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So far Susan Sanders has created 349 blog entries.

Episode 37: Digital Clutter Deep Dive

As recent at 20 years ago “digital clutter” would not even have been on our radar, let alone a component of a Sustainably Productive life. Cell phones, tablets, laptops, and digital assistants are set up for home or work or both. Kids are getting devices at younger ages and schools are embracing digital learning environments. Episode 24 took a deeper look at physical clutter and this episode will take the same deeper look at digital clutter.

Here is what you can expect to hear on the episode:

  1. Sustainable Sue vs. 50-foot smoking hot Margot Robbie
  2. The rise of data obesity and why it matters
  3. Practical suggestions to start to tame the digital clutter

Search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

By |2023-10-16T12:22:53-04:00October 16th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Episode 36: The Most Productive Thing I Do Each Week

A productive weekly review is part planning session and part retrospective. There are a zillion ways to do a weekly review, of course, but this episode represents the Sustainable Sue-specific steps so that you can start somewhere. It is about consistency and progress – not about perfection. 

Here is what you can expect in this episode:

  1. Why Susan has not showered in way too many days
  2. Why a weekly review is important
  3. Specific steps and questions to guide you through the weekly review process

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

PS: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

By |2023-10-09T11:54:58-04:00October 9th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Value in the “Circle Back”

Let’s take a moment this week to circle back on some topics we covered earlier this year. “Circle back” is one of those corporate buzz words that makes us cringe, roll our eyes or both. But there is some value in revisiting, closing the loop or general follow up. 

How many times do we hear the phrase “circle back” compared to how often we actually do it? I bet the result is not a ratio we would be really excited to publish. This is often a byproduct of busyness. 

Cultivating Relationships

We are going full throttle on the next thing, barely acknowledging or celebrating past accomplishments. We contribute to the meal train when someone has a death in their family, but do we come back the next month – when things get really quiet for them after the funeral rush is over? Or a lighter example, we recommend a book or TV show to a friend, but then don’t every ask if they liked it or not. 

A benefit of the circle back is to create connection with others. Relationships are a component of the Mental Well-being dimension of Sustainable Productivity. Who cares if we have a bright shiny life if we are disconnected from all the people in our lives? 

Some experts say that addiction is partly caused by disconnection and disengagement. Numbing out and escaping your life is also disconnection and disengagement. The antidote for this is connection – the circle back. 

Closure

I wonder if you are like me, making up stories when I don’t have all the details. 

  • Someone does not call me back so I assume they are mad at me (or dead in a car wreck if it is one of my kids). 
  • Silence after applying for a freelance opportunity means either my email is broken or they hate my writing. 
  • Delayed results from the doctor’s office means catastrophic news that they needed to run by another team before breaking to me.

While these are all pretty extreme examples, it demonstrates clearly that the open loops leave room for confusion and chaos at best. Getting in the habit of closing the loop with people can help manage that stress. Surrounding yourself with people who do that for you can help you feel more connected. 

It does not have to be a big hairy deal. Which is what I want to show today with a few follow ups of my own.

Podcast Set up

A few weeks ago I presented a case study on environmental productivity, which showed me podcasting from the floor. I looked on Facebook Marketplace and our local buy nothing group and made the decision to buy new from Target. The price was not going to be much more than what I saw on Marketplace, plus I got what I wanted instead of settling. 

Of course I kept the toy box. Now it is the on deck circle for the next couple craft projects in line. 

Word of the Year 

Next let’s circle back to the word of the year. Oh yeahhh!!!! Remember that? Mine is equanimity, and I have received several opportunities to practice this. Sometimes that has been literally, like the inversions workshop I took and the headstand/handstand practice sessions at home now. 

Sometimes this year equanimity has been more of a figurative approach. Sending our daughter to Italy for study abroad or adjusting to be a single income family were major adjustments that our family has had so far in 2023. I bet with about a quarter of the year left, there will be more um, “opportunities” to practice this mindset. 

Plastic storage containers

Back in February of this year, I was so pleased with myself for overhauling our plastic storage containers. It was such a beautiful results. Well, as we circle back on this one, cue the sad music.

Womp, wommmmmp.

It is again out of control in the drawer. The system for putting away as I unload the dishwasher was not sustainable. I will take a crack at it again this winter probably. But you know what DID work from that exercise? Separating out the to go containers. There have been several times when our young adult kids and their friends came for lunch or dinner. We were able to easily pack up leftovers for them. By re-using these take out containers, it is no big deal if they never make it back to our house (the containers, not the kids).

Those are a few of the circle back items I wanted to share with you today. There is value in revisiting hits and misses. Misses don’t mean the decision was wrong necessarily, just not quite a hit. It just gives us data on where else we might be able to make adjustments. But without that feedback loop that naturally happens with a circle back, we don’t get that data and we blindly stumble along. That is what can lead to frustration and the need to numb out of our lives. 

Sustainable You Reflections

  1. When is the last time you followed up or revisited a goal or decision?
  2. What was your word of the year? It is not too late to resurrect it. Or if it is no longer serving you, let it go.
  3. How can circling back on people, places, things, decisions serve you where you are in life right now?

Until next time remember to create results in a way that you can sustain and that are productive for you. 

By |2023-09-05T10:31:42-04:00October 3rd, 2023|Mental Well-being|0 Comments
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Episode 35: 15 Health and Fitness Habit Change Tips

Previous episodes gave you the background about why each component of the Health and Fitness dimension helps you prevent and recover from burnout. Now get more small adjustments you can make in each area. If you have been struggling to gain traction in any of these areas, this episode is for you. It may just spark an idea that help unlock a new way forward for you!

Here is what you can expect to hear:

  1. How the SPM became a glimmer.
  2. Practical adjustments that you can start today to improve your health and fitness habits.
  3. Free resources to support your habit change efforts.

Download the companion cheat sheet at this link. It includes 15 tips, plus room to add your own ideas.

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

PS: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

By |2023-10-02T11:34:17-04:00October 2nd, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Episode 34: What is Making Life Sustainably Productive This Fall

Basically this whole episode is an SPM – a Sustainable Productivity Moment. We have spent a couple weeks talking about change and transitions. Learn what people, places, products and things are helping Susan create a sustainably productive life. The goal is to highlight small things or adjustments that create a life we don’t feel like running away from. While each Sustainable Productivity Moment may seem small, together they create powerful change.

Here is what you can expect in this episode:

  1. Why it is important to identify what is making life sustainable and productive – in any season.
  2. Three major things helping Susan survive thrive this fall – one in each Sustainable Productivity (SusPro) dimension.
  3. Rapid fire round of small things helping to move the SusPro needle forward.

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

  • Listen to Episode 31: Sustainable Sue Takes a Sabbatical at this link

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

By |2023-09-25T08:12:44-04:00September 25th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Rightsizing the Busyness Thunderdome

Welcome to September, otherwise known as the Busyness Thunderdome. There are approximately 1,269,348 things to do. Plus a fall festival. Which leads to today’s topic:

How to remain whole amidst distractions of life. Let’s rightsize the Busyness Thunderdome.

Current state

If you are like most women in the Sustainable Sue audience, the current state of life looks a little bit like this.

  • The school year is largely underway. At least enough that the newness has worn off and tears have been shed over homework. 
  • Halloween candy and costumes have been out for 2 months already.
  • Thanksgiving decorations and Christmas music are ready to bust through the door. 
  • There are even quiet whispers about New Years Eve plans and your 2024 word of the year. 

Resist the urge to throw up your hands and declare the year over mid-September. Take a deep breath. There are roughly 100 days left of the year – almost a third of the year left. 

This is not an essay about digging in and sprinting to the finish. It is about staying true to your desires to live a life you don’t need to escape when life gets chaotic and distracting. 

Life is made up of big and little things. The trick is to keep them the size you intend them to be. 

Don’t let the big things shrink and float off. 

Don’t let the little things swell into oversized monsters.

Here are 5 suggestions about adjustments you can make to rightsize your Busyness Thunderdome. 

Reprioritize.

You cannot do everything. And more importantly, your kids cannot do everything just because you want them to. Or you think they want to. If you can identify a pain point, I encourage you to start there – even if it means changing priorities. 

For example, you are a family that prioritizes honoring commitments. Yet Johnny cries every time he comes home from soccer games and practices. His coach yells at him for not doing things right, Johnny knows he is not good at soccer, and no one on his team talks to him because they all know each other from being on the team together last year. You have observed all of this to validate Johnny’s concern. Then you have the invisible load of Johnny’s stomach ache most of the day leading up to practice and games and his sadness for the half day after games and practice. You have choices. One of those choices is to reprioritize and let Johnny quit soccer. If your focus is exercise, maybe the deal is trading the soccer team for soccer in the park or back yard with the siblings. 

Removing one thing – even if it requires a priority shift – can help you rightsize the busyness. This is especially valuable when the busyness is not getting the intended result. 

Move.

I know, I hear it already, “I am living in a Busyness Thunderdome, and you want to ADD something?!” 

Stay with me, friends. 

This is not a big hairy exercise program or challenge. This is moving for 20 minutes. It could be a yoga channel on YouTube before anyone wakes up or a walk during that work Zoom where you only sit and listen anyway. What about riding the elliptical or stationary bike at the office gym during lunch. 

Low volume, lower intensity. This is not your exercise, this is moving for the sake of mental health. 

Be still.

Ah, the flip side to suggestion #2. If you though moving was hard, I bet you think being still is harder. I know I do. 

When a friend of mine was getting sober, she had such a hard time sitting still, her sponsor had her literally sit on her hands for 5 minutes. Monkey mind is a real thing. Our society rewards people – especially women – who are constantly in motion. 

It all serves you until it doesn’t. Rightsize the chaos by checking out for a few minutes each day. It does not have to be meditation, just be still. 

Delegate to the floor.

In the middle of a crazy busy season is not the time for the nice-to-have projects. The ceiling doesn’t HAVE to get painted the week leading up to the Fall Festival you are the chair person for. You don’t have to join the meal train during the week you are also volunteering at the church’s Brunswick stew sale. This is not the time to ask your spouse to pick up slack and delegate to her.  Its the time to cut it loose and delegate to the floor. If it is not a hell yes, it is a no.

Jot it down.

Sometimes there are no strategies that can help you in real time. You are blown, but just need to get through it. I have been there too so I know it feels terrible. My strategy for this is to have Today Burned Out Sue help create Future Sustainable Sue. We all have a time machine at our finger tips and it is your email. I will draft an email to myself to not sign up for an annual committee and schedule it to send around the time the email requesting volunteers goes out. I include ALL of my feelings (this is for my eyes only) so I can be reminded of how it feels to be this drained. 

Sustainable You Reflections

  1. How are you doing right now? No, like really – how are you?
  2. Look at your calendar for this week and next. List the things you are doing out of obligation (i.e., the things that are not a hell yes).
  3. Which of the above strategies might work for one of those obligations. 

If you are not ready to take action to rightsize yet, its ok. This exercise will help get you in the mindset to do it next time. 

Until next time remember to create productive results in a way that you can sustain and that sustain YOU. 

By |2023-09-05T08:12:49-04:00September 19th, 2023|Mental Well-being|0 Comments
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Episode 33: Literary Life Lately – Fall 2023

It has been awhile since we have checked in on what’s happening in your literary life lately! Did you know reading books has been scientifically proven to lengthen the number of years you live? Talk about a sustainable way to live! If you or your loved one is a reluctant reader, you will get tips to address this so you too can live a longer life.

Here is what you can expect in this episode:

  1. Why readers live longer and what you can do to join the ranks.
  2. Fun, quirky books Susan completed since the last Literary Life Lately episode.
  3. Two books that were meh, plus one that you need to borrow or buy TODAY.

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

PS: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

By |2023-09-19T18:52:41-04:00September 18th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Episode 32: The Science of Creativity with Tresha Faye Heafner

If you have ever uttered the words,” I’m just not creative!” this episode about the science of creativity is for you. If you know you are a creative being but struggle for consistent time and inspiration to maximize that creativity, this episode is for you.

Tresha Faye Haefner is an award-winning author, creativity coach and speaker. One of the few people to hold a master’s degree in humanistic psychology, with a specialization in creativity studies, Tresha uses research-based methods to help others develop their most authentic creative abilities, both for the sake of artistic expression, and personal well-being. She often tells her classes that she began writing only so she could have the credentials to teach workshops to other innovative writers and poets. Tresha joins the Sustainable Productivity podcast to teach about the science of creativity.

Here is what you can expect in this episode:

  1. Why science and creativity DO mix.
  2. What bumpers and guidelines an award winning, published poet uses to regularly produce work.
  3. Hear Tresha explain how her online writing group is “a gym membership for her muse.”

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

  • Here is a link to a printable version of the “Walk, Don’t Run” poem by Rob Bell
  • Books Tresha mentioned in the episode, plus links to purchase while supporting the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

PS: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

By |2023-09-11T13:53:14-04:00September 11th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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Time Accountant

Do you ever feel like you have a Time Accountant that you have to report to? A (probably imaginary) person who whips out a small notebook, licks a pencil tip and makes notes about everything you are doing? Or not doing? Or could be doing better or faster?

No?

Cool, me neither.

Apparently some people do. This essay is for them.

My first instinct is to kick that Time Accountant in the balls and make a run for it. But alas, a healthier and more Sustainably Productive step would be to reframe what you mean when you say, “I did nothing.”

No one says it better than Elsie Owens:

Now that you have a different way to describe it, maybe telling your Time Accountant that you spent 75 minutes recuperating instead of doing nothing will be easier. Maybe that Time Accountant is you and you need to give yourself permission to take a time out.

If you are feeling like you are running on am empty tank, it is time to recover. Consider this your permission slip.

Sustainable You Reflections

  1. Which of the 10 phrases in the above list seems to fit you the best?
  2. Look at your calendar for the next 2-4 weeks. Where can you fit in this recovery time.
  3. Block it off today.

Until next time remember to create productive results in a way that you can sustain and that work for you. 

By |2023-08-23T19:57:38-04:00September 5th, 2023|Mental Well-being|0 Comments
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Episode 31: Sustainable Sue Takes a Sabbatical

Recorded in segments over the course of her sabbatical, Susan explores the reason why sabbatical is important, what tends to derail good intentions, and talks about lessons learned during the two weeks she pretended she was retired.

Listen at the link below or search for “Sustainable Productivity with Susan Sanders” everywhere podcasts are available.

Links to Learn More

Links mentioned in this episode of the Sustainable Productivity podcast:

We would love to hear from you. Send your feedback on the episode, suggestions for future show topics or guests, and anything else to Susan@SustainableSue.com or in a DM on Instagram.

By |2023-09-04T17:05:35-04:00September 4th, 2023|Show Notes|0 Comments
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