Send show notes for life

One way to stretch the fun of gathering well into the future

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to send show notes for your life, give
people resources to follow up on interesting tidbits, and you

(00:26):
can extend the fun of gatherings well into the future.
Today's tip comes from a New York Times good list
by Melissa Kirsch. Just as show notes are often published
right after a podcast airs, she passes along her friend's
suggestion of sending show notes after social get togethers. As

(00:48):
she explains, the impulse is the same as with a podcast.
There are so many interesting things I want to follow
up on. After your monthly brunch with your college friends,
after a family gathering, after a happy hour with your
colleagues from your old job, after a particularly lively sideline

(01:10):
chat with other parents during your kid's softball game, send
an email or text with show notes from the time together.
Like show notes for a podcast, this would include annotated
links to the various topics that came up that you
promised to send each other, more information about the tented
moisturizer that you swear by, everyone's favorite crock pot meals

(01:32):
that you all mentioned when you are lamenting how sports
practices make dinner prep hard. A link to the poem
about the child learning to swim that your friend mentioned
in conversation, the novel your colleague recommended that was based
on the author's experience of growing up visiting her mom
in prison. You can compile all the show notes and

(01:55):
email or text them out. Or you can introduce the
idea of sending show notes with a playful tone and
offer a few entries for the show notes yourself and
invite everybody else to reply all and send THEIRS. This
is especially helpful when you may not be able to
find all the links yourself, like everyone's recipes. If you

(02:16):
send a link to the recipe you suggested, other people
can then send links to theirs. I see a few
benefits to sending show notes for your social gatherings. First,
you can follow through on each other's recommendations. When you
are planning meals for the next week. You don't aimlessly
hunt for the recipe your friend mentioned. Instead, you look

(02:38):
in the text chain. When you are placing library holds.
The show notes from your work happy hour remind you
that you want to read Harriet Clark's The Hill. Sending
show notes for gatherings also helps you extend the experience
of gathering. You can look back on specific moments from
your time together, which pushes some of the fun into

(03:00):
the future. If you send show notes to a group
of people a few times, it may become a routine.
Now to point out the obvious, it's not necessary to
do this. Sending show notes does not need to go
on your to do list, and it doesn't need to
hang over your head making you feel guilty until you
get it done. Not having time to send show notes

(03:24):
afterwards shouldn't stop you from gathering. Just gather. Even if
there aren't show notes, the gathering still happened. It was
probably meaningful for everyone. But if sending show notes would
be fun for you, and if you think receiving show
notes would be fun for everyone else, then send them.

(03:44):
Show Notes for life can be a great way of
extending the enjoyment of connection, and I think we would
all appreciate a little more connection in life. If you
try sending show notes after your next get together, let
me know how it goes. You can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this

(04:09):
is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making the
most of our time. 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

(04:38):
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.