Fortune 500 Advisor on Why This One Minute Will Change Your Workday 

This summary, optimized for Google SEO standards in English, details the practical and strategic advice shared by efficiency expert Juliet Funt, founder and CEO of the Juliet Funk Group and self-proclaimed “tough-love advisor to the Fortune 500”. The discussion, hosted by Craig Groeschel, focuses on combating burnout by fixing the “lever-on experience” of daily work through the intentional creation of “white space”.

Juliet Funt, whose clients include major organizations like Google, Nike, ESPN, the US Military, and Spotify, provides actionable strategies to improve performance, retain talent, and foster a culture that prioritizes people.

The Challenge: Systemic Burnout and Executive Gluttony

Funt highlights that modern burnout is not solely an individual problem but a systemic issue. While leaders may have warm hearts and care for their teams, the corporate system is designed for profitability to be the priority, placing leaders who care at a disadvantage.

• The Problematic Solution: The general consensus for fixing burnout is to try to turn the “lever off”—offering wellness days or more vacation time. However, this ignores the accepted level of mania and dysfunction that exists when the work “lever is on”. The true solution lies in fixing the daily experience of work.
• Wasted Time: Employees are often spending too much time on “boring, sloggy work”. Experts suggest that people are only spending about 14% of their time on meaningful work, leading to exhaustion and lack of engagement.
• Executive Gluttony: A major organizational sin is executive gluttony, where leaders are constantly spinning up too many exciting projects. This burns people out and spreads resources too thin, leading to a loss of effectiveness in other areas.

Hack 1: The Power of the “Wedge” – Inserting Strategic White Space

The most immediate and impactful solution for fixing the daily work experience is introducing the “wedge”.

• Defining the Wedge: The wedge is a small piece of white space—open, unprescribed time—inserted between previously connected activities. This can take the form of 5, 10, or 15-minute blocks.
• Practical Application: Instead of scheduling a meeting from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, followed immediately by a call at 9:00 AM, the leader inserts a 10-minute wedge at 9:00 AM.
• Business-Relevant Outcomes: These pauses introduce “oxygen into the system”. During a wedge, valuable business-relevant activities happen:
  • Post-Reflection: The individual can reflect on the last task, jot down notes, and assess lessons learned.
  • Internal Check-in: The person can attend to personal needs (water, stretching, food).
  • Pre-Preparation: The individual can prepare for the next interaction, improving the quality of subsequent interactions.
  • Innovative Breakthrough: The unprescribed time allows “innovative breakthrough aha idea[s]” to emerge, which would otherwise be lost during continuous task execution.
• Cultural Buy-in: For the wedge to work, it must become a “sticky” and normative phrase in the culture (e.g., “I need a wedge,” “Respect my wedge”). When leaders adopt this norm, employees feel the necessary permission to prioritize rest and reflection.

Hack 2: Eliminating Time Wasters (Emails and Meetings)

Funt identifies emails and meetings as the two most common problems across all organizations, from Fortune 500 companies to the US Air Force.

Streamlining Email Management:

• The FYI Folder: To combat the constant distraction of low-value communication, every employee should create one separate folder for FYI, CC, and Reply to All emails. The leader should train their email program to automatically sort these into the folder, which is only checked once a day. This ensures the main inbox contains only high-value, direct communications.
• Stopping “Email Babies”: Funt advises adopting the “yellow list”. Before sending a digital communication, the employee takes a micro wedge to ask if the message is necessary or if it can be jotted down on a yellow list for the next time they see the person. This stops the cycle of emails having “babies” and creating massive communication chains.
• Pull vs. Push Communication: Leaders should distinguish between push communication (emails sent to everyone regardless of desire) and pull communication (information stored in a repository like a Google Doc or SharePoint). By shifting non-essential updates to a pull system, employees can grab information when they want it, reducing inbox overload.

Fixing Meeting Overload:

• Rolling Dismissal: A practical way to retrieve lost minutes is through rolling dismissal. As each person concludes their required input or assignment in a meeting, they are free to leave.
• Identifying SBH Meetings: Leaders need to bring mindfulness to meetings by identifying “SBH” (Shouldn’t Be Here) meetings. When employees feel the meeting is low-value, they should feel safe enough to opt out. One company saved 15 hours per person per month just by adopting SBH terminology.
• Addressing FOMO: The fear of missing out (FOMO) prevents people from opting out of meetings. Funt separates FOMO into two types:
  1. FOMO of Content: Easily solved with open-source, recorded meeting notes.
  2. FOMO of Experience: Harder to solve, as it addresses the need for inclusion and shared experience. Leaders must find alternative ways to provide this interpersonal connection.
• Asynchronous Communication: Instead of defaulting to a 45-minute meeting, leaders can use asynchronous communication tools like voice memos or Loom videos. This allows the same content exchange to happen over a shorter cumulative time (e.g., 16 minutes instead of 45 minutes), saving time without sacrificing communication.