Ellen Faye
Productivity Coaching, Time Management Consulting and Leadership Coaching for business and nonprofits - get your most important work done. Collaborating with leaders and their teams to become more strategic, focused and productive. Leadership and Board Coaching, Strategic Planning Facilitation, Productivity Coaching and Time Management Consulting, Professional Speaker.
Productivity Coach, Productivity Consultant, Leadership Coach, Time Management Coach, Business Consulting, personal productivity, time management, nonprofit, board coach, collaboration, strategic planning, facilitation, change management, leading productive teams, project planning, board development, volunteer engagement, association management, workplace productivity, executive director.
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Author: Ellen Faye

14 May

Posted at 20:40h in Change, Envision Possibilities, Procrastination, Productivity, Stress Management, Tips for Easier Living

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Be future focused. Remember the why not the what. Motivation follow action.

Here are some of my favorite thoughts on productivity. They aren’t what you typically hear, but they’ve helped me and my clients. I hope they’ll help you too!

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

This is one of the hardest lessons to learn. We often think that because we can do something, we should just do it. But building in a pause and asking whether it’s in our best interest to say yes is a powerful shift. Here are some questions to consider when deciding if the answer should be yes:

  • If I say yes to this, what will I have to say no to in order to make time for it? Remember, time is finite. You can’t keep adding commitments indefinitely. Are you willing to give up time at the gym or working on a project that matters to do this?
  • Is there someone else who can do this well enough? Not only could it be a good opportunity for someone else on your team to learn a new skill, but it might also be better for you to stick to your high-value work and let someone else do this.
  • Will doing this help me achieve a long-term goal or intention? Look at your goals for the year. Does this action support them? If not, the answer is most likely NO.

Retraining your brain around this takes time—it’s a new way of thinking. 

It may be less about setting boundaries and more about considering the future result of saying yes.

This is what we call a “time horizon” issue. If you look at your calendar three weeks from now, it may seem like you have plenty of time, and you might believe you won’t need to compromise your boundaries to say yes. But is that truly the case? You know how often things pop into your life and take up time that you didn’t anticipate.

Ask yourself: How would you feel if you had to fit this event, action, or task into your calendar this week or today? Would you still say yes?  

When learning a new habit—remember the why, not just the what.

When we try to change something, our brain tends to push back. Doing something different— even if it’s for our benefit—can trigger the brain’s threat response, leading to fight, flight, or freeze. That’s not the ideal mental state for making lasting change.

When making a change, it’s natural to focus on the “what”: the specific steps to implement it. For example:

  • “I’ll go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning before work.”
  • “I’ll do my daily planning with my coffee each morning.”
  • “Even though the report isn’t due until Friday, I’ll schedule time to work on it Monday.”

But what often happens? You know the answer! So try shifting your focus. Instead of just the “what,” consider the “why”:

  • “I know I will feel better physically and emotionally if I work out three times a week.”
  • “When I take five minutes to plan today’s tasks, I get more done, feel less stressed, and enjoy my free time more.”
  • “When I give myself time to write, pause, and revise, the quality of my work improves, and I feel more confident.”

Motivation follows action—not the other way around.

I often hear people say, “I just need more discipline.” But I believe discipline isn’t the key. How do you gain motivation? Simply—by taking action. Once you start, it feels good. Completing tasks feels even better. Success breeds success.

Remember, motivation follows action, not the other way around. This makes building habits easier. Give it a try: see if it’s motivation you need, not discipline.. 

A final note:

All these mindset shifts are valuable. But as we’ve discussed, trying to change too many things at once makes it harder to sustain those changes. My recommendation – pick one and test that for a few weeks.  Good luck! 

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, Productivity for How You’re Wired, available on Audible, in print, and as an ebook all on Amazon.

24 Apr

Posted at 13:23h in Meeting Best Practices, Planning Tools, Productivity, Tips for Easier Living

Coaching offers clients a safe space to discuss workplace challenges.  Often our conversations focus on navigating interpersonal conflict, figuring out appropriate levels of information to share within a team, or strategies to get clear on what others are thinking. A great tool I often use in these situations is reframing.

Reframing involves consciously shifting your perspective on a situation. I ask my clients to envision taking the issue out of the anxiety evoking “picture frame” and moving it into a different frame. This technique is helpful when you’re feeling stressed about addressing workplace dilemmas. Here are three examples:

From Fear to Opportunity

Difficult conversations or disagreements can be overwhelming, and many of us instinctively avoid them. However, confidence comes through practice. The more you engage in these necessary discussions, the more manageable they become, frequently yielding easier outcomes than anticipated.

In my early days as a hotel manager, I was nervous about speaking with upset guests. Over time, as I handled these situations repeatedly, my perspective changed. Instead of dreading complaints, I began to see them as opportunities to transform an unhappy guest into a satisfied one. The more complex the issue, the more motivated I felt to resolve it creatively, benefiting both the guest and the hotel.

The Reframe: Shift from a “Fear” frame (“This is scary” or “They’ll be angry”) to an “Opportunity” frame (“How can I turn this challenge into a win-win?” or “This is a chance to understand and improve”). This change can turn anxiety into a proactive desire to make a positive difference.

From Fear to Empowerment and Trust

Deciding how much information to share, especially as a team leader, can pose a challenge. Often, the hesitation stems from a fear of misspeaking or potential repercussions, sometimes fueled by past experiences with rigid corporate communication protocols.

However, withholding information often backfires. Team members sense when something is withheld, and the assumptions made in an information vacuum can be more damaging than the reality. This uncertainty also consumes energy that could be focused on productive work.

The Reframe: Move away from the “Fear” frame (“I can’t tell them anything!” or “What if I screw this up?”). Shift into an “Empowerment & Trust” frame. Think: “Sharing helps my team do their best work,” or “Being open builds trust and stops the rumor mill.” See communication less as a risk and more as your job to help everyone focus and do their best work.

From Fear to Becoming an Information Gathering Detective

If I had a dollar (maybe ten!) for every time I’ve asked a client, “Have you actually asked them what they’re thinking?” and they sheepishly say “No”… well, I’d probably be sending you this blog post from the beach! It’s like we’re hardwired to play guessing games instead of just asking. But imagine how much easier problem-solving could be if we simply asked clarifying questions.

Consider these scenarios:

  • A manager can’t figure out why an employee isn’t following instructions correctly. Instead of assuming incompetence or defiance, what if the manager asked, “Is there anything I can explain more clearly to help you with this task?”
  • Someone worries about how going to the gym after work might impact their partner. Instead of stressing, they could ask, “I’m trying to fit workouts into my schedule. How would you feel about me going to the gym after work on Tuesdays and Thursdays?”

The Reframe: Stop the “I’m scared to ask,” “I should just know,” or “I’ll guess” cycle. Put on your “Information Gathering Detective Hat” frame instead. Asking clear, kind questions isn’t nosy; it’s the quickest and smartest way to understand what’s really going on, solve the actual problem, and strengthen relationships.

Applying the Reframe to My Own Work

Speaking of asking questions, I’ve been blogging somewhat regularly since 2008 – that’s a minute! Sometimes I’m not clear about what would be helpful to you for me to write about.

So, instead of guessing (my old frame!), I’m putting on my Information Gathering hat (my new frame!) and asking you directly:

  • What are your biggest challenges when it comes to productivity or leading others?
  • If you had me as your coach for an hour, what’s the one thing you’d want to tackle?
  • How can I make this little corner of the internet genuinely helpful for you as you strive to work better and live better?

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Please share in the comments below or email me directly at [ellen at ellenfaye dot com]. I’m excited to find out what’s on your mind and address your questions in future posts. 

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, Productivity for How You’re Wired, available on Audible, in print, and as an ebook all on Amazon.

12 Mar

Posted at 12:38h in Meeting Best Practices, Planning Tools, Productivity, Tips for Easier Living

Meetings and breaks are often viewed as disruptions to a productive day, but I’ve come to see them as essential anchors that provide structure to an otherwise unstructured day.

I’m not talking about a day where you have appointments all day long, rather one of those wide open days where you plan to accomplish boat-loads of work and where you see yourself getting tons of tasks marked off your list or make great progress on a big project.  What happens instead is the lack of structure results in lagging, procrastination, and the feeling you have so much time that you don’t move into action.

Don’t get me wrong, I can usually get a ton done on those days designated for “focus” work.  However, my productivity soars when I have a couple of meetings or appointments scattered throughout the day.  Let’s say I have a meeting at 11. Instead of frittering my morning away, my mind knows it has a couple of hours to complete tasks before I have to stop for the meeting.  This does two things:

  1. It pushes me into action much earlier
  2. It pushes me to push towards completion of the task I’m working on before the meeting.

Even scheduling activities like going to the gym can serve as a productivity boost. Actually, I love that as a pusher, since if I want to work another 30 or 60 minutes I can without consequence. It’s the idea that there is some structure in my day to help me be my best and do my best work.

I love discovering new productivity tools, and the stopping point is one such discovery for me. I imagine this is like what Frances Cirillo discovered with his Pomodoro technique.  Cirillo coined the term Pomodoro Technique in the late 1980s when he created a system to help him move through work with greater ease.  He built regular breaks into his work time.  A typical pomodoro (named for the tomato shaped egg time he used…pomodoro is Italian for tomato) is 25 minutes of work, and a 5-minute break  repeated 4 times.  You know when a break is coming, which is helpful  to keep you working.  I personally get frustrated with the 25-minute/5-minute cycle. I’m just getting into flow at 25 minutes and the last thing I want to do is stop. And 5 minutes is certainly not a long enough break for me.  But since we can make our own productivity rules, I changed my cycle to 50 minutes on and 10 minutes off.  You can experiment with this as well.

Incorporating structure into an otherwise unstructured day, along with strategically timed breaks, offers a powerful opportunity to test and discover the ideal amount of structure you need to do your best work and reach your peak productivity.

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, Productivity for How You’re Wired, available on Audible, in print, and as an ebook all on Amazon.

04 Feb

Posted at 11:19h in Focus and Prioritize, Meeting Best Practices, Productivity

If there’s one improvement I could wish for my clients, it would be to spend less time in meetings and more time on high-value work. While I believe meetings are crucial, the real value lies in the ability to act on decisions and initiatives post-meeting. Without this follow-through, meetings become a poor investment of valuable business time.

Assess Your High-Value Work

Not all work is equally important. It is crucial to prioritize tasks that have the most significant impact on reaching your business goals. That’s where your time should be focused. If your days are filled with emails, chats, and long meetings, the essential work driving your success isn’t being accomplished.

Applying the 80/20 Rule for Success

Pareto’s principle, the 80/20 rule, illustrates this concept. If 80% of your results come from 20% of your time and effort, then you should allocate more time to high-value work that directly contributes to long-term business growth. This involves reducing time spent on less impactful activities like emails, drafts, and meetings.

Why 50 Minutes

For a meeting to be effective, there must be time to implement decisions made during the meeting. Clients often rush from one meeting to the next, leaving little time for action, or even to identify actions. This results in pages of meeting notes that are rarely acted upon, rendering much of the meeting’s work useless.

Additionally, the first few minutes of meetings are often wasted waiting for latecomers. If they hang up or end at the top of the hour, they can’t be somewhere at the same top of the hour if they have to go to a different room or office, or even if they one to take one minute to run to the restroom.  When people they are late, they are wasting everyone else’s time. Many times we wait a couple of minutes for everyone to show up, and even if we start on time, then we end up repeating ourselves.

Adopting a 50-minute meeting strategy results in the following improvements:

  • Time to record meeting actions on to-do lists/task management tool.
  • Brief breaks between meetings to refresh and refocus.
  • Prompt arrival at the next scheduled meeting, respecting everyone’s time.

To optimize productivity, I recommend companies implement a 50-minute meeting policy, ensuring meetings are focused, and efficient, and result in actionable outcomes.

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, Productivity for How You’re Wired, available on Audible, in print and as an ebook on Amazon.

07 Jan

Posted at 11:09h in Change, Productivity, Stress Management

One of the most interesting aspects of my work is recognizing trends. When I consistently hear similar things from clients, my brain starts making connections. I suppose this is what is meant by the term “thought leader”… at least, I hope so.

Here’s one of my recent observations: Clients who work from home prefer to talk at the end of the day, while those who go to the office seek recharge time. Challenges often arise in households when there are both remote workers and in-office workers.

I recall reading that in the “olden days,” when men went to the office and their wives stayed home, it was suggested that wives give their husbands time to unwind before discussing their day and children. While this may sound outdated, in essence, when we remove gender roles, the concept is not far off.

I notice that individuals who work from home yearn for social interaction. They lack the same level of connection as office-goers. Regardless of your beliefs about productivity, from a social standpoint, people working alone desire a sense of belonging. Studies show that this feeling of connectedness enhances engagement and commitment to work outcomes.

So, what is my recommendation? In coaching, we emphasize that change starts with awareness. We cannot improve something we are not aware of. Therefore, let’s recognize that those working alone have different needs than those who are in an office environment all day.

What comes next?

After creating awareness, we need to embrace this new idea. This involves experimenting with various solutions. It requires collaboration between at least two individuals, with communication as the initial step. This includes acknowledging needs, fostering an environment where needs can be expressed, brainstorming solutions, testing them, evaluating, and committing to the ones that work.

My clients have reported increased happiness by intentionally incorporating relaxation time, exercise time, and quiet time for partners who go to the office, as well as scheduled talk time for those working alone.

For individuals who live alone and work remotely, a proactive approach to combat isolation is vital. What social opportunities sound fulfilling? Can you join a club, engage in activities, set goals to see friends or family regularly, or schedule phone calls or virtual meetups?

One thing is certain – being proactive and intentional in adapting to this new working dynamic definitely improves work and life.  

Unlock your potential with my book Productivity for How You’re Wired! If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, available now on Audible, and in print and as an ebook on Amazon. Don’t miss out—I’m excited to share these transformative strategies with you!

09 Dec

Posted at 14:05h in Change, Envision Success, Productivity, Stress Management

Lately, at the end of my coaching sessions, a natural follow-up to discussing takeaways and actions with my clients has been asking them if there is a specific word or phrase they want to keep in mind to help them engage with the session’s actions. The word that keeps resonating with me is “mantra,” and I include it at the top of my clients’ session notes as their chosen mantra.

This practice has proven to be an effective tool for my clients’ growth, and it’s something you can also use to keep key ideas and actions top of mind for yourself. Central to this concept is the incorporation of your new mantra. I encourage my clients to commit to a technique that keeps this idea visible as they work on developing this new habit. Some approaches we’ve explored include:

  • Placing a post-it with the mantra written prominently near their computer.
  • Creating a graphic with the mantra as their desktop background.
  • Setting an alarm with the mantra as the label.
  • Adding it to the top of their daily calendar as an all-day task or event.
  • Using apps like Streaks for daily reminders.

The idea is that to establish a new habit effectively, we need consistent reminders that actively prompt us to move into action. This approach is far more reliable than simply relying on memory to remember.

The term “mantra” originates from the meditation practice of repeating a word or phrase to calm the mind and reach a meditative state. While my use is not about meditation, it indeed aims to bring calmness to the mind. Stress can push our brains into fight, flight, or freeze mode, hindering our productivity and keeping us from using our thinking brain. A habit-building mantra can provide comfort and stability during challenging growth phases.

Examples of mantras my clients have crafted include:

  • “Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.”
  • “Fear means I’m being brave.”
  • “I’m already everything I want to be.”
  • “Be patient with myself, I’m doing the best I can.”
  • “I fully embody and own my lifestyle without guilt.”
  • “What I have isn’t due to luck; it’s because of hard work.”
  • “Simplify: How can I make this easier?”

To create your habit-building mantra, start by identifying a new routine, habit, or action you wish to develop. Craft a concise phrase to motivate you into action, then select a method to help you remember to stay on track.

Matra is powerful.  What a great support to help you work and live better. 

Unlock your potential with my book Productivity for How You’re Wired! If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, available now on Audible, and in print and as an ebook on Amazon. Don’t miss out—I’m excited to share these transformative strategies with you!