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July 9, 2024 • 38 mins

In today's episode, Sarah interviews Amy Laski of the Difference Lab., and they discuss the idea of intentional subtraction -- removing things rather than just shuffling priorities or succumbing to "cram-it-all-in syndrome". Sarah and Laura discuss their own thoughts on this concept, and then Amy joins Sarah to provide her in-depth perspective on this idea and how it can be applied in both personal and business settings. She also shares her career path and her current day-in-the-life with 3 tweens/teens at home.

In the Q&A, Laura and Sarah address a listener question on kid 1:1 days. Does it need to be a full day, or do other variations work?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
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.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
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
episode is airing in mid July of twenty twenty four.

(00:47):
Sarah is going to be interviewing Amy Laski of the
Difference Lab, talking about intentional subtraction and how that can
make us more productive, efficient, happier at life in general. So, Sarah,
maybe you could share a little bit about what you
learned what this interview is going to be about.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
So we talked about subtraction in all realms of life,
from the career side to the life side. And I've
done some reflecting thinking about how subtractions can be really difficult.
I was thinking about what have been the big subtractions
in my life. I subtracted forty percent of my clinical
job to do other things. I have, at numerous occasions

(01:27):
subtracted various forms of social media for my life. And
I'll say I'm also really good at subtracting, like wardrobe
items and certain types of clutter, like I really don't
have a lot of clothes, and I'm not too bad
at if I'm like, I'm not wearing that anymore, I'm
going to get rid of it, to the point where
when sometimes people look at my closet, They're like, you

(01:47):
do not have any clothing, And I'm like, I think
I have the normal amount. I just don't have all
the filler that I wouldn't be wearing, if that makes sense.
So I'm good at sub subtractions. And then other times
I think I'm not like that into ending things, but
I don't know. If something's really good, it's hard to
want to end it. Hence my twenty year blog and
many podcast episodes. What about we have to substract everything?

(02:10):
I mean, what if you subtract it? Or like, does
the concept resonate with you? I mean I do subtract
things from time to time. I mean, certainly I have
stopped a great many projects over the years, whenever I
decide that it is no longer achieving the goals I
have for myself, or if it's not worth the time, money,

(02:32):
or effort, not as an overall thing, like it's not
a good thing to do with my time or with
somebody's time. It's just that the opportunity cost of doing
that versus something else has become too high, and I
would prefer to devote the time, money, or effort to
something else. So longtime listeners may know, I had a

(02:53):
short daily podcast called The New Corner Office at one
point that I was doing during the pandemic, and that
had a good run during the pandemic, but was relevant
once people were sort of going about living their lives,
going back to the office and all that. And I've
done many sort of like short article writing things for places,
you know, regular gigs writing for other people, And then

(03:14):
now I've sort of realized, like for short stuff, I mean,
you could just do it for yourself now, I mean,
especially platforms like substack allow you to monetize that even
in a way that it was harder to do in
the past, And so you know, would rather kind of
keep control of a lot of the short stuff and
then save the writing for other people from kind of
like bigger profile stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Right, So you know things like that.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
But I guess you can't always subtract your way to greatness, right,
This has to be a balance. Like eventually, I always
have people, when they're looking at their schedules, ask what
they want to spend more time doing, before I have
them say what they want to spend less time doing.
Because to some degree, when you put more things that
you love in a lot of the stuff that you

(03:59):
don't like as much will naturally take less time. Not always,
but to some degree. And so focusing on like the
good stuff often makes people feel like they're having more
fun and like life is a positive force.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
And then we can go clean up some of the
stuff that we need to get rid of. But you
have to do both. You have to add and you
have to subtract.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Yes, otherwise you end up with as our guests, we'll
discuss kram it in syndrome, which sounds bad, So you
can learn more about that in just a minute.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Yeah, we don't want to cram it in, all right.
Well let's hear from Amy Laski.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Well, I am so excited to welcome Amy Laski of
the Difference Lab onto best of both worlds today because
I was so intrigued when I heard that she has
this expertise and focus right now on intentional subtraction. We
are always tempted to add things, as Laura and I
talked about a little bit in the intro, maybe me especially,

(04:53):
and so I'm really excited to kind of get her
perspective on the other side. So welcome, Amy, Thank you
so much for having me so Amy, your company or
organization is called the Difference Lab. How did you become
interested in intentional subtraction and what is it exactly?

Speaker 5 (05:12):
Okay, So, intentional subtraction is the skill of being able
to fiercely focus on what drives value by subtracting what doesn't.
And I came to this by way of being a
former workaholic, I would characterize myself. And it's human nature
to want to add ad ad. We women, especially are

(05:33):
inclined to just do more, and I think we're kind
of socially driven to be more and to do everything
perfectly into the nth degree. And that certainly was me
and so throughout my life in corporate and then running
my own business for many years, while simultaneously then growing
my family. I realized this wasn't sustainable. And I, through

(05:56):
the help of Laura's books and I'm just developing new habits,
figured out what I needed to do to run my business,
to run my family, and what didn't need to get
done and how to still get stuff done without me
doing it. And I recently changed careers and partnered up
with another woman who had done some amazing work and

(06:17):
come up with the concept of intentional subtraction. And so
here we are running the Difference Lab.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
That is so cool.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
And the Difference Lab does it mainly work with small
businesses other people as individuals. How do your services kind
of work? And I guess walk me through what your
assessment might look like and maybe a little example of
how you might apply intentional subtraction in that context.

Speaker 5 (06:43):
So at the Differencelob, we work with usually large companies,
large to medium companies that bring us in to work
with individuals across their organizations or with teams.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
Within their organizations.

Speaker 5 (06:54):
That's when it's most effective when you have a team
that's together, committed with their leaders to figuring out what
they're supposed to be doing and what really drives value in,
you know, to their company, and then how to dehabit
and kind of get rid of what isn't driving value.
And so we work, we run workshops that are usually

(07:15):
three sessions long, and over that time we take people
through the process of identifying how we came here in
the first place, and what habits are underlying our inclination
to add ad ad, and then how to identify those
and then rehabit by subtracting and kind of living a

(07:36):
subtraction lifestyle.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
We would say, very interesting, can you I know it
might be a little bit like specific to whatever industry
and obviously you can't share specifics of companies that you're
contracted to work with, but could you share like even
a vague example of what that might look like, maybe
both in the professional context and then like a personal
example if you can, if you have one, sure.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
Well, definitely the concept of intentional subtraction can be very
much applied both to professional and to your personal life.
So once you get into the mode of spotting what
we call supposed to So these are the things that
we perceive as mandatory, but they really kind of divert
us from what the most essential work or the most
essential elements of our life are so on the professional side,

(08:24):
I'll stay the obvious. But meetings. Ever since COVID, you know,
the rate of making everything a meeting has gone up exponentially,
and now everything is a meeting, and not just a meeting,
but an hour long meeting or meeting weekly that's in
our calendars, and that eats up a lot of time,
especially if you don't have good meeting hygiene governing those meetings.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
So that's a big supposed to that.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
We help people identify, and then once you spot them,
we realize, Okay, where do they come from and what
can we do to reduce our reliance on meetings in
a life? Everything from you know, I'm supposed to cook
healthy meals for my family every day.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
Home cooked meals. I have to send.

Speaker 5 (09:09):
Hand written notes for baby gifts, be the one who
organizes all my friends going out things like that. So
these are all kind of the supposed tos that underlie
our habit of taking on more things that don't necessarily
align with what drives value.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Do you see obviously not all of the time. I
can't imagine it's going to be so black and white,
But do you see gender differences in what tends to
I don't know, reveal itself as coming off of people's calendars,
or do you find different or more things to remove
from one gender or the other, or does it seem
to be fairly neutral.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
I mean, I think we've both read statistics about kind
of this invisible load, how women tend to carry more
of the burden of running a.

Speaker 4 (09:52):
Family just generally speaking.

Speaker 5 (09:55):
So I think there's definitely differences in terms of we
look at our whole lives and what comprises how we
spend our time. So I think there's definitely gender differences
in a corporate setting, which is where we work most
of the time. It really depends on what's kind of
again underlying people's tendency to take on more so, whether

(10:16):
it's people pleasing or perfectionism mirroring, like you come into
an organization and you kind of tend to take on
what habits are existent already, and so ego is another one,
like showing everybody you can do this and things like that.
Those are what we call kind of onerous obstacles. So
those are the things that prevent us from divesting of

(10:37):
things that aren't really serving us anymore.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
That makes sense. It just made me think of the
concept of non promotable tasks. We had in excess that
on many years ago, and they did seem to disproportionately
fall to women. And I can imagine if you were
looking at a team and you were like, you know,
thirty percent of the things you're doing are actually not
moving the needle on what we actually need this team
to then clearing it out would do everyone a favor, right,

(11:03):
because then you're meeting more of the objectives of the
team and you're perhaps helping from a career standpoint as well.

Speaker 5 (11:09):
That percent, well, there's these statistics that show, you know,
like about sixty percent of people's time now knowledge work
or time is actually spent on work about work and
not the work itself, So not the knowledge work that
you're hired to do. You know, you're hired for our brains.
We're hired for our different abilities and our skills, and
the majority of the time we're actually not spending our

(11:31):
time at work using those skills towards the end that
we're supposed to have in mind. So our programm really
helps organizations refocus on that knowledge work that you're hired
to do in the first place. But importantly, it sounds
really easy. Okay, I'm just going to stop doing these things,

(11:52):
But it's really really tough, and so we walk people
through the framework and the process and the accountability for
actually doing so.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
I can imagine it being really tough. I mean, honestly,
it's totally different in a medical context. But I still
think about how access to care could be improved if
I was really only doing doctory things and not kind
of having to mix it up with all kinds of
other things. But at the same time, sometimes it's not
so straightforward to delegate various things, and I'm sure that

(12:23):
in the corporate context it can be similar. So super interesting.
Tell me about kram it all in syndrome. That doesn't
sound good at all.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
Well, I mean, I think it's rampant. It's kind of
a new epidemic, right, not new, but a ramp epidemic.
The idea that you're just trying to cram it all in,
the idea that our to do lists keep getting ever longer,
were there's so many digital distractions, things are coming at
us quicker than we can come at it. And the

(12:53):
idea of cram it all in syndrome is that we
have these to do lists and these priority lists, and
we just keep trying to reash off things up and
down the to do list. And many people that we
encounter when we go in to do our training, the
idea of actually taking something off their to do list
or out of their priority list is just revolutionary. And

(13:14):
so our tendency is to cram it all in. And
what we do is help people fight that tendency by
actually subtracting things out in order to focus on what
really matters.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
Okay, that makes sense. That's going to lead up to
our next topic. But we are going to take a
very quick break and we'll be right back. All right,
we are back, And I think this is very much

(13:48):
aligns with what you were just talking about, just the
temptation of oh, I can fit in everything, whereas we
know our time is finite. We learned that from Laura
right like, she has books which specifically say that, and
I'm with that wholeheartedly. So since we can't cram it
all in and we have to eliminate things, I like
that you referenced in your work something about supposed to

(14:09):
and encourage people to question that. Can you talk about
what that might look like maybe on the professional side
and then also on the personal side, and how do
you help people get away from the idea that like,
they won't be a good student, good mom, good person
if they're not doing things that they were ingrained to
believe are quote required.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah, it's a real, real toughye.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
Like, our greatest enemy, you know, in living in a
more focused way is ourselves and is kind of what's
been culturally ingrained ever since, usually when we were very young, right,
your women especially are taught to try to do everything perfectly,
and perfect is the enemy of good enough. We start

(14:53):
by identifying and helping people catch themselves asking why are
we doing it? Why are we doing it in this way?
And doesn't need to be done in this way going forward?
Is there a better way to do it? And oftentimes,
you know, what historically made us successful in our lives,
and whether it's a corporate or a medical setting, what
got you to the point you're at isn't necessarily what

(15:17):
will get you to the next point or achieving your
next goals in your careers. And so yeah, I guess
some if you're looking at some kind of supposed to
is that we see very common in a corporate setting.
You know, you're supposed to do everything perfectly. You're supposed
to work late. You know, that's often rewarded actually, and

(15:39):
you know so and so burn the midnight oil, or
you know, you're supposed to be accessible all the time,
like hey, I'm just at my kids dance recital or
on the soccer sidelines, but you can reach me if
you need.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
So those are things that we do to.

Speaker 5 (15:52):
Try to be generous to our teams, but in fact
they send signals that this is what's expected in the organization.
And then on the personal front, things like you know,
I'm supposed to solve everybody's problems. People can come to
me with different issues and not that I mean, you
want to be a good friend and a good parents

(16:14):
and whatever, but there's a certain amount of kind of
emotional burden that you end.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
Up taking on.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
And again it's one of those things that we end
up doing out of habit as opposed to more consciously,
which is what we try to drive that awareness by
helping people spot those supposed.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
To I feel like there was a parallel in both
of those, which is maybe boundaries, right, Like I think
sometimes there is this cultural expectation with work is like, oh,
I'm not supposed to have any firm boundaries. Yeah, you
can get me at any time, it's okay. And yet
long term, that mainly to someone deciding that this job
is like unsustainable, that they're burned out, that they're angry

(16:54):
because they can't be perfectly responsive at twenty four to
seven three sixty five, and and they're doing no work.
So then it like backfired on everyone or they're sort
of half there, which I think can be problematic. Like
if I call the doctor on call, I guess I
would rather it be someone who like, how do I
put this, Let's say you're calling a whole group and

(17:15):
instead of a call schedule, everyone's on a call for
themselves all the time, which means it's sometimes you're going
to get someone who's like really distracted because they're like
not going to be able to focus three sixty five.
Versus if you have a call system, they might not
be your person, but you're getting someone who like has
agreed to take call and is going to put their
focus into it, if that kind of makes sense.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
So one, it's figuring out.

Speaker 5 (17:34):
So I mean that's we say, I guess subtraction has options, right,
So it's not just like a black or white thing
like if you were looking to share duties, if I'm
understanding you.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
Correctly with other doctors.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
Then the idea if it doesn't have to just be
you who's responding, even if you're elsewhere and you know,
and doing something else, if you're sharing duties amongst others,
then yeah, you get somebody who has that undivided attention
and your patients are cared for, even if it's not
you doing the caring, which that kind of inner striver.
And you may wish to be the one who handles

(18:11):
all the calls and is on top of everything, but
sometimes we have to be selective about what we can
be on top of in order to fully really own it.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
And that definitely connects to you had a kind of
an interesting idea framework around not necessarily saying yes or
no to things when you're thinking about subtraction, but instead
thinking about maybe how you can do things differently. Do
you want to talk about that sets framework?

Speaker 5 (18:40):
Sure, so we call kind of we say, you know,
to do or or not to do is not the
only question. There's a happy middle gram where you can
get things done, but it doesn't have to be you
doing it. So we've come up with the sets framework,
which is basically strike all or part of a task.
So does this actually need to get done or maybe not,

(19:01):
maybe it's not working anymore and maybe we can strike that.
Or even if I'm supposed to have one on one
meetings with my direct reports to check in, does that
have to be done every week or can that be
done every other week or on an as needed basis.
The E is energy, so recalibrating the energy that you're

(19:22):
devoting to something or the time you're spending. So that's
the tease spending on stuff, so it matches up with
the urgency and importance. You don't have to do everything
perfectly and with your full energy and giving a ton
of time to get things done and then.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Looks like sorry, I'm just so curious about the energy.
One give me an example of recalibrating the energy, Like,
are you suggesting that some people kind of waste their
best energy on like email? And like maybe that should
be I don't know, Like how would it look to
still get something done but recalibrate the energy behind it.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
I'll give you an example.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
My kids are having an end of your school you know,
pool parties, and I really.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
Could go out all out.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
That is my tendency is to like kind of go
over the top, but instead we're having ordering in pizza,
having some treats, cutting up a watermelon, and the kids
will have probably just as much, if not more fun
than if I had gone over the top, and I
will have spent a fraction of the time for the
same fun.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
Output, I would say. So that's what I would.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
Call like an example of recalibrating the energy.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
You'd vote to something awesome, so figuring out ways to
just make it easier, make it take less energy, and
still accomplish the same thing. That makes sense.

Speaker 5 (20:40):
I had a boss who once said to me, you
know you're good enough. It's somebody else's perfect, and we're
really again, I think socialized to show up and give
one hundred and ten percent and everything, but not everything
requires one hundred and ten percent to be given in
order to get or done. And so yeah, that's what
this is about. Oh and then the last the S

(21:02):
we forgot the S, which is what we say of
sets substitute out. So that's basically delegate, so substitute ownership
over a task that you formally took on yourself and
have somebody else taking it on perfect.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
So what I was going to say is it sounds
like sometimes people resist this a little bit, which is
why why your company exists. I mean, you know, you
can give people this list and say, oh, yeah, subtract
out and it sounds really good. And yet I'm sure
in practice it is incredibly hard to change very ingrained routines, customs. Oh,
this meeting's been on the docket for a decade, Like

(21:37):
what kinds of obstacles do you encounter and how do
you go about bypassing those when you go into work
with companies?

Speaker 4 (21:44):
Yeah, I think you're right, it is.

Speaker 5 (21:46):
Habit change is hard, but we apply best practices for
changing habits, and key to that is really, first of all, understanding,
so really getting to the root of what's causing you
to take things on in the first place, and really
questioning things in your schedule again, why are we doing this?

(22:08):
Does this ladder up to the greater goal? And then
what do we do with this if we're going to
change how it's done. Yeah, and there's kind of lots
of obstacles, and we work through with people to get
that understanding. Because once you actually understand what your tendencies
are and once you spot things within an organization.

Speaker 4 (22:25):
We take people through the process.

Speaker 5 (22:28):
Of spotting tasks that may not be serving the team
or the company or yourself personally anymore. And once you
start to spot those and are aware of some of
your tendencies or what we call onerous obstacles, it's much
easier to actually start that change process. And so that's

(22:49):
really what we take people through.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
And it's especially.

Speaker 5 (22:52):
Effective when you have a whole team involved, because people
can spot things in one another, the team can commit
to together making certain subtractions and hold each other accountable
the leaders as well, and so that's really what's the
most effective device for change.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
I'm picturing literally going through someone's calendar and to do
list and then every single thing you see on there
just like almost like decluttering mindset, kind of like yes
see this can it go? Where can it go? And
like holding it in your hand and then like deciding
to like peacefully let go of it or or change.

Speaker 5 (23:29):
That's right, that's right, Yes, that's exactly what we do.
And the other thing to point out is it's, like
I say, it's like closet space. It fills up if
you've got it. And so once you've actually freed up
the time. The critical part is making sure you're spending
that time on what's valuable. And so that's again where

(23:50):
that the accountability comes in, whether it's to yourself, to
your team, to a buddy, to make sure that you're
reallocating the time in such a way that drives value.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Well, that is super cool. We're going to talk a
little bit about you now. Even though I love I
love the subtraction topic, our listeners are always eager to
get a little bit of an inside glimpse at the
lives of a lot of the guests we have, especially
if you have an interesting career and you have a
busy and full kind of work in life, how that

(24:21):
works for you. So I guess to start us off,
we are going to do our famous day in the life,
but I want you to explain how you came to
have the Difference lab, Like what was your journey from
working in it? Sounds like more traditional corporate kind of setting,
Like how did you go about changing things? And like
how did things look now?

Speaker 5 (24:42):
Sure? So, I actually I graduated business school in two
thousand and one, and I actually pursued a career in communications.
So I worked at a couple of top pr agencies in Toronto,
and then just with my husband and I had planned,
you know, to start trying to have a family and
extend last hurrah.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
I got recruited to work at Coca Cola, and so
I did that. You can't get more corporate than that.

Speaker 5 (25:08):
I had two kids while I was there, and when
I was to return from my second Matt leave, I
asked for a flexible work option and I was told no,
your job is all or nothing, and so I left
and that was the impetus for me starting my own
virtual PR agency and so.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
I did that way before Zoom became.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
A firm, and I hired people who were like me,
wanted to work but didn't want to do so full
time in an in person corporate setting.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
And these were smart, talented senior people. We did some
great work and I ran that for about twelve years,
and just this past year I realized, you know, I'm
not in love.

Speaker 5 (25:48):
With communications anymore, and I want to do something else.
What did I learn in this process and what skills
and value do I have to add to the world.
And I realized that, you know, I got really good
at the whole time thing, and so I thought, maybe
I can help other people figure out how to focus

(26:10):
on what matters for them. And I was connected to
this woman, Janet Winkler who she's an insights background and
interviewed like three hundred and fifty subject matter experts and
people who were trying to cram it all in, and
she realized the difference between the people who were crushing

(26:30):
it and the people who were being crushed was this
concept of intentional subtraction. So we've been working now together
for about six seven months and loving it.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
So yeah, so cool.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Took your life lessons, your business background, and probably a
dash of your pr put it all together and came
up with a new business venture that sounds so cool. Okay, well, Amy,
tell me what a day in your life looks like,
including remind well, tell our listeners how old your kids are,
kind of what things look like on a regular old
weekday in your household.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
There's no such thing as a regular old weekday in
my household. So I have three daughters, a husband and
lovely husband and three daughters ten, thirteen and fifteen. So
we're in the throes of, you know, between teenage hood
and yeah, they're amazing, very active and so never a
dull moment, I guess.

Speaker 4 (27:25):
I start my day usually by between six six thirty.

Speaker 5 (27:27):
I wake up, I work out for about an hour,
and then I either bike or walk with my youngest
daughter to school.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
My other two kids get to school independently. There are
three separate schools this year.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
And then my my zen moment of the day is
when I have a coffee and read the newspaper after
I've dropped her off. I usually reserve the mornings for
doing heads down work, so I try not to schedule
meetings then because I find I'm most productive at that point,
and then you know, have lunch in the afternoon, I
reserve for meetings, calls, walk meetings, Aaron's usually, and then dinner.

(28:05):
So I actually just we've had a full time nanny
throughout the girl's upbringing and then just this year went
down to part time, so I usually have my nanny
do the meal prep and things like that when she's here,
so that I just have to throw things together on
the days that she's not here, and kids much prefer
the days that she's not at our house because the

(28:27):
dinners are much better and talk about delegating. So we
have dinner usually it's you know, sometimes coming and going
because there's soccer, hockey, dance, all those things. And yeah,
I take a guitar lessons, so I do that some
evenings and then Friday night dinners we usually have together
as a family, so that's usually the one constant amongst

(28:49):
our busy lives.

Speaker 3 (28:50):
Ah. I love that, and it goes against the idea
that like something has to be every night routine for
it to count. But a week make it special. That
sounds awesome. We're going to take a quick break before
you get to our love of the week, but I
think your day in the life sounds lovely and fun
and I'm excited for you.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
All Right, we are back and we are going to
get to Amy's love of the week. I did warn
her in advance, so I'm guessing she's got something for us.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
Yes, you warned me in advance.

Speaker 5 (29:34):
But it was an easy one because my love of
the week is summer camp, overnight camp specifically, so not
just the fact that my three girls are going to
overnight camp so such a privilege, but just the concept
of summer camp in general. I just believe it's such
a formative experience.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
I think kids learn as much being away from mom
and dad as they.

Speaker 5 (29:56):
Do all throughout the school year. You know, so many
life lessons and life skills bills. I'm on the board
of the Summer Camp. I went to nonprofit camp as
a kid, and my two of my kids go to now.
I think that that that's my love of the week,
Summer Camp.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I love that. Well, my love of the week is
going to be a little nerdy. But I just found
out that Apple is going to allow time to texting,
which it's been a thing in the android world. Like
my husband likes he's an Android person, and he'll send
it'll be like time text, it was sent whatever. But
Apple has not made that easy to do. I mean
maybe there's a third party way to do it, but
now you can like set your text up ahead of

(30:35):
time and then have them delivered when you want, which
I think is just going to make it so easy
to like remind people of stuff, send like happy birthdays,
Like you can look at your calendar and see whose birthday.
I don't know, like all different kind of use cases
for that, And I'm just super excited that feature is
going to be a thing. So that is my love
of the week. Nice little bit nerdy. Well this has

(30:55):
been lovely. Tell our listeners where they can find you
your work as well as if they happen to be
I don't know, at a business where they think they
need your team, like, how could they make that happen?

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (31:08):
You can find all the information about our workshops on
the Difference Lab dot com or you can find me
on LinkedIn.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
We can message through there.

Speaker 5 (31:15):
So it's Amy, am why Lasky Laski? But really the
Difference Lab dot com has all of our information and yeah,
happy to answer any questions people have and see how
intentional subtraction can benefit them.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
Awesome, Thank you so much for coming on, Amy, This
is really fun.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
Well they are back.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
Sarah has been interviewing Amy Laski of the Difference Lab
about intentional subtraction and how that can add, as it were,
to our lives.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
So our question this week is.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
From a listener who has noted that over the past
few summers, Sarah and I have both done what we
call mommy days, or at least mommy half days, where
we do something fun one on one with each of
our children. This sounds like fun, but I don't get
a ton of PTO Plus, my kids are in regular
camps or childcare much of this summer, so you know,

(32:09):
I don't really want to pull them out of a
day of gymnastics camp to go do a mommy day
since they're probably having fun at that as well. So
what would you suggest? Is this still something worth pursuing? So, Sarah,
what would you say?

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yeah, I don't have them on the calendar this year
to be completely honest, because well.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
I'm I'm not going to say they won't appear in
some form. But last year I ended up doing them.
I think three subsequent weeks. I took like a Tuesday.
But recall that I only have two days to do
my creative work per week, so taking one of them
away for three subsequent week was rough. It was like
almost like going on part of a vacation for three
weeks in a row. Because it might not seem like

(32:50):
podcasting would take that much time, but there's two podcasts,
there's the ads, there's a back end stuff, there's a blog,
there's you know, like speaking sometimes, there's courses, there's like
all kinds of stuff and one day is not an enough.
So that didn't work that amazingly for me, and like
this listener, I don't have a lot of PTO, partly
because I accrue it at a reduced rate because I
work part time, which is fair, but it means I

(33:12):
don't have like limitless clinical days that I can take off.
So I think for me, the answer has been to
just like scale things down a little bit. And we
have had great success with dinners, especially because our nanny
is usually able to stay, so for me to pull
a kid out for a one on one dinner on
a given weeknight really doesn't strain the system all that much,

(33:33):
like either Josh gets home or our nanny stays a
little bit later, and that one kid feels really really special.
We tend to choose restaurants that are, you know, it's
fast food. Is tough because you kind of want it
to take a little bit of time and feel like
a little bit of an event. At the same time,
I do not want to like spend out for super
fine dining with my six year old, So it's been
like sushi restaurants or like the Boba tea place, or

(33:56):
I don't know, something kind of in between that still
feels kind of special and they get to pick the place.
Maybe it's not super close by, so there's a little
bit of drive involved as well, and then that's been
like a nice substitute. I'm sure they would also love
to do the full day thing again, but maybe we'll
scale it down in some other fashion. What are your
thoughts on this?

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, I mean I've done two long weekend trips now
with two of my older kids, which I think should
fill all mommy day requirements.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know, I went to France with Ruth.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
For a couple of days, and I discussed from yeah,
just France, and I went to New York with Jasper
for a couple of days and you know, yeah, that
was a Christmas present that we were doing, but it
was definitely a lot of time spent together.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
And Michael took.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
Sam diving, right, they went on a diving trip and
so that was a lot of one on one time
with a parent. So I mean, I think that we're
doing these in slightly different ways now, and travel with
an older kid is fun, and I've that's also like
really worth taking.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
I don't have pto but a day off from work
to do.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
As for the little kids, I might still wind up
doing something with each of them, but we've also wound
up sort of sharing this over both parents in a
way that I hadn't originally envisioned it, but I think
is a good option too.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
So they're getting.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Last summer, Alex and Henry both had daddy Days where
they went and did something all day with Michael, and
he just did it on a weekend, And that is
totally fine, like that, you could do a mommy day
on a weekend, Like there's no requirement that you know,
good mommy days only happen on Tuesday, like you know,

(35:43):
to be a good mom, you have to actually take
time off work to spend time with your kid, like
especially if you have other adults, if you have multiple kids,
but you have other adults in your life who can
do things with your children, like you don't have to
consider weekends off limits or something like that. So if
your partner has your other kids on a Saturday, go

(36:04):
do one on one things with one of your kids
on a Saturday, and maybe two weeks later you go
do it with the other kid. Or maybe they go
to Grandma and Grandpa's for a day and you take
one of them, or maybe you naturally have one of
your kids off doing something like they're going on a
class trip to an amusement park, and so you could
take your other kid and do something on that day.

(36:24):
So you can kind of just like look for opportunities
where this will arise. If I mean again, if you're
like a standard family with two to three kids a
five kids, maybe it's a little harder to get one
on one time, but especially you know, we can make
it work, right. It doesn't have to only be Tuesday,
it doesn't have to only be during the day. It's
just the concept of spending some dedicated one on one

(36:47):
time with your kids, which can be really fun when
you're not navigating fights and all that and you're really
just getting to know them and letting them do what
they want to do. So I would say it's worth trying,
even if it does look like the full week day.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah, parenting one kid is really fun. There's like a
totally different dynamic. No, seriously, like their personality is different,
Like everything feels different. And I was just thinking as
you were speaking, even if you had three kids and
you were like, Okay, let's say both Josh and I
did a solo day with one kid, like that would
be six saturdays total for each of us. To have

(37:24):
like one while the other one had two, and like,
that's not totally difficult, that's doable. And then you also
have the interesting dynamic of just having the other two.
I mean, in your case it's the other four, but
in our case the different pairings can be kind of interesting.
So yeah, maybe that'll be our new iteration. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Sounds good.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
All right, well, this has been best of both worlds.
Sarah has been interviewing Amy Laski of The Different Slab
about intentional subtraction. We will be back next week with
more on making work and life fit together.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you can.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us
next time for more on making work and life work together.
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