No, You Go! A new must-listen podcast

Last week, a new podcast launched called No, You Go, hosted by three AMAZING people, Jenn Lukas, Katel Ledû, and Sara Wachter-Boettcher. I am beyond honored that they reached out and asked me to contribute a clip for the first episode, which I gladly did. (Note: They did not ask me to write about their podcast, but I’m going to because I’m really appreciate their message so far). I shared tidbits below without spoiling anything, because you're going to have to pour yourself a glass of wine or tea, and enjoy the episodes on your own.

In the first episode, myself and other women in tech shared how they know when it’s time to start something new. This episode was a great reminder of the different ways we know or go about starting something new. I didn't really want the episode to end, because hearing other people’s perspectives on change is so refreshing. Here’s one of the parts that stood out to me the most, from Mina Markham:

When I’m presented with some new opportunity, I kind of do a gut check and see, is this something that I will regret not doing. And if the answer is yes, then I know what I have to do. I have to go ahead and make that change.

They also talked about important things like motherhood, celebratory donuts, and Riverdale.

I particularly loved episode two because I really enjoyed listening to Eileen Webb’s perspectives of balancing personal and work time. I think her approach of asking the right questions and approaching each day is pretty awesome.

I don’t like doing work that people won’t use, and so it got to a point where, when people would ask me, “Oh, will you build me a blog section on this site?” I’d be like, “Why? Prove to me that you need it. Prove to me that you have the internal capacity to fill a blog on a regular basis.” And sort of that type of attitude ended up spilling over into full-time strategic work.

I remember the first site I professionally worked on, and I asked the CMO of the client company why they wanted to add a blog to their site company site. They had a forum for their customers that the CMO moderated in his free time, and my boss glared at me for asking this question. We ended up having meaningful conversations about it that led to refocusing their idea of a blog and communication completely. It led to them approving a new focus on the full-page editorial monthly ads I worked on, that had an in-person and online component. That question I blurted out was right.

If I block stuff off on my calendar…like, my calendar, if I click over to my calendar right now, On Tuesday morning, it just has a big block of time, that is a recurring block of time every week, that says “Tuesday Adventure.” And so when I am going to schedule things, when I am looking at when people want to have calls and things like that, it is already blocked off. And like, even though it is just blocked by me, right, it’s not like there’s an invitation with lots of other people on it, literally having that visual block in my calendar graphics really helps me remember that that is what I am supposed to be doing on Tuesday mornings. I do that with all my calendar stuff.

My Thursday mornings are blocked off for what I call “work selfies,” which right now is usually a writing project, but sometimes is like taking a class in git, or whatever random thing I want to do. And I like to block things off. I usually try to keep my mornings free for intense brain work, and then my afternoons are calls and meetings, just because that’s how my brain works best. So like, building the structure in is really important for me.

Here’s to reworking my entire calendar, though. This sounds insanely doable and usable right now. I think I’m going to add set time with no multi-tasking (maybe except cleaning, because my retention is great then) to enjoy podcasts. I’m definitely going to take Eileen’s advice, and pair it with Lara’s advice on calendar defragmenting. Hey look—full circle—I’m starting something new (an organized calendar)!