End of Year Interview with Dr. Kate

reflecting on a productive and creative year

Photo by Amanda Macchia (who also did our wedding photos + my website photos!)

In years past, I’ve reserved my final newsletter of the year for a best of list, but I thought I’d get creative and have my spouse Kris interview me about my experience with my own productivity and creative practices this year.

I’m sharing the recording of our full conversation via the voiceover for this newsletter. Please note that the recording is unedited, so forgive us any stumbles or tangents.

[A quick note: After listening to the recording, I decided it worked really well to share the full transcript text instead of summarizing it, so I did not link to an external transcript even though I mentioned that at the start of the recording.]

Enjoy the Q&A!

Kate: Hi everyone! You know me, I'm Dr. Kate Henry, a productivity coach and author of this newsletter, Tending with Dr. Kate Henry. Today my spouse Kris is going to ask me some questions about what I got up to and learned this year at work and at home, but first I'll have them briefly introduce themself.

Kris: Hi everyone, I’m Kris Henry and I’m Kate’s much more scattered other half.

Kate: Okay, so Kris is going to ask me some questions about my year.

Kris: So Kate, what did you learn from running your coaching business this year?

Kate: I learned that it was important for me to hone my focus. I focused this year on supporting academics on their writing projects, and this looked like supporting professors and grad students and postdocs who were working on things like book proposals, book manuscripts, dissertations, tenure and promotion materials. And I also learned that I'm really good at helping people think through their writing projects! So specifically for folks who are working on books, it was really fun for people to just think through their ideas and for me to take copious notes as I always do and really kind of help people figure out what they wanted to write in different sections of the manuscript. So that was really satisfying. And I still really love helping people with dissertations because I get to learn so many cool things about lots of different topics.

So with that, I also learned this year that I really can only work with a set number of folks at a time because what I'm doing is so hands-on and I can get stretched too thin if I don't limit the number of clients I'm working with. And knowing that now, I’m going to be supplementing my income in 2025 with more workshops—so if you want me to come talk about sustainable productivity for your students or your colleagues or your employees, hit me up because that's something I'm going to be trying to grow in my business in 2025!

Kris: Cool. So what was your favorite part about writing your newsletter this year?

Kate: There were a few things. First, I think I have to say that it was important for me to shift from doing four newsletters to just doing two a month. That shift really allowed me to do more of a deep dive into my letters and it also helped me to focus on interviewing people.

One of my favorite parts was interviewing people, learning from all the things that they're into and their expertise. And another thing I really liked with the newsletter this year was doing a little deep dives into topics, like doing a little rhetorical analysis of the way self-discipline is talked about on different self-help websites or business websites. That was really satisfying and fun because I got to put on my rhetorical scholar hat to do that.

Kris: So what did you get up to outside of work this year?

Kate: [Laughing] I feel like I did a good job of doing my two key goals, which were practicing yoga and cooking. I did a whole pickle experiment and I tried to make sauerkraut and it was really bad, and then I tried to make pickled asparagus and pickled green beans and those were really good, so I feel like I found a good recipe [asparagus recipe linked here & green beans recipe linked here]. I also explored things like making like a silken tofu peanut butter pudding, so I had fun with cooking this year and actually made some stuff that was good.

I read a lot of romantasy novels, which I did not know was a genre I was into, but dark academia sort of brought me down that pathway and I'm not mad about being there. I’m a big fan of the Fourth Wing series, super into that.

Also, we adopted a dog in April named Friday and have just spent a lot of time with her. Our previous dog was a very sweet elderly dog, and now having a 2-year-old dog is very different. We train her every single day. Another thing that I really liked that Friday was a part of is spending time outside in the summer. Usually I'm not a big fan of the heat but for some reason this year something shifted and I really loved being outside in the heat, so taking Friday on walks was nice.

The last thing that I got up to this year was listening to more music. I've been trying to limit the amount of time that I spend just scrolling on my phone, so shout out to

Cody Cook-Parrott

who talked about how they use this little, I don't know, object called “Brick” that puts blocks on what apps you can use. I've been using that and so I'm listening to a lot more music and I really got into this band called Soccer Mommy. So those are some things I've been up to that I've been really enjoying.

Kris: Hm! So besides watching me play video games, what are you looking forward to in 2025?

Kate: Well, I am looking forward to you playing video games and I’m looking forward to me playing video games because I love video games! But I’m looking forward to continuing to cook, and something I want to learn how to do is make really good salads and make some really good salad dressings from scratch, so that's going to be an experiment and I’ll probably hold off on that until it gets warmer.

I want to keep focusing on my writing, so I'm going to write really quality newsletters for Substack and I just got invited to write a chapter for an edited collection, so I’m going to be dipping my toe back into doing some academic writing.

For my work, I'm going to be doing some cool online offerings like a course I'm dreaming up, but I'm also going to have a New Year reflection and planning workshop on January 4th, so save the date and I'll share some more information about that later this month.

And the most exciting thing is that I’m starting a podcast in January!!! I’m still going to have my Substack newsletter, but I've been thinking about if I wanted to start a podcast this year and in typical Kate fashion just like thought about it for 6 months. But I'm finally ready to do it and I'm really excited about that. So stay tuned because I will be sharing a lot more about that in just a few weeks!

Kris: Awesome!

Kate: So thanks for joining me Kris and thank you to everyone who was a listener or reader of Tending in 2024! If you haven’t yet grabbed your free Sustainable Productivity Planner, you can download that here. This is a workbook that takes you through the process that I actually use in coaching sessions to guide my clients in their goal setting and time management. So this is great if you want to try a DIY approach to getting your productivity in line.

Here’s to a slow holiday season to everyone and an intentional New Year and I will talk to you soon.

Take care,

Dr. Kate