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Should You Ditch Your To-Do List? How to Stop Making Lists and Start Living a Balanced Life featuring Jenn Trepeck

Do you ever feel like you’re being pulled in every direction? Like you’re juggling so many different things at once that you can’t catch your breath? If you know what that feels like, then you’re going to love this conversation with Jenn Trepeck.

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Today’s episode is all about something so many of us wrestle with daily: the relentless pull of feeling overworked.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re constantly on the go, juggling work, family, and life’s endless demands—yet still feeling like it’s never enough—this episode is for you.

But here’s the twist: what if I told you that our problem of feeling overworked didn’t start with our jam-packed calendars, our smartphones, or even the industrial revolution? It actually goes back thousands of years. And the surprising part? Our ancestors might hold the key to breaking free from the overwhelm and finding more time for what truly matters.

This week, I’m sitting down with Jenny Powers—a writer, scientist, and former athlete—who’s here to connect the dots between ancient hunter-gatherer wisdom and our modern-day epidemic of feeling overworked. She’ll share how we got here, why it’s so hard to step off the hamster wheel, and—most importantly—how we can start reclaiming our time, energy, and joy.

MEET JENNY POWERS

Jenny Powers is a mom, a writer, a scientist, and an athlete from Colorado. She has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder (where she played intercollegiate basketball in the 90’s) and Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology from the University of Colorado Denver. After her post-doc at National Jewish Health, she left academia to raise her kids and to pursue a writing career. She writes fiction and nonfiction, and her new book with co-author Luke Comer called On the Origin of Being: Understanding the Science of Evolution to Enhance Your Quality of Life finally gave her the opportunity to bring her scientific training and her passion for writing together.

In this conversation with Jenny, she shares…

• How we’ve been historically overworked for thousands of years 
• How Jenny structures her own workday and schedule to boost her productivity
• Why embracing discomfort helps you grow
• The one thing you can do today if you feel stuck in a cycle of being overworked and overwhelmed

Resources Mentioned:

• Grab Jenny Powers’s new book, On the Origin of Being: Understanding the Science of Evolution to Enhance Your Quality of Life
• Connect with Jenny Powers on Instagram and LinkedIn
• So Much Stuff: Chip Colwell

Related Episodes:

• The Art of Enough: How to Break the Cycle of Overwhelm and Overcommitment
• Not Enough Hours in the Day? 5 Reasons Why You’re Overcommitted and Overwhelmed
• Hustling Toward Burnout: Are You Walking the Fine Line Between Hustle and Hard Work?
• Ditch the Stress: How Rest and Hormonal Health Can Help You Find Peace and Productivity ft. Rachel Rauch