Episodes

Merlin Mann is an Independent Writer, Speaker, and Broadcaster at MerlinMann.com and Cohost of Back to Work Podcast on the 5 by 5 Podcast Network with Dan Benjamin . You can find Merlin’s previous appearance on this podcast here . Covered in this episode: Back to Work Episode 153: ‘Anxiety’s a Goat ‘ Getting Things Done by David Allen ©DavidCo, 2001. The unknown inboxes out there that we don’t know about that keep us up at night The inboxes we have accepted Being sober about acknowledging the kn...

Donald Miller is all about story. He is the author of several books , including multiple New York Times Best Sellers. Donald is also the founder of Storyline , an organization that helps people live better stories. He’s helped thousands overcome a sense of meaninglessness by helping them create their Storyline life plan . If you’re struggling with a sense of meaningless, pick up Storyline today . After studying story for years and successfully using the elements of story to engage customers, Don...

David Sparks is an Orange County, California business attorney, geek, podcaster on the Mac Power Users podcast , blogger , and author who writes about finding the best tools, hardware, and workflows for using Apple products to get work done. David also writes for Macworld magazine and speaks about technology . Mentioned in this episode: Unclutter Drafts Publishing on the iBooks Store Why Email Isn’t Work. (And Why It Is) by Claire Diaz-Ortiz The Mac Sparky Field Guides Series must be good.It loo...

Crystal Paine is the founder of the popular blog MoneySavingMom.com . The mission of the blog is talking about Intentional Finance, Intentional Family, and Intentional Business. Her new book Say Goodbye to Survival Mode is aimed as a help to the super busy, the stressed out, and the overtired. In it, she gives you ways to: Feel healthier and more energetic by setting priorities and boundaries Eliminate stress with savvy management of your time, money, and home Get more done by setting realistic ...

Jon Acuff is the New York Times Bestselling author of four books including his most recent, Start: Punch Fear in the Face , Escape Average & Do Work that Matters . For 15 years he’s helped some of the biggest brands in the world tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose, Staples, and the Dave Ramsey Team. Most recently he’s spoken to hundreds of thousands of people at conferences, colleges, companies and churches. In 2010 he used his influence with his tribe to build two kindergartens in ...

Tony Stubblebine is the CEO and Co-founder of Lift . Before that he was the founder of CrowdVine, and contributor to Wesabe, Odeo, and O’Reilly Media. Lift is an app designed to help you unlock your potential and help you reach your goals. Lift provides you steps and milestones to make goals manageable, daily motivation, and community support. Covered in this episode: Lift 2.0 Positive reinforcement towards goals from an exterior source Cognitive Budget Decision fatigue Habits alleviate cognitiv...

New York Times best-selling author Michael Hyatt returns to the show to talk about his proven, five-step process to help you get clear, get motivated, and get started on the path toward achieving your most important goals. Between being the CEO of a major corporation, building his own personal platform, and managing his family, Michael’s life has been busy. And yet, he has consistently made progress and accomplished goals that he set for himself each year. Covered in this episode: The difference...

Chris LoCurto returns to the show to talk about understanding personality styles. You can listen to his previous episode here , and make sure to subscribe to his blog , podcast , and grab his personality styles video and workbook . Check out @ChrisLoCurto on Beyond the To-Do List talking about understanding personality styles! http://t.co/tOwpPjNFkP — Erik Fisher (@ErikJFisher) November 19, 2013 Tweetable quotes from Chris: If your team doesn't know how to communicate, they’re doing 1/2 the prod...

Ray Edwards is an author, speaker, copywriter, and fellow-podcaster on his successful podcast ‘The Ray Edwards Show’ . Ray has many creative insights in entrepreneurship and productivity. Ray is also the author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller Writing Riches. Please make sure to visit this episodes sponsor captureapps.com/todo for a great way to record audio notes with markers and text! Mentioned in this episode: OmniFocus, GTD, and You – Implementing the Getting Things Done® Trip it Expensify Scan ...

Andy Andrews is an American author and corporate speaker, known for his 2002 bestselling book The Traveler’s Gift . He has written over 20 books and sold more than 3.5 million copies around the world. Andy Andrews is the author of the New York Times bestsellers How Do You Kill 11 Million People? , The Noticer , and The Traveler’s Gift , and is also an in-demand speaker for the world’s largest organizations. The Noticer and The Traveler’s Gift continue to appear on bestseller lists around the wor...

Todd Henry, author of The Accidental Creative and the founder and CEO of Accidental Creative, a company that helps creative people and teams be prolific, brilliant and healthy. He regularly speaks and consults with companies about how to develop practices that lead to everyday brilliance. His new book is Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day . Tweetable quotes from this episode (click to tweet): To experience great ideas consistently, you have to be purposeful in how you structure your lif...

Mari Smith is one of the world’s leading social media strategists and widely recognized as THE top Facebook marketing expert in the world. She is author of The New Relationship Marketing and coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day . Fast Company describes Mari as, “A veritable engine of personal branding, a relationship marketing whiz and the Pied Piper of the Online World.” Forbes recently named Mari as one of the top ten Social Media Influencers. Covered in this episode: There’s no amoun...

Baratunde Thurston is the CEO, co-founder, and hashtagger-in-chief of Cultivated Wit . He wrote the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black and served for five years as director of digital for the satirical news outlet, The Onion. When he’s not delivering keynote talks at gatherings such as SXSW Interactive, LeWeb, and Personal Democracy Forum, he writes the monthly back page column for Fast Company and most recently wrote a cover story for the July/August issue called #UNPLUG where he chronic...

Laura Vanderkam is a nationally recognized writer who questions the status quo and helps her readers rediscover their true passions and beliefs in pursuit of more meaningful lives. Laura is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think , What Successful People Do Before Breakfast , What Successful People Do on the Weekend , and What People Do at Work , now all out in paperback compilation form . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at htt...

Susan Baroncini-Moe is the founder and CEO of Business in Blue Jeans , a business and marketing consulting firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has worked with clients on four continents, in both profit and non-profit industries, with startups and growth companies, in all different industries, and has been mentoring entrepreneurs and small business owners for over fifteen years. We talk about some lessons from Susan’s new book Business in Blue Jeans. Covered in this episode: Business in Blue...

Jeff Goins is a writer, and a second time guest of the show. You can find listen to his first appearance almost a year ago here . His new book The In-Between is just out, and I am especially excited to talk to Jeff about how the subject of waiting impacts productivity. Jeff will be speaking at Jon Acuff’s upcoming Start Conference , which I will also be attending, so grab your tickets now! Covered in this episode: 3 things Jeff needs to do every week: Something to build my brand Something to bui...

Dan and Vanessa Hayes of SimpleLifeTogether.com join us this week to talk about lifestyle design. We touch on routines, priorities, simplicity and other topics. Sponsor: get an intranet you’ll actually enjoy with your teammates from Igloo . Dan provides business development consultation for select business owners/leaders in niche markets by helping them build an integrated approach to enhancing their company’s web presence, customer/community engagement, content development, search engine optimi...

Justin Wise is content marketing practitioner living in Des Moines. He helps people and organizations tell their stories online. He started the podcast #THINKDIGITAL. It’s a fun way to talk about new media and play lots of 90s rap. Covered in this episode: Knowledge Worker Productivity Juicing How Having ADHD Actually Increased My Productivity Productivity recovery Power nap Take a walk To do lists Inbox Zero Beyond the To-Do List interview with Merlin Mann, creator of Inbox Zero #THINKDIGITAL P...

Jocelyn K. Glei is the Editor-in-Chief of 99U.com , Behance’s effort to provide the “missing curriculum” for making ideas happen. 99U has won two Webby Awards for “Best Cultural Blog”. Jocelyn is also the Exec Producer of the 99U Conference , and Editor of 99U’s latest book Manage Your Day-to-Day which will give you a toolkit for tackling the new challenges of a 24/7, always-on workplace. Manage Your Day-to-Day will show you how to: Stop letting other people (and incoming messages!) dictate your...

Robert D. Smith has managed and overseen the career of Andy Andrews , a three-time New York Times best-selling author and in-demand speaker. He has served as a private consultant to numerous best-selling authors, speakers, entertainers, and cutting edge organizations, educating them on the unique methods he has employed to sustain massive success and growth across multiple industries for his entire career. Robert is the author of 20,000 Days and Counting: The Crash Course for Mastering Life Righ...

John Dumas is the creator and host of the extremely popular podcast Entrepreneur on Fire inspiring people daily. John has interviewed a number of people that have been guests on Beyond the To-Do List as well like Chris Brogan , Dan Miller , Cliff Ravenscraft , Michael Hyatt , Michael Stelzner , Farnoosh Brock , Pat Flynn , Jay Baer , Justin Lukasavige , and Erik Fisher , host of Beyond the To-Do List. Covered in this episode: Cliff Ravenscraft’s influence Two different approaches to similar inte...

Merlin Mann is an Independent Writer, Speaker, and Broadcaster at MerlinMann.com and Cohost of Back to Work Podcast on the 5 by 5 Podcast Network with Dan Benjamin . Transcript of this episode provided by Rev Audio Transcription and Document Translation Covered in this episode: Different definitions of the word ‘productivity’ Merlin’s superhero origin story as a productivity student The creation of 43Folders , the transition from then to today Getting Things Done by David Allen ©DavidCo, 2001. G...

Mike Vardy is a writer, speaker and podcaster on productivity. His main site is Productivityist.com . He’s given talks on productivity and technology, as well as several featured keynotes and workshops related to time, task, project, and goal management. Covered in this episode: Productivityist = a person who wants to get more efficient and more effective with their work Working on ways to get better work done How do you determine the need for a new tool, how do you test a tool A More Meaningful...

Bryan Allain is a blog coach, author, humor writer and mammal. He also created and organized the Killer Tribes conferences in Nashville in 2012 and Atlanta in 2013 , where people learn to find their voice, share their passions, connect with others, and grow their brand. He lives with his wife, Erica, and their two children in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Covered and mentioned in this episode: Caedmon’s Call Derek Webb Don Miller Ben Arment Dream Year program Jon Acuff Killer Tribes A tribe do...