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What up, y'all?
It's your boy, Kev On Stage.
I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists athletes entertainers creators friends, people I admire, who've had massive success, about their massive failures.
What did they mess up on?
What is their heartbreak?
And what did they learn from it?
I got judged horribly.
The judges were like, you're trash.
I don't know how you got on the show.
Check out Not My Best Moment with me Kev On Stage on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.
Good morning.
This is Laura.
Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's episode is going to be a longer one part of the series where I interview fascinating people about how they take their days from great to awesome and any advice they have for the rest of us.
So today, I am delighted to welcome Christine Ko to Before Breakfast.
Christine is the host of the Edit Your Life podcast, along with numerous other projects.
So Christine, welcome to the show.
Hello, Laura.
I'm so happy to be recording with you today.
Yeah, I'm happy to have you here.
Well, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Okay, the top line is in my previous life, I was a music and brain scientist.
I have a PhD in that field.
That was a long time ago.
And whenever people ask me to drop neuroscience information, I'm kind of like my training is a little outdated.
But about 20 years ago I left the field and just wanted to create more independent creative, flexible ventures.
And I started in the wild world of the internet with a personal blog.
And over the years my various iterations have included a published book, a couple of podcasts, a very robust, creative consulting consultancy.
I work as a creative director and storytelling expert.
And so I just do a lot of things.
And I have a couple of Substack newsletters now.
And I've just always loved problem solving, helping people solve problems and trying to disrupt this kind of perfect lifestyle narrative with just how we all get things done.
And I think that's why you and I align so well is we're just both really committed to helping people figure out ways to do things.
Yeah, take our days from great to awesome, as we always say around here.
So your podcast is called Edit Your Life.
What does it mean to edit your life?
Yeah, I think in general there's a lot of content about decluttering which, of course, is covered on the show.
But to me, editing your life is about really addressing well, first noticing the different pain points stressors, areas of discontent, whatever they may be, in your life, and figuring out how to edit those things out so you have more room to do the things you care about, make days more awesome, all of those things.
Because honestly, we all deserve it.
Yeah.
So, well, I want to hear about how Christine edits her life.
So I am hoping you can talk about any routines you have right now in your life that are serving you and making life better.
Yeah.
Well, my approach, especially in the last few years, perhaps sparked by the pandemic, perhaps just sparked by who I am in this current phase of my life, has really been all about micro.
So what are the little levers we can pull in our day-to-day lives in order to insert a little more joy, find some ease, some relief, calm our nervous systems any of those things?
And because all of us are under a lot of stress these days and we just need more touch points with joy.
We just, we deserve that too, right?
So I think I mean just to think about literally before breakfast this morning.
I decided instead of i really do try to start my day by not scrolling, so if i have a great book with me, that's like my usual first choice.
But this weekend i cracked open a brand new puzzle that i received from my birthday, so i started my morning at like six in the morning laying out a few puzzle pieces, putting them together while i sipped my coffee, and it was like 10 minutes before i started doing the things like making lunch and whatever else.
But those little moments that I insert in my days are proving to be really powerful for my general well-being.
Yeah.
Do you have a usual morning routine?
I mean, do you normally start your days with something like that?
Or I wonder if you can talk us through that.
Sure, sure.
Well, I don't have as many children as you.
I have two.
One is out of the house.
She's a college senior.
And the other is a high school freshman.
So...
Like many parents during the school year, we have the routine of getting everybody up.
I do my little practice with my puzzle or my books and we all relax a little bit.
And then it's kicking into gear with helping our kid out the door to school.
She actually leaves pretty early, at like 7 am for the bus, because that's just how things roll around here.
And then I usually walk the dog with my husband or I do these rowing strength classes like one or two times a week, which is really nice.
And I kind of do all that stuff before I kick off my workday.
So it's a lot of nice.
I'm realizing kind of personal touch points with my family and my dog before I get rolling for the day, which is, you know, I'm sort of in my office cave hammering away for a full day.
So it's a nice way to start the day.
Yeah.
Is there anything you've stopped doing?
I mean, as we talk about editing your life, is there anything in recent years that you have stopped doing in order to make life work better?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I mean, I think if we zoom out big picture the calendar and time is always a big pain point for people.
I mean, you know this.
You help people audit their time on the regular.
So I think that I've really made a conscious practice of regarding any inbound invitations.
Through my work, I get a lot of invitations to things.
I'm always looking at it with a lens of do I really want to do this?
Is this values consistent?
Is this something that makes me feel sort of grumpy and resentful?
Or do I feel joyful and excited about it?
So I've really this is kind of a longer answer, but like over a greater body of time, maybe five to 10 years really worked on listening to that gut reaction so that I can easily just say no to this stuff immediately for things that I don't want to do.
Because I think it just People often struggle with saying no to things or declining things.
And one thing I've realized, and a practice I put into place a long time ago, was what I call the graceful decline, where I just say no, thank you.
I can't make it.
And I don't try to make excuses.
And I think doing more of that.
And so saying no to things that I really don't want to do has created a lot more space in my life.
Yeah.
Why don't you think people do that? that they struggle to do that.
I think it's because what I've found in the years of talking to people about it is people one they don't want to hurt other people's feelings or they don't want to lie.
That's usually the thing.
They don't want to have to like make up an excuse.
And so that's why I say, just don't make up an excuse, just decline gracefully.
And that's it.
And I find that that works really, really well.
People don't usually come back and say, well, why aren't you going to come to my thing?
And Earth has yet to crash into the sun as a result.
All is well.
All is well.
All is well for sure.
All right.
Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and then I will be back with more from Christine Coe.
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She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night.
Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying.
Suicides that don't make sense.
Strange accidents and brutal murders in what seems to be a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad.
Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people.
There are people out there that absolutely know what happened.
Listen to Paper Ghosts, The Texas Teen Murders, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time?
You get Desi Arnaz.
A trailblazer, a businessman, a husband and maybe, most importantly, the first Latino to break primetime wide open.
I'm Wilmer Valderrama and yes, I grew up watching him, probably just like you and millions of others.
But for me, I saw myself in his story.
From cleaning canary cages to this night here in New York, it's a long ways.
On the podcast starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valderrama.
I'll take you on a journey through Desi's life, the moments he has overlapped with mine, how he redefined American television and what that meant for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like ours on screen.
Well, I agree.
Back talking with Christine Ko, who's the host of the Edit Your Life podcast, along with numerous other projects.
So Christine, let's talk a little bit about planning, because I know that how you approach planning might be helpful for some people who are listening to this.
Yes.
I love planning and I have like the vision of who I would like to be, which might be somebody like Sarah Hardanger with like a nice notebook and some cool pens and whatever else.
But I'm not that person.
My handwriting is terrible.
So I do want to encourage people to always find a system that works best for you.
Otherwise, you're never going to use it.
So I am wed to a to-do app.
I use Todoist.
There's a free version, but I use the paid version because I like that.
You can you do a bunch of other things that make the mental load of finding what you need much easier.
So I like to do, I kind of plan at two levels.
One is the weekly level where I do a weekly look ahead.
It's usually on Friday, but I'll check in on it on Sunday just to make sure things are holding, in which I kind of look at my schedule, see how busy it is.
That's actually a point at which I kind of do my like what I call Goldilocks assessment of the week.
So if things look good, great.
If things look bad, a little boring or empty, I'll be like oh well, I have a lot of freedom this week.
This would be the perfect time to try to schedule a catch up coffee with a friend.
Or if things are too busy, if there's stuff that is really negotiable that I could move.
I might try to move some things around because I know for myself and my personal work style being back to back in meetings during days is tough, because then I don't feel like I can actually do the work to do other things.
So I'll do the weekly touch point on Fridays.
And then every morning I pretty much start my day looking at that to-do list and identifying the sort of top priority items for the day.
Because it's important to note that for me and my particular mental load style, and also because I'm running a number of different projects and clients at the same time, I go super granular with my to-do lists.
And I'll break out specific tasks, probably to a level that some people might feel is a little too granular.
But for me, I need that because then I know, okay, I did that thing.
Now I can move on to the next thing.
So doing the day look ahead is really important, because I literally flag in red in Todoist what are the absolute top priority items, so I don't lose track of things in my longer list.
And when you're talking very granular, can you give an example of how granular these things are?
Yeah, I mean from actually for a podcast example, which would be good because, as you know, there are a lot of moving pieces.
I usually do podcast production on Friday, but I'll literally break out a separate tasks.
You know, listen to the sound files, create.
You know cover art write, show notes.
Uh, what else is there?
You know schedule to megaphone, insert time stamps.
I'm like breaking all of those little steps which helps me not forget anything too.
Yeah yeah no, that's always, always helpful.
And then how do you actually organize your workday then?
I mean, because you said you have multiple projects.
Do you aim to do like all for one client on one day?
Are you always doing a certain kind of work in the morning?
Or is there some sort of structure that you generally go with?
Yeah, yeah.
I definitely am a person who's, I call them the golden hours.
I think that's a phrase that you also use.
And my golden hours for work and creativity and productivity is definitely in the morning.
And so late afternoon is when I'm really slumping.
I don't think that's unusual.
So I usually try to round robin on my clients in the morning after I've gone out and walked the dog or gone to an exercise class and I feel like I'm ready to sit down.
I'll round robin through those.
Pretty much I need to touch everything every day.
And then in the later afternoon I can work on things like podcast production or writing or graphic design things that still require my brain but aren't as intense.
So that's usually how I batch it.
And it kind of all works around meetings and things.
Yeah.
And do you have anything that helps you get better ideas?
Better ideas.
Can I make a confession and say that I have yet to use chat GPT or any kind of AI.
That's all right.
I don't really use it either.
So I mean, welcome to the club.
Okay.
Okay.
I just feel like I'm like, you know, sitting under a rock.
Everybody seems to use it.
I just haven't.
I think I'm kind of an old school creative that way.
I do think that really good ideas come when you're not sitting in front of a computer.
So oftentimes I'll, and the only tricky thing is I don't.
When I go for walks and things, I like to not bring my phone, so I can just kind of like be free and bilateral and not be listening to anything and just be outside in the elements.
But I do find that I tend to have a lot of good ideas popping when I'm walking around.
So sometimes, you know, I will either literally bring a piece of paper and a pen with me on my walk or, if I have my phone, I can dictate into it to jot those ideas down.
Okay, so an idea walk is what works for you.
Absolutely.
And then I wonder, you know, we always love to hear people's various time management strategies and any general productivity strategies.
I wonder if there's any you've used in the past few days that have been helpful to you.
Yeah, I mean, I think that one thing that I've been using for a very long time.
I haven't needed it yet in the last week because I haven't had anything like terribly onerous, but I'm a big believer in do your hardest thing first.
Because I think that sometimes tasks that don't actually take a lot of time but carry some emotional burden or some weight or some dread because you don't want to lie about saying no to something, can be a struggle.
So I sometimes will do identify like or give myself 15 minutes at the beginning of a workday to just power through some of that.
You know, dreaded albatross adulting type flavor of to-dos that really need to get done and just bust through them.
And it's so satisfying and relieving for the rest of the day.
And I really I know this is in line with you and Sarah as well but I really do advocate for those check-ins and figuring out, looking at your weekly sort of scope and what you want to get done during the day.
And not just from a work perspective, but also, like you know, what do I as human, Christine Ko, like person who needs, like love and nurturing in the world, like?
What do I need this week?
So I think that's another important thing that I think I'm not sure it's as common in productivity talks, but I think that we are more productive if we also are nurturing all the sides of ourselves.
Absolutely.
I agree with that.
Is there anything you have tried that hasn't worked for you?
Tried that hasn't worked?
Not I mean, I'm pretty creature of habit these days with the things that I enjoy doing.
Yeah, I don't I don't think so, though.
Just checking.
Christine likes to try things out and they often some elements of them will will work.
Yeah, I'm sure there's something that I'm forgetting.
But I mean, I will say, there's one thing that I I think it's important to know, like to be curious about, but also kind of know your limits.
So I mentioned earlier, my handwriting is really bad.
And I've always wanted to be a journaling type person.
And I just, I couldn't, it was a real block for me.
And so I started doing a micro journaling practice where I literally write one or two sentences every day.
And that has been pretty powerful.
But I'm positive that if I had set myself up and said okay, I'm going to do 15 minutes of journaling every day, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have worked out.
So I think part of you know experimenting with things is also knowing where your points of falling off are.
Yeah.
I love that because yeah.
Why set yourself up to fail?
If it's, if you know it's not a strength, then.
But apparently writing two sentences, even if your handwriting is not wonderful, can still be accomplished.
Right.
All right.
Well, we're going to take one more quick ad break and then I will be back with more from Christine Coe.
And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined.
So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.
Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.
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Think iHeart.
Streaming, radio, and podcasting.
Let us show you at iHeartAdvertising.com.
That's iHeartAdvertising.com.
And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night.
Along the central Texas plains, teens are dying.
Suicides that don't make sense.
Strange accidents and brutal murders.
In what seems to be a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad.
Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people.
There are people out there that absolutely know what happened.
Listen to Paper Ghosts, The Texas Teen Murders.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Robert Smith.
This is Jacob Goldstein.
And we used to host a show called Planet Money.
And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History.
About the best ideas and people and businesses in history.
And some of the worst people.
Horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business.
Having a genius idea without a need for it. is nothing.
It's like not having it at all.
It's a very simple, elegant lesson.
Make something people want.
First episode, how Southwest Airlines used cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.
The most Texas story ever.
There's a lot of mavericks in that story.
We're going to have mavericks on the show.
We're going to have plenty of robber barons.
So many robber barons.
And you know what?
They're not all bad.
And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked.
Like...
Well, I am back talking with Christine Ko, who is the host of the Edit Your Life podcast.
You also mentioned you had a couple of Substack newsletters.
Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Yeah, I love Substack, and you're great at Substack, too.
It's been so fun.
My first Substack is a personal one.
It's called There's Always a Story.
I started that one while I've written close to 150 posts, so maybe it's been two years or something.
And that one is kind of longer form, I would say.
It can be anything from photo recaps and very food-oriented to deeper reflection pieces on work and parenting and lifestyle.
I think it was a real healing place when I was transitioning out of a very toxic work situation a couple years ago into being fully on my own as a business person.
So I love that space.
And then just recently, like literally in the last month, I started a second substack for the Edit Your Life podcast.
So some may say that was a long time coming since Edit Your Life has been around for a decade.
But you know, good things take time.
And that has just been pure fun.
It's just been kind of taking a micro edit, like a weekly edit approach.
And then occasionally I'll respond to listener questions and that sort of thing.
But I'm a writer and that space is such a happy one for me.
So it's been really delightful.
Yeah, it's definitely been fun trying out Substack and seeing how people are getting their work out to a bigger audience through it.
So Christine-
I always ask my guests this question of what is something you've done recently to take a day from great to awesome.
And normally I just let people respond as they will, but I am hoping that you will tell us a little bit about a recent newsletter you did write, which was about your birthday weekend.
And afterwards you recounted.
I believe it was 52 moments of wonderfulness in the course of the weekend in this newsletter.
So that, would definitely take a day from great to awesome.
So maybe you can talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, well, it was kind of an unexpected post.
I mean, I think I had in the back of my mind that I might write something about my birthday.
That's like literally what I wrote as a potential idea for that week's newsletter.
I just turned 52 and my daughter came back from college and my husband and younger daughter Violet, and the dog, of course, always around.
And It just the weekend started.
I have the good fortune or I had the good fortune this year of having a Sunday birthday on a holiday, long weekend.
So I had a little extra time for awesome.
And I just kept being struck by all of these tiny little moments, you know, from the moment my older daughter came off the Amtrak and walked in the house and I could see our dog's tail wagging furiously in excitement.
There were just so many little moments of delight like that, and I didn't want to forget them.
So I just started writing them down in a note in my to-do app and then the list kept growing and growing and growing and it just ended up feeling like this really delightful exercise of noticing, noticing what was around, noticing all these moments where I was feeling people express their care for me.
You know, it wasn't extraordinary.
We were at home that weekend and I'm intentionally a pretty mellow person when it comes to celebration.
So it wasn't like I wanted some big thing.
I had asked for dinner.
I said, I just like snacks, like snacks are my favorite thing.
So I'd like snacks, but with like shrimp cocktail, that's like all I want.
And of course the kids made this like beautiful dinner.
So I ended up jotting all these things down.
And when I finished the list, I thought, oh, I think I'll share this to Substack.
It was 52 things.
And I had turned 52.
So I thought, this is kind of magical.
I'm going to share this.
So I think that exercise of noticing is really important, because oftentimes we're all so busy and it can be hard to just pause and think about all those tiny moments that are happening around you.
But when you do, even if you do it, it would be a fun exercise to do on a Saturday or a Sunday to just, you know, jot little moments down as you're experiencing your day and then look at them at the end of the day and see how that shook out.
I think that would be a fun exercise.
Well, and don't you think that perhaps by having, like once you started, I mean, you weren't necessarily going into this intending to be like, okay, I'm going to write down when my dog's tail is wagging.
But when you started and then you knew you were going to keep going with this, do you think that led you to see more of them than you might have otherwise?
Yeah.
And I had a couple of of things that happened where I realized I hadn't.
I had just been kind of in the moment.
I was like, oh, I should write those down.
Those were like, those are like really wonderful, joyful things.
So yeah, it does.
Like what?
Like just give us one or two of those.
I mean, I just think like anything from, okay.
So one example was earlier in the week, you know, I told you about the idea.
I just wanted snacks for dinner and this shrimp cocktail.
And I
Just a couple of days before the weekend, some of our best friends on earth, who I love dearly.
They live in the UK.
They happen to be in town and they said hey, is there any chance we could bring birthday burritos by?
And they said we literally were listening to your podcast and you talked about how much you love burritos.
I was like, that is one, that's really kind, like what a way to be seen.
And two, that would just be below my mind amazing to actually see you on my birthday.
This is how much I love these people.
And The moment that I hadn't even thought about or wouldn't have thought about writing down except I knew I was now writing things down was the moment when I stepped out the door.
I was actually trying to get some fresh air because my allergies had gotten kind of off the rails and I was sneezing a lot.
So I just stuck my head out the front door.
And then that moment when I saw their car pull up and I started jumping up and down like a little kid.
And I kind of wrote that down in my list because I thought wow, like What a great thing to feel that excited to see somebody and then to have somebody see how excited you are to see them.
It was kind of like a dual mood boost.
I love it.
And I love Christine, that you didn't decide to make the fact that your allergies were acting up as like oh, life is terrible.
My birthday weekend is ruined.
Yeah seriously, I was complaining a little bit about the allergies, but you know, be that as it may, this is life, right.
This is life.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, I know the birthday has passed, but what are you looking forward to right now?
Well, so I am.
I mean many things, I guess, but I think one thing that has been so fascinating in the past year is I have become a person who is fascinated about Earth, specifically know gardening medicinal herbs, and so i have been exploring and i just recently went to actually one of my podcast listeners dm'd me because they heard about some, you know, free herbalist seminar that was happening online and i went to a few classes and it was amazing and the people were just the nicest.
So one of the things i've been delighting in is now being a person who thinks about the seasons and i live in the boston area so i actually have four seasons but thinks about the seasons in terms of planning my gardening plans.
So I have a very nerdy Google Doc and I was just working on it recently, you know with plans for the fall of this year some stuff to do in the dead of winter, things to do in the spring.
So it's been very satisfying.
It's a great hobby should anybody wish to pursue something different.
Gardening is a great way to take any day from great to awesome.
Well, Christine, where can people find you?
My general website is christinecocom, but the places where I'm most active are the Edit Your Life podcast.
So you can find that wherever you subscribe or Substack.
If you just find me there, you'll find there's always a story and Edit Your Life.
Wonderful.
Well, please go check that out, everyone.
Christine, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you to everyone for listening.
If you have feedback on this or any other episode, you can always reach me at laura, at lauravandercamcom.
And in the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening.
And here's to making the most of our time.
Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at LauraVanderkam.com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Las Culturistas, and listen to the full podcast now.
What up, y'all?
It's your boy, Kev On Stage.
I want to tell you about my new podcast called Not My Best Moment, where I talk to artists athletes entertainers creators friends, people I admire who had massive success, about their massive failures.
What did they mess up on?
What is their heartbreak?
And what did they learn from it?
I got judged horribly.
The judges were like, you're trash.
I don't know how you got on the show.
Check out Not My Best Moment with me Kev On Stage on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day.
My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day.
Stories that move markets.
Chair Powell opened the door to this first interest rate cut.
Impact politics, change businesses.
This is a really stunning development for the AI world and how you think about your bottom line.
Listen to The Big Take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is an iHeart Podcast.
