Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 3: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 3: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in mid to late January of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. We are going to be talking airtight
Speaker 2: task management, which is a phrase that Sarah came up
Speaker 2: with and refers to how we deal with all the
Speaker 2: incoming to dos that we are often experiencing in life
Speaker 2: life and making sure that things do not fall through
Speaker 2: the cracks or I guess float out of our air
Speaker 2: tight container, whatever the metaphor is implying here. So Sarah,
Speaker 2: before we get to that, though, this is actually the
Speaker 2: first episode we are recording in twenty twenty five because
Speaker 2: we had to get ahead on a few things to
Speaker 2: make sure that people could be off over the holidays,
Speaker 2: So why don't you give us a quick life update.
Speaker 2: What's been going on for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's been a great start to twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five over all. I've already started back at work. I
Speaker 3: will say I had a little bit of existential dread
Speaker 3: about the backlog because I did take a full two
Speaker 3: weeks off from clinical work, and then it turned out
Speaker 3: to be like, not that bad. We had some people
Speaker 3: that were kind of helping weed in boxes, which is
Speaker 3: not actually typical for our practice, but they're starting to
Speaker 3: do that, so a nurse practitioner was super helpful for me.
Speaker 3: So anyway, got back rolling, felt pretty good. We had
Speaker 3: a great trip to Montana. All three kids can now
Speaker 3: go to Hill's like real greens with lifts unassisted. I mean,
Speaker 3: the other ditch big kids could do that for a while,
Speaker 3: but Genevieve is new to being able to do that
Speaker 3: without a lot of stress from the rest of us,
Speaker 3: so that was super exciting. And then I was about
Speaker 3: to head to Vegas, so this was supposed to be
Speaker 3: Laura and I record and then I jump on a
Speaker 3: plane for my first big adventure of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: which was going to be Annabel's first gymnastics meet, which
Speaker 3: happened to be like a fun travel meet in Vegas.
Speaker 3: This is not like national level competition. This is just like, oh,
Speaker 3: the whole team goes like whoever wants to go. But
Speaker 3: then she broke her finger, as one does. So yeah,
Speaker 3: first pivot of the year happened so soon.
Speaker 1: But I'm cool, So she's not going to Vegas.
Speaker 3: Then she is not going. I am not going. She's
Speaker 3: not too disappointed. We have a lot of other fun
Speaker 3: activities lined up for the weekend instead. And it turns
Speaker 3: out she might only be out for three weeks. It
Speaker 3: could be a little bit longer. But I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: for a fracture, to me, that's like shockingly shorts. Oh
Speaker 3: maybe a best case scenario injury.
Speaker 2: If a bone is getting broken, that's the way you
Speaker 2: want it to go, right exactly. Yeah, Now it's been
Speaker 2: kind of Christmas vacation was a lot of stuff. We
Speaker 2: went to Barbados for a few days, left early on
Speaker 2: the twenty six we were in the card about five
Speaker 2: forty five ams, so Christmas morning we had opened everything,
Speaker 2: had a relaxing few hours, and then I was frantically
Speaker 2: packing everyone for our departure, but we made it to
Speaker 2: Barbados without incident.
Speaker 1: We stayed there for a couple of days.
Speaker 2: I left on the twenty ninth and came back on
Speaker 2: my own because I was singing in a performance of
Speaker 2: the bach B Minor Mass, which was a longtime listeners
Speaker 2: know on my bucket list for many, many years, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to sing this piece. So the performance was
Speaker 2: on the thirty first, but we had the dress rehearsal
Speaker 2: on the thirtieth, and I didn't really think it would
Speaker 2: be a good idea to miss that.
Speaker 1: So I came back early.
Speaker 2: Mike came back with all five children on his own
Speaker 2: from Barbados, so great he was able to do that
Speaker 2: with a minimal craziness as far as I know, you know.
Speaker 2: And then we celebrated Henry's birthday. We had kind of
Speaker 2: done that in Barbados a little bit, but you know,
Speaker 2: we had to bring presents that would fit in the
Speaker 2: carry on. So we had a birthday party at Chuck
Speaker 2: E Cheese on the first weekend of January, as one does,
Speaker 2: and it brought back memories because so it was Henry's
Speaker 2: fifth birthday and Alex's fifth birthday was also at Chuck
Speaker 2: E Cheese, albeit not that one. The one we went
Speaker 2: to then was closer, but it later closed, so Henry
Speaker 2: had actually been there.
Speaker 1: For that one. He was not supposed to be.
Speaker 2: We had scheduled Alex's birthday party for about January five
Speaker 2: or so, which is enough before his birthday, and Henry
Speaker 2: was due January twent second that I was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: it'll be fine, we'll get this party done before he's
Speaker 2: gonna arrive. And then Henry showed up at the end
Speaker 2: of December. So we had a one week old for
Speaker 2: this party in Chuck E Cheese five years ago. But
Speaker 2: he's obviously grown and now is his own little five
Speaker 2: year old.
Speaker 1: Self who had a lot of fun. So yeah, lots
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: It comes full circle. I have to ask, was the
Speaker 3: B Minor Mass all that you dreamed it would be.
Speaker 1: It was really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're pivoting here from Chuck E Cheese to the
Speaker 2: Bach B Minor Mass life is vast and contains multitudes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a lot of fun and the group is
Speaker 2: amazing singers. It was just a wonderful thing to be
Speaker 2: part of. I really enjoyed it. I was trying to
Speaker 2: sort of savor the experience because I knew it was
Speaker 2: gonna be over in two hours, and it's kind of
Speaker 2: hard to do that because I'm of course still trying
Speaker 2: to sing the piece, like making sure I'm not missing
Speaker 2: any notes while I'm enjoying this experience.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was. It was great, and I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that I did it.
Speaker 3: That is so cool, especially because I knew it was
Speaker 3: on your list for such a long time.
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, yes, Zack.
Speaker 2: Yeah. As we've talked about with this, I mean a
Speaker 2: list of one hundred dreams bucket list items. Some are
Speaker 2: more doable on your own, like if you want to
Speaker 2: go to Italy, it turns out that there are several
Speaker 2: airlines who will sell you a ticket to get to Italy.
Speaker 2: Like that you can do, whereas arranging to sing with
Speaker 2: a choir and an orchestra in a performance venue is
Speaker 2: a little bit harder to pull off on your own.
Speaker 2: So I had to kind of plug into somebody else
Speaker 2: that was making this happen, and I'm very glad.
Speaker 1: That I did with Coral Arts Philadelphia. So that was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Yay, I'm glad you did it all right? Well on
Speaker 3: that I know this episode is not airing January first,
Speaker 3: so maybe people aren't feeling as much New Year energy anymore.
Speaker 3: But I'm hoping that many people have it lasting through
Speaker 3: January a little bit. And that's I think what inspired
Speaker 3: us to do kind of a systems focused episode, because
Speaker 3: I've noticed that Laura and I have a few things
Speaker 3: going on in our lives, but we're pretty good about
Speaker 3: a not dropping the ball but B not Typically I
Speaker 3: don't really ever see Laura giving me a lot of
Speaker 3: stress about like, oh my god, I just feel like
Speaker 3: I have so much and not like can't I can't
Speaker 3: get my head around it or something like I don't
Speaker 3: get that energy from you really ever.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm just ignoring things.
Speaker 3: Well, that could be a thing, right as like plan
Speaker 3: ignoring careless that is our first, our first tip.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, this New Year episode well, and.
Speaker 3: There may be something to waiting to care about things
Speaker 3: until you truly need to. That I think both of
Speaker 3: us are reasonably good at. But that I think links
Speaker 3: back to understanding like priorities and what is actually time
Speaker 3: sensitive and having a very clear understanding of what is
Speaker 3: kind of on our plate overall, both in the short
Speaker 3: term and the long term, and so that's kind of
Speaker 3: what we're going to talk about today. And I'm kind
Speaker 3: of proud of my term airtight task management. It's a
Speaker 3: little tongue in cheek. I mean, nobody is going to
Speaker 3: be perfect with any system that they have. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to like share details, but Laura may have not
Speaker 3: seen an adverquest come in that I had to.
Speaker 1: It is possible to be fair.
Speaker 2: It was like it in like December twenty three, all right,
Speaker 2: So that was non optimal in terms of like which
Speaker 2: advertiser was actually working on December twenty three.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure this one out when I.
Speaker 3: Had name names and I have on occasion had my
Speaker 3: own lapses as well. So again, like nobody is perfect,
Speaker 3: but we're aiming for something where we feel really confident
Speaker 3: in our lists and it's not a source of stress
Speaker 3: that we don't know what's going on, because I actually
Speaker 3: think for many people this like vague unrest that there's
Speaker 3: all this stuff out there but they don't actually know
Speaker 3: how to categorize it or like what's urgent, and like
Speaker 3: you know, like what's really there is sometimes more stressful
Speaker 3: than the things themselves. And so if you build a
Speaker 3: system where you feel like things are pretty darn air tight,
Speaker 3: then you not only might actually get more done because
Speaker 3: you kind of know the order in which to do
Speaker 3: things and can put out fires, but the whole thing
Speaker 3: feels a little bit better. So yeah, air tight task management.
Speaker 2: I really like that phrase, thank you, because I think
Speaker 2: being on top of things or not dropping balls. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are all states that we are striving to achieve.
Speaker 2: But this gets at the idea of how do you
Speaker 2: know that things are not escaping your grasp that you
Speaker 2: may decide not to deal with them, but it's not
Speaker 2: that you didn't even know that they existed, and those
Speaker 2: are different matters. So yeah, I love this phrase and
Speaker 2: I'm going to use it widely and reference you.
Speaker 1: Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yay, okay, good. Actually, before we even dive into airtight
Speaker 3: task management, we were going to do a brief mention
Speaker 3: of any new systems that we're trying out in the
Speaker 3: new year. Let's take a quick break before we do that,
Speaker 3: and then we will share a couple of things we're
Speaker 3: trying out. All right, we are back and we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about tight task management today. But first, just
Speaker 3: because it is a new year, I'm curious to see
Speaker 3: if Laura has anything new that she is trying. I'm
Speaker 3: not doing a lot of things that are new. I
Speaker 3: feel like I have my system pretty much down. The
Speaker 3: one thing that I'm doing that I so far is
Speaker 3: working out really nicely is that I have a paper
Speaker 3: monthly planner. It's pretty small, kind of paperback, so it
Speaker 3: kind of could slip into my regular planner or just
Speaker 3: fits easily in a bag where I am putting all
Speaker 3: of my kind of content related calendar stuff. So it
Speaker 3: just has monthly calendar layouts for each month, and then
Speaker 3: there's also blank pages between each of them, which works
Speaker 3: perfectly because I'll put like which best of both worlds
Speaker 3: is coming out, of which best laid plans are coming out,
Speaker 3: and I've even put like ideas for blog posts and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. But also as Laura and I brainstorm
Speaker 3: and come up with ideas, I can put them in
Speaker 3: the pages between the months so that we don't lose
Speaker 3: those things. Because I had been using Apple Notes for
Speaker 3: a lot of that stuff, but it was sort of
Speaker 3: like haphazard, like I'd start this note in that note,
Speaker 3: or I'd have a note that said spring and realized
Speaker 3: we were using it in October and it's like not
Speaker 3: spring anymore. And so by having it sort of link
Speaker 3: to the months of the calendar and being able to
Speaker 3: visually see the topics, I just thought that would be
Speaker 3: a fun way to do it. So, I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: only like ten days in three days in well, no,
Speaker 3: but I've actually planned out pretty much all of January's
Speaker 3: podcast content on it and I like it.
Speaker 1: Good. Good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not really using any new systems this year.
Speaker 2: I have my plum paper planner, which is what I
Speaker 2: do my weekly planning in each week, usually on Thursday
Speaker 2: or Friday. I look to the next week and outline
Speaker 2: what are my major professional priorities for the upcoming week,
Speaker 2: what are my major personal priorities. I will flip through
Speaker 2: a week or two ahead just to make sure, But
Speaker 2: most things in life can be dealt with within a
Speaker 2: two to three week period, unless it's you know, huge
Speaker 2: that you know is coming up, but that gives you
Speaker 2: enough looking forward runway on that each day. My daily
Speaker 2: to do list is in this little notebook. I do
Speaker 2: not keep it in the plump paper for whatever reasons.
Speaker 2: It's the plum papers too big, so to keep it open.
Speaker 2: It's on the other side of the page. One might ask,
Speaker 2: why don't you have a smaller planner than it is,
Speaker 2: because I like having that big space for my weekly plan.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I have a tiny notebook that I then
Speaker 2: use for my daily to do list and any notes
Speaker 2: that are coming up in the course of the day.
Speaker 2: So if I was just talking with somebody on the phone,
Speaker 2: I would probably actually keep my notes in that. And
Speaker 2: you know, I have my calendar is as always the
Speaker 2: weekly at a glance pocket sized calendar, and that is
Speaker 2: where I put any time specific tasks or commitments that
Speaker 2: are going on in my life. And that of course
Speaker 2: is for the next twelve months, and I buy the
Speaker 2: new one in July, so then I have the next
Speaker 2: eighteen months starting in July, so that tends to be
Speaker 2: enough to capture any thing that is coming up. I do, not,
Speaker 2: in fact, have many time specific commitments for twenty twenty
Speaker 2: seven yet.
Speaker 1: So I don't need to worry about that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my system.
Speaker 3: I like it, and I like the eighteen months does
Speaker 3: make sense if you're going to be paper on calendar,
Speaker 3: because I do get frustrated towards the end of every
Speaker 3: calendar year when I'm like carrying around two books and
Speaker 3: by having eighteen months and buying one every year, so
Speaker 3: that you kind of love like a little overlap. That
Speaker 3: would solve that problem very nicely. All right, So not
Speaker 3: a lot of new tools from Laura. Not a ton
Speaker 3: of new stuff for me either, but the content planner
Speaker 3: is fun. And now we're going to pivot back to
Speaker 3: our airtight task management discussion. So to me, we're going
Speaker 3: to kind of like go back and forth in different
Speaker 3: ways that we capture our tasks. But to me, air
Speaker 3: type means number one, I've captured my tasks into a
Speaker 3: system that I know I will look at regularly. So
Speaker 3: it's a trusted system that has routines around it. That
Speaker 3: I have captured all time sensitive items in a way
Speaker 3: where I know I will see them with time to
Speaker 3: get them done. So I haven't put like write a
Speaker 3: book on like December thirtieth, where it's due on December
Speaker 3: thirty first. That wouldn't work very well. I know where
Speaker 3: all my tasks live, so like I have some kind
Speaker 3: of systematic way of clearing out life's various inboxes. Because
Speaker 3: the truth is tasks come to us. They're actually numerous channels.
Speaker 3: A lot of them come through email. Sometimes they come
Speaker 3: through a phone calls. Sometimes they come through a What's
Speaker 3: Up chat, Sometimes they come from your random sports team apps,
Speaker 3: sometimes they come from someone just asking you a favorite work.
Speaker 3: So you have to kind of be conscious of where
Speaker 3: they may be accumulating without your saying okay, and have
Speaker 3: systems for looking at those things regularly. So to me,
Speaker 3: that's sort of like the trifecta. You've captured them all
Speaker 3: in the system. You know you'll look at you have
Speaker 3: some way of dealing with time sensitive, and then you
Speaker 3: have systems for clearing things out. And I know that
Speaker 3: this does like stress people out a lot, because I
Speaker 3: think in Best La Plans Academy, like that's the number
Speaker 3: one thing people kind of fixate on their inbox or
Speaker 3: like feeling like they don't know what to do first,
Speaker 3: or like how to select their activities for the day.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of that comes down to
Speaker 3: these systems. How about you, Like, how do you think
Speaker 3: about making sure that you're very clear on what you
Speaker 3: have going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, the weekly priority list is kind of the bread
Speaker 2: and butter of this, and when I am making that
Speaker 2: for the upcoming week, I tend to look at what
Speaker 2: I know is going on sort of an ongoing list
Speaker 2: of projects. If I look at my calendar for the
Speaker 2: next two weeks and if there's anything time sensitive and
Speaker 2: a time commitment, I would have written it on there
Speaker 2: when it came in, I guess, because these are all
Speaker 2: interlocking things. I mean, so I'm trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: like what is the order of it, so I could
Speaker 2: make a list for it, because it's just ongoing, right.
Speaker 2: But if tasks are coming in via email, I process
Speaker 2: to current every couple of days. If something we're truly urgent,
Speaker 2: like this book review is running in the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal tomorrow, we need.
Speaker 1: You to answer that question, I would do it right then.
Speaker 2: But if it's that we need this in seventy two hours,
Speaker 2: that would probably go on my daily to do list
Speaker 2: or on my weekly priority list. Update that as it's
Speaker 2: going on. A lot of stuff does come in and email,
Speaker 2: and I try to convert anything that has not come
Speaker 2: in as email into email by emailing to myself. Right,
Speaker 2: So this is a very simple way if you are
Speaker 2: the sort of person who processes your primary inbox to current,
Speaker 2: which I'm guessing that probably ninety percent of the people
Speaker 2: listening to this are otherwise you would not be into
Speaker 2: this podcast at all.
Speaker 1: You would see it.
Speaker 2: So I'm out and about and a friends, you know,
Speaker 2: one of my kids friends mom says, can we do
Speaker 2: a play date next week?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I think so, let me just check
Speaker 1: the calendar. I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to email that to myself, right and so
Speaker 2: then the next time I'm sitting down at my desk
Speaker 2: and processing email to Current, I will see it, I.
Speaker 1: Will act on it, and it will wind up on
Speaker 1: the calendar.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that, I think, especially if you know
Speaker 3: that you kind of do your weekly review at its
Speaker 3: email center. Then funneling stuff to email works really well.
Speaker 3: I do that with text requests sometimes too, or as
Speaker 3: you said, like an on the fly thing that just
Speaker 3: comes up. I know I'm not gonna remember it, and
Speaker 3: it is stressful to try to hold that kind of
Speaker 3: thing in your head. So you got to put it
Speaker 3: somewhere that you know you will see it. And then
Speaker 3: it sounds like as you are processing your emails a
Speaker 3: Current and you don't delete it, but like it's almost
Speaker 3: like you might as well be archiving.
Speaker 1: You just don't.
Speaker 3: You're like going through each thing. Then your stuff makes
Speaker 3: its way onto various task lists.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if I'm not going to do anything with it,
Speaker 2: I either delete it or leave it right. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying because you don't actually have to deal with
Speaker 2: everything that comes to you if some things are completely unsolicited.
Speaker 2: So that's something for people to keep in mind as well.
Speaker 2: But yeah, if it is something that I do feel
Speaker 2: some obligation to act on, then I will process it
Speaker 2: during that time.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. Yeah, I feel like my triage is like,
Speaker 3: if it's totally urgent, then yes, deal with it immediately.
Speaker 3: And I actually think one thing to lower your stress
Speaker 3: is to make sure you don't look at in boxes
Speaker 3: during times where you wouldn't be able to do anything
Speaker 3: like don't check your email between patients or something like that.
Speaker 3: If you're like gonna get some oh my god, you
Speaker 3: have to fix this at Like I mean, especially me,
Speaker 3: who kind of like operates in two worlds, I just
Speaker 3: sort of need to like not look at it until
Speaker 3: I'm sitting down and ready to deal with it. That
Speaker 3: doesn't mean I'm not looking at it every day or
Speaker 3: multiple times a day. But I think a lot of
Speaker 3: us who are like dopamine seekers, we just like especially
Speaker 3: I've gotten rid of social media, so like what's left
Speaker 3: to check on my phone? It's email, so I have
Speaker 3: to like resist the urds to check it if I
Speaker 3: won't be able to.
Speaker 1: Deal with it.
Speaker 3: So that means that hopefully when I'm checking it, if
Speaker 3: it's urgent, I can deal with it immediately. And then
Speaker 3: I think you're similar with this. I either assign it
Speaker 3: to a specific day, so I'll go on my planner
Speaker 3: and I'll be like, looks like that needs to be
Speaker 3: that ads due on Friday and I'm free on Wednesday, whatever,
Speaker 3: I'm going to sign it right then and there. Or
Speaker 3: if it's like okay, that's a bigger task and like
Speaker 3: it's this week or it's next week, I'll assign it
Speaker 3: to a specific week. For me, that's very easy to
Speaker 3: do on paper because I just use my the like
Speaker 3: weekly layout in my planner and on the left there
Speaker 3: is a column for tasks. This is a little harder
Speaker 3: to do digitally, but it could also be done because
Speaker 3: you could have like a list in Google's task that's
Speaker 3: this week, and then a list that's next week and
Speaker 3: maybe weeklus two and kind of change those dates around
Speaker 3: if you wanted to put the specific dates on there.
Speaker 3: But so I'll assign stuff to a specific week. And
Speaker 3: the key is that I know every single day I'm
Speaker 3: going to look at both of those places. Like I'm
Speaker 3: always going to look at the day in the morning,
Speaker 3: that's just part of my routine, and as I plan
Speaker 3: my day, I'm always looking at the list for the week.
Speaker 3: So that's where the air type comes in, Like I'm
Speaker 3: writting it down and I'm not going to not see it.
Speaker 3: I'm always going to be pinned in time to deal
Speaker 3: with it. And then well we can talk about more
Speaker 3: like vague later types of tasks. But yeah, is that
Speaker 3: kind of similar to how you would deal with anything
Speaker 3: urgent or sort of time sensitive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well so long term, longer term stuff. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think this is where people get. I mean, obviously, something
Speaker 2: you have to do today, you have a hopefully system
Speaker 2: for dealing with that today. But if something's like, okay,
Speaker 2: you know this is going to be due February twelve,
Speaker 2: I would of course write it on my calendar for
Speaker 2: February twenty eight, but I tend to write it also
Speaker 2: just on the top of the calendar for the week before,
Speaker 2: and that's just to remind myself that it will be
Speaker 2: coming up, so I don't only see it if it's
Speaker 2: bigger on the Thursday or Friday before it is happening.
Speaker 2: And that is especially important if the date that it
Speaker 2: is going to be needing to be dealt with is
Speaker 2: a Monday or Tuesday, because if I'm planning on Thursday
Speaker 2: or Friday, I will not see it until a couple
Speaker 2: days before. And if it's something that's going to require
Speaker 2: more than two work days to deal with, that would
Speaker 2: be a problem. So I will tend to give myself
Speaker 2: a nudge the week before so it's in my active
Speaker 2: mental space to deal with it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: For stuff that does not have a times obvious deadline,
Speaker 2: but it is something I don't want to lose from
Speaker 2: my mental space, I will just write it for a
Speaker 2: random week in the future on the calendar, and then
Speaker 2: when I get there and get close, I will see
Speaker 2: it and I will be like, oh, yes, I should
Speaker 2: think about that, and I will either do it or
Speaker 2: not do it right, Like you know, future Laura has
Speaker 2: agency over whether she acts on whatever past Laura decided
Speaker 2: to assign her. But that's where I put stuff like
Speaker 2: early October professional Christmas lights right, because it turns out
Speaker 2: that if you call them in late November when you
Speaker 2: see other people's lights, they are booked. So if you
Speaker 2: would like to book them, you need to book it
Speaker 2: earlier than that. But of course you're not thinking about
Speaker 2: Christmas lights in early October, so you have to do
Speaker 2: something in order to think about Christmas lights in early October,
Speaker 2: which is to put in this nudge. And there's some
Speaker 2: funny things with this system, because there's like this book
Speaker 2: I want to read, and I only know of it
Speaker 2: because I saw that there was a deal done for
Speaker 2: this book to exist. So I have no idea how
Speaker 2: long this writer is going to take to write it,
Speaker 2: but it's going to get published. So I just put
Speaker 2: like a date a year forward to look and see
Speaker 2: if it was out. It was not out, so I
Speaker 2: had to put it again another like six months forward
Speaker 2: to see if it was out. Like, who knows how
Speaker 2: long this thing was going to get kicked down the road,
Speaker 2: but I haven't forgotten it.
Speaker 1: That's aout.
Speaker 3: You're probably the only one who's like, hey, this person's
Speaker 3: taking longer than they should to write this work.
Speaker 1: Maybe no better than this editor.
Speaker 2: How long it has taken for this writer to get
Speaker 2: this stupid book in that is awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. And again, the key is that
Speaker 3: you know you're going to look at that like it's
Speaker 3: not in some random paper notebook on the shelf that
Speaker 3: like you might feel like pulling out every once in
Speaker 3: a while. It's like in your calendar that you look
Speaker 3: at every single day. I think that's key because people
Speaker 3: feel time.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not looking at that thing every single
Speaker 2: day like that. That thing only comes up every six
Speaker 2: to twelve months, right, but cued it down the road, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: That tool you're looking at every day, so you know that,
Speaker 3: like when August twenty four, twenty five comes up, like
Speaker 3: you're going to see it.
Speaker 2: So I'll see it perfect unless I lose the calendar.
Speaker 2: But I tend to be careful with that, which is
Speaker 2: a problem with Patroreak. Yeah, I mean that is with
Speaker 2: there is as we're going for airtight task management. Obviously,
Speaker 2: paper is not in and of itself air tight. I
Speaker 2: try not to lose things. I have lost things. I
Speaker 2: am human what I tend to do though, if I
Speaker 2: am traveling, and so therefore there is a higher risk
Speaker 2: that I might lose my paper calendar that I'm taking
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 1: I take photos of the next six weeks. So I
Speaker 1: have that.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I like it. Planner insurance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, planner insurance.
Speaker 2: I don't forget about the thing that happened six months
Speaker 2: from now. But I figure, you know, if I did
Speaker 2: lose it in six weeks, I could try to recreate
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 3: That's impressive. I have not lost a planner yet. No,
Speaker 3: I'm finxing myself. I just feel like I'm like, I
Speaker 3: use it so often. Yeah, it's like your phone, Like
Speaker 3: it's a little bit hard to lose.
Speaker 2: I did once, so I had, you know, but back
Speaker 2: in the day, and it's literally like thirteen fourteen years
Speaker 2: ago now, but I something went wrong in the course
Speaker 2: of getting in a bus to get to Lax.
Speaker 1: And it was gone.
Speaker 2: It was gone, and I had to reconstruct everything. And
Speaker 2: so I've just been more careful about it since.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, all right, So that's where you put
Speaker 3: your some of your long term goals. We'll talk about
Speaker 3: other long term goals in a second. But yeah, like
Speaker 3: so like I guess, yeah, nebulous goals that you're like,
Speaker 3: this could be fun. Do they always go to a
Speaker 3: specific date or do you have you have a hundred
Speaker 3: dreams list. For me, I have like a Sunday maybe
Speaker 3: list that's good for those really one off like and
Speaker 3: it's filled with really random stuff now because it's just
Speaker 3: sort of like stuff that I truly don't really know,
Speaker 3: but I don't want to forget about, and then I
Speaker 3: weed through it every once in a while, which I
Speaker 3: think is key. You don't want to just build up forever.
Speaker 3: I mean, at some point you might just decide that ideas.
Speaker 1: Not needed anymore.
Speaker 3: But having some kind of catch all for totally time
Speaker 3: like not ready to schedule in any concrete way types
Speaker 3: of things I think can be useful. Do you have
Speaker 3: your equivalent or do you use your hundred dreams list
Speaker 3: for that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't really use the hundred dream because the
Speaker 2: hundred dreams list is more sort of aspirational stuff like okay,
Speaker 2: more fun thing, I guess, And a lot of the
Speaker 2: to do's that I'm not ready to schedule yet or
Speaker 2: commit to a time to doing them, but I do
Speaker 2: need to think about them in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: I will just I do sometimes maintain a running list
Speaker 2: of those tasks. And actually, here's another thing which I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if where this fits in, but in the
Speaker 2: course of a week, as random tasks come up, because
Speaker 2: I don't want them necessarily to pollute all my time,
Speaker 2: like thinking that I need to deal with them. I
Speaker 2: maintain what I call a Friday punch list, which is
Speaker 2: all those little tasks that I need to get to,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to do them in like a two
Speaker 2: hour sprint on Friday. So I'm not pulling myself away
Speaker 2: from say, writing a chapter in a book because I'm like,
Speaker 2: I have all these permission slips to fill out.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, no, I'm going to do those on Friday.
Speaker 3: I like it. So you corral the kind of like
Speaker 3: little annoying things. I don't have a practice like that.
Speaker 3: I would have all of mine on my weekly list.
Speaker 3: I just wouldn't do them in like I wouldn't pull
Speaker 3: them off until Friday. But I can see the comp
Speaker 3: in kind of being like, we don't do this today,
Speaker 3: we do this during our Friday time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: I think mental space is valuable, but sort of the
Speaker 2: longer list it has stuff like schedule all the kids
Speaker 2: pediatrician appointments, right, like this is going to be a
Speaker 2: painful thing to do, and I don't really want to
Speaker 2: do it, but I do need to do it at
Speaker 2: some point in the next couple weeks, so it's on
Speaker 2: the list things like that.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I don't even have one like that. I
Speaker 3: don't know how I get on. Everything's on the week,
Speaker 3: everything's to a week. Okay, yeah, I probably will not
Speaker 3: do it next week, but yes, I can see the
Speaker 3: comfort in like feeling you have it carrolled somewhere. So
Speaker 3: as you hear there's variations on their theme, there is
Speaker 3: not one way to be airtight. I think the key
Speaker 3: again is like having these rituals, defining them to yourself,
Speaker 3: and using like tools that you're going to look at.
Speaker 3: Often those are the mean recurring themes, even though you
Speaker 3: can hear that Laura and I do it differently. We're
Speaker 3: going to take one more break and then a little
Speaker 3: bit more on tasks and our quani. All right, we
Speaker 3: are back, and I guess I just wanted to have
Speaker 3: a brief discussion of digital versus paper. So we already
Speaker 3: talked about the downside of paper being that you can
Speaker 3: lose it, which is tough. I also think sometimes people
Speaker 3: are at tempted to swap paper tools often and I
Speaker 3: do with that sometimes if you have a master calendar
Speaker 3: type tool, you just had to be very careful if
Speaker 3: and when you are going to swap it. Because any
Speaker 3: kind of like daily notebook you can swap no problem.
Speaker 3: But something that's got long term running stuff, it's a process,
Speaker 3: so do it with care. And then I have to
Speaker 3: say digital can be great. I have friends that are
Speaker 3: everything's in Google or everything's in Microsoft. There's also some
Speaker 3: beautiful planner like apps out there, like Artful Agenda, which
Speaker 3: will pull your Google calendar into a planner looking spread
Speaker 3: that you can use on your laptop or your iPad.
Speaker 3: That's super cool. But if you find the digital stuff overwhelming,
Speaker 3: don't feel like you need to go digital, because I yes,
Speaker 3: I just feel like there's this trope that like people
Speaker 3: with real busy lives can only plan through apps, and
Speaker 3: we're really busy, you guys like we don't and we
Speaker 3: don't use them. And again not saying they're bad. I
Speaker 3: actually think there's some really wonderful things about them and
Speaker 3: some great tools. I just don't think they're mandatory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, the one thing that I think gets
Speaker 2: people tripped up with that is that if you're part
Speaker 2: of a corporate or larger organization. Your calendar is digital,
Speaker 2: and I don't have to do that because Vanderkam Inc.
Speaker 2: Can exist on paper, and you know, everyone else who
Speaker 2: deals with me then just knows to deal with that.
Speaker 2: But sometimes I get meeting requests and I'm like, that's funny.
Speaker 2: I wonder where that went. Somewhere. There's a digital calendar
Speaker 2: for Laura somewhere that I never look at because I
Speaker 2: have it written on my paper calendar. But anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: if you have that, then people are like, well, but
Speaker 2: then I would keep paper. But how do I know
Speaker 2: that I didn't have this at work at this time
Speaker 2: that I'm also trying to schedule a kid's thing, you know,
Speaker 2: And I get it. That's really hard, and so then
Speaker 2: people wind up with bad systems sometimes because they don't
Speaker 2: want to put all their personal stuff on their work
Speaker 2: calendar because then their colleagues can see it. But they
Speaker 2: don't want to try to maintain two air tight calendars.
Speaker 1: I understand. It's hard. It's hard.
Speaker 3: It's hard. I feel like some people get around it
Speaker 3: by at least just blocking the hours that they work
Speaker 3: either on paper or on another digital calendar that they
Speaker 3: use kind of as their own even if they can't
Speaker 3: import their actual work calendar due to security stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 3: or they put all their home stuff on their work
Speaker 3: but they're vague, but yeah, it is tough if others
Speaker 3: can see that and they don't want it seeing. Or
Speaker 3: there's some people that do some interesting hybrids, like if
Speaker 3: their their work is digital, but they print their calendar
Speaker 3: out every week and actually like jot down their own
Speaker 3: stuff that's going to fit around the work stuff. So
Speaker 3: there are sort of like different hacks you can use.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that can be challenging if your work generally
Speaker 3: tends to always be like eight thirty to six or
Speaker 3: something like that. Though, then from a calendar standpoint, you
Speaker 3: could kind of be in two different worlds. Like you
Speaker 3: just if you have a working method's outside of those hours, fine,
Speaker 3: it goes into you make some representation of it on
Speaker 3: your personal calendar, and then otherwise you assume that during
Speaker 3: those hours you look at your outlook and then of
Speaker 3: the rest of the time you can look at your
Speaker 3: other tools. Yeah. Yeah, all right, well that's I think
Speaker 3: that's most of what I had. Not going crazy with
Speaker 3: overly detailed scheduling of task. I think as a trap
Speaker 3: people get into like they get excited about their systems,
Speaker 3: so they're going to have a task at every every
Speaker 3: fifteen minute interval or like be like overly granular about
Speaker 3: how they'll do things. I don't think either of us
Speaker 3: tend to map out our entire day task by task
Speaker 3: most days, correct, Yeah, if.
Speaker 2: It's a really busy day, I will because I want
Speaker 2: to make sure that I am using any chunk of
Speaker 2: time that is not spoken for for something that needs
Speaker 2: geet done, as opposed to just kind of losing it
Speaker 2: into inbox management or something like that. But I just
Speaker 2: want to add one more thing with the weekly priority list,
Speaker 2: because what also makes this airtight is that if it
Speaker 2: goes on the priority list, it is getting done or
Speaker 2: it is actively being assigned to another spot.
Speaker 1: Like we don't put anything on.
Speaker 2: The priority list that I don't intend to do or
Speaker 2: that you know, it's like maybe this will happen, maybe
Speaker 2: it won't. If it's on the priority list, it's I've
Speaker 2: decided to do it that week, and if for some reason,
Speaker 2: which is rare, it isn't happening, then it will be
Speaker 2: actively assigned to another time. And the same with the
Speaker 2: daily to do list. Actually for me to do means today.
Speaker 2: So the process of creating the to do list is
Speaker 2: actually a choice over these.
Speaker 1: Are the things I'm going to do today.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, people are like, well, life happens, stuff
Speaker 2: comes up absolutely, which is why they're always short, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you don't want to over assign yourself stuff. So that's
Speaker 2: one reason to keep a list or future count of
Speaker 2: other things you want to deal with eventually. Because if
Speaker 2: it is a great week and nobody gets sick and
Speaker 2: you know, there's no snow days and like you were
Speaker 2: cranking along on stuff and got it all done, you
Speaker 2: can go pick other stuff and pull that from the
Speaker 2: future and get it done this week. But if life,
Speaker 2: you know, has the normal amount of ridiculousness that happens,
Speaker 2: like at least you know that everything did get done.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a contract with yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have a philosophical difference, but a practical sameness
Speaker 3: to what you just said, which is that on my
Speaker 3: weekly list on that left, I don't expect to do
Speaker 3: everything in most weeks, I expect to do like a
Speaker 3: lot of stuff. But what you mentioned is key. I
Speaker 3: don't just leave the unchecked task there to like whither
Speaker 3: away and like never happen. Part of my planning process
Speaker 3: for the next week is always to either migrate or
Speaker 3: purposefully abandoned. So I'm either I actually have a symbol
Speaker 3: that I use. Instead of checking it off or exing
Speaker 3: it off, I put a horizontal line through it. That
Speaker 3: means I've migrated it to somewhere else. If I'm not
Speaker 3: doing it at all, I put it X through the
Speaker 3: A line through the whole thing. But so if I've migrated,
Speaker 3: then great, I've already assigned it to the next week.
Speaker 3: I'm not losing that thing. And that goes for the
Speaker 3: day as well. That's like the first step in my
Speaker 3: daily planning is look at the day before. What didn't happen?
Speaker 3: Do I need to migrate it to today? Or am
Speaker 3: I letting it go? So you're absolutely right. I think
Speaker 3: you can decide whether or not you want to feel
Speaker 3: like everything needs to get done in a timeframe or
Speaker 3: whether you have more of a okay, this would be
Speaker 3: nice to get done during this week kind of a mindset. Again,
Speaker 3: addressing that flexibility that like this might be a crazy week,
Speaker 3: this might not be. I can't necessarily predict it. But
Speaker 3: the key is that you cannot let yourself leave things there, Yeah,
Speaker 3: like they.
Speaker 1: Will need to me.
Speaker 2: It's also about not over committing yourself for the week, right,
Speaker 2: And I think if people have a sort of you know,
Speaker 2: have these ongoing like there's all sorts of to do list,
Speaker 2: ten sends I see and people you know they're to
Speaker 2: do list, They're like a by to do list is
Speaker 2: forty three pages long.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's not a to do list. That might
Speaker 1: be a life list.
Speaker 3: Of any ideas anything you want to do.
Speaker 2: But that has you can't use that like a to
Speaker 2: do list. Again, that's why we say to do means today.
Speaker 2: So of that forty three pages, what are you actually
Speaker 2: committing to get done by the time you fall asleep tonight?
Speaker 2: And knowing that that is only x number of hours,
Speaker 2: the tasks that you choose have to fit within those
Speaker 2: number of hours, given that life will happen. And so
Speaker 2: I think that winnowing process is incredibly important for people
Speaker 2: to build into their lives and.
Speaker 3: It helps you prioritize, right, because if you have forty
Speaker 3: three things and you're like, oh, it's fine, I'll get
Speaker 3: two percent on my list done, which is not my philosophy.
Speaker 3: Mine's more like, okay, eighty percent is great, then you're
Speaker 3: always going to pick the two easiest things and you're
Speaker 3: never going to move forward on the tough things. So
Speaker 3: by choosing fewer items, you are also consciously persolutely.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's pivot now to our Q and A.
Speaker 2: So, Sarah, this is somewhat related about our airtight task
Speaker 2: management such as it is. How do you, guys keep
Speaker 2: track of the questions that come in? Do you always
Speaker 2: answer them the month they arrive? If questions come into
Speaker 2: Best of Both Worlds, which, by the way, just a reminder,
Speaker 2: you can always email me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com,
Speaker 2: or you post them on either of our blogs.
Speaker 1: So, Sarah, what do we do with them? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So I dump them into Apple Notes, which is my
Speaker 3: kind of like second brain for various podcasting things, as
Speaker 3: I talked about. Sometimes we'll start a table for the
Speaker 3: spring episodes and it goes all the way to a fall.
Speaker 3: But either way, it's a useful tool. It's searchable, it's
Speaker 3: easy to clean up at archives. So I will make
Speaker 3: a page that's like, right now, there's a page. I
Speaker 3: think it says like Q one BOBW questions and as
Speaker 3: they come in or as even if Laura fords to me,
Speaker 3: I just copy and paste him in there and that way,
Speaker 3: when it's time for us to do episodes, I just
Speaker 3: see what we have collecting, which means that sometimes we
Speaker 3: get a little behind and we are answering questions a
Speaker 3: few months in or maybe like a question sits there
Speaker 3: until we're like, ooh, that goes really well with that
Speaker 3: episode and we're going to use it. So we love
Speaker 3: your questions. You should send them to us. And Laura's
Speaker 3: really good at responding in a timely manner. I'm good
Speaker 3: at responding eventually, and yeah, you will hear from us,
Speaker 3: and we might answer your question on the show. We
Speaker 3: probably will. It just might not be like that month.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good?
Speaker 2: All right, So, Sarah Love of the Week, what are
Speaker 2: you excited about right now?
Speaker 3: Since I complain all summer, I feel like I just
Speaker 3: need to say we're having like the best cold snap
Speaker 3: it's like, and I think it's affecting other areas of
Speaker 3: country too, which might not be such a positive, but
Speaker 3: here that means there have been like I went running
Speaker 3: this morning and I had to wear jacket like it
Speaker 3: was in the forties South Florida, like that's a special experience.
Speaker 3: So I feel really lucky that we get to enjoy
Speaker 3: nice weather for several months during winter.
Speaker 2: Well, i'll do weather related in general. Our weather in Winterest.
Speaker 2: It's like, it's so cold right now. I have that
Speaker 2: same cold snap that's forty degrees there, it's like seven
Speaker 2: degrees here. It's not very fun. That said, we had
Speaker 2: snow earlier this week and it was pretty. It was
Speaker 2: not enough to really well, the kids were out of school,
Speaker 2: but it was somewhat ridiculous, like I'm pretty sure they
Speaker 2: could have gone to school. But the good news of
Speaker 2: that is that our nanny could actually get here quite
Speaker 2: easily because it was only like an inch or two
Speaker 2: and so the roads were clear by like eight am.
Speaker 2: But you know, so they could just play in it
Speaker 2: a little bit and it was pretty to look at.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't so terrible that nobody could go anywhere,
Speaker 2: and you know, you have to hunker down and can't
Speaker 2: go outside for days or anything like that. So a
Speaker 2: light dusting of snow is my love of the week.
Speaker 2: It sounds so pretty.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this has been best of both worlds. We've
Speaker 2: been talking airtight task management. We will be back next
Speaker 2: week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work
Speaker 2: and life work together.