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Why Listening Well Is More Important Than Giving Advice

It’s fun to brainstorm, to be clever, to solve things. There’s a smattering of satisfaction associated with this—at least for me—because it feels good to solve things. It feels so good, in fact, that I notice sometimes I interrupt, break in, or try to solve something before we’ve even gotten to the root of the question. In our lives, it’s easy to jump right in and propose solutions before we even understand the scope of what’s happening. The trouble is, how do we know that our advice is what really needs to be said? Here’s how and why to listen, instead.

Habit Shift — Episode #044

How can we change the way we operate? While there are tons of suggestions out there on how to break bad habits and build better ones in their place, how can you figure out what strategies of habit change work best for you?

Here’s the System I Used to Cut 50% of My Workload This Year

Most of us are taking on an insane amount of work, and we’re stressed, burned out, and over-tired from it. This year, I decided to plan ahead and find a way to do WAY less, but do it strategically. But what would I leave off the plate, and what would I keep? Here’s the three-part strategy I used to evaluate my time and my energy, and the surprising insights that came as a result of the exercise. Also: heads up, this is a lengthy post (4,500 words and counting).

When My Husband Took My Last Name

I felt the way about changing my name the way some people feel about having kids: I didn’t feel too strongly about keeping or changing my name, and hadn’t yet decided what I wanted. To be honest, by the time I was 30 and in a partnership, changing my name felt like a lot of work, especially in a digital age with internet footprints. People already knew me. But then the question of kids came up, and we agreed we didn’t want hyphens. And we wanted to share the same last name. “I want to take your last name,” he said. I’ll admit one of my first thoughts was: “Are you sure?”

Choosing the Simple Moments — Episode #009 With Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves 

Having children invites chaos into your life. So if your work focuses on minimalism and simple living, how do you align those themes with the bedlam of being a mother, a parent? As the mother of two children under the age of four, with a six-month old in the house, simple moments are even more precious to Erin. Today she shares how her background in history and public humanities led her to explore the idea of ‘living small.’ I ask Erin about her gentle approach to self-improvement and how she defines courage within the context of being a parent. Listen in to learn how getting comfortable with uncertainty a big part of parenting, why she cautions against speaking about pregnancy in universal terms, and how you can embrace the ‘idyllic and beautiful’ moments in your life.

Achieve More by Doing Less — Episode #008 With Kate Northrup of the Origin Collective 

Kate Northrup always knew she wanted to be a mother, and she pursued entrepreneurship partly because of the freedom it could afford her to be there for her kids. What Kate wasn’t counting on was the way pregnancy would change her drive and refocus her energy when it came to the business. She admits that it took her a long time to “get back in the game,” and that her husband and business partner, Mike, picked up the slack. But Kate credits having her daughter, Penelope, with initiating a personal evolution that allowed her to clarify her desires and ultimately renew her interest in the business and the way she thought about showing up for work in the first place. Perhaps there was something revolutionary here: because, as she shares in this episode, she found that she was able to achieve more even while doing less. And that some of her most productive weeks happened when she was working only 20 hours a week on the business. Today Kate shares her “shocking and awesome” birth experience, explaining how parenthood impacted her business as well as her marriage.

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