The Create Your Day Podcast

117. 5 Questions That Cut Through The Noise

• Jenn Cody | Productivity & Systems for Entrepreneurs • Season 1 • Episode 117

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Feeling stuck in the “What should I do?” loop is exhausting—and it quietly drains momentum from your day. We kick off the year with a clear decision-making filter built around five practical questions that cut through noise, reduce overthinking, and get you moving with intention. Instead of chasing perfect answers, we reframe choices around context, impact, and alignment so your actions match your goals and your time works for you.

We start with ease: how to strip friction from complex tasks, break work into smaller moves, ask for help, and define “good enough” to unlock throughput. Then we recalibrate effort by asking what’s truly at stake, so minor decisions stop eating major energy. We zoom out with a future-focused lens, weighing short-term comfort against long-term cost, and explore why choosing discomfort now prevents resentment later. Along the way, we dive into alignment as a daily filter for high performers who see opportunities everywhere—because a good opportunity that doesn’t serve your goals is still a distraction.

We also confront avoidance head-on. Naming the thing you’re dodging—tough conversations, stale projects, unsexy systems—releases you from the spin cycle and puts you back in control. You’ll leave with a simple, usable framework: keep these questions visible, let overwhelm be your trigger, ask just one, and act on the honest answer. No extra data dump needed—just better prompts and the courage to follow through.

If this helps, share it with a friend who’s stuck in the spin. Subscribe for more practical strategy, and leave a quick review to tell us which question you’re adopting this week. Your clarity starts with a better question—what’s the one you’ll use today?

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SPEAKER_00:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody. I'm your host. Welcome to 2026. This is going to be the year of clarity. I am super focused on alignment this year. So if you already received my email newsletter, you know that my word of the year is alignment. And it kind of sounds kind of like, you know, cliche, I guess. But I realized that over the past few years, I have actually been working very intentionally, and it's it's gotten me to this place where alignment is the next natural step. So I do encourage you to think about what do you want to see happen this year? What makes the most sense for you in your business? And pick a word that is your filter, right? So my word is alignment. And what that basically means as a filter is every decision I am making, every choice, even the tiny ones, I am putting it through that filter. Is this in alignment with the goals that I have set for myself? Whether those be my personal goals, my professional goals, all of it. So it's, you know, what am I having for breakfast? To am I going to my workout class today? To is it time to sit down and record the podcast? Like all of those things coming together and bringing me to what hopefully is the natural conclusion of a very successful and productive 2026. And that is what I wish for all of you as well. So today, what we're going to speak about are those questions, right? When we talk about the um filter that you're thinking through, this is where I want you to come from. What questions are you asking yourself when you, you know the feeling I'm talking about, when you're staring at your to-do list or your inbox is overflowing. You have 15 tabs of different opportunities going on, and your brain cycles through the same question over and over again. What should I do? What should I do? What should I do? It's just the natural question we ask ourselves, but that question never really gets answered, right? Because what should I do is a terrible question. It's way too big, it's way too vague. And it assumes that somewhere like out there, quote unquote, is the perfect answer that we're going to magically discover if we focus on what should I do? What should I do? So today, what I'm going to do is give you some better questions to ask yourself. These are questions that will actually lead you somewhere, questions that are going to cut through all the BS and help you make decisions that you can feel really good about. So let's just start off with why, what should I do is such a useless question. And I mean useless. I don't say that to be harsh. I mean it sincerely, I ask myself that all the time as well. We all do. So understanding why it doesn't work is the first step to replacing it with something better. So, first of all, it's totally lacking context. What should I do? Doesn't specify anything about what you're trying to achieve. What are the um constraints, restrictions that you're currently working with? What are the trade-offs that you're willing to make, unwilling to make? It's like asking yourself, what should I eat without knowing is it breakfast time? Is it dinner time? Are you allergic to anything? What do you have on hand? What's your budget if you're going out? What should I eat is way too vague, which is why so many people wind up, you know, standing in front of a refrigerator, just staring into space because they're not asking the right question. So the other reason that what should I do is not worth anything for us is that it implies that there's actually a right answer. And usually there's not. Especially in business, most of our decisions are made between quite a few really decent options. There's not just one thing. So the goal is not to find the perfect choice, the goal is to make the right choice and commit to it, the right choice for you in that moment. And this last part can be a little bit sneaky because what should I do does keep you in that mode of analyzing things instead of taking action. And we're super comfortable there, right? So we can spin on that question forever without ever actually doing anything. And then we feel productive because we're thinking so um intently, but nothing's really moving forward. So let's talk about better questions. What is um, what are some of the questions you can ask yourself that will actually move the needle a little bit faster and more intentionally? So we'll start with the first one, which is what would make this easier? So that's replacing what should I do with something really useful. So I love this question. It immediately shifts our brain. We go from feeling super overwhelmed to solution-oriented. Well, we're instead of staring at a massive problem and getting paralyzed by that, we are now looking for the path of least resistance. What would make this easier? So, what I've noticed is that we tend to make things harder than they need to be, right? We overcomplicate things, we add unnecessary steps. We try to do everything and we try to do everything perfectly instead of just doing it so that it's done. So when you do get stuck, please ask yourself, what would make this easier? Maybe it is something simple like breaking the task into smaller pieces. Maybe it's asking for help from someone that you trust. Maybe it's actually time to lower the bar on what good enough looks like in that moment. Doing the hard part first so that the rest feels like a relief. These are all things we can do that make the hard things a little bit easier. So, is this about avoiding hard work? Absolutely not. It's just about taking that hard work and not making it harder than it has to be. There's a really big difference there. Okay, so the next question we're going to talk about, the next better question, is what's actually at stake here? Can you think about that for a moment? What's actually at stake here? This is a clarifying question. Because a lot of the time, the thing that we're most stressed about, the stakes are probably pretty low, but our brain goes on alert as if this is a life and death situation. So think about a time that maybe you're agonizing over an email, like losing sleep over how to word something. We have all been there before. And if you think about it, what happens if that email isn't perfect? I mean, really think about it. And the honest answer is probably that nothing bad would happen. I'm not saying if you don't send the email at all or if you ignore the issue, but what what terrible thing is going to happen if the email is not written perfectly? So what? You send the email, it's not perfect, the person's going to respond, everybody figures it out, and life goes on. But we have a hard time seeing that sometimes. And the reason is because sometimes the stakes are actually high and the decision really does matter, and that's useful information in this in this moment, too, which is why what's really at stake here is a great question. Because if you ask yourself that, and the answer is that there's a significant amount at stake, then you know that this decision needs more time, more attention, more energy. But if the answer is not not too much is at stake, then please just go ahead and do it. Make the choice so that you can move on and spend your energy somewhere else. We waste a lot of mental energy on giving super minor decisions major, major attention. So this question helps you to kind of right size your response to what's actually happening in your situation. Okay, so we have what would make this easier, we have um what's actually at stake here. Let's move on to the next question. And this one is can be fun to think about if you're me. So I want you to think about what would the future you want? So when you're about to make a decision, I love this question because it really gets us out of short-term thinking. A lot of our stress comes from making decisions based on what's easiest right now. And we talked about that, right? Like what's going to make this easier? Great. What's really at stake here? Okay, but what does future you actually want? What are you setting up for later? So, future you, whether it's six months, you, a year from now, you, five years from now, you, what would she want you to do in the situation you're presented with? Would she want you to keep saying yes to the things that you're saying yes to that are draining you? Would she want you to put things off for another quarter? Or would she want you to keep doing that task yourself instead of teaching someone else to do it? Like there's a lot of things that we could be doing. What would future you want you to do? Future you, I'm gonna tell you a little secret. Future you want present you to make the uncomfortable choice now so that her life is easier later, right? Choose discomfort over resentment. And that goes for ourselves too. Because when we make the easy choice now, future us can really resent past us for not doing the uncomfortable things. So this question is really powerful when you're tempted to procrastinate, when you're trying, when you're in avoidance mode, because avoidance always has a cost. And who pays that cost? Future you. So keep that person because we're trying to take care of that future version of ourselves. How do we take care of that person if we're constantly putting things off for that person to deal with? So this is powerful. When we're in avoidance mode, future you is the one that's going to pay for the actions and inactions that are happening right now, today. Okay. So, question four alignment. Is this in alignment with where you're going? This is my filter question. I want it to be your filter question. This is the one that helps you kind of sift through things and decide what's an opportunity and what's a distraction. When people are really high performers, and there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast that are really high performers, we are this breed that sees opportunities everywhere. We have ideas constantly. I just um facilitated an event last night, and that was one of the things that someone was trying to kind of work through, is just that they have so many ideas, and how do they catalog them and prioritize them? And we live our lives that way. High-functioning people, entrepreneurs, we just and women in general, right? We're such multitaskers, we see things, we we're problem solvers. So we have a lot of ideas. We get invited to things, we are pitched opportunities, we're asked to collaborate on things, and everything sounds great in the moment, right? Some of them sound good, some of them actually are good, but being a good opportunity is not the same thing as being a right opportunity. A good opportunity that does not align with your goals is just a distraction. It's going to take your time, it's going to take your energy, it's going to pull your focus, and it's going to give you nothing towards where you really want to go. So before you say yes to anything, before you even seriously consider anything, can you ask yourself, does this align with where I'm going? And if the answer is no, or you know what? Even if the answer is kind of, sort of, then maybe the answer should be no. I want you to save your yeses for the things that are obvious yeses. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay, we have another question. This one is tough to answer, but it's really required, and it requires a lot of honesty. And this question is, what am I avoiding? We spoke about being in avoidance mode, right? And we're just setting future us up for freaking failure and resentment and a lot of discomfort. So sometimes the reason that we're stuck is not that we don't know what to do. We know exactly what to do and we don't want to do it. So, what do we do in those moments? We make ourselves really busy, we overcomplicate the decisions that we need to make. We tell ourselves that we need more time, we have to, you know, go over everything. We're just still in kind of research mode. We're looking for more input, we're looking for more opinions, we're constantly, you know, mining more data. And we're doing basically anything we can do to avoid taking the action that we know we need to take. So this is spinning mode, right? We need to stop spinning. So when we catch ourselves spinning, I want you to ask yourself, what am I avoiding here? What is the thing that I don't want to face? So there's a lot of things that fit into this category, right? So maybe it's um a hard conversation that always comes to mind for me. Sometimes it's admitting that something is not working that we really want to be working. This we've all experienced personally and professionally, right? Have any of you ever been in a relationship and that relationship is not working anymore, but you want it to be working because you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. Um, this goes for business relationships too. And it goes for the opportunities that we take hold of and take advantage of. Sometimes those opportunities don't work out the way that we thought they were going to or the way that we hoped they were going to, and we don't want to admit that. So we go into avoid avoidance mode and um we just pretend that everything is okay. So other things that we avoid are making ourselves, putting ourselves into situations where we feel vulnerable because who likes to feel vulnerable? No one. Um, and maybe sometimes we're just avoiding like doing the boring work, doing the the back office stuff, the um the grunt work that actually does move the needle. There's a lot of work in business that is not sexy, right? I mean, I was just complaining last night about I just can't make another Google sheet, but I need to make Google Sheets because they keep my clients on task. They keep me on task, they organize all of the projects and thoughts in a way that makes them actually able to move forward. There was a time in my business where everything just lived in my head. And guess what? Things didn't get done at nearly the pace that they get done now, while everything is organized and I have systems for things. Those systems, at first, when you implement them, they feel sexy because they make us feel productive. But then when they become repetitive, which if they work well, they are very repetitive. Those are not sexy anymore. So we go into avoidance mode, but that's the work that needs to be done to actually bring us forward. So asking ourselves, what am I avoiding? This is what cuts through the bullshit, right? This gets us to the truth. And even though the truth can be uncomfortable, facing that truth is much faster than this endless deliberation that we put ourselves in. So asking ourselves all of these questions that we went over today, it's going to really help us um bring ourselves into a better place, a more productive place, um a place that feels aligned for us. Um, and it's going to change the game in your business and in your life if you can really use this filter to ask yourself better questions instead of getting up every day and being like, all right, what should I do today? So I'm gonna give you a quick framework so that you can actually use these questions and not just have a theory for them. So the next time that you find yourself feeling stuck, feeling overwhelmed, or just next time you catch yourself saying, What should I do? I want you to stop and take a breath and then run through these questions, right? So, what did we talk about? What would make this easier? What's actually at stake here? What would future me want? Does this align with where I'm going and what am I avoiding? You don't have to ask all five of these questions every time, right? This is not like a practice where you have to sit down with a notebook and do work. Just jog your brain by asking one question. That's probably all you need. The point is to replace the useless spinning of what should I do, what should I do, what should I do, with something that actually leads to clarity. So the framework is really simple. It's just have these questions in your back pocket if you need to write them down, put them in your notes app, um, anything that's easily accessible to you, put them somewhere where you're going to see them so that when you're in the middle of feeling overwhelmed, let that be your trigger. You know, your brain isn't going to automatically be like, oh, remember Jen's podcast? No, you need to be able to find the information. So make it easy for stressed out you to access this information. So that's the only framework you need. Put the questions somewhere accessible. Let the overwhelm feeling that what should I be doing feeling be your trigger to go look at those questions. And then ask yourself just one of them. If you want to go through cycling through all five of them, totally fine. But one of them is enough to really pull you out of that spinning mode. Okay, so let's wrap up this week. Um, the questions that you do ask yourself, they determine the answers that you get for yourself. So that's why these questions are so important. If you keep asking yourself vague questions, unhelpful questions, um, really broad, big, big picture questions, you're going to keep getting stuck. So learning to ask better questions actually creates clarity. And that's what we're about, right? We want clarity. 2026, clarity, clarity, clarity. We want to move towards action with intention so that everything changes. And we have to ask ourselves the right questions in order to make that happen. I promise you, you do not need more information. You don't need more opinions, for sure. You need better questions, and you just need the courage and the trust in yourself to actually answer those questions honestly and then act on those answers. So I hope that you're able to put this into practice. I would love to hear how it works for you. If it's helpful, I would love for you to share this episode with someone else who needs to hear it. Send me a message, let me know which question resonates with you the most, which question is the one that you feel like, oh, this is going to change how I approach what I'm doing. I always love hearing for you guys from you guys. Um, and if you want more of this, please sign up for my weekly newsletter. You can go to solutionsforscale.com or you can email me at jen at gencody.com. And um, I deliver this kind of thinking to your inbox every single week. So you can head on over, sign up for the strategy email. And I want you to take away with you this one thing. You are capable of making good decisions, you are 100% capable. So if you have found in the past that you always second guess yourself and you feel like um your decisions have led to not so desirable outcomes, it is not you. You are more than capable of making good decisions. All you need is the right framework and the right questions to ask yourself so that you get to the answers that are going to bring you to the Those better outcomes. So I hope this was helpful for you. I hope that you're able to take this with you and go out there and create your day in the best way possible. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you next week. Thanks. Have a great one.