Not Today

When crisis strikes, time becomes both our most precious resource and our greatest enemy. Imagine living in a hospital room for months, watching your five-year-old son fight for his life while trying to maintain your business, care for two other children, and somehow keep your sanity intact. This is the reality that transformed an ordinary family into extraordinary practitioners of productivity—not by choice, but by necessity.

Most productivity books promise to help you manage your inbox or organize your calendar. But what happens when life strips away all your comfortable routines and forces you to find meaning in chaos? When every minute counts not just for your career success, but for your family's survival? This is a story about discovering that true productivity isn't about doing more—it's about choosing what matters most and finding the strength to act on those choices, even when everything seems impossible. Through one family's journey through unimaginable challenges, we discover profound truths about time, purpose, and the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

September 28, 2011, started like any ordinary day for Mike and Erica Schultz. They arrived at Massachusetts General Hospital for what should have been a routine eighteen-week ultrasound, excited to learn whether they were expecting a boy or girl. After years of trying to conceive and experiencing the heartbreak of miscarriage, they were finally ready to celebrate this milestone in their pregnancy journey.

The technician's warm smile quickly faded as she spent an unusual amount of time taking pictures of their baby's heart. Minutes stretched into an eternity as more measurements were taken, more images captured. When the doctor finally spoke, his words shattered their world: "I think your baby has critical aortic stenosis, a serious congenital heart defect." Their son would likely be born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome—essentially half a heart.

In that sterile examination room, surrounded by medical equipment and the antiseptic smell of the hospital, Mike and Erica faced a choice that would define everything that followed. They could retreat into despair, or they could channel their energy into action. The diagnosis forced them to confront a fundamental question that most people never have to ask: When time becomes precious beyond measure, how do you choose to spend it?

Within days, they found themselves consulting with Dr. Wayne Tworetzky at Boston Children's Hospital, learning about an experimental procedure that could potentially save their son's heart before he was even born. The statistics were sobering—only eighty-nine cases had ever been attempted worldwide. Yet in that moment of overwhelming uncertainty, they discovered something powerful: when your why becomes crystal clear, your capacity for focused action expands exponentially. This wasn't just about managing their time anymore; it was about maximizing every moment for what truly mattered.

When Ari was born on February 16, 2012, he came out screaming—a sound that filled his parents with indescribable relief. But their celebration was brief. Within hours, this tiny fighter was wheeled into his first surgery, beginning what would become nearly six years of medical battles. In the first seven months of Ari's life, the family spent only five weeks at home together.

Living essentially full-time in a hospital presented challenges that no business school or productivity guru had ever prepared them for. The Cardiac Intensive Care Unit operates twenty-four hours a day with constant interruptions—nurses checking vitals, doctors making rounds, alarms sounding, families in crisis. How do you concentrate on running a business when your child's life hangs in the balance? How do you make important decisions when your emotional tank is running on empty?

Mike discovered something profound during those long hospital days. When Ari was stable and resting, Mike would try to work from the family lounge or his son's bedside. Initially, his attempts at productivity were disastrous—an hour of "work" might yield only eleven minutes of actual focus. But necessity became his greatest teacher. He began experimenting with time-blocking techniques, creating boundaries around his most important tasks, and learning to protect his limited energy for what truly mattered.

The hospital became an unlikely laboratory for productivity innovation. When your window for meaningful work shrinks to just a few hours a day, you quickly learn to distinguish between what feels urgent and what actually moves the needle. The Schultzes discovered that extreme circumstances don't destroy productivity—they clarify it. When everything else falls away, you're left with a stark choice: spend your precious time on activities that align with your deepest values, or watch your energy dissipate into meaningless busy work.

As Ari grew stronger, he developed an infectious love for sports that captivated everyone around him. By age three, he could name every player on the Boston Red Sox roster and drain basketball shots with the precision of a seasoned athlete. Make-A-Wish volunteers came to grant his wish, expecting perhaps a trip to Disney World. Instead, Ari asked for a basketball court in his backyard—then proceeded to demonstrate his skills for two hours straight.

During the relatively stable periods, Mike and Erica learned to create structure within chaos. They developed what they called the "Good Morning Tour"—Ari's daily routine of walking the cardiac floor in his shark slippers, greeting every nurse, doctor, and patient with enthusiasm. This simple ritual transformed not just Ari's energy and mood, but taught his parents a crucial lesson about the power of intentional habits in the most challenging circumstances.

The family began implementing systems that seemed almost counterintuitive given their situation. They scheduled weekly planning sessions to align their actions with their priorities. They created boundaries around their most important work, treating focus time as sacred despite the constant interruptions. They learned to batch similar activities together—responding to messages during designated times rather than being constantly reactive.

Most importantly, they discovered that productivity in crisis isn't about perfection—it's about resilience. When their carefully laid plans inevitably got disrupted by medical emergencies or sleepless nights, they developed the ability to quickly reset and refocus on what mattered most. They built systems that could bend without breaking, creating frameworks that supported their goals while remaining flexible enough to adapt to whatever challenge came next.

After 211 days of waiting for a heart transplant, the call finally came. On March 3, 2017, a heart became available for Ari. The video of Mike telling Ari the news—captured in his hospital room and later shared with the world—shows a five-year-old boy's pure joy at the prospect of finally getting his "new engine." His response was immediate and characteristically optimistic: "Great! When can I go to Fenway Park?"

The successful transplant brought new hope, but also new challenges. Coming home meant managing twenty-three different medications with precise timing, turning their kitchen table into a color-coded pharmacy. The complexity was overwhelming—one missed dose or timing error could be catastrophic. Yet Mike and Erica created a system so detailed and reliable that they made no errors during the critical transition period.

This level of operational excellence under extreme pressure revealed something profound about human capability. When the stakes are highest and failure isn't an option, we discover reserves of focus and determination we never knew existed. The Schultzes learned to break complex challenges into manageable components, create redundant safety systems, and maintain clarity of purpose even when exhausted.

Their hospital room office taught them that productivity isn't about having ideal conditions—it's about maximizing impact within whatever constraints exist. Whether working from a cardiac ICU or a corporate boardroom, the principles remain the same: clarify what matters most, protect your energy for those priorities, and create systems that support consistent execution regardless of circumstances.

On July 21, 2017, after five years, five months, and five days of extraordinary courage, Ari's fight came to an end. The boy who had touched millions of hearts through his infectious optimism and determination finally surrendered to the complications of heart rejection. In their darkest hour, Mike and Erica faced the ultimate test of everything they had learned about purpose, productivity, and resilience.

Grief threatened to consume everything they had built. How do you find motivation when your greatest source of inspiration is gone? How do you maintain focus when the future you'd been working toward has vanished? The couple fell into a darkness so complete that getting out of bed required enormous effort, let alone running a business or caring for their other children.

Yet slowly, through the support of their community and the strength they had developed during Ari's life, they began to rebuild. They realized that Ari wouldn't want them to abandon their dreams or stop living fully. His legacy wasn't about ending their story—it was about writing new chapters with the wisdom and strength his life had given them.

The productivity systems they had developed during the crisis proved crucial during recovery. The habits of weekly planning, energy management, and purposeful action became lifelines when motivation felt impossible to find. They discovered that resilience isn't about bouncing back to where you were—it's about moving forward with deeper wisdom about what truly matters and the courage to pursue it.

Through extraordinary circumstances that tested every limit of human endurance, one family discovered that true productivity isn't about managing time—it's about choosing purpose. When life stripped away all non-essentials and forced them to focus on what truly mattered, Mike and Erica Schultz learned that extreme situations don't destroy our capacity for meaningful action; they clarify it.

The lessons from their journey transcend the specific challenges they faced. Whether you're managing a business crisis, caring for a loved one, or simply feeling overwhelmed by the demands of modern life, the principles remain constant: clarify your deepest values, create systems that support those values, and develop the resilience to maintain focus even when circumstances feel impossible. Their story reminds us that we all have more strength than we realize and that our greatest challenges often become the catalysts for our most meaningful growth. In choosing to move forward with purpose rather than retreat into despair, they discovered that every day offers us the same fundamental choice: to be defined by our circumstances, or to define our response to them.