Embracing Slow Productivity with Kate Henry, PhD

How can we untangle ourselves from productivity culture without leaving our big dreams, goals, and interests behind?

In this episode, Dr. Kate Henry joins me to talk about slow productivity, an approach she learned and developed after being diagnosed with a chronic illness at a pivotal moment in her life.

Dr. Kate Henry is a Productivity Coach who specializes in sustainable and well-being oriented productivity. She holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in rhetoric and composition. In addition to her work as a productivity coach, Dr. Henry is an independent researcher and author of the book Tend to It: A Holistic Guide to Intentional Productivity.

Tune in to hear more about…

• The practice of untying worth from productivity
• The grief around letting go of achievement
• The Venn Diagram of slow productivity
• Body doubling and co-working as helpful productivity tools
• Kate’s favorite slow productivity tools & best practices
• Experimenting with roles & boundaries that work for you

Hang out with Kate

• Visit Kate’s Website
• Read Kate’s Book Tend to It: A Holistic Guide to Intentional Productivity
• Subscribe to Kate’s Substack Tending

Resources

• Download the Finch App

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Transcript

1:38

Hey there. It's your host, Mara Glatzel, and you are listening to the Needy Podcast. Here at Needy, we are devoted to sharing frank conversations and true stories about what it means to meet your needs consistently, messily, and sustainably. Needy is a listener funded podcast. Your contributions enable us to continue bringing you the delicious conversations you adore without advertisement or interruption. To become a member of The Needy Inner Circle and to get information about today's episode, Dance on over to the needy podcast .com. Now on to today's show. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to The Needy Podcast. I am joined today by doctor Kate Henry for a very fun conversation about slow productivity. Doctor Kate Henry is a productivity coach who specializes in sustainable and well-being oriented productivity. Doctor Henry holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in rhetoric and composition. As a productivity coach, She guides knowledge workers to develop actionable and achievable productivity and time management practices so they can achieve Short term and long term goals without feeling overwhelmed. In addition to her work as a productivity coach, doctor Henry is an independent researcher and Author of the book Tend to It, A Holistic Guide to Intentional Productivity. Welcome, Kate. I'm so excited to have you here and talk about All of my favorite things and your favorite things, it seems, which is a match made in heaven. Can you tell us a little bit about your work and most importantly, why you do what you do. Yes. Absolutely. I'm very excited to be here. I'm excited to chat with you about all of this stuff. So I'm doctor Kate Hedry, and I am a productivity coach who is interested in Sustainable and well-being oriented productivity. And I do this because I think that many folks who identify as knowledge workers, That might be academics or folks who are doing creative labor or entrepreneurs. We are Swimming in a productivity culture that praises efficiency and urgency, and that's just not going to be accessible for anybody, or for everybody rather. Maybe we could say anybody. Because I'm so passionate about supporting folks who has chronic health conditions, folks who maybe just want to opt out of that urgency based Productivity culture, I'm passionate about making productivity feel more accessible. So folks can still participate in those fields of knowledge work, but they can do so in a way that doesn't burn themselves out, that doesn't overwhelm them, or, force them to push past their own boundaries in order to to thrive. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And I feel compelled to ask you the question that people always ask me, which is, can I do that and also get things done? Yeah. This is, like, an excellent question. $1,000,000 question, I think. Yeah. Can I be nice to myself? Yeah. Well, I mean, my hope is that, yes. You know, it may take it may be a little uncomfortable at first, however, because a lot of the instructions that we receive for productivity, like, Like, even if you just look at the titles of, like, the best selling productivity books, they're really promising something that is based in things that aren't really accessible to folks, like, for example, delegating or, you know, having full control of your schedule that's not really accessible to everybody. However, I think there are ways that people can sort of hack the system, like, Take these productivity tools or, approaches and hack them to make them accessible based on where people are starting from. In my work, I Talk about personal resources and often productivity researchers talk about time, energy, and focus as These things that we just tap into, we use them, efficiently, and then we get so much done. And I also think a lot about our physical health, our mental health, our executive functioning as personal resources. And I think when we start by checking in with those and thinking about what's truly real for us, that then we can adjust our productivity to line up with What we truly can do, it takes some time because we're unlearning this approach that everybody else seems to love, right, around. Like, just work as much as you can and do as much as you can so that you can, like, have a swimming pool on the roof of your building or something. I know that that sounds kind of, like, maybe cheeky. Like, I'm, like, talking bad about these, like, best selling productivity tools, but I don't think that they're always really accessible, and we may have to hack them and find a way to experiment and make them work for us. I agree. And I know that this is or has been a personal journey for you. And I'm wondering if you would Ground us in your own story and tell us how you got to doing this work, but also how you personally developed Some of your own tools to be able to be productive in a way that honors your body. Yes. I would love to. So I am A lifelong learner, and I basically decided when I was a teenager that I was going to be a tenure track professor. And every decision I made from then on was attached to this goal of being this, you know, Dreamy professor who has, like, a multi book deal and is just, like, teaching brilliant graduate students and, literally, since I was a teenager, like, was Stacking my resume, which just sounds ridiculous when I think about it now, and that went really well for me until I hit grad school. And When I was doing my PhD, I developed chronic health conditions in 2017, and it really just, like, screeched The breaks on my workaholism, on my obsession with getting gold stars and getting external approval because I truly could not work 10 hour days anymore. I couldn't work evenings. I couldn't work weekends. I had a lot of physical pain, and my energy was just Completely different. So much lower than it had been. So I was forced to relearn how to be productive. I still wanted to finish the PhD, but the way I had been working for, you know, my teenage college, Grad school years was just no longer accessible. And it led me to just dive into relearning how to be productive. As a researcher, I started a blog, and I was blogging every week where I was trying out a new tool. And that was very fun and satisfying. So That led me to actually choose to leave academia and do work as an independent researcher and as a coach. But those years of Relearning how to be productive with a chronically ill body were really tricky, and they were filled with grief and Overwhelm and stress and feeling like I didn't fit in, things like that. I found a lot of support in online communities for folks live with chronic health conditions, and I learned a lot from, slow living, which I'm sure we'll talk about slow productivity today, which is something I research, but I had to just completely relearn how to be productive, which thankfully let me know that I really love researching and learning about productivity. Yeah. So I guess I was, like, in learning how to restructure productivity in a way that was more accessible For myself, I was able to finish my dissertation, start a business, and now, you know, support other folks and those kinds of things as well. So much of what you said. I don't know if you know this about me, but I had a health crisis, burnout Crisis when I was in grad school as well. And up until that point had really been a needs? Who has needs? Body? What body? Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, push through and get it done kind of person. And, you know, had gotten so much External approval on those things, which I think is just so profoundly seductive To begin to divest from and see, like, who am I and what am I and what is my ambition without this toxic productivity culture overlay. Because I thought for sure even my ambition you know, my ambition is this social construct that I Just embodied at some point. But, you know, now several years out in experimenting in similar ways myself, I'm realizing I am a really ambitious person. And it's so interesting how it's kind of a long game is what I'm getting at, and you spoke to that as well. And I think that sometimes It can feel even this process can feel really urgent. Like, I have to get to the productivity tools that work for me immediately because there has to be this Continuity. Like, okay. I'm in this new body. Okay. I'm in this new experience. Okay. I have these new health concerns, but I want that productivity to remain Consistent. And I'm wondering if you might speak a little bit more about the grief and the, know. The way that we come to know ourselves through what we do and what we provide and what we produce and how That very understanding of ourselves and our worth gets upended when we're no longer able to produce the way that we had before. That's a lovely question. I mean, it's a heart wrenching question, but it's an important question. I know for me, personally, I Absolutely tied my worth to my productivity. Like, starting from when I was a child, Receiving support from teachers and that feeling really great to have these role models, you know, praise me. So, of course, then I had to be perfect at all of my Schooling, and schooling came very easy to me, so that was something that I always had. The expectation was that I would Get an a. Like, anything less than that was truly impossible to accept for myself. Not that my parents or Teachers or anyone else had that expectation, but I had this real and realistic expectation. And something I've also, you know, been working on my whole life is Celebrating wins that I have instead of being like, cool. You did it, and maybe this is something that you relate to too where it's like you succeed at something, and then you're like, Well, duh, that's what you do. That's what you do. You know? Like, okay. Next goal post to hit. Right? So that's something that my personal journey has been like, Okay. How do I shift from that? And when I developed my chronic health stuff, in 2017, that was the first time I ever really couldn't hit those goals. And I really grieved that and had to acknowledge that I would need to really shift. I would need to ask for extensions and ask for support, and I would need to just lower my expectations of what was realistic for me to do compared to what I had done before, which was always, like, working 3 jobs and going to, like, 5 spin classes a week and also, you know, like, Writing this and doing that and getting a fellowship just like unrealistic expectations. And I felt that grief too because I'm not sure if this was your experience in grad school, but I think it's really common for doing the bare minimum, like doing your courses, doing your writing, like, Publishing. It's like doing the bare minimum doesn't really get you ahead. I really felt that in graduate school where it was like, I got all As. I wrote my papers. But if I really wanted to succeed, I was in competition with my colleagues, and I had to be publishing, Attending conferences, like, really doing all this extra labor, and that certainly wasn't accessible to me. So There was a real grief process there around everything that I've been doing for the last 20 years. At that point was just No longer accessible. And how would I how could I feel happy and feel good if my energy and efforts really had to go to Self care and to doctor's appointments and to prioritizing rest, those were things that I got to when I finished my work before. So it really was a it was uncomfortable at first. Like, I've joked before that it was like exposure therapy to These things that now I'm like, oh my gosh. We all need self care. We all need rest. We all need these things, but it was really difficult for me to allow myself to Give myself those things even though I didn't have a choice. Does that resonate with your experience at all? Yeah. I was just Thinking about how uncomfortable taking care of yourself is and how we're fed this idea that resting should feel nice. And anyone who earns their worth through their work knows That needing to rest, just that feeling of I'm physically sitting here and every part of me wants to run out of my body and do this and do that and pick up my phone and Figure that thing out, and there's no way to begin building. Exposure therapy is just so apt. There's no way to really begin those practices unless you first Learn how to tolerate the discomfort of just staying there and how it that is some of the hardest work I've ever It doesn't feel easy. It doesn't feel restful, especially at first. And yet, we often think that means I'm doing it wrong or I shouldn't bother or, You know, I should read a book or listen to a podcast to learn how to rest better when, really, it's that tolerance for For staying there and staying with yourself, which can feel more uncomfortable than anything else. Yeah. That's well put. And I think there's some grief there as well. Like, I I do work with a lot of academics in my work. I often see folks, and I felt this myself, like, the grief around not being able to do everything you want. Like, you truly just, like, having limited Like, for me, like, having limited energy levels means that even though I might really want to do something, I, like, sometimes have to Let it go. I feel like go of an opportunity because to push to do that might just cause incredible burnout or, like, cause a a flare or something like that. And I think there's some grief there as well around if we have the ability and, like, the option to do less and to care for ourselves in that way. There's some grief around letting go of the praise we might have gotten through overachieving or Being a workaholic or or something like that before. Mhmm. Okay. So let's talk About slow productivity, what do you mean when you refer to slow productivity? What does that look like for you on a daily basis? So slow productivity kind of blew my mind when I first started thinking about it years ago. And I've always been fascinated with Venn diagrams. I even like my wedding vows were in a Venn diagram. It was like you, me, and us together. Slow productivity is a Venn diagram. It's slow living, interacting with productivity, and the place where they overlap is slow productivity. Slow living is something that I've learned a lot from folks like Brooke McCallory and other people who are researching and writing about it. And I think of slow productivity as things like Valuing quality over quantity, doing less, increasing spaciousness in our days, giving ourselves permission to, like, just to like, good enough instead of aiming for perfection at all things. And productivity is the stuff we might think of. Right? It's like our Output our project management, our time management, things like that. Where those overlap, it allows us to approach our productivity practices through this kinder, slower approach. So some examples of things that I say overlap in that Venn diagram are Leaving blank space in your day between meetings or between events so you have time to rest and so you're not rushing between them, or Valuing, quote unquote, behind the scenes labor or invisible labor, this prep or thinking work as real work instead of, like, this I just had to hurry through all that prep work so I can do the real productivity. Or another example is, Like setting boundaries around your availability. So productivity, we have our meetings, we have our work sessions. How can we Approach that through a slow living approach and, make sure that we have space and time for ourselves. So those are just a few examples of, like, what it looks like when we Look at our productivity through this lens of, you know, slower, more mindful, intentional living practices. My own experience of slow productivity is such that I thought I would get a lot Less done, and, actually, I have gotten a lot more done, which I always try to describe to people. And I'm just curious about your own experience too, But I always try to describe this to people, and they think, well, how could that possibly be? You're quite literally working less, but you're saying you're getting more done. But I was always kind of feverishly working, doing so many different things simultaneously that now that I People who are in have been in my classes will know this. It's like I'm I make myself prioritize, and that is Not my favorite word. But what it has led to is being more realistic about how much I can accomplish at one time and doing more depth work versus kind of having my little tentacles in a 1000000 different pots simultaneously. And I'm curious for you if that's something that you have noticed. I was really surprised by that. Yeah. No. This is great. I also love the metaphor of the tentacles in the pots. Like, this like, you know, like, witchy gobbling going on. Yeah. Exactly. I have noticed that. I mean, I spent, like, 2 straight years researching and blogging about productivity every week, a new tool. So I like, my Toolkit was, like, overflowing at that point. But I this slow productivity approach, I find does make me More effective. I know that I sort of have negative things to say about pushing for efficiency, but it does make me more efficient. And for example, like, A lot of my work is thinking of starting with where you are at and making the productivity tool work for you. So I talk about, for example, like, making your goals actionable and achievable. And, like, an actionable goal is where, like, you know precisely the steps and the tasks that you need to accomplish. But the achievable part is where you start with your personal resources and you say, okay, how am I feeling today? What are my Energy levels, how's my focus, how am I feeling physically at the desk or the chair that I'm at, what's my mood like, and then Starting with those things, then choosing and selecting a task that's gonna be most accessible for you based on the time you have for yourself. So I call this, like, the Goldilocks approach to productivity, where you're selecting a task that's just right for the time and the other personal resources you have. And when you do that, it's more likely you're going to check a task off your to do list versus just sitting down and saying, I'm gonna write my book today, or I'm going to start a business, like, something, like, large and and and sort of unwieldy. Like, selecting a A small accessible task, it's going to you're gonna check it off your to do list, but it's also gonna hopefully, like, boost your morale, make you make you feel More effective, which will make you feel good. Absolutely. I always talk about not putting, like, nesting eggs on your to do list. And the example I always use is, like, figure out relationship with mother, which, of course, is kind of tongue in cheek. But, you know, that sometimes we put these, like, innocuous, Sweet little one liners on our to do list that actually are I mean, it would take months to do that one thing, and yet it just looms, like, taunting you. It should be so easy. It's just 1 simple little line on a to do list when we all know that it is not. I'm curious about the Goldilocks approach to productivity. How you reckon with I could see somebody thinking like, well, are things on my list that I'm never gonna have the capacity for. And what do I do with those things? I'm glad you asked that question because I think folks who are listening are like, oh, heck yeah. That happens to me sometimes. That happens to me as well. I mean, for things like that, I think traditional productivity resources are gonna say, like, delegate that to someone. You know, have someone else do it, and, like, that's not going to be accessible to everybody. So for things like that, when I'm when I'm working with folks or talking to folks or even for myself, it's I would say, like, is this something that you can do in a good enough way? Like, truly, what is, like, the goal that you have for this task? And, like, What is the stretch goal? Like, what is the, like, nice to have if everything goes well? And, like, what can you do in a good enough way to hopefully satisfy this particular task. Another thing, if a task is feeling like I don't have the capacity to do it, That might be a task, but unless it's, like, supremely urgent and if it is supremely urgent and you can't do it, like, can you request a little extension? Like, can you set yourself up like that? Or is it something that needs to go in the back burner for a couple of days so that you can potentially have more accessibility to do it then? I also might encourage folks or myself to, like, break it down even further if that is accessible. So, of course, it's ideal if you can, like, Hire an expert or outsource it or something. But if that's not accessible to you, are there ways that you could break it down even further or Schedule it for a day or a week where you think you might have more capacity, or it might feel a little bit more accessible to you in that way. So those are those are not, like, the total solution, but those are places to start, I think, if we're like, Oh, no. I don't have the capacity to, I don't know, grade 25 student papers today or submit my taxes or schedule that doctor's appointment or something like that. Mhmm. Yeah. And what I love about the examples that you just gave is that how challenging something is is independent unto us. Because it is easy to say, call my daughter's orthodontist to make an appointment was on my to do list for maybe 6 months. And it took 1 and a half minutes to do, ultimately. But, you know, I talk a lot about how being a person who is in a bigger body who has a lot of medical trauma, who has a lot of dental trauma, those sorts of calls are you know, it's not just the one and a half minutes, of Course. And just for people who are here, who are thinking about why we avoid the things that we avoid, I think get that. I love the examples that you gave because it's so it just speaks to that. Like, it doesn't really matter what the thing is. It doesn't really matter how much time it's ultimately gonna take Because part of what that energy drain is our own internal experience as it relates to that item. Yeah. I think that's well put. I I often use the example of, like, doing taxes. Like, that's something that is, like, really terrifying for folks, which means you know, like, I have a great account now. She's awesome. In the past, it's been something that I will, like, put off and put off and put off. It just feels incredibly aversive to me, So I'm glad you you brought that up too. Do you do any body doubling or co working as a part of your practice? Yeah. I was thinking of that as as you were mentioning, the task that feel aversive. I do. I host co working through my as a something through my substack. And I've just been doing co working with my friends for years, so body doubling and coworking are phenomenal for those aversive tasks. And I find that is Because we can set a little boundary around, let's say, co working. You're like, let's share what we're gonna do, and then let's go do it for an hour, and then let's report back on how it went. The benefit of that is, like, you're limiting the amount of time that you spend on something, so you're gamifying it. You're saying, like, I need to get this done in x amount of time. And then there's also the accountability of other folks and other folks cheering you on. So I often save tasks that I feel are Unpalatable or things that I've been avoiding for co working intentionally because I know I'll just, like, zap through them. So co working is something I or just body doubling is something I I recommend to folks if there are tasks that you are feeling Anxious or nervous about doing, and, you just wanna get them done. Would this also makes me think of, like, batching our tasks for particular days. Sometimes I when I talk to folks about their productivity, they're like, I'm gonna write every day, or I'm gonna do this every day. And that's not always doable or accessible, so sometimes it's more effective to batch a certain day for a certain project or task because, again, you give yourself permission to focus exclusively on it when you're on that day or time, And you give yourself permission to not do it on those other days because you know that you on Tuesdays from 10 to 1 is gonna be working on That particular task. So I like co working, and I like batching as ways to, like, be compassionate with ourselves. And, I know. If if we feel anxious about a task, we're quote unquote avoiding because we've scheduled it for another time. Do you have any other Beloved productivity tools that you've hacked or that you use as part of your own personal practice? I do. I have a lot, but I'll just tell you a couple. I'm gonna tell you 2 of my faves. 1 is 1 that I created, and 1 is 1 that I, learned from someone else. So The first one, I use an approach that I call, like, proactive planning and acute actions. So when we're working with a project, We are when we're starting a project or a goal, we pause and we reflect on what our experience has been with That goals that are similar to that in the past, and we use that data and information to set some proactive plans. So If I run into this obstacle later on and while I'm working on this project, here's what I can do to, like, mitigate it or to navigate it. And then I also like the process of developing a list of actions we can take if those potholes or obstacles come up, And I call that a list of acute action. So if you're working on something and you have a chronic illness flare or your boundaries have been pushed by a colleague or, you know, something has come up, like, can you turn to that list of actions? You can use acutely. So I like this proactively planning to deal with obstacles and developing a list of acute actions you can do when they come up. The 2nd tool that I love, which has really, really affected my productivity in a great way, is called the system. This is by a person named Rachel Steven, who's a a Scottish writer and a writing teacher. And I learned how to bullet journal from her, but the Constellation system, basically, instead of work life as our 2 things, she's created this system where It's broken up into 6 different domains. So you have your creativity, your spiritual practice, your relationships, Your work that you do for money, your physical experience, and your life at home. So I used to really just be like, What am I doing for work? And then there's some life things. And through Rachel Stevens' constellation system, I'm like, oh, my life is actually like These 6 things. Right? Work is just one tiny bit of my life. And through using her, That approach, from her over the last few years, it's really helped me to shift my approach to not think of work as The biggest part of my life, and that's been huge for my productivity approach. I'm curious from that perspective For people who might be listening and resonating, kind of sitting in the reality of I'm afraid of doing less at work or giving less of my attention to work because I need my job to, you know, keep a roof over my head, put food on the table. And I noticed that and sometimes talking to people, experimenting in the workplace feels intractable because of those Fears I mean, with those realities, right, that, there are certain workplace expectations and, also, there may be some movability in there, and, also, it can be really Terrifying to approach? How do you help people pull that apart? I love this. So, like, in the the work that I do, like, I I run workshops universities and organizations. And when I'm working with universities, it's often like, here you as an individual are in control of your research or your courses or something. So it's very like, here's what you do as an individual. But when I'm working with organizations or nonprofits, I'm often thinking and teaching about, like, Here is how you can support your colleagues and how your colleagues can support you. So when we're learning around like, Hey. What do you want your boundaries to be around your availability for email communication or if someone sends you a Slack? Right? Identifying what your experiences are and what you want your boundaries to be. And then, you know, ideally, that's happening in a conversation with your colleagues as well so you can agree upon norms and, like, agree upon boundaries that you would have with one another. If it's just You, I completely respect that that can be daunting to say, I'm not gonna check my email after 5. I'm not gonna check my email on the weekend because you might feel like you're the 1 person who's being, quote, unquote, you know, difficult or or challenging at work. So I I wanna respect that, and I also want to, like, also encourage folks to experiment with that and to Try that out to see what it's like to just for example, you know, like, experiment with, like, what do you want your availability to be to folks? Can you communicate that to them, as much as is possible to you or ask what they want their availability to be? That's just one Tiny thing, thinking about, like, email or Slack or something like that. But I think it works even better when it's a conversation where everyone in the organization is Having a discussion around boundaries, and then we can agree they can agree on, like, norms that folks will follow in a particular group. It might sound like a little bit wishful thinking, but, like, when I when I run workshops for organizations and stuff, like, they're often, like, really stoked about that idea. Like, how can I Support my colleagues as well in this? Well, yeah. And I think, you know, just my own personal perspective on that, As we've already sort of discussed earlier in that, a slow productivity approach does often lead to Greater efficiency and greater depth work that the more boundaries that I create, the more Structure that I bring into my business, certainly, but also my volunteer commitments, it benefits the work. Every time it benefits the work. And it can feel so uncomfortable to take Maybe more than other people are taking. But if we're thinking about the work itself, That taking care of ourselves is in service to our contributions. Yes. Absolutely. So I know That your community is interested in talking about discipline. My community is interested in talking about discipline, and I Would love to hear what you think. Because I was looking through your social media. I was thinking about my own relationship with discipline In the past, which was so one-sided, I was very disciplined in certain parts of my life, but I was that discipline did not reach My own care, my own what I now think of as devotion to my human self, to my body. And I thought, Well, I'm so disciplined, but I was routinely any small section of my calendar that I had safeguarded for myself, I was giving right away to whomever was in front of me needing something. And so I didn't realize it at the time, but in reflecting back, Discipline is such an interesting concept. It really is. I recently did a a multipart newsletter about this, And being ever the researcher, like, did a just like a a quick, you know, microanalysis of the way that, like, popular business, You know, in personal development websites are talking about discipline and disturbed, but, I guess, kinda not surprised that so much of it, even on a business website, was talking Using metaphors of weight loss or health and wellness, which I just found very unsettling and problematic. But There there is an idea of I think a popular idea around, like, here's how you can just increase discipline so you are more efficient and effective in all parts of your life, which rubbed me the wrong in all parts of your life, which rubbed me the wrong way, and I found that I was feeling uncomfortable with the concept of discipline after that little analysis. However, I do want to have boundaries and, like, rules around My own, I guess, engagement with work, my engagement with rest, my engagement with my Relationships. So having some, you know, discipline or structure or Whatever word you want to fill in for it is helpful. So I like to have instead of a really strict routine where I fill in everything in my Calendar, I like to have more of a rhythm approach. So I have my bullet journal. I have my list of tasks, and then I choose when I want to work on those throughout the day. I work for myself, that's accessible to me, but I find that more interesting, more satisfying when I have a schedule. Like, if I look at my Google Calendar and every block is filled out, I just wanna, like, poke out. Like, I just wanna, like, lay on the floor and give up. Like, I can't I can't handle that, But I do think having some experimenting with what kinds of Boundaries or roles are gonna be helpful and serve you the most is really excellent. Like, last night, I deleted my Email from my phone again, and I'm, like, gonna be kind of strict about that because I wanna not check work email after 4 PM. I have in my email signature, I say I check email between 10 AM and 4 PM, and that role is not really For other people, it's for me. If I tell people I'm not gonna be responding between 104, that's holding me accountable to that. So I think there are ways that, like, quote unquote, discipline or whatever word you want to use can serve us and, like, protect our self care and our rest practices. Yeah. Thank you. I feel similarly about the word consistency, and It has taken me a long time to rebrand my thoughts around consistency and discipline To have the means staying by my own side and building that self trust in my relationship with myself. And so much of what you have described here today for me has to do with that the consistency and the strength My relationship and my trust in myself. Right? If I first of all, it used to be that I would say, well, I feel this way. You know, part of me would say, well, do you really feel this way or are you just kind of You're manipulating me. You're trying to you know? So, like, I was trying to get away with something that I couldn't trust myself. I couldn't even trust what I felt or what I needed. And so a consistency practice of staying by my own side and checking in with how I'm doing and Choosing tasks that are appropriate, and accessible for where I'm at in that moment and doing that consistently versus doing a thing consistently, which also means perfectly. Right? And Mhmm. Perfectionists love that. All or nothing. I am a person who does yoga every day, or I miss one day, and now I'm who am I? I'm now I'm a person who never does yoga. And I think it is so as you were talking today, I could just sort of see you having these conversations with yourself. It's like talking to yourself, Like, you would talk to anybody else. Is that something that you're doing during the day? Oh, yeah. I'm definitely doing that during the day, and I'm I also have, like, tools that I use to help me with that. Like, I have an app on my phone called Finch. I don't know if you've heard of Finch. It's like a very cute little Self care app where, like, you put in, like, the little goals you want to do. It's kinda like, I guess, like a Tamagotchi. Right? Like, you like or like and you set your own goals. So, like, my goals are, like, I drank water. I took a break from when I was working to eat when I was hungry. I did any kind of movement. I did a face mask on Friday. And, like, when I check them off, the little bird's like, hooray. I'm gonna go on a little adventure. It's like literally gamifying it, but I like that because it's just make self care. Even these teeny little things feel more doable. I also am a yoga practitioner, and I want to do yoga every day. And I've been doing yoga for years and, you know, have literally, like, my yoga stuff set up in this in my office, and I don't always do it every day, and I sometimes think of stuff like that. Like, am I trending in the direction I want to go? Like, If I don't do it 7 days a week, but I do it 3 days a week, that's still great. I'm still, like, moving in the direction I want to go in terms of, like, Habit formation. Same thing with, like, did I, like, scroll on my phone before bed? Yeah. I'd prefer not to do that, but, like, You know, am I trending in the direction I want to go? So I try to really exchange my consistency tickets for things like, You have to take your medication every day. I think, you know, like, stuff like that where I'm like, I truly need to be consistent. But and also, like I mean, like, yoga is That as well. Like, yoga for self care and for mental health and for physical health and stuff like that or, like, pain relief or things like that. I'm getting a little off topic there, but I try to make the things that I absolutely must be, like, super consistent about that list, like, as small as possible. And then the other stuff are, like, these lovely extra options that I, you know, want to try to do throughout the week, so I can just trend in the direction of of doing them more regularly. Yeah. It makes me think I have a good friend who Taught me something, a parenting trick, which is to have very few must dos for your child. And, you know, those things are there's a limit. There's a boundary there. It's like it's it is a must do. Like, taking your medication, for example, would be a must do. And then having as as much freedom in everything else as possible, which I have kids who really respond to that. And I was just thinking about how I would probably onto that too. It's such a nice way to think about how you approach taking care of yourself. Thank you. Yeah. Of course. So we are almost at the end of our time. And what I'm really curious to hear you talk about before we leave is what happens. We've we've talked about how this toxic productivity culture and external approval validation is Seductive, and sometimes we find ourselves back in the mix with it even if we're trying hard to Remain by our own side and produce more slowly. What happens? Do you find yourself getting lost? What happens when you do? How do you kind of bring yourself back to The practices that you that best serve you. Yes. I love this. And this does this does happen. Like, I, like, quote unquote Fall off the horse with us. Stop. And we're just we're swimming in a culture that really encourages Productivity and also optimization in our personal life and in our personal development as well, so it's Difficult to step back from that. But for me, when I inevitably, you know, fall off the wagon around, you know, like, practicing slow productivity very well, I usually can tell because I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling grumpy. I'm feeling stressed. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I might feel like like my back pain flares up. And that's a cue for me to pause. And I I like to do journaling in that moment to like, to be like, hey. What is even going on? How am I feeling about what's happening right now? And just doing some, like, stream of consciousness writing might help me to identify, like, particular things that I'm feeling anxious about or struggling with. And I also for me, when I fall off that wagon, I try to turn back to the things that I know have helped me in the past. So for example, do I need to schedule a day off? Do I need to reschedule meetings? Do I need to be more I'm gonna say strict, which sounds like A word that I might not use, but, like, we're I'm thinking about it in terms of, like, almost like a self parenting way. Right? To be like, nope. We're gonna, like, Put up the out of office, or nope. We're not responding to the email right now. Or I might even, like, put my phone on another floor in my apartment or something like that. So when I fall off The wagon, if I can notice that I'm doing it because I it I feel bad. Not bad. Like, oh, I'm guilty, but, like, I'm anxious. I can't sleep. Things like that. It's a cue for me to just, like, reflect, kinda see what's going on, ask myself some questions about that. And then try to set a boundary or do just 1 practice that will help me. Maybe that is Going for a walk and listening to jazz instead of listening to a business podcast. Right? Maybe it is going to a like scheduling a phone call with a friend or something like that. But in those times, I I try to step away from the optimization and try to just Do something that feels, like, truly nourishing and restful. Like, really lean into the self care because my body is telling me that if, like, something is off, Then, like, I'm I'm perhaps, like, panicking about something where that story doesn't really align with the reality of my experience. Does that make sense? Does that resonate with your experience at all? Yeah. I have, like in my work, I I create this kind of warning sign spectrum less, like a pain scale. And so I have for myself I get a a hip thing. I get a back thing. I get a can't sleep. You know, like, there I can sort of plot along a spectrum of burnout when things start 2 up here. I noticed I have a lot of auditory and physical sensory issues and or Quirks. And I'll notice, like, I can feel my hair tie in my hair. Again, that's how sensitive my hair strands are. That's a really that's, like, actually a pretty late stage indicator. If I've gotten to that point, that's a, you know, stop the presses and press pause kind of realization. But for me, finding some of those things really helped me from having to go all the way into deep burnout before I acknowledged, hey. I'm edging into burnout. Burnout is approaching on the horizon. I can see burnout from here. Yeah. And so starting to notice, Okay. You know, that shoulder thing happens because I'm sitting at my desk. Listeners can't hear me, but Kate can. You know, my shoulders are up right here around my ears, And I'm like that perhaps all day, and then when I'm done with the day, the shoulder thing has kicked off. Yeah. And so paying attention, it's amazing. It is amazing to me every single time I think about this, how many years I Had a frozen shoulder completely and was just like, this is the state of things. Like, I don't have time to deal with that at all. And, yeah, starting to notice your own small signs of, like, we're getting a little off track. We're getting a little bit more off track, before you get to that emergency self care place. Mhmm. I think this is that it is It's so nice. Well, I'm sorry that that's been your experience, but it's also, like, helpful and validating to hear that you've gone through that too. Another thing thinking of, like, the productivity, like, if it's a slow productivity Venn diagram, a productivity thing here is, like, I often like to, like, make menus of different kinds of days I'm having. So if I wake up on a day where I have lower energy or brain fog or back pain, like, can I, like, proactively have this Menu of what kind of things are gonna be accessible to me on that day so I can limit decision making, something like that? So Noticing and listening to what our body is telling us. Like, how can we we may have to be productive on that day just due to Deadlines, etcetera. So, like, how can we make that approach feel most accessible to us, Like, physically, mentally, emotionally, perhaps a menu that we already created for that kind of day could aid us in that. That feels like love to me because, you know, when you're already in that place of physical pain or brain fog or, You know, whatever it is that's happening, you don't have the capacity in that moment to even think about what is available to me. Yeah. And so Taking care of our future selves in that way is such a delightful and supportive idea. It's like, here's here's 5 things you can try. Because, you know, we forget. We forget. Drink a glass of water. We do forget. True. I I have my little tiny bird app remind me every day. Like, Hey, girl. Are you drinking water? Yeah. Absolutely. Kate, thank you so much. This was such a fun conversation for Me. I am curious, where can we find you? And you've written a book. You're on Instagram. Tell us all the things. Where can people hang out with you? I've written a book. It's called Tend to It, a holistic guide to intentional productivity. And some of the tools that you and I have talked about today. Like, for example, the Goldilocks approach to productivity, I talk about those in that book. I have a sub stack. I think that that's I mean, it's it's called Tending. I think it's katehenry.substack.com. And I'm on social media. I'm on Instagram as Be tending year, that was my blog that I first made years ago. And I'm writing on my substack every week. I'm Really enjoying being an independent scholar outside of academia and publishing about this stuff there. Awesome. We will link to everything in the show notes, and thank you so much, Kate. This was really, really lovely. Thank you. This was a total treat for me. Thanks for listening to the NeNe podcast with Mara Glatzel. If you want my support in learning how to nourish your needs, dance on over to the needy podcast.com to take my quiz to figure out what you need right now and how to meet those needs with a greater sense of ease and confidence. 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