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My guest for Episode #314 of the My Favorite Mistake podcast is Mark Struczewski, also known as “Mister Productivity.” Mark is a Houston-based productivity coach, speaker, and host of The Mister Productivity Podcast, with over 1,300 episodes to his name. He helps overwhelmed professionals cut through distractions and focus on what truly matters. But before becoming a go-to expert on focus and effectiveness, Mark made a classic entrepreneurial mistake: thinking that launching a website would instantly attract a stream of clients. Spoiler alert—it didn’t.
Mark’s favorite mistake was stepping into solopreneurship with unrealistic expectations. After being fired from his corporate job in 2005 and officially launching his business in 2011, he quickly found himself burning money on coaches, conferences, and tools he didn’t need—without any real plan or payoff. The financial pressure eventually forced a mindset shift: instead of trying to do everything, he began focusing on the right things at the right time. That turning point not only saved his business—it became the foundation for his productivity philosophy.
In our conversation, Mark shares hard-earned lessons about clarity, focus, and sustainable productivity. We explore how he helps clients move past the illusion of “busyness,” why joy is an essential ingredient for productivity, and why it’s okay to slow down or even stop when your body and brain need a break. Mark also offers insight into how he uses tools like ChatGPT to streamline content creation and why being intentional with time is more powerful than packing your schedule. Whether you're a solopreneur or leading a team, this episode will challenge how you define and pursue productivity.
Questions and Topics:
- What’s your favorite mistake from your career so far?
- Where do you think your unrealistic expectations as a solopreneur came from?
- How did you decide to stick with entrepreneurship instead of returning to corporate life?
- What specific changes did you make to turn things around in your business?
- How did you learn to focus instead of trying to be everywhere online?
- What’s the difference between productivity and effectiveness in your view?
- How do you help clients decide what’s truly worth their time?
- Can you share your definition of productivity?
- How do you tailor your coaching to each client’s unique situation?
- Why is clarity such a central part of your productivity approach?
- What’s your advice for getting clarity when feeling overwhelmed?
- How do you define success without falling into the “always working” trap?
- What are your thoughts on rest, recovery, and avoiding burnout?
- Do you believe productivity levels naturally fluctuate day to day?
- How do you personally manage high- and low-energy days?
- How do you use LinkedIn and DMs to build real relationships?
- What’s your take on scheduling content in advance vs. staying spontaneous?
- Can you tell us about your new ebook and how you used AI to create it?
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Automated Transcript (May Contain Mistakes)
Here's a cleaned-up version of the transcript, with spelling and minor errors corrected:
Mark Graban: Hi, welcome to My Favorite Mistake. I'm your host, Mark Graban. Our guest today is Mark Struczewski, known as Mister Productivity. That's easier to say than Struczewski.
Mark Graban: Mark Struczewski is a Houston-based productivity coach and podcast host. With over 1,300 episodes, Mark brings boundless energy to helping professionals conquer the state of overwhelm. He draws on his daily running routine and his corporate experience. Mark offers practical strategies to transform distractions into focused action. His podcast is called “The Mister Productivity Podcast.” He's also written an e-book, it's available through his website. It's called Productivity Power Moves: Crush Distractions and Get More Done.
Mark Graban: So, Mark, welcome to the podcast. How are you?
Mark Struczewski: I am so thankful to be here. I'm excited for the topic we're going to talk about because I think in this day and age, a lot of people shy away from talking about their mistakes, but I don't, because if I can help one person as a result of me being on your show, to me that's a win.
Mark Graban: Yeah, I agree. I appreciate you and everybody who comes on here and is willing to have those conversations listening to this podcast. Hopefully, from the listener standpoint, it's not a distraction. It's something that's going to help them boost their productivity. An investment in future productivity.
Mark Graban: Good assumption. Good guess.
Mark Struczewski: Oh, 100%. I think you nailed it. Right on, right on. Ahead of the nail.
Mark Graban: Yeah. So I look forward to talking about productivity with you, but as we always do here, Mark, of the different things you've done in your career, what's your favorite mistake?
Mark Struczewski: When we had the pre-interview call, I admitted to you, I'm like, “Which one is going to be the number one?” And I'd have to say when I was fired from my corporate job back in 2005, and I went on this wonderful journey called being a solopreneur. Yeah, I really thought that when I hung my shingle out in January 2011, that's when I actually launched my website. I thought I would have tons of clients and people would just be lining out at my door and like, “Hey, we want to give you money.” That didn't happen.
Mark Struczewski: It was a lot more work. So I think the mistake was I had unrealistic expectations.
Mark Graban: So where do you think those expectations come from? You're an optimistic guy. You say there's other solopreneurs out there that seem really busy. I'm curious to hear a little bit more about maybe where the expectation came from and how long it took to sink in that, “Yeah, this is hard.”
Mark Struczewski: I think I was telling myself stories that when I became a solopreneur, it was going to be easy. I don't think I ever ran across anyone on social media or email or in real life that said, “Hey, becoming a solopreneur is easy. Here are three steps. Do these. You'll become a multimillionaire.”
Mark Struczewski: I don't think that was the case. I think it was… I didn't know. There's a saying that you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know.
Mark Struczewski: I just thought, “Wow, being my own boss, this is going to be awesome.” And I'm sure I read or saw some things out there that said, “Hey, when you are a solopreneur, it's a lot of work.” But I think it kind of like, “Not me, I'm going to be different.” Well, guess what?
Mark Struczewski: I was not different.
Mark Graban: Yeah. So what did you do to adjust? I mean, there's always this risk of, like, you know, well, we double down on the wrong approaches. Did you think through sticking with it versus giving up and going back to corporate, like, how did you process or work through that?
Mark Struczewski: There were numerous times when I just wanted to give up, because in the early days, I was spending money my family didn't have on things it turns out I didn't need. But I didn't know. I was just like, “Oh, here's…” I was like Oprah, like, “Here's some money for this coach, and, you know, here's some money for this conference, and here's some money for this course.” And I didn't know what I didn't know.
Mark Struczewski: And what took me to the point where it was time to wake up was when I put our family in a financial bind. We were getting to the point where there was way more money going out than was coming in. And my wife was working full time and she was paying the household expenses and also paying some of the business expenses. And when I got that point, I'm like, “Okay, this is not sustainable.”
Mark Struczewski: “I've got to stop. And I got to rethink what is the path for me to succeed.” And once I realized that, my trajectory changed.
Mark Graban: So tell us more about that path. Was it a matter of, if you think of like, sales, a marketing and sales funnel, was it a matter of getting more people to your website, reaching out to more people? I mean, how did you kind of work on solving that? Or was it a matter of trying to turn leads into closed sales?
Mark Struczewski: No, it's actually getting more focused. So I was thinking I was Gary Vaynerchuk with a team of 15 people, and so I was creating content for all the platforms. I was creating an email newsletter. I was doing all these things, and I was so scattered because I was like a juggler trying to juggle like 18 balls at once instead of focusing on what are the one, two, maybe three things I should focus on. And once I started really focusing on those things, that's where I channeled all my efforts.
Mark Struczewski: That's when it changed. Because when you go out there and you're like, “Oh, yeah, well, there's all these social media platforms. They're all free. I can post on all of them.” But should you?
Mark Struczewski: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. So for me, it came down to focus.
Mark Graban: So there's kind of a sub-mistake within the mistake we're unpacking here. So, I mean, it seems like with productivity, whether it's you and your business, and maybe this comes down to definitions of productivity and we can dig into this, but it seems like maybe the risk of doing more, like, “I'm productive. I have more output of content and platforms and doing more,” versus doing the right things, like productivity versus effectiveness. Different words. What are your thoughts on kind of in general for people where maybe trying to just flat out do more turns out not to be the right approach?
Mark Struczewski: You can be busy being productive, but just because you're busy doesn't mean you're being productive. And I like the analogy of the hamster on a wheel, was me. I was running really fast, but I wasn't going anywhere. And I had to stop and go, “Okay, I know where I want to go is what I'm working on during the day moving me toward or away from that goal?” And when I looked at… when I took some time, I got off the electronics, I went out my backyard, I grounded my feet, sat in the sun, and I journaled.
Mark Struczewski: I'm like, “What should I be doing?” And I crossed off more things on my list than I actually left on my list. Because we're doing too much.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Mark Struczewski: And most of the things I crossed off were not moving the needle. I needed to move that needle. And I wanted to focus on a few things and do them very well.
Mark Graban: Yeah. And I mean, I've heard people talk about the idea of not just having a to-do list, but having a, you know, a stop-doing list or a not-do list or even, you know, the context. We've passed January now. But, you know, sometimes people start the year with the resolutions of the things I'm going to start doing.
Mark Graban: I've heard others advocate for that being a time to reflect and say, “Well, what are the things I did last year that I should do less of?”
Mark Struczewski: I don't do resolutions because “I'm going to lose weight,” “I'm going to stop smoking,” “I'm going to start going to the gym more.” I believe in goals, specific goals. Like a goal that I just came up with two days ago is, “I'm a daily runner,” as you mentioned, and I've been running 5Ks lately. I've never run a 10K. Now, I don't do it competitively.
Mark Struczewski: I run first thing in the morning. I do it on my own. But I've never run a 10K. So my goal sometime this year is to run a 10K. I live in Houston, and it will not be in the months of June, July, August, September, I can guarantee that much.
Mark Struczewski: But I want to run a 10K, which is 6.22 miles, just so I can say I did it. But that's a definitive goal. Either I will run a 10K or I won't run a 10K. It's not like, “Well, maybe.” It's a yes or no. It's very binary.
Mark Graban: And that time spent running is important, even if it's not quite quote, unquote, productive. Or am I looking at that wrong?
Mark Struczewski: No, it is very productive. And one of the things I've been doing lately is actually leaving the headphones behind. So no audiobooks, no podcasts, no music. And what happens is, it's just me running. My brain is free to give me all these ideas and think about it.
Mark Struczewski: And when you have something in your ears all the time, your brain is trying to process that input instead of ideas. So I tell people, you don't have to be a runner. You can be a daily walker. But when you leave the headphones behind and you go, “While I'm on this run, while I'm on this walk, I want to figure out a solution.” Now your brain has that space.
Mark Graban: Yeah.
Mark Struczewski: And it is being very productive.
Mark Graban: Yeah, I'm a walker, never been a runner. I do have that habit of listening to podcasts, and I've been curious. I think as the weather warms up here in Cincinnati, this is the time of year opposite of Houston, where it's harder to go out and walk. Anyway, I wanted to experiment for what some people refer to as walking meditation, or it's just this idea of you got to pay attention to your surroundings, and you're not closing your eyes, but using that time to think, to reflect, and, you know, you've written, I've written. You know, some folks will ask about writing productivity.
Mark Graban: “How many hours did you spend working on the book?” And I'm like, “I don't know,” because the time I was out walking and thinking about it, does that, does that count? I don't track any of that that closely. So maybe I'll try that. Whether it's in the gym, on a treadmill, or when I go and walking, walk and think instead of walking and just taking inputs.
Mark Struczewski: It's so powerful because I was born in 1965, so I remember when there wasn't a Walkman, there wasn't streaming, and if you went outside, you were with your thoughts. And I think now in 2025, we always feel like we've got to be on our technology. No, maybe you give your brain space to just think. It's okay. One of my favorite books I've read is Deep Work and Cal Newport talks about embracing the boredom.
Mark Struczewski: So many people are afraid of being bored. This day and age, always got to be doing something. But your brain is probably saying, “Hey, let's just be bored.” Yeah, I mean, I remember my… I would complain to my mother, I'm like, “I'm bored.”
Mark Struczewski: She goes, “Being bored is good for you.” I didn't realize how wise my mother was.
Mark Graban: Yeah. And, and that's coming from Mister Productivity that it's okay to be bored. So when would you say, you know, for your business? When would you say, what year was it when you feel like you got things figured out?
Mark Graban: You hit your stride, you got cooking, you figure, “Okay, yeah, this is, this is good.”
Mark Struczewski: What year are we in? No, I'm just kidding. I think it was…
Mark Graban: I'm not saying you need to have it all figured out.
Mark Struczewski: Anybody who says they've got it all figured out is not telling the truth.
Mark Graban: Right?
Mark Struczewski: Well, we're in 2025. I would say probably 2021 and 2022. Around that time is when it finally, finally figured it out. Because prior to that, like I said earlier, I was the three Cs: coaches, courses, and conferences. I was just spending money and I didn't have any clarity, which I guess is another C on 2122.
Mark Struczewski: That's when I'm like, “Okay, now I understand what I need to be doing,” and I never want to arrive, so I'm always myself. I'm always pushing the goalpost further out because I don't want to say, “Hey, I made the touchdown. Game over.” So I constantly want to get better and better. And I think if you ever get to a point where you settle, I think it's a mistake.
Mark Struczewski: And I never want to retire because my father, my late father was 82 and he passed away. And even though he'd been retired for 20 years, he was very active. And I also know people who they get up all day and they just watch TV all day. And I'm like, that talk about boredom.
Mark Struczewski: That has no interest in me whatsoever. So I want to be active. I'll be 60 in June of 2025, and I feel like I'm 42, but I love what I do. And I think if people start figuring out what they love to do, life is not a chore anymore.
Mark Graban: Yeah. So you get to a point when call you Mr. Longevity, that the productivity and keeping active, I think would be good for you. Our guest again here today, Mister Productivity, Mark Struczewski.
Mark Graban: I want to talk. Let me start off with definitions. I mean, productivity is a word people know and hear, but they might have different definitions of it. First off, how do you define productivity?
Mark Struczewski: Doing the right things at the right time, and you need both components. So you could do the right thing at the wrong time, or you could do the right at the right time. You do the wrong thing, but you got to do the right thing at the right time. And this is one of the things I love about my job as a productivity coach. Everybody's different.
Mark Struczewski: I think if it was an assembly line or boilerplate coaching, I would have quit long ago. I love the fact that everybody is different. This person may be single. This person has four kids under the age of six. This person has two kids in college and two kids at home.
Mark Struczewski: I love that because, number one, it keeps me sharp. I can't just give the same advice to everybody. But more than that, I think I identify as Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and I love what I do. And as you mentioned, I'm very optimistic. I think that is a key to anyone's productivity.
Mark Struczewski: So if you were at a job, you're making a lot of money, had a lot of perks, but you're like, “Oh, I gotta go to work again.” Would it be better? And this is what I want to challenge the listener to think about. Would it be better to go do something else? You make less money, have less perks, but you're happy because then your productivity is going to do the proverbial hockey stick and shoot right up.
Mark Graban: Yeah, yeah. And when you say it's, it's interesting to me. You talk about clients being different. When you're working with a client, how much do you try to understand their situation up front? To tailor the advice versus trying things and, and, and learning through, if you will, mistakes or failures?
Mark Graban: Does, does that help you refine the way, the way you're coaching somebody? Do you let them experiment and discover what works for them?
Mark Struczewski: The first call I have with every client is called a strategy session. This is where I find out, where are they now and where do they want to go? What's your home environment like? Do you have any health issues? Do you have a financial issue?
Mark Struczewski: You know, all these things. Because if I don't understand all that stuff, it's called getting clarity. It's very hard for me to take you to where you want to go. My wife and I are empty nesters. We just have two dogs.
Mark Struczewski: And if I have another client exactly like me, I know I can challenge them in certain areas. But if you've got four kids under the age of six and they're all homeschooled, well, now it's a little bit different. So the first call is all about understanding what is the client dealing with now and where they want to go. Is that even possible this year? Maybe you need a five-year or ten-year plan.
Mark Struczewski: So I have seen that there's a pandemic in our world of lack of clarity. People think they have clarity, they really don't. And I can tell that because when we get on a call and I start asking these thinking questions, they're like, “Huh.” Whenever I hear the word “huh,” I'm like, “Okay, you haven't thought about this a while.” And that call at the end of the call, they feel mentally exhausted, but they feel excited the same way because they say, “I've never had this much clarity before.”
Mark Struczewski: And it's really important that wherever you want to go in life, you have to get clarity. Where you are now, where you want to go, and what are the steps to get there.
Mark Graban: It seems like that clarity is necessary for us to decide the right. When you say doing the right thing at the right time, that's a judgment call. How do we decide what's right? And imagine without clarity, everything seems right or nothing seems right.
Mark Struczewski: Yeah. Like I said, getting clear can apply to every industry, every person in this world. And if you look at the high performers in our world, and I like reading about them, I like studying them. I can sense that they have a high degree of clarity. You look at a Brendan Burchard or Grant Cardone, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, they're really clear what they want to do today, tomorrow, this quarter and this year.
Mark Struczewski: And you look at other people like, “Well, I want to watch the show on Netflix.” I'm like, “Is that really getting clear?” And so there's a very distinct dividing line. I'm not talking monetarily, there's a distinct dividing line between the high performers and the people who are like, they're excited about a three-day weekend or they're excited about five o'clock. There's a big difference.
Mark Struczewski: And I just want people to think about how clear they are. And if they're not clear, here's an easy way to get clear. You turn your electronics off, get yourself a notebook, a pen and maybe a bottle of water. Go someplace quiet and just do a brain dump and just say, “What do I want?” And it doesn't cost you anything but your time.
Mark Struczewski: But people want the pill, people want the shot. Just tell me. I can't tell you what to do. That's why on my show I never give absolutes. Because if I say do this for two days, people will literally do it for two days.
Mark Struczewski: What, it may take you four days, but it may take this other person one day. So I don't like to deal in absolutes, but I think getting away, getting quiet, don't have your phone on, and just asking yourself right at the top of the piece of paper, “What do I want to do in my life?” And just brainstorm. That's going to get you further than if you endlessly scroll on social media.
Mark Graban: So that seems like a much more holistic approach to productivity instead of like an approach that, you know, might just try to squeeze more hours or, you know, into the day or cutting out minutes of wasted time, like what, what I'm hearing from you and I have a much better appreciation for now is you might call it like, you know, directed productivity. Back to the idea of again, like not just doing more, but as, as you put it, doing the right things at the right time.
Mark Struczewski: I think I'll give you an example. Yeah, I'm a huge European football fan. In America we call it soccer. And every once in a while my team will play an afternoon game. Now it's eight o'clock in the evening over in England, but over here it's two o'clock and people ask me, “Oh, so Mister Productivity, you watch football during the day?” I say, “Ah, but I get up at 4:30, 5 o'clock and I work all the way up until 2:00 o'clock. So I'm putting a full day's worth of work, I'm getting stuff done.” I'm not just sitting there watching football all day. So I believe, because I believe joy is a key component to productivity. When I watch football, except when my team loses as they did yesterday, it's not so joyful.
Mark Struczewski: But football brings me joy. When you're joyful, you tend to be more productive. So I don't want you to judge people and say, “Oh, you should not be watching Netflix at lunch.” Why? If you, if you worked real hard that morning and you want to watch an episode, not seven episodes, an episode at once, then go ahead and do that.
Mark Struczewski: I don't want people to overthink it and certainly don't overcomplicate it. You need to figure out what brings you joy and do that so you get more things done.
Mark Graban: And it seems like the risk of, you know, productivity being like this 24/7 grind, work, work, work leads to burnout. And then that doesn't help your productivity over time. And there, there I saw people, you talk about soccer, football. You know, I saw a couple people post about American football last Sunday as we were recording. This was of course the Super Bowl.
Mark Graban: It almost felt like parody of people posting on LinkedIn. Like, you know, “I'm the sales grinded out productivity guy. Work, work, work.” And when you were watching that football game, “I was cold calling people.” And for one I'm like, “Who in the world is answering a cold call or appreciating a cold call during the Super Bowl?” Like I, it's hard to tell like what, what was sort of like performative satire versus like did, did he really, did he really do that? It might be misplaced productivity.
Mark Struczewski: Well, I think people like to brag, like, “I worked, you know, 20 hours a day or seven days a week.” Yeah, but burnout's a real deal. So back in the summer, 2023, I went on this rampage where I said, “I'm gonna run a 5K every day for as long as I could.” And I think I made it four and a half months. I was burnt out.
Mark Struczewski: I almost ended my run streak because I focused more on the doing every single day instead of listening to my body. And if I think about it, when I was probably about two thirds of the way through, my body was going, “Oh, dude, we need to take a day off now.” A day off for a daily runner means you run one mile.
Mark Graban: That's it.
Mark Struczewski: That's, that's. And you run it slow, but you keep the streak alive. I've been running every day since August 29, 2017, but I got burned out because there was a lot of days, especially the last third of that 5K streak. I'm just like, “I got to get that number increase. Another number, another number.”
Mark Struczewski: And my legs were hurting, my back was hurting, and I just, I really dreaded going off my run. Now I'm starting another 5K run streak, but I told my wife, “This time I'm going to see if my body wants to do a 5K when I run out.” I did four days so far. Tomorrow may be a one mile.
Mark Struczewski: It may be. I guess it's a 6K. But when you are burning out, that's your body saying, “Hey, whoa, stop. Pay attention. Don't keep grinding.”
Mark Struczewski: These people say, “Yeah, I worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week.” Okay, you may need that because you may need the money, but if you don't take care of your health and wellness, and I believe health and wellness is a huge part of being productive, you are going to have some significant issues and then you're really not going to be productive because you're going to be probably in a bed in the hospital.
Mark Graban: Yeah, yeah, we got to listen. Are we mentally fatigued? Are we physically fatigued? There's probably a lot of parallels there. And yeah, I think the one issue with people bragging about how much time they worked, that doesn't mean it's productive or there's a related word, efficiency, I would define.
Mark Graban: I'd be curious to hear your thoughts, Mark. To me, efficiency is a ratio of outputs divided by inputs. And, you know, there's this question of, like, my roots are in manufacturing. At some point, a certain number of outputs is enough. Like, how much is your customer buying?
Mark Graban: And some manufacturing companies get into a lot of trouble by they make their efficiency numbers look good because that's what a manager is being rewarded for. They're producing cars that sit there, products that sit there for months or for years. It's like a false efficiency in terms of. Instead of stepping back and saying, like, “Well, at some point, enough is enough. We need to do maintenance on the machines the way we might need to stop and maintain our body or our knees or our ankles.”
Mark Graban: I think there's kind of an efficiency trap. But I think the key is the outputs. If you're making 100 cold calls instead of 60 cold calls, and it's not turning into more sales, that's actually less efficient in terms of figuring out. I think I'll use your productivity framework. Calling the right people at the right time might lead to better business results.
Mark Struczewski: Here are my thoughts about efficiency and I'm Mister Productivity and I get caught up in this as well. So what I use, I use Buffer to post on Threads and X and I schedule my content on Instagram and LinkedIn. And right now I have posts scheduled on LinkedIn through the middle of April.
Mark Graban: Why?
Mark Struczewski: I have posts scheduled on Threads for like a month out.
Mark Graban: Why?
Mark Struczewski: And I'm trying to discipline myself Sunday, sit down and schedule the post for that week. A week is all I need because here's what happens, happens all the time. “Oh, I got an idea.” Like I just launched that e-book that you talked about. So the post that went out today, I had to reschedule it to put the new post in there.
Mark Struczewski: So I, I don't think just because I can schedule six months out doesn't mean I should. That's not being very efficient.
Mark Graban: Lots of outputs, but I mean scheduling them out is better than a lot of posts actually releasing them as you're thinking of them. And that can hurt supposedly on the LinkedIn algorithms or. I mean, this is diving into a real tactical question. How often do you post on LinkedIn? I've heard different advice about whether like you shouldn't post more than once a day.
Mark Graban: What do you think?
Mark Struczewski: I have a lot of friends who are LinkedIn experts and they all say there's the once a day, there's the 18 hour and then there's people like Gary say post on LinkedIn like you post on X like 10, 12 times a day. Now Gary can do that because Gary has got like a billion followers. Yeah, I post once a day at 7:00 AM Central Time, which is 8:00 AM East coast for me. It's more about the DMs. So I was afraid of DMs for so long.
Mark Struczewski: Now I'm addicted to it because I'm trying to have these one-on-one conversations. I just post out there so people may connect with me or engage and I can have some conversations. So that's what I do. I do one a day and it's all about the videos 99.9% of the time, which, you know, from a kid who didn't want to speak in front of an empty room, I'm very open with my video. I'm always recording myself, so I'm always posting videos.
Mark Struczewski: But the video you see today I probably recorded like three months ago because I harness the power of Evergreen. So when I'm creating videos, I never say “this weekend” because some people may watch that video four weeks down the road. Same with our podcast. Try to keep the podcast Evergreen in case someone listens to episode 500 of. I, you know, I'm not always doing that, but I try to do that because I think it's really important.
Mark Struczewski: But in answer to your question, for me, right now it's once a day. I did the twice a day, but I didn't notice a change, good or bad, so I just went back to once a day.
Mark Graban: Yeah. I want to ask you your thoughts around, like, recognizing, like, fluctuations in productivity. I think one thing I've, I've struggled with is, you know, maybe having or realizing that, you know, kind of having unfair expectations that I could somehow be equally productive every day when there's a lot of things that go into that, like, you know, how much sleep, how well did I sleep the night before? How am I feeling today, physically or mentally?
Mark Graban: And for me, there's been a bit of a journey of trying to recognize we're not a machine, we're not a robot, to show myself a little bit of grace, of saying, “Today, really, it's not the highest productivity day.” That doesn't mean watching seven episodes of anything on Netflix. That's not what I mean. But days where it's just like, “I'm not feeling it, I'm not as mentally energized.” And some days are high productivity days.
Mark Graban: I don't think there's huge peaks and valleys there, but just trying to cut myself some slack instead of giving myself a hard time for slacking off. What are your thoughts around? Is that something we just have to accept? Are there things that we can do to level out our productivity, or is that not something to worry about?
Mark Struczewski: Nobody is going to have a consistent level of productivity because we are human. You may wake up, you have a stomachache, or you have some body aches, or you've got a cold or the flu, and you've got to give yourself grace even if you're not feeling it mentally. I say, if you're a solopreneur or you're an entrepreneur and you have the power and you're, like, working in the morning. It's like walking through quicksand. Would, you know, bricks, tatts, your ankles.
Mark Struczewski: Maybe you just take the rest of the day off and maybe you go to a park or you take your significant other out to lunch, or maybe you do watch seven episodes of Netflix for one day. I want to be very clear for one day, if you're really not feeling it and it's like punching air or pushing a rope, well, maybe your productivity would benefit tremendously if you just say, “You know what? I'm not even gonna. This day is a loss. I'm just gonna go do something fun.”
Mark Struczewski: And tomorrow your productivity will probably peak because now you've given your body the chance to just like, “Hey, I didn't have to think about business for, for a half a day.”
Mark Graban: Yeah, no, I think that's smart. That, that, that really resonates with me. And I, I think back to again, your framing of doing the right things at the right time. You know, I've learned there, there are certain frames of mind or there's certain times to do administrative tasks that I need to do for my business that just have to get done and don't require a lot of thought versus days and times when I'm doing more creative work. And I think recognizing that or even, you know, learning, I tend not to record podcasts early in the morning anymore.
Mark Graban: Like, you know, we're recording this at 11:00 AM Eastern. For me, I think that that's just, it's better. It's not first thing in the day. It's not later in the day when I might start getting a little laggy in the afternoon. I think that's part of my productivity journey, is it's just sort of setting some boundaries and at least recognizing at least what works well for me.
Mark Graban: Hopefully that lines up with my guests and the good times for them.
Mark Struczewski: And if it doesn't, that's okay. I know people will do like nine episodes in one day. And I'm like, there's no way that ninth episode is going to be as good as the first one. I, I won't believe it. And I think you're, you're tapping into something really important here.
Mark Struczewski: You've got to know, when are you really at your peak? Now I'm a morning person, and I got to give credit to Robin Sharma's book, The 5 AM Club, which convinced me no longer to be a night owl. But for me, in the morning, I do my morning routine, which takes about an hour because I'm 60. I'll be 60 in June. I feel like I'm 42.
Mark Struczewski: And then when I'm done, I go and attack the DMs. That's what I do. Because that's, for me right now at this time, my life, being in the DMs on LinkedIn is the number one thing I'm working on. That's what I do first thing. And I make sure I do 50 DMs every day before I move on.
Mark Struczewski: Then I will go comment another social media platform or maybe I'll create some content for myself. But first off, for me and not saying the listener, for me, it's being in the DMs because I stopped working at 4 o'clock because I've been up all day and I start losing energy at 4 o'clock. So you can't book a coaching call with me at 4 o'clock because I will not be able to serve you well, you at 4:00. And so I'm not going to allow you to book that time because I want to always show up the best version of me so I can best serve you.
Mark Graban: Yeah. And you know, about two weeks ago, this, this didn't affect you. But you know, I had some podcasts scheduled about two weeks ago. I mean, I had some really bad congestion. I wasn't feeling good, I wasn't sounding good.
Mark Graban: And I thought like, this is not something that I should put into an everlasting recording on the Internet. So I've learned to be less shy about just reaching out and saying, you know, “I'm sorry, I'm sick, I need to ask you to reschedule.” And, and yeah, I'm sorry if that's an inconvenience, but it's almost become a “sorry, not sorry” like I, I'm sick, I have no choice. And, and people are very understanding of that because there's a lot of viruses and cold and flu going around and you know, maybe they weren't feeling well, but maybe they thought they had to power through it. So, you know, that's, that's, that's how it goes sometimes.
Mark Graban: But I wanted to ask you a follow up question on, on the DMs or the direct messages, how much of that is reaching out, reconnecting with people who are already in your network versus, let's say inmails or outreach or you know, kind of trying to contact new people. How has that worked as a strategy for you?
Mark Struczewski: Right now my outreach on LinkedIn is focused on all the connections I have because when I first joined LinkedIn years ago, I was collecting connections like people collect stamps. Yeah, I didn't, didn't matter who you were. I just connect with everybody. So now I'm going through every connection one at a time. If they're in the productivity space, I'm like, I, I may remove the connection like life coaches, stuff like that.
Mark Struczewski: Because I'm trying to focus on people who could use my help. So I go through and I got a formula, what I do, but I'm going through before I get any more new connection. I'm going through my whole list. And as I… The further I get back, I'm like, “Why in the world did I connect with this person?”
Mark Struczewski: I have no idea. But they probably sent me a connection request. I just accepted it. And so I'm actually purging my connections and the ones that I want to have conversation with, then I will, because I'm not always good with words. I'll go in the ChatGPT and I say, “Hey, I want to reach out to Fred.”
Mark Struczewski: “Here's what I want to say.” And I type it and then it takes my… And I've got in ChatGPT, I got my Tigger personality. It'll take what I typed in there. It'll make it sound a lot more professional.
Mark Struczewski: So it's not really like using AI. I don't like the AI, DMs or AI comments. What I do is I type what I want to say in the ChatGPT and I say, “Make this sound better.” I paste that in there so I sound a little better because I tend to interrupt myself or use the wrong conjugation, stuff like that. So that's how I use ChatGPT as a tool.
Mark Struczewski: But in answer to your question, I'm trying to work on all my connections first, and then I'll go back because I was connected with a lot of people. But then I'm like, “You know what? There's probably a lot of treasure in the connections you haven't talked to, like, ever.” And so that's what I'm focusing on right now.
Mark Graban: Cool. Our guest again today, Mister Productivity. His website is MisterProductivity.com. Mark Struczewski. Last thing I want to ask you, Mark, the e-book again, that is Productivity Power Moves: Crush Distractions and Get More Done. Give us a little overview of the e-book, if you would.
Mark Struczewski: I want to give you credit because I just released that two days ago, and I'm like, “Wow, this guy's awesome.”
Mark Graban: I checked out your website this morning just to finalize your bio, and there it was. I didn't realize it was that new.
Mark Struczewski: New? Yes, brand new. So I wanted to create a new product, but I didn't know what I could create. So I asked ChatGPT. I said, “Look, I've got 13, 28 episodes.”
Mark Struczewski: “Could you help me create a book?” And so I, I uploaded every one of my episodes. I got a spreadsheet of all the episodes I've done. I said, “Take a look at all the episodes I've done.”
Mark Struczewski: “Ignore all the guest episodes and give me an idea.” So it came up with a framework. Then I had to upload in a single file all the transcripts from my podcast. And because I know sometimes ChatGPT will fill some things, I don't know, just use my stuff. And it gave me a book, it's a $27 e-book, as you mentioned, and then said, “Well, to give more value to this, why don't you read it?”
Mark Struczewski: And so I read it. So when you buy the book, you get the MP3, so you might want to listen to my melodious voice or whatever. And so I literally just came up with that. But that's why I love AI is because can you imagine if I had to go through all my episodes and then get the transcripts and then read through the transcripts and then… And it just did it for me.
Mark Struczewski: So it's, it's not a long book. So when I recorded the, the audio, it's only seven minutes long. Because I have. And I'm probably sure you're in the same boat.
Mark Struczewski: You go get these books and they're like 50, 60, 150 pages. It's like, “Just tell me the stuff.” So I purposely wanted to come up with a book that gave you, like, simple things that you can do to be more productive. There's not a lot of stories, not a case study. It's not a white paper. It's like, “Here is a book that can help you be more productive and just take one thing and run with it and come back and do another thing.” I'm a big fan of simplicity, where a lot of the world is going to, “Hey, how complex can we make this?” No, stay away from complexity. Let's keep it simple.
Mark Graban: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope people go check that out. Mark also has a free email newsletter, The Productive Life. You can sign up for that and look for links.
Mark Graban: I'll put links to that in the show notes, but again, the URL is pretty easy. https://www.google.com/search?q=MrProductivity.com. So, Mark, thank you for joining me here today. Fun to talk about productivity.
Mark Graban: I mean, look, as an engineer and somebody who has worked a lot on whether you call it productivity or efficiency or effectiveness in my career, this is right up my alley. So glad to meet someone who has that passion for productivity. Thanks for sharing your story. I mean, just to close the loop on that, if you hadn't been fired from that corporate job, you might still be there, but you might not be as happy as you seem to be with the work you're doing now. Right?
Mark Struczewski: Yeah, that's a fair assessment. I, you know, I think about that from time to time. Had I not been fired, would I still be there? Oh, that's. That's not a happy place for me to go.
Mark Struczewski: That's where I go from Tigger to Eeyore, because I did not like to be there at all. And so sometimes, in my case, God, you may call it the universe, sometimes mama bird's got to kick you out of the nest. You don't want to be kicked out of the nest, but when you… After you're kicked out of the nest, you realize, “Oh, I can fly.” And then you go on a trajectory which you have never even thought about in your life.
Mark Struczewski: So sometimes if you won't make the decision, life makes it for you.
Mark Graban: Well, and I'm glad you were able to roll with that, run with it, and I'm glad that it's been working out for you, Mark. So this has been really nice. Thank you again for being a guest here on My Favorite Mistake.
Mark Struczewski: Thank you, sir.
Actionable Takeaways from the Episode
Allow Yourself to Rest and Recuperate:
Support: Throughout the episode, there's a clear message against the grind mentality. Mark Struczewski shares his personal experience with burnout and recommends giving yourself grace when needed—whether from physical exhaustion or mental fatigue—to ultimately boost productivity in the long run. Recognizing when to take a break can enhance your output once you're back to work.
Embrace Mistakes and Learn from Them:
Support: Mark Struczewski openly shares how being fired from his corporate job was his “favorite mistake,” leading him on the unexpected journey to becoming a solopreneur. He emphasizes the importance of viewing mistakes as opportunities for growth rather than setbacks, suggesting that reflecting on what went wrong can guide you toward better paths.
Focus on Doing the Right Things at the Right Time:
Support: Mark Struczewski defines productivity as “doing the right things at the right time,” emphasizing that having clarity is crucial to understanding what those “right things” are for each person. Implementing this in your routine involves stepping back to align tasks with goals, ensuring that actions contribute meaningfully towards desired outcomes.