Answering Your March Questions

Writing schedules, slow productivity, and tricky goals.

You can listen to an audio version of this newsletter above. Please note that this is unedited and I’m recording in my home office, so you may hear some meows, raindrops, or traffic in the background.

When I started tending, I knew I wanted to offer a Q&A as a perk for paid subscribers. I chose to open the March Q&A session up to paid and free subscribers and am answering your questions below. If you want to make sure to receive April’s Q&A answers on April 30th, I welcome you to sign up for a paid subscription for $5/month or $50/year.

Karina asked: How did you gather topic ideas for when you blogged weekly? & actually be able to write a substantial amount on them for a blog post?

For those who might not know, I spent 2018 and 2019 researching productivity and personal development tools, practicing them, and blogging about a different one each week on my blog, “The Tending Year.” I modeled my blog after Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project, where she themed each of her months around something related to happiness. I selected four academic and personal goals I wanted to “tend to” in 2018 and themed each of my months around a particular productivity or personal development theme like “Conscious input and output” or “Changing the stories we tell ourselves.”

I had a blog notebook where I worked out my ideas and outlined my posts, and on average I spent between 5 and 15 hours each week on researching, practicing, and writing my posts. Researching topics like habit formation or slow living were inherently fascinating to me, so it felt like I was doing a minor in “The Tending Year.”

My notebook for The Tending Year opened to a page I wrote in 2018 about a blog idea on what counts as work. It was SO fun to look back through this notebook. I can see how excited I was about everything I was learning.

As a grad student at the time, I was used to binge-writing term papers in a weekend or tinkering on projects that took months or years to write, edit, and submit. Blogging felt satisfying compared to this because I could complete mini-writing projects in the span of a week. A lot of my ideas came from the research I was doing by listening to podcasts/audiobooks and reading blog posts and short articles. In grad school, I felt like I had to become an expert in order to write about something, but with a personal blog I had permission to try things out and be curious, since I knew next week I would be onto something different.

Karen asks: I’ve been retired for a month and have been doing everything except for working on a creative project I want to start. Do you have suggestions on how I can get started?

Three things come to my mind.

1. Congratulations on your retirement! It makes sense to me that you would want to set up a new routine to replace your previous workday routine, and at the same time I think it’s also okay to take a month (or more) to bask in being “unproductive” and leaning into rest.

2. Some goals feel overwhelming at the start because the path to completing them is murky. You’ve already completed Step 1, setting up your goal, and you know what the final step should be, enjoying the finished project, but the steps in between might be a blank. It can help at the beginning to jot down a brain dump of ALL the tasks you think you’ll need to do while you’re working on the project. Don’t worry about the list being chronological right now, as that might trip you up. Just get the ideas out of your head so you don’t have to worry about remembering them all.

3. Can you give yourself permission to focus only on the very next step? You’re not responsible for doing everything today, but making some forward progress might help you to boost your momentum. If the next step leaves you feeling overwhelmed, are there ways you can break it down into smaller steps? If it still feels stressful, consider what kind of support could make it feel more accessible. Do you want to set up external accountability or ask someone to body double, either in person or on Zoom, while you do the task? If you’re resistant to the step, set a timer for five minutes and write on a piece of scrap paper what you’re nervous or confused about, starting with the phrases “I feel stuck because…” or “I want to start, but I’m worried about…” You might discover that you already know the way through your current obstacle!

I have faith in you! Give yourself permission to be creative, playful, and take your time.

Kate asked: Hi Kate, I'd love to ask a general question about your day-to-day productivity: what does a typical day look like for you, given your aim at slow productivity and also following your creative/research interests, etc?

I work for myself, so I have full control over my schedule, which is a huge privilege. I’ve set things up so I follow similar routines, rhythms, and rituals each week, and I find great comfort in that. I’ve worked hard to eliminate urgency from my days by reverse engineering my work projects, batching tasks to certain days, and leaving blank space in my schedule.

I typically wake up between 7:30am-8am. I’m not a morning person, and if I didn’t have to wake up to feed my cats and dog, I would sleep past 9. After we tend to our fur babies and feed the squirrels and birds, Kris and I bring our coffee and breakfast back up to bed, where we read and scroll our phones until at least 9. It’s a nice “separate but together” routine for us.

I go through periods of strict “no phone at all in bed” rules, but my sweet dog has dementia and earlier this year was waking us up a few times every night. Until we found a medication that allowed her (and us) to sleep through the night, I just didn’t have the capacity to do anything but scroll on my phone in the mornings. I don’t sleep with my phone in the bedroom, and I don’t have my work email on my phone, so I try not give myself a hard time if I spend 3 out of 7 mornings scrolling Instagram.

I start my workday between 9:30 and 10am. I batch certain things to certain days. Monday is for admin. Tuesday is a lighter day where I schedule appointments, run errands, and work on smaller business tasks. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are for client calls and facilitating workshops. I rarely work on my business on the weekend, preferring to batch my home errands like groceries and cleaning (plus a healthy dose of video games and reading).

I use a bullet journal to track my to-do list, but besides meetings—which I only book between 10:30am and 4pm—I choose what I want to do during my workdays based on my energy and interest levels. I don’t usually time block particular activities to particular times, although I’m thinking about doing a time blocking experiment. I meet with my virtual assistant, Sabrina, on Mondays to plan out what she and I are doing that week, which allows me to set mini-deadlines as I chip away at longer projects.

I stop my workday between 4pm and 5pm and transition to things like yoga class, a phone date with a friend, or cooking dinner. Kris and I play video games or watch a movie together, we give our dog her evening meds, we do dishes, and head to bed. Sometimes I go to bed early and Kris does the evening chores solo. Our dog has difficulty falling asleep at night, so I usually let her fall asleep her on my chest while I play a game on my iPad or read a book, and it’s lights out between 10:30-11:30pm.

As it transitions to Spring here in Massachusetts, I’m looking forward to starting mid-day walks when the weather gets nicer. I’ve been spending more time on screens than I’d like, so these walks are a good way for me to rest my eyes.

Charlene asked: Hi Kate! I'd like to ask about consistency - I've been thinking (and writing) about it lately and I'm always so curious how people like yourself have kept up a weekly blog/newsletter for years. Do you have a yearly / monthly plan to help you organise and manage the writing and is that quite flexible/organic in terms of subjects etc? Do you work with a bank of content or write a new piece each week as you go along, etc?

A key approach to my productivity and my life in general is I like to move very slow. This means I like to plan out my projects months ahead of time and reverse engineer an approach based on what feels truly accessible to me.

My writing process has shifted over the years. I used to choose my next topic the week I sent the previous post and spend 2 weeks drafting and editing, sometimes right up to the day before I sent a letter. You may have noticed that I’ve been sending more letters than usual on Substack because right now, all I want to do is research and write for tending. I’ve been trying to let myself enjoy the process. I would like to set up a more batched structure for my Substack prep and revision days, which I might do if I experiment with time blocking.

When an idea pops into my head that I’d like to explore in a newsletter, I jot it down in a Notion board or a notebook. I’ve often got a few different drafts going in tending that I will pop into, draft, revise, and then let simmer. Some ideas need to simmer for months or years, like a post I’m hoping to share in April about the accessibility of efficiency. I prefer this slow, winding approach to planning topics, but I may explore a more structured, scheduled approach as I continue to use Substack.

That’s all for this month’s Q&A, folks! I’m looking forward to answering your questions next month!

xo,

Dr. Kate

Image Description: Kate is a white woman holding a mug of hot tea. She has red painted nails and tattoos on her fingers and arms.