453: Family Productivity, with Bonni Stachowiak

Bonni Stachowiak is the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, a professor of business and management at Vanguard University, and my life partner. Prior to her academic career, Bonni was a human resources consultant and executive officer for a publicly traded company. She is the author of The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide*.

• Create margin by under-scheduling family and kid commitments. Our default setting is to have a limited about scheduled on weekends.
• We collaborate on schedules by using shared iCloud calendars as a family. Acuity Scheduling* supports both of us professionally in automating scheduling to ensure conflicts are rare.
• We both use systems to capture ideas and activities before we decide to move on them. The Drafts app helps both of us do this quickly. Bonni keeps a “someday/maybe” list and Dave keeps an “incubation” list.
• We get the kids involved with household responsibilities, so everybody learns to contribute and share daily work.
• Take time to put on your leadership hat to make decisions about what’s important. Then, you can manage from there.

• The Productive Online and Offline Professor: A Practical Guide* by Bonni Stachowiak
• Full Focus Planner* from Michael Hyatt
• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World* by David Epstein
• Who Killed the Weekend? by Katrina Onstad
• Kourosh Dini: Mind, Music, & Productivity
• Streaks app

• Getting Things Done, with David Allen (episode 184)
• How to Become the Person You Want to Be, with James Clear (episode 376)
• Finding Joy Through Intentional Choices, with Bonni Stachowiak (episode 417)

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