BEBS Podcast #2: Time - Start Where You Are But Don't Stay There

Linda W Braun31min

Linda

00:08

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the building equity based summers podcast. I am Lynda Braun and I'm one of the California Library Association building equity based summers, project team. And I'm here with Who am I here with? Hi everyone.

LaKesha (she/her)

00:23

Lakeisha Kimbrough and I am happy to be considered the equity consultant for the work that's happening with the building equity based summer's program.

Linda

00:37

Thank you for being here with me again. Lakeisha. I, our first podcast, this is just our second podcast. Our first podcast, we talked about why of equity based summer services. And as we were thinking about what to talk about for today, we thought, you know, time you and I are always talking about time. People might think that we're when I say we're always talking about time, we're going, Gosh, I'm so busy. I don't have any time when actually that's not what we're doing. We wanted to think about time, and also bring in that idea of why to our time and as you and I were planning this, we were thinking, one of the ways that time and y Connect is that if you if one if a person, a library staff member or community person says, oh, you know what, I'm so busy, I don't have time. It's a way to not have to think about your why and maybe a way not to have to reimagine and re envision because what happens with time is if you're like, I can only do what I can do, and I'm so busy, I'm just going to do these things that I know I have to do. You're not thinking about why if you start by you might find that you have to reallocate time and rethink time. Even give up some of that, like, Oh, I'm so busy kind of stuff when you think about that. Lakeisha

LaKesha (she/her)

02:04

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I was excited by that when we were kind of talking about that. And how thinking about time, and thinking about why actually go hand in hand in a lot of ways. And like you just said it, it will ask us I don't even know if it's a might I think along the way, it will actually ask us to reimagine, to assess to kind of evaluate what's going on with our time. And not that we have to do those things that are super stringent, that may be actually take away from our our ability to understand time. But I do think it, it potentially will ask us and you've heard me say this before. At as probably have some of the folks joining us, it asks us to really start to think about what's my relationship with time? What's my library's relationship with time and start to really, maybe that's where some of the assessment comes in. And some of the kind of really exciting exploration comes in is, how are we partnering with time? How are we using time? How are we sharing power with time, so that we can center our why?

Linda

03:34

Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And I'm thinking about, you know, we talked about this with our building equity by summers community of practice, we have a national community of practice of libraries who are participating in this work. And I was just looking at some of the quotes we use there. And one of the things you've taught me is that we have abundant time, right. And so this quote is, the best thing about time is we can use it however we want to use it. And when we start to look at time, from an abundant state, we can relieve the stress we put on ourselves to get everything done. And equity work is something we want to work on achieve, build, but we can't do it. If we're stressed about time, I don't think we can because we can't put the heart and soul that needs to go into it. And so can you talk a little bit about that abundant state of time because you actually are one of the people who's helped me to understand that. And thank

LaKesha (she/her)

04:33

you and I do think when we switch from this a scarcity mindset with time, that we are able to think about how to have a healthy relationship with time and how to view time as not something that has power over us, but something that we can walk, you know, alongside with, and it does ask us to think about What are the messages that we have received? And that's that kind of activity that you, you mentioned that we did with this the National Community of Practice, right? Like, what are messages I've received? When we think about time, and it's a scarcity. It leads us to lack. And it leads us to a few things. When we operate from scarcity mindset, we often begin to operate in a in hoarding. It's all my time, right? I don't I can't share this with anybody else. I only have 30 minutes. And in those 30 minutes, I have to do this versus Wait, I have 30 minutes, my colleague maybe has 30 minutes. This is a beautiful time for us to talk about, maybe get some feedback from one another about this the program that we're doing this evening. Oh, I wonder if my community partner has 30 minutes right now? Well, I have 30 minutes. And we can talk about what went well, what didn't you know, so how are we using? Using time in a way that maybe it's even thinking about? At our staff meetings? Or or at our team meetings? Maybe the check in question, or the question of the day is around our why? Or it's an equity pause, you know, maybe it's something like let's celebrate our wins, how are you showing up today? And what's a win, you'd like to celebrate with your programming, there are so many ways that I think we if we begin to think about time as a partner, and as a friend, versus something that is eating away at us something that we can never catch up with something that is always lacking? Because also, if we're always in a state of scarcity mindset, then it's really hard to focus on anything outside of what we don't have. Right,

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