November 12, 2025 • 25 mins
Christine Koh, host of the Edit Your Life podcast, shares tips for making the most of our time
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:23):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Christine Co to Before Breakfast. Christine
is the host of the Edit Your Life podcast, along
with numerous other projects. So Christine, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello Laura, I'm so happy to be recording with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm happy to have you here. Well, why don't
you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Okay, the top line is, in my previous life, I
was a music and brain scientist. I have a PhD
in that field. That was a long time ago, and
whenever people asked me to drop neuroscience information, I'm kind
of like my training is a little outdated. But about
twenty years ago I left the field and just wanted
(01:05):
to create more independent, creative, flexible ventures and I started
in the wild world of the internet with a personal
blog and over the years, my various iterations have included
a published book, a couple of podcasts, a very robust
creative consulting consultancy. I work as a creative director and
(01:28):
storytelling expert, and so I just do a lot of things,
and I have a couple substack newsletters now. And I've
just always loved, you know, problem solving, helping people solve problems,
and you know, trying to disrupt this kind of perfect
lifestyle narrative with just how we all get things done.
And I think that's why you and I aligned so well,
(01:48):
is we're just both really committed to helping people figure
out ways to do things.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, take our days from great to awesome, as we
always say around here. So your podcast is called Edit
your Life. What does it mean to edit your life?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah? I think in general there's a lot of content
about decluttering, which of course is covered on the show.
But to me, editing your Life is about really addressing
well first, noticing the different pain points, stressers, areas of discontent,
whatever they may be in your life, and figuring out
how to edit those things out so you have more
(02:26):
room to do the things you care about, make days
more awesome, all of those things, because honestly, we all
deserve it.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, So well, I want to hear about how Christine
edits her life. So I am hoping you can talk
about some any routines you have right now in your
life that are serving you and making life better.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah. Well, my approach, especially in the last few years,
perhaps sparked by the pandemic, perhaps just sparked by who
I am in this current phase of my life, has
really been all about micro So what are the little
levers we can pull in our day to day lives
in order to insert a little more joy, find some ease,
(03:10):
some relief, calmer nervous systems, any of those things. And
because all of us are under a lot of stress
these days and we just need more touch points with joy,
we just we deserve that too, right, So I think
I mean just to think about Literally before breakfast this morning,
I decided instead of I really do try to start
(03:33):
my day by not scrolling. So if I have a
great book with me, that's like my usual first choice.
But this weekend I cracked open a brand new per
puzzle that I received from my birthday. So I started
my morning at like six in the morning laying out
a few puzzle pieces, putting them together while I sipped
my coffee, and it was like ten minutes before I
(03:55):
started doing the things like making lunch and whatever else.
But those little moments that I inst in my days
are proving to be really powerful for my general well being.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, do you have a usual morning routine? I mean,
is do you normally start your days with something like that?
Or I wonder if you can talk us through that.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Sure? Sure, Well I don't have as many children as you.
I have two. One is out of the house, she's
a college senior, and the other is a high school freshman.
So like many parents during the school year, we have
the routine of, you know, getting everybody up. We you know,
I do my little practice with my puzzle or my books,
and we all relax a little bit, and then it's
(04:34):
kicking into gear with helping our kid out the door
to school. She actually leaves pretty early at like seven
am for the bus because that's just how things roll
around here. And then I usually walk the dog with
my husband or I do I do these growing strength
classes like one or three times a week, which is
really nice, and I kind of do all that stuff
(04:55):
before I kick off my workday, so it's a lot
of nice. I'm realizing kind of personal touch points with
my family and my dog before I get rolling for
the day, which is you know, I'm sort of in
my office cave hammering away for a full day. So
it's a nice way to start the day.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah. Is there anything you've stopped doing? I mean, as
we talk about editing your life, is there anything in
recent years that you have stopped doing in order to
make life work better? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's a good question. I mean, I think if we
zoom out big picture, you know, the calendar and time
is always a big pain point for people. I mean,
you know that you help people autit their time all,
you know, on the regular. So I think that I've
really made a conscious practice of regarding any inbound invitations
(05:45):
I get, you know, through my work, I get a
lot of invitations to things. I'm always looking at it
with a lens of do I really want to do this?
Is this values consistent? Is this something that makes me
feel sort of grumpy and resentful? Or do I feel
joyful and excited about it? So I've really this is
kind of a longer answer, but like over a greater
(06:06):
body of time, maybe five to ten years, really worked
on listening to that gut reaction so that I can
easily just say no to the stuff immediately for things
that I don't want to do, because I think it
just people often struggle with saying no to things or
declining things. And one thing I've realized and a practice
I put into place a long time ago, was what
I call a graceful decline, where I just say no,
(06:28):
thank you, I can't make it, and I don't try
to make excuses. And I think doing more of that,
and so, you know, saying no to things that I
really don't want to do has created a lot more
space in my life.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, why don't you think people do that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That they struggle to do that? I think it's because
what I've found in the years of talking to people
about it is people want they don't want to hurt
other people's feelings, or they don't want to lie. That's
usually the thing. They don't want to have to make
up an excuse. And so that's why I say, just
don't make up an excuse, just decline gracefully, and that's it.
And I find that that works really really well. People
(07:06):
don't usually come back and say, well, why aren't you
going to come to my thing, and.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Earth has yet to crash into the sun as a
result as well. All as well, all as well for
share All right, Well, We're going to take a quick
ad break and then I will be back with more
from Christine co. Well, I am back talking with Christine
Coe as the host if You Edit Your Life podcast,
(07:31):
along with numerous other projects. So Christine, let's talk a
little bit about planning, because I know that how you
approach planning might be helpful for some people who are
listening to this.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yes, I love planning, and I have like the vision
of who I would like to be, which might be
somebody like Sarah Hardung with like a nice notebook and
some cool pens and whatever else. But I'm not that person.
My handwriting is terrible, so I do. I want to
encourage people to always find a system that works best
for you, otherwise you're never going to use it. So
(08:06):
I am weed to to do app. I use to dost.
There's a free version, but I use the paid version
because I like that you can, you know, link Google
docs and do a bunch of other things that make
the mental load of finding what you need much easier.
So I like to do a kind of plan a
two levels. One is the weekly level, where I do
a weekly look ahead. It's usually on Friday, but I'll
(08:28):
check in on it on Sunday just to make sure
things are holding, in which I kind of look at
my schedule see how busy it is. That's actually a
point at which I kind of do my like what
I call Goldilocks assessment of the week. You know, so
if things look good, great, If things look a little
boring or empty, I'll be like, oh, well, I have
a lot of freedom this week. This would be the
(08:49):
perfect time to try to schedule a catch up coffee
with a friend. Or if things are too busy, if
there's stuff that is really negotiable that I could move,
I might try to move some things around, because I know,
for myself and my personal work style, being back to
back in meetings during days is tough because then I
don't feel like I can actually do the work to
(09:11):
do other things. So I'll do the weekly touch point
on Fridays, and then every morning I pretty much start
my day looking at that to do list and identifying
this sort of top priority items for the day. Because
it's important to note that for me and my particular
mental load style, and also because I'm running a number
(09:31):
of different projects and clients at the same time, i
go super granular with my to do list, and I'll
break out specific tasks, probably to a level that some
people might feel as a little too granular, but for me,
I need that because then I know, okay, I did
that thing. Now I can move on to the next thing.
So doing the day look ahead is really important because
(09:52):
I literally flag in red into dost what are the
absolute top priority items, so I don't lose track of things,
you know, in my longer.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Lif And when you're talking very granular, can you give
an example of how granular these things are?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, I mean from actually for a podcast example, which
would be good because, as you know, there are a
lot of moving pieces. I usually do podcast production on Friday,
but I'll literally break out as separate tasks. You know,
listen to the sound files, create you know, cover art,
write show notes, what else is there? You know, schedule
to megaphone in certain timestamps. I'm like breaking all of
(10:28):
those little steps, which helps me not forget anything too.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, I know. That's always always helpful. And then
how do you actually organize your workday? Then I mean,
because you say you have multiple projects, do you aim
to do like all for one client on one day.
Are you always doing a certain kind of work in
the morning or is there some sort of structure that
you generally go with.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, Yeah, I definitely am a person who's I call
them the golden hours. I think that's a phrase that
you also use. And my golden hours for work and
creativity and productivity are is definitely the more arning. And
so late afternoon is when I'm really slumping. I don't
think that's unusual. So I usually try to round robin
on my clients in the morning, you know, after I've
(11:09):
gone out and walk the dog or gone to an
exercise class and I feel like I'm ready to sit down,
I'll round robin through those. Pretty much. I need to
touch everything every day, and then in the later afternoon
I can work on things like podcast production or writing
or thing or graphic design, things that still require my
brain but aren't as intense. So that's usually how I
(11:32):
batch it, and it kind of all works around meetings
and things.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, and do you have anything that helps you get
better ideas?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Better ideas? Can I make a confession and say that
I have yet to use chat, GPT or any kind
of way. That's all right, I've not.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I don't really use it either, so I made again
welcome to the club.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Okay, Okay, I just feel like I'm, like, you know,
sitting under a rock. Everybody seems to use it. I
just haven't. I think I'm kind of an old school
Reave that way. I do think that really good ideas
come when you're not sitting in front of a computer.
So oftentimes I'll and the only tricky thing is I
(12:13):
when I go for walks and things, I like to
not bring my phone so I can just kind of
like be free and bilateral and not be listening to
anything and just be outside in the elements. But I
do find that I tend to have a lot of
good ideas popping when I'm walking around. So sometimes, you know,
I will either literally bring a piece of paper in
a pen with me on my walk, or if I
(12:34):
have my phone, I can dictate into it to jot
those ideas down.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Okay, So an ideal walk is what we're for you absolutely,
And then I wonder, you know, we always love to
hear people's various time management strategies and any general productivity strategies.
I wonder if there's any you've used in the past
few days that have been helpful to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I mean I think that one thing that I've been
using for a very long time, I haven't needed it
yet in the last week because i haven't had anything
like terribly onerous. But I'm a big believer in do
your hardest thing first, because I think that sometimes tasks
that don't actually take a lot of time but carry
some emotional burden or some weight or some dread because
(13:18):
you don't want to lie about saying no to something
can be a struggle. So I sometimes will do identify,
like or give myself fifteen minutes at the beginning of
a workday to just power through some of that you know,
kind of dreaded albatross adulting type flavor of to do's
that really need to get done and just bust through them,
(13:39):
and it's so satisfying and relieving for the rest of
the day. And I really I know this is in
line with you and Sarah as well, but I really
do advocate for those check ins and figuring out looking
at your weekly sort of scope and what you want
to get done during the day. And not just from
(13:59):
a word perspective, but also like, you know, what do
I as human Christine co like person who needs like
love and nurturing in the world, Like what do I
need this week? So I think that's another important thing
that I think. I'm not sure it's as common in
productivity talks, but I think that we are more productive
if we also are nurturing all the sides of ourselves.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Absolutely I agree with that. Is there anything you have
tried that hasn't worked for you.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tribe that hasn't worked?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Not lately?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I mean, I'm pretty creature of habit these days with
the things that I enjoy doing. Yeah, I don't. I
don't think so though.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Just checking. Christine likes to try things out and they
often some element to them will will work.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, I'm sure there's something that I'm forgetting, But I
mean I will say there's one thing that I think
it's important to know, like to be curious, but also
kind of know your limits. So I mentioned and earlier
my handwriting is really bad, and I've always wanted to
be a journaling type person, and I just I couldn't.
(15:09):
It was a real block for me, and so I
started doing a micro journaling practice where I literally write
one or two sentences every day, and that has been
pretty powerful. But I'm positive that if I had set
myself up and said, Okay, I'm going to do fifteen
minutes of journaling every day, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't
have worked out. So I think part of you know,
experimenting with things is also knowing where your points of
(15:31):
falling off are.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah. I love that because, yeah, well I set yourself
up to fail if it's if you know it's not
a strength, then that apparently writing two sentences, even if
your handwriting is not wonderful, can still be accomplished.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
All right, Well, we're going to take one more quick
ad break and then I'll be back with more from
Christine co. Well, I am back talking with Christine Coe,
who is the of the Edit Your Life podcast. You
also mentioned you had a couple of substack newsletters. Can
you tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I love substack as and you're grade at substack too.
It's been so fun. My first substack is a personal one.
It's called There's Always a Story. I started that one
while I've written close to one hundred and fifty posts,
so maybe it's been two years or something, and that
one is kind of longer form. I would say it
(16:27):
can be anything from photo recaps and very food oriented
to deeper reflection pieces on work and parenting and lifestyle.
I think it was a real healing place when I
was transitioning out of a very toxic work situation a
couple of years ago into being fully on my own
as a business person. So I love that space. And
(16:50):
then just recently, like literally in the last month, I
started a second substack for the Edit Your Life podcast.
So some may say that was a long time I'm
kept coming since Edit your Life has been around for
a decade, but you know, good things take time, and
that has just been pure fun. You know. It's just
been kind of taking a micro edit, like a weekly
(17:13):
edit approach, and then occasionally I'll respond to listener questions
and that sort of thing. But it's you know, I'm
a writer and that space is such a happy one
for me, so it's been really delightful.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, it's definitely been fun trying out substack and seeing
how people are getting their work out to a bigger
audience through it. So Christine, I always ask my guests
this question of what is something you've done recently to
take a day from great to awesome? And normally I
just let people respond as they will, but I am
hoping that you will tell us a little bit about
(17:48):
a recent newsletter you did write, which is about your
birthday weekend, and afterwards you recounted I believe it was
fifty two moments of wonderfulness in the course of the
weekend in this newsletter, So that would definitely take a
day from great to awesome. Somebody you could talk a
little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, well, it was kind of an unexpected post. I mean,
I think I had in the back of my mind
that I might write something about my birthday. That's like
literally what I wrote as a potential idea for that
week's newsletter. I just turned fifty two, and my daughter
came back from college, and my husband and younger daughter Violet,
(18:28):
and the dog of course always around, and it just
the weekend started. I have the good fortune, or I
had the good fortune this year of having a Sunday
birthday on a holiday long weekend, so I had a
little extra time for awesome, and I just kept being
struck by all of these tiny, little moments, you know,
(18:49):
from the moment my older daughter came off the Amtrak
and walked in the house and I could see our
dog's tail wagging furiously in excitement. There were just so
many little moments of delight like that, and I didn't
want to forget them, so I just started writing them
down in a note in my to do app and
then the list kept growing and growing and growing, and
(19:12):
it just ended up feeling like this really delightful exercise
of noticing, you know, noticing what was around, noticing all
these moments where I was feeling people express their care
for me. And you know, it wasn't extraordinary. We were
at home that weekend, and I'm intentionally a pretty mellow
person when it comes to celebrations, so it wasn't like
(19:34):
I wanted some big thing I had asked for dinner.
I said, I just like snacks, Like snacks are my
favorite things, so I'd like snacks but with like shrimp cocktail.
That's like all I want. And of course the kids
made this like beautiful dinner. So I ended up jotting
all these things down, and when I finished the list,
I thought, oh, I think I'll share this to substack
it was fifty two things and I had turned fifty two,
(19:56):
So I thought, this is kind of magical. I'm going
to share this. So I think that exercise of noticing
is really important because oftentimes we're all so busy and
it can be hard to just pause and think about
all those tiny moments that are happening around you. But
when you do, even if you do it, you know,
(20:17):
it would be a fun exercise to do on a
Saturday or a Sunday to just, you know, drap little
moments down as you're experiencing your day and then look
at them at the end of the day and see
how that shook out. I think that would be a
fun exercise.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Well, and don't you think that perhaps by having like
once you started, I mean, you weren't necessarily going into
this intending to be like, Okay, I'm going to write
down when my dog's tail is wagging. But when you
started and then you knew you were going to keep
going with this, do you think that led you to
see more of them than you might sure otherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, And I had a couple of things that happened
where I realized hadn't I had just been kind of
in the moment I was like, oh, I should write
those down. Those were like, those are like really wonderful,
joyful things.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So yeah, it does like direct like just give us
one or two of them.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I mean, I just think like anything from okay. So
one example was earlier in the week. You know, I
told you about the idea. I just wanted snacks for
dinner and this shrim cocktail, and just a couple of
days before the weekend, some of our best friends on Earth,
who I love dearly, they live in the UK. They
happened to be in town and they said, Hey, is
(21:21):
there any chance we could bring birthday burritos by? And
they said, we literally were listening to your podcast and
you talked about how much you love burritos. I was like,
that is one that's really kind, like what a way
to be seen, and two that would just be blow
my mind amazing to actually see you on my birthday.
This is how much I love these people. And the
moment that I hadn't even thought about or wouldn't have
(21:41):
thought about writing down except I knew I was now
writing things down, was the moment when I stepped out
the door. I was actually trying to get some fresh air,
because my allergies had gotten kind of off the rails
and I was sneezing a lot, so I just stuck
my hat out the front door. And then that moment
when I saw their car pull up, and I started
jumping up and down like a little kid, and I,
you know, I kind of wrote that down in my
(22:02):
list because I thought, wow, like a what a great
thing to feel that excited to see somebody, and then
to have somebody see how excited you are to see them.
It was kind of like a dual mood boost.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love it, and I love Christine that you didn't
decide to make the fact that your allergies were acting
up as like, oh life is terrible, my birthday weekend
is ruined.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, seriously, I was complaining a little bit about the allergies.
But you know, be that as it may. This is life, right,
this is life.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I know the birthday is past, but
what are you looking forward to right now? Well?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I am. I mean many things, I guess, but
I think one thing that has been so fascinating in
the past year is I have become a person who
is fascinated about earth, specifically, you know, gardening, medicinal herbs
and so I have been exploring and I just recently
went to actually one of my podcast listeners DMed me
(23:00):
because they heard about some you know, free herbalist seminar
that was happening online. And I went to a few
classes and it was amazing and the people were just
the nicest. So one of the things I've been delighting
in is now being a person who thinks about the seasons.
And I live in the Boston area, so I actually
have four seasons, but thinks about the seasons in terms
(23:22):
of planning my gardening plans. So I have a very
nerdy Google doc and I was just working on it recently,
you know, with plans for the fall of this year,
some stuff to do in the dead of winter, things
to do in the spring. So it's been very satisfying.
It's a great hobby should anybody wish to pursue something different.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Gardening is a great way to take any day from
great to ask them, well, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
My general website is christineco dot com, but the most
the places where I'm most active are the ed of
your Life podcast, so you can find that wherever you
subscribe or sub stack if you just find me there
you'll there's always a story and edit your life wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, please go check that out everyone. Christine, thank you
so much for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening.
If you have feedback on this or any other episode,
you can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam
dot com and in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
(24:29):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
(24:51):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:23):
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Christine Co to Before Breakfast. Christine
is the host of the Edit Your Life podcast, along
with numerous other projects. So Christine, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello Laura, I'm so happy to be recording with you today.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, I'm happy to have you here. Well, why don't
you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Okay, the top line is, in my previous life, I
was a music and brain scientist. I have a PhD
in that field. That was a long time ago, and
whenever people asked me to drop neuroscience information, I'm kind
of like my training is a little outdated. But about
twenty years ago I left the field and just wanted
(01:05):
to create more independent, creative, flexible ventures and I started
in the wild world of the internet with a personal
blog and over the years, my various iterations have included
a published book, a couple of podcasts, a very robust
creative consulting consultancy. I work as a creative director and
(01:28):
storytelling expert, and so I just do a lot of things,
and I have a couple substack newsletters now. And I've
just always loved, you know, problem solving, helping people solve problems,
and you know, trying to disrupt this kind of perfect
lifestyle narrative with just how we all get things done.
And I think that's why you and I aligned so well,
(01:48):
is we're just both really committed to helping people figure
out ways to do things.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, take our days from great to awesome, as we
always say around here. So your podcast is called Edit
your Life. What does it mean to edit your life?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah? I think in general there's a lot of content
about decluttering, which of course is covered on the show.
But to me, editing your Life is about really addressing
well first, noticing the different pain points, stressers, areas of discontent,
whatever they may be in your life, and figuring out
how to edit those things out so you have more
(02:26):
room to do the things you care about, make days
more awesome, all of those things, because honestly, we all
deserve it.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, So well, I want to hear about how Christine
edits her life. So I am hoping you can talk
about some any routines you have right now in your
life that are serving you and making life better.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah. Well, my approach, especially in the last few years,
perhaps sparked by the pandemic, perhaps just sparked by who
I am in this current phase of my life, has
really been all about micro So what are the little
levers we can pull in our day to day lives
in order to insert a little more joy, find some ease,
(03:10):
some relief, calmer nervous systems, any of those things. And
because all of us are under a lot of stress
these days and we just need more touch points with joy,
we just we deserve that too, right, So I think
I mean just to think about Literally before breakfast this morning,
I decided instead of I really do try to start
(03:33):
my day by not scrolling. So if I have a
great book with me, that's like my usual first choice.
But this weekend I cracked open a brand new per
puzzle that I received from my birthday. So I started
my morning at like six in the morning laying out
a few puzzle pieces, putting them together while I sipped
my coffee, and it was like ten minutes before I
(03:55):
started doing the things like making lunch and whatever else.
But those little moments that I inst in my days
are proving to be really powerful for my general well being.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, do you have a usual morning routine? I mean,
is do you normally start your days with something like that?
Or I wonder if you can talk us through that.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Sure? Sure, Well I don't have as many children as you.
I have two. One is out of the house, she's
a college senior, and the other is a high school freshman.
So like many parents during the school year, we have
the routine of, you know, getting everybody up. We you know,
I do my little practice with my puzzle or my books,
and we all relax a little bit, and then it's
(04:34):
kicking into gear with helping our kid out the door
to school. She actually leaves pretty early at like seven
am for the bus because that's just how things roll
around here. And then I usually walk the dog with
my husband or I do I do these growing strength
classes like one or three times a week, which is
really nice, and I kind of do all that stuff
(04:55):
before I kick off my workday, so it's a lot
of nice. I'm realizing kind of personal touch points with
my family and my dog before I get rolling for
the day, which is you know, I'm sort of in
my office cave hammering away for a full day. So
it's a nice way to start the day.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah. Is there anything you've stopped doing? I mean, as
we talk about editing your life, is there anything in
recent years that you have stopped doing in order to
make life work better? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
That's a good question. I mean, I think if we
zoom out big picture, you know, the calendar and time
is always a big pain point for people. I mean,
you know that you help people autit their time all,
you know, on the regular. So I think that I've
really made a conscious practice of regarding any inbound invitations
(05:45):
I get, you know, through my work, I get a
lot of invitations to things. I'm always looking at it
with a lens of do I really want to do this?
Is this values consistent? Is this something that makes me
feel sort of grumpy and resentful? Or do I feel
joyful and excited about it? So I've really this is
kind of a longer answer, but like over a greater
(06:06):
body of time, maybe five to ten years, really worked
on listening to that gut reaction so that I can
easily just say no to the stuff immediately for things
that I don't want to do, because I think it
just people often struggle with saying no to things or
declining things. And one thing I've realized and a practice
I put into place a long time ago, was what
I call a graceful decline, where I just say no,
(06:28):
thank you, I can't make it, and I don't try
to make excuses. And I think doing more of that,
and so, you know, saying no to things that I
really don't want to do has created a lot more
space in my life.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Yeah, why don't you think people do that.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
That they struggle to do that? I think it's because
what I've found in the years of talking to people
about it is people want they don't want to hurt
other people's feelings, or they don't want to lie. That's
usually the thing. They don't want to have to make
up an excuse. And so that's why I say, just
don't make up an excuse, just decline gracefully, and that's it.
And I find that that works really really well. People
(07:06):
don't usually come back and say, well, why aren't you
going to come to my thing, and.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Earth has yet to crash into the sun as a
result as well. All as well, all as well for
share All right, Well, We're going to take a quick
ad break and then I will be back with more
from Christine co. Well, I am back talking with Christine
Coe as the host if You Edit Your Life podcast,
(07:31):
along with numerous other projects. So Christine, let's talk a
little bit about planning, because I know that how you
approach planning might be helpful for some people who are
listening to this.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yes, I love planning, and I have like the vision
of who I would like to be, which might be
somebody like Sarah Hardung with like a nice notebook and
some cool pens and whatever else. But I'm not that person.
My handwriting is terrible, so I do. I want to
encourage people to always find a system that works best
for you, otherwise you're never going to use it. So
(08:06):
I am weed to to do app. I use to dost.
There's a free version, but I use the paid version
because I like that you can, you know, link Google
docs and do a bunch of other things that make
the mental load of finding what you need much easier.
So I like to do a kind of plan a
two levels. One is the weekly level, where I do
a weekly look ahead. It's usually on Friday, but I'll
(08:28):
check in on it on Sunday just to make sure
things are holding, in which I kind of look at
my schedule see how busy it is. That's actually a
point at which I kind of do my like what
I call Goldilocks assessment of the week. You know, so
if things look good, great, If things look a little
boring or empty, I'll be like, oh, well, I have
a lot of freedom this week. This would be the
(08:49):
perfect time to try to schedule a catch up coffee
with a friend. Or if things are too busy, if
there's stuff that is really negotiable that I could move,
I might try to move some things around, because I know,
for myself and my personal work style, being back to
back in meetings during days is tough because then I
don't feel like I can actually do the work to
(09:11):
do other things. So I'll do the weekly touch point
on Fridays, and then every morning I pretty much start
my day looking at that to do list and identifying
this sort of top priority items for the day. Because
it's important to note that for me and my particular
mental load style, and also because I'm running a number
(09:31):
of different projects and clients at the same time, i
go super granular with my to do list, and I'll
break out specific tasks, probably to a level that some
people might feel as a little too granular, but for me,
I need that because then I know, okay, I did
that thing. Now I can move on to the next thing.
So doing the day look ahead is really important because
(09:52):
I literally flag in red into dost what are the
absolute top priority items, so I don't lose track of things,
you know, in my longer.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Lif And when you're talking very granular, can you give
an example of how granular these things are?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, I mean from actually for a podcast example, which
would be good because, as you know, there are a
lot of moving pieces. I usually do podcast production on Friday,
but I'll literally break out as separate tasks. You know,
listen to the sound files, create you know, cover art,
write show notes, what else is there? You know, schedule
to megaphone in certain timestamps. I'm like breaking all of
(10:28):
those little steps, which helps me not forget anything too.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, I know. That's always always helpful. And then
how do you actually organize your workday? Then I mean,
because you say you have multiple projects, do you aim
to do like all for one client on one day.
Are you always doing a certain kind of work in
the morning or is there some sort of structure that
you generally go with.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Yeah, Yeah, I definitely am a person who's I call
them the golden hours. I think that's a phrase that
you also use. And my golden hours for work and
creativity and productivity are is definitely the more arning. And
so late afternoon is when I'm really slumping. I don't
think that's unusual. So I usually try to round robin
on my clients in the morning, you know, after I've
(11:09):
gone out and walk the dog or gone to an
exercise class and I feel like I'm ready to sit down,
I'll round robin through those. Pretty much. I need to
touch everything every day, and then in the later afternoon
I can work on things like podcast production or writing
or thing or graphic design, things that still require my
brain but aren't as intense. So that's usually how I
(11:32):
batch it, and it kind of all works around meetings
and things.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, and do you have anything that helps you get
better ideas?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Better ideas? Can I make a confession and say that
I have yet to use chat, GPT or any kind
of way. That's all right, I've not.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
I don't really use it either, so I made again
welcome to the club.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Okay, Okay, I just feel like I'm, like, you know,
sitting under a rock. Everybody seems to use it. I
just haven't. I think I'm kind of an old school
Reave that way. I do think that really good ideas
come when you're not sitting in front of a computer.
So oftentimes I'll and the only tricky thing is I
(12:13):
when I go for walks and things, I like to
not bring my phone so I can just kind of
like be free and bilateral and not be listening to
anything and just be outside in the elements. But I
do find that I tend to have a lot of
good ideas popping when I'm walking around. So sometimes, you know,
I will either literally bring a piece of paper in
a pen with me on my walk, or if I
(12:34):
have my phone, I can dictate into it to jot
those ideas down.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Okay, So an ideal walk is what we're for you absolutely,
And then I wonder, you know, we always love to
hear people's various time management strategies and any general productivity strategies.
I wonder if there's any you've used in the past
few days that have been helpful to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
I mean I think that one thing that I've been
using for a very long time, I haven't needed it
yet in the last week because i haven't had anything
like terribly onerous. But I'm a big believer in do
your hardest thing first, because I think that sometimes tasks
that don't actually take a lot of time but carry
some emotional burden or some weight or some dread because
(13:18):
you don't want to lie about saying no to something
can be a struggle. So I sometimes will do identify,
like or give myself fifteen minutes at the beginning of
a workday to just power through some of that you know,
kind of dreaded albatross adulting type flavor of to do's
that really need to get done and just bust through them,
(13:39):
and it's so satisfying and relieving for the rest of
the day. And I really I know this is in
line with you and Sarah as well, but I really
do advocate for those check ins and figuring out looking
at your weekly sort of scope and what you want
to get done during the day. And not just from
(13:59):
a word perspective, but also like, you know, what do
I as human Christine co like person who needs like
love and nurturing in the world, Like what do I
need this week? So I think that's another important thing
that I think. I'm not sure it's as common in
productivity talks, but I think that we are more productive
if we also are nurturing all the sides of ourselves.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Absolutely I agree with that. Is there anything you have
tried that hasn't worked for you.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Tribe that hasn't worked?
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Not lately?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I mean, I'm pretty creature of habit these days with
the things that I enjoy doing. Yeah, I don't. I
don't think so though.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Just checking. Christine likes to try things out and they
often some element to them will will work.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, I'm sure there's something that I'm forgetting, But I
mean I will say there's one thing that I think
it's important to know, like to be curious, but also
kind of know your limits. So I mentioned and earlier
my handwriting is really bad, and I've always wanted to
be a journaling type person, and I just I couldn't.
(15:09):
It was a real block for me, and so I
started doing a micro journaling practice where I literally write
one or two sentences every day, and that has been
pretty powerful. But I'm positive that if I had set
myself up and said, Okay, I'm going to do fifteen
minutes of journaling every day, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't
have worked out. So I think part of you know,
experimenting with things is also knowing where your points of
(15:31):
falling off are.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah. I love that because, yeah, well I set yourself
up to fail if it's if you know it's not
a strength, then that apparently writing two sentences, even if
your handwriting is not wonderful, can still be accomplished.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
All right, Well, we're going to take one more quick
ad break and then I'll be back with more from
Christine co. Well, I am back talking with Christine Coe,
who is the of the Edit Your Life podcast. You
also mentioned you had a couple of substack newsletters. Can
you tell us a little bit about this?
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Yeah, I love substack as and you're grade at substack too.
It's been so fun. My first substack is a personal one.
It's called There's Always a Story. I started that one
while I've written close to one hundred and fifty posts,
so maybe it's been two years or something, and that
one is kind of longer form. I would say it
(16:27):
can be anything from photo recaps and very food oriented
to deeper reflection pieces on work and parenting and lifestyle.
I think it was a real healing place when I
was transitioning out of a very toxic work situation a
couple of years ago into being fully on my own
as a business person. So I love that space. And
(16:50):
then just recently, like literally in the last month, I
started a second substack for the Edit Your Life podcast.
So some may say that was a long time I'm
kept coming since Edit your Life has been around for
a decade, but you know, good things take time, and
that has just been pure fun. You know. It's just
been kind of taking a micro edit, like a weekly
(17:13):
edit approach, and then occasionally I'll respond to listener questions
and that sort of thing. But it's you know, I'm
a writer and that space is such a happy one
for me, so it's been really delightful.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Yeah, it's definitely been fun trying out substack and seeing
how people are getting their work out to a bigger
audience through it. So Christine, I always ask my guests
this question of what is something you've done recently to
take a day from great to awesome? And normally I
just let people respond as they will, but I am
hoping that you will tell us a little bit about
(17:48):
a recent newsletter you did write, which is about your
birthday weekend, and afterwards you recounted I believe it was
fifty two moments of wonderfulness in the course of the
weekend in this newsletter, So that would definitely take a
day from great to awesome. Somebody you could talk a
little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, well, it was kind of an unexpected post. I mean,
I think I had in the back of my mind
that I might write something about my birthday. That's like
literally what I wrote as a potential idea for that
week's newsletter. I just turned fifty two, and my daughter
came back from college, and my husband and younger daughter Violet,
(18:28):
and the dog of course always around, and it just
the weekend started. I have the good fortune, or I
had the good fortune this year of having a Sunday
birthday on a holiday long weekend, so I had a
little extra time for awesome, and I just kept being
struck by all of these tiny, little moments, you know,
(18:49):
from the moment my older daughter came off the Amtrak
and walked in the house and I could see our
dog's tail wagging furiously in excitement. There were just so
many little moments of delight like that, and I didn't
want to forget them, so I just started writing them
down in a note in my to do app and
then the list kept growing and growing and growing, and
(19:12):
it just ended up feeling like this really delightful exercise
of noticing, you know, noticing what was around, noticing all
these moments where I was feeling people express their care
for me. And you know, it wasn't extraordinary. We were
at home that weekend, and I'm intentionally a pretty mellow
person when it comes to celebrations, so it wasn't like
(19:34):
I wanted some big thing I had asked for dinner.
I said, I just like snacks, Like snacks are my
favorite things, so I'd like snacks but with like shrimp cocktail.
That's like all I want. And of course the kids
made this like beautiful dinner. So I ended up jotting
all these things down, and when I finished the list,
I thought, oh, I think I'll share this to substack
it was fifty two things and I had turned fifty two,
(19:56):
So I thought, this is kind of magical. I'm going
to share this. So I think that exercise of noticing
is really important because oftentimes we're all so busy and
it can be hard to just pause and think about
all those tiny moments that are happening around you. But
when you do, even if you do it, you know,
(20:17):
it would be a fun exercise to do on a
Saturday or a Sunday to just, you know, drap little
moments down as you're experiencing your day and then look
at them at the end of the day and see
how that shook out. I think that would be a
fun exercise.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Well, and don't you think that perhaps by having like
once you started, I mean, you weren't necessarily going into
this intending to be like, Okay, I'm going to write
down when my dog's tail is wagging. But when you
started and then you knew you were going to keep
going with this, do you think that led you to
see more of them than you might sure otherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Yeah, And I had a couple of things that happened
where I realized hadn't I had just been kind of
in the moment I was like, oh, I should write
those down. Those were like, those are like really wonderful,
joyful things.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
So yeah, it does like direct like just give us
one or two of them.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
I mean, I just think like anything from okay. So
one example was earlier in the week. You know, I
told you about the idea. I just wanted snacks for
dinner and this shrim cocktail, and just a couple of
days before the weekend, some of our best friends on Earth,
who I love dearly, they live in the UK. They
happened to be in town and they said, Hey, is
(21:21):
there any chance we could bring birthday burritos by? And
they said, we literally were listening to your podcast and
you talked about how much you love burritos. I was like,
that is one that's really kind, like what a way
to be seen, and two that would just be blow
my mind amazing to actually see you on my birthday.
This is how much I love these people. And the
moment that I hadn't even thought about or wouldn't have
(21:41):
thought about writing down except I knew I was now
writing things down, was the moment when I stepped out
the door. I was actually trying to get some fresh air,
because my allergies had gotten kind of off the rails
and I was sneezing a lot, so I just stuck
my hat out the front door. And then that moment
when I saw their car pull up, and I started
jumping up and down like a little kid, and I,
you know, I kind of wrote that down in my
(22:02):
list because I thought, wow, like a what a great
thing to feel that excited to see somebody, and then
to have somebody see how excited you are to see them.
It was kind of like a dual mood boost.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
I love it, and I love Christine that you didn't
decide to make the fact that your allergies were acting
up as like, oh life is terrible, my birthday weekend
is ruined.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, seriously, I was complaining a little bit about the allergies.
But you know, be that as it may. This is life, right,
this is life.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, I know the birthday is past, but
what are you looking forward to right now? Well?
Speaker 2 (22:37):
So I am. I mean many things, I guess, but
I think one thing that has been so fascinating in
the past year is I have become a person who
is fascinated about earth, specifically, you know, gardening, medicinal herbs
and so I have been exploring and I just recently
went to actually one of my podcast listeners DMed me
(23:00):
because they heard about some you know, free herbalist seminar
that was happening online. And I went to a few
classes and it was amazing and the people were just
the nicest. So one of the things I've been delighting
in is now being a person who thinks about the seasons.
And I live in the Boston area, so I actually
have four seasons, but thinks about the seasons in terms
(23:22):
of planning my gardening plans. So I have a very
nerdy Google doc and I was just working on it recently,
you know, with plans for the fall of this year,
some stuff to do in the dead of winter, things
to do in the spring. So it's been very satisfying.
It's a great hobby should anybody wish to pursue something different.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Gardening is a great way to take any day from
great to ask them, well, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (23:48):
My general website is christineco dot com, but the most
the places where I'm most active are the ed of
your Life podcast, so you can find that wherever you
subscribe or sub stack if you just find me there
you'll there's always a story and edit your life wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, please go check that out everyone. Christine, thank you
so much for joining us. Thank you to everyone for listening.
If you have feedback on this or any other episode,
you can always reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam
dot com and in the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.
(24:29):
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
(24:51):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Host
Laura Vanderkam
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