Hi, I’m Betsy.

I believe productivity should help you live your life—not make you feel bad about it.

I’m Betsy Tucker Hays: professor, speaker, author, podcast host, and lifelong productivity nerd.

For more than 26 years, I’ve been helping people communicate better, work more effectively, and make meaningful progress—without waiting for everything to be perfect.

Productivity for real humans.

Most of us do not need another complicated system for becoming perfectly productive.

We need practical ways to make progress in the lives we actually have.

Real life includes meetings, overflowing inboxes, deadlines, family, interruptions, laundry, unexpected problems, low-energy days, and plans that absolutely do not go according to plan.

And we still have things we want to accomplish.

That’s where Handled(ish) comes in.

Useful beats impressive.
Progress beats perfect.
Handled(ish) is often plenty.

A little about the professional stuff.

I’m an award-winning professor of public relations and advertising, and I’ve spent more than 27 years helping people become stronger communicators, professionals, and leaders.

Along the way, my work has expanded into career readiness, service-learning, entrepreneurship education, leadership, communication, and productivity.

I’m also an APR and member of the PRSA College of Fellows, and I’ve spent years working at the intersection of communication, education, leadership, and the wonderfully messy reality of getting things done.

I’ve co-authored three nonfiction books and one children’s book, and I host Handled(ish): Productivity for the Imperfect, where I explore realistic ways to manage work and life without pretending either one is ever going to be perfectly organized.


27+ YEARS
College professor


4 BOOKS
Author/co-author


APR + FELLOW PRSA
Communication expertise


125+ EPISODES
Handled(ish) podcast

And then there’s the actual human behind the bio.

In addition to writing, speaking, teaching, and tinkering endlessly with my calendar, I love my family and friends, seasoned pretzels, a lovely cup of hot tea, yoga, and curling up on the couch under a blanket to read or watch football.

I really do love my job, too.

I’ve spent my career teaching college students, and despite what you may have heard about the next generation, I can report that the future is in pretty good hands.

So maybe worry a little less about that one.

I’m curious by nature, I love a good plan, and I’m almost always experimenting with some new strategy, schedule, routine, or way to make life work a little better.

Not perfectly. Just better.