, so I'm like a ping pong ball, right? I can't do structure in every day is the same like this,

this, this, this. But if I know the general direction I'm moving into, I can have that flexibility every day choosing a small thing. So my whole thing is I just do one thing a day and it can be so small. but I have to do one thing. I don't know why this is helpful for me. I feel like it takes the pressure off of me, right? So I'm still a lover of a to-do list, but those are I want to do. I only have one half to do a day. And this has been like really helpful for me as a person who was chronically

disorganized and never really got anything done to getting a ton done because we all overestimate what we can do in one day and drastically under-usely under estimate what we can do in a year. It's just like that thing seems impossible, but today I'm going to apparently do these 26 hours worth of tasks. Right. I'm just going to like crush it today, but I couldn't possibly do that big thing. Nuts. Why? We're crazy pants. Okay. Myself and my listeners, here's what we want. Give me the steps. So, and I know this is hard and I'm putting you on the on the spot, but if you had three steps, like really tangible, actual things that my listeners could do today, what would those be?

Well, I would say the first thing is to take action. If you feel like, gosh, I don't really like the direction my life is going, take action. That's the first thing, is truly taking 15 minutes. You know, we talked a little bit ago about that idea, Cassidy you said you got quiet and you ask yourself that question. And I talked about each quarter I do this. Take 15 minutes to just ask yourself a couple of simple hard questions. Am I happy? Do I like what I'm doing? And here's the, here's the trick. We have to be honest with ourselves. This is not for anybody else to have to see. Right? You don't have to share it with anybody else. You don't have to post on social media.

What is it you really want? And then, you know, I talked a little bit about getting your time machine and thinking about what did I like before if you're struggling with some of these things. Who was I before? Before I started adulting, before I became a parent, before I got wrapped up in work. What were the things I liked doing outside of that? So spend 15 minutes just asking yourself some of these tougher questions. And that'll start to give you a little bit of clarity of where you want to go. And then I would say a second action for today would be,

I don't care if it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon when you're listening to this. or it's 9.30 in the morning, what's the emotion you want to end your day with? I want you to think about that right now. What's the emotion you want to feel when you're sliding into bed? So I want you to picture yourself in your room, pulling back the covers, slipping into bed, laying your head back on the pillow. I want to feel what. What is it you want to feel? And then start using that trick where it's like, okay, in the morning, I'm going to think about how I want to feel and I'm going to revolve my day. around that, around the emotion. And I'll be honest, especially with productivity, which is a lot of times very masculine driven. We have a lot, most of the productivity experts are men. That is very, very feminine.

That is a very feminine energy to think about emotions. But let's be honest, why are we doing all this stuff if it's not to be happier? If it's not to feel content, if it's not to feel satisfied, if it's not to feel good when you slip into bed, then why are we doing these things at all? So that's a second action I would take. Third action would be, well, I should say pre-order my book because it'll live to you tomorrow. Yes. Because it's coming out tomorrow, I would say pre-order the book. And what I love about this new book that I have coming out is that it's designed so it is very easy.

It's designed so it's 60 days. Each day is a five-minute read. And there are two questions that go or two actions. that you do with each day. So there's a little reading. It's almost like, you know, like a devotional that people have where they, you know, but it's not religious. It's all about creating that purposeful life for yourself. So it's a two-page spread where it's literally it's designed to be five-minute read. I actually, in the audio book, I read the audio book. So you could also just listen to the audio book. Five-minute read, answer the two questions,

and that'll get you started on this journey. It's really designed to be simple. So it's 60 days. So you start establishing these habits so it becomes so much easier for you to feel like you're living a purposeful life. I think people get really excited about productivity. It's like the shiny object that could they come in the rooms. You're like, oh, I want to be more productive. Everybody wants to be more productive. People come in the door and I go, it's really about intentional living. It's really about living a life that is meaningful to you. And let's figure that out. So that's what I love about this new book is that it's so easy to get started. Five minute read and you're off.

I love this. It's like you've made a roadmap for us for establishing a habit because that's where I think I'm a productivity book junkie. I read them all. And what happens is I get really excited and I get super motivated for like three days. And then I go right back to my normal, whatever. I used to be. It's like a flash in the pants, but it certainly doesn't, I think that's a, I think that's a flash in the pan. Either way. I knew what you meant. It worked. It's a lot of,

it's a lot of excitement and that it dwindles off, but you've really broken it down to us in these little daily things that for 60 days, that's going to be establishing a long-term habit. I love that. I'm very excited about this. because it's a very different model than anything I've seen before. And the reading for each day a lot of times is maybe it's a story, or maybe it's like a woman who's like you, who has had these issues, and we walk through it. So it's an enjoyable read.

And so that's what I'm excited about with this new book. Oh, so exciting. So purposeful productivity. I'm going to put the links down below. Definitely I'm going to order that because I'm excited to see long term. and like long-term success, but also really get to know myself a little bit better, which is what I'm hearing that that book is all, that your book is all about is that self-awareness of what really is my North Star. And today, where am I and where do I want to go instead of the big

mountain that we have to climb? You're teaching people to look down at their feet. And I love that. So congratulations. This is exciting. But before I let you go, I can't not talk about disorganization and clutter. So for me, I saw a profound change in my life when I eliminated the noise in my home. So for the first 35 years of my life, I lived in chronic chaos and clutter. And I would fall into bed every night, exhausted, feeling like I worked all. day and I could not tell you what I actually did. Some days I wasn't even doing dishes or laundry, but I felt like I was working and I felt so busy. And then when I finally raged Perch, that's what really happened. If I'm being honest, I was like, I am sick of this. And I just like threw out a bunch of my kids toys and then like got really started trying to organize with dish pans from the dollar store and I was like, if it doesn't fit in the dishpan, it's going in the trash. I was, I was crazy.

I will never forget the feeling after doing this for like a few weeks, just crazy, crazy, crazy, of after dinner looking around and going, what am I going to do? I have nothing to do. Is everything done? Oh my gosh. And it was almost unsettling at first because I had gained time, but I had also lost distractions that I didn't know that I had. So I was no longer stuff shuffling and managing the mess. It's like my house got quiet. And then I noticed my brain was so loud. So have you seen a correlation between, I guess, productivity, even being purposeful, even being mindful and the distraction that your home, the chaos in your home can create and kind of stop us from getting there? Without a doubt, without a doubt, I feel like organization and productivity,

go hand in hand together because when you have chaos in the house and it feels very disorganized, it's so disruptive to your thinking, to your thoughts. It feels louder in there, right? That is the noise. You know, when we're talking about productivity, the noise is all the things on your calendar that you really don't want to do. In your house, the noise is all the things that you don't really love or don't really truly bring you joy. You know, I think about whenever I've organized, Okay, so I just mentioned that, you know, I've been organizing my pantry. I kid you not. I keep opening up the pantry door just to be like, oh, my God, it looks amazing.

Look how good this looks. Like, I love it. It makes me so happy. There's so much joy in feeling like you have ownership over things, right? That you have agency. And when the house is a mess, when your calendar is a mess and you don't feel like you have agency, when you don't feel like you have any sort of control over it, it feels like. like it's controlling you. So that's the question is, are you running your life or is it running you?

Are you running your house or is your house running you? Because all it is is a distraction. And that can feel so overwhelming. I feel like overwhelm is the word I hear from so many people in all walks of life, in all stages, in all industries. How are you feeling? How is this? How overwhelmed? Overwhelmed, right? I often say, overwhelm isn't having too much to do. It's not knowing where to start. So start small. We had three action steps we just talked about, right? If it's talking about your house, how we talked about my pantry, 15 minutes, get started just pulling things out. 15 minutes a day. You don't have to commit to more than that. Just take those baby steps because those small steps lead to bigger steps, which leads to running, and then you're off and going. And that's an

amazing feeling. So getting some of that clarity in your house, in which you're, house looks like is a huge mind lift, right? It lifts your emotions. It makes you feel more of that agency, more that you're in charge. And I think that's really powerful. It is. Yeah. And I love that you're saying the 15 minutes because that's what, I mean, let's get real. That's what all the experts say. But we can be resisting of that because we think, well, what are we going to do? 15 minutes isn't even going to make a difference. And it's just going to be a mess again tomorrow. But the truth is it adds up to so much more than you could ever know. And it also trains your brain. There was every day working towards that goal just doing, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.

What I found for myself is at first I had to set reminders and alarms, like do a 15 minute tidy up. And it was like, it was like, I didn't want to. You know, I did have to force myself. But this magical thing happened. that before I knew it, I'd be like brushing my hair and I'd put the brush in the drawer. Say what? Because like muscle memory, because I had put it up off the counter and put it in the drawer every day when the alarm went off where I had loaded the dishwasher every day when the alarm went off. So now I'm done with a dish. I'm automatically putting it in the dishwasher like a naturally tidy person.

Right. And I know that this is the same method that I need to take for health and fitness where I I'm in the habit of just getting up and maybe stretching. I'm in the shower. I'm going to like touch my toes and do. And then before I know it, I'm just taking all these tiny steps without even realizing it, without having to force myself. And I'm just like, boop, a healthy fit person.

I hope it works like that anyways. No, that's totally how it works. I think this is a thing is we look at people who are highly disciplined and we're like, oh, I want that. And I'll be honest, I don't want to be highly disciplined. That sounds boring. It sounds, sounds really rigid. But truly, it's not discipline you need.

It's tiny habits. It's these small habits. Putting the hairbrush in the drawer, right? While you're in the shower, touching your toes, doing a couple of small things. Once you establish those habits, it's so much easier. And it happens on autopilot. It's automatically happening. And you're doing these things without even thinking.

So yes, 15 minutes feels like it's not very much. And what can I actually accomplish? First of all, you'll be shocked at how much you can. accomplish in 15 minutes. If you're starting to clear something out, you're going to be like, I did all that in 15 minutes, right? But second of all, it is creating that habit, creating these habits and it changes the way that your brain is thinking. And before you know it, 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes, 15 minutes, that adds up. That's a lot of time. It's a lot of time for your body and your mind to shift the way it's been operating and move in the direction. You really want it to move.

So that's why we get clear on what you want, right? Yeah. And so we don't forget to remember your book has these daily prompts for us, these daily like bring us back. So we're going to pre-order your book. We're going to keep it on our bedside table. So every morning we're going to grab it. We're going to be in the habit of doing that.

And you're going to help us refocus and reframe and remember what's important. And you've done the work for us. We just have to like take five minutes and follow along. I love that. Thank you. It really is that simple. And to be honest with you, if you want to establish that as a habit, put the book next to your coffee pot. You don't think twice about going to get your coffee, right? So stack a habit on top of an already existing habit. That's a quick little trick that helps eliminate any friction, right? Yeah. So good. So good. Thank you so much. I'm excited. I'm going to run and pre-order your book. I cannot wait. And I'm going to keep you posted. I'm going to like six months from now. I'm going to be like, look at my butt. I'm going to send you a picture. Clothed, clothed, clothed. From all the squats I'm going to do because I'm like being purposeful in my productivity. And it isn't just about getting traditional to-dos done. It's getting your goal accomplished, working towards whatever it is. And

everybody's is different. Whatever you want to do to feel good about yourself and to have like, Yeah, purposeful productivity. I love it. Thank you so much. Let my listeners know, besides clicking the link in the description, how they can pre-order your book and how they can follow you and learn more about you. Yes. So purposeful productivity is sold anywhere books are sold. Amazon is a very simple, easy choice. You can also go to tanya dalton.com, where I have the book listed there as well. But yeah, if you order it today, you'll have it tomorrow because it comes tomorrow, which is amazing and exciting. And that's the thing is right now as you're listening to this, maybe you've heard a few things that got you fired up and you're like, oh, I like that idea.

Build that momentum, right? Don't stop. Do the next step. And let's move from there. So yeah, Tanya Dalton.com or you can find purposeful productivity on Amazon. Thank you so much. And thank you to all of my listeners. And we'll see you guys next time.