Why Being "Busy" Is Getting in the Way of Effective Leadership | Sarah Ohanesian

If you feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and constantly busy—but nothing truly important is moving forward—busyness may be the problem, not the solution.

In this episode, Desiree is joined by productivity expert Sarah Ohanesian to challenge the belief that doing more equals leading better.

They explore why New Year productivity plans fall apart so quickly, how unrealistic expectations fuel burnout, and why leaders often reward visible busyness instead of meaningful impact. Sarah introduces the idea of the “productivity parade”—work that looks impressive but distracts from what actually matters—and explains how meetings, unclear expectations, and outdated metrics quietly reinforce it.

You’ll learn how to identify true non-negotiables, use your calendar as a leadership tool, integrate work and life priorities realistically, and close the clarity gap that drives disengagement. Sarah also shares her COAT framework (Clarity, Organize, Act, Take Time) and a simple time-tracking challenge that helps leaders see where their time is really going.

If you want less burnout, more clarity, and a team focused on real results—not just looking busy—this episode is for you.

Sarah's Book Recommendation: Rocket Fuel

Sarah's Website: SO Productive

Sarah's LinkedIn

Link to episode: 3 Tools to Get Your Team to Care as Much as You Do

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Transcript

Desiree (00:01.509)
All right, friends, we are here with Sarah. If you are listening to this, it's probably ish, February ish, but we are recording this right at the start of the new year. So I'm excited, Sarah, to hear someone who has their entire life in the world of productivity. What are your thoughts on all of the New Year's resolutions? And I'm not going to burn out this year and I'm going to do all of the things with the same amount of time. I'd love to just get your immediate take on the New Year phenomena.

Sarah Ohanesian (00:28.11)
Yes, well, and if we can be real about what's happening here, it's January 5th as we're recording this. And so what's interesting about that is already this morning, it's also 1045 where I am, I have already had people be like, it's over. Like, I had this plan and last week everything was great. And now this morning, like it's all, you know.

gone to hell essentially. And so I think what's important in this moment is to think about how can we give ourselves some grace and to really think about what's realistic. One of the things I see people get really stuck on is I have all these plans, I have all these hopes and wishes and aspirations and dreams, but what's realistic about the moment that we're in right now with the role we have, with the team we have, with the budget that we have.

We can still accomplish wonderful things, but let's add in that ingredient of being realistic about where we actually are. And I hope that doesn't sound like negative Nancy to start off the year, but I think that's a gap that people get themselves stuck into. I feel like I can accomplish 25 things, but today I can actually only accomplish three. Now I feel really bad about myself.

So I'm trying to encourage people to reframe that as let's focus on the three things that you can do and actually feel better at the end of the day instead of relishing on the 20 things we didn't get done.

Desiree (01:54.915)
Yeah, the ability to match your expectations to the actual realistic amount of time that you have in your day. And one of my favorite questions to ask people is, what's the smallest amount of time that you could walk or read or spend time with your kids or friends where you would feel successful and it would actually fit into your day? And whittling it down from, I'm going to work out an hour every day to 10 minutes is great. I would actually feel successful with that. And the reason that

Sarah Ohanesian (02:03.725)
Yeah.

Sarah Ohanesian (02:21.344)
Exactly. Yeah, what's going to make you feel successful? That's a huge question. Huge question.

Desiree (02:26.513)
Yes, for sure. And I think that we're asking too big of a question, especially when it comes to New Year's goals. And I look back on December and I'm like, it felt so detached from the rest of 2025. I think sometimes planning out that far in advance too can be harmful. So what is your standpoint as far as we're looking at the next week, the next month? Tell us a little bit about Sarah's like productivity. Are they?

Sarah Ohanesian (02:50.926)
I

Desiree (02:52.815)
Hacks, they mindset shifts? What is it that makes your viewpoint on productivity different?

Sarah Ohanesian (02:58.592)
Yeah, well, I hope the thing I'm trying to do is be realistic because again, one of the things I see a lot of is we have to reinvent our whole system and our way of working and our whole like everything has to change and then we can actually accomplish some of these goals and that leaves people feeling really behind. So essentially like if you fall off the wagon, how do you get back on it? And in some systems that I've seen that are so strict, it's like you can't

Good luck to you. See you again January 1st when we can start this whole thing over again. And so instead what I encourage people and you just said it is think about what is a small thing that you can do toward a bigger goal. So certainly have a big goal, have a dream like high aspirations. I'm a high achiever, go getter as are most of the people that I work with. But what can we do that's in a smaller service of that goal that's gonna make us feel successful today. So I talk a lot about momentum.

Desiree (03:33.669)
Bye.

Sarah Ohanesian (03:53.912)
How do we get that engine started, the flywheel started? How do we get that first step of momentum so that we can feel some small success towards one of our bigger goals, but we don't feel like, missed one day, now I can't do it again until January, next January. Instead, it's really about, okay, I missed a day, that's okay, let me do it again tomorrow. What is 15 minutes? What is 10 minutes I could do towards that goal tomorrow to get me right back on track?

So it's giving ourselves some grace, like if and when we fall off the wagon, because most of us will, that we can easily get back on track. It's like this moment of reset all the time.

Desiree (04:31.939)
Yeah, and you have a background in that corporate space, in being in the hustle and the grind and the move of all of those things. When it comes to those individuals, what are some of your main, here are some of the actual non-negotiables that will keep you moving through that momentum, even when everything else is totally out of your control?

Sarah Ohanesian (04:35.395)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ohanesian (04:52.726)
Yeah. Well, I think what you just said is key. What's non-negotiable? So there are things that we have to accomplish as individuals, as a team, as a leader. What are those things that we have to do? They are non-negotiable. We have to do that to keep the lights on, to keep our kids fed, to keep everything in motion. And then what are some of those goals that we have on top of it that are realistic, that we can actually fit in?

around those non-negotiables. So one of the things I encourage clients to do is I'm a big, you know, use your calendar, use it well, and thinking about putting those non-negotiable items on the calendar so we've got reasonable amount of time to do them, and then actually fill in and block out other time for what are some of those other things that we do want to accomplish and where could we fit in 20 minutes, half hour towards some of those goals. But those non-negotiables have to go in first. Like that's what keeps the bills paid. That's what keeps the lights on. We got it.

Be mindful that we've got enough time to do those things, certainly.

Desiree (05:51.301)
How do you help individuals figure out what those are? Are they different for everyone?

Sarah Ohanesian (05:54.766)
Yeah. Oh, certainly. Yeah. So it depends on, you know, what type of business you're in, what some of your personal responsibilities are right now. You know, one of the things I talk about in my, my, my keynote is called dominate your day. do a workshop on it as well. And one of the things I talk about there is we've got real responsibilities. So sometimes, especially in January, February, we're like, okay, this year's going to be totally different. But it's like, no, no, it's not. You still have those same responsibilities.

We can't ignore them. Like we are adults with real responsibilities. So talking it through with people on what are those things for you? What are those responsibilities that you do have? You've got children, you've got maybe aging parents that need your help. You've got financial responsibilities. What are those responsibilities for you? And then putting those into the calendar and then also thinking about, what are some of the goals that we have on top of that? And how can we essentially sprinkle those in? So we feel like we've got momentum.

on both of those fronts, kind of the responsible stuff and the fun stuff that we want to accomplish.

Desiree (06:58.403)
Yeah, and I love that I hear you mixing in what some people would consider work priorities and home priorities. I personally believe it's one life. It's one set of priorities that need to be intertwined. But do you ever find yourself having a hard conversation around that topic, especially with people maybe in settings that have typically seen it as it's a work life and a home life and you don't mix the two and you have to figure that out.

Sarah Ohanesian (07:08.142)
100%. Yeah.

Sarah Ohanesian (07:25.438)
Yes, and I think COVID was one of the catalysts of change for that. We, it all got merged. We were working from home, we were home working, it all got merged together and we really haven't fully extracted from that yet. And I think it's a good thing. I think you show up as one person. So what happens at home,

it affects you at work and what happens at work affects you at home and vice versa. So I don't know why we're pretending that it's so separate and we can just close things off. Instead, again, I believe too with your calendar, what are some of those things that we can do? So maybe your child has a show at school and you want to make sure you go to that. Well, then what are you doing for work that evening to essentially make up for that? So it's not, I don't think there's ever going to be a balance, but I think when we pay attention to the seasons of life that we're in,

Sometimes family's gonna get a little bit more priority. Sometimes work's gonna get a little bit of more priority. Sometimes our personal health is gonna get more of a priority. But how are we adjusting those things in the moment and having our calendar actually reflect what's most important to us right now? So for me, it all goes back to what's on our calendar? Like how are we actually spending our time?

Desiree (08:38.485)
And in your bio, essentially, you said you used to wear your busy badge. Can you give me an example of a day of a typical person you would work with and what that busyness looks like? What are some of those things that are filling our time and detracting or I guess distracting us from doing some of those non-reportables?

Sarah Ohanesian (08:44.204)
Mmm

Sarah Ohanesian (08:58.594)
Yeah.

So one of the things I see a lot of, and I call this the productivity parade. And this is when we're doing things. This is where like the busy badge of honor is on display. We are doing things so people can essentially see us. So it looks like going to meetings that we know this is a waste of time. People on the team can handle it, but you show up to that meeting so people can see you. It's answering emails late night.

You're hitting reply all late night and you're like, okay, if I hit reply all at 10 o'clock at night, everybody's gonna see that I'm up and I'm working late and I'm doing all the things. So some of these activities are activities that we do so that everyone else knows that we're busy and we're working and we're working hard and it feels good to get that praise and that applause. So we do it again. So an encouragement I would have for people, if you're feeling like I'm busy, I'm facing burnout potentially, what are some of the things when you look back at your week?

What are some of the things that you're doing? And if you really, really like this is go into, go in deep and think about why are you doing those things? And potentially are you doing those things just so other people can see you, just so you can show up for the praise and the applause that you're gonna get. That's productivity parade. It's not real work. Like it's a disguise actually for real work.

Desiree (10:22.073)
So I do a lot with personality assessments and I'm thinking disc in my head right now because I'm a high ID. I'm a people pleaser. I want people to see me. I want that praise and applause. But I'm also thinking about the individuals who would claim not to want that. They would, you know, they're the C's, they're very compliant. They like to do the behind the scenes work and they like to, all the rules and regulations. Is that the same productivity parade for them? Are they looking for the same?

Sarah Ohanesian (10:27.534)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yep.

Sarah Ohanesian (10:42.466)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (10:50.999)
outcome that praise and it's just they're looking for it in a different way? Or if we look at it in that, you know, introvert versus extrovert looking for praise versus not, how are you seeing that? Is it the same thing and just viewed differently or give me a little insight on that?

Sarah Ohanesian (11:07.138)
Sure, I love that. So I would say I'm like you. I'm generally a people pleaser. I want to make people happy. And I'm not, I don't think I'm doing it to really get the applause, but I'm doing it because I wanna put everybody else first. So that's certainly, certainly something. The other reason productivity parade comes into play is that what metrics are we measuring? And this is probably really relevant for your audience here because thinking about as a manager.

as a leader of an organization, what metrics are you measuring? I use the example a lot of the mouse jiggler. I don't know if you ever saw this. You would never use something like this, but the mouse jiggler was this little device. could buy it on Amazon and it jiggles your mouse just enough. Like the mouse is sitting on this device and it's jiggling the mouse to keep the green light status on. So if you're using Teams or Slack or Discord, any of those services, it keeps your green light on. So to your boss,

It looks like, yeah, you're working, but you could be running on the treadmill. You could be going for lunch. You could be doing anything, but it looks like you're there and you're working. And that's productivity parade. So to answer your question, one of the things I think that managers have to be mindful of is, am I encouraging that type of mouse jiggling? Am I encouraging people to just show up and be there, but not really working on the work that actually...

matters. So there's kind of two reasons it comes about. One is our personality. We want people to see us. The other is maybe our organization is actually encouraging us to perform that

Desiree (12:42.297)
That's so funny and I laugh out loud because you we all have to do like I've been in healthcare forever so OSHA trainings they're repetitive you do them all the time it's like God I wish I had a button for my right arrow that would just get me through all these and I'm a rule follower so I don't and I take the course but I can imagine there's probably something out there for the people who actually don't want to.

Sarah Ohanesian (12:52.929)
Yeah!

Sarah Ohanesian (12:58.413)
Of course.

Yeah, totally, totally. And some of it is because it's compliance and we have to, but some of it is an opportunity for us as leaders of organizations to say, hang on a second, why are we doing this? Like, can people leave the office at 4.30 if it closes at five or not? Like what matters to us? What are we measuring here? And are we measuring the things that really matter? That's the question.

Desiree (13:27.961)
So I want to hear your advice for managers if they're looking at their day. I'm thinking back to when I worked at a call center in a bank, right? And we're doing collections and if you're not sitting there making phone calls, you're not productive. Yeah, you're not worth anything to them.

Sarah Ohanesian (13:40.685)
the fun stuff. Yeah. Right.

Desiree (13:45.093)
didn't matter the actual outcome of the work you were doing, right? They just wanted you making a certain number of phone calls. So what are you saying to these managers, to the individuals listening to this who have a responsibility, not only to the higher up goals and the people that are sitting in the chairs above them, but also to making sure that we're not enforcing this busyness badge on the employees below us while we see that burnout is happening.

What are you telling them? How are you explaining this to them in a, know you don't have all the authority to make the changes you want, but here's what you can do.

Sarah Ohanesian (14:10.776)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ohanesian (14:16.566)
Yeah, yeah. Be really clear on what is the task? Like, what do you want them to do? What does success look like? So that means we want 100 calls a day. We want 100 calls an hour. Whatever it is, really clear on what it is and how they're being measured, how they're being judged. What is success going to look like? What are the expectations for them? So really answering that question of what is it? And then the second part of that is why does it matter?

So you just said, even if the outcome doesn't matter, that's fine. Let me know that. Let me know why it does matter. It matters because we've got a benchmark and we've got a certain goal and we're trying to hit that. And our shareholders want this from us. Why does it matter that work that you're doing? And in every role, like sweeping the floor, there is still a why. There's still a why behind the reason that we're doing that. So I would always encourage managers, let people know what it is

clearly clearly what it is and clearly why does it matter?

Desiree (15:21.637)
was being very rude to Sarah just now. was turning around looking at my bookshelf because Patrick Lanchoni wrote a book about the three truths about employee engagement and I had to make sure I was saying the right title. I actually did an episode outlining what the three main pieces of employee engagement are and one of them is exactly what Sarah just said of make sure the people that you're leading understand why what they're doing is important, not just the how to do it, but the why behind it. And so it's not only a matter of

Sarah Ohanesian (15:43.969)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (15:49.505)
making sure that the stuff is actually getting done for the higher ups, but making sure that people are staying engaged too. So I'm going to link that episode to the show notes if anyone wants to go listen to that. I love that. I want to get a little bit more tactical with you here, Sarah, because one of the things I always joke about with guests is like, this sounds great and we can talk about this on a podcast and make it sound like it's the easiest thing in the world. But I want to hear more about your dominate your day workshop. What are you physically having people do with that hour with you?

Sarah Ohanesian (16:13.091)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (16:18.201)
that making them walk away saying, that changed my life. I'm so glad I was in attendance.

Sarah Ohanesian (16:21.9)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it can be an hour. It can be up to a really a full day, depending on what clients need and what their structure of their event that they're having is. So we can really ebb and flow with the time and how many people are going to be in the room. But one of the primary outcomes is to leave people with some tools to think about, again, I don't believe in huge overhauls. I think they're disruptive and I think they're rarely working.

So one of the things I say at the very beginning of the workshop is, I'm gonna give you a lot of tools and tips and tricks here today. What is one thing that you can take away from this to implement yourself? So one of the things that I do is I walk them through Coat, which is my productivity system that I create. And it's like a coat that you put on, C-O-A-T. And I think of the coat, the metaphorical background here is that it's like a coat of armor that really protects us from that.

barrage of busyness, that busyness badge that affects so many of us. And the first step of that is to get clarity. That's the C. What is the clarity that we have? The O is to organize. How are we organizing all of our work? The A is to act. When are we taking action on that? That's really when we dive into calendar. How do we use our calendar? How do we manage all of our to-dos? How do we pick the most important things? And then the T is to take time.

How do we take time to rest, relax, recharge, celebrate as a team? So that's the overarching framework that I walk them through. The big takeaway from this session is thinking about, and we talked about it earlier, what's that one next thing? What's that one next step? So when you're overwhelmed, you're busy, you've got all these things you could and should quote work on. What is that next action that is gonna be the most impactful for you and for your team?

And so obviously that takes a little bit of time to get teams to think about, what is it? What do we want? What are our goals? Are we in alignment? Some teams aren't in alignment. I ask everybody what they want in the room and it's all over the place. And I'm like, well, there's step one. Let's get in alignment on what this team is here to accomplish and what we have as goals of this team. And so my real outcome here is that they walk away with...

Sarah Ohanesian (18:36.79)
Not only a plan to be more productive every single day, but some strategic alignment around this is where we're headed as a team. They're clear on what it is and why it matters when they leave that session.

Desiree (18:48.709)
Yeah, so it's not only coming down to the individual and their day at work at home, but also as a team, making sure I love, I know clarity seems so woo woo and people are like, is that really necessary? But if you're not saying things out loud, it's like, well, we all have different goals and one of us could reach it and feel successful while the other person feels like we were totally lazy all day. So it really does take.

Sarah Ohanesian (19:02.818)
Yes.

Sarah Ohanesian (19:07.199)
Mm-hmm

Sarah Ohanesian (19:13.354)
100%. 100%. And to me, I call it the clarity gap because there is this gap between what leadership talks about in the boardroom, they figure out the plan, we've got all these strategic priorities. And then the people who are doing the work, there is a gap, a knowledge gap essentially on what is it? And that clarity on what it is and why it matters. When we are more clear on what people need to be doing and why it matters,

they will feel more productive. The burnout goes down, the engagement goes up, and actually we start achieving those strategic goals more quickly because everybody's in alignment and working on the right things. So it's actually quite easy. The problem to solve is to be more clear. My mission is to help companies see, we actually haven't been as clear as we think we've been.

Desiree (20:06.511)
Yeah, I love it. I appreciate this so much. I feel like there is an epiphany that you get to witness. And it might not be the same one every time, but can you share one of your favorites of like, maybe it was just a lack of clarity and that epiphany hit someone really hard and you'll always remember it. I just want to see the outcome from your eyes for a moment of what this work is doing to change the people that you're working with.

Sarah Ohanesian (20:27.832)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah Ohanesian (20:33.932)
I love that question. If I may share two, I'll do it quickly. One is I had a chief revenue officer email me and say, after your session, I ran the numbers on how much meetings are costing us, and we are now saving $50,000 a month in salary costs. Like that meeting was costing us $50,000 to have everybody in the meeting all hands in.

and we're gonna free up that time because nobody valued it anyways. So what an amazing time and financial savings. The other one was a CEO who said to me, you know, we never thought about this before. We never thought about productivity. We never thought about time management. We essentially took it for granted. And the gift you've given us is that we know.

Desiree (21:03.621)
Hmm.

Sarah Ohanesian (21:23.02)
We have to think about it. It's part of our strategy as an organization for how we're going to be successful. This is not something we leave to chance. This is something that we proactively lean into. And I hope that's a good message for people for 2026. Like productivity, time management, that's how we get the good stuff done. And we can't ignore it. It's not a nice to have. It's really imperative to our cultures and our companies.

Desiree (21:46.743)
Amazing. I'm going to link two episodes that we've done on time management, like seven hacks, I will call them, right? This is a total, not a total overhaul, but this is a mindset shift. There are some time hacks that you can use to read more, exercise more, waste a little less time. Just a quick anecdote. I was sitting with my husband in the car and I've been sick the last two weeks. I've read a lot over the last two weeks because I couldn't handle listening to TV with it reverberating in my ear.

Sarah Ohanesian (22:00.739)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (22:16.101)
But he's like, can you believe someone I heard on the radio, someone read 80 books a year. I'm like, honey, I read that many books here. He's like, yeah, but you never read. And I said, it takes 20 minutes of taking TV out of your life and adding in reading. And you can read that much. Like some of these goals are not as unattainable as we think. And it just takes some of that clarity of where we're spending the time, where we could spend it differently. And I love the clarity that you focus on in this, Sarah. So thank you so much. But what is

Sarah Ohanesian (22:30.594)
Mm-hmm. I love it.

Sarah Ohanesian (22:41.378)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (22:45.475)
the one, the very final thing that we didn't talk about that you want to make sure those listening have in their arsenal of tools.

Sarah Ohanesian (22:54.456)
Could I give people a challenge for 2026? One of my favorite things, and I just did it so it's fresh in my mind, is I do track my time. And I know that seems like, what a pain, that's a little tedious, but my challenge for people would be track your time for a week. I did it for the whole year and I put it into AI and had it analyze it and I was like, how should I be spending my time? And it was a fascinating exercise. But my challenge for people would be track your time for a week and just see how you're really spending your time.

Desiree (22:56.994)
Yeah!

Sarah Ohanesian (23:24.682)
If you're someone who is client facing, track it by client because it can be very interesting to see what's taking more time, what's taking less time than it feels because it's very easy for us to feel how much time we spent on something versus the reality of how much time we actually spent on something. And that can be a really eye-opening exercise for people. So do it for a day, do it for a week. And I think you'll find some really interesting insights there.

Desiree (23:51.073)
Amazing. I love it. That's a fantastic way to end this. I am going to link Sarah's LinkedIn and her website. If you want to go in see about a productivity workshop for your team, hire her on to come to a keynote. If you want to just reach out and tell Sarah what you found out from your from the challenge that she has just proposed to you, make sure you do that. I know you would make sure you reach out to us on LinkedIn. You can also

Sarah Ohanesian (24:10.2)
I would love that. Let's do that, let's do that.

Desiree (24:18.945)
make sure to like and rate this podcast. That's going to help you to follow along and hear additional amazing guests like Sarah. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on and joining me being my very first guest of 2026. And I can't wait to hopefully do this again.

Sarah Ohanesian (24:34.68)
Thank you.

Desiree (24:36.249)
And just remember friends that leadership is a privilege, but it is also a really big responsibility. And you're the boss now. So what are you gonna do with it?