Good morning! It’s April! As it goes up here, we are oscillating between winter and spring weather which feels like a turbulent early twenties relationship. This feels like a really busy month, so I’m strapping in. All good things but I’d be lying straight through my teeth if I wasn’t a little excited for May to roll around. I’ve also had a lot of thoughts running through my mind. I need to settle in and mull over them for a bit sometime here soon. But until then, what about a little external processing? Don’t love a good brain dump? See you back here next week!
If you’re into this sort of thing, welcome. Pretend we just plopped down on the couch with some coffee…or wine…
This book
I realize I’m 17 years late to the game with knowing Laura Vanderkam’s work, but better late than never because THIS BOOK IS CHANGING MY WORLD. I tracked my time a few weeks ago for a whole week (aka wrote down how I spent each 30 minute interval of my week) and yes it is as annoying and tedious as it sounds, but so WORTH IT because it was incredibly sobering. And enlightening. And the act of tracking my time in and of itself shifted how I spent my days. And since tracking + analyzing how I spend my time I came up with a few conclusions.
- Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how much time I’m spending in each area of my life – a good amount of mom time, career time and not a lot of “fluff” time where I’m surfing the internet, scrolling social media, etc. Although maybe I spend more time doing fluffy stuff when I’m not actually having to write down what I’m doing? That could definitely be the case…
- I’m working less than half the time I was before Cal came, but I want to be working on the blog/private practice less….I just need to outsource (more on that in a sec) and minimize/ignore other seemingly important, yet actually not important at all, stuff.
- I’m pretty happy with how far I’m come with email/social media – I spend about an hour to 90 minutes total per day on both of these which I feel like its pretty minimal all things considered…but it has taken me YEARS to get disciplined with closing my inbox and staying off IG for long amounts of time.
- I want to get better at confidently saying no to opportunities instead of the “no” accompanied with a side of “but should I have…”
- There are many things I do in the business that I don’t actually need to be doing…somebody else can do them, and probably better than I can.
Reading List
I talked about reading > social media a bit in our last coffee date. I just finished Anonymous at the end of March which I really, really enjoyed. The next books on my list are Dare to Lead by Brené Brown, Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist and The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier. I use to think I had no time to read anything other than research articles lol but then I realized I wasted a lot of time scrolling the internet, online shopping, and other things that didn’t actually give me rest. And while I by no means use all my time super well and sometimes I find myself slipping back into unhelpful habits (as in, I found myself scrolling IG in bed last night for twenty minutes before I was like WHAT AM I DOING? Go to sleep, Robyn) I am *trying* to just pick up a book instead of my phone in those spare moments when I’m nursing Cal, standing in line, etc. I actually prefer e-books to paper for this reason – I’m not going to whip out an actual book while standing in line somewhere because that would mean I would have to remember to throw the book in my bag and then dig it out, which will never happen. But I can just pop open the Kindle app on my phone and read from there. A lot of the books I want to read are available through the library as e-books. I love my library card.
On mom/career “balance”
I’m currently lol’ing at my “plan” that sounded so smooth and nice in this post I wrote right before Cal was born. I did write in that post, “But who knows what will be best – this is all new! I could end up laughing at this plan come spring because it could all be different than expected.”
And while much of what I wrote about is coming to fruition, it looks really messy. And I’m learning to be okay with that when really, I want it all to fit in a nice little box. Life is laughing at me. And coffee is magical. I’ve had a lot of freeing, yet terrifying thoughts about work with Nick and other close people over the past month of so. I plan on sharing a lot of those thoughts with you all in the near future, but I’m going to externally process those with my close people and then share when I make sense of it all. I’m learning sometimes the hard, scary thing is the right thing. Whhyyyyy.
Want to be our intern?
Speaking of outsourcing and what I’m learning in 168 hours, I don’t enjoy admin/social media/blog projects as much as I enjoy teaching and mentoring. So it makes sense for me to trade in hours I would spend doing those and in exchange I get to teach and mentor and provide a learning opportunity. Hannah and Connie were the intern loves of my life and were a positive addition at RLWH. But they moved on to bigger and better things at the end of 2018 – Connie is about to become a rock star RD and Hannah is about to begin nursing school – the same track I took to become an RN and then NP. Between the two of them, they did admin work and other social media/blog related projects they were interested in so now we need another wonderful intern. This time we’ll just be taking one vs two. So, if you’re ambitious, eager to learn and have a passion for intuitive eating and Health At Every Size, we want you on our team. You’ll gain lots of experience in private practice, social media, writing, communications, eating disorders, women’s health, hormones and much more. It’s about 3-4 hours a week and in exchange you’d be building your resume and have a 1 hour one on one mentoring call with me every month. If you’re interested, email me at [email protected] with a few paragraphs of why you’re a good fit for the internship along with your resume. Proximity doesn’t matter so if you’re not in the Boston area, that’s okay!
Alrighty, that’s what’s on my mind this month. What about you??
It would be really great if you could pay your interns. I understand that they are learning a lot through this experience, but the admin work has a real monetary value to you and at $15/hour you’d paying them less than $200/month but acknowledging that the work is worth it.
Hi Monica, the mentoring call is equivalent to that monetary value (you’ll see that price noted on my website) – plus the additional mentoring I do along the way – past interns have really enjoyed this setup and beyond the six-months to a year they initially commit to if they stay on, I are paid well beyond $15/hr. Thanks for your input.
100%
Being your intern was my favorite thing! I have never felt so valued and in a safe space to learn. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to learn from you and the RLWH team- anyone thinking about applying- DO IT! 🙂
Unpaid internships should be illegal. This is a blatant abuse of power. Any responsible manager would mentor an employee as part of their development – that is not a substitute for compensation. Please think about how irresponsible it is to refuse to acknowledge someone’s work with pay and instead only give them one hour of your time per month.
Actually, they are illegal: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/is-your-unpaid-internship-program-legal.aspx
Hi Bonita – it might be helpful to read the entire article you linked to before generalizing that all internships are illegal. Here is a section of that article copied below. This internship I offer meets those criteria. Connie (who I saw just commented above) was paid when I went on maternity leave since of course she was then taking on tasks and responsibilities an employee would. And she was paid more than double of minimum wage. I’m always open to being corrected, but I do think reading the whole article will be helpful. Thank you!
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has a six-factor test that requires the following criteria to be met for an unpaid internship:
* The internship is similar to training that would be given in an educational environment.
* The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern.
* The intern doesn’t displace regular employees and works under close supervision of existing staff.
* The employer doesn’t gain an immediate advantage from the intern’s activities—and on occasion the employer’s operations may be impeded by the intern’s activities.
* The intern isn’t guaranteed a job at the end of the program.
* The employer and the intern each understand that the internship is unpaid.
“The goal … is to ensure that companies are not getting around minimum wage and other employee protection laws by calling workers ‘interns,’ when the work and conditions under which the work is being performed is no different than that of actual employees,” Olson said.
They are illegal if you don’t meet certain criteria (you can see my comment to Bonita). It sounds like that section of the post brought up strong feelings for you Alice – but I hope if you’ve been reading for any period of time that it’s clear I’m not someone who would be abusing power and not acknowledging someone’s work. I’ve delayed getting another intern because while I love being able to teach and mentor them, it is a time investment for me vs just hiring an admin but I enjoy the teaching and mentoring and interns benefit greatly. Interns also have access to all my online courses and recorded talks, they get to listen to client sessions (with permission from the client) and our IE groups (again with permission). Interns are not employees, they choose tasks and projects to work on, school comes before the internship and we give them far more than 1 hour per month of our time. Looking at my post, I could have worded things a bit differently instead of including the word “outsourcing” which perhaps triggered your response? I’ll reword that to be more clears so thank you for bringing that to my attention!
I’m so sorry that this turned into a long discussion on internships, but I can see that your interns, Hannah and Connie, really loved and appreciated every moment of time they were able to intern with you Robyn. If I was on that path, I would seriously love to be an intern for you. 🙂 Your laid back approach and deep love for those that you serve is so evident.
I hear you on that social media balance. For a few years I used to be really obsessed with it, but I realized how much better it is to be present and use social media as a tool to connect and encourage but not to replace in person relationships.
Hey Robyn!
A super delayed comment, but I happened upon this post and was intrigued by your reflections on time management and how your work schedule has changed since little Cal came along.
I’m 6 months pregnant and trying to make decisions about maternity leave. I plan to return on a part-time basis to fulfill research obligations within the first few months. However, the last step in my graduate training is a 1-year residency (which involves 40+ hours a week and commuting to the hospital) which is inflexible schedule-wise to say the least. I have the option of starting this when my little one is 11 months or 23 months.
If you don’t mind sharing, at what point did you decide to return to work? Was it on a part-time basis, and what was the reasoning behind the way you did it? If you haven’t do you plan to return full-time?
Thanks so much!
Hi Christina! For me, I am not working FT and rather have a non-traditional work schedule – doing the business in the pockets of time my husband is home (before he leave for work at 9am, evenings and nap time) and then do per diem nursing work. My husband had 5 weeks of paternity leave that he can take a day here and there when I’m at a conference, speaking, working my NP job etc) — we are so so grateful for that. So we haven’t had to do any childcare yet. FOR ME (every mama is different!) I had this deep within my bones shift when he was born that I wanted to work less than I anticipated. My priorities drastically shifted, which has been a gift, but also something to grapple with since here in Boston most moms work FT and still have growing careers. You know, the tension between running with the world and living in line with your values …so hard sometimes! 🙂 I don’t plan to return to a traditional FT until my kiddos are all in school. Thankfully as an NP, I can be “full time” and work 10, twelve hour shifts a month that includes weekend work and 12pm to 12am shifts so my “full time” work is a bit unique. I hope that helps and know that whatever you choose, you are doing what is best for you, your babe, and your family! xx
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