Career Building: Valuing Yourself, Your Time, Your Ideas

1:30PM Aug 23, 2023

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To understand how long tasks take is really important. And so what I like to do, especially for as how I started my career, and especially for new employees, I like to ask them to track their time just for one week to see how long certain activities take and so, you know, Are they checking their email for an hour? Does that take that time? You know, working on social media, you know, any of that? How long are those tasks taking and then we'll take time afterwards to really understand how they are spending their time and you know, different ways that we can make things shorter or you know, that oh, that projects going to take longer. We figured that out together, assigned time limits to tasks. I think that's really important too. Because otherwise you get ground. Like you just get focused on that thing. And then you're like, wait, I want to edit this. I want to do that and you keep changing it over and over again. And that's not productive, efficient or helpful, necessarily. So being able to say block off time on your calendar, one hour, I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to finish it and if I didn't finish it, either I'm going to have you know, pass it off to someone else or I'm going to be able to you know, schedule Okay, I just need 15 more minutes to do that and, you know, assign the time limits to tasks so that you're not just focused on them and spending the whole day doing it and one thing that I also have here, creating a daily schedule and sticking with it, meetings come up on your calendars, being able to you obviously have to do those, but being able to carve out the rest of your time. How are you doing it? Being able to schedule your lunch really important whether I know Nikita has been doing that on her calendar. She's scheduled time she's like, I'm gonna be eating lunch. They're like, Please don't bother me. And you're like, Okay, that sounds great. You know, being able to really budget that time and you know, maybe you want to do all your meetings in the morning, maybe you do them in the afternoon and you then carve out that time of how you're spending your day and doing the tasks that you need to get done here. One thing I actually a tool that I use, and I kind of mentioned, having people track their time there is clarify is a great app that I use to be able to, you know, you just start a timer, you be able to kind of see how long a task takes and when you're done. You stop it and you're like okay, now like no, and then that helps you keep track of your kind of time there and seeing how long things take you to do. So delegate as well or ask for help on and so that are those are the important things to think about. And I often and I will do that at the start of your day to be able to help you feel calmer and more relaxed and to be able to get your work done. group similar tasks together. You know, if you're working in spreadsheets or you know something and you have a couple of different tasks you need to do with that. Get, you know, you can put your those tasks together. So you're like, Okay, I'm in spreadsheet mode right now. Like, I'm just gonna get all those tasks done, or I'm working on social media for a couple different things. Like I'm just gonna write out all those, you know, not content right now for those different things. So being able to kind of get those together so that you are able to help you prioritize, but also kind of help be in that same mindset be that same frame of of work as you work on those tasks there. Stop Social media thing we're paying attention to right now or, you know, being able to, you know, my phone for text messages and things, you know, especially for deep work or things that I'm really trying to focus on here. i It's important to be able to eliminate those distractions for the time that you need. And then of course, you can revisit them afterwards after you've done you know, it's kind of like I said earlier about assigning time limits to tasks and creating that schedule there. eliminate distractions to help you focus. Finally getting organized. Being able to know what your to do list is being able to that will help you prioritize, organizing your desk like being able to know what you need to do where to find things. Really, really important. And we're going to talk a little bit more about what are ways that we can get organized.

And just to reiterate, as Carl mentioned, I do have a daily thing on my calendar about having lunch right it's so simple, but I am a grown ass woman. And if I don't have that, seriously, if I didn't have that on my calendar, there's days that I wouldn't eat, right like, and again, I'm a mother, I homeschooled, you know a kid during the height of the pandemic, all of that, but then that's where that started. Because it was also like and feed your child in the middle of those stressful days. But yeah, I work from home. So my sense of schedule is a little bit different, you know, then if I were to be in an office kind of environment all day every day, so yeah, and then I put like, focus time for different projects even in my calendar. I'll put like, focus time work on this, like, do not disturb or I'll put like, ping me if you do need to talk in between slack me or, you know, these are just some sort of like ways of getting through the day and feeling that sense of accomplishment because when you have that to do list right? And when you can check things off, whether you write that on post, it's whether you have a Google Doc or use some kind of tool. It's the best feeling right when you accomplish things and you're checking them off and then you feel like you've had a really productive day and so that I view that very much as a reward to myself of like, I got shit done today. So I'm always proud of that. And pivoting now a little bit to making time for yourself. So as we mentioned, it's hugely important that we do this even though there are 50,000 projects a million things we need to get done. It is so so important to always be thinking about taking that breather as Carl mentioned, the little walks, even just a hydration break, right go fill up your water bottle. Like when I did work in previous office environments. I was that office butterfly, where I would just stop by people's desk and have a little chitchat and whatnot because that also helped me kind of reset a little bit and focus and calibrate, then be able to go back to my desk or into a meeting and focus and so these kind of little things really do help to avoid burnout, right? Because sometimes, I don't know about you, but you find yourself sitting at your desk and you just don't know where to begin. Where to start because you just feel so overwhelmed. So taking those brain breaks and being intentional about your time will really help with that. The second tip here, as I mentioned is the walks you know, visiting other folks like eating lunch away from your desks. Hugely important if you can do that, right. Like even if you just sit I don't know if if your office has a cafeteria, or if some of you work from home and it's a hybrid thing like I often move from room to room in my house. Cal finds it funny. Like sometimes I'll be in my office and then I'll be at the dining table and then the couch and that also helps me focus different times of day. I'm lucky to have a house of course, but like even when I lived in an apartment like I would also kind of move about the place as well to make myself feel refreshed. And then this last tip here about taking time for yourself. I can't stress this enough about using PTO right like some people just kind of lose it if you don't use it depending on your company policies and things like that, but you know, for those who might be early in their career, you may not be able to afford that tropical vacation or whatever it might be right like traveling is expensive. And I can't stress enough that no matter where you live like there are ways to have time off and like still go out and enjoy things right and I know Kyle has some trick tips and tricks for that too. But the one thing I started doing before the pandemic when I lived in New York was being a bit of a tourist in the city because when you live somewhere you don't really explore your own city, right and so I started making a bucket list and got a few of those things done. And it was fun because when you do explore in your hometown, you kind of just discover like, cool things or new things to do and stuff like that. And now whatever phase of the pandemic we're currently in, I live in Atlanta, and there's a beautiful trail and walking distance to my house. So I will often go for walks and listen to music and do my best thinking that way or it's not. The Chattahoochee River is nearby in Atlanta. It's not as sexy as the Hudson River per se but its nature right and it sounds cheesy that nature is healing and stuff but yeah, it really is going and sitting outside and touching grass and all those things. So yeah, so this is the number one thing that I want to convey in this session. However you can take the time for yourself even if it is like yesterday I was running around obviously traveling here and stuff. I went and got a mani pedi because I wanted to look good, but be that helps me relax, right and so even those kinds of things, you know, self care goes a long way.

I just want to echo that because the reason the reason that we're talking about this is because when you take time for yourself, you bring your best version of yourself to your the work that you're doing and we're journalists like we know work is stressful. We're always on deadline, there's always something going on. And so that's why this is really important and not often talked about and how you do it in the workplace. And so, you know, this is why it's really important. And by bringing your best version of yourself, you're able to take on those bigger projects, you're able to prioritize your time better you know, you're able to do a lot more within your job there too. So and I also just want to say like I'm a big Has anyone done those like free walking tours in cities like I do that in New York when I'm like off just for fun? Like because why not like go enjoy the things in your life because it's unnecessary. This was your quote.

Yeah. I love quotes. Sorry, I know quotes can be cheesy but like, I think they're meaningful. And I like this one from Diane Von Furstenberg, who is obviously a Belgium fashion designer, but like also an entrepreneur. But yeah, it's you know, the quote is it's so important to take time for yourself and find clarity. The most important relationship is the one you have with yourself. Right? And that really reiterates what Kyle just said about putting yourself first taking, taking the time to be the best version of yourself because you can apply that beyond your job to even like with your family, with your friends, etc. So, yeah.

Awesome. So we're going to take just a moment here, you'll see this question right up here about what tools do you use to help with time management or what are you using that help you be able to stay organized or prioritize or anything here so before you type in your answer here on the slide, oh, poll, we want you to be able to talk about this with your neighbor. So talk a little bit about what you currently use. What are they using, you can and then once you've done that for a little bit, you can pull up the QR code there. Take a picture of your phone, type in your responses and they will automatically obviously appear here hopefully, and then you can also join@slido.com and it's hashtag oh and a leadership. My that I love my Yes, I want to talk so badly. So I agree with that. That'll help me manage my time a lot better, I agree. But feel free to talk about yourselves right now. And then feel free to add your responses. Here. We'll give you just about five minutes.

All right, keep your Convos going. But please make sure you put down what tools you use on the slideshow. So make sure you enter your information there

remember,

so thank you by the way for adding to the doc I meant to to know what time we go back to the hotel was like 10

Yeah, I didn't even finish packing it's like midnight. I'd like to get this off this morning on the train.

Yeah, I was like doing emails and then it was like 11 And I was like Ritalin

All right, everybody. Let's wrap up your Convos make sure you add them to the poll here. I'm dying at some of your answers. These are absolutely amazing. I don't like you guys. So good. All right. Let's take a look fit. Oops, a little too far. Come on. There we go. Okay. Feel free to keep adding to the list here. And the reason that I say that is because we will be taking these responses that you have here. We have a resource at the end that we're going to share and we're going to add a lot of your suggestions to kind of be able to collaborate and bring together all these different suggestions into one place. So you'll have that resource at the end of the session then that you can carry with you and have the tips and things that we've had here. Handy. So let's take a look at some of these because these are fantastic. Obviously we see like calendar pen notes lists like no book. I know my oh my gosh, come on. There we go. I should stop touching it. I know like my my boss Marie here in the back over there. She uses post it notes to help organize her thoughts and everything so definitely something that I also use this a lot as well. I know and she has like a giant wall of a calendar that she likes to paper calendar. Sticky notes I don't read I also do that Asana bullet journals, teams slack reminders, Evernote clickup. What is clickup? Who wrote that? What is it?

It's, it's essentially a sorry, essentially a tool that allows you to take one big task and break it up into smaller sub tasks. And you can assign them to teammates, and then you can also track progress to goal so it's very nice and it does have different views with calendars, lists, documents, and more. I don't work for them.

Not hashtag add. No. That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. I see Pomodoro method that sounds like food, what is the Pomodoro method?

So it's a study method and basically what you do is work in increments and take breaks in between. So what I do is I break it up into per hour. So you'll work for 50 minutes straight on a task and then take a 10 minute break. And then just do that for however long you need.

That's awesome. All right, cool. And I want to hear about this KNOCK KNOCK To Do List template. And if whoever it is, I want you to share it.

Oh, this one like this one says what the am I doing is a reality checklist and it's

like am I gonna get it done actually. I love that awesome. Thank you all for sharing some of these. Like I said, we're gonna gather them together here. And to be able to put that in our shared resource doc here but one also thing that I use for time management is when I want to do deep focus tasks. I also I listened to music because you know, I can't just sit in silence all the time. That'd be so bad. But the thing that I do for deep work is I listened to those YouTube videos of like Lo Fi music or I'm also a huge Harry Potter fan. So I listened to the like the you know the Harry Potter music for on repeat for 10 hours or Lord of the Rings or something like that. So that also helps me focus at the same time feel like I'm having fun. So there are definitely different ways to time manage here, but we're not going to shift into our second part of our session here, which is about once you take the time for yourself and be able to prioritize and organize you have the capacity to be able to do your job and focus on the work that you need to do. So how do you take the ideas and the things that you want to accomplish at work and be able to get the buy in from your bosses. So I'll pass it over to Nikita

and Kyle has now got me into Lo Fi music I have to say I find it very relaxing. But when there's a moment of time when I have to get shit done, I listen to the succession theme song. Because it just like gets me in the mood and then I'm like, Okay, I'm going to tackle this to do list or focus on this project. So it's kind of like my hype song. I don't know if we have succession fans in the house, but it is daunting, but I love it though. I don't know. Every time I just hear the music. It just has such an impact on me. But yeah, next slide please, my friend. Perfect. All right. So one of the number one things throughout my career that I've struggled with both early on and now is sort of like ideation, right? Like, I'm a big ideas person brimming full of ideas. And as a woman of color, sometimes it's been tough for me to be able to sort of articulate ideas at times or just know, you know when exactly to bring ideas up. And when not to like it's it's a skill and it's an art that has to be sort of learned over time. And so these are just some best practices that I've kind of discovered in my sort of or kind of followed throughout my career but having an idea file, right, like, we've talked about sticky notes and post its and to do lists and stuff like that. But like actually organizing your ideas is a really effective thing, because then you always have let's say a Google Doc or something right to come back to and sometimes your ideas might grow and change over time. And this kind of resource in a file can help with that. Right. And if you have a reputation in your newsroom, as an ideas person, when someone asks you for an idea on the fly, you won't feel like you're on the spot because you can quickly like pull up this doc and you're like Bing Bing, boom, yeah, there's your idea. You know, so because it that's, that's one problem, right? When people think that you're this constant fountain of knowledge and ideas and then you're like oh, crap, there's expectations to live up to at that point. So yeah, so I highly recommend, whatever tool that you prefer just consistently keeping a running, running list and I even kind of prioritize a little bit my ideas of like, short term or small ideas versus like, long term, big ideas and big projects and things like that, that kind of helps me be organized as well. And then doing a little bit of research, right, like, who's been in that situation where you pose an idea, and then they ask you, someone asks you a bunch of questions, and you're like, Oh, yeah. And then you kind of have to fudge it, right? Like, just do a little bit of homework about your ideas. And that way, then, in situations where you might bring them up, can you know, candidly or whatnot, then you have some knowledge or thoughts to kind of back the ideas up and so you could also kind of add, as I mentioned, to the ideas in your idea file, but you know, you don't have to do tons and tons of research but like just having a little bit of knowledge and gives you that a formed approach, you know, when you're presenting your ideas. The number one thing to stress about ideas, too, is do they actually map towards your company goals, right? Like you always have to think about that. So in my idea file, I actually have my company or my team's like, mission, vision values sounds really nerdy, but that actually helps me then think about, Okay, does this goal like what OKRs can come out of this idea and do they map to company goals because that's the number one way to sell your ideas to executives when you can make them understand right? What's the value proposition of your idea? And does it make a you look good, and be your manager look good, right and accomplishing your company goals as well. And then timing right? Like, sometimes it's like, if you're having coffee with your boss or in your one on one, there's many opportunities to, you know, hopefully if you have a good rapport, bring up an idea or two or you know, in casual way or in a formal way and stuff like that. But sometimes there's like, it's not the best time or place to bring up ideas. So understanding like, what the vibe is like reading the room, sometimes, whether you're in that one on one setting, or a big meeting, or let's say if like, unfortunately, like if layoffs are happening, like, you know, you just have to be a little bit sensitive, and sometimes, there's just ways to navigate these conversations because, you know, there might be a whole conversation if there have been layoffs you know, you're discussing you know, how to then share workload and divvy up things and when you have ideas and thoughts about that, that's actually great and could be very productive and helpful to everybody. But it's kind of understanding that you have just have to phrase things sensitively and that you are coming to the table with solutions. Despite the fact that like, you know, that you know, an awful things have just happened. And so, you know, you'd like as someone that's always brimming with ideas and energy, sometimes you might just have to tamp down on things. Just think a little smartly and thoughtfully about when it's appropriate and how to bring up your ideas. as well.

Kind of stole my job on this next slide, you went through some of those tips already. But what I love about this kind of framework here too is this should look very similar to you because it's what you'd basically do as a reporter anyway, you have an idea of a story. You do research on the story before you pitch it so you can see if it's real does it with your goals? Is that what you cover within your organization? What void Are you filling is serving your community and you plan out the timing of when you can do that story? Is it on your isn't next week are you know, can you fit into your schedule now so you know, but also this is relevant just in terms of larger projects internally within your organization to like I said, Nikita kind of stole my my slide here, but that's okay. So I'll just reiterate some of what she said about for sharing your ideas within your organization, with your colleagues, with your bosses, and how you can get buy in from this because that's always really important. Having that friendly, helpful approach when sharing ideas that you know, you're not being like, Oh, I have the solution. And this is the end all be all it's you know, being able to be collaborative and helpful and, you know, be part of the team when sharing ideas. There. Nikita mentioned reading the room and knowing when to share an idea because you need to be able to know when that opportunity arises for you. And so, being able to listen in those meetings, being able to ask questions, because you know, that will help inform your idea of whether or not you should pitch it right now or you know, talk about it at a future date. You know, being able to listen to ask questions before just jumping in, you know, piggyback on someone else's idea. Yes. And how about this or, you know, how do we, you know, maybe we approach it this way, you know, in that kind of setting, being able to do that. I love the gut check your idea against the company vision, mission values and goals. Hopefully that that could be on your website, hopefully, if not, you know it internally and if not, there's a lot of work you probably need to do anyway to understand what your company vision and mission are. But that's the you know, just before you pitching, and before you share your idea, making sure that it fits within the work that you're currently doing within your organization. This one is so so so important. Finding allies and collaborating. Of course you can have your own idea and being and you know, share that with the team and everything, but it always helps if you can find one at least one other person who agrees with you and is willing to back you up in a meeting or say hey, like Nikita has a great idea like I think we let let her talk about this. You know, finding your allies within your organization whether you want to launch a new product or whether you have an idea for a newsletter or you know, something, you know, that's being able to find a person that will help support you, and also maybe help with some of that workload is really important. And you know, being collaborating together there and sharing your ideas or solutions oriented I know no one really likes to hear like introduced problems right. So like being able to say hey, like I have a solution for this problem. And you know, making sure that what you're pitching or what you're talking about with your idea, um, can help solve that. Once you get that green light and being able to do this, whether you're in a meeting with others or with you're talking to your boss and you they say okay, like I trust you like go ahead and do this. Make sure you do the follow through, right? Nothing. You want to make sure that you were you got the permission to do it. So do it, get data and that's really important, whether it is both quantitative and qualitative data, because both are really important. Because what do your bosses care about? The bottom line, whether it's helping improve metrics, whether it's helping, you know, make money in some way, they want data that the time that you spent to do that is actually doing something for your organization, and make sure you report back. Whether that is in a an actual report, whether it's in a meeting, what share your results. Because that, you know, allows you to be able to, you know, talk about what you were able to accomplish there. And, you know, be prepared obviously for your meeting, creating a memo drafting an email to follow up, you know, sharing your proposal, you know, sharing the highlights of what you talked about with your points of what you would cover and documentation, I think just in general is always important to have, especially with a project within you know, an idea there. Documenting kind of everything that you've you've done is really really important. So these were some of those tips

Yeah, and all of this is to say that hopefully, you will work in newsrooms where there is a culture of sharing ideas, right? Raise your hand if you've worked in an organization where that's not the case where your ideas are shut down immediately, right. It's very disheartening, right? It can be and so for some of the managers in this room we hope that you're listening to some of these tips. And you know, we could have a whole different training session about fostering a culture of innovation and ideation as well. But yeah, it's I've definitely been in those newsrooms, too, as that idea person where, like, I've gotten shut down many times but then it's about finding your allies, and building relationships and trust so that then you're getting that buy in over time. Sometimes, it can be much easier said than done. Other times, it can take a long time, especially for early career folks to get, you know, to be listened to to be seen to be heard like, but repetition is key to that, sadly, and it's about finding the right ways and times spaces, to keep exercising the muscle of like sharing your ideas and how it can help and stuff like that. I've had to, as I mentioned, especially as a woman of color have had to do that a lot very early on in my career as well. And it paid dividends because then building that rapport with different leaders in my organization, and showing that there's a level of trust to then once we finally have launched something or done something makes a big difference, right. And then that comes back to the last point about the loss to following up again, right sharing results of your ideas, and that entire follow through and follow up is really, really helpful as well. So yeah,

just one more thing on that. The reason I also mentioned follow through is and get the data and report back is because even if your experiment or the idea that you had was unsuccessful. The fact that you had you did this and you were able to present it to your team to your boss, the chance of you being able to do another experiment or another idea of yours improved significantly because they trust you. They've been like okay, even you know, you had an idea for this. It didn't work. Out. Let's try another one. And you've done the work to show that you are capable and able to do it. So that's why that's really important there too, as well. We are now going to move on to our second activity. So we're going to do a little bit of a roleplay exercise, so I'm hoping you've gotten to know your neighbors pretty well already. So because that's really important. We'll in ideally, pair on but if you have a group of three, that's okay too, because you can have two managers you can have two employees, however you want to do it. Just find the people right here next to you, and I'm gonna give you the scenario. So keep that in mind and we're going to do like a little role playing exercise as I said, where one person will be the employee asking for to share their idea or to do their experiment. And then your manager whether they are good manager, you can be a good manager or you can be a bad manager. Both are really important to know how to deal in circumstances. So you get to choose with your partner or your group about which one you want to be and how you want to act it out. But here is your scenario. Okay, listen closely. You observe that your company is falling behind in terms of its social media presence. I think that's something that's happening to all of us right now. So this makes sense. Even though this is your first role after graduating from college, your internships have yielded significant achievements in developing Tik Tok strategies. You've even established a personal brand on Tik Tok with 40,000

Even though a company is realizing

all right, you have five more minutes. So if you want to switch you can switch otherwise keep going and I want to hear about these combos. After

All right everybody let's wrap up your Convos your role playing

All right, everybody

all right. How many of you got your tic toc strategy approved? Did anybody you got yours approved? You got yours approved. All right. Wow. So how many bad managers that we have in the house? Wow. Yeah, well, you were a bad manager. How many bad managers were there? Yeah. Okay. How many? There were some good ones. You had a good manager. See? Y'all are just too nice. No, I love it. No, that's good. I would love to hear a little bit from you guys about what's something that you might have. I have a question here and I need to put it up there. We go. What was something that stood out to you? What's something that you learned from that interaction about how you would approach a situation or whether you would do it differently? And my colleague Marie will bring over the microphone to you.

Hey, I'm Laura. I had a bad boss who was very believable and a good boss and it was the employees so it was a little awkward. And I was pitching a tic toc plan for like a local news agency or outlet. And it was interesting. I went to the bad boss. This felt too real because I'm on a digital team. Sometimes I'm the boss. Sometimes I'm the employee. And I went to the bad boss first with my plan. And she was really good at being a bad boss. She had really clear reasons like why we you know, young people are not paying for news. We don't have the resources for this. It was very believable, and I actually felt like I looked dejected. Like, I was like this feels very real. This is what would have happened and then I went to I found like kind of an ally and in a good boss. And through that interaction, my good boss helped me understand the motivations of the bad boss better, and then sort of find ways to pitch it, read pitch it and get the resources that the bad boss would need to accept the idea. So that was that felt very real. And I learned a lot through that.

I love that for you. I'm sorry that you started your q&a session, feeling dejected here. But that's what you mentioned about finding allies then that collaboration was really important. And also the fact that you were rejected the first time when you pitched it right. Does not mean necessarily that you can't go back to that person again and pitch it differently. Now knowing information or you know, like, they're asked for different you know, things. So that's really important, and that's really key. So I'm thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it.

A lot more important lesson for that, right? It's called Managing Up. Right? And that is a skill too. We could have a whole session about that.

Yeah, yeah. A bad boss. Go ahead.

Hi, there. I'm Ari, this is going MA and one thing that we ended up talking about was, what do you go in proposing? And what's going to shave that essentially we kind of you know, we're thinking there's a version where you just go into your manager and you say, Hey, um, one thing I want to let you know is I'm I'm great at social this is the thing outside of work has nothing to do with the scope of what I do at this company. But yeah, if that's ever something you want to utilize, I really understand it. Well, here it is. Or do you go in with a plan and you say, Hey, I know my own did a little audit of our company's social and it's really underperforming an engagement, you know, not really helping with commenting. I think what I would do differently is is that the other end we're just saying, that it really feels subject to who you're talking to and what your relationship with them is, is this someone that you think is going to be receptive to that unsolicited feedback, or someone that you will just lightly put it out there and wait to be invited to offer those comments. So

yes, thank you for sharing that. That is really key. That is really you mentioned research and like that part is what Nikita mentioned earlier, that research part is really important. You did an audit of your social media already, you know, so you went in with the knowledge of this is what we're already doing. Here's potentially something that could work. But you did also mention about how obviously this is very subjective because it depends on the person you're interacting with. And so I've had bosses where I could just be like, Hey, I have this idea like what do you think about it, you know, be very casually but then others you know, if I did that, they would be like, What? What are you talking about? Like I'm not entertaining this idea unless you have like, a thick right? And so like, you know, you have to be able to understand part of what Nikita was mentioning with managing up. And same with managing down to you know, being able to bring colleagues on board with what you are implementing or doing is also really important. So, thank you all for sharing. I am we do want to just, I don't even know what time it is right now. Four minutes. Perfect. We're right on time here. So we are this session was only an hour this could have gone all day and I would have loved it if it did. But we do want to open it up for questions and just talking about some of the things that we talked about today. I did mention a resource guide that we have created. It is a Google Doc, we will be adding the real tools that you threw up on the slide out today. We'll add that to the doc shortly after the session. So feel free to grab that QR code, save it on your phone and you know, we'll be able to also add this to the Oh, and a conference website. So it's available to you all there too. Yeah, so you have any questions or do or does anyone want to talk about? Yes, go ahead. What she's bringing the microphone

Thank you. It's a question related to the first part, which is how to find the discipline to commit with saying no given time to yourself, Delegate have breaks and because we do know the tools and the actions but what is your tip to find the discipline to do that?

That's a really great question. I tried to do this, all of those things on a daily basis, because if I don't, then I'm not going to get anything done. And so when I worked at Twitter, I worked at twitter 1.0. I always have to define that. One of the things they drilled into us though, was like this notion of like prioritizing ruthlessly and so I start my day out like my morning routine. I won't give you the whole thing but like I make my coffee as I'm drinking coffee, then I'm going over that to do list right? And then that really helps me sort of like I look at my calendar, what meetings do I have, then I'll put like the focus time specifically on my calendar like so yesterday and the day before it was like focus time to work on these presentations and these these workshops and things and then that then helps me think about what am I open windows of times and then I'll even put in like, go for a walk or something like that. And like some of those I'll put privately on my calendar because I don't need my colleagues being able to see when I put my personal breaks in or what they aren't necessarily right because that's that's my business is my time if I want to do put in like a brain break for 15 minutes, you know, you don't have to make it public on your calendar to write but you know, you can if you want or not. But yeah, that's kind of how I tried to ruthlessly prioritize and then at the end of the day, as I mentioned, I come back to that to do list and when I can check things off, and when I have like, done finished that deck I have to work on or whatever it was the most annoying thing. Then I have the sense of accomplishment. And it's actually to me that it's like a contagious thing of like an everyday start my day like that I end my day with a bit of a routine of productivity. That's, that's my takeaway and my tip.

I'm the opposite. I feel like you know, we share those tips and it is really difficult to do all of those at one time. And for me, I'm always like, Oh, it has to be all or nothing like I have to do them all or like I'm not doing any of them really. But it's taken me a while to really focus on like, I need to pick one or two of these to prioritize that I'm going to focus on like, I'm going to work on delegating, be giving more tasks away so I don't feel overwhelmed. That will help me with prioritizing. So being able to pick some of the things that you know you're like, I really want to do this one or like right now because it's going to be helpful. You can do the others later. You don't necessarily need a tool to implement like right away for that you can, you know focus on like putting it on a sticky note. And then you can translate that into you know, a later version there too. So I think just also being able to pick one or two things to focus on is helpful. You don't need to do it. All right away because it'll take time.

And that's the thing I agree with that it is hard to do all the things all the time. Right. And so then that goes into the notion of making time for yourself. If you didn't get all the things you wanted to get done. It's okay. Like give yourself that grace. Right some things are urgent, you may be under deadline with some things but then there might be three or four things that they'll just have to wait for tomorrow. And you have to also train yourself to be okay with that. Right like, tomorrow is another day. Shit did not blow up. It's gonna be okay. I curse a lot because I'm a Brit sorry. But also we're journalists. We all curse all the time. So I'm fine. I was apologize because I'm a Brit too. So I'm going to not do that. But

we are just one minute over time. But does anyone have any other questions or last comments here before we say goodbye really quickly? Yes, go ahead.

I have a lot of shiny ideas for projects and things and proposals. How do you think about prioritizing those and picking your battles?

Yeah, that's that's tough. I would say the thing like one the documentation of it, you have this giant list of shiny ideas and things that you want to do. Paying attention to what's happening internally in your organization. Like in a meeting, they say, you know, we're starting to gear up towards the 2024 elections, right? And one of your ideas might be something related to Okay, now I need that's like a priority because they're looking for ideas for that. I'm gonna pause on that environmental story or whatever, you know that other project idea that I had that like, you know, they're or they just got funding from a foundation or something that they you know, okay, that's a health so I want to have this health story or whatever there too. So it's like, being able to understand what's happening internally with your organization and prioritizing those needs there too. Or it's a law right and you're like, actually have the bandwidth to take on this larger project, which I know is going to be a lot of work. And so let me focus on that right now for a bit and you might work on that for a bit and then you have to shift priorities right? So you know, it's just being flexible, I think in that regard. All right. This was great. I hope you guys had a great first session for oh, and I hear these are email addresses in case you want to get in touch with us or have any follow up questions. As we're, as we mentioned, we work for the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. We have professional development training programs that we offer, where you can take them if you're looking to upskill or gain new skills or anything like that. We're here all week. So these are some of their sessions, come back and see some of them. Nikita and I have another one later today on leadership skill mapping. Our colleague Jeremy here in the back who will be talking about tools, he is the tool guru. So that's going to be a really good one. So we have some great sessions coming up this week. So please come and find us. We do have three programs that we have kind of working on. So we have the executive program and news innovation and leadership. And that QR code is there. That's the program Nikita runs for media. Executives, entrepreneurial journalism creators program that's Jeremy in the back there. If you're looking to start a new venture or create a newsletter, or podcasts or whatever website, we can teach you how to do that. And we actually have applications open right now if you want to participate in our next cohort. Jeremy has a flyer in the back if you want more information on that and then our newest product management certification is for mid to senior level product people, people who are in those roles and want to, you know, learn more about how to do them effectively. We have a program coming out in January. That will be all about that and applications will open in September. So check out our website, sign up for the information there. It's really important and thank you all so much. For engaging for a session. I really appreciate it

yeah and I'm gonna go okay oh is this no just they're doing it's like streaming yeah audio it's like closed captions