Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 2: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 2: our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 3: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: This episode is airing in late April of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Sarah is going to be interviewing Laura May Martin, who
Speaker 1: is a productivity expert and the author of the new
Speaker 1: book Uptime. She is also works at Google where she
Speaker 1: coaches executives on productivity, which I think is a really
Speaker 1: cool career crafting move. You know, she talks about in
Speaker 1: her book she began her career in sales and then
Speaker 1: people kept commenting on how productive she was, and like
Speaker 1: her calendar was always under control, and she was able
Speaker 1: to leverage that into a career in productivity while still
Speaker 1: working for the same company.
Speaker 3: So I think that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: So she talks a lot about different productivity techniques and strategies.
Speaker 1: But what things she talked about that I a little
Speaker 1: flag for me was keyboard shortcuts. Apparently she is the
Speaker 1: guru of keyboard shortcuts, so I wondered, Sarah, do you
Speaker 1: use any keyboard shortcuts in your daily life?
Speaker 4: I do. I enjoy keyboard shortcuts.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I don't use as many as I could
Speaker 2: be using, but I have a few that I make
Speaker 2: my life so much easier. And I would say the
Speaker 2: most commonly used keyboard shortcut in my non like clinical
Speaker 2: life is the screen grab a MAC that is the
Speaker 2: shift control option for or shift control for whether or
Speaker 2: not you want to copy and paste it, And it
Speaker 2: basically allows you to grab anything on a screen and
Speaker 2: then instantly copy it to your clipboard so you can
Speaker 2: paste it wherever, or to save that graphic as a
Speaker 2: PMG file on your desktop. And this is so helpful
Speaker 2: for me when I'm adding a graphic to my blog
Speaker 2: or if I'm making a PowerPoint presentation. If I'm so
Speaker 2: for example, since I do a lot of planning related
Speaker 2: presentations and I have to create APDF, I'm often just
Speaker 2: pulling pieces of that PDF onto the screen, and if
Speaker 2: I did not have the shortcut, it would truly take
Speaker 2: probably three or four times as long to do this
Speaker 2: because it's just so quick pace grab paste.
Speaker 4: So yeah, love the screen grab.
Speaker 2: And then at work I do a lot of what
Speaker 2: they call dot phrases or text expansions. They actually have
Speaker 2: that on Apple as well, and I have the link.
Speaker 2: I can put it in the show notes. You don't
Speaker 2: have to buy a separate like text expansion app if
Speaker 2: you have a Mac and probably a Windows too, but
Speaker 2: I amac where you can teach it that, Like if
Speaker 2: I type squad cast one, then I can then click
Speaker 2: on this thing that comes up and then the whole
Speaker 2: paragraph instantly appears. And on EPIC, the medical record software
Speaker 2: that we use at work, it's called a dot phraeze,
Speaker 2: and I have a ton of dot phrases like oh,
Speaker 2: you just got a new diagnosis of polycystic over syndrome.
Speaker 2: I just taught type dot shoe PCOS and it's a
Speaker 2: whole explanation of my thoughts on that condition. Obviously I
Speaker 2: can then customize it, but I mean the amount of
Speaker 2: time that this saves it is not insignificant, because I'm
Speaker 2: often doing having similar conversations and typing out similar things.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm very glad I live in the era
Speaker 2: of some shortcuts.
Speaker 4: They're available to me. What about you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, none, I mean, like literally none. And as just
Speaker 1: one example, I write my Before Breakfast podcast scripts every
Speaker 1: week and they all start with the same line, and
Speaker 1: they all end in the same line, and I type
Speaker 1: it out every single time. And I have done that
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred times. And I know there are ways to Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not an idiot. I know there are ways to
Speaker 1: do this, like to change it or to do a
Speaker 1: shortcut or something like that. But I guess I just
Speaker 1: generally feel like my life is not so close to
Speaker 1: the line that I really worry about it. Like in
Speaker 1: the case of the Before Breakfast scripts, I decided to
Speaker 1: time myself just to be you know, like, how much
Speaker 1: time is this? And I can type those words in
Speaker 1: twenty seconds, So with five scripts a week, that is
Speaker 1: one hundred seconds. So it's one minute and forty seconds.
Speaker 1: And I am not that close to the line. Nor
Speaker 1: do I have an exalted enough opinion of myself that
Speaker 1: I believe I would do something wondrous and life changing
Speaker 1: in those minute and forty seconds. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's totally different if you are wanting to share like
Speaker 1: your thoughts on a condition and you know, have that
Speaker 1: there and that's obviously useful, or something like you're coming
Speaker 1: up with the way of having a different checkout card
Speaker 1: so that you can actually spend another two or three
Speaker 1: minutes with a patient. That is a huge victory, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that is something that matters. I'm not doing anything like that,
Speaker 1: right I would just be deleting another email faster. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no virtue in like, I don't say my approach
Speaker 1: isn't like virtuous. Like there's no virtue in wasting tiny
Speaker 1: bits of time, But I don't know that there's any
Speaker 1: virtue in saving it either if you're not you know,
Speaker 1: as long as you have the big pieces of life
Speaker 1: kind of there. So if something would require you to
Speaker 1: change your workflow in a way that you don't really
Speaker 1: feel like doing, then you know.
Speaker 4: This reminds me of the latte factor.
Speaker 1: Yes, just go get the latte, get a different job,
Speaker 1: and keep your lattes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but Obviouslyarah May Martin.
Speaker 3: Loves her keyboard shirtcuts.
Speaker 1: Sarah loves her keyboard shirtcuts, and I think in their
Speaker 1: case they probably make sense for both of them. So
Speaker 1: we will hear what she has to say about different topics.
Speaker 1: But onto the interview that Sarah does with her.
Speaker 2: Well, I am so excited today to welcome Laura may
Speaker 2: Martin to the show, who is Google's productivity expert and
Speaker 2: also the author of Uptime, which is just releasing now,
Speaker 2: a practical guide to personal productivity and well being. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the show, Laura.
Speaker 3: Welcome, I mean, thank you, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Well, I read through the copy of your book and
Speaker 2: I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I'm so excited to chat here.
Speaker 2: This is a book that I think is going to
Speaker 2: resonate with a lot of our listeners, as Laura is
Speaker 2: a little unique in that she has this really broad
Speaker 2: based corporate experience working at Google, but is also obsessed
Speaker 2: with all things productivity. And I feel like so much
Speaker 2: productivity advice comes from people who are now entrepreneurs and
Speaker 2: doing it on their own. Yet Laura is able to
Speaker 2: kind of meld both sides. I'm here for this book
Speaker 2: and I'm here for you to be here today. What
Speaker 2: made you decide to turn it into a book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 5: I was doing all of my coaching and the productivity
Speaker 5: at Google program and I had been doing a lot
Speaker 5: of like one off articles like email management and time
Speaker 5: management and parent magazine, and you know, it was like
Speaker 5: just kind of sporadic. And somebody approached me and was like,
Speaker 5: you know, you really should organize all of your thoughts
Speaker 5: about this into one place and really cover like a
Speaker 5: lot of these big things that people are dealing with,
Speaker 5: whether it's meetings or time management or energy.
Speaker 3: And so I was like, you know, that's kind of
Speaker 3: a good idea.
Speaker 5: So I started just like keeping a running list of
Speaker 5: like things I might want to include in a book
Speaker 5: for over like three years, and then started looking at
Speaker 5: all those and saying, like, how would those even fit
Speaker 5: into chapters? And here we are. So takes a long time,
Speaker 5: but I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Yes, And in that time, I believe you have Well,
Speaker 2: at least in the book, you had three children under
Speaker 2: the age of four.
Speaker 4: Is that still true?
Speaker 5: Yes, Actually my oldest is now. For now there's three
Speaker 5: under five.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 5: One of the stories I love to tell is like
Speaker 5: I signed to do this book and write it, and
Speaker 5: about three days later I found out I was pregnant,
Speaker 5: and I was like, Okay, that's going to be a
Speaker 5: busy year, and we also knew we were already moving.
Speaker 5: But then my son, my third child, he came over
Speaker 5: a month early, and so I was like all set
Speaker 5: on exactly what chapters I was going to write in
Speaker 5: this last month where I got off of work and
Speaker 5: I was like, all, my schedule was perfect. And then
Speaker 5: I realized, you know, even the best planners can't plan
Speaker 5: when babies come. So fortunately everything was good. He just
Speaker 5: wanted to come early.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was.
Speaker 5: It was a whirlwind, that whole process, like having.
Speaker 3: The kids, moving, writing the book. It was. I was
Speaker 3: definitely in it. Still am.
Speaker 2: That is amazing. Three kids in that age bracket is
Speaker 2: no joke. Laura has five kids and I have three,
Speaker 2: but I don't think any of us had kids that
Speaker 2: close together.
Speaker 4: So you win that, you win that.
Speaker 2: So that leads me in perfectly to my first question,
Speaker 2: because I can imagine with that many children and with
Speaker 2: your full life that you've talked a lot about setting priorities,
Speaker 2: which I am very passionate about as well, but then
Speaker 2: how to go through that exercise but also leave the
Speaker 2: room for the urgent things that come up.
Speaker 4: Can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I think a lot of times when I do
Speaker 5: my coaching, people will come back at me and say like, yes,
Speaker 5: I have a really nice schedule, or I have my
Speaker 5: priorities I want to focus on, but then urgent things
Speaker 5: always come up.
Speaker 3: And so part of.
Speaker 5: What we work on is that if urgent is really
Speaker 5: coming up often, first let's look at the process.
Speaker 3: You know, urgent.
Speaker 5: Once it's urgent, urgent twenty times like, something's probably wrong.
Speaker 3: With the system. We've got to get that under control.
Speaker 5: But then the second piece is if you're a journalist
Speaker 5: or you work on you know, like a bug team
Speaker 5: when a product goes down or something like that, the
Speaker 5: nature of your job is urgency. So we just have
Speaker 5: to ask ourselves are you leaving room for that in
Speaker 5: your schedule. So even in the book I talk about
Speaker 5: er doctors don't also take regular patients during the day,
Speaker 5: like they know that urgent is their priority, and so
Speaker 5: they if somebody walked in and said, I want to
Speaker 5: get checked out for a possible cold, they would say, no,
Speaker 5: I have to keep my time free in case someone
Speaker 5: comes in from a car accident. So you have to
Speaker 5: do that same thing, making it one of your top priorities,
Speaker 5: making room for it to bubble into your schedule. And
Speaker 5: one of the examples I talk about as an executive
Speaker 5: that saves an hour every single day for urgent and
Speaker 5: anytime something comes up, it's crazy. People on his team
Speaker 5: will say, oh, well, we have to meet with him
Speaker 5: about it, and we know he's going to have one
Speaker 5: to two available, so let's go ahead and we'll have
Speaker 5: the presentation ready. Then we'll all clear our calendars. It's
Speaker 5: just like such a good urgent system. And so that's
Speaker 5: really what you have to create.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: I love that the idea that if something's happening routinely
Speaker 2: that feels like an emergency, it's probably not an emergency
Speaker 2: and it deserves kind of well, or it is, but
Speaker 2: it like deserves a whole process that's going to streamline it.
Speaker 2: That actually makes me think of my own job, because
Speaker 2: I'm a pediatric endocrinologist and we get like newly diagnosed
Speaker 2: patients with diabetes all the time, and I feel like
Speaker 2: our team has it down like, yes, of course is
Speaker 2: an emergency for the patient, and it is, but like
Speaker 2: for us, we're like, yeah, because this happens all the time.
Speaker 3: So that's great. You have a system that's like frilling.
Speaker 2: Down into a repeated emergency. How about those emergencies that
Speaker 2: relate to kids being sick and you thought about it.
Speaker 5: I feel like that is one that you again you
Speaker 5: kind of plan for it, like we have a backup plan,
Speaker 5: and you know, I know that if my kids are
Speaker 5: homesick on Mondays and Wednesdays, like that's a day that
Speaker 5: my mom is typically available to come over and help.
Speaker 5: Or we have understanding teams at work that know we
Speaker 5: have young kids and also have kids, and so I
Speaker 5: feel like, you know, there's ways to get ahead of
Speaker 5: it and say, if it's happened, these are some of
Speaker 5: my options. But as you know, there are times where
Speaker 5: it's just got to work through it and do whatever
Speaker 5: you can.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but your answer was beautiful there because you're expecting
Speaker 2: that to happen and you kind of have thought through, Okay,
Speaker 2: well this is the work I can maybe push forward,
Speaker 2: This is my number one backup, et cetera, rather than
Speaker 2: treating it as like a unique emergency every time, Like,
Speaker 2: let's face it, with that age, kids are going to
Speaker 2: get a bunch of any respiratory virus every season exactly.
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit about what you call
Speaker 2: the list funnel.
Speaker 5: Yes, this is one of the things that's a little
Speaker 5: harder to talk about, you know, without visuals. So I
Speaker 5: do have the sheets on my site. But the idea
Speaker 5: of the list funnel is just that people a lot
Speaker 5: of people keep lists. They like liss, they make lists,
Speaker 5: they work from lists. But how do they all work together?
Speaker 5: How do you make sure if you wrote something on
Speaker 5: a list and it didn't get done, that it finds
Speaker 5: its way back to make sure you know you still
Speaker 5: have to do it. If you're going to learn to
Speaker 5: play piano one day and you have something else you
Speaker 5: need to do before four o'clock, Like, how do those
Speaker 5: coexist on the same list? What is the list of
Speaker 5: things you're not doing versus the list of things you
Speaker 5: are doing? How to list fit into your schedule, into
Speaker 5: your week. So that's really the idea of the list
Speaker 5: funnel is that it's like a closed system. It's a
Speaker 5: reprieve from the mental noise that's constantly going on. And
Speaker 5: I think you know, as parents, as moms, as working moms,
Speaker 5: we have so much of that.
Speaker 3: Oh I got to get that birthday party gift, I
Speaker 3: got to.
Speaker 5: Send that email to my boss. Oh, I remember to
Speaker 5: switch the laundry. I get you know, So that kind
Speaker 5: of thing. It's constantly in our brains. So the list
Speaker 5: funnel is the way to funnel it from everything we
Speaker 5: could do, to everything we're going to do, to everything
Speaker 5: we're going to do today, to everything we didn't do,
Speaker 5: to things we thought about randomly when we were on
Speaker 5: the stroller walk. How does that get back into the
Speaker 5: top of the funnel, so it feeds down And so
Speaker 5: that's the concept, is just that you have a system
Speaker 5: that your brain can say, I've got it. I pulled
Speaker 5: that out, I put it in the funnel. I'm moving
Speaker 5: on with my life, and I know it'll be there
Speaker 5: when I come back.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: I think about it as like a capture system that
Speaker 2: is like ironclad, right, Like you know you're going to
Speaker 2: see it, you know you're going to capture it, you
Speaker 2: know you're going to look at it. And I thought
Speaker 2: you did a nice job kind of like explaining how
Speaker 2: it's not even just having the list, but having the
Speaker 2: systems around the list right.
Speaker 4: That makes it actually be super valuable.
Speaker 2: Kind of tangentially related, you did a lot of discussion
Speaker 2: about boundaries and saying no, and I know that is
Speaker 2: a really common challenge for many of us. On this podcast,
Speaker 2: we had some really interesting guests talk about non promotable
Speaker 2: activities at work and how to try to minimize those
Speaker 2: to the extent that we can discuss how you go
Speaker 2: through boundaries, and specifically I love your positive framing of boundaries. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I think that the first piece of boundaries is
Speaker 2: like the earlier you set them, the better. So that's
Speaker 2: kind of like where I maybe call it priorities or
Speaker 2: communication priorities or whatever that is. So like I kind
Speaker 2: of have the brand that I like meetings.
Speaker 5: To have an agenda. I like them to be fifteen minutes.
Speaker 5: I prefer people to email me first before they chat me.
Speaker 5: Like those are all things that I've communicated at work,
Speaker 5: and my signature and my like user manual, and so
Speaker 5: that kind of like helps set the boundary without me
Speaker 5: having to say, like, oh, I actually don't email on weekends,
Speaker 5: because it's like that's already set out there for me.
Speaker 5: So you kind of start with what can I communicate
Speaker 5: upfront that keeps me from having to say no, say no,
Speaker 5: say no constantly.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of the first step. But then the
Speaker 3: second piece.
Speaker 5: And what I like about the positive boundaries is you
Speaker 5: want to think about what you do do instead of
Speaker 5: what you don't do. So I give the example in
Speaker 5: the book of you Know our family photographer. I love her.
Speaker 5: I wanted to do a family session, you know. I
Speaker 5: wanted to do it on the weekends because my kids
Speaker 5: are in school and we have work. And she wrote
Speaker 5: back and I said, can we do Tuesday Thursday?
Speaker 3: And or no? I said can we do Saturday?
Speaker 5: And she wrote back and said, oh, I shoot family
Speaker 5: sessions on Tuesday Thursday.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking like that is so cool.
Speaker 5: She did not tell me like no, she did not
Speaker 5: tell me I don't do sessions on Saturday. She just
Speaker 5: she made me feel like, oh, well, Tuesday Thursday. It
Speaker 5: is like I didn't think twice about it. I didn't
Speaker 5: think she was being difficult. I didn't think she was
Speaker 5: saying no. I just thought like, that's the way it is.
Speaker 5: It's Tuesday Thursday. And so we found a teacher workday
Speaker 5: and we made it happen. But I think that when
Speaker 5: you communicate, you know, I take meetings until five. I
Speaker 5: email Monday through Friday, I take these types of meetings
Speaker 5: on this day, I do coffee chats in the afternoon.
Speaker 5: That means to me, I don't do them in the
Speaker 5: morning because I protect that time. But to someone else
Speaker 5: they say, oh, cool, coffee chat afternoon. So the more
Speaker 5: that you can kind of like focus on what.
Speaker 3: You do do I think that's the most helpful.
Speaker 5: And I think one of the things that really reinforced
Speaker 5: that for me was when I was a bar instructor
Speaker 5: for a really long time, and one of the things
Speaker 5: they taught us is that never to say don't bend
Speaker 5: your knee, just say straight in your life, because it
Speaker 5: takes people's brain a lot farther to go around and say, well,
Speaker 5: am I bending my knee If it's not bent, what
Speaker 5: is it supposed to be? Instead of just straight, they
Speaker 5: just think straight. And so the more you can do
Speaker 5: that with boundaries, the better. And talking to your kids
Speaker 5: they respond well to that too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like that your list was extensive, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that sounds so so good.
Speaker 4: So I really really like that.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a very quick break and then
Speaker 2: we're going to be back talking a little bit more
Speaker 2: about that user manual concept because I feel like I've
Speaker 2: seen that a lot recently.
Speaker 4: All Right, we are back.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned a user manual and I cannot help
Speaker 2: that delve into that a little bit. I am curious, like,
Speaker 2: is that accepted at certain companies? Is like part of
Speaker 2: the culture. Do you have to be at a certain
Speaker 2: level to have a user manual? Like I work in medicine,
Speaker 2: and if I like gave everybody my user manual, like
Speaker 2: I think I'd be like laughed out of the office.
Speaker 2: So I'm super curious. I love the idea of it.
Speaker 2: So how did that become normal? And is it in
Speaker 2: multiple industries?
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 5: I think that Google's really great and that they focus
Speaker 5: a lot on well being and work and culture and
Speaker 5: how do you work? And so I think it started
Speaker 5: with a lot of the executives doing it where it
Speaker 5: was like, oh, they're posting this, so then I can
Speaker 5: post this, and this is a cool concept. But even
Speaker 5: in the book I talk about you know, let's say
Speaker 5: that's not if you walked in with that to your office,
Speaker 5: they would say, Wow, that's crazy, that's too far out there.
Speaker 5: But let's say that maybe you have an annual off
Speaker 5: site where you all come together and it's not during
Speaker 5: work hours, and maybe you do icebreaker type activity. Maybe
Speaker 5: you go around the room and say one tip for
Speaker 5: working with you or one thing that you like as
Speaker 5: a working style, and you might say, like I prefer
Speaker 5: to be talked to between patients versus knocked on.
Speaker 3: The door and interrupted.
Speaker 5: You know, something small that's like a small thing about
Speaker 5: working with you. And now that's something where somebody might
Speaker 5: have no idea. They might have thought you liked being
Speaker 5: interrupted during whatever that is for your role, but I
Speaker 5: think it's just communicating your work style. Preferences can be
Speaker 5: kind of that like dipping your toe in the water.
Speaker 5: And then if you are the leader or manager of
Speaker 5: a team, you might suggest, hey, why don't we go
Speaker 5: around the room and say like five tips for working
Speaker 5: with me? And it's just eye opening. I've done that
Speaker 5: a lot in off sites and that doesn't have to
Speaker 5: be a fully baked out user manual.
Speaker 3: But it's like now the.
Speaker 5: People that I work close with, I've now told them
Speaker 5: that I prefer email over chat, when they would have
Speaker 5: had no idea, and now they're able to streamline that
Speaker 5: a little more. Or I actually some people prefer talking
Speaker 5: through things in a meeting and they don't want to
Speaker 5: deal with email, or they like to get in early
Speaker 5: and leave early, and now you know that about them,
Speaker 5: And so I think just starting small, you know, if
Speaker 5: you are a leader, or just communicating one or two
Speaker 5: things can kind of be like the stairstep to get
Speaker 5: to that point of like really having baked out what
Speaker 5: am I like to work with, what are my boundaries,
Speaker 5: what are my preferences, and then communicating that however possible.
Speaker 2: I like the idea that, like the leader could perhaps
Speaker 2: promote that culture amongst their teams. So maybe I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be like, here's my user manual, but if I was
Speaker 2: working with a bunch of people, I could be like,
Speaker 2: let's all talk about how I want to work well
Speaker 2: with each other. And like I could even like have
Speaker 2: everybody make like a mini user manual for themselves, because
Speaker 2: then if everybody's doing it, then it's not seen as
Speaker 2: so I'm like, oh, I'm so cool, Like in my
Speaker 2: Ivory tower over here, this is how you're gonna interact
Speaker 2: with me or else.
Speaker 4: Or something like that. So cool.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: I like it, like bring it to everyone, make it expensive. Well,
Speaker 2: let's talk about meetings. You have a lot of thoughts
Speaker 2: about meetings. I also I love the idea that you
Speaker 2: can like gently say like, yes, I don't go to
Speaker 2: meetings with that agenda. I guess you say, I attend
Speaker 2: meetings means with an agenda.
Speaker 3: That's how you put it right exactly. I love it.
Speaker 3: So yeah.
Speaker 5: I think meetings, like when I work with an executive
Speaker 5: or anyone especially I would say not executive, like that
Speaker 5: next lower level where it's like maybe you manage people.
Speaker 5: I call it like the sandwich level, because it's like
Speaker 5: you manage people and then you have managers and you're
Speaker 5: dealing with a lot. I think that what I see
Speaker 5: so much is that meetings just take up so much
Speaker 5: of people's times. And in the book I talk about
Speaker 5: like when are your best ideas in your ninth back
Speaker 5: to back meeting. Absolutely not, They're when you've had time
Speaker 5: to kind of decompress and think through things. And so
Speaker 5: slamming your schedule really doesn't leave room for a lot
Speaker 5: of this big picture stuff. It leaves you exhausted. And
Speaker 5: what happens is when you look at your week, you
Speaker 5: don't even remember baby action items you had from that
Speaker 5: or things you got out of those meetings or or
Speaker 5: you don't even go back and say was that actually
Speaker 5: a really good use of my time? So I have
Speaker 5: some suggestions about like the look back look forward exercise,
Speaker 5: where it's like, actually, take in what did I do
Speaker 5: this week? Was it a great use of my time?
Speaker 5: And then adjust accordingly. So if one hour every week
Speaker 5: with someone on my team was a little too much,
Speaker 5: can I start making that one thirty minutes or something
Speaker 5: like that. So, you know, I think that when I
Speaker 5: talk about meetings, I talk about excellent meetings. You want
Speaker 5: someone to walk out of a meeting with you and
Speaker 5: be like that was an excellent use of my time,
Speaker 5: and anything less than that, you know, you really shouldn't
Speaker 5: be going to those. If you can use your laptop
Speaker 5: during a meeting, why.
Speaker 3: Are you there?
Speaker 5: If you can skip a meeting most of the time,
Speaker 5: why is it on your calendar on a recurring basis?
Speaker 5: So I think that, just like across the board, the
Speaker 5: standard for meetings needs to go up. And we had
Speaker 5: a huge push around that at Google and it was
Speaker 5: really successful. And it's a problem quote for a lot
Speaker 5: of people because it takes up so much time. So
Speaker 5: you want to make sure that those meetings are excellent.
Speaker 2: I love that offer like some specifics, like if it's
Speaker 2: an informational meeting, you had like a deliverable for every
Speaker 2: type of meeting that I think is useful. And it's
Speaker 2: not that there's only one type of meetings. There's a
Speaker 2: few different types, but there's got to be some very
Speaker 2: specific point and then a very specific kind of next step.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I like that you like picked up on because
Speaker 3: I think, like a lot.
Speaker 5: Of productivity books or just books in general, they'll give
Speaker 5: you like the big picture idea like you should have
Speaker 5: great meetings. But my whole like goal when writing this book,
Speaker 5: and the reason that I put in the title like
Speaker 5: a practical Guide, is because I did not just want
Speaker 5: it to be like, oh, you should eat healthy, and
Speaker 5: I wanted it to be like the recipes, like what
Speaker 5: do I get at the grocery store?
Speaker 3: So like this in this sense, I wanted to be like, yes, you.
Speaker 5: Should have good meetings, but what does a good meeting mean?
Speaker 5: What does an agenda look like? What type of meeting?
Speaker 5: What does the deliverable look like? Like really in the
Speaker 5: nitty gritty of like how you implement these things tomorrow,
Speaker 5: because otherwise they're just like raw, raw ideas that are
Speaker 5: not as like tangible in your day to day. So
Speaker 5: that was like one of my big goals with including
Speaker 5: that type of stuff, just like, how do I do
Speaker 5: this in my life?
Speaker 2: Yes, now, email and laundry, what do they have in common?
Speaker 2: And how do we fix the email? Although I will
Speaker 2: say that I do love Google's email platform, so that
Speaker 2: part's not broken for me, But how do we fix
Speaker 2: how we use email in our daily lives?
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 5: No, it's never the tool, it's always the intention behind
Speaker 5: the tool. So yes, I love Gmail too, obviously, But
Speaker 5: when you're thinking about laundry, everyone understands that.
Speaker 3: And I ask people, Okay, if I told.
Speaker 5: You do your laundry, and I said, go into your dryer,
Speaker 5: you got one shirt you kind of folded that, walked
Speaker 5: it up two floors to your dresser, walk down, you
Speaker 5: find a sock you don't know where the other one is.
Speaker 3: Who cares? You'll walk that up.
Speaker 5: You find a pair of pants, you think it's wet,
Speaker 5: but I'll throw it back in with the dry clothes.
Speaker 5: And I'm just going to keep opening my dryer door
Speaker 5: all day to remind myself how many clothes I have,
Speaker 5: how many clothes I'm not doing I don't know where
Speaker 5: the pink shirt is. I'm going to shut it at
Speaker 5: night and just start it all over and start again
Speaker 5: in the morning. You would say, like, that's insane, that's inefficient,
Speaker 5: that sounds terrible, But that's how so many people do
Speaker 5: their email. They mark something as onread aka throw the
Speaker 5: wet pants back in with the dry things.
Speaker 3: They haven't read yet.
Speaker 5: They find one shirt, they respond to one email. Now
Speaker 5: they're following up with another email. Now they're reading instead
Speaker 5: of fold, fold, fold, read, read, read, hang, hang, hang,
Speaker 5: And so instead you should do your email the same
Speaker 5: way that you do your laundry. You should empty your dryer.
Speaker 5: So that's what inbox zero means. It does not mean
Speaker 5: I folded all the clothes. It just means that they're
Speaker 5: out of the dryer and I've put them into baskets
Speaker 5: based on what I need to do next. So read, review, respond,
Speaker 5: and then I can actually match. So you're touching the
Speaker 5: clothes twice max the first time you put them in
Speaker 5: the basket. Now, maybe I have to run to a
Speaker 5: meeting and I don't have time to read or fold everything,
Speaker 5: so instead I'm leaving the basket there. But I know
Speaker 5: when someone says, oh, did you see that pink shirt? Yes,
Speaker 5: I did, I touched it, It's in my fold pile.
Speaker 5: And then I'm actually aware of exactly how much I
Speaker 5: have to do and I can match with my schedule.
Speaker 5: So I see a lot people being like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: a morning person. I'm really focused in the morning, and
Speaker 5: the first thing I do is come in and read
Speaker 5: all these industry news articles from my email. And it's like,
Speaker 5: what a waste of focus time if you had put
Speaker 5: those in a basket. And then in between two meetings,
Speaker 5: when you're kind of low energy and you only have
Speaker 5: ten minutes, that's a great time to read. And if
Speaker 5: you do it back to back, you're getting efficiencies from
Speaker 5: doing the same thing over and over. So thinking that
Speaker 5: way about our email and treating it the same way
Speaker 5: can be really helpful as far as how to set
Speaker 5: that up.
Speaker 3: And Gmail.
Speaker 5: You know, multiple inboxes allows you to have those baskets
Speaker 5: baskets that you see, but you have your separate dryer
Speaker 5: and everything in there is kind of like one system
Speaker 5: that again, your mental load is lowered because you're not thinking, oh,
Speaker 5: where is that?
Speaker 3: Have I touched that? How much do I have to fold?
Speaker 3: How much do I have to hang et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yes, you mentioned baskets, and to be clear, this is
Speaker 2: not sorting a bunch of folders, because I love how
Speaker 2: you pointed out that we do not need to do that. No, No,
Speaker 2: throw it all into archives, gmails, search really great, it'll find.
Speaker 3: It, exactly.
Speaker 5: I think we have that mentality. It's funny. It carried
Speaker 5: over from like pieces of paper, you know. So it's
Speaker 5: like we had our file system and we're like, let's
Speaker 5: make our filesystem an email and it's like, no, we
Speaker 5: don't need it.
Speaker 3: We can search for a couple words, and that's type
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 5: But you know you want these temporary folders or baskets
Speaker 5: and that those are things you take things in and
Speaker 5: out of based on what you have to do, but
Speaker 5: ultimately you don't need to like sort everything away, which
Speaker 5: is how a lot of people act in email.
Speaker 2: Still, you have a great chapter on routines, which you
Speaker 2: call when colon then, which sounded a little bit like
Speaker 2: programming to be talk about that and how do you
Speaker 2: keep track of all those because there were a lot
Speaker 2: of those examples in there that you use personally.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I just like figured out that when I
Speaker 5: there's something I've been wanting to do, it just is
Speaker 5: like never going to happen unless I kind of associate
Speaker 5: it with something that I have to do in the
Speaker 5: same cadence. So, for example, I was just thinking about recently,
Speaker 5: like my kids, you know, having three kids, that's what
Speaker 5: sixty nails to cut.
Speaker 3: If you think about that.
Speaker 5: And I was just like, oh my gosh, I feel
Speaker 5: like we like try to do my baby's nails and
Speaker 5: then here and then like my daughter she wants to
Speaker 5: paint her nails, so then occasionally I'll cut them then,
Speaker 5: but it's like, no, I need a system to make
Speaker 5: sure that they're like nails aren't getting long.
Speaker 3: So I thought in my head, like, well, they're kind
Speaker 3: of taking.
Speaker 5: Baths at different times, different nights, but usually Sunday night
Speaker 5: we kind of do like a bath together, or my
Speaker 5: daughter's in the bathroom while the boys are bathing.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, that is a.
Speaker 5: Consistent routine every single Sunday we do that that we
Speaker 5: never miss it. And so I started leaving the nail
Speaker 5: clippers on the bath where we do that every Sunday,
Speaker 5: and I was just like, I know that we're going
Speaker 5: to be there every Sunday, I know that the nail
Speaker 5: clipper's gonna be staring at me, and it's a perfect
Speaker 5: time to just do that every single week and not
Speaker 5: have to constantly throughout the week being like.
Speaker 3: Oh now the baby's crashed his face, I need to
Speaker 3: cut his nails.
Speaker 5: That kind of thing is just like it's built in now,
Speaker 5: it's a system, and so you know, I started doing
Speaker 5: that with monthly things, and it's just like, I guess
Speaker 5: you could use the word triggers, like triggers that happen
Speaker 5: already that remind you to do something else. And so
Speaker 5: I've heard a lot of people say after they read
Speaker 5: the book or that I've taught them this, like they
Speaker 5: started thinking like, oh my gosh, you know I always
Speaker 5: wanted to do this daily, and I always know I'm
Speaker 5: gonna grab my keys, so I put a little thing
Speaker 5: by my keys to remind me to do that. Just
Speaker 5: little associations you can make instead of saying, oh, I've
Speaker 5: really always been needing to do this, or I really
Speaker 5: want to prioritize self care. Okay, when are you going
Speaker 5: to make it happen like one day of the week,
Speaker 5: pick you know it's going to be self care Saturday,
Speaker 5: and every Saturday morning, I'm going to block an hour
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna find something to do self care wise,
Speaker 5: whether it's just.
Speaker 3: Take a bath or go on a walk or whatever
Speaker 3: that is.
Speaker 5: Like, I'm going to make it a routine and every
Speaker 5: Saturday morning I know I'm doing it, and then it
Speaker 5: kind of falls into place. So all the examples are
Speaker 5: in there are just things that you could do or
Speaker 5: I do do to kind of kick your brain into
Speaker 5: what are the when then routines that I need in
Speaker 5: my life?
Speaker 2: Love it, and then you can always reassess them as
Speaker 2: stages change.
Speaker 4: Job needs changed, kids, stages change. It's funny.
Speaker 2: I was like, you're talking about cutting nails, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I never cut any nails anymore. Probably
Speaker 2: she caught my six year old's nails more often.
Speaker 4: But then it also does it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go. There you go, that's your routine.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then my almost twelve year old just wants
Speaker 2: gel manicures, So there you go.
Speaker 4: That's what it turns into.
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of self care and that kind of area,
Speaker 2: you have a whole section on mindfulness and meditation and reflection.
Speaker 2: So can you talk about how you incorporate those things
Speaker 2: into your life.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 5: I feel like so many people want to talk about
Speaker 5: the list making and stuff like that, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 5: the whole point of the book is like you have
Speaker 5: to take the step back from that and prioritize like
Speaker 5: the bigger picture, which is your self care, your mental
Speaker 5: health and all of those things kind of like rise
Speaker 5: above the busyness and then you're like looking down on
Speaker 5: it from a different perspective.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, I gave some.
Speaker 5: Examples in the book because like you, I kind of
Speaker 5: want to know, like what are what are you doing?
Speaker 3: What do these things look like?
Speaker 5: But for me, I make time to I call it
Speaker 5: the Laura thirty every single morning. So I've said my
Speaker 5: alarm for six and from six to six thirty, I
Speaker 5: do like whatever I'm in the mood for. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 5: tired and I just truly will sit there and drink
Speaker 5: my coffee in silence, which, as you of Mom three know,
Speaker 5: like that is of gift in its own But sometimes
Speaker 5: most of the time I'll meditate. Sometimes I'm like reading
Speaker 5: a good book I want to read if I know
Speaker 5: I might not be able to work out later in
Speaker 5: the day. Sometimes I'll work out during that time, but
Speaker 5: it's just like my commitment to myself to kind of
Speaker 5: like fill up my own energy bank so then I
Speaker 5: can pass out energy the rest of the day and
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 3: I have it.
Speaker 5: But you know, I think that making those little moments
Speaker 5: for yourself, whether it's in the morning or just like
Speaker 5: I always go on a walk or I let myself
Speaker 5: do this, it's those are the things that keep you
Speaker 5: centered and kind of make everything else easier.
Speaker 3: So I think people try to focus on the.
Speaker 5: Everything else, and they're like if I just this, if
Speaker 5: I just had this tool, if I just hired this person,
Speaker 5: if I just But the point is like, if you
Speaker 5: actually focus on the nucleus of it all, which is you,
Speaker 5: then the rest of the things have a way of
Speaker 5: either working out or kind of like you care less
Speaker 5: or you can do more for them.
Speaker 4: So they're easier. They're easier.
Speaker 2: It's like exactly right, Like if you don't get enough type,
Speaker 2: everything's hard. If you don't take that time for yourself,
Speaker 2: have that anchor, then everything else becomes.
Speaker 3: Exactly Yes, anchor is a good way of putting it. Well.
Speaker 2: Our listeners love to hear a day in the life
Speaker 2: and I think yours is going to be particularly interesting
Speaker 2: since you have a lot on your plate and three
Speaker 2: little kids, So can you take us through a basic routine,
Speaker 2: including like your kind of childcare type stuff as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so I do like office days some days,
Speaker 5: like once or twice a week, and then home some days.
Speaker 5: So I'll just give tomorrow because I actually just did
Speaker 5: my own hour by hour plan of what I was doing. So,
Speaker 5: like I said, I wake up, set my alarm for six.
Speaker 5: I have my coffee pre made, so I wake up,
Speaker 5: drink my coffee. My baby usually wakes up right around
Speaker 5: six thirty, so I nurse him while I finish the coffee,
Speaker 5: finish reading the book.
Speaker 3: My oldest her, her light turns.
Speaker 5: Yellow at six forty five because she likes to have
Speaker 5: like a little quiet time with me, So she comes
Speaker 5: in with me and the baby and we read a
Speaker 5: little chapter book. And then my middle he's two. His
Speaker 5: light turns yellow at seven, so he's usually already up
Speaker 5: and he's like, oh, mommy, come get me. So I
Speaker 5: go into his room. My daughter gets dressed, I get
Speaker 5: him dressed. We come downstairs. I usually have something for
Speaker 5: them to do while I make breakfast and make lunches.
Speaker 5: So usually the night before I'll set out like a
Speaker 5: little coloring book or some stickers or you know, something
Speaker 5: to occupy them for ten minutes while I'm doing that.
Speaker 5: So they go up there. They're always excited to see
Speaker 5: what's there when we go down. So then I empty
Speaker 5: the dishwasher, make lunch. They eat breakfast at the breakfast bar.
Speaker 3: Every other day. I do like I cook breakfast or
Speaker 3: I like a cold or hot breakfast.
Speaker 5: So it's either like eggs or then the next day
Speaker 5: is yogurt, and then the next day is you know,
Speaker 5: something in the oven like that, and then we have
Speaker 5: a timer go off at eight o'clock. That means they
Speaker 5: know when the timer goes off that they're supposed to
Speaker 5: start getting their shoes on. So I never say like
Speaker 5: what time it is, or you got to do this
Speaker 5: or this. They say, oh, first timer, we got to
Speaker 5: go brush our teeth downstairs, get our shoes on. And
Speaker 5: they know that if they are done with that before
Speaker 5: the second timer, which is eight ten, that we have
Speaker 5: time to read books. So while they're brushing their teeth,
Speaker 5: I'm cleaning up the kitchen. I do have a husband.
Speaker 3: He's just like a late sleeper, and so we've just.
Speaker 5: Been okay with that in our life. We knew he's
Speaker 5: good at bedtime. He does middle the night stuff, so
Speaker 5: like we were.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I tell him that's it's vertical. We call that
Speaker 2: vertical ownership, so like you, and then he can do
Speaker 2: the eatings.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5: So sometimes when I tell a story, people are like,
Speaker 5: are you a single mother, I'm like, no, just from
Speaker 5: just from six to eight. Yeah, So then we read
Speaker 5: a book or whatever. My husband takes them to school.
Speaker 5: I put the baby down for his nap. At eight thirty,
Speaker 5: I work out, I take a shower. Usually right after
Speaker 5: that I usually start my meetings or so at nine,
Speaker 5: while the baby's napping, my mom comes over. She wakes
Speaker 5: him up, and so you know, she takes them on
Speaker 5: a walk, and my husband gets my son from preschool.
Speaker 5: We all have lunch together at noon, so I make
Speaker 5: lunch for everybody, put them down for naps around one,
Speaker 5: So that's like my break every day. That's one of
Speaker 5: my boundaries is that I have lunch with my kids
Speaker 5: from twelve to one, and then while they're napping in
Speaker 5: the afternoon is usually when I do a lot of
Speaker 5: my meetings because I'm based on California times, so I'm
Speaker 5: a morning person anyway, as you can probably hear. But
Speaker 5: I do try to really block the mornings for my
Speaker 5: focused work time. So that's when I'm doing like new presentations, decks,
Speaker 5: responding to emails. That it's kind of like my protected time.
Speaker 5: Especially Wednesdays and Fridays, I try. I call those my
Speaker 5: power hours in the morning, and I.
Speaker 3: Keep them free.
Speaker 5: In the afternoon, I start doing meetings, podcasts, whatever I have,
Speaker 5: and that's when I tell people to schedule with me.
Speaker 5: And then usually my mom goes to get my daughter
Speaker 5: at school, they come home, she plays with them, and
Speaker 5: then usually around four thirty or five, I wrap up here,
Speaker 5: go downstairs, play with the kids outside to start making dinner. Bedtime,
Speaker 5: you know how it is, and then I usually I
Speaker 5: don't schedule anything after bedtime. I was doing that for
Speaker 5: a while, saying like, I'll finish that later, I'll finish
Speaker 5: after good at bed and I just found like I
Speaker 5: can maybe do that once a week, but doing that
Speaker 5: on a consistent basis really burns me out. And so
Speaker 5: my husband and I do you know, no tech Tuesday nights.
Speaker 5: On Tuesday, we play board games or just sit outside
Speaker 5: in our porch or something like that.
Speaker 3: But I'll watch TV or i'd read a ton.
Speaker 5: I'm in like four book clubs, so I'll usually read
Speaker 5: about thirty minutes before bed and then start.
Speaker 3: All over at six. That was very detail.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: And you are really in that like toddler baby phase,
Speaker 2: and I love it. It sounds lovely. I'm picturing all
Speaker 2: the putting them all down for naps, although I feel
Speaker 2: like that could be like whack them mole, Like okay,
Speaker 2: that is you know, like is he tired yet.
Speaker 5: Or she like especially because they share her in my
Speaker 5: two boys and they like, I'm just like, how do
Speaker 5: I have two kids in sleep sacks with pacifiers who
Speaker 5: are like setting each other off across the room and cribs?
Speaker 3: But whatever, you know, Marty in it why not?
Speaker 2: Ah, No, I get that. I get I had all
Speaker 2: three of my children in one room for a while.
Speaker 2: It actually made bit that time, really and not for
Speaker 2: any reason like we had enough rooms, but it like
Speaker 2: made the baby sleep better.
Speaker 4: At the time, I was like, this is actually really efficiently.
Speaker 5: Yeah, It's like okay, just like throw them in there
Speaker 5: and someone's can fall asleep and turn the white noise
Speaker 5: up exactly.
Speaker 4: But I know you have to run soon.
Speaker 2: But before you go, we're going to share our loves
Speaker 2: of the week, and I'm going to go on theme
Speaker 2: and just say that Gmail search function is my favorite thing.
Speaker 4: Like I don't sort anything, I just keep everything.
Speaker 2: And the guest we had on a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: I literally searched for her name and responded to an
Speaker 2: email she had written me in twenty twelve, and I'm like, Gmail,
Speaker 2: You're awesome.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 5: I could go on and on about Gmail. People like
Speaker 5: think that I'm paid to love Gmail so much. I'm like, no,
Speaker 5: it's the opposite way. Like I loved gmails so much
Speaker 5: that I ended up having this job. But I would say, actually,
Speaker 5: AI is.
Speaker 3: What I'm like loving this week.
Speaker 5: I feel like at first I was just like I
Speaker 5: don't really understand totally how to use it, Like what
Speaker 5: is the big big cell? But every year I do
Speaker 5: this big no Tech Tuesday Night challenge, and you know,
Speaker 5: thousands of Googlers sign up for it and it's really cool,
Speaker 5: and so people fill out this survey at the end
Speaker 5: and I used to spend probably three hours going through those.
Speaker 5: I mean I read every single person's comment, then I
Speaker 5: would keep themes like people think they got better sleep,
Speaker 5: et cetera.
Speaker 3: So this year I plugged it into our Gemini tool.
Speaker 5: I pasted every single one of the eight hundred responses
Speaker 5: and said, can you summarize this for me? And it
Speaker 5: kicked back in twenty seconds, like themes ideas for me
Speaker 5: next year challenges, people fit top quotes. Like I was
Speaker 5: just like, this just saved like three hours of my time.
Speaker 5: This is crazy. So like every time I find a
Speaker 5: new way to use it or like, you know, I
Speaker 5: typed in the chapter about email and was like, how
Speaker 5: would I visualize this? And it came up with like
Speaker 5: a really cool visual of these laundry baskets with email
Speaker 5: in it, and it's just it's like, it's just crazy.
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm just excited about like what it's
Speaker 5: going to do for us, and I'm just dipping my
Speaker 5: toe in.
Speaker 3: But it's saving me a lot of time, which I'm
Speaker 3: here for that.
Speaker 4: So I love that survey use example. That is super smart.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just came back from a school tour where they're like,
Speaker 2: we don't assign much homework because we find that the
Speaker 2: kids just put it all into AI anyway, so it's like, wow.
Speaker 5: I know it's wild. I don't know how it's gonna
Speaker 5: all turn out, but we're just starting.
Speaker 4: So awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, tell our listeners where they can find you, as
Speaker 2: well as say the name of your book again so
Speaker 2: they can all find it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So the book is Uptime Practical Guide to Productivity and
Speaker 5: Well Being. And I'm on Instagram Laura May with an E.
Speaker 5: Martin and also my website is Laura May Martin dot com.
Speaker 4: Awesome, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Well that was great, so exciting to hear Sarah and
Speaker 1: Laura May Martin talk about productivity in ways we can
Speaker 1: do things more efficiently. So, Sarah, a question from a listener,
Speaker 1: how do you decide how often to travel to see
Speaker 1: family or balance wanting to have time with just your
Speaker 1: nuclear family versus your extended family.
Speaker 3: So how do you think about this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a challenge I still have and I'm
Speaker 2: often like rethinking are we doing it well? But our
Speaker 2: current approach is that we tend to take like three
Speaker 2: core nuclear family vacations a year most year, so something
Speaker 2: for spring break and then something for summer, sometimes something
Speaker 2: for winter break. Although that one I feel like can
Speaker 2: swing towards more of a family trip, maybe twuoish kind
Speaker 2: of core nuclear family big trips, and then the other
Speaker 2: kind of smaller times in the year we try to
Speaker 2: devote to seeing relatives, and most of the time that
Speaker 2: means Philadelphia, because everyone pretty much either lives in South
Speaker 2: Florida or Philadelphia. For me at this point, I'm not
Speaker 2: counting Laura, although it's very convenient that I get to
Speaker 2: see her too, and I go to visit family. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess I just would say like our bigger, more
Speaker 2: like freaky type trips are just nuclear, and then other
Speaker 2: times we try to add in some family time. I
Speaker 2: would love it if my family came to me a
Speaker 2: little bit more. So that is something I'm trying to
Speaker 2: push in the coming years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Florida is a great place to visit, so
Speaker 1: you at least have that going for you and get
Speaker 1: out of Philadelphia at some point between December and March.
Speaker 1: Is you know, you don't have to twist my arm.
Speaker 1: I'm always happy to come down to Florida during that time.
Speaker 1: So maybe I will be on the plane with Sarah's
Speaker 1: extended family and that will be great. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: can be quite a challenge to coordinate with lots of people.
Speaker 1: And I think this what I'm reading into this listener
Speaker 1: question is it's probably that her extended family wants to
Speaker 1: do more things to gather that she has the kind
Speaker 1: of sort of close, large family, which is absolutely awesome,
Speaker 1: but it does then become something of a conflict if
Speaker 1: you say, of a certain number of vacation days at
Speaker 1: your workplace and you are trying to decide how to
Speaker 1: coordinate between having some time with just your own family
Speaker 1: on vacation, and then your in laws have the beach
Speaker 1: house that they want you all to come to, or
Speaker 1: somebody else is like, well, why don't we all take
Speaker 1: this family trip to I don't know, Disney World or something,
Speaker 1: and you have to decide, like, am I spending our
Speaker 1: family's vacation days on that or is there something else
Speaker 1: that we would choose to prioritize. So I think it's
Speaker 1: a negotiation, like everything else. And one reason to plan
Speaker 1: a whole year of travel at once is that you
Speaker 1: are then not pitting every single vacation against everything you
Speaker 1: could be doing. I mean, this is challenging if the
Speaker 1: rest of your family is more spontaneous, but I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to get twenty people anywhere spontaneously. Like
Speaker 1: these things have to be planned a long time ahead.
Speaker 1: Maybe have a time where you plan out the year
Speaker 1: of travel and coordinate with your extended family and say, well,
Speaker 1: we could we'd love to have like two times where
Speaker 1: we see you this year.
Speaker 3: What do you think those would be?
Speaker 1: And then like try to lock those in and then
Speaker 1: you know, have a certain number of days for that,
Speaker 1: and then you can choose maybe two other things that
Speaker 1: you're doing at some other point in the year that
Speaker 1: are just you and your nuclear family.
Speaker 3: And then when the extended family's like.
Speaker 1: Oh, well, we wanted to see you guys, we have
Speaker 1: this holiday coming up, we're like, and I'm so excited
Speaker 1: because I'm going to be seeing you over Thanksgiving doing
Speaker 1: this and can't wait for that, right, And it's not
Speaker 1: pitted against so much the exact other trip that you
Speaker 1: were taking on like the Fourth of July or or
Speaker 1: something like that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, we.
Speaker 1: See my family fairly frequently, but it's always day trips
Speaker 1: because most of my family lives in New Jersey, so
Speaker 1: it's relative and even my younger brother lives in upstate
Speaker 1: New York. But it's about three hours away, so it's
Speaker 1: often something they can either come overnight or even come
Speaker 1: for one very long day. So we tend to do
Speaker 1: that around holidays, and then you know, my husband's family,
Speaker 1: we probably have to plan that a little bit more
Speaker 1: because they're further away. On the other hand, his brother
Speaker 1: has children about the same age as are for older kids,
Speaker 1: and so they always want to do stuff with that,
Speaker 1: but we can we can try and coordinate stuff on
Speaker 1: occasion they came to see us for over Christmas. This year,
Speaker 1: my daughter is going to be going to visit her
Speaker 1: cousin that's her same age, So you know, just trying
Speaker 1: to map out the whole year at once. And I
Speaker 1: guess one of the upsides of self employment is it's
Speaker 1: not quite as tight. I mean, although it's still have
Speaker 1: to make sure you have enough time to work an
Speaker 1: ongoing saga.
Speaker 2: I feel like more people with largely remote jobs have
Speaker 2: been working in travel into their jobs. I've been hearing
Speaker 2: that more and more where it's like, no, I am working,
Speaker 2: but I'm only working three days or I'm flexing my
Speaker 2: hours that week, and so our family is going to go.
Speaker 2: And that actually can be nice because if the grandparents
Speaker 2: are active and can kind of care for your kids
Speaker 2: while you're working. They're getting quality time. But then in
Speaker 2: the evening you can all have dinner together whatever. I
Speaker 2: do not have this kind of job. I have to
Speaker 2: be there in person for obvious reasons. But I feel
Speaker 2: like I heard that more and more, and that would
Speaker 2: be an amazing way to not necessarily have to use
Speaker 2: precious vacation days but still get to have some quality
Speaker 2: time with family, especially if your kids are off way
Speaker 2: more than you are, which can be the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like that hasn't really worked out for
Speaker 1: me to do, I said, I wind up chasing the
Speaker 1: little ones around and extended family gatherings. But maybe that
Speaker 1: will change at some point as Henry becomes a little
Speaker 1: bit older. Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: Sarah is interviewing Laura may Martin, the author of the
Speaker 1: new book Uptime, the productivity Expert at Google. We will
Speaker 1: be back next week with more on making work and
Speaker 1: life fit together.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 2: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 1: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 1: work together.
Speaker 5: Use