Preparing for and returning from vacation or holiday is essential for your productivity and your mental health.

You can control the amount of stress you experience if you are proactive as you prepare for and return from vacation.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE

As soon as you know you're going away on vacation, add this to your calendar.

Then, begin to think about the tasks you do and who you can delegate them. The chances are that you won't find a clone of yourself (wouldn't that be nice?), but...

Do you use the calendar in your everyday life?

What do you put on the calendar?

I want to share several ideas on how to best use the calendar with you.

As a productivity expert and coach, I cannot imagine not using a calendar. A calendar keeps me focused, and a calendar keeps me on task, which is pretty important when you want to be productive.

Don't just put "real events" (whatever that word means) on your calendar: calls with clients, doctor's appointments, interviews, etc. Anything...

A hotly debated topic among productivity experts such as myself is that of notifications.

Should you have any of them enabled? How about just a few? What is the correct answer?

The short answer is: it depends on you.

Here's the bottom line: do the notifications serve you? Or are they a distraction? Only you can make that determination.

I think some notifications absolutely should never be enabled on your phone: social media, email, and news/sports apps (if you even have a news...

If you went to your favorite search engine and you typed in, "what is a morning routine?" or, "how can I create a morning routine that's going to benefit me?" or some other search term, I promise you, you will get so much information that it'll be like drinking from a firehose.

In this article, I'm not going to tell you how to create a morning routine, but rather it's about the four critical elements of a morning routine. If you don't get this, it's going to be a challenge to set up a...

Is it possible to be productive on social media? After all, isn't social media a distraction?

Yes, you CAN  be productive on social media. I know those words don't sound like they go together: productive and social media. But stay with me. I'm going to share with you several ideas about how you can.

The number one tip I have for you is: be the master instead of letting social media be the master of you. I get it, FOMO. It's real.

I also understand how you feel about...

We live in an age where our attention is constantly being pulled in an assortment of directions. Between email, social media, and, oh, look, a squirrel! For you to be your most productive, you're going to have to get and stay focused. Here are five ideas for you to do that.

Number one, minimize distractions.

When I write distractions, most people think of email, social media, and people. But I want you to go deeper than that. What are some other...

You've no doubt heard, what gets scheduled gets done.

In this article, I will give you strategies to plan your time effectively so what you need to get done gets done.

Let's start with the fact that there is no perfect plan. Life will happen. You could dutifully plan your time, and then the internet or your power goes out, or someone gets sick.  But just because life happens is not an excuse for you not to plan. When your plan goes awry, take a deep breath, and go on the best you...

If I asked you to list all the distractions that are killing your productivity, you would find it horrifying because you are distracted way more than you think you are. A lot of distractions are happening behind the scenes without you being aware of them.

Here are nine distractions you deal with every day, along with some ideas on coping with each.

Distraction number one: Email.

Email is not going anywhere. I always asked people who think it is, How do you log...

What do you believe about productivity that is keeping you from being the most productive version of yourself?

In this article, I'm going to bust through three common myths when it comes to productivity.

Myth #1: being busy is being productive.

You can be busy and be productive, but it doesn't mean you're being productive just because you're busy. Think about this: how many times have you been busy doing something? Maybe you're looking at your email, scrolling through social...

If you're feeling overwhelmed with everything you need to do, and maybe you're pulling your hair out (something I can't relate to because I don't have any hair), I'm going to share solid strategies for how you can truly get things done when you're overwhelmed.

Tip #1: Stop.

Stop. You're trying to do so many things for your business, your colleagues, your customers, your family, and you're going seemingly non-stop. To what end?

You are heading toward burnout. I get it; you've...

How can you be productive when working from home?

It doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur or if you work from home for a company, there are things that you can do to be productive working from home.

Number one, have a dedicated space.

If you're fortunate to have a spare bedroom, that could be your work office. Or if you have kiddos at home but they're in school during the day, perhaps you can commandeer their room as your temporary office.

Having a dedicated space puts...

For the longest time, I have been telling you to tell your time where to go instead of wondering where it went.

This is how I approach planning.

Don't go through life.

Don't go through your day.

Don't go one more hour reactively.

Instead, live proactively.

But I want you to ignore that information for right now.

Are you may be saying to yourself, Wait a minute, what are you telling me? Are you telling me not to plan?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm telling you not to do.

Here's why: the...