Balance & Beyond Podcast

Ever wondered why no productivity hack seems to stick?

Three hidden patterns are silently sabotaging your success, and they've likely been running your life for decades.

Forget what you've been told about needing more discipline or a better system. In this eye-opening episode, we expose the myths that are bleeding your productivity dry. That belief that pushing harder will help you "get it all done"? It's costing you precious energy as you tweak emails into oblivion and chase the dopamine hit of "one more thing." The idea that saying yes makes things easier? It's allowing others to spend your time while your own priorities gather dust. And that pride in "working best under pressure"? It's actually an adrenaline addiction that's keeping you trapped in a cycle of stress and burnout.

The truth is startling: most productivity advice fails because it doesn't address the underlying patterns of perfectionism, people-pleasing, and procrastination that have hijacked your focus. These self-sabotaging tendencies aren't character flaws—they're deeply ingrained patterns that can be rewired once you recognize them. As hundreds of women have discovered, once these patterns stop running you, you take back what's already yours: your time, your energy, your focus.

Ready to stop chasing hacks and start plugging the leaks? Join us for the Self-Sabotage Solution starting August 14th—our final round this year—and get the practical toolkit to spot, stop and rewire these patterns for good.  Your most productive self isn't about doing more—it's about freeing yourself from what's been holding you back all along. Sign up now and use code FREEDOM-100 for $100 off! https://www.balanceinstitute.com/control

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

 Jo (Host): 0:03 

So here's the bottom line If these patterns keep running you, you will keep bleeding time, energy and focus, no matter how many hacks you try, and that's exactly why the self-sabotage solution exists. This is a four-week program that starts August 14th. It's the final round this year and you've got days, not weeks, to get in. Inside. You'll get the practical toolkit to spot, stop and rewire the perfectionism, the people pleasing and procrastination that have probably been running you for decades.

The moment they stop, you take back what's already yours your time, your energy, your focus and it stays yours. Hundreds of women have called these tools the biggest game changers of their careers and their lives. Now it's your turn. All the details are in the show notes, including a coupon to save $100. Stop chasing hacks. Start plugging the leaks. I'll see you inside, if you've been telling yourself you just need to get more organized, work a little harder or finally crack the perfect system, you have been lied to. Three hidden patterns are bleeding your productivity dry, and no hack on the planet will work until you cut them off at the source.

I have just finished a five-day smash your to-do list challenge and I had almost 500 people looking for productivity hacks how to get more done, because I know what it feels like to be constantly behind and snowed under and buried by your to-do list. But here's the thing we've been taught these lies. We've believed these myths about how we do get ahead. So today I'm going to bust some of these myths, and these are myths that are quietly, or sometimes very loudly, torching your energy, they're stealing your time and they're wrecking your focus. Once you see each of these, you're not going to be able to unsee them, and this is where everything changes.

Jo (Host): 2:42 

First up, have you ever said to yourself if I just push a little harder, I'll get it all done? I used to be someone I used the word obsessed, let's say very preoccupied with one more thing. Let me get one more email done, let me do one more report, let me do one more iteration and what I found is that I was really chasing this short burst of satisfaction a dopamine hit of doing one more, one more. I had this belief that if I could just do one more today, it was one less I had to do tomorrow. But we all know that the inbox or the notifications never stop.

And this mistaken belief that more means we get it all done and pushing my God, the pushing and the grinding and the grit that I had was insane. That extra little bit, and whether it's the belief of trying to get it all done, but also the tweaking. Have you ever written an email and gone? I'll come back to that later, even though it's done, but you want to revisit it because maybe you haven't thought of this perspective or it's going to this tricky person and you want to make sure that they're not going to get upset about the word you've used. But you don't quite want to send it.

Jo (Host): 4:09 

And I used to have I still remember leaving the office one day 45 emails in progress. You literally couldn't see the tabs on my emails. They were that tiny and each of them were almost finished. I had got each of them to the point of feeling like it was done, but in my head it wasn't done enough. I had to continuously go back and refine and make it that little bit better. I need to do just a little bit more, because it was never good enough.

Jo (Host): 4:49 

This invisible cost of that extra 10% polish is costing you sometimes 50, 60, 70% more energy to tweak and refine the thing that's already done. This is where the 80-20 rule comes into place. 80% of the let's call it content, meaning benefit of the thing that you are producing, comes from 20% of your effort. The remaining 80% of your effort is only getting you 20% and if you have perfectionistic tendencies, which most women do who come to me, this extra 80% of effort is not getting you much at all, but it's costing you so much. It's costing so much productivity, it's costing so much time.

Jo (Host): 5:53 

I know so many women who come in our world and say, gosh, I didn't realize how unproductive I actually was, because all those things that I was finessing, that I was making better, didn't actually matter. No one cared if they were pentagons or octagons on my pitch deck. No one cared if the word said this instead of that. And yet here you are agonizing over every single word. And it's just a note to the team. And it's not just the tweaking, it's the mental gymnastics that you're likely doing with this, and I know because I used to do it and it was okay. So this email is going to these three people, so Amy's going to read it this way, so when she's going to read it, she's okay, well, no, she's going to take offense to that word, so I'm going to, I'm going to change that word. Okay, now I'm sending this to Simon, and when Simon reads this, he's going to, and then this one's going to Bob, and when, oh God, it is insane.

Jo (Host): 6:57 

The gymnastics, the A scenario B, scenario D. And this is why all of this finessing is costing you not just time but huge amounts of energy. And if you go home and leave these emails not finished and not sent, you wake up the next day and slip straight back into that finessing mode without getting anything done. So I want to bust this myth. In fact, I want to blast it out of the water that your real productivity power move isn't in doing more. Your power move is in knowing when to call something done, to stop freaking, tweaking and just send the thing. This is how you're going to unlock so much more time to begin with, all right.

Jo (Host): 7:45 

Myth number two saying yes now will make things easier later. Have you ever said to yourself oh, it's just quicker. If I do it, I'll do it now because then I don't have to worry about tomorrow. I'll just take these action items because then I know they're going to get done and there's no point me following Sophie up later because I know she's not going to do them, saying yes to something because it feels easier in that moment than the awkward no.

Jo (Host): 8:16 

However, when you find yourself deep in someone else's project or fixing and finessing their spreadsheet at 9pm on the couch, when you know that you need to be getting ready for bed because you said yes, and you're stewing in resentment because you know you shouldn't be doing it and you're mad at yourself for saying yes. This is the myth that we have to stop telling ourselves. When we say yes, in those moments we get this immediate hit of relief from the conflict. You say yes to the quick favor. If I had a dollar for every time someone said hey, jo, have you got a minute? It's never a freaking minute. You and I both know that it's usually five and depending on the person, it was sometimes 15. But what I'm doing, instead of being able to step into that conflict at that time, I'm actually stepping into long-term resentment and overwhelm.

Jo (Host): 9:19 

Resentment is an incredibly heavy and toxic emotion and that resentment can become toxic and cataclysmic when you say, speaking from personal experience here, get passed over for promotion because you said yes to doing all these other things from anyone else and then couldn't get as much movement or traction on your strategic thing that you wanted to be doing. You got no credit for all the yeses that you said for everyone else. You got no credit for the late nights on the couch and then you got slapped and denied. This is a huge productivity killer because you are allowing others to spend your time for you. You are saying yes to avoid conflict at the expense of yourself. The cost of this, not to mention your splintered focus, your constant task switching of can you do this for me or let me do that, and your actual priorities are buried under other people's, so you continue to put everyone else's priorities first.

Jo (Host): 10:32 

It's this mistaken belief that it's just faster if I do it myself and we've all heard the whole. You know, teach someone to fish instead of catching the fish for them. But when you're so snowed under and you don't have time to check have they put the bait on their hook correctly and they're not holding it right and you feel like you've got to coach somebody through it, even though you know the long-term payoff is there. When you're in such reactive firefighting mode, it's just quicker to grab the damn line or someone fishing and go look, let me just catch the fish and give it to you and then you're off my list. But we have to decide that that resentment and the productivity killer that this becomes is not worth it. That this becomes is not worth it. The more we can learn to be comfortable with conflict and learn to say no without guilt, without fear, without worrying about letting people down, we are going to free ourselves up so much time. I did a poll in this Smash Challenge where one of the tools I taught people on one of the days was how to say no, and when I asked which of the tools that was the most difficult, hands down, double the nearest answer.

Jo (Host): 11:45 

Saying no continues to be a constant challenge. Okay, if you struggle with this, it's okay. A no is a boundary, and we are terrible at boundaries. We have hidden people-pleasing tendencies inner so many of us, and if you have a reaction to the word people-pleaser, which I used to, oh, I just I'm not one of those suck-ups who, you know, wants everybody to like them, but I promise you, your people-pleaser comes out in ways that you can't imagine and, most importantly, is a huge drain on your productivity. And probably more important than productivity these days is focus. The ability to master your attention is going to be a game changer in the years ahead in terms of how you can focus on what matters. That's all about mastering your attention. But when your attention is hijacked by everyone else and you're constantly hypervigilant for who's going to ask you, what's the consequences of saying no, oh my gosh, what does that mean about me? You are spinning your wheels on levels that you can only imagine.

Jo (Host): 12:57 

Final myth around your productivity. That, I know, is burning you out. Have you ever said to yourself I work best under pressure, I work best for the deadline? Yeah, this is what so many women have to do in order to get anything done. All that is is you, my friend, are addicted to adrenaline and you don't know how to manage your own adrenaline. So you have to wait for the deadline, which is an external thing, in order for you to actually get control of your hormones and control your focus. For many, many of us, this being motivated by a deadline can often come from our student days, whether it was a school deadline or those 3am all-nighters with no-dos and Coca-Cola's that you had throughout your university years. Then this just becomes a pattern that you don't know how to break, and here is why this pattern is not just a productivity killer, but actually a standards and an almost, I'd say, an intelligence killer.

Jo (Host): 14:10 

What happens is when you rely on the deadline so you've got this thing that's due in three weeks, but I could do it today. But oh, look, there's a new episode of something that I like to watch that's just dropped. Or oh, there's a beep, beep, beep. I'm working from home today. There's some kind of machine that needs my attention.

Jo (Host): 14:31 

You procrastinate and you procrastinate and suddenly it's Tuesday and it's due on Friday, and you absolutely wet your pants because you know that you've got at least five days of work to do and you've got three days to do it in. Well, what happens at that point in time is now your fear of missing the deadline becomes greater than your fear of starting. So this pushes you into action. Then this is how your procrastinator and your perfectionist become friends. And this is you tell yourself well, I've got five days work to do in three. It doesn't have to be perfect. So it's the way that you also control your perfectionist, because when you've got three weeks to do it, you can refine, and you can refine and you can tweak. And so all that's going to happen is, if you start at three weeks out, it's going to take you three weeks to do, and you know that, because you're going to tweak it into oblivion, Whereas what happens if you only give yourself three days to do it? Then you're going to actually get it done.

Jo (Host): 15:31 

This gives you a huge adrenaline rush and there is nothing like sliding in under the skin of your teeth and having this. Oh my God, I did the impossible. We get this big adrenaline high, we get this huge dopamine hit and we can feel really good about ourselves, even if you did stay awake until three in the morning. I've seen people come in and then glorify oh, pulled an all-nighter for that report. That was due, I think. Hang on a second. Why are we glorifying this working until 3am business, as if that means that you're a really dedicated person? I just hear that and think you don't know how to manage your time and your procrastinator has you hostage.

Jo (Host): 16:13 

We have to ensure that we learn how to manufacture deadlines that are realistic and able to be met without killing ourselves. We've got to learn to ensure we have buffers for mistakes or curveballs. If we are running on this adrenaline and always working under pressure, we can have higher error rates and we have more reactive decisions, and it pushes our nervous system into this constant fight or flight, because it's always what's the next deadline, what's the next deadline? And this is when so many women come to us. They're on this treadmill of almost being whacked by deadlines, like they put their head down for a second, do the thing, look up and the moment they've just met that deadline, it's like, oh, it's as if you're in the ocean and you were just constantly being hit by waves and you can never, ever, ever get out past the break point.

Jo (Host): 17:11 

These highs that you may feel by meeting an impossible deadline, even though you had the time, is like a sugar rush for your brain. But what you don't realize is after every high, just like if you've had a whole stack of sugar, there's a crash, there's heaviness, there's a crash and your nervous system runs haywire. What you may not realize is when you train your nervous system, just like you train your body to want a sugar high and then the sugar crash, what happens in a sugar crash? You crave more sugar, so you go and get more sugar, and then you crash a sugar crash. You crave more sugar, so you go and get more sugar, and then you crash, and the crash makes you crave more sugar. When you're in this deadline driven I work well under pressure or I need a deadline to keep me motivated you will constantly wait until you have the deadline, so every high is going to precede a crash. Deadline so every high is going to precede a crash.

Jo (Host): 18:11 

We have to get you out of this cycle, because you can just imagine how dangerous this is for your productivity and for your focus. This is why understanding your patterns is so crucial for avoiding burnout and maximizing your productivity, because, believe it or not, to be productive is not to do more. It's to tame your perfectionist so that you manage your time and you stop all these energy black holes of finessing the crap out of everything. It's understanding where your people pleaser comes from, so you stop giving your hours away for free and can actually spend your time on what matters. And the holy trifecta, your procrastinator, when we can help stop you, when we can stop you burning your focus. In short, unsustainable sprints. Everything changes for the better.

Jo (Host): 19:11 

So if you have been trying to be more productive and you've been googling time management and you think that a color-coded calendar or a meal plan is going to save you, you are fixing the wrong thing. These hacks, these tips, will never work because you have not rewired the patterns that are stealing so much more of your time, energy and focus than any productivity hack is going to get you back. This is why you need the self-sabotage solution which we are launching for the final time this year, which kicks off on the 14th of August. You've got just a couple of days to come and join us where you're going to get this practical toolkit that's going to help you spot, stop and rewire these patterns.

Jo (Host): 19:59 

My aim with everything I do is to make you more productive, but the way we typically do that is not by getting you to do more because you can't. It's about stopping the leaky bucket. In the first place, it's about rewiring your brain and your nervous system, so you're taking back what is already yours. This is your time, your energy, your focus. If you don't do that, then you are going to continue on this hamster wheel of looking for more, looking for more hacks, and it never ends well.

Jo (Host): 20:34 

I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of women with this toolkit and I know that these are continuously game changers. I call these the triple Ps of self-sabotage the perfectionism, the people pleasing and the procrastination. And the longer these patterns have run which, heads up, it's probably decades the more they cost you. So if you have been chasing more hours in the day, this is your sign to come join us in the self-sabotage solution and start plugging the leaks instead. You can find all the details in the show notes about how to come join us, including your coupon code to save $100.

Jo (Host): 21:16 

This is one of the most accessible ways for you to come and get some of the most practical tools that we teach women. These tools are continually called game changers rewiring the patterns, making everything different for good. Come join us. I look forward to seeing you in Self-Sabotage Solution.