Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And this is Sarah hart Unger. I'm a mother of three,
Speaker 3: a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are
Speaker 3: two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family,
Speaker 2: and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping
Speaker 2: out long term career goals. We want you to get
Speaker 2: the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome the best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: is our Annual Goals episode. This is going to be
Speaker 1: Goals twenty twenty four, which is airing at the very
Speaker 1: end of December twenty twenty three. I think this is
Speaker 1: our last episode in twenty twenty three, So thank you
Speaker 1: to everyone who has been listening to us in the
Speaker 1: course of the year. So, Sarah, somewhat of a meta
Speaker 1: question here, but when do you consider your choices of
Speaker 1: Annual Goals final? Like we're making this episode weeks ahead
Speaker 1: of time, I guess things could change before it actually airs,
Speaker 1: but when is the final final?
Speaker 3: I feel like the final is when I've written them
Speaker 3: by hand. In my notebook of choice that I'm using
Speaker 3: for my annual goals, because then they're there. So I
Speaker 3: actually considered mine still to be slightly in draft mode
Speaker 3: mostly solidified at this point, but yeah, I won't give
Speaker 3: them the final until they're like written down in inc.
Speaker 1: Or carved in stone or something like that. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: the truth is day you can always add goals during
Speaker 1: the year. They're like, I want to do this by
Speaker 1: the end of the year, so I guess it's not
Speaker 1: final final until December thirty, first the year. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I tend to think of like the
Speaker 1: New Year's specific goals need to be set by New
Speaker 1: Year's Like, if I'm going to do something every day
Speaker 1: during the year, then probably it needs to be known
Speaker 1: by the start of the year. I mean, although I
Speaker 1: guess doing it three hundred thirty days of three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five is probably pretty good too. But one
Speaker 1: thing I've been doing lately and talking about is the
Speaker 1: idea of practicing your goals, especially when you are setting
Speaker 1: New Year goals, to practice them in November and December
Speaker 1: before January, so that if you do get a lot
Speaker 1: of New Year New U sort of energy, you can
Speaker 1: actually hit the ground on January first, ready to go,
Speaker 1: Like you figured out what this goal is going to
Speaker 1: look like in your life, how much time it takes,
Speaker 1: what logistics need to be figured out, so that you're
Speaker 1: not sorting through those problems in the first few days,
Speaker 1: which is when people often abandon a goal because they've realized, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not going to work, and then they're trying to
Speaker 1: change it. But then they don't have that new year,
Speaker 1: new U energy anymore. So you know, it might be
Speaker 1: worth doing a trial run of anything you are serious about.
Speaker 3: I love that concept. I heard it as like almost
Speaker 3: like a pilot you know, like a pilot study, Like Okay,
Speaker 3: let's see if I actually like doing this meditation app
Speaker 3: before I commit myself to three hundred and sixty five
Speaker 3: days of it or whatever. It is not that we're
Speaker 3: saying that all goals need to be streaks or anything
Speaker 3: like that, but yeah, I love the trial run idea. Plus,
Speaker 3: if there are resources that you need to procure for
Speaker 3: said goals, like let's say it is an exercise type
Speaker 3: goal and you want to do it at a gym,
Speaker 3: but like you might not be sure what the best
Speaker 3: gym fit is for you. So maybe your pilot could
Speaker 3: consist of going to four different gyms and doing a
Speaker 3: trial workout near you so that when January hits, you
Speaker 3: know which one is the right fit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you could even think of it as
Speaker 1: your goals preseason, Like December is goals preseason, and you
Speaker 1: are in training for your real season, and you might
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about like the football preseason,
Speaker 1: people are even doing games sometimes it's just they don't
Speaker 1: count towards the standings, but you are in fact doing
Speaker 1: most of the stuff that you would do in the
Speaker 1: actual season. It's just doesn't count for real. So that
Speaker 1: might be a helpful mindset for it.
Speaker 3: And some people are listening are like I just want
Speaker 3: to go to Christmas parties and like, drink it not
Speaker 3: and leave me alone.
Speaker 1: But feel well, you don't have to listen to us.
Speaker 1: Then we like Christmas parties. We go to Christmas parties.
Speaker 1: We just also practice our goals before January first too.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I actually think it is a key
Speaker 1: component of success though, the preparation that was often what
Speaker 1: is the difference between a goal happening and not happening,
Speaker 1: And so for something like in twenty twenty three. When
Speaker 1: I was reading all the works of Jane Austen, I
Speaker 1: needed to have the books there, and then I needed
Speaker 1: to figure out how many pages and how much I
Speaker 1: was going to read per day. And so with that,
Speaker 1: it's the preparation that makes success possible. And so if
Speaker 1: you are really serious about a goal, I think you
Speaker 1: can't believe that you were going to be an entirely
Speaker 1: different person on January first than you were on any
Speaker 1: day before that. And so if it doesn't fit in
Speaker 1: your life on December twenty seven, it's not going to
Speaker 1: magically fit in your life on January second, either. So
Speaker 1: you know, you might want to keep that mindset as
Speaker 1: a way of choosing goals that are both worth doing
Speaker 1: and doable.
Speaker 3: And since we're saying all this like a mere week
Speaker 3: before the new year is about to hit, you can
Speaker 3: also use January as your pilot period. You know, like,
Speaker 3: even though January one is very enticing, like give yourself
Speaker 3: grace and like some lee, weigh that first month to
Speaker 3: really figure out what's going to work for the rest
Speaker 3: of the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if there's a goal you're serious about, it
Speaker 1: be far better to you know, try it out in
Speaker 1: January and hit the ground running in February than to
Speaker 1: not do it at all. So yeah, there is nothing
Speaker 1: magical about January first. But I also know that for
Speaker 1: a lot of our listeners there is something magical about
Speaker 1: January first. So you know, you have to know yourself,
Speaker 1: which is probably true for everything in life. So we
Speaker 1: tend to divide our goals into a couple different categories,
Speaker 1: which are more or less the same for both of us.
Speaker 1: I mean, work is a clear one for both of them.
Speaker 1: So I think we should go ahead and dive right Well, no,
Speaker 1: are we? Are we still? Yes? Okay, we'll dive right in, Sarah, work,
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 3: Work? So I want to just make this a year
Speaker 3: of working on office efficiency. I feel like I have
Speaker 3: started to work on that, but I feel like there
Speaker 3: are things I could do in our electronic medical record
Speaker 3: to make things faster. I actually successfully abandoned this practice
Speaker 3: I had of like running around printing everything out and
Speaker 3: created these checkout cards that have saved me probably a
Speaker 3: solid like five minutes per patient, which is a big deal.
Speaker 3: I did that in November, but I feel like I
Speaker 3: could make that even better, more streamlined, Like I just
Speaker 3: I don't even want to work on that because I'm behind,
Speaker 3: like I actually feel like i'm not, but I want
Speaker 3: to like figure out what works so I can even
Speaker 3: like help others in my group and just really really
Speaker 3: understand some of the issues around offices not running smoothly sometimes.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I want to keep having Friday lunches with
Speaker 3: my work colleagues. We've done this, I want to continue
Speaker 3: to set it as a goal rather than just feeling
Speaker 3: like it's already autopilot because we've done it some in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, but I want to just like make
Speaker 3: it like a very regular, predictable thing. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: I want to attend and possibly spearhead one or two
Speaker 3: work social events that's like my clinical work, and then
Speaker 3: thinking of my other work, which I now kind of
Speaker 3: put in the same category, although I do kind of
Speaker 3: generate the lists separately. That's why they're in order. I
Speaker 3: want to create a seasonal planning series called Planning by Season.
Speaker 3: So that's my big new offering that I'm excited about
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four. I'm going to redo some of
Speaker 3: the things I've already done, but that's like my I
Speaker 3: feel like one really big new thing is like what
Speaker 3: I can handle. I want to continue to reach out
Speaker 3: to podcasts that do interviews where I feel like i'd
Speaker 3: be able to contribute. I love doing this, but I'm not.
Speaker 3: It's kind of scary because you know, you sometimes just
Speaker 3: get ignored or rejected, and that's hard, but that's okay.
Speaker 3: Like you just do more than you think and then
Speaker 3: someone will be excited and then you can share with
Speaker 3: a new audience, so that's good. And then I do
Speaker 3: want to be better about ruthlessly blocking some non clinical
Speaker 3: days for deep work. I want to have like one
Speaker 3: day a season. And when I say deep work, I
Speaker 3: actually think I'll use this kind of like for planning
Speaker 3: for myself, like doing my seasonal planning, and I've already
Speaker 3: kind of started to put that in my calendar for
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four. And I also have noticed a pattern
Speaker 3: where whenever I am on call the Tuesday after, I
Speaker 3: just want to like pull my hair out because I've
Speaker 3: been working for eight straight days. I'm usually behind on
Speaker 3: all kinds of creative stuff because I can't do that
Speaker 3: much of it when I'm clinically on call, and so
Speaker 3: I want to try to protect those tuesdays. Ironically, we're
Speaker 3: recording this on one of those Tuesdays, and I'm like, yep,
Speaker 3: need to work on that. Although this has been very pleasant.
Speaker 1: I'm glad I'm not, you know, a tedious thing on
Speaker 1: your calendar, like why I really wish I'd gotten rid
Speaker 1: of that one.
Speaker 3: No, I'm glad. We're talking about some of my favorite
Speaker 3: things today. So this has been great, all right. How
Speaker 3: about your work goals?
Speaker 1: Well, So I'm working on a book proposal currently, So
Speaker 1: in the new year, I want to finish that book
Speaker 1: proposal and get a book contract with a publisher and
Speaker 1: mostly write the new book over the course of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. My guess is it would probably then come
Speaker 1: out at the end of twenty twenty five or something
Speaker 1: like that, or maybe New Year, New YU twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: But books take a long time, so you have to
Speaker 1: make sure that it's what you want to be writing,
Speaker 1: that you're going to be excited about it for two
Speaker 1: three years of your life. So that's kind of a
Speaker 1: high bar doing a more in depth proposal this time
Speaker 1: around for various reasons, but that's going to take some work.
Speaker 1: So that is a big professional goal for the year.
Speaker 1: Another one is to be hired to speak somewhere internationally,
Speaker 1: not Canada. As much as I love Canada, I just
Speaker 1: have spoken there a lot, so I'm not the US
Speaker 1: Canada market is kind of one market in terms of
Speaker 1: businesses and conferences and all that, So I'm talking somewhere
Speaker 1: else other than Canada. So looking in hopefully that will
Speaker 1: happen in the course of twenty twenty five four. And
Speaker 1: the key thing here is be hired to speak right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know you could find some random group
Speaker 1: that you know would let you speak to them for
Speaker 1: free somewhere in the world, but it's just to do
Speaker 1: like as part of my speaking business more of an
Speaker 1: international presence. I am going to keep writing my sonnets.
Speaker 1: So every year I do a writing goal, and it's
Speaker 1: taken me several years to figure out something that I
Speaker 1: find truly motivational. So like in twenty twenty one, I
Speaker 1: was writing just like one hundred to two hundred words
Speaker 1: a day of something. I was viewing it as like
Speaker 1: my morning pages with people who've read The Artist's Way
Speaker 1: by Julia Cameron. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to write
Speaker 1: two hundred words of something every morning, and then it
Speaker 1: was just like so much useless stuff, like I wasn't
Speaker 1: getting anything out of it, Like I wrote two hundred
Speaker 1: words a day and nothing comes of it, no book ideas,
Speaker 1: no insights into life. Nothing. So I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I need to focus it a little more. So in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, I decided to write I mean almost
Speaker 1: like novella, but it was like one hundred and two
Speaker 1: hundred words a day of a moment in the life
Speaker 1: of a character over the course of a single day,
Speaker 1: which I loosely modeled on my own December fourteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. It is like a busy day with a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on. So I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this. And I sort of, you know, hat
Speaker 1: tipped to Ulysses wandering you know, bloom wandering around Dublin
Speaker 1: like in the course of the day. Whatever. But I
Speaker 1: was gonna write a day in the life of the
Speaker 1: character for a year, so I did that. It was okay.
Speaker 1: I started rereading it after the end of the year
Speaker 1: and I was like, eh, I don't like it, Like
Speaker 1: I don't there's nothing, it's it's bad, Like it's just bad, okay,
Speaker 1: Like I I'm laughing. I think it sounds.
Speaker 3: I still I'm like, I would read that.
Speaker 1: You'd read that, well, you can read it. Then I'm
Speaker 1: not reading it. I stopped. So then I'm like, okay, well, well,
Speaker 1: other writing goal am I going to find? Motivational? And
Speaker 1: so for twenty twenty three, I began writing sun it.
Speaker 1: So I'd put on my list of one hundred dreams
Speaker 1: numerous times. I want to write a collection of seasonal sonnets.
Speaker 1: I am drawn to the idea of a poem fourteen
Speaker 1: lines of ambit pentameter. It's ten syllables each line. It's
Speaker 1: an A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D E,
Speaker 1: F E f gg rhyming scheme, and with the pentameter
Speaker 1: it's every other syllable is emphasized. So anyway, long story, short,
Speaker 1: two lines a day, fourteen lines, wait fifty two sonnits
Speaker 1: in the course of the year. I've done that for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, as we discussed in our review of
Speaker 1: the year. I enjoyed it. So I'm gonna keep going
Speaker 1: because you know, fifty two sonnets are great. One hundred
Speaker 1: and four would be even better. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty six. When I do this the
Speaker 1: next year, you know if just the more I do
Speaker 1: of them, the better I get at them, and then
Speaker 1: some of them are terrible and some of them are okay,
Speaker 1: and so the more of them that I write, the
Speaker 1: bigger the collection of okay ones will be. And so
Speaker 1: then maybe after three or four years of this, I'll
Speaker 1: have a collection that's worth sharing with the world of sonnets.
Speaker 3: I will admit I did not see that one coming
Speaker 3: like that. To me, that seemed like something you would do.
Speaker 1: For a year and a bit.
Speaker 3: I'm excited. Yeah, that's great, and.
Speaker 1: Then the last one we'll see. I go back and
Speaker 1: forth on whether I truly am going to do this,
Speaker 1: but I think I am because I'm going to view
Speaker 1: it as an experiment, and you know, I can run
Speaker 1: it for six months or a year, and if I
Speaker 1: don't want to do it, then I can stop, which
Speaker 1: is that I will launch the vander Hack's newsletter. So
Speaker 1: I know that substack newsletters are like the shiny thing
Speaker 1: that podcasts were six or seven years ago, and on
Speaker 1: some levels like, okay, well, I'm diving on to it
Speaker 1: as it's like maybe peaking. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: so we're podcasts six or seven years ago, but there's
Speaker 1: always a market for people who stick with it, who
Speaker 1: produce something that's worth listening to. And at this point
Speaker 1: between before Breakfast and best of both worlds, it's, you know,
Speaker 1: a major component of my business. So I figure out
Speaker 1: give it a shot. So vander hacks are gonna be
Speaker 1: short every weekday tips on making your life better. So
Speaker 1: we'll see maybe by the time this errs, you'll be
Speaker 1: able to subscribe to it. Feel free to go check
Speaker 1: that out, but if not, it will happen shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's you.
Speaker 3: Give me my first substack.
Speaker 1: You'd be the first.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, great, Like I've never done one.
Speaker 1: So I think I have to add like ten emails
Speaker 1: to start it. Like, so put Sarah on there.
Speaker 3: I will do it, will do. I will be a
Speaker 3: paying substacker. It'll be paying substacker for me. That would
Speaker 3: be awesome. Fil Thank you for considering it. Well, let's
Speaker 3: take a quick ad break and we will be back
Speaker 3: with a few more of our goals for twenty twenty four. Well,
Speaker 3: we are back talking all things goals twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: We do this annually. It's always exciting to come up
Speaker 3: with our goals.
Speaker 1: And I think Sarah and I have both realized that
Speaker 1: knowing we need to record this, and in fact we
Speaker 1: need to record it ahead of time because our sound
Speaker 1: and production team does not want to be working on
Speaker 1: our stuff over the holidays. We have to set these
Speaker 1: goals ahead of time. And that's probably good for us
Speaker 1: for thinking that through. I appreciate that sense of accountability.
Speaker 1: I might not do this if it was just me
Speaker 1: doing it and not needing to get it in before
Speaker 1: the holidays. So, Sarah, let's talk about your personal goals
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm going to make this another running year.
Speaker 3: I am hoping, hopening, that's terrible, hoping to qualify for
Speaker 3: the Boston Marathon this year. I hope they don't change
Speaker 3: the standards. They might, but the good news is that
Speaker 3: by the fall I will be able to use a
Speaker 3: older and easier standard. So yay, I want to actually
Speaker 3: be forty five. But they wait, it's not actually true.
Speaker 1: Well, so it's how old you'd be when you ran Boston,
Speaker 1: Like say, you could qualify the year before, and you.
Speaker 3: Can qualify like more than a year in advance, exactly,
Speaker 3: So I'd be qualifying for the twenty twenty six Boston
Speaker 3: marathon potentially in late twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That was correct.
Speaker 3: You can do that, so we'll see. Or maybe I'll
Speaker 3: even qualify earlier if I'm really lucky, or maybe I'll
Speaker 3: get injured and not qualify at all. But my goal
Speaker 3: is to try.
Speaker 1: It's not your goal for twenty twenty four. Let's her
Speaker 1: goal is injury free for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean I'm setting it more as a
Speaker 3: process goal. My goal is to train and to continue
Speaker 3: working with my coach, and on the way, maybe I
Speaker 3: can try to collect a new half marathon in five
Speaker 3: k PR. I still want to strength train regularly, so
Speaker 3: and I'm keeping that on the list because I don't
Speaker 3: really like it, so I need it to actually be
Speaker 3: a goal to make sure I continue to do it.
Speaker 3: I want to have another refeat goal from last year.
Speaker 3: I want to go to a yoga class in person,
Speaker 3: and I actually think I want to try to wrote
Speaker 3: my husband into doing it as like a date type
Speaker 3: of situation, so we'll see how that goes. I want
Speaker 3: to re every day, which I already do honestly, but
Speaker 3: I want to record the pages read. So this is
Speaker 3: actually a much less stringent goal than last year. But
Speaker 3: I just I think it'd be cool to like have
Speaker 3: like a little map of like how much I read
Speaker 3: of like which type of book throughout the year. And
Speaker 3: I do want to challenge myself a little bit. Sometimes
Speaker 3: I feel like I pick easy books and sometimes I
Speaker 3: need that and that's great, but I feel like I
Speaker 3: could throw in something a little bit more literary. I mean,
Speaker 3: actually I'm pretty good with literary fiction, but it's the
Speaker 3: nonfiction where I generally don't go that route. So I
Speaker 3: think I'd like to read like maybe some history or
Speaker 3: like religion, like in the original text or something like that,
Speaker 3: So we'll see. I do want to make this a
Speaker 3: wardrobe updating year. I feel like I've been wearing a
Speaker 3: lot of clothes from like two three years ago, and
Speaker 3: I just want to update certain staples, like jeans. No
Speaker 3: more skinny jeans in twenty twenty four. Actually I haven't
Speaker 3: really been wearing those for a while. That was a
Speaker 3: hot topic on all the blogs and I think our
Speaker 3: Patreon recently. But want some cute wide leg jeans or
Speaker 3: flares or something like that. I still want to work
Speaker 3: on my nails, so that's another repeat goal. I would
Speaker 3: like to get a massage every month. That's a really
Speaker 3: indulgent goal, but I'm going to see if that fits
Speaker 3: into my allowance. And then two more on the personal
Speaker 3: I have a lot of personal goals. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 3: just do. I want to use screens thoughtfully, so I'm
Speaker 3: kind of like thinking about that a little bit differently
Speaker 3: than I did in the past, where I really tried
Speaker 3: to like focus on numbers of minutes. Instead it's a
Speaker 3: more holistic idea and that's a takeaway from my digital
Speaker 3: detox experience, both doing it and teaching it, so can
Speaker 3: go into that later. And then finally, I chose experience
Speaker 3: as my word of the year, and I want to
Speaker 3: keep an experience journal. I want to write in it
Speaker 3: most days. I mean ideally every day, but every day
Speaker 3: can be hard. I have a journal all picked out.
Speaker 3: It's this little small hobanichi, so I can fill a
Speaker 3: page with not a lot of words or just like
Speaker 3: a sticker or something. And I want to seek out
Speaker 3: more experiences that like art, music, theater, all that kind
Speaker 3: of stuff that I'm already excited about, and I want
Speaker 3: to write about it in the journal. And then finally,
Speaker 3: I will see Taylor swift into twenty four, unless she
Speaker 3: stops touring for some reason.
Speaker 1: You intend at least to see Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3: I intend she's coming to Miami. The tickets are expensive,
Speaker 3: but not unattainably, so I've let go of the idea
Speaker 3: of taking the entire family, which greatly reduces the cost.
Speaker 3: I will take the one other extremely enthusiastic Taylor Swift
Speaker 3: fan in the family, and I intend to be there
Speaker 3: in October in Miami.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I can tell you, I mean, from having
Speaker 1: taken only one other family member in May of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three, that does, in fact make it a far
Speaker 1: more affordable experience. If there's only two tickets versus gosh,
Speaker 1: I mean, seven, would have been terrible.
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift Pan.
Speaker 1: Henry's first Taylor's Swift experience, Oh my god, No, no,
Speaker 1: that would have been not not worth doing. Talk about
Speaker 1: spending money in ways that are not contributing to anyone's happiness.
Speaker 1: So personal goals for me for the year my major,
Speaker 1: Like normally, I've set reading goals. So I've read someth big,
Speaker 1: you know. I read Warren Piece in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: I read all the works of Shakespeare in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two works of Jane Austen in twenty twenty three, I
Speaker 1: decided to change it up a little bit for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, and I'm going to listen to all the
Speaker 1: works of Bach because I am really into Bach as
Speaker 1: a composer. I love so much of the choral work
Speaker 1: he has produced, you know, I play some of the
Speaker 1: piano pieces. I really enjoy so much of what he composed,
Speaker 1: and he composed a lot. So it turns out that
Speaker 1: this is a project that kind of lends itself to
Speaker 1: a year. And somebody who's doing this project with me
Speaker 1: looked it up. Somebody had made a list on Spotify
Speaker 1: of everything and it was like exactly one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight hours worth of listening. She's like, it's a sign.
Speaker 1: It's a sign. So I don't know if it's exactly
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight, and that would of course
Speaker 1: completely depend on which recordings you are listening to, also
Speaker 1: whether they include the BWV numbers that are over ten eighty.
Speaker 1: So there were ten eighty one thousand and eighty original ones.
Speaker 1: But a lot of box work was lost and then
Speaker 1: is at sometimes rediscovered, right like you can find new pieces.
Speaker 1: Things are we realize they are Bock writing. It's not
Speaker 1: some other composer, it's actually Box. So there's up to
Speaker 1: eleven hundred and seventy six b WV numbers, although some
Speaker 1: of the last fifty are lost. We don't really know
Speaker 1: what they are, but we can sort of piece them
Speaker 1: together based on they're probably very similar to other works anyway.
Speaker 1: It's a long lot more than maybe anyone wanted to know.
Speaker 1: But I am learning all this as I am setting
Speaker 1: this up, because you could just listen to them in order,
Speaker 1: right like first January one, I will listen to BWV
Speaker 1: one and two, and like January two, I will listen
Speaker 1: to b WV to it three and four. But there
Speaker 1: are vastly different links of time, like so it can
Speaker 1: be a forty five second piano invention, or it could
Speaker 1: be a two hour oratorio right like, and so you
Speaker 1: probably need to be a little bit more strategic about
Speaker 1: when it is. It's also the first two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty four are all cantatas. They are all roughly twenty
Speaker 1: minute vocal pieces. So you know, if you want only
Speaker 1: all kantatas all the time till March, like, you'd be
Speaker 1: listening in order. I don't want to do that, so
Speaker 1: I'm mixing it up from the first half of Coral
Speaker 1: in the second half of Instrumental, making a map to
Speaker 1: get myself to roughly thirty to forty minutes of listening
Speaker 1: per day.
Speaker 3: So question, okay, you actually I have two questions, Okay.
Speaker 3: Question one is how much do you have to be
Speaker 3: paying attention for account? Like are you gonna like sit
Speaker 3: and like consentraate and like feel the box or you're
Speaker 3: like I'm driving whatever that I can drive?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can definitely, I'm gonna be I'll be driving. Yes, Okay, Sorry,
Speaker 1: what's your second question?
Speaker 3: Well, and like would you be talking over it? Like
Speaker 3: are you really hearing it?
Speaker 1: I would probably not be usually doing this with kids
Speaker 1: in the car. It's more like if I'm dry having
Speaker 1: to pick up a kid, I would put it on
Speaker 1: and then probably turn it off or put on their
Speaker 1: music or whatever for when they're in the car with me. Okay.
Speaker 3: My second question is do you have any specific reading
Speaker 3: type goal, because I feel like you've always had one,
Speaker 3: or is it just going to.
Speaker 1: Be free for all? It's going to be a free
Speaker 1: for all, total free for all. In twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: and then I'll be a little bit more structured in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five perhaps, but yeah, I love it. One
Speaker 1: of the times that I know I saw I can
Speaker 1: listen while I'm driving. I can also listen while doing
Speaker 1: my back stretches because I have a sequence of sort
Speaker 1: of stretches, strength training things and yoga posas that I
Speaker 1: do every single day. It takes about ten minutes, So
Speaker 1: that's ten minutes that I can listen to Bach and
Speaker 1: make it a little bit less boring the fact that
Speaker 1: I need to tend this aging body of mine in
Speaker 1: order to not fall apart. At least while I am
Speaker 1: staving off the inevitable falling apart, I will be listening
Speaker 1: to Gorge music.
Speaker 3: And so it's a strength training also a specific goal
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 1: Well, So I am going to continue working out with
Speaker 1: my trainer once a week and then my goal is
Speaker 1: to do another session at least once a week. So
Speaker 1: he sends me a list of the exercises that we
Speaker 1: did in the session, so I can just redo those
Speaker 1: or even if I just remember them, or I can
Speaker 1: pick my favorites. I'm not setting any rules for myself
Speaker 1: on what the second session is it's just that it
Speaker 1: has to happen. So, you know, if I just want
Speaker 1: to go to the y and lift weights there because
Speaker 1: the kid wants to go work out there, like that
Speaker 1: would totally count. Or if I wanted to just run
Speaker 1: through a series of my favorite things, I could do that,
Speaker 1: but it needs to be something a second time a
Speaker 1: week awesome.
Speaker 3: All right. Well, I had a lot more personal goals
Speaker 3: than you, as is typical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I talked for a long time about box.
Speaker 3: I kind of like that back and back, you know,
Speaker 3: like the.
Speaker 1: Year in my back, by the way, that's your word,
Speaker 1: it soaring, amazing, the sound of God thinking, and one
Speaker 1: just my own like middle aged woes.
Speaker 3: So your mortality facing more tight. We won't get too deep,
Speaker 3: all right. Relationships category number two three. Category number three
Speaker 3: is sorry, You're right, we did work, okay, I am.
Speaker 3: I don't know. This is like two nebulous of a goal.
Speaker 3: This goal needs refinement, okay, because I haven't set like
Speaker 3: the cadence or specific but I eventually will. Before January. First,
Speaker 3: I want to carve out more one to one time
Speaker 3: with each family member, every kid and my husband. The
Speaker 3: husband part I figured out. I want at least one
Speaker 3: date with just us per month, preferably one with just
Speaker 3: us and one social date. That might be a hard sell.
Speaker 3: My husband doesn't like people.
Speaker 1: That much sometimes, so well, maybe you guys can come
Speaker 1: here or one of your Philadelphia trips, will do I
Speaker 1: mean that can would he tolerate us? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, he likes people, but like he might agree
Speaker 3: to like people every other month, not every month. But
Speaker 3: I want it to be at least just us every month,
Speaker 3: and then something like that with the kids. But I
Speaker 3: need to figure out the right cadence in time. And
Speaker 3: then I want to take two couples trips with Josh.
Speaker 3: They can involve running races, do double duty that way,
Speaker 3: but as long as it's just us. And then I
Speaker 3: do want to see my sister and my adorable niece,
Speaker 3: who is so fun now she's at like a really
Speaker 3: funny age, like she's turning four, So I feel like
Speaker 3: this is what I really really want to hang out
Speaker 3: with them. So that worked out pretty well, and I
Speaker 3: want to see them at least three times. I kind
Speaker 3: of have the dates already tentatively figured out, but it's
Speaker 3: awesome to have my parents and my sister in the
Speaker 3: same place. Which happens to be where you live to
Speaker 3: so it's awesome.
Speaker 1: It's awesome we fit it all together. You know, when
Speaker 1: you make the trip, you can get many things out
Speaker 1: of one plane ticket, which is great. So my relationship goals.
Speaker 1: So the first one is kind of a phyllisical approach
Speaker 1: to my time over the next year that will then
Speaker 1: be reflected in how I spend my day to day hours,
Speaker 1: which is that I want to prioritize time with my
Speaker 1: older children. And within that, I mean, you know, Jasper
Speaker 1: is in his junior year of high school. He will
Speaker 1: most likely not be around us, you know, in another
Speaker 1: two years, less than two years, he'll be at school somewhere.
Speaker 1: At least that's the plan. And I don't believe he's
Speaker 1: going somewhere local. That could change, but you know, regardless,
Speaker 1: it's like we're going to be seeing less of him
Speaker 1: in about a year and a half from when this
Speaker 1: is airing, and so and then Sam and Ruth are
Speaker 1: not that far behind. The three of them are stacked
Speaker 1: fairly close together. So knowing that time with my older
Speaker 1: kids is a top priority then informs my schedule with
Speaker 1: activities like it is worth having help with Henry on
Speaker 1: the weekend, Like that can be a financial priority to
Speaker 1: pay for some help with Henry on the weekend, because
Speaker 1: it means that I can do things with the older
Speaker 1: kids or just like hang out with them, right like
Speaker 1: go sit at the kitchen table having a Starbucks drink
Speaker 1: together and chat and not be like jumping up to
Speaker 1: go help a child in the bathroom or like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's doing something else. Like three year olds are just
Speaker 1: naturally more needy, and that's nothing wrong with it. It's
Speaker 1: just the reality of having a younger child. But given
Speaker 1: that I did have five children spread out quite a bit,
Speaker 1: I need to make sure that I have the time
Speaker 1: to engage with my older children in the way that
Speaker 1: I would like to. And so that's something that will
Speaker 1: be you know, reflected in that taking trips with the
Speaker 1: older children, doing the Starbucks runs again, you know, like
Speaker 1: Starbucks has this reputation in the personal finance literature is
Speaker 1: like being the biggest waste of money in the world
Speaker 1: or whatever. And yeah, I make my coffee in the
Speaker 1: morning at home and I like it perfectly fine. But
Speaker 1: Starbucks for me is not in the like daily caffeine category.
Speaker 1: It's in social time with my kids. Category and that
Speaker 1: is worth a lot to me. So we spend a
Speaker 1: lot of money on Starbucks in this household, but you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's worth doing in terms of an investment
Speaker 1: in our relationship.
Speaker 3: It's so funny how it's such a tween and teen magnet.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is absolutely a teen and tween magnet. But
Speaker 1: you know whatever, it's fine. I don't mind the drinks,
Speaker 1: like I'm happy to have a Starbucks drink, so oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. So that's kind of the mindset. I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's like a word that engages with that,
Speaker 1: but as I evaluate what I am doing in any
Speaker 1: given period of time, it's like, Okay, is this going
Speaker 1: to allow me to spend more time engaged with my
Speaker 1: older children. If so, it's probably a good use of
Speaker 1: time and resources to do that. I am celebrating my
Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary or a twentieth wedding anniversary with Michael this year,
Speaker 1: so we will do something to celebrate that, hopefully something
Speaker 1: reasonably creative, but we'll see what that is. And I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, just in general, to realize we have been
Speaker 1: together twenty years and have that inform our kind of
Speaker 1: couple time together, and I do want to do more
Speaker 1: regular friend stuff. And again, this is like you said,
Speaker 1: the one on one time, it's kind of a nebulous thing.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean to do regular friend stuff.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of local friends that I exercise
Speaker 1: with regularly, either that I run or walk with, and
Speaker 1: that's good because it means that you do it regularly,
Speaker 1: but that always, you know, could make more local friends.
Speaker 1: That would be awesome. You know, there are people you
Speaker 1: see regularly that can move up the friendship ladder. But
Speaker 1: also there are people I like in other places around
Speaker 1: the country, and some of whom I feel reasonably close to.
Speaker 1: But it's like you haven't really necessarily built up the
Speaker 1: relationship as much because they're not local. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I have flexibility in my job. I have the you know,
Speaker 1: if this is a priority for me, Like plane tickets
Speaker 1: aren't that expensive, right, and just go buy a plane
Speaker 1: ticket and go stay with her friends for a couple
Speaker 1: of days. That's a relatively cheap trip. So I have
Speaker 1: the ability to do that. So I would like to
Speaker 1: do that, so nurture relationships with friends both near and
Speaker 1: more far flung.
Speaker 3: I love it well. I made a sort of subcategory,
Speaker 3: even though I like having four categories, but I felt
Speaker 3: like relationships and household, like your rationale is that, like, well,
Speaker 3: your household goals are to support relationships, but I feel
Speaker 3: like there are some logistical things I wanted to work on,
Speaker 3: so I made another category for myself.
Speaker 1: My shick is supporting my relationships.
Speaker 3: Well, that's not on the list. I want to establish
Speaker 3: a family reading routine, which is funny because I read
Speaker 3: on a blog the other day about somebody wanting to
Speaker 3: do that. I'm like, yes, so maybe this is a thing.
Speaker 3: But kids who have devices.
Speaker 1: In relationship, that's a relationship goal. I like parenting goals
Speaker 1: as part of relationships. I don't know, maybe yeah, it
Speaker 1: could be in the relationship, but okay, what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? What is a family reading tea?
Speaker 3: I just like, well, Genevieve can't read on her own yet,
Speaker 3: but I'm thinking this will be the year that she
Speaker 3: probably will cross that milestone to like easy books, And
Speaker 3: I just like the idea of like twenty or thirty
Speaker 3: minutes like that, we just like all like are off
Speaker 3: of devices and read together, just because I want to
Speaker 3: instill that habit. And again, devices, I let my kids
Speaker 3: use devices. I'm not like not giving it to them
Speaker 3: at all, But I also want them to be able
Speaker 3: to sit still and read a page for thirty minutes.
Speaker 3: And I don't think that's like too much to ask,
Speaker 3: especially if like they get to pick the book, any
Speaker 3: graphic novel, any series book. I don't care. So I
Speaker 3: just I want to work on cultivating that habit. I mean,
Speaker 3: my husband and I both love reading, and my big
Speaker 3: kids do enjoy reading, like when it happens. I just
Speaker 3: would like it to be more regular. And then I
Speaker 3: want to have better family meetings. And I feel like
Speaker 3: we're just finally at the age where everyone could participate
Speaker 3: and it wouldn't be so chaotic. We've kind of gotten
Speaker 3: into a rhythm of Sunday dinner, so I'm going to
Speaker 3: kind of combine that with Sunday dinner and have a
Speaker 3: little bit more of an agenda that we talked through
Speaker 3: the week ahead. And then fine, I will do the
Speaker 3: estate planning.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll finish it.
Speaker 3: I have higher hopes. I feel like I actually like
Speaker 3: might actually finish it.
Speaker 1: You might finish it, all right, Well, check back in
Speaker 1: when we do our review of twenty twenty four when
Speaker 1: that episode airs in early December of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we can see did Sarah do her estate planning this year?
Speaker 1: We will find out, so stay tuned. Hopefully you will
Speaker 1: still be listening to us. Then, I did not set
Speaker 1: any particular household goals. I mean, I guess you know,
Speaker 1: some of this is like just habits we already have, right,
Speaker 1: So nine o'clock is devices docked in mom and Dad's
Speaker 1: room so kids can read for an hour. I mean,
Speaker 1: they can also do homework if they have homework, but
Speaker 1: it's a time that at least builds structurally that they
Speaker 1: would read, and most of them do at that time.
Speaker 1: We also are going to do a little bit more
Speaker 1: reading with the kids, and I think particularly I mean
Speaker 1: I already do with Henry. I read him stories every night.
Speaker 1: But Alex can still listen to stuff, and so this
Speaker 1: is not necessarily my goal. But Michael and I have
Speaker 1: talked about this, and he does more of the reading
Speaker 1: to the bigger kids. So he was reading with Ruth
Speaker 1: last night. They were reading some Encyclopedia Brown, like vintage
Speaker 1: Encyclopedia Brown. That's kind of fun. They had read through,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the old Nancy Drew books again,
Speaker 1: vintage Nancy Drew, some less politically correct stuff in there,
Speaker 1: but still good mystery stories. I think they're going to
Speaker 1: try to restart the Harry Potter reading with Alex because
Speaker 1: that's been a little bit touch and go lately. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, these are all things that are great to
Speaker 1: have a family reading routine. So yeah, I'm not setting
Speaker 1: any house goals though, like I'm done, Like the past
Speaker 1: two years, we've done so much stuff with this house.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm none of my household goals involved the house.
Speaker 1: As you notice, have about no renovation projects for twenty
Speaker 1: thirty four. That's my goal. It won't happen because something
Speaker 1: will break and we'll we'll have to do it. We
Speaker 1: have ambitions for it, but nothing is pressing. We should
Speaker 1: just enjoy the house as it is.
Speaker 3: Little take a break, Yeah, enjoy what you've already accomplished.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I have one addendum, which is that you know,
Speaker 3: it's very popular to come up with like I think it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if Gretchen Rubin originated it, but she
Speaker 3: definitely talks about it on her podcast, which is to
Speaker 3: do like twenty two for twenty two, twenty three for
Speaker 3: twenty three, twenty four for twenty four. Yes, the numbers
Speaker 3: are getting bigger.
Speaker 1: They have acknowledged that doing like sixty seven for sixty seven.
Speaker 1: You know, this gets a little unwieldy at some point.
Speaker 3: It does get unwieldy, which is why I actually thought
Speaker 3: it'd be fun to just I mean, this is already
Speaker 3: like my goal is to do more experiences, so I
Speaker 3: just thought it'd be fun to make a little like
Speaker 3: template of twenty four different types of experiences that I
Speaker 3: was wanting to do anyway where I would just like
Speaker 3: fill in a little thing so I can post this,
Speaker 3: but basically, like I'm not going to read all of it,
Speaker 3: but like two live music experiences, six movies, et cetera,
Speaker 3: to add up to twenty four different things.
Speaker 1: We have a couple of interesting categories in here because
Speaker 1: I can, so I'll share with You're not going to
Speaker 1: read it, but I will. But natural areas, so visiting
Speaker 1: some like pretty park somewhere exactly, host gathering so holding
Speaker 1: three sort of parties over the course of the year.
Speaker 1: A scent experience that was very Gretchad Rubin, I was
Speaker 1: very Gretchen inspired. And then a handful of new recipes
Speaker 1: that you're going to try as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, five for the whole year. Like five, I'm n
Speaker 3: setting the bar super high. We're not doing twenty four
Speaker 3: in each category or anything nuts, just like keeping it manageable.
Speaker 3: But I think when it's done, what a cute portrait
Speaker 3: of twenty twenty four it would be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that I'm thinking about this, maybe one thing
Speaker 1: I would like to do is actually document some of
Speaker 1: our household processes, because I think it's not something I
Speaker 1: always write about, but I have thought through a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in just managing a household of seven people
Speaker 1: and various other things. And you know, we talked about
Speaker 1: family reading routines. I'm like, oh, yeah, we have, we
Speaker 1: have one and our meals. I guess I've talked about
Speaker 1: that some or know how shopping works or how laundry
Speaker 1: works or how whatever else, and so you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it would be of interest to someone. So perhaps I'll
Speaker 1: try recording that as.
Speaker 3: A I like that standard operating procedures.
Speaker 1: Standard operating procedures for our household. Yes, exactly, all right,
Speaker 1: So okay, do you want to read the question or sure?
Speaker 3: I will kind of not be very specific about it,
Speaker 3: but this is a listener that is working towards obtaining
Speaker 3: a certification, a professional certification that is the gold standard
Speaker 3: in their field. They're done with education and experience, but
Speaker 3: have to sit for the actual test, which is a
Speaker 3: four hour test. It costs four hundred dollars and has
Speaker 3: quote a low pass rate. I don't know how low
Speaker 3: is low, but I'm guessing not ninely, just saying percent
Speaker 3: of people don't pass, Like it's it's going to be
Speaker 3: way below that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, and then she writes she's been doing self
Speaker 3: paced studying, but something often comes up and she gets
Speaker 3: off her schedule. And in September she found out she
Speaker 3: was pregnant with twins yay, And they also at the
Speaker 3: same time had all this other home stuff going on,
Speaker 3: a move, et cetera, and the pregnancy has been very exhausting.
Speaker 3: So her question was, do we have experience studying for
Speaker 3: big exams like this, any tips to share, any tips
Speaker 3: on managing this and home life is a parent because
Speaker 3: home life does not go away. And then she notes
Speaker 3: that she does not want to miss her couple hours
Speaker 3: in the evening with her daughter.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, this is a topic I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about a little bit before because I mean, first of all,
Speaker 1: congrats on the twins. I mean, you know, having a
Speaker 1: two year old and twins on the way is kind
Speaker 1: of a big exciting part of life. But then also
Speaker 1: having these big professional goals too. I think it's just wonderful.
Speaker 1: You have so much going on, and so you should
Speaker 1: hopefully take a pause to think about how great this
Speaker 1: is that you have a career you're excited about to
Speaker 1: the point where you're trying to propel yourself forward to
Speaker 1: the next level in it, and your family is growing
Speaker 1: so many wonderful things. Yay. I read an incredibly disturbing
Speaker 1: study a few years ago about so many surgical fields
Speaker 1: after you've done your training to do this like mantal exam.
Speaker 1: I mean, Sarah can tell me what the exact name
Speaker 1: is for it, but you have to answer all these
Speaker 1: oral questions and stuff. And it turns out a study
Speaker 1: of it, the pass rate for single men and single
Speaker 1: women was very very similar. Right, So of course, right,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't think that there's anything that you women can't
Speaker 1: be surgeons. Obviously they can be. The pass rate for
Speaker 1: women with children was significantly lower than the pass rate
Speaker 1: for men with children, So men with children passed about
Speaker 1: the same rate as single men women with children. It
Speaker 1: was something like a fifty percent pass rate versus like
Speaker 1: ninety without it. I mean, it was a huge gap.
Speaker 1: Those aren't the exact numbers, but we're talking that sort
Speaker 1: of order of magnitude of the gap. So basically, women
Speaker 1: with children were far less likely to pass this high
Speaker 1: stakes exam that was sort of the culmination of their
Speaker 1: surgical training as they were getting into practicing. And so
Speaker 1: you know why is that, Well, it's probably a combination
Speaker 1: of discrimination, and I'm sure there's old surgeons or like
Speaker 1: that doesn't look like a surgeon to me, she looks
Speaker 1: like a mommy. But there's also the reality that you
Speaker 1: have to prepare a lot for these sorts of things,
Speaker 1: and in some cases, I feel it becomes a household
Speaker 1: priority for the male surgeon that he have the time
Speaker 1: and mental space to prepare for it. It then becomes
Speaker 1: not so much a household priority for mom to have
Speaker 1: the time and space to prepare for it. Many of
Speaker 1: the cases, she's still doing whatever she would have been
Speaker 1: doing even though she has this high stakes exam coming up.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's not just it's probably there's stereotypes
Speaker 1: or part of it. Maybe men are slacking, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's also that women probably feel like they do
Speaker 1: still need to do this. As those woman says in
Speaker 1: this question, I don't want to miss my evening hours
Speaker 1: with my daughter. So what do we do with that? Well,
Speaker 1: you have to decide is this a household priority for
Speaker 1: you now or not, because it's not going to get
Speaker 1: easier once the twins arrive. Like, so if you're goal
Speaker 1: is to like take this exam in like the end
Speaker 1: of your second trimester, so before things get really falling apart,
Speaker 1: and you know, after you're done with at least some
Speaker 1: of the exhaustion of the first though I know that
Speaker 1: twin pregnancies are totally different, then it needs to be
Speaker 1: an intense household priority for the next few months scheduled
Speaker 1: exam and take it, and you are gonna spend tons
Speaker 1: of time with your daughter, like over the next few years,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna be on I assume a maternity leave
Speaker 1: from your full time job for a couple months with
Speaker 1: the twins, You'll have lots of time with your two
Speaker 1: year old then too, because it's not like she disappears
Speaker 1: during that time. She's gonna be around as well. So
Speaker 1: it's like, you're gonna have this very intense family period
Speaker 1: coming up. So I think it's probably okay to have
Speaker 1: a very intense work period while you study for this
Speaker 1: exam and sit for it, and your partner can spend
Speaker 1: more time with your two year old. If there's a
Speaker 1: reason that he can't do that, then you can find
Speaker 1: some other caring adult to spend some of this extra
Speaker 1: time with the two year old. And she's not going
Speaker 1: to remember any of this, Like she's two, she's not
Speaker 1: going to remember it, but she will remember if mommy
Speaker 1: is feeling happy and fulfilled in her life as she
Speaker 1: grows up. So I think we can have seasons and
Speaker 1: maybe this can be an intense work season knowing that
Speaker 1: there's going to be an intense family one coming out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I also would say, just from a practical note, Okay,
Speaker 3: so I do have sort of experience in this. I
Speaker 3: took my Pied's End of Boards, which I don't I
Speaker 3: don't know if it has a high fail rate or not.
Speaker 3: I don't think everybody passes it. Maybe something like eighty percent,
Speaker 3: so you know you can fail it. But anyway, so
Speaker 3: I took my peed's end of Boards in twenty thirteen
Speaker 3: in the fall, which meant I had a toddler and
Speaker 3: I I was pregnant. I was said, like first or
Speaker 3: second trimester with Cameron. And because you take your boards
Speaker 3: after you finish fellowship, when you started your first job,
Speaker 3: usually get hired as board eligible. Anyway, I'll stop that part.
Speaker 3: But I would say I didn't study to win awards,
Speaker 3: meaning I didn't study the way I used to study,
Speaker 3: like when I studied for my USMOS, Like I was like,
Speaker 3: I want to get the highest possible score. I want
Speaker 3: to like devote all of my free time to this.
Speaker 3: I'm going to be like crazy and like do two
Speaker 3: three out, you know whatever. It was more like, okay,
Speaker 3: what do I need to do to like probably pass
Speaker 3: that I can handle? Meaning a evening study session. I
Speaker 3: would tell say, Okay, I'm going to do it. It's
Speaker 3: gonna be thirty minutes and I'm going to do it
Speaker 3: versus like some pie in the sky, I'm going to
Speaker 3: spend four hours and then like not want to even
Speaker 3: start it because like it's just totally daunting. So I
Speaker 3: do think like there's something for like giving yourself a
Speaker 3: reasonable amount on your plate and being consistent with it
Speaker 3: versus trying for like a one hundred percent chance that
Speaker 3: you'll pass and being really really stressed about it. So
Speaker 3: like there is that to think about. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: four hundred dollars, which sucks if you fail, but you
Speaker 3: know you can take it again, so then you might
Speaker 3: know how much effort is really involved. Sometimes really conscientious
Speaker 3: people might actually overestimate the amount of studying they have
Speaker 3: to do for different things. Of course depends, I don't know.
Speaker 3: This exam may be very different from my exam, But
Speaker 3: I guess there's that to think about. The other thing
Speaker 3: is to like possibly throw money at the problem on
Speaker 3: every angle. So again, childcare, as Laura mentioned, like yeah,
Speaker 3: and you know, remember you don't have to do something
Speaker 3: every single day for it to be true. So if
Speaker 3: you're spending two three days a week with intense study
Speaker 3: sessions and then the rest of the evenings with your daughter,
Speaker 3: you're still spending a ton of our daughter or son,
Speaker 3: I don't know, child, You're still spending a ton of
Speaker 3: time with your child. And if you're really consistent about
Speaker 3: those sessions, it may be enough. So not setting yourself
Speaker 3: up till like it has to be every day or
Speaker 3: bust getting the best, most targeted, efficient review materials you
Speaker 3: can get, or even like hiring a coach in that field,
Speaker 3: if that's something that's available. So figuring out ways to
Speaker 3: make this a more digestible thing for you. Also, if
Speaker 3: there's any kind of like audio resource that you could
Speaker 3: do when you're just like tired and just lying down, like,
Speaker 3: think about whether there are ways of stettying for this
Speaker 3: that could potentially be more palatable. But I also very
Speaker 3: much agree with Laura in that the idea that you
Speaker 3: have to spend every single night with your two year
Speaker 3: old or you're a missing something or be a bad
Speaker 3: mom or see harming her in any way like that
Speaker 3: just isn't true.
Speaker 1: Nope, but we wish you the best of luck on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm it's exciting, it's a you know, I
Speaker 1: think it is totally possible to make the space to
Speaker 1: study it and still have a full family life. And
Speaker 1: I think it's just you have to be rational about
Speaker 1: planning it out. So Love of the week, So we
Speaker 1: both have been buying planners for twenty twenty four. Sarah
Speaker 1: is a bit more into this than I am, but
Speaker 1: I am experimenting with a plum paper sort of more
Speaker 1: custom planner that I purchased because Whitney English, which was
Speaker 1: the planner that Sarah had set me up with a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago as a week on a page planner,
Speaker 1: they were not making that planner for twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, well, now I got to
Speaker 1: find something else. So I went on Reddit, and as
Speaker 1: the Internet is very helpful, I figured out what people
Speaker 1: were buying who had been buying that Whitney English planner
Speaker 1: and now needed another one. Somebody suggested this particular plumb paper,
Speaker 1: so I went and designed it. They were having Black
Speaker 1: Friday sales. Great I designed it, came to me, and
Speaker 1: then I saw that Whitney English was also having a
Speaker 1: sale on an undated version of the planner. They decided
Speaker 1: to offer the planner that I had been using, just
Speaker 1: without dates on it, which I know that some people
Speaker 1: are like, well, look I need the dates, but you
Speaker 1: can fill it in day to day. I mean, just
Speaker 1: write the numbers on it. So I went ahead and
Speaker 1: ordered that as a backup, and if I wind up
Speaker 1: sticking with the plump paper in twenty twenty four, then
Speaker 1: I can use the Whitney English in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: But if I decide I don't like the plump paper,
Speaker 1: then I can have my Whitney English non dated starting
Speaker 1: whenever I want, Like, I can start it in April
Speaker 1: if I if I need to. So I guess my
Speaker 1: planner stack is now my love of the week.
Speaker 3: Yay planner stack. I mean I can see from Whitney's
Speaker 3: perspective why an undated planner might be a better business proposition,
Speaker 3: because you can sell it anytime versus something with a
Speaker 3: very specific shelf life. It's rough to make dated planners.
Speaker 3: That's why I don't do that anyway. So my love
Speaker 3: of the week is my planner stock for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: If you want a visual, I will make a video.
Speaker 3: You can find me by searching. I don't even know
Speaker 3: how to find me. I don't know best laid plans.
Speaker 3: Just search pod or something. Just yeah, I'll put a
Speaker 3: link somewhere. So super excited for my whole planner lineup
Speaker 3: for this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we are super excited in general for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. So hoping that people will keep listening to
Speaker 1: us in the new year and hold us accountable for
Speaker 1: all these goals. We hope you've set marvelous goals that
Speaker 1: have you excited about the new year as well, and
Speaker 1: we'll be back next year with more on making work
Speaker 1: in life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 4: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 4: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 4: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 4: work together.