Hi.
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to Best of Both Worlds. This is Laura. This is actually episode four hundred. Very exciting. It's airing in the beginning of April of twenty twenty five. We began Best of Both Worlds some seven and a half years and four hundred episodes ago, and I'm very excited to be recording this one from Sarah's cl here in Fort Lauderdale. Hi, Sarah, Yes, closet headquarters.
We are recording live, and this is kind of an exciting way to do four hundred yeah together.
I mean, we don't get to do that many episodes together in the same place, but we've done a few and it's always.
Exciting when we can. Maybe I don't know getting toward that.
Yeah, I mean, did you think we'd get to four hundred episodes when we did episode number one?
No, I definitely was not thinking about four hundred. I mean probably even one hundred at that point sounded really daunting. And this is like a testament to that whole thing where it's like you just keep doing something, it's amazing what it can accumulate too. I mean, what kind of library do we have at this point?
Pretty large library, four hundred episodes, I hear so looking back twenty seventeen, the summer of twenty seventeen when we began, our lives looked a little bit different to our families were smaller.
For instance, yes, I was pregnant with Genevieve, but I had two children at the time, Aniblee and Cameron were I guess like almost six and almost four.
Yeah, cute different stages of life than now, for sure, Yeah I had I guess they would have been seven years younger than they are now.
Is that like ten and eight or six or five? And yeah, your oldest would have been ten, Yeah, Aliss.
Was two maybe yeah in twenty seventeen, but you know, then Henry joined us.
A couple of years later.
So now between the two of us, we were up to eight children, which is a good number, and we have all moved forward seven and a half years, which is also exciting that we've made it through.
We are here. Yeah.
I looked back to see what the hot podcasts were in twenty seventeen, and the top five mentioned were This American Life, Radio Lab, s Town Remember s Town?
I think that was like a spin off of the serial.
Our second round didn't hit quite as well, and then something called Hardcore History. But the main thing was that Laura and I noted that there was like a smattering of podcasts by women, but most of them were kind of about the stay at home mom life or homesteading or something that was a little bit different from our everyday experience. And we saw that gap and like, hey, where are the working parents?
Which we figured out why the gap was there. Again, do we go?
A podcast take some time, So it's a hard thing to throw on top of a inflexible full time career, but since we both ended up with some flexibility, we were able to make it work.
Yeah.
Well, it's very exciting that we've been able to do it, and of course we'd love to hear from people. If you have a favorite episode, I guess if you have a least favorite episode, you can share that as well.
Feel free to reach out to either of us.
We're also trying to figure out as we move forward, because we planned to keep going at least for now. I don't know if there'll be an episode eight hundred. Who even knows what life will look like in seven and a half years, But we do want to keep this relevant for women in different stages of life, and particularly this is a challenge for us as our kids get older.
Right, Sarah, Yeah, we want to make sure we still you know, I do think having the blog and the podcast helps me remember a little bit more than I see some of my peers remembering what it was like to have really little kids. Also the fact that Laura has a very wide age spread so has spent a lot of years over and over again doing the really little kid thing.
I think that drums at home maybe more than just doing one round of it might.
But yeah, we want to make sure that even if you are just thinking about having your first kid, that this podcast still feels like it's for you.
So hopefully we're able to continue doing that.
Yeah, and definitely send us ideas for guests for episodes, things you'd like us to cover more. We definitely come up with a lot of our ideas from listener suggestions, so definitely encourage that.
But yeah, anything else we have to say about episode four hundred, no, just thank you.
We appreciate that we're only still here because people want to listen to us, so it's amazing. It's a privilege to be in your feed. However you listen to this.
Podcas absolutely well.
So the bulk of this episode is going to be talking about a different topic, which is protecting your deep work time. So deep work being a phrase that we've gotten from Cal Newport, has been a guest on our other podcast. But the time that you are spending in focused work and not constantly being pulled in different directions, and it's kind of important to have this time just
for thinking, for creating, for being strategic. And I know that particularly if you do have a lot going in your personal life and you have a flexible job, this could be hard. Now obviously if you are in a place where you cannot be reached from the outside world. I mean you're in your office doing your work for your eight hours I mean, when Sarah's doing clinical work, there's not a whole.
Lot of back and forth. There's not zero back.
There's not zero back and forth, but less than there is. I mean, do you struggle with this is more on your work from home days though, right.
I do.
I do, although sometimes I'm just you know, a teacher will call you or you know, of course I'm happy to deal with stuff. But the truth is, neither of my husband are flexible, so it's not like he's a better option. But it is amazing that even when you're really like going back and forth, sometimes things get interrupted. But I'm more vulnerable to it on my non clinical days, that is true.
Yeah, And I mean you generally try to start work at when on the non clinical days, would you.
Say as soon as I've dropped off the kids. Sometimes, well,
I mean my schedule is going to be different. There were some days when I actually chose to work really early and then run after I drop them off back in those days, but other times I would run early and then I would drop them off at school, and then like writ at eight thirty, I would sit down and I often had something scheduled many times for like nine maybe it was in an interview or you know, something to do, or it was like I have to get X y Z done by eleven am because at
eleven I have a pall or an interview or something like that.
Yeah.
So but then that would be the day as well when kid appointments would wind up, or if there was some earon that you particularly had to do or what.
That's when it happens, of course.
Totally my own appointments, kid appointments, unexpected stuff. Something breaks in the house and like, oh convenient, she's home.
I'm like, well, I'm home.
But like, if I'm leading a paid course session, am I interruptable?
No? No, actually I will answer that. No, I know. Yeah. Yeah.
So it's a struggle for sure, and it's wonderful to have a flexible job, but you just do have to be aware of this. And so I had written something for my substack. I have the substack newsletter called vander Hacks, and I do how tos and tips and things like that, and I wrote one about protecting your deep work time. And I think email number one I got about it was from a certain Sarah Hardhunger. Yeah.
I read pretty much all of Laura's and this one I was like, ooh, we need this. Is this hit me where it hurt because I think we had just had some I don't know, something broke, some minor disaster, and I'm like, we are all feeling this acutely and we need to talk about this more. And I mean, you haven't really mentioned the gender divide here, but this is where I think sometimes when people talk about deep work and stuff, they're like, that sounds awesome and I don't get to do it.
Yeah, so I think this is such an awesome topic to talk about. Yeah. So, I mean I analyze.
I tracked my time and I have for ten years now, and I analyzed all my time in twenty twenty four as part of an exercise for the book I was writing. And I know that I work fewer than forty pure hours of work per week, right I'm at my desk probably more than that, but in terms of actual focused work, it was drifting under that. But I was still surprised to see it only came out to about thirty two
hours per week. And that is because I think of a normal work day as starting at by eight and go to five, but there are very few normal work days for various reasons that flexibility turns out to be a double edged sword. And because I could do things during the workdays, I often was doing things during the workdays.
And on some level it is okay.
I will say that twenty twenty four was a very productive year. I got a lot done, I earned a reasonable amount of money, made professional progress on things.
But I wrote like a whole book. Yeah I did.
I did write a book, But sometimes I felt like I didn't have enough time to execute on the ideas that I had. And I want to be fair to myself and to my own ambitions and creativity and all that and create enough time to do that. So when we come back from our break, we are going to talk through some tips on how you can protect your deep work time even if you do have a flexible
job as well. Well, we are back in this our four hundredth episode talking about how to protect your deep work time, and the first strategy I want to talk about is being strategic with exercise. Now, we are big fans of exercise, even if that looks different from us for us now than it that might have a couple weeks ago as a long topic, people didn't listen to the past two episodes.
You can go back to those.
But for many years I worked out during business hours because I could, and more importantly, it's always time I knew would be available, like the.
Kids had childcare or we're in school, And it.
Always felt like working out after work would cause scheduling hassles, like if I was trying to go out for a run at five o'clock, something would happen and I wouldn't get to my run, Or if I tried to schedule a time with my trainer for five point thirty, something would happen and it would just be a problem. And so I'd always do it for during the time when people were not around me.
But that means that wasn't work time.
I mean, Sarah, you, I mean you got in the habit of doing pre work just for clinical days because you had to.
Yeah, I mean I also live in a hot climate and most of my workouts are outside, so I was highly highly motivated to generally get things done well before the start of normal work hours, so that was a less of an issue for me. The other thing I will say about this is that I started doing some strength training, and I figured.
Out that if I was going to do it, during the work day.
Do it when I'm brain dead, Like, do not do it at nine am, because that's like prime hours. But like, if I'm the kind of person who maybe is not that useful by four anyway, then that would be like a reasonable kind of during business hours time for work day. So even if you are just setting to use business type hours, those hours are not created equal in terms of what you're capable of, and so that's something to take into consideration as well.
You could also specifically do it as a lunch break, yes, right, and so but I do currently I meet with my trainer virtually, but at twelve thirty on Mondays, and so that is time that I probably would not have been intensely working because I would have been hungry. So I tend to grab something very quick on Mondays, do my workout from twelve thirty to one.
It's very quick and efficient, and then.
Get back to my desk ideally by one point fifteen or so. So that's a little better to do that or yeah, Sarah said, in the afternoon when you start to get a little bit tired. But I also just if I am doing a workout during the day, understanding that that is my break for the day, like there should not be a lengthy lunch and the exercise, like we need to protect this time.
Yes, that makes sense.
Another thing then, with in terms of making sure that all work hours are not created equal, asking for more convenient appointments. And I've started to do this with my older children just because it's hard for for them to miss school that you know, you miss ap calculus, you're actually missing something you probably needed to learn for the exam. There's not enough sessions to cover everything. You know, you're racing through stuff, so it really needs to be not
during the school day, if at all possible. And then I realized, wait, I'm not doing the same thing for myself, and particularly what issue. In early twenty twenty four, longtime listeners know, I was going to multiple physical therapy appointments per week for my back issue, and they would offer me times like eleven am, and I would look at my calendar and there would be nothing at eleven am
on Tuesday, and I'd be like, Okay. But when you find yourself doing that as somebody who has a flexible job, just stop.
In the middle of the day, I think is the worst because you're like, oh, I can't really do that much in the morning because I'm gonna have to get ready to go, and then it's like, oh, I went to that and.
That, Like yeah, I mean then it's like lunch, right, and so the next thing, you know, again, you're not at your desk like one o'clock from like eleven am appointment you left at ten thirty. I mean, this is just ridiculous. It's a bad idea. So there's early mornings. Often places that serve the public in any sort of way would open at eight am, So that might be an option or just what Sarah was saying, right like later afternoon when your brain is not working as well.
Right, Yeah, if you know that, you probably were Friday afternoon. You know, although we do think that's helpful for planning if you do it theain, but maybe you could plan while you're sitting in the waiting room.
You can be creative about that.
Yeah, And sometimes people have evening or weekend hours.
I mean you may have to ask about it.
Our dentist has like they don't like to talk about it, but if you're really desperate, sometimes you can get a weekend orthodonist or dentist appointment.
I think they work.
They have like one weekend a month and they probably reserve it for people that are really really begging. And so I've we have or what happens is we've been able to get those if someone cancels, so I'll say, like, put me on a wait list for Saturday, and.
Then a lot of times it's worked out. Yeah, but you can ask for more convenient appointments.
So think about you might have a time of day or week that you would like.
To schedule most of your appointments.
And so when you are there calling the dentists and they're like, well, can you come in at ten am on Tuesday, You'll be like, do you have anything at two thirty right, And just maybe they don't, or maybe you wind up going to the dentist on a seven month rotation instead of a six month rotation, but probably your teeth will be fine.
Yeah, And this isn't all or nothing. Of course, there's going to be some specialist appointment where it's just too bad. I mean, listen, I feel sort of like hypocritical saying yes, because sometimes people really want to get in for an appointment in our office, and especially for that first appointment, and we're trying to make space for you. We might only offer you eleven am because it's less desirable and
they're going to have to sometimes say yes. But then there's like the routine braces fitting and you go all the time. And so maybe you can't have every appointment be optimal, but try to optimize the ones where it's possible.
Yeah. Absolutely, Just because you can doesn't mean you should, all right, So this is the next principle, or at least you shouldn't always. So where this often comes in is that people who work from home or people who have flexible jobs could probably take their kids to school or pick them up or both. And so sometimes you think that you should take your kids to school or pick them up or both. But this can pretty quickly
cut into a work day. I know that when our normal childcare was not available a few weeks ago, for several days, I was the one who was generally bringing Henry and Alex to school in the morning and then picking up Henry because there's no bus service for preschool obviously, so I wouldn't get to my desk until nine point fifteen,
nine twenty. I would have to leave at two forty five to go get Henry and even if I could convince him to, like go watch a video from like three point fifteen to four thirty or something, and so I would be back up my death. It's so chopped up the time right, like nine to fifteen to two forty five is only a five and a half hour day. And I'm not saying like you can't do it, but
you might think about not always doing it. So our current balance is that three days a week we have childcare starting at seven thirty in the morning, and I am just not responsible for the morning. I am at my desk at seven forty five and the day goes from there. Two mornings a week, I take the little boys to school, so I get that experience right of seeing the teachers, seeing the car line, talking to them in the car. So it's getting a little bit of both.
And so it's not an either or thing like Ooh, I'm a bad mom because I'm not taking my kids to school. It's like, Okay, well, I guess I'm two days a week being that mom.
I don't know, no totally.
I think getting rid of the all or nothing because I've heard parents say that, oh, but I want to spend time with my kids in the morning.
Well you can.
You could do two days, you could do three days. Like figure out what the right balance would be for you. But it doesn't have to automatically be five days.
Yeah, five, and especially the pick up in the afternoon, because that can cut into an afternoon very quickly. And again it doesn't have to be all five days a week. But maybe you'll arrange for somebody else does a pick up two or three days a week, or you have an aftercare thing going a couple days a week.
It just gives you a longer stretch of time.
So that afternoon, especially if you're coming back from if you pause to eat lunch, let's say twelve to twelve thirty or even twelve to twelve fifteen. I mean, you only have like the two hours in the afternoon to do anything if you have to leave for a three pm pickup. It just you want to make sure that you have coverage that you can start developing a thought and getting into the groove. I mean that's true with childcare in general.
Yes, I was like underpinning, this is the thing we've said so many times on so many episodes. Definitely this is appropriate for episode four hundred. Is like you are working a job, and you should make sure you have enough childcare to make that work well for you. And remember that the childcare is not just for you, it's also for your partner.
Yes, if you have a partner, it is for both of you. And so yeah, maybe, and don't be cheap. I mean, I get this again that like people like, well, how can I pay for the fewest number of hours as possible? And because I'm working from home ergo I could do all these things. But if you keep in mind that thought, just because I can doesn't mean I should. It is possible, especially if you have a sort of entrepreneurial job where it's not straightforward how much you are
going to get paid. Maybe you'll come up with a great idea in that like two thirty to four thirty window where you are working that would.
Pay for your childcare for the next six months.
I mean, I don't know, that's kind of a big ask, but like it could happen, right, Like it could happen, So don't count yourself.
Sure.
Yeah, there's a little bit of a a long game or investment aspect to this. I think again, that can apply more to some career paths than others. I get that, but you never know.
Yeah, and you won't need childcare forever, so you can view this as a temporary thing to protect your earning potential long term. We'll do one more before we go to our second break, but stop with the housework.
And errand's already Sarah, are you guilty of this? Not really? Not really? Okay? Good?
It helps that I'm just not the best, like the most caring. I'll just keep forever. So yeah, no, I don't, really, I don't. I'm trying to think, like sometimes all's sort of straighten up the kitchen if it's like total okay, disclaimer. If we do have like a cleaning service that comes and if they're calming, I do tend to do like a quick like I'm talking like fifteen minute, like make sure it's not a disaster, so that when they come in they can like start in a reasonable space.
But nothing beyond that. Yeah.
Well, I mean anyone who has worked from home has probably felt the siren song of getting ahead on the laweaundry or cleaning up the kitchen after everyone has trashed it in the morning.
I know that is.
A like on the mornings that I do bring the little boys to school. I am them walking back into the kitchen at like nine point fifteen, and many times it still looks like whatever disaster happened in there in the course of getting out the door, and you know, I'm like, oh, I get this cleaned up. It's like, well, okay, Or I could not do that, and I could just get to my desk already and get these prime work hours in the morning.
So just be very careful about it. I'm not saying that.
Moving a load of laundry in the middle of the day is a terrible thing. I mean, or while you're on a zoomah, while you're yeah, I mean, I do understand that it has to happen at some point, and not having to do it all weekend might be an upside.
But just be aware because many times it is in fact easier and more satisfying to empty the dishwasher than to sit down and really struggle through a problem you're having, like how do I come up with a new thing for this client that's going to make them want to re up for the next year, Like how can I explain my value proposition to them? I need to work on this proposal, or I could go empty the dishwasher.
My kids are.
So good at cleaning their room when they have something they're stressing about. Homework wise, Yeah, it's actually kind of nice.
I'm like wow, But then it's like wait a second.
Yeah, yeah, your office, your home office is like sparkling because like I really don't want to call Jen and work through this thing, right, yeah, like we all done it, but you just want to be aware that this is what you are doing. Just because you work from home or work flexibly doesn't mean that you should be getting all the housework done by five pm when you would be quitting. And it's probably still worth if you would have had a cleaning service when you're in the office.
Probably should still have one even if you're working from home.
All Right, we're going to take a quick ad break.
And we'll be back with a little bit more on protecting your deep work time. Well, we are back with episode four hundred, where we are talking about how to protect your deep work time. I mean, this is really, you know, trying to have the best of both worlds. We often worry about work kind of taking over our personal time, but I find many women in particular and people who do have flexible jobs can find that their
personal lives are taking over work time. And I'm not even talking about like the good stuff like playing with your children. I'm talking all the other things that go on, and one of these is.
Being perhaps a homeowner.
And it turns out that homes have things that go wrong, right, Sarah.
I mean all of mine do constantly. So you actually don't even have to be a homeowner. You could be a renter.
A renter, it's still wrong.
Although you know so maybe it's more of the landlord's problem than your problem. But you might still have to have someone still has to be home. Yeah, but you're not paying for it exactly. No easier when we were renting.
Yeah.
So the last strategy here as we are thinking about protecting deep work time is the phrase, no, the contractor cannot come in the nine am to noon window. Okay, So this is the bane of anyone who works from home's life, Like, yes, you're gonna be the one letting in the contractor because you are there and they give you these huge windows. And the problem is not so much like is it a terrible burden to open the door?
No it is not.
But the problem is you don't want to schedule meetings or anything deep that might be interrupted if you know that the plumber might show up between nine and eleven and you don't know whins. You're kind of listening for it.
And I especially don't want to start recording if I don't have somebody there to deal with it, because like I'll have to stop recording it like be very embarrassing if I was being interviewed for a podcast and I'm like, Okay, sorry, there's the doorbell, I gotta go talk to the plumber
for ten minutes about this issue. So you don't schedule things or you don't get deeply involved in something because you're kind of listening for when the plumber is going to show up, and then of course while they're there, they might have questions. You might have to pay them at the end. So since this is inevitable that something will break and you will have to deal with it,
you have a couple options. I mean, one is trying to concentrate these appointments to a certain time, and you particularly need to communicate this to anyone else in your household who might be scheduling these, Like it is not a costless thing to have a contractor show up if your spouse is working from home.
Okay, Yeah, Like let's be clear here.
Yeah, I have like sometimes oh, you're going to be there, but actually, well maybe i'm first of all, maybe I'm not going to be there. Maybe that is my parent teacher conference. So you have to be very careful. And then I think sometimes, as we talked about, like jobs
can be seen as more flexible than they actually are. Like, of course, if there's an emergency, certain things I do can be canceled, but in general I have a good number of fixed things, even on my quote flexible days that really can't bear someone coming to the door and then needing to be spoken with, et cetera.
So one option is say all of these need to happen on Friday, if at all possible. Now, obviously, if you have a huge gushing leak in your house and you need a plumber right away, this is a different matter. But if it's something sort of longer, like I need the painter to come give a bid, well, guess what,
the painter can probably come on a Friday. If you've decided that Friday is the day that all of these things happen, or even every other Friday, or trying to ask for a later window if they say, yeah, we're going to come on Thursday, and be like, I would like the later window in the day, right, So the two to five, the two to five window instead of the nine to twelve window or whatever it is, because
that way, it's not your best time. Most people are more focused, more productive in the more and the other option, which is what we wound up doing because longtime listeners know we bought this older house that has had to have extensive renovations which involved a lot of contractor visits. Even now, is that we hired a home manager who works two days a week and she does lots of different things, but one of the things she is responsible
for is all contractor visits. I mean unless it's something that's out in the yard and they don't even need to be inside ever or talk to anyone, then she schedules all of these for the days that she is working.
And so I the liaison. She's the liaison. It's great.
So it was really great, Like I mean, there was somebody in there the other day working on like it's built in coffee. It's like you buy fancy appliances and then they break but whoops, whoops. But I was like sitting there working on my book or something, and she was dealing with it. I was like, Uh, this is exactly why we did this, as I am not out there dealing with the waiting for the person to show up.
And again, I know that's not an option for everybody, but you know, even just one day a week, or if you have an after school sitter, but the person has some flexibility and wants some extra hours, maybe they can work two afternoons a week starting at noon, and they could do household chores.
And they could also be the liaison with any contractors.
Yeah, I mean someone a team might be difficult to interface with contractors, but like a college student might be willing to do that for a very reasonable rate, especially if you're like you can do homework, you can do whatever you want. I just need you to sit here and answer the door. So that could be a good solution. That could be an option too.
I mean, sometimes again we have to pay to protect our deep work time. But again, if you were in an office, this wouldn't even be a question. You probably aren't taking all of Wednesday off to have painters come give bids, right like, So don't think that you can get all your work done at home and have three
painters stopping by it to give bids as well. Like, it's just going to ruin your whole day, So make sure that you are protecting your deep work time and hopefully you will feel more productive and advance in your career and make enough money.
To cover the extra outline love it, love it all?
Right, Well, here's an appropriate question for episode four hundred. Sounds like you guys have fun podcasting? Should I start a podcast?
Yes?
And no.
So if you want to start a podcast because it just sounds super fun, you want to hear your voice out there, You just want to maybe want to build a network of people interested in a specific topic and you know you'll be able to reach them that way, And it's not specifically for the podcast to earn money,
I say absolutely try it. Why not if you want to start a podcast because you think it's going to be a great business plan to have your podcast kill it and get bought by Spotify for ten million dollars and like earn a whole bunch of money from ads. I don't recommend it, I think ea, especially now, I mean even in twenty seventeen, but especially now, podcasting itself is just not a huge revenue generator unless you're huge, and if you're huge, you might not care about the
revenue that a podcast would generate. I could see, like, I don't know, if you're like a big name influencer and you just want like another channel and you're already huge, it might be a great thing to add to your portfolio. But if you're starting without a huge platform, it's not super likely. I mean, we are not earning lots of
money from our podcast. It's a wonderful way to have a platform so you can earn money doing other things, so it can be part of a career package, and I think a lot of people use it really well that way. And again, it can be so fun because you're building a network of people that are interested in similar things and you get ideas and you share ideas,
and then maybe that grows into other things. But I guess I think that when I started this podcast, things were a little different, and maybe I was deluded to think, like, wow, you could like that could be your main gig.
Yeah, I don't think it's going to be most people's main gigs. If you are trying to raise your profile, build a platform make a name for yourself. As we said in a previous episode, it can be a good part of that.
I do think it's helpful to do a couple of things.
I mean, one, if you can have a co host, it feels a lot more doable. I mean, it's two people to do the work. You can also just make an episode out of the two of you talking, which is slightly harder to do if it's just you. I mean, you obviously can just get on a microphone and talk, but many people find out a little bit more challenging than having a back and forth conversation. And then you also want to make sure that you have enough material
to go for a while. And I think we mentioned this in Then make a Name for Yourself Episode two that try to make a list of at least twenty episodes that you could do. And you don't need to record twenty episodes all at once at the beginning, I mean, you'll have time to do that. But if you can't come up with twenty different episode ideas, then maybe you need to expand your scope or think of a slightly different area, or how you could bring somebody in the
cover different topics. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but you should make sure that you have enough material to keep going for a while, because, like anything, it will take a while to take off, and you want to give yourself enough runway to be successful. Yeah.
I think one other benefit is that you will gain skills doing it, Like there are things I have learned. I never knew how to interview anyone before this, and now I feel pretty d uncomfortable generating list of questions and like holding my own interviewing, which I think is a useful skill for many career paths. I essentially do not I don't know if I did before, but like, I really don't have like speaking stage freight of any kind.
I was joking that, like, well, at least my heart rate doesn't go up when I go I'm going to do a speech like a bad joke. Now too soon, but soon you gain a skill set by doing this. I I'm not saying I'm perfect at it either, and I probably could work harder at improving my skills because I don't do a lot of re listening to myself or anything. But just still, four hundred episodes is a lot of practice.
It's a lot of practice.
Yeah, so see if you can at least come up with twenty ideas and you'll gain skills as you go. But it can be a lot of fun. We've had a lot of fun with it. So thank you all for sticking around for four hundred episodes. Those of you have we have some complete listeners, which is very exciting, so shout out to those.
And our love of the week, Sarah.
I mean, what else, We're just going to go for best of both worlds because this podcast is awesome.
I love the name of our podcast, by the way. I mean sometimes I'll just.
Hear the phrase use and I'm like, yeah, you guest your as you're advertising for us exactly. I just think it's fit so well, and it's been so fun and so fun to see it grow and to now have like members who like, you know, I don't know, it's just the community aspect of it has been way more rewarding than I could have identified at the outset.
Yeah, and if you'd like to become more involved with the community, I should just do a quick shout out here. We do have a Patreon community. We have great discussion threads going on our web page. We usually do three or four a week often get lots of helpful comments. Because it's well pay, well protected community. People are often willing to share advice in a way I think a lot of us would be a little bit more reticent to do just out in the open on the internet
or on social media. We have monthly Zoom meetups where we talk about all sorts of different topics. We have a great time, so you know, if you enjoy the show, feel free to come join us.
We'd love to have you. Yes, Oh my gosh, exciting four hundred, four hundred.
Yeah, Thanky Friday, Happy birthday to Best of Both Worlds. All right, well, we will be back next week for our four hundred and first episode, and in the meantime, you know, here's to making the most of work in life, I guess, making work in life, making work in life fit together.
Thanks for listening.
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the Best of Both Worlds podcast.
Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.