About this episode

The episode discusses five distinct kinds of work stress with Amy Leneker, focusing on the unexpected stressors that can disrupt productivity.

My book, Productiveness, is now available. It's about the difference between doing more and doing what matters, and how we lost the ability to tell them apart. I'll send the release date the day it's set. Visit https://mikevardy.com/productiveness to learn more and get your copy today. Most people describe work stress as one undifferentiated thing: I'm stressed at work. Amy Leneker's research says there are actually five distinct kinds, and the one doing the most damage to working people isn't the one that shows up most often. It's the sudden kind — the unexpected thing that yanks you off whatever you'd planned to do — and it has a nasty habit of multiplying into all the others. Amy is the author of Cheers to Monday: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Lead and Live with Less Stress and More Joy , and her book is built around a sequence — see, sort, solve, and then celebrate — that has to be done in that order, though almost nobody does. We got into why writing a stressor down doesn't make it bigger, why "just forget about it, it's not important" is terrible advice your brain physically can't follow, the research on how you ask for help mattering far more than who you ask, and why…

Topics covered

• work stress
• types of stress
• productivity
• mental health
• stress management

More episodes of A Productive Conversation

• PM Talks S3E9: What Problem Does This Actually Solve? · September 9, 2026 · 46 min
• Why a Retreat Is Part of the Work, Not a Reward for It · August 26, 2026 · 27 min
• The Jolts That Make Us Quit — and the Ones Worth Ignoring (with Anthony Klotz) · August 19, 2026 · 45 min
• The Difference Between an Aha Moment and a Full-Blown Epiphany (PM Talks S3E8) · August 12, 2026 · 44 min
• Why Logic Alone Can't Explain the Human Mind (with Tom Griffiths) · August 5, 2026 · 39 min
• Why "Life Is" Might Be the Only Sentence You Need (with Gary John Bishop) · July 29, 2026 · 39 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the A Productive Conversation podcast page.