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, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: 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 term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 2: episode is airing in mid July of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Sarah is going to be interviewing Amy Laski of the
Speaker 2: Difference Lab, talking about intentional subtraction and how that can
Speaker 2: make us more productive, efficient, happier at life in general. So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: maybe you could share a little bit about what you
Speaker 2: learned what this interview is going to be about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we talked about subtraction in all realms of life,
Speaker 3: from the career side to the life side. And I've
Speaker 3: done some reflecting thinking about how subtractions can be really difficult.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about what have been the big subtractions
Speaker 3: in my life. I subtracted forty percent of my clinical
Speaker 3: job to do other things. I have, at numerous occasions
Speaker 3: subtracted various forms of social media for my life. And
Speaker 3: I'll say I'm also really good at subtracting, like wardrobe
Speaker 3: items and certain types of clutter, like I really don't
Speaker 3: have a lot of clothes, and I'm not too bad
Speaker 3: at if I'm like, I'm not wearing that anymore, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get rid of it, to the point where
Speaker 3: when sometimes people look at my closet, They're like, you
Speaker 3: do not have any clothing, And I'm like, I think
Speaker 3: I have the normal amount. I just don't have all
Speaker 3: the filler that I wouldn't be wearing, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: So I'm good at sub subtractions. And then other times
Speaker 3: I think I'm not like that into ending things, but
Speaker 3: I don't know. If something's really good, it's hard to
Speaker 3: want to end it. Hence my twenty year blog and
Speaker 3: many podcast episodes. What about we have to substract everything?
Speaker 3: I mean, what if you subtract it? Or like, does
Speaker 3: the concept resonate with you? I mean I do subtract
Speaker 3: things from time to time. I mean, certainly I have
Speaker 3: stopped a great many projects over the years, whenever I
Speaker 3: decide that it is no longer achieving the goals I
Speaker 3: have for myself, or if it's not worth the time, money,
Speaker 3: or effort, not as an overall thing, like it's not
Speaker 3: a good thing to do with my time or with
Speaker 3: somebody's time. It's just that the opportunity cost of doing
Speaker 3: that versus something else has become too high, and I
Speaker 3: would prefer to devote the time, money, or effort to
Speaker 3: something else. So longtime listeners may know, I had a
Speaker 3: short daily podcast called The New Corner Office at one
Speaker 3: point that I was doing during the pandemic, and that
Speaker 3: had a good run during the pandemic, but was relevant
Speaker 3: once people were sort of going about living their lives,
Speaker 3: going back to the office and all that. And I've
Speaker 3: done many sort of like short article writing things for places,
Speaker 3: you know, regular gigs writing for other people, And then
Speaker 3: now I've sort of realized, like for short stuff, I mean,
Speaker 3: you could just do it for yourself now, I mean,
Speaker 3: especially platforms like substack allow you to monetize that even
Speaker 3: in a way that it was harder to do in
Speaker 3: the past, And so you know, would rather kind of
Speaker 3: keep control of a lot of the short stuff and
Speaker 3: then save the writing for other people from kind of
Speaker 3: like bigger profile stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, So you know things like that.
Speaker 2: But I guess you can't always subtract your way to greatness, right,
Speaker 2: This has to be a balance. Like eventually, I always
Speaker 2: have people, when they're looking at their schedules, ask what
Speaker 2: they want to spend more time doing, before I have
Speaker 2: them say what they want to spend less time doing.
Speaker 2: Because to some degree, when you put more things that
Speaker 2: you love in a lot of the stuff that you
Speaker 2: don't like as much will naturally take less time. Not always,
Speaker 2: but to some degree. And so focusing on like the
Speaker 2: good stuff often makes people feel like they're having more
Speaker 2: fun and like life is a positive force.
Speaker 1: And then we can go clean up some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that we need to get rid of. But you
Speaker 1: have to do both. You have to add and you
Speaker 1: have to subtract.
Speaker 3: Yes, otherwise you end up with as our guests, we'll
Speaker 3: discuss kram it in syndrome, which sounds bad, So you
Speaker 3: can learn more about that in just a minute.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't want to cram it in, all right.
Speaker 1: Well let's hear from Amy Laski.
Speaker 3: Well, I am so excited to welcome Amy Laski of
Speaker 3: the Difference Lab onto best of both worlds today because
Speaker 3: I was so intrigued when I heard that she has
Speaker 3: this expertise and focus right now on intentional subtraction. We
Speaker 3: are always tempted to add things, as Laura and I
Speaker 3: talked about a little bit in the intro, maybe me especially,
Speaker 3: and so I'm really excited to kind of get her
Speaker 3: perspective on the other side. So welcome, Amy, Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for having me so Amy, your company or
Speaker 3: organization is called the Difference Lab. How did you become
Speaker 3: interested in intentional subtraction and what is it exactly?
Speaker 5: Okay, So, intentional subtraction is the skill of being able
Speaker 5: to fiercely focus on what drives value by subtracting what doesn't.
Speaker 5: And I came to this by way of being a
Speaker 5: former workaholic, I would characterize myself. And it's human nature
Speaker 5: to want to add ad ad. We women, especially are
Speaker 5: inclined to just do more, and I think we're kind
Speaker 5: of socially driven to be more and to do everything
Speaker 5: perfectly into the nth degree. And that certainly was me
Speaker 5: and so throughout my life in corporate and then running
Speaker 5: my own business for many years, while simultaneously then growing
Speaker 5: my family. I realized this wasn't sustainable. And I, through
Speaker 5: the help of Laura's books and I'm just developing new habits,
Speaker 5: figured out what I needed to do to run my business,
Speaker 5: to run my family, and what didn't need to get
Speaker 5: done and how to still get stuff done without me
Speaker 5: doing it. And I recently changed careers and partnered up
Speaker 5: with another woman who had done some amazing work and
Speaker 5: come up with the concept of intentional subtraction. And so
Speaker 5: here we are running the Difference Lab.
Speaker 1: That is so cool.
Speaker 3: And the Difference Lab does it mainly work with small
Speaker 3: businesses other people as individuals. How do your services kind
Speaker 3: of work? And I guess walk me through what your
Speaker 3: assessment might look like and maybe a little example of
Speaker 3: how you might apply intentional subtraction in that context.
Speaker 5: So at the Differencelob, we work with usually large companies,
Speaker 5: large to medium companies that bring us in to work
Speaker 5: with individuals across their organizations or with teams.
Speaker 4: Within their organizations.
Speaker 5: That's when it's most effective when you have a team
Speaker 5: that's together, committed with their leaders to figuring out what
Speaker 5: they're supposed to be doing and what really drives value in,
Speaker 5: you know, to their company, and then how to dehabit
Speaker 5: and kind of get rid of what isn't driving value.
Speaker 5: And so we work, we run workshops that are usually
Speaker 5: three sessions long, and over that time we take people
Speaker 5: through the process of identifying how we came here in
Speaker 5: the first place, and what habits are underlying our inclination
Speaker 5: to add ad ad, and then how to identify those
Speaker 5: and then rehabit by subtracting and kind of living a
Speaker 5: subtraction lifestyle.
Speaker 3: We would say, very interesting, can you I know it
Speaker 3: might be a little bit like specific to whatever industry
Speaker 3: and obviously you can't share specifics of companies that you're
Speaker 3: contracted to work with, but could you share like even
Speaker 3: a vague example of what that might look like, maybe
Speaker 3: both in the professional context and then like a personal
Speaker 3: example if you can, if you have one, sure.
Speaker 5: Well, definitely the concept of intentional subtraction can be very
Speaker 5: much applied both to professional and to your personal life.
Speaker 5: So once you get into the mode of spotting what
Speaker 5: we call supposed to So these are the things that
Speaker 5: we perceive as mandatory, but they really kind of divert
Speaker 5: us from what the most essential work or the most
Speaker 5: essential elements of our life are so on the professional side,
Speaker 5: I'll stay the obvious. But meetings. Ever since COVID, you know,
Speaker 5: the rate of making everything a meeting has gone up exponentially,
Speaker 5: and now everything is a meeting, and not just a meeting,
Speaker 5: but an hour long meeting or meeting weekly that's in
Speaker 5: our calendars, and that eats up a lot of time,
Speaker 5: especially if you don't have good meeting hygiene governing those meetings.
Speaker 4: So that's a big supposed to that.
Speaker 5: We help people identify, and then once you spot them,
Speaker 5: we realize, Okay, where do they come from and what
Speaker 5: can we do to reduce our reliance on meetings in
Speaker 5: a life? Everything from you know, I'm supposed to cook
Speaker 5: healthy meals for my family every day.
Speaker 4: Home cooked meals. I have to send.
Speaker 5: Hand written notes for baby gifts, be the one who
Speaker 5: organizes all my friends going out things like that. So
Speaker 5: these are all kind of the supposed tos that underlie
Speaker 5: our habit of taking on more things that don't necessarily
Speaker 5: align with what drives value.
Speaker 3: Do you see obviously not all of the time. I
Speaker 3: can't imagine it's going to be so black and white,
Speaker 3: But do you see gender differences in what tends to
Speaker 3: I don't know, reveal itself as coming off of people's calendars,
Speaker 3: or do you find different or more things to remove
Speaker 3: from one gender or the other, or does it seem
Speaker 3: to be fairly neutral.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think we've both read statistics about kind
Speaker 5: of this invisible load, how women tend to carry more
Speaker 5: of the burden of running a.
Speaker 4: Family just generally speaking.
Speaker 5: So I think there's definitely differences in terms of we
Speaker 5: look at our whole lives and what comprises how we
Speaker 5: spend our time. So I think there's definitely gender differences
Speaker 5: in a corporate setting, which is where we work most
Speaker 5: of the time. It really depends on what's kind of
Speaker 5: again underlying people's tendency to take on more so, whether
Speaker 5: it's people pleasing or perfectionism mirroring, like you come into
Speaker 5: an organization and you kind of tend to take on
Speaker 5: what habits are existent already, and so ego is another one,
Speaker 5: like showing everybody you can do this and things like that.
Speaker 5: Those are what we call kind of onerous obstacles. So
Speaker 5: those are the things that prevent us from divesting of
Speaker 5: things that aren't really serving us anymore.
Speaker 3: That makes sense. It just made me think of the
Speaker 3: concept of non promotable tasks. We had in excess that
Speaker 3: on many years ago, and they did seem to disproportionately
Speaker 3: fall to women. And I can imagine if you were
Speaker 3: looking at a team and you were like, you know,
Speaker 3: thirty percent of the things you're doing are actually not
Speaker 3: moving the needle on what we actually need this team
Speaker 3: to then clearing it out would do everyone a favor, right,
Speaker 3: because then you're meeting more of the objectives of the
Speaker 3: team and you're perhaps helping from a career standpoint as well.
Speaker 5: That percent, well, there's these statistics that show, you know,
Speaker 5: like about sixty percent of people's time now knowledge work
Speaker 5: or time is actually spent on work about work and
Speaker 5: not the work itself, So not the knowledge work that
Speaker 5: you're hired to do. You know, you're hired for our brains.
Speaker 5: We're hired for our different abilities and our skills, and
Speaker 5: the majority of the time we're actually not spending our
Speaker 5: time at work using those skills towards the end that
Speaker 5: we're supposed to have in mind. So our programm really
Speaker 5: helps organizations refocus on that knowledge work that you're hired
Speaker 5: to do in the first place. But importantly, it sounds
Speaker 5: really easy. Okay, I'm just going to stop doing these things,
Speaker 5: But it's really really tough, and so we walk people
Speaker 5: through the framework and the process and the accountability for
Speaker 5: actually doing so.
Speaker 3: I can imagine it being really tough. I mean, honestly,
Speaker 3: it's totally different in a medical context. But I still
Speaker 3: think about how access to care could be improved if
Speaker 3: I was really only doing doctory things and not kind
Speaker 3: of having to mix it up with all kinds of
Speaker 3: other things. But at the same time, sometimes it's not
Speaker 3: so straightforward to delegate various things, and I'm sure that
Speaker 3: in the corporate context it can be similar. So super interesting.
Speaker 3: Tell me about kram it all in syndrome. That doesn't
Speaker 3: sound good at all.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think it's rampant. It's kind of
Speaker 5: a new epidemic, right, not new, but a ramp epidemic.
Speaker 5: The idea that you're just trying to cram it all in,
Speaker 5: the idea that our to do lists keep getting ever longer,
Speaker 5: were there's so many digital distractions, things are coming at
Speaker 5: us quicker than we can come at it. And the
Speaker 5: idea of cram it all in syndrome is that we
Speaker 5: have these to do lists and these priority lists, and
Speaker 5: we just keep trying to reash off things up and
Speaker 5: down the to do list. And many people that we
Speaker 5: encounter when we go in to do our training, the
Speaker 5: idea of actually taking something off their to do list
Speaker 5: or out of their priority list is just revolutionary. And
Speaker 5: so our tendency is to cram it all in. And
Speaker 5: what we do is help people fight that tendency by
Speaker 5: actually subtracting things out in order to focus on what
Speaker 5: really matters.
Speaker 3: Okay, that makes sense. That's going to lead up to
Speaker 3: our next topic. But we are going to take a
Speaker 3: very quick break and we'll be right back. All right,
Speaker 3: we are back, And I think this is very much
Speaker 3: aligns with what you were just talking about, just the
Speaker 3: temptation of oh, I can fit in everything, whereas we
Speaker 3: know our time is finite. We learned that from Laura
Speaker 3: right like, she has books which specifically say that, and
Speaker 3: I'm with that wholeheartedly. So since we can't cram it
Speaker 3: all in and we have to eliminate things, I like
Speaker 3: that you referenced in your work something about supposed to
Speaker 3: and encourage people to question that. Can you talk about
Speaker 3: what that might look like maybe on the professional side
Speaker 3: and then also on the personal side, and how do
Speaker 3: you help people get away from the idea that like,
Speaker 3: they won't be a good student, good mom, good person
Speaker 3: if they're not doing things that they were ingrained to
Speaker 3: believe are quote required.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a real, real toughye.
Speaker 5: Like, our greatest enemy, you know, in living in a
Speaker 5: more focused way is ourselves and is kind of what's
Speaker 5: been culturally ingrained ever since, usually when we were very young, right,
Speaker 5: your women especially are taught to try to do everything perfectly,
Speaker 5: and perfect is the enemy of good enough. We start
Speaker 5: by identifying and helping people catch themselves asking why are
Speaker 5: we doing it? Why are we doing it in this way?
Speaker 5: And doesn't need to be done in this way going forward?
Speaker 5: Is there a better way to do it? And oftentimes,
Speaker 5: you know, what historically made us successful in our lives,
Speaker 5: and whether it's a corporate or a medical setting, what
Speaker 5: got you to the point you're at isn't necessarily what
Speaker 5: will get you to the next point or achieving your
Speaker 5: next goals in your careers. And so yeah, I guess
Speaker 5: some if you're looking at some kind of supposed to
Speaker 5: is that we see very common in a corporate setting.
Speaker 5: You know, you're supposed to do everything perfectly. You're supposed
Speaker 5: to work late. You know, that's often rewarded actually, and
Speaker 5: you know so and so burn the midnight oil, or
Speaker 5: you know, you're supposed to be accessible all the time,
Speaker 5: like hey, I'm just at my kids dance recital or
Speaker 5: on the soccer sidelines, but you can reach me if
Speaker 5: you need.
Speaker 4: So those are things that we do to.
Speaker 5: Try to be generous to our teams, but in fact
Speaker 5: they send signals that this is what's expected in the organization.
Speaker 5: And then on the personal front, things like you know,
Speaker 5: I'm supposed to solve everybody's problems. People can come to
Speaker 5: me with different issues and not that I mean, you
Speaker 5: want to be a good friend and a good parents
Speaker 5: and whatever, but there's a certain amount of kind of
Speaker 5: emotional burden that you end.
Speaker 4: Up taking on.
Speaker 5: And again it's one of those things that we end
Speaker 5: up doing out of habit as opposed to more consciously,
Speaker 5: which is what we try to drive that awareness by
Speaker 5: helping people spot those supposed.
Speaker 3: To I feel like there was a parallel in both
Speaker 3: of those, which is maybe boundaries, right, Like I think
Speaker 3: sometimes there is this cultural expectation with work is like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm not supposed to have any firm boundaries. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: can get me at any time, it's okay. And yet
Speaker 3: long term, that mainly to someone deciding that this job
Speaker 3: is like unsustainable, that they're burned out, that they're angry
Speaker 3: because they can't be perfectly responsive at twenty four to
Speaker 3: seven three sixty five, and and they're doing no work.
Speaker 3: So then it like backfired on everyone or they're sort
Speaker 3: of half there, which I think can be problematic. Like
Speaker 3: if I call the doctor on call, I guess I
Speaker 3: would rather it be someone who like, how do I
Speaker 3: put this, Let's say you're calling a whole group and
Speaker 3: instead of a call schedule, everyone's on a call for
Speaker 3: themselves all the time, which means it's sometimes you're going
Speaker 3: to get someone who's like really distracted because they're like
Speaker 3: not going to be able to focus three sixty five.
Speaker 3: Versus if you have a call system, they might not
Speaker 3: be your person, but you're getting someone who like has
Speaker 3: agreed to take call and is going to put their
Speaker 3: focus into it, if that kind of makes sense.
Speaker 4: So one, it's figuring out.
Speaker 5: So I mean that's we say, I guess subtraction has options, right,
Speaker 5: So it's not just like a black or white thing
Speaker 5: like if you were looking to share duties, if I'm
Speaker 5: understanding you.
Speaker 4: Correctly with other doctors.
Speaker 5: Then the idea if it doesn't have to just be
Speaker 5: you who's responding, even if you're elsewhere and you know,
Speaker 5: and doing something else, if you're sharing duties amongst others,
Speaker 5: then yeah, you get somebody who has that undivided attention
Speaker 5: and your patients are cared for, even if it's not
Speaker 5: you doing the caring, which that kind of inner striver.
Speaker 5: And you may wish to be the one who handles
Speaker 5: all the calls and is on top of everything, but
Speaker 5: sometimes we have to be selective about what we can
Speaker 5: be on top of in order to fully really own it.
Speaker 3: And that definitely connects to you had a kind of
Speaker 3: an interesting idea framework around not necessarily saying yes or
Speaker 3: no to things when you're thinking about subtraction, but instead
Speaker 3: thinking about maybe how you can do things differently. Do
Speaker 3: you want to talk about that sets framework?
Speaker 5: Sure, so we call kind of we say, you know,
Speaker 5: to do or or not to do is not the
Speaker 5: only question. There's a happy middle gram where you can
Speaker 5: get things done, but it doesn't have to be you
Speaker 5: doing it. So we've come up with the sets framework,
Speaker 5: which is basically strike all or part of a task.
Speaker 5: So does this actually need to get done or maybe not,
Speaker 5: maybe it's not working anymore and maybe we can strike that.
Speaker 5: Or even if I'm supposed to have one on one
Speaker 5: meetings with my direct reports to check in, does that
Speaker 5: have to be done every week or can that be
Speaker 5: done every other week or on an as needed basis.
Speaker 5: The E is energy, so recalibrating the energy that you're
Speaker 5: devoting to something or the time you're spending. So that's
Speaker 5: the tease spending on stuff, so it matches up with
Speaker 5: the urgency and importance. You don't have to do everything
Speaker 5: perfectly and with your full energy and giving a ton
Speaker 5: of time to get things done and then.
Speaker 3: Looks like sorry, I'm just so curious about the energy.
Speaker 3: One give me an example of recalibrating the energy, Like,
Speaker 3: are you suggesting that some people kind of waste their
Speaker 3: best energy on like email? And like maybe that should
Speaker 3: be I don't know, Like how would it look to
Speaker 3: still get something done but recalibrate the energy behind it.
Speaker 4: I'll give you an example.
Speaker 5: My kids are having an end of your school you know,
Speaker 5: pool parties, and I really.
Speaker 4: Could go out all out.
Speaker 5: That is my tendency is to like kind of go
Speaker 5: over the top, but instead we're having ordering in pizza,
Speaker 5: having some treats, cutting up a watermelon, and the kids
Speaker 5: will have probably just as much, if not more fun
Speaker 5: than if I had gone over the top, and I
Speaker 5: will have spent a fraction of the time for the
Speaker 5: same fun.
Speaker 4: Output, I would say. So that's what I would.
Speaker 5: Call like an example of recalibrating the energy.
Speaker 3: You'd vote to something awesome, so figuring out ways to
Speaker 3: just make it easier, make it take less energy, and
Speaker 3: still accomplish the same thing. That makes sense.
Speaker 5: I had a boss who once said to me, you
Speaker 5: know you're good enough. It's somebody else's perfect, and we're
Speaker 5: really again, I think socialized to show up and give
Speaker 5: one hundred and ten percent and everything, but not everything
Speaker 5: requires one hundred and ten percent to be given in
Speaker 5: order to get or done. And so yeah, that's what
Speaker 5: this is about. Oh and then the last the S
Speaker 5: we forgot the S, which is what we say of
Speaker 5: sets substitute out. So that's basically delegate, so substitute ownership
Speaker 5: over a task that you formally took on yourself and
Speaker 5: have somebody else taking it on perfect.
Speaker 3: So what I was going to say is it sounds
Speaker 3: like sometimes people resist this a little bit, which is
Speaker 3: why why your company exists. I mean, you know, you
Speaker 3: can give people this list and say, oh, yeah, subtract
Speaker 3: out and it sounds really good. And yet I'm sure
Speaker 3: in practice it is incredibly hard to change very ingrained routines, customs. Oh,
Speaker 3: this meeting's been on the docket for a decade, Like
Speaker 3: what kinds of obstacles do you encounter and how do
Speaker 3: you go about bypassing those when you go into work
Speaker 3: with companies?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you're right, it is.
Speaker 5: Habit change is hard, but we apply best practices for
Speaker 5: changing habits, and key to that is really, first of all, understanding,
Speaker 5: so really getting to the root of what's causing you
Speaker 5: to take things on in the first place, and really
Speaker 5: questioning things in your schedule again, why are we doing this?
Speaker 5: Does this ladder up to the greater goal? And then
Speaker 5: what do we do with this if we're going to
Speaker 5: change how it's done. Yeah, and there's kind of lots
Speaker 5: of obstacles, and we work through with people to get
Speaker 5: that understanding. Because once you actually understand what your tendencies
Speaker 5: are and once you spot things within an organization.
Speaker 4: We take people through the process.
Speaker 5: Of spotting tasks that may not be serving the team
Speaker 5: or the company or yourself personally anymore. And once you
Speaker 5: start to spot those and are aware of some of
Speaker 5: your tendencies or what we call onerous obstacles, it's much
Speaker 5: easier to actually start that change process. And so that's
Speaker 5: really what we take people through.
Speaker 4: And it's especially.
Speaker 5: Effective when you have a whole team involved, because people
Speaker 5: can spot things in one another, the team can commit
Speaker 5: to together making certain subtractions and hold each other accountable
Speaker 5: the leaders as well, and so that's really what's the
Speaker 5: most effective device for change.
Speaker 3: I'm picturing literally going through someone's calendar and to do
Speaker 3: list and then every single thing you see on there
Speaker 3: just like almost like decluttering mindset, kind of like yes
Speaker 3: see this can it go? Where can it go? And
Speaker 3: like holding it in your hand and then like deciding
Speaker 3: to like peacefully let go of it or or change.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right, Yes, that's exactly what we do.
Speaker 5: And the other thing to point out is it's, like
Speaker 5: I say, it's like closet space. It fills up if
Speaker 5: you've got it. And so once you've actually freed up
Speaker 5: the time. The critical part is making sure you're spending
Speaker 5: that time on what's valuable. And so that's again where
Speaker 5: that the accountability comes in, whether it's to yourself, to
Speaker 5: your team, to a buddy, to make sure that you're
Speaker 5: reallocating the time in such a way that drives value.
Speaker 3: Well, that is super cool. We're going to talk a
Speaker 3: little bit about you now. Even though I love I
Speaker 3: love the subtraction topic, our listeners are always eager to
Speaker 3: get a little bit of an inside glimpse at the
Speaker 3: lives of a lot of the guests we have, especially
Speaker 3: if you have an interesting career and you have a
Speaker 3: busy and full kind of work in life, how that
Speaker 3: works for you. So I guess to start us off,
Speaker 3: we are going to do our famous day in the life,
Speaker 3: but I want you to explain how you came to
Speaker 3: have the Difference lab, Like what was your journey from
Speaker 3: working in it? Sounds like more traditional corporate kind of setting,
Speaker 3: Like how did you go about changing things? And like
Speaker 3: how did things look now?
Speaker 5: Sure? So, I actually I graduated business school in two
Speaker 5: thousand and one, and I actually pursued a career in communications.
Speaker 5: So I worked at a couple of top pr agencies in Toronto,
Speaker 5: and then just with my husband and I had planned,
Speaker 5: you know, to start trying to have a family and
Speaker 5: extend last hurrah.
Speaker 4: I got recruited to work at Coca Cola, and so
Speaker 4: I did that. You can't get more corporate than that.
Speaker 5: I had two kids while I was there, and when
Speaker 5: I was to return from my second Matt leave, I
Speaker 5: asked for a flexible work option and I was told no,
Speaker 5: your job is all or nothing, and so I left
Speaker 5: and that was the impetus for me starting my own
Speaker 5: virtual PR agency and so.
Speaker 4: I did that way before Zoom became.
Speaker 5: A firm, and I hired people who were like me,
Speaker 5: wanted to work but didn't want to do so full
Speaker 5: time in an in person corporate setting.
Speaker 4: And these were smart, talented senior people. We did some
Speaker 4: great work and I ran that for about twelve years,
Speaker 4: and just this past year I realized, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not in love.
Speaker 5: With communications anymore, and I want to do something else.
Speaker 5: What did I learn in this process and what skills
Speaker 5: and value do I have to add to the world.
Speaker 5: And I realized that, you know, I got really good
Speaker 5: at the whole time thing, and so I thought, maybe
Speaker 5: I can help other people figure out how to focus
Speaker 5: on what matters for them. And I was connected to
Speaker 5: this woman, Janet Winkler who she's an insights background and
Speaker 5: interviewed like three hundred and fifty subject matter experts and
Speaker 5: people who were trying to cram it all in, and
Speaker 5: she realized the difference between the people who were crushing
Speaker 5: it and the people who were being crushed was this
Speaker 5: concept of intentional subtraction. So we've been working now together
Speaker 5: for about six seven months and loving it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so cool.
Speaker 3: Took your life lessons, your business background, and probably a
Speaker 3: dash of your pr put it all together and came
Speaker 3: up with a new business venture that sounds so cool. Okay, well, Amy,
Speaker 3: tell me what a day in your life looks like,
Speaker 3: including remind well, tell our listeners how old your kids are,
Speaker 3: kind of what things look like on a regular old
Speaker 3: weekday in your household.
Speaker 5: There's no such thing as a regular old weekday in
Speaker 5: my household. So I have three daughters, a husband and
Speaker 5: lovely husband and three daughters ten, thirteen and fifteen. So
Speaker 5: we're in the throes of, you know, between teenage hood
Speaker 5: and yeah, they're amazing, very active and so never a
Speaker 5: dull moment, I guess.
Speaker 4: I start my day usually by between six six thirty.
Speaker 5: I wake up, I work out for about an hour,
Speaker 5: and then I either bike or walk with my youngest
Speaker 5: daughter to school.
Speaker 4: My other two kids get to school independently. There are
Speaker 4: three separate schools this year.
Speaker 5: And then my my zen moment of the day is
Speaker 5: when I have a coffee and read the newspaper after
Speaker 5: I've dropped her off. I usually reserve the mornings for
Speaker 5: doing heads down work, so I try not to schedule
Speaker 5: meetings then because I find I'm most productive at that point,
Speaker 5: and then you know, have lunch in the afternoon, I
Speaker 5: reserve for meetings, calls, walk meetings, Aaron's usually, and then dinner.
Speaker 5: So I actually just we've had a full time nanny
Speaker 5: throughout the girl's upbringing and then just this year went
Speaker 5: down to part time, so I usually have my nanny
Speaker 5: do the meal prep and things like that when she's here,
Speaker 5: so that I just have to throw things together on
Speaker 5: the days that she's not here, and kids much prefer
Speaker 5: the days that she's not at our house because the
Speaker 5: dinners are much better and talk about delegating. So we
Speaker 5: have dinner usually it's you know, sometimes coming and going
Speaker 5: because there's soccer, hockey, dance, all those things. And yeah,
Speaker 5: I take a guitar lessons, so I do that some
Speaker 5: evenings and then Friday night dinners we usually have together
Speaker 5: as a family, so that's usually the one constant amongst
Speaker 5: our busy lives.
Speaker 3: Ah. I love that, and it goes against the idea
Speaker 3: that like something has to be every night routine for
Speaker 3: it to count. But a week make it special. That
Speaker 3: sounds awesome. We're going to take a quick break before
Speaker 3: you get to our love of the week, but I
Speaker 3: think your day in the life sounds lovely and fun
Speaker 3: and I'm excited for you.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 3: All Right, we are back and we are going to
Speaker 3: get to Amy's love of the week. I did warn
Speaker 3: her in advance, so I'm guessing she's got something for us.
Speaker 4: Yes, you warned me in advance.
Speaker 5: But it was an easy one because my love of
Speaker 5: the week is summer camp, overnight camp specifically, so not
Speaker 5: just the fact that my three girls are going to
Speaker 5: overnight camp so such a privilege, but just the concept
Speaker 5: of summer camp in general. I just believe it's such
Speaker 5: a formative experience.
Speaker 4: I think kids learn as much being away from mom
Speaker 4: and dad as they.
Speaker 5: Do all throughout the school year. You know, so many
Speaker 5: life lessons and life skills bills. I'm on the board
Speaker 5: of the Summer Camp. I went to nonprofit camp as
Speaker 5: a kid, and my two of my kids go to now.
Speaker 5: I think that that that's my love of the week,
Speaker 5: Summer Camp.
Speaker 3: I love that. Well, my love of the week is
Speaker 3: going to be a little nerdy. But I just found
Speaker 3: out that Apple is going to allow time to texting,
Speaker 3: which it's been a thing in the android world. Like
Speaker 3: my husband likes he's an Android person, and he'll send
Speaker 3: it'll be like time text, it was sent whatever. But
Speaker 3: Apple has not made that easy to do. I mean
Speaker 3: maybe there's a third party way to do it, but
Speaker 3: now you can like set your text up ahead of
Speaker 3: time and then have them delivered when you want, which
Speaker 3: I think is just going to make it so easy
Speaker 3: to like remind people of stuff, send like happy birthdays,
Speaker 3: Like you can look at your calendar and see whose birthday.
Speaker 3: I don't know, like all different kind of use cases
Speaker 3: for that, And I'm just super excited that feature is
Speaker 3: going to be a thing. So that is my love
Speaker 3: of the week. Nice little bit nerdy. Well this has
Speaker 3: been lovely. Tell our listeners where they can find you
Speaker 3: your work as well as if they happen to be
Speaker 3: I don't know, at a business where they think they
Speaker 3: need your team, like, how could they make that happen?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 5: You can find all the information about our workshops on
Speaker 5: the Difference Lab dot com or you can find me
Speaker 5: on LinkedIn.
Speaker 4: We can message through there.
Speaker 5: So it's Amy, am why Lasky Laski? But really the
Speaker 5: Difference Lab dot com has all of our information and yeah,
Speaker 5: happy to answer any questions people have and see how
Speaker 5: intentional subtraction can benefit them.
Speaker 3: Awesome, Thank you so much for coming on, Amy, This
Speaker 3: is really fun.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well they are back.
Speaker 2: Sarah has been interviewing Amy Laski of the Difference Lab
Speaker 2: about intentional subtraction and how that can add, as it were,
Speaker 2: to our lives.
Speaker 1: So our question this week is.
Speaker 2: From a listener who has noted that over the past
Speaker 2: few summers, Sarah and I have both done what we
Speaker 2: call mommy days, or at least mommy half days, where
Speaker 2: we do something fun one on one with each of
Speaker 2: our children. This sounds like fun, but I don't get
Speaker 2: a ton of PTO Plus, my kids are in regular
Speaker 2: camps or childcare much of this summer, so you know,
Speaker 2: I don't really want to pull them out of a
Speaker 2: day of gymnastics camp to go do a mommy day
Speaker 2: since they're probably having fun at that as well. So
Speaker 2: what would you suggest? Is this still something worth pursuing? So, Sarah,
Speaker 2: what would you say?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have them on the calendar this year
Speaker 3: to be completely honest, because well.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm not going to say they won't appear in
Speaker 3: some form. But last year I ended up doing them.
Speaker 3: I think three subsequent weeks. I took like a Tuesday.
Speaker 3: But recall that I only have two days to do
Speaker 3: my creative work per week, so taking one of them
Speaker 3: away for three subsequent week was rough. It was like
Speaker 3: almost like going on part of a vacation for three
Speaker 3: weeks in a row. Because it might not seem like
Speaker 3: podcasting would take that much time, but there's two podcasts,
Speaker 3: there's the ads, there's a back end stuff, there's a blog,
Speaker 3: there's you know, like speaking sometimes, there's courses, there's like
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff and one day is not an enough.
Speaker 3: So that didn't work that amazingly for me, and like
Speaker 3: this listener, I don't have a lot of PTO, partly
Speaker 3: because I accrue it at a reduced rate because I
Speaker 3: work part time, which is fair, but it means I
Speaker 3: don't have like limitless clinical days that I can take off.
Speaker 3: So I think for me, the answer has been to
Speaker 3: just like scale things down a little bit. And we
Speaker 3: have had great success with dinners, especially because our nanny
Speaker 3: is usually able to stay, so for me to pull
Speaker 3: a kid out for a one on one dinner on
Speaker 3: a given weeknight really doesn't strain the system all that much,
Speaker 3: like either Josh gets home or our nanny stays a
Speaker 3: little bit later, and that one kid feels really really special.
Speaker 3: We tend to choose restaurants that are, you know, it's
Speaker 3: fast food. Is tough because you kind of want it
Speaker 3: to take a little bit of time and feel like
Speaker 3: a little bit of an event. At the same time,
Speaker 3: I do not want to like spend out for super
Speaker 3: fine dining with my six year old, So it's been
Speaker 3: like sushi restaurants or like the Boba tea place, or
Speaker 3: I don't know, something kind of in between that still
Speaker 3: feels kind of special and they get to pick the place.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not super close by, so there's a little
Speaker 3: bit of drive involved as well, and then that's been
Speaker 3: like a nice substitute. I'm sure they would also love
Speaker 3: to do the full day thing again, but maybe we'll
Speaker 3: scale it down in some other fashion. What are your
Speaker 3: thoughts on this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've done two long weekend trips now
Speaker 2: with two of my older kids, which I think should
Speaker 2: fill all mommy day requirements.
Speaker 1: You know, I went to France with Ruth.
Speaker 2: For a couple of days, and I discussed from yeah,
Speaker 2: just France, and I went to New York with Jasper
Speaker 2: for a couple of days and you know, yeah, that
Speaker 2: was a Christmas present that we were doing, but it
Speaker 2: was definitely a lot of time spent together.
Speaker 1: And Michael took.
Speaker 2: Sam diving, right, they went on a diving trip and
Speaker 2: so that was a lot of one on one time
Speaker 2: with a parent. So I mean, I think that we're
Speaker 2: doing these in slightly different ways now, and travel with
Speaker 2: an older kid is fun, and I've that's also like
Speaker 2: really worth taking.
Speaker 1: I don't have pto but a day off from work
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: As for the little kids, I might still wind up
Speaker 2: doing something with each of them, but we've also wound
Speaker 2: up sort of sharing this over both parents in a
Speaker 2: way that I hadn't originally envisioned it, but I think
Speaker 2: is a good option too.
Speaker 1: So they're getting.
Speaker 2: Last summer, Alex and Henry both had daddy Days where
Speaker 2: they went and did something all day with Michael, and
Speaker 2: he just did it on a weekend, And that is
Speaker 2: totally fine, like that, you could do a mommy day
Speaker 2: on a weekend, Like there's no requirement that you know,
Speaker 2: good mommy days only happen on Tuesday, like you know,
Speaker 2: to be a good mom, you have to actually take
Speaker 2: time off work to spend time with your kid, like
Speaker 2: especially if you have other adults, if you have multiple kids,
Speaker 2: but you have other adults in your life who can
Speaker 2: do things with your children, like you don't have to
Speaker 2: consider weekends off limits or something like that. So if
Speaker 2: your partner has your other kids on a Saturday, go
Speaker 2: do one on one things with one of your kids
Speaker 2: on a Saturday, and maybe two weeks later you go
Speaker 2: do it with the other kid. Or maybe they go
Speaker 2: to Grandma and Grandpa's for a day and you take
Speaker 2: one of them, or maybe you naturally have one of
Speaker 2: your kids off doing something like they're going on a
Speaker 2: class trip to an amusement park, and so you could
Speaker 2: take your other kid and do something on that day.
Speaker 2: So you can kind of just like look for opportunities
Speaker 2: where this will arise. If I mean again, if you're
Speaker 2: like a standard family with two to three kids a
Speaker 2: five kids, maybe it's a little harder to get one
Speaker 2: on one time, but especially you know, we can make
Speaker 2: it work, right. It doesn't have to only be Tuesday,
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to only be during the day. It's
Speaker 2: just the concept of spending some dedicated one on one
Speaker 2: time with your kids, which can be really fun when
Speaker 2: you're not navigating fights and all that and you're really
Speaker 2: just getting to know them and letting them do what
Speaker 2: they want to do. So I would say it's worth trying,
Speaker 2: even if it does look like the full week day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, parenting one kid is really fun. There's like a
Speaker 3: totally different dynamic. No, seriously, like their personality is different,
Speaker 3: Like everything feels different. And I was just thinking as
Speaker 3: you were speaking, even if you had three kids and
Speaker 3: you were like, Okay, let's say both Josh and I
Speaker 3: did a solo day with one kid, like that would
Speaker 3: be six saturdays total for each of us. To have
Speaker 3: like one while the other one had two, and like,
Speaker 3: that's not totally difficult, that's doable. And then you also
Speaker 3: have the interesting dynamic of just having the other two.
Speaker 3: I mean, in your case it's the other four, but
Speaker 3: in our case the different pairings can be kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: So yeah, maybe that'll be our new iteration. We'll see.
Speaker 1: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: All right, well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: Sarah has been interviewing Amy Laski of The Different Slab
Speaker 2: about intentional subtraction. We will be back next week with
Speaker 2: 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 can.
Speaker 2: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 2: been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us
Speaker 2: next time for more on making work and life work together.