Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is going to be a longer one part of
Speaker 1: the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
Speaker 1: take their days from great to awesome and any advice
Speaker 1: they have for the rest of us. So today I
Speaker 1: am delighted to welcome Megan SUMMRL to the Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: Megan is a time management and productivity expert. She is
Speaker 1: the founder of the Pink b and the host of
Speaker 1: the Work Life Harmony podcast, among many other things. So, Megan,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I was like, ooh, that sounds like a better show
Speaker 2: up strong here today.
Speaker 1: I know all that people are expecting a lot, but
Speaker 1: I know you're going to give us a lot of
Speaker 1: wisdom over the next twenty five minutes. So why don't
Speaker 1: you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2: Yes, so again, I'm the founder of the Pink Bee.
Speaker 2: I am a time management and productivity expert for women, specifically.
Speaker 2: My background was actually in corporate IT. I spent over
Speaker 2: twenty years in the software and IT space, where actually
Speaker 2: towards the end of my career. I would go in
Speaker 2: and basically rebuild software teams from the ground up, optimizing
Speaker 2: their processes, systems, procedures, et cetera. Found myself at a
Speaker 2: place where I got married later in life, started a
Speaker 2: family later and had a very pivotal day when my
Speaker 2: daughter was about two, where I was still in the
Speaker 2: thick of trying to juggle corporate life and motherhood and
Speaker 2: all of that, and a complete stranger asked me, what
Speaker 2: do you do for fun? And I realized I didn't
Speaker 2: have an answer. I couldn't remember the last time I
Speaker 2: had done anything for myself. My life was in service
Speaker 2: to work, family, all of that, and long story short,
Speaker 2: it led me on a path to completely rebuild how
Speaker 2: I plan and manage my time juggling all the roles
Speaker 2: and responsibilities. And now fast forward to today. Through a
Speaker 2: couple of pivotal moments from then to now, I left
Speaker 2: my corporate career, founded the Pink Bee, and we are
Speaker 2: on a mission to bring work life harmony and harmony
Speaker 2: into homes all over the world through this proprietary planning
Speaker 2: framework built specifically for women. The realities of our lives
Speaker 2: and how our brains work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, although I'm sure there's a lot that men could
Speaker 1: learn from it too. So, honey, men are listening to this,
Speaker 1: you don't need to turn off the podcast because everything
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today is going to be
Speaker 1: relevant for you as well, because there is a lot
Speaker 1: of overlaps between how we manage like our home systems
Speaker 1: and the corporate work systems you were doing right.
Speaker 2: Yes, there absolutely is the couple shifts that I highlight
Speaker 2: specifically for like the framework works for men and women.
Speaker 2: I have a lot of women go through the program
Speaker 2: and then they're like, and I made my husband come
Speaker 2: sit down and watch it with me, and now we're
Speaker 2: running our household this way is really acknowledging. Women tend
Speaker 2: to absorb a lot of the uncertainty and the mental
Speaker 2: load of the household. And the way our brains are
Speaker 2: wired is we actually multitask more than our male counterpart
Speaker 2: to do, and so we have to have systems that
Speaker 2: understand that and acknowledge it and have a path forward
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to talk a lot about systems over
Speaker 1: the next few minutes, but one thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk with you about first this is we're coming toward
Speaker 1: the end of the year when this episode is airing,
Speaker 1: and I know that you have something I believe it's
Speaker 1: called plan a Palooza that is an annual planning workshop
Speaker 1: that you run around this time as people look forward
Speaker 1: to their next year. And I'm I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of doing this in like November, you know, and we
Speaker 1: got to really build up to the end of the year.
Speaker 1: But I wonder, how do you have people think through
Speaker 1: the upcoming year? Any fun tips for our listeners. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so are embarking on.
Speaker 2: This the big fundamental shift that I teach in the
Speaker 2: annual planning process? And why I do it so early?
Speaker 2: You know what's considered early. I'm not doing it the
Speaker 2: week before January is man Q four is a doozy
Speaker 2: November December. There's so much going on, and that's why
Speaker 2: I like to intentionally do this work early so that
Speaker 2: when January hits, I'm not now stuck going what am
Speaker 2: I going to? What am I gonna do this year?
Speaker 2: Like how are we operating? A lot of people when
Speaker 2: they go to annual planning workshops or events, it's always
Speaker 2: kind of this dreamcasting or visioning kind of workshop, right
Speaker 2: where we get really excited about all the things that
Speaker 2: we want to do next year, we break them down
Speaker 2: into milestones. Then we get back into our real life
Speaker 2: and the real world smacks us upside the head with
Speaker 2: the sick kid and the flu season and then the
Speaker 2: big event at work and all of that, and you know,
Speaker 2: six months later we find that worksheet or workbook from
Speaker 2: the event and we're like, oh, yeah, I forgot all
Speaker 2: about that. I haven't done anything. So what's fundamentally different
Speaker 2: with the way I really like to teach annual planning
Speaker 2: is we do some of that dream work, but then
Speaker 2: we start our plan with what's your reality for next year? Right,
Speaker 2: so actually understanding do you already have commitments and in
Speaker 2: what months? And when are there seasonality of when you
Speaker 2: know it's like is May usually a crazy month for you?
Speaker 2: Or December? And we build all of that in f
Speaker 2: think of it kind of like financing, like what time
Speaker 2: is already spoken for? So that now we're working realistically
Speaker 2: with hey, what kind of time do I have? That
Speaker 2: then supports our core values, our boundaries, and our priorities
Speaker 2: with those extra things that we want to layer in.
Speaker 1: I love that. I Mean, one of the things I'm
Speaker 1: always doing with people is having them track their time,
Speaker 1: so we know what a week really looks like. And
Speaker 1: then when you're setting goals, Yeah, you're setting goals, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: and this is what a week really looks like. So
Speaker 1: it's fine to say, you know, I want to run
Speaker 1: four times a week, but that means we need to
Speaker 1: look at where those are going to be saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the big goal is, yeah, I'm want to run a marathon. Okay,
Speaker 1: where are the four runs a week going to happen
Speaker 1: in your life exactly?
Speaker 2: And when is the marathons? And now you're building out
Speaker 2: what do you have time a month before to do
Speaker 2: an eighteen mile run? Or are you traveling every weekend?
Speaker 2: And yeah, so we've got to really marry and integrate
Speaker 2: your reality with your want tos, if you will, and
Speaker 2: make sure that there's a cohesive plan and construct it
Speaker 2: in a way that sets you up for success instead
Speaker 2: of for feeling like a failure of four months into
Speaker 2: the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love this idea of planning ahead. You know,
Speaker 1: we're saying we're getting started on it in November because
Speaker 1: December is so crazy. And one of your recent podcast
Speaker 1: episodes what was like a while ago now, but it
Speaker 1: caught my eye because you have Christmas in July. Every
Speaker 1: year that you do, you do some of your holiday
Speaker 1: planning in July. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it kind of came. It stemmed from a
Speaker 2: need for myself. Of I remember one particularly rough holiday
Speaker 2: season and it was like the morning after Christmas, it
Speaker 2: was like holiday hangover, you know, just wrapping paper, stuff,
Speaker 2: crum just I remember sitting there like, this was not
Speaker 2: a fun holiday for me. I gave a great one
Speaker 2: for everybody else. And so that year I started thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: what could I do to lighten the load in December?
Speaker 2: Are there things I could do earlier? Are there things
Speaker 2: I could stop doing, et cetera. And one of the
Speaker 2: things I landed on is I always loved holiday baking
Speaker 2: with my mom as a kid, and I always thought
Speaker 2: it would be this magical moment with my daughter. And
Speaker 2: I was like, that really wasn't magical. It's just one
Speaker 2: more have to like, one more to do, which just
Speaker 2: takes the fun out of it. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff that we make is stuff
Speaker 2: that freezes really really well, and we're always looking for
Speaker 2: stuff to do Midsummer when you're so sick of going
Speaker 2: to the pool and it's literally one hundred degrees. So
Speaker 2: it's now come to two days long for us, where
Speaker 2: my daughter and I we put on Christmas music, we
Speaker 2: put on Christmas t shirts, and we actually bake a
Speaker 2: ton of holiday stuff over the course of two days,
Speaker 2: all stuff that freezes well. So then when December hits,
Speaker 2: you know, we might be making one or two things
Speaker 2: that don't freeze well, but we can really enjoy like
Speaker 2: we enjoy our gingerbread house making day because it's not
Speaker 2: packed on top of six other days of things that
Speaker 2: we're trying to get done, along with some crafting. So
Speaker 2: we do a lot of baking and we do some
Speaker 2: holiday handcrafting in the middle of July, and it makes
Speaker 2: just breaks up for a really fun, fun time in
Speaker 2: the middle of the summer. And now I have a
Speaker 2: freezer full of stuff ready to roll.
Speaker 1: I would say that's actually showing a lot of discipline
Speaker 1: on your part, because I'm pretty sure the Christmas cookies
Speaker 1: would be eaten in July.
Speaker 2: Talk them way back and garage, do we believe you
Speaker 2: out that we get to enjoys get put back in
Speaker 2: there and it's like out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1: Well, good for you guys. We might we might have
Speaker 1: eaten that gingerbread. Well, we're going to take a quick
Speaker 1: ad break and then i'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Meghan Sumrow. Well, I am back talking with Megan Sumrell,
Speaker 1: who owns the Queen sorry, not the Queen Bee, the
Speaker 1: pig Bee. I've been listening to all that recently and
Speaker 1: she's the host of the Work Life Harmony podcast, among
Speaker 1: other things. So you know, we've been talking about doing
Speaker 1: things ahead of time. Now we're going to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about planning and work and other systems. You
Speaker 1: recently had a podcast episode about making sure that meetings
Speaker 1: do not take over your life. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorite rules that you shared was not to schedule meetings
Speaker 1: on Monday mornings. And I know a lot of my
Speaker 1: listeners have probably sat through endless Monday morning staff meetings,
Speaker 1: So tell us why they should rethink that.
Speaker 2: Yes, so most people, there's always exceptions to the rule.
Speaker 2: Most people fall in one of two buckets on a
Speaker 2: Monday morning. Person A is the kind of person that
Speaker 2: is so rest and refueled over the weekend and like
Speaker 2: they come in Monday morning hot, ready to roll, highest
Speaker 2: energy levels, ready for the week super productive, and if
Speaker 2: you throw that person right into a meeting at the
Speaker 2: start of Monday, you are missing out on capitalizing on
Speaker 2: potentially their most productive time all week. So if they
Speaker 2: spend their first because I mean, let's say it's even
Speaker 2: only an hour meeting, that's gonna be an hour and
Speaker 2: a half minimum, right, because then there's the after the meeting,
Speaker 2: then getting the coffee, Like they haven't had a minute
Speaker 2: to think. And now you've taken that energy level, you've
Speaker 2: thrown it into a meeting, and now like that window's
Speaker 2: kind of gone. You don't recapture that person. B might
Speaker 2: be the person who comes in is like, I'm a
Speaker 2: slow roll. I need a little time, I need to
Speaker 2: reorient myself. I need to kind of get settled at
Speaker 2: my desk, I need to kind of gear up for
Speaker 2: the week. And so that person sitting in a meeting
Speaker 2: on Monday morning is probably only fifty percent present and
Speaker 2: could be missing out on really important stuff, key things.
Speaker 2: Their energy is not quite aligned well, and then those
Speaker 2: two personalities in a meeting tend to butt heads as well. Right,
Speaker 2: You've got the we're going to conquer world hunger, and
Speaker 2: you've got that I'm gonna need another cup of coffee
Speaker 2: before I can talk about this. And so oftentimes those
Speaker 2: Monday morning meetings end up not producing the desired output
Speaker 2: that you really wanted. If maybe you had just shifted
Speaker 2: that to like an eleven am or a one pm
Speaker 2: meeting on Monday instead of taking that prime real estate
Speaker 2: to start the week and not allowing everybody to settle
Speaker 2: into their their work rhythm in a way that supports them.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that for sure. And another
Speaker 1: way you have people reframing meetings is that I think
Speaker 1: this is a quote. I've wrote this down because I
Speaker 1: loved it so much, that being excluded from a meeting
Speaker 1: is a gift to your time.
Speaker 2: People feel like the more meetings they're in, it validates
Speaker 2: their importance. Right, And so if they see if they're
Speaker 2: walking by a conference room, you know, I used to
Speaker 2: work in a conference room. Now we're more zoom style,
Speaker 2: But they see a group of people around a table,
Speaker 2: They're instantly wondering like, why was I not invited?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Do they not value my mind? Do they not think
Speaker 2: I'm important? And so suddenly someone's like, oh, hey, could
Speaker 2: I come to that next meeting? And we start to
Speaker 2: feel like our worth in the workplace is kind of
Speaker 2: defined by the number of meetings we're in, Right, they
Speaker 2: value my opinion, They want me sitting in there instead
Speaker 2: of recognizing ninety nine percent of the time when I
Speaker 2: work with companies, we recognize that half the people in
Speaker 2: the meeting don't need to be there. They're consumers of
Speaker 2: what the decisions are made in the meeting, but they're
Speaker 2: not actually a key decision makers. And so I always
Speaker 2: love to encourage people to say, hey, realize, not being
Speaker 2: in a meeting is the biggest gift you can have
Speaker 2: because now, guess what, you have an hour to sit
Speaker 2: and work instead of an hour to sit and talk
Speaker 2: about work. That the decisions maybe you didn't need to
Speaker 2: be a part of. You just needed to know what
Speaker 2: the output was. And so it can be a real
Speaker 2: It can ruffle some feathers first when people start being excluded,
Speaker 2: but this is why I will tell people, when you're
Speaker 2: building the agenda, the agenda can be visible. Here's the
Speaker 2: purpose of the meeting, here's how we're planning on getting
Speaker 2: from point A to point B, and here are the
Speaker 2: people that have the knowledge and the ability to make
Speaker 2: the decision. That's why they're in the meeting. Everybody who
Speaker 2: needs to know the output of it, here's where those
Speaker 2: decisions will be, so that you can go have the
Speaker 2: info you need to carry on with your work. And
Speaker 2: that kind of helps to reframe it a little bit
Speaker 2: for people of like, oh, yeah, I need to know
Speaker 2: the output, I just don't have to watch them come
Speaker 2: up with a plan to get there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sort of frame it is like, well, John will
Speaker 1: report back to Bob. That's how important Bob is he
Speaker 1: gets a report on this meeting.
Speaker 2: Because people complain about meetings, yet then they complain when
Speaker 2: they're not in the meeting because oh, we're all.
Speaker 1: In the middle school cafees here. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: it's honestly what it is. It's the same social fear
Speaker 1: of being excluded from something. So you spent years and
Speaker 1: in corporate logistics and systems. I wonder you know maybe
Speaker 1: one or two of your favorite sort of transferable systems
Speaker 1: things you learn from that that people could put to
Speaker 1: work in their own lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think a lot and a lot
Speaker 2: of where I pull from with the time management framework
Speaker 2: that I teach. I'm a really big fan of Lean
Speaker 2: six sigma and I went through all those belt trainings,
Speaker 2: there is really looking at everything you do, everything you
Speaker 2: spend time on with the lens of where is their
Speaker 2: waste and what can I get rid of? Is it
Speaker 2: that the waste is that I'm rewriting every morning half
Speaker 2: of yesterday's to do list onto today's and then adding
Speaker 2: to it and then tomorrow rints and repeating like that's waste.
Speaker 2: If you are it's suddenly Friday and you've rewritten half
Speaker 2: of the same list Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right now,
Speaker 2: we can look at it as this is a waste
Speaker 2: of time, it's a waste of paper. What can I
Speaker 2: do to eliminate that waste? And then even in your
Speaker 2: personal life, same thing. Right do you find that you
Speaker 2: are stopping by the grocery store every night on the
Speaker 2: way home to pick up something for dinner? Like think
Speaker 2: through the amount of time that is being spent as
Speaker 2: opposed to what if I just sat down on Sunday
Speaker 2: for ten minutes and said, all right, or as a family,
Speaker 2: what are we having for dinners this week? Make the
Speaker 2: decision once in one sitting, go to the store once
Speaker 2: and then everything's there. But because we live in such
Speaker 2: a fast paced you know Amazon Prime everything right now,
Speaker 2: We often just keep rinsing and repeating without taking a
Speaker 2: pause to say where am I wasting either time resources,
Speaker 2: my own energy levels from decision making to then say
Speaker 2: what can I shift to be able to eliminate that waste? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't have to be even all or nothing.
Speaker 1: Somebody who is going to the Absimos store every night
Speaker 1: could go twice, go three times, but just not every
Speaker 1: day exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't plan a week, but I could plan
Speaker 1: Monday Tuesday, maybe you know, and then yeah it would
Speaker 1: be better.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Are there any other examples of sort of common
Speaker 1: waste that people have in their schedules?
Speaker 2: I do see a lot of common waste with emails.
Speaker 2: So the people that leave emails open or email notifications
Speaker 2: on are wasting so much mental capacity and time jumping
Speaker 2: in and out of email all day long, and we
Speaker 2: think we have to, but very few of us are
Speaker 2: actually saving lives in our email right, Like, nobody is
Speaker 2: going to likely die because thirty minutes went by before
Speaker 2: you got the email. And so one of the biggest
Speaker 2: shifts I always encourage people to do is have set
Speaker 2: times of your day you can even I have it
Speaker 2: blocked on my calendar and appointment with myself for this
Speaker 2: is when I'm sitting down to actually go in and
Speaker 2: process my email, meaning I go through them all. If
Speaker 2: it's something I can do in two minutes or less,
Speaker 2: it gets handled. If it's something that needs a significant
Speaker 2: amount of time, it then goes into my calendar with
Speaker 2: specificity of when am I working on this, and then
Speaker 2: when the email processing is done, it is closed out.
Speaker 2: Email is not open. I usually do mine three times
Speaker 2: a day. Some people are like, there's no way I
Speaker 2: could do that. So I start off and say, how
Speaker 2: about we just start at the top of the hour,
Speaker 2: You go in for ten minutes, you check your email,
Speaker 2: and then you shut it down, and then at the
Speaker 2: top of the next hour you can do that. And
Speaker 2: usually when people start that way, three weeks later they're like,
Speaker 2: I'm only checking it twice a day now, Megan, this
Speaker 2: is magical, But I think from a work perspective, email
Speaker 2: is the biggest waste of time.
Speaker 1: Absolutely agreed. All right, We're going to take one more
Speaker 1: quick ad break and then I will be back with
Speaker 1: more from Megan Summrew. Well, I am back talking with
Speaker 1: Megan Sumrel who is a time management expert host of
Speaker 1: the Work Life Harmony podcast. So I'm curious. This is
Speaker 1: a show called Before Breakfast. Do you have a morning
Speaker 1: routine or something you do most mornings at least I do.
Speaker 2: And you know, I talk a lot about the importance
Speaker 2: of morning routines. I do differentiate a morning routine versus
Speaker 2: a morning task list. So for me, when I talk
Speaker 2: about a morning routine, I'm talking about the things I
Speaker 2: do just for myself that fuel me, that fill me
Speaker 2: up for the day, that allow me to wake up,
Speaker 2: you know, interact with my family in a way where
Speaker 2: I'm coming and I'm pleasant as opposed to like, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of gritchy mode. So my morning routine is not
Speaker 2: what you'd hear from a typical productivity expert. I don't meditate,
Speaker 2: I don't journal, I don't do yoga, I don't drink
Speaker 2: lemon water. I do what works for me. So I
Speaker 2: get up before my family. I come downstairs, I make
Speaker 2: a cup of coffee, I let my dogs out, and
Speaker 2: I take my warm cup of coffee and I do
Speaker 2: four games in the New York Times Games app every
Speaker 2: morning first thing, and then I actually review my plan
Speaker 2: for the day that that reduces my overwhelming anxiety, so
Speaker 2: I can kind of like, see, Okay, here's what's coming
Speaker 2: for the day, so I'm i am level set for that.
Speaker 2: And then, depending upon the day of the week, if
Speaker 2: I'm driving or if my husband's driving our daughter to school,
Speaker 2: some days, I go in and actually do my first
Speaker 2: email process after I've done that, because that quiets my
Speaker 2: anxiety of knowing is there anything out there looming that
Speaker 2: I need to adjust for for the day. So if
Speaker 2: I'm driving her to school, I do plan in that
Speaker 2: quick little email check before then, and if not, once
Speaker 2: that's done, then I shift into kind of morning taskless
Speaker 2: mode of you know, being with the family, making breakfast,
Speaker 2: packing lunches, walking dogs, all of that, and then it's
Speaker 2: hit the showers and ready to roll for work.
Speaker 1: Ready to roll. Yeah, I love the games. It's always
Speaker 1: a good way wake up your brain as well. I've
Speaker 1: always loved logic puzzle all of that. So that's like
Speaker 1: my warm cup of coffee and my New York Times
Speaker 1: games app is how I start every day. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. So a question I ask every guest
Speaker 1: on this show is what is something you have done
Speaker 1: recently to take a day from great to awesome.
Speaker 2: The I've done this a few times recently. It is
Speaker 2: I think the biggest challenge that everyone has is honoring
Speaker 2: and protecting time for themselves when things start getting crazy.
Speaker 2: The first thing we let go of is that time
Speaker 2: that you had blocked for yourself, whether it was to
Speaker 2: go for that you know, squeeze in a workout over
Speaker 2: lunch that you know is great for you, or have
Speaker 2: dinner with that friend. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: things work starts getting crazy, everything's to get crazy. We
Speaker 2: start canceling those and double down on work in an
Speaker 2: effort to think that that's actually going to get us
Speaker 2: on top of things and feel better. And I recently
Speaker 2: just went through our busiest season here for you know,
Speaker 2: over the entire year during.
Speaker 1: For the pink Bee.
Speaker 2: And the first thing I always block off thirty minutes
Speaker 2: every day on my calendar to practice my cello, and
Speaker 2: I usually do that kind of after lunch, and that's
Speaker 2: my me time. It resets me for the rest of
Speaker 2: the day. And I started finding myself letting that go
Speaker 2: because I was like, well, I'll just get it thirty
Speaker 2: minutes in for work, and so I reset it for
Speaker 2: a week and said, no matter what, no matter how
Speaker 2: busy things are, I'm honoring that. And those five days
Speaker 2: were the most productive, the most calming, the most fulfilling
Speaker 2: for myself in what on paper would have looked like
Speaker 2: a really bad decision right from a work perspective, But
Speaker 2: it's just that that recognition of turning your brain off
Speaker 2: for a little while and doing something for you what
Speaker 2: you're able to then come back and do when you've
Speaker 2: had that break is kind of ten X level, And
Speaker 2: so I would say honoring that for the week changed
Speaker 2: the entire week from one that was going to be
Speaker 2: good to begin with and productive to amazing and hyper productive.
Speaker 1: Playing music is such a soothing, calming, enjoyable activity. Do
Speaker 1: you do this more for yourself?
Speaker 2: For you?
Speaker 1: An ensemble?
Speaker 2: Someone I don't know, God, no, I don't let anyone listen.
Speaker 2: So it's just it's a goal I'd had for years.
Speaker 2: Was I always wanted to learn how to play the cello.
Speaker 2: I do not have a background in and I played
Speaker 2: other instruments as a child, but never a stringed instrument.
Speaker 2: And so it's been about two and a half years
Speaker 2: now I finally said I'm gonna do this, So I
Speaker 2: found a cello rental place and found a teacher that
Speaker 2: was willing to teach an adult nubie and I do
Speaker 2: this just one hundred percent for myself.
Speaker 1: I love that because yes, you can rent any instrument.
Speaker 1: I have multiple children who have all rented every instrument
Speaker 1: under the sun for school band. And you know, you
Speaker 1: don't think about doing it for yourself. But they don't
Speaker 1: only rent to school children.
Speaker 2: And I if for myself last month was I actually
Speaker 2: just went and bought my very own cello. Now now
Speaker 2: that I know, I love this and I'm enjoying enjoying
Speaker 2: learning it, and it's just it's fun time for me,
Speaker 2: and it feels it just fills a void that was
Speaker 2: missing in my life of something I really love in.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting when you're like, do you do this
Speaker 2: for an ensemble or not? I see so many adults
Speaker 2: we feel like we're not allowed to do something just
Speaker 2: for a hobby, and we fall in this trap of like,
Speaker 2: I'll see it with women all the time. Oh, I
Speaker 2: picked back up knitting or crochet and I started making hats.
Speaker 2: And now all of a sudden they've got an Etsy
Speaker 2: shop and they've turned it into a business or I
Speaker 2: make cookies and now I've got a cookie business, or
Speaker 2: I'm woodworking and now I'm making things, and then they
Speaker 2: end up hating it because they've We feel like, and
Speaker 2: I think it's maybe a gen X thing too as well,
Speaker 2: we feel like we're not allowed to do anything just
Speaker 2: for the sheer joy of doing it. We have to
Speaker 2: find some way to make it quote productive or of value.
Speaker 2: So I had people started asking like, oh, you are
Speaker 2: you going to perform a piece, and I went, nope,
Speaker 2: because it's going to ruin it for me. I'm just
Speaker 2: doing this for me.
Speaker 1: I think, well it could go both ways though, right
Speaker 1: because I think these things we do that we love,
Speaker 1: it's also fun to do it with other people who
Speaker 1: love it too, And so I mean, you know, performing
Speaker 1: with it ensemble could be like, well, yeah, friends who
Speaker 1: play straight and that's even better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a hangout jam session. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Megan, what's something that you are looking forward
Speaker 1: to right now? I am looking forward to honestly, the
Speaker 1: month of December. I very intentionally plan for a real
Speaker 1: wind down, and because of the way we do plan
Speaker 1: and manage our time with both the business and personally,
Speaker 1: I am looking forward to closing offices for several days,
Speaker 1: and then I actually pretty much just disappear for the
Speaker 1: last two weeks of the year and just spend time
Speaker 1: with family, friends, let my creative energy rest. And so
Speaker 1: I'm just really looking forward to doing a whole lot
Speaker 1: of nothing for a couple of weeks. Guilt free sounds great,
Speaker 1: sounds great. So, Megan, where can people find you?
Speaker 2: So again, if you're a podcast listener, obviously you can
Speaker 2: come check out the Work Life Harmony podcast. And if
Speaker 2: you're interested in learning a little bit about what this
Speaker 2: planning framework is, I've got an app in both the
Speaker 2: App Store and Google Play. It's totally free. The app
Speaker 2: is just called the pink Bee All one Word, and
Speaker 2: when you download that and log in, there's some free
Speaker 2: training and they're already preloaded. It kind of gives you
Speaker 2: an introduction to what's called the top framework, and it
Speaker 2: just kind of gives you some quick wins that you
Speaker 2: can implement right now, right now.
Speaker 1: I love it. Excellent. Well, Megan, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening. If
Speaker 1: you have feedback on this or any other episode, you
Speaker 1: can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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