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Momentum call: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Momentum call

Jessica Mehring55min

Jennifer Catalano

00:00

Oh, how you doing? Oh,

Jessica Mehring

00:04

running around like a chicken with my head cut off this morning. How about you

Jessica Abel

00:11

fine, just trying to get the end of year stuff pulled together. Start off next year strong. You know?

Jessica Mehring

00:22

Yeah, I used to do that kind of thing,

Jessica Abel

00:26

yeah? Well, I just have, I have a launch in the first week of that'll do it anyway. So I want to get that done before taking time off. Love it. Yep. Hey, RI How you doing?

00:40

I'm good. Here I am.

Jessica Abel

00:46

How's your planner going this week?

00:51

It's slow because I didn't do any work on any of my projects.

Jessica Abel

00:57

Okay, well, at least it hasn't not worked yet.

01:02

It'll work as long as I work exactly.

Jessica Abel

01:05

It's kind of, kind of a partnership.

01:08

Yes, I, I'm, I'm grateful, actually, that you framed the you know, I did have a holiday weekend, even though I didn't really intend to. I mean, my kids don't live with me, but they were around. So it nice off. Yeah, no, no, it's great. I love them. They're adorable, but they like, they monkey with my schedule and my sleep schedule. I mean, even though Yeah, it's Yeah,

Lisbeth Frølunde

01:33

I think also like

01:37

they're they're not house guests, but they're not, it's just so weird. Not household members, right? Yeah, there's some kind of weird state that they're in.

Jessica Abel

01:49

Yeah, mine are both teenagers, and I'm bracing myself for a shift when they

01:58

Yeah, it's really different starting I mean, it's also, it's also the first time in 23 years that I've had this much like capacity, because suddenly my kids are just, they're not around. They don't need me in the same way. And it's, it's kind of relief,

Jessica Abel

02:12

yeah, it's kind of amazing. It's like, a little of both, I'm sure. Oh, it's

02:17

a lot of both. Yeah. All right, let

Jessica Abel

02:20

me hit record. And we will officially get started. Hello. This is the momentum system meeting for December 3, 2024 and today is an open session.

Lisbeth Frølunde

02:34

Jessica Abel

02:38

if anybody has specific questions. Feel free to post those in the chat or say them when you we come around. But I'm just going to start with you, Ri, and start with something good and something that's been a challenge, and just kind of open the conversation there before we hit record. You're talking about the challenges, and also something good of holidays, because it was Thanksgiving last week, and all of us, I think, who are here in the US, ended up with like that is a real holiday, like it's just everything's different. And the last few years, personally, I have been running Black Friday sales over the holiday, and they'd all been written ahead of time, so I didn't have a ton of stuff to do, but it was like I had to kind of be in it, and this year I didn't, which was nice. It was a nice change. So anyway, RI what else is going on? Tell us, previous to the holiday, let's, let's, pre date,

03:41

yeah. So previous to the holiday, I had conducted four interviews, which I can just glance at my Project Tracker. There they are, 1234, triangles,

Jessica Abel

03:54

research interviews, or like ri

03:56

research, yep, right. And I gathered a bunch of information. The main information I'm finding out is that people need support organizing themselves to organize like getting started is hard, figuring out what to do with the stuff is a big challenge for a lot of people like and it's something I don't really have good answers for. There's, there's no good way to get rid of stuff in this culture. There's because there's so much of it. I don't want to be the person who like runs an Etsy store just to help people sell their stuff, but maybe there's somebody who can do that. But a lot of people are conscious of like, there's this, there's this range in the in the clutter land of people who, like, let it build up, but then they just do it themselves. Um, versus people who let it build up and they need support, versus people who are just like that, kind of like on the side of Hoarders, they'll just never get to it. But accessing someone like that seems a little mysterious to me. Like finding them and then getting them to want help, or like getting them to own that they want help.

Jessica Abel

05:11

Yeah, I mean, I would say it's important to not go for people who don't know they want help. Oh, yeah, there's plenty of people who know they want help, whether or not they've been able to start it at all, yeah, that's plenty of people to fill your practice without trying to get to the people who are like, okay, it's fine.

05:32

Yeah. So that's good to hear, because, like, part of me, like, there's the part of me that just wants to help, right, that really wants to be of service, and it's actually great to remember that I can't help everybody anyway. Yeah. So help the people I can help in whatever, yeah.

Jessica Abel

05:50

And I mean, you're one person, and if you build out this business and you have a few people, you're still just a few people, like, you're going to be able to help a certain number of Yeah, people, and help them a lot, make really big changes in their lives, but you're not going to be able to reach a massive number, yeah, you know.

06:06

So unless I have it like a, like a public

Jessica Abel

06:10

I mean, that that's an option in terms of helping more people. But the point is, like you get to choose. You get to choose who you're going to work with, yeah, where you're going to focus. And so I recommend going in group two. You know, the people who are, they're aware of the problem and they want help. I think people have a lot of sense of guilt and responsibility about their stuff in terms of getting rid of it. They're like, yeah, I bought this thing, or I was given this thing, and now I have a job to do with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So finding some I do think that if you, you know, asked around, you probably would find somebody who's interested in running an Etsy store, or has an Etsy store, and would be Yeah, stuff to sell,

06:55

yeah. So that's so it's on my list of like, building partnerships with people, so that all the pieces that I don't want to do or can't do, I know people who do want to do and can do and love to do. So that's yeah. So the Etsy store, or whatever that is, is definitely on that list, or a local estate sale company.

Lisbeth Frølunde

07:16

It also

Jessica Abel

07:18

doesn't need to stop you, though, because I don't think you need to promise you can help them deal with, oh

07:22

no, no, no. It's just, it's just building out the model that I'm working on. And obviously, like, it's that I'm just parking somewhere, but I do, it's come up already. Like, what the hell do I do with this stuff? It's actually value, or occasionally, there will be things with a lot of value, and it's just like supporting people to find the path for that stuff to go out is actually, I think, part of decluttering. I mean, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, like valuing, evaluating. I mean, it's also something I'm really good at, so it's, it's just like knowing the difference between junk and treasure, like, just monetarily, like, there's other, there's other, like, value structures for that, sure, of course, yeah, something I have noticed, and I'm noticing it also because I'm writing like that. It seems to be part of my creative work at the moment, which is hilarious to me in both of these like, I'm speeding up, like I listened to one of my interviews with someone, and I I like, was resorting to my old tricks of interrupting and having opinions and like, it's okay for me to be knowledgeable, but I'd like to actually dial it back how I share that and let more of the other Person emerge. So it's like, oh, look at me doing that. Jessica.

Jessica Mehring

08:48

Well, I don't want to interrupt your like, train of thought, but as you were talking about your different, like, the different kind of groups that you're talking to, it came to mind for me that I am inheriting a lot of clutter. Yeah, my aunts, especially when my grandmother died, my mom had, my mom is one of seven, so I have a lot of aunts who was a big fight over all of the belongings of my grandmother, and it got, you know, split up, and now my aunts are aging and realizing that they have a lot of clutter, and I am being sent entire boxes of things that my aunts gathered from my grandmother, and a lot of It ends up in the trash because I, I don't have anything to do with it. I mean, I don't. There's nowhere for it to go. There's nowhere for it to go. And some of it I can give to my daughters, but it's like it's just adding to the clutter of my house. And I'm having to figure out, you know, what to do with all this stuff. If I throw it away, if I give it to Goodwill, if I, you know, there's, there's some valuable things in the mix, but I don't have the time or capacity to sell it, so I just, I wonder if there's a, it sounds like a service.

10:13

You just me, yeah, yeah, no. I mean, that's a, yeah. That is, actually, there is a couple of people I've talked to are like, widows who have inherited their collector their collector husbands. Like, you're you're Elizabeth, one of them the worst, yeah, I mean, it was something I was terrified actually, with my ex husband, because his parents are, like, huge collectors of things, and their house is chock full of stuff. And it just gave me so much anxiety, and my ex can't get rid of anything, and I just like that. And now I'm like, now I'm off the hook from having to deal with it, but it gave me anxiety for many years. Yeah, so it was you Liz bet and another woman I talked to, and the other woman I talked to, she's just like, methodically getting rid of stuff. I met her because she put treasures in the street that I picked up. Danger, danger. Yeah, so for me, like, the thing that the place where I'm, like, assigning myself the task and not quite getting to it, I did work on it a little bit. Was actually writing up the offerings. I notice I get, like, kind of spacey and bored really fast with that. So I'm wondering, I'm wondering if I can find another method, like maybe recording myself talking to somebody.

Jessica Abel

11:30

Ri it's really good one. Yes, that's a really good idea. And I think that even recordings of this of us talking, going back and getting ways you're expressing things and what you're talking, what you when you tell us about a problem that you are seeing like that's something that then can make it into your sales copy. Yeah, yeah, for sure. When you started talking, there was something else that was the types. And there was some other piece of this that I wanted to say something about. And then I lost it. Oh, the

Jessica Abel

12:14

people are having trouble starting. So one thing you might think about here in terms of making this something like, I don't think you really need to do at this point, list building, particularly like email list, although you do want to have an email list where you can let people know about availability, and, you know, share stories or whatever. So I would definitely recommend setting something up if you don't have one, or if you do have a system, I'm sure it's for other things, and so tag people who come in this way. But some kind of, like freebie or thing that you can offer to help people kind of get ready would be a checklist of some kind, or, like, a little quick, easy document, which is like, here's what you need in order to get started decluttering. Yeah, you have clutter. You're, you know, intimidated by it. It just you have on your list, like declutter, and it never goes anywhere, because it's a project. It's not a task. You know, that's like my framework for that, right? Yeah, no, I love, I

13:18

love that. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna steal from you. Jessica, oh, well, and

Jessica Abel

13:21

I stole it too. Like, it's not proprietary. I'm just saying, that's what I've been teaching you, you know, yeah. But the that idea that people are like, I just need to declutter, it's like, you know, then they look at it and it's like, the which is what's happening to you with the sales copy, by the way, you're like, right? Sales copy, and you're like, because you don't, you know, like, what goes into it? What do I do, you know? Yeah, so, giving them a little thing, which is like, here's your task list for Declutter. Like, forget, ready to declutter, this, this, this, and this, you know, and the you know, having something along those lines, I think would be useful, and you don't want to obviously, like going for the people who need support, like, this is our group of people. You're going for people who have clutter are committed, like they need to do something about it, but they need support. Do you need or want support? Yeah, so you want to give them enough to feel like this is something that if I can help you with it, I'm going to be the person who can help you. I can be the help that you need. And so first you need to get your head around this, and you this is what I'm going to give you in this freebie.

Lisbeth Frølunde

14:46

Yes, go

14:48

ahead. Lisbeth,

Lisbeth Frølunde

14:50

yeah, I was just thinking that maybe one of your target groups is actually people who are sort of in women in the middle of life, who are in between the clutter dealing with the clutter of kids who've moved away from home, who are not getting their stuff. That's one type of clutter that's still in their house and will need support somehow organizing it, or also need support organizing maybe their parents or so there's a willingness, there's an openness, there's kind of a pilot in there, but that pilot can't quite get to do it, because it's an uncomfortable role to be in as a mom, or as a as a child of someone who's not clean, you know. So it's like you would be the gift, the person who can help kind of mobilize something that's Hi Jennifer, that's stagnant. I mean, that might be a more, you know, might be an interesting way of thinking about, yeah, women who are who really want to declutter,

15:48

also, don't they just don't have the time, right? Like, the, what is it called the sandwich? Yeah, between the kids and the parents,

Jessica Abel

15:57

yeah, and I would actually really, like, very concretely, aim for sandwich generation, you know, or like people who are in that place where and and just post that like you were a sandwich now you're like, all of a sudden your kids are away and your parents have have died, or have moved, you know, downsized and like you have all their stuff. New problem. You know, sandwich was one problem, but you still have a career, yeah, and now you have money because your kids are done, you know what I mean? So this is, like, ideal for you, like, that's the kind of thing you want it. Those are the problems you want to be talking about. I think, yeah, is, is being in that position one thing you might want to think about is Mother's Day promos,

16:41

oh, although this is something sort of Bleak about that. Um,

Jessica Abel

16:46

yeah. But if your mom is constantly like complaining about your stuff in her house, oh, oh, or your Oh,

16:53

that's safe. Oh yeah, Mother's Day promo, right? Because it's not the mother who's buying it, it's their her,

Jessica Abel

17:00

her people or children, are like, let's get some great let's support mom, yes, yeah. And you could have some kind of, like, you know, you'll bring a cake or something,

17:13

flowers, flowers. Yeah,

Jessica Abel

17:15

you'll bring flowers, and you will handle, you know, one room of stuff, you know, like a mini, mini taster version of this, yeah, and, and then, like, then they're like, Okay, I definitely want this for everything.

17:31

Yeah. So something that I'm bumping into already is the like, there's the, there's the coaching paradigm where I'm just kind of giving a structure and saying, Go do but people want company. They want company. They want, like, they're handheld. They want like another, like people, like, one thing that's hard for people is deciding and having an external voice who's not, like, embedded in the all the stories. I mean, like, we put all these stories like, I don't know. I think we're all secretly animists. Most people deny it. I'm open about my anism. But yeah, yeah, so and I like the, I mean, I already have a model, which is, I can probably find the young people just out of college who are willing to work for like, $30 an hour just to be company for somebody, once the structure is going, I love being around young people. I don't know if everybody does. Maybe everybody does. Yeah, young people, I know you do,

Jessica Abel

18:34

but yeah, I think that the $30 an hour is a lot of money,

18:39

like not here, not not, not here. It is No, all right. Well, oh my god, yeah. So I, like, it's one of my values to pay, yeah.

Jessica Abel

18:51

I mean, if that's a living wage, then great. But like, I

18:53

mean, the living, the living wage, is officially something like 17, but there's no fucking way you can actually live around here on that. Yeah,

Jessica Abel

18:58

I'm just saying, like, I would, if you're going to be hiring people as contractors, think about what's going to be sustainable for you in terms of what you can charge. And, you know, like, look for that differential. Pay fairly, for sure, but like, maybe give yourself some room to give people raises. Okay, no, yeah. Think, just think about that, like, strategically in terms of how this is going to fit into your profit model,

19:21

I will, and also, also whatever I pay them, I'm paying taxes and stuff on top of that. So it's,

Jessica Abel

19:27

it's if you hire them as employees, but this may be a contractor job, not California, okay, yeah, because the laws have changed there. Yeah, yeah.

Lisbeth Frølunde

19:42

Okay. Yeah, that's

Jessica Mehring

19:46

okay. So when you started talking about this, I immediately thought of you doing video conference kind of engagements where, I mean, I did this with my real estate agent when we were moving from North Denver down to Colorado Springs, you know, we would just do like, I have an Android, she has an iPhone, so we couldn't really do FaceTime, but we would do like a zoom or a Google meet, where we would have cameras on, and we would, you know, I would show her what I was looking at, or she would show me what she was looking at, and we would just talk through things. I could really imagine you doing the same thing where somebody's Okay, got everything organized in a room, they've got piles, and now they just need your eyeballs on their piles of stuff so they can talk through things. You both have phones. You use some kind of video conference on your phone. Zoom is very easy on a phone, and they can show you what they are looking at, and you can talk through their decisions with them. You don't have to hire anybody. It's just a mobile video conference kind of scenario. That's immediately what came to mind when you were talking about this.

20:56

So that works for some people, but I had a woman actually say, oh, I need a body double. I need someone physically in the room with me. So it just, I can't be all things for all people, but it's just, it's a category that I I'm like, Oh, that's a category. And I

Jessica Abel

21:11

think it's a luxury service. Like, when you're in there, you're like, physically, they're paying for your entire eight hour day, or six hour day, or whatever it is. That's a very premium offer. And, you know, you have those kinds of people in Berkeley who can pay that amount of money, that it would be. But like, the difference between that and, like a video conference or, like a, you know, sort of advice coaching,

21:35

yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Jessica Abel

21:39

thing where, like, you come in and do something, and then you have, you delegate somebody to be there for a series of sessions. You come back at some, you know, like, you can, yeah, blend it that way. By

Jessica Mehring

21:50

the way, my aunts that I was just talking about, who keep sending me boxes of stuff are all in the Bay Area. Oh,

Jessica Abel (she/her)

21:56

right, their houses

Jessica Mehring

21:59

I'd love to me, I'd

22:00

love to meet them, and I could, like, have them send you exactly what you want, and nothing else that would be easy. I mean, that's kind of a cool service, like send your send your heirs what they want. Well, there's

Jessica Abel

22:12

the trend for Swedish death cleaning. You know, where you know, you know this thing

22:19

I not, I could guess. I could guess it's,

Jessica Abel

22:24

I mean, it's older people cleaning out their stuff so they do not burden their children with this.

22:29

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm

Jessica Abel (she/her)

22:31

right. Lisbeth,

22:36

she's Danish, though, right?

Jessica Abel

22:37

Well, yeah, but it's a, it's a region, so, you know, thank you. Yeah, that's a book that came out anyway. That's something that, like for older people could be an angle, yes, you know, like, don't you don't want to dump all this stuff on your children. Is it happened to you and it sucked. Like, let's deal with it now. Yeah,

23:06

so that actually reminds me, like I realized that writing the offering means I need to start thinking about how to outreach and actually acquire clients. And I realized there's a there's some emotional intent, you know, like, it's like, between me and that, like, I know, once I start, it'll be fine, I think, but it's like, that first, like, actually landing the I don't know. It's just like, I'm like, How do I do that? Yeah, I

Jessica Abel

23:33

mean, the system that I have in the, you know, business coaching is around having warm letters, which are not either literal letters, or it's text, or you're physically talking to people, but it's like reaching everybody, you know, saying I'm offering this thing.

23:47

Oh, right, you have a system. I'll just follow your system. That's why I'm here. I

23:54

mean, it's literally why I'm here, like, I want a system, and there's a system for this. Yes, all right, good. Then I'm not That's what I thought. But it's nice to have her, yeah. I

Jessica Abel

24:04

mean, if we get back into doing business coaching at some point, then there's like, a whole bunch more you haven't seen yet. We did the beginning part, just that little bit, and like, Abel writing the sales page, and the Yeah, yeah, marketing plan and stuff is all in there.

24:18

So, okay, great, Yep, great, yeah. So, so for me, it's just like, I feel good about this. I just like, I need to now that Thanksgiving is over and before Christmas comes, I have, like, maybe three weeks, but like, there's a bunch of there's work I'd like to do, because I find that when I work even, like, 15 minutes on this coaching, on this business, even 15 minutes, then all of my creative work actually feels really good and starts flowing like they're so it's like my anchor. So it

Jessica Abel

24:50

well, it also, I feel like you you're moving something ahead that's going to create the space ongoing for your creative work. And I think that gives you permission, in some sense too, totally, this is now I'm good so that's good information. Make sure that you have, you know time you have task list that's granular enough that you can knock something out at 1520 minutes, and that you have a slot of time in your day to do it. And I gotta say, like doing aiming to get some outreach. Even if you don't have anything written yet, you're just doing it ad hoc. You just know what the price list is going to be. You don't have anything give anybody January 1. Okay, everyone's going to be like, I got to get all this crap out of my house post holidays. I'm dying here. Like, yeah, this is the time. So you're gonna definitely have that energy that you can tap into.

25:43

Yeah, so when would I send it on January 1? Yeah,

Jessica Abel

25:49

I would wait till after the holidays. Yeah, I

25:51

just want you to know my birthday is January 2. Oh,

Jessica Abel

25:54

well, happy prospective birthday.

25:58

I just like timing this thing is like, but we'll have another question. There's never

Jessica Abel

26:02

a bad time to send this, you know, it's just like, I'm doing this thing. You know, you don't want to send it, like, on December 24 or something like that, right? But like, the if you started talking to people now, like, I'm going to be doing this starting in January, that's fine, right? Or you can say, like, hey, holidays are over. I don't know about you, my house is crazy. Let's you know this is, this is what I'm going to be doing. If you know anybody who needs me. Okay,

26:26

great. And, and Jessica Mehring, I will totally take you up on writing copy or whatever. That'd be fun. Yeah, yeah, great. I'll hit you up on Kajabi.

Jessica Abel

26:42

Um, yeah, all right. Jennifer, something good, something that's been

Jennifer Catalano

26:50

a challenge. All right, something good is just that I am continuing to I sort of made the next version of my tracker. And and he, I decided December 1 was like a nice, clean date to start. And so I've been using it for two days. Um, well, three, he included today. And um, and I like it. It's, it's feeling good, um, and I think one of my insights is that it's actually, and I This isn't like, totally surprising to me, but I intended this to be about doing work like in a certain sense, but it's actually just been this really lovely the last two days. Anyway, it's felt like a form of self care, because I was feeling really burned out. And I kind of even all the way through the holiday break, I was really burned out. And I think for me, an antidote to burnout is actually reconnecting with what I care about. And so even though I didn't really want to, I was like, I would have actually just kept consuming massive amounts of television, if it were up to me, but I promised to do this, and I had set up a structure myself, and I thought a lot about it, and like sitting down and doing that actually has been so healthy and helpful. So I'm really grateful for that. I would say a challenge is just like the general burnout that I've been feeling and that, you know, overall level of energy, but that just is what it is right now, and it'll be what it is until it's something else. And I'm kind of okay with that. So keeping things simple right now.

Jessica Abel

28:42

I mean, that's that is definitely the way, especially given the over the background situation that you're in. But what I do want to say is, this is great information, just like I was saying to ri about the doing a little bit on the business in the morning, like this gives you a sense of like accomplishment for your day. Yes, and I would not be surprised if it does help with the background burnout, because you just like, bit by bit, you're like, No, I I'm paying myself first, like, I get to have this, and then, you know, things can fit in around it

Jennifer Catalano

29:14

exactly. Yeah, I have some, I have a pretty good feeling about that, and some kind of, some hopes for it to kind of even expand. I was like, Well, what if I started with this, and then I can add this, doing this daily, and this day, you know, it's like, and I'm not like, trying to go from one to 100 at all at once, but I can see the potential. And so I'm excited about it. I'm feeling energized by it, right? That's great. I will say one thing that, and this goes live, my tracker and to my practice, is that I want to finish something every day, and I'm tracking what I finished, and it can be like the tiniest thing, but for some reason that makes a huge difference for me to be able to say I finished something and I decided like, and I'm kind of making different thresholds of like, even on days when I very low capacity. And if I do like this the most small, tiny thing, I'm going to take a picture of it and record it and call it finished, and then I can, like, have something to look back on, because I think that's one of the things I haven't done in the past, and it's made it really hard for me to have a sense that I've actually done anything. And so, like, I'm kind of, it's a slick, tiny practice, and this tiny addition to this new phase of the tracker and to the practice, I guess, but it feels really good. So yeah,

Jessica Abel

30:44

I think that's yes, very much. So like this. This is why one of the first things. So next week we're going to do our quarterly reflection and planning. Ish, just mostly reflection. And so this week, I want you guys to do that, that activity. And the first thing in the activity is, what did you do? Like, what happened? Because there's so many things that we do. This is why I'm such an advocate of or one reason I'm such an advocate of quota tasks as well. But quota tasks, you can say, like, I did this, and you check it off, and like that is Completion. It's completion of what you promised yourself, even if the task itself can't be completed in that amount of time. And so that sense of like, I am moving, I am doing things and keeping faith with myself I am, you know, like, I am not an, you know, incapable, whatever. You know, what I mean, like, all of those factors that go into it. And I feel like that's when I'm doing my Quarterly Review, when I'm doing, you know, even a daily thing, one of the things I do is just like, what did I literally do? Like, how did I spend my hours? And sometimes, if I'm on the computer all day, I actually go back to my history because I forgot to write down or take note. I'll be like, oh, right, I did that whole thing this morning, you know, and completely forget that that's what I did. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, my sort of little daily log, which is just a paragraph that I do at the end of the day or throughout the day. I'll kind of put notes in if I remember that's basically like, I did this, I did this, I did this. If there were feelings about it or something happened, I will put them in there too. But mostly it's just like, this happened, because then I, I mean, I remember for long enough to, like, then at the end of the week, when I'm doing my weekly review, I'm looking at, how do these things, like, how did the week add up, you know? So I really, I think it's a great practice. I hope you keep up with it, because I think that that is underrated, you know, like journals that are like, when I wrote a journal when I was a teenager, and I'm not really a journal or outside of, like, this kind of thing, right? That I'm doing now, it's just like, pages and pages of the same emotional whatever, just going through, like, cycles, you know, but I don't know what I did. Like, there's nothing in there about, like, what did I do? And now I don't remember, you know? Yeah,

Jennifer Catalano

33:13

yeah, yeah, thank you. I it's new for me, in a way, to really, so I think it's, it's going to be good to lean into,

Jessica Abel

33:23

yeah, great. All right, Jess, do you want to jump in?

Jessica Mehring

33:33

Sure? Yeah, I'm, I don't really have anything to report on my progress. Just kind of plug it away, really hoping to get that tool kind of finalized this week, but just been doing a lot of thinking, a lot of journaling, a lot of you know, reconnecting with the purpose of everything, and had a really great weekend where I did a lot of art. I got out in nature with my macro lens, and spent time with my kids, went to church like did all the things that just fill the well for me. So I'm feeling feeling good entering this week, even with the state of my business being what it is, I'm feeling just like I'm in a reconnecting season right now, which is a good thing.

Jessica Abel

34:25

Yeah, so important to carry you through challenges like that is it's so easy to fall into the hole where you're like, This is the only thing I can pay attention to right now. And it's really crucial not to let that happen. Yeah, it's,

Jessica Mehring

34:42

it's a really easy place for me to fall into. And, you know, I tell this my husband all the time, at the end of, at the end of work days where I feel like I've been in front of my computer all day and I have nothing to show for it. I when I when business is not good. I feel like I can't be away from my computer. Like it. I'm not allowed. I am not justified being away from my computer when business is not good, even if I'm just sitting in front of this screen, obsessing over LinkedIn, doing nothing productive. I'm not allowed to be away from my screen when business is not good, which I know is just bad psychology and something I need to, like, fix. So, yeah, when I'm doing other things, you guys want to see the bunny that I painted this weekend, like this, where I'm where I just feel like, okay, this is the kind of stuff I need to be doing to remind myself that it is okay to be away from my computer and that it's healthy for me to be away from my computer even when business

is Not good. Send you a request to share. Go see this little bunny that I painted this weekend.

Jessica Abel

36:07

Oh my gosh, so cute.

36:09

Wonderful.

Jessica Abel

36:10

I love it. It's

Jessica Mehring

36:12

like little things like that that remind me it is good and healthy to be away from my computer. Yes, that's my that's my little bunny. So much.

Jessica Abel

36:21

So much so. Love the bunny. Love the energy. Thanks. Yeah, great. Plug it away though, yep, just remember to keep taking breaks and get away even during the week. Yeah,

Jessica Mehring

36:34

oh my gosh, I need it. It's not healthy for me to be obsessed with LinkedIn right now it is good to step away. Ri

Jessica Abel

36:43

only, so much you can do. So, yeah, maybe make a quote. Ask,

Jessica Mehring

36:50

yeah, good idea.

Jennifer Catalano

36:52

Yeah, yeah,

Jessica Mehring

36:53

I'm resetting. Okay.

Jessica Abel

36:57

Lisbeth, how about you?

Lisbeth Frølunde

37:01

Well, some good stuff has been, I think in general, I have, surprisingly, at times, a much better energy, like not quite the burnout energy. It still goes up and down, I'll explain. But then I'm struggling with this making lists. But I think it's working. And I developed a tracker. It's kind of starting to look like this. And you see, okay. And then what was so, what was so straight, and I divided. I have another thing, but it's divided up into my priorities and then particular things that I want to do, and I explained that on another piece of paper, so I can keep it really simple. And then this is, like, then I can just post my daily so this is just to I can see it in front of me. And then I found this little Chinese stamp. I mean, I have so many things that I'm trying to organize, as I've said so. And I had these little, these tiny little stamps. And then I was trying to figure out, like, what does it even mean? Like, why would I use that as a little like my little star thing? So I can stamp it, and then it turned out that it's actually, or it might mean complete, like,

Lisbeth Frølunde

38:15

crazy, that I had this stamp that I didn't know what meant that, apparently I was using Google Translate. So it might not be true, but I just started. It just cracked me up. Yesterday, I realized it so and then I think I just, in general, I need to time track. It's like, I just don't really know what I'm using my time on. I know I'm using it a lot looking for a table. Like, I, I mean, I just like, go to the site. I look for tables, you know, with and I don't buy any, so I do these kinds of really wasteful tasks. That's okay. And then this,

Jessica Abel

38:52

I need a table. You need a table, I think. But the other thing I know, you can go down one can go down a rabbit hole on stuff like that. And so that has to be the perfect table. You know, yeah, of course, has to be the perfect table. I mean, don't settle for less, for sure. Ri, what did you want to add to that?

39:10

So I just like, the question is, like, what's right about spending all this time looking for the table and just sit with that instead of making it wrong? I once, I once had a therapist say to me, you know, you're looking I was like, spending all this time on Etsy, looking at vintage clothes. And she said, Oh, it's good. You're, you're, maybe what you're doing is trying to figure out who you are, like, what you look like, yeah, and it's just like, if you allow the yes for the table, like, even if it seems to take up too much time, you don't know what actually that search is giving you, yeah. So when you make

39:57

Yeah,

Jessica Abel

39:59

just think that's good. That's a good insight on that. I also feel like there are times when you just get stuck in a loop, you know, like looking at the thing and refreshing and whatever, and oh, hit this other link, hit this other link, hit this other you know. So there's definitely, like, a little like, it's not wrong. There's nothing wrong with doing it. You need this and, you know, but, but

Lisbeth Frølunde

40:21

it's part of the screen dynamic, you know, that it sets you up to continue. So, so I'm aware of that. And then the logging thing, I wanted to ask, like, how, how people log in a good and very, very simple way, like, should I put it here? Should I put it? You know, it's like, I've tried so many different logging methods, so I'd be open for advice about logging. Are you doing? What? Like logging? You know what you just said, Jessica, like you what happened? Yeah, what happened today? Like, what did I actually do? I mean, because this gives me some sense of the granular things I'm looking at. Maybe I'm actually using, using, and what Jennifer said is actually, because I'm getting more energy. So once I complete the three hours, or whatever it is I set out to do, then I want to do more because it feels good. Um, so I think, I think I'm actually doing more than I

Jessica Abel

41:14

then I so you can do this on paper, right? You want to log on paper, like in a notebook or something. Yeah, I mean, I would say, like, in sometimes in my life, I've used a just a planner, like a weekly planner, that is, you know, like a just a blank week, not a bunch of fancy stuff, but it's like a week, view week at a time, rather than, like a month or a day, and then there's just, like, a little chunk of space, and I would just write down that would be good. And then you don't have any, like, you can figure out when it was, you can go back and look it you there's sort of a limit on how much you can write, because it's just, you know, a space and you don't need, you don't feel, feel like you need to just keep going, right? You could try that, see if that works, not you know, there's also, like, online or unblocked notebooks of various kinds, you know, just line notebooks. And you can just write it in order, just start a page and keep going, you know, make a line across new date, you know. And you know the, do you know about the bullet journal system?

Lisbeth Frølunde

42:24

I have tried it, and I'm not trying to, I

Jessica Abel

42:28

that's not what I'm saying. But what I do love about the bullet journal system is indexing. So the one thing that's cool is that, well, there's various cool things. For some people, it works really well, fine. But, like, the really cool idea is that the first few pages of your notebook, any new notebook, is an index. And so if you have, if you buy a book that's intended for this purpose, they're already page number. You can just number them as you go, like, you know, page one, log, blah, blah, blah. And then you, if you're using the same note, look for, say, your green room or something. Skip to page 75 you know, Project Green Room, and then you put it in your index. And so you can easily find stuff in your books,

Lisbeth Frølunde

43:15

right? And you can also add

Jessica Abel

43:20

20 this is where this big event happened. Like, if I'm trying to find it, it was these dates. Like, you can add stuff to your index, you leave a few pages blank at the beginning to have like notes on what you're doing, and that makes it more flexible.

Lisbeth Frølunde

43:33

Yeah, I tried that. I it. My perfectionism. Had a hard time with it. But I, you know, maybe it. Maybe now that I'm facing my monsters and stuff, I can, I can do it again.

Jessica Abel

43:43

Well, yeah, look at it just as like, what did I do? You know? So whether or not you're logging like, there's some suggestions in the chat that are good about, you know, logging stuff and time trackers and things like that. Time flip or timeular Are these physical objects you can track with. If you don't want to be on the computer, you can set it up ahead of time to have the different faces of this polyhedron correspond to different things you do. And then when you're switching activities, you switch the little thing and it syncs with your computer, so later you have a record of what you did. What was that? Sorry, it's called This one's called time flip. And there's another one called time you are

Lisbeth Frølunde

44:23

okay, time flip and time you learn, yeah, and they're in the

Jessica Abel

44:27

they're in the time tracking links to them are in the time tracking lesson in CFW. I think that

Lisbeth Frølunde

44:32

that's what I'm just jumping over. That's, I mean, that's what I'm saying. Basically, I'm realizing I sort of skipped the part that's really hard for me. So if you

Jessica Abel

44:39

want to time track. Those are good ways to do it without having to use a spreadsheet and, like, type stuff in. You have to set it up. So it's like, eight sides or nine sides, or whatever that is, and you have to say which one is which, and you put a little marker on each side for what it is so that you can use it. So there's a little setup time. But once you've set it up, then it's like, you know,

Lisbeth Frølunde

44:59

personal care stuff,

Jessica Abel

45:03

eating, you know, eating a food prep, working on your decluttering project, working on artwork, you know, whatever, like, all the different kinds of things you do. And you can flip it more, you know, and just kind of go through your day. That's one option. But even without time tracking at all, you know, if that's not, if it's a no go right now, and you don't, you're not doing it. And you know, it's just becoming a problem. You know, to think about it, then I would say, just do what we talked about and create a log. What did you do basically, today? Like, what did you work on? What are the things that filled your day in a not hour by hour kind of way, or how much time, kind of way. But like, what are the things and so the logging, keep it simple. Don't let it become something that's like a it needs to be a detailed description of what this was like for me. No, like, I spent an hour on blah, blah, blah, that's it. Or even Nadia spent an hour. I don't say that either I'm just, like, spent the, you know, spent most of the day on, think on this. Like, yesterday I was rewriting my coaching page, and I spent basically all day on it, you know, like, and I just wrote down, spent all day on this. So that's not, it's, it's very simple. And that's why something like a week planner can be, can work for it, because if you're trying to really journal it, and, you know, like, kind of fill the whole thing in, you're going to run out of room. But simple, it'll be fine.

Lisbeth Frølunde

46:30

If I just mentioned I don't want to take too much time, because yesterday, or, I mean, last time I felt like we ended up I took too much time. But I just wanted to say that I'm having trouble saying no to a couple of things, and my husband's really sick, and he's been declared terminal. That is, yeah, he's dying so and that, I think it means a lot for me to be part of this group, because it's kind of towards a future and towards all kinds of other ideas. But there's always this, this background of what some some of what I call decluttering, is really that there's this immense chaos that I can't do anything about. So so this is really helping me to see that that's just like churning around and it it took, like, another kind of role, you could say, and that's what ends up taking a lot of my time, frankly. So I'm aware of it, yeah. So I just want to

Jessica Abel

47:41

just say, I mean, that is in some I mean, I know that you've been going through various challenges with family members for a long time, you know, and so this is not a new situation for you, but the fact that it's like up there with your top priorities, if not the most, toughest, top priority on any given day, it's going to always be competing. And so that's completely understandable. And, you know, and the

Lisbeth Frølunde

48:14

contingency planning, I think, came at a very, I mean, the timing was amazing, because basically, that's where I am now it's Yeah, so thanks for that. Yeah.

Jessica Abel

48:27

And if you have trouble with specific no you know things you need to say no to, because

Lisbeth Frølunde

48:32

I have to cancel some things. And so one of them is that I've planned this trip to Goa to do yoga and have a little retreat with some people that I already know, and I paid for some of it already, but I haven't been able to buy my ticket just because my my flight, it's in February, like, right after we finish, early February, and, um, I just don't know what to do. I think I should just cancel it. Yeah, you know, it's always this thing is like, what's good for you to be away and to have a vacation and to relax and at the same time, when there's so much noise about what's going on, you know, and insurance wouldn't cover it, and, you know what? I yeah, of course, I don't know what's happening, but it's just been so those yes and no, things are just not that clear to me what to do. I

Jessica Abel

49:23

mean, it's a tough one, because, you know, being away at any time in this period is going to be risky.

Jessica Mehring

49:33

Yeah, you're encountering the ultimate transition. I mean, there's no greater transition than death, and it is perfectly okay to say no to anything you feel in your gut you need to say no to. Right now, any reasonable person is going to understand your no in the face of of this transition,

Lisbeth Frølunde

49:55

it's, I mean, that's one part of the No. The other part of the no is, is it? Is it good for me that, you know, I've said a lot of things because of this, so Well, that's

Jessica Abel

50:06

the thing. It's like you have permission to say no, but you also have permission to say yes. But I think what you need to do here is you need to look at, okay, so the risk is you are out of the country when you're needed, right? That's the risk contingency plan. So what if I'm out of the country when I'm needed? You know, what would I do? Is that something feasible? Is that doable? If it is doable, then maybe it's a yes, because you need this for yourself, you know? So really think through like, Okay, what am I afraid of? What are the things that I'm I'm looking at here that are causing me to think I should cancel this, you know, or like, you haven't even, you haven't made the ticket, because you're like, what's going to happen, right you? And that's because you have not thought through like, if this, then that, if this, then that, if this, then that. So give yourself a little space to think about that before you make this decision, because I do think it would be very beneficial for you in this time to take this time for yourself if you know that you have a plan for eventualities, yeah. And, I mean, most airlines will change your ticket for bereavement, you know, or for like, you know, medical emergencies and those kinds of things. So that's the kind of thing you could find out. Like, what happens if I need to come back early? How fast could I get back? You know, will that be fast enough? You know, those, those kinds of things, are part of this decision.

Lisbeth Frølunde

51:36

Yes, thanks.

Jessica Abel

51:40

Okay, so, Lisbeth, there's a bunch of useful things for you in the chat, I think, but what you can do is, if you go to the three dots menu at the top of the chat, you can save the chat, and then you'll have all of the links for yourself and all of the messages I

Jessica Abel

52:04

You see it all right? Well, thank you.

Lisbeth Frølunde

52:10

Where is it saved? I mean, I've saved it, but where is it saved? Is

Jessica Abel

52:14

downloads to wherever your downloads go, so Downloads folder or something like that, on desktop, maybe.

52:22

Yeah, my mine goes in a zoom folder. So if I just search my computer for zoom, it shows up, yeah.

Jessica Abel

52:31

Thank you for sharing that. Lisbeth, and you know, let us know if we can support you as we go through this. Okay, so to review, next week, we're going to be doing the quarterly reflection discussion. So, you know, it's not going to differ that much from what we're doing today, but there is kind of a more of a format, and I'll probably probably go through, what I'm going to do is live, go through the planning questions, like, what do you you know, we'll do a little bit of live workshop, work like, while we're there. So the reminder went out last week, even though we're doing it, you know, not this week, but next week. So it's in Kajabi. The lesson is in the deeper dives, in the creative focus workshop, and that's basically where you would look for all of that stuff, any questions about that? Final questions or thoughts or things to add? Yeah,

53:35

the other Jessica, where? Where do I get your transcript for today, I

Jessica Mehring

53:41

have been, I have been linking that up in Kajabi, on, okay, on, on the notification for the call. So,

Jessica Abel

53:50

and

we've been linking it in the replays. Go to the replays page. Once you post it, Jessica, we'll take it and put it into the replay. So basically, on control replays, there's a on the on the video replay page. There's to see the transcript. Okay, cool, thank you,

Jessica Mehring

54:06

I guess. I share, I can show you. um, So, in hijabi. bi. Um, me find an example. Here we go. So momentum system, group coaching, starting now, and then I link it up on that right away, and then

Jessica Abel

54:37

I take that and put it into the replays page. So all of the replays, you know, takes an hour or whatever to get it up. But like, yeah, all the replays have the transcriptions,

54:48

okay, yeah, you can see how much time I spent on momentum. It's

Jessica Abel

54:53

it's not, it's not a high traffic space. I'm not surprised. It's totally fine. Lisbeth, the deep dive is port of planning or quarterly reflection. Yeah. All right, let's wrap things up for this week.

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