Coach, nutritionist, podcaster, and author Angela Shurina advocates for a holistic approach to productivity. I'm talking with Angela this week as part of our newly resumed Productive Living series. Being balanced in all areas of our life can increase productivity After a long hiatus I’m excited to bring back the Productive Living recurring series, in which I speak with women who have special expertise and insights to share in various areas that reflect components of a life that matters. This week I'm sharing my conversation with coach, nutritionist, podcaster, and author Angela Shurina. Who is Angela? Angela Shurina is a coach whose approach combines current knowledge from researchers and experts and her experience from multiple disciplines - including integrative health, brain nutrition, fitness, sleep, stress resilience, neuroscience, flow states, and high performance - to help change-makers to make bigger impact AND have higher quality of life.  In addition to her coaching practice, Angela is an author of “Fit-and-Focused Brain-Body Blueprint for Remote Pros and Digital Nomads”, host of “Your Brain’s Coach” podcast, and offers an online 12-week group coaching program to help ambitious entrepreneurs over 40 dial in all aspects of health, fitness, and stress resilience to build a strong foundation for success and high quality of life in the upcoming decades.  How Angela got started Angela started her career as an IT professional and economist, quickly transitioning into coaching. She began with fitness, nutrition, and sleep and then transitioned into things like productivity and flow states. Angela is from Russia and had always been a "professional nomad" but after many years decided to settle down in one place; Cape Town, South Africa. Since Angela was a teenager, she was always fascinated with the question of "What is human potential and how can we apply it to the goals we have for our life?" She has pursued the answer to this questioin since then and it is the main focus of her professinal work. Routines can provide security during our busy days When you work for yourself, you have a lot of flexibility to do what you want with your day and the time in it. This can be good but when you don't have a deliberate routine, things can often feel chaotic. This is why Angela has made an effort to create a typical day for herself to help her manage her time and prioritize tasks. Angela begins her day at about 5:00 am and uses the morning hours to focus on herself, which is very important to her. She will meditate, drink her water, get in a bit of movement, and take a shower. She also uses this time to think about her schedule and what she would like to do with her day. By 6:00 a.m., Angela will begin the most productive time of her day and focus on tasks that require the most focused attention. She knows if she doesn't get tasks completed before noon, they won't get done with the same amount of quality because Angela is a self-professed morning person. She believes that we serve the world when we are at our best. Helping a person discover when they are most productive is a big part of her work. After working on focused tasks all morning, Angela will take a break, have some lunch, and then maybe go on a walk. The second half of her day is dedicated to business issues and her clients, taking care of any needs they might have. By 6:00 pm, Angela has dinner and then dedicates her evening to social life or reading a good book. At this point in her career, Angela feels like she has her routine down pretty well,