Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #251| The Overwhelming Mental Load of Scheduling & What To Do About It

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#251| The Overwhelming Mental Load of Scheduling & What To Do About It · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

0:00
Amy Briggs: People are missing connecting with their kids because they're constantly chasing the schedule and the meal prep and the Pinterest level birthday parties.
0:14
Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
0:21
Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
0:26
Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
0:31
Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
0:41
Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
0:42
Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining.
0:42
Michelle Gauthier: Today's guest is Amy Briggs.
0:44
Michelle Gauthier: She was such an interesting guest because she created a smart family scheduling app called Aviva that was built for busy parents who are carrying way too much mental load.
0:53
Michelle Gauthier: She talks about that and she tells us about how that works.
0:56
Michelle Gauthier: And I think it sounds like a wonderful app.
0:58
Michelle Gauthier: But she also talks about how so many moms felt like they were failing and they were just drowning under the impossible system that we live under now, where you have to process so much information.
1:09
Michelle Gauthier: And she learned that because she was a speech language pathologist who would go into people's homes.
1:14
Michelle Gauthier: So she built this tool to give women back time and space and relief in their brain.
1:19
Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn why overwhelm isn't a personal flaw.
1:23
Michelle Gauthier: It's often the result of invisible, nonstop mental labor.
1:26
Michelle Gauthier: And you'll feel like you're not alone in that.
1:29
Michelle Gauthier: How family scheduling quietly eats up your time management and focus and what it looks like to get hours back of your week.
1:36
Michelle Gauthier: And then a fresh way to think about productivity as doing less with less guilt instead of trying to do it all perfectly.
1:43
Michelle Gauthier: So take a listen, see what Amy has to say today, and you will learn something interesting.
1:49
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much, Amy, for being here with us today.
1:52
Michelle Gauthier: And welcome to Overwhelmed Working Woman.
1:55
Amy Briggs: Thank you so much, Michelle.
1:56
Amy Briggs: I'm so happy to be here as a recovering overwhelmed working woman.
2:01
Michelle Gauthier: That is so great.
2:02
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, Amy has created an app to help families.
2:06
Michelle Gauthier: Tell us about the app that you created.
2:09
Michelle Gauthier: What does it do?
2:10
Michelle Gauthier: And then I want to know the backstory because I know you weren't an app designer before this.
2:15
Amy Briggs: Absolutely.
2:16
Amy Briggs: So the app is called Aviva, and it is a virtual scheduling assistant for busy parents that takes on the full job of scheduling your family from tip to tail and does it for you.
2:28
Amy Briggs: And the backstory on this was this is something I never thought that I was going to do.
2:33
Amy Briggs: I'm definitely a career shifter.
2:35
Amy Briggs: So for anyone listening, if this is you or you're thinking about a shift, maybe hopefully these things will resonate.
2:41
Amy Briggs: I'm a speech language pathologist by trade.
2:44
Amy Briggs: So I've always worked with children and families and was always very invested in building capacity for parents.
2:52
Amy Briggs: And when I was working in private practice as a speech pathologist, it was right at the moment when everyone was emerging out of COVID.
3:00
Amy Briggs: So I was in people's homes and in their private spaces where no one else had been for a very long time, where everyone in the family was home and where parents had been under this really unique pressure that I'm sure many people can relate to that was so different than if I had gone into people's homes a few years prior.
3:22
Amy Briggs: And while my work helping children say their first words and communicate effectively was really meaningful to me and lit me up and felt very fulfilling, I was so overwhelmed every time I was going to people's homes by all of the other noise and extra that every parent, and especially mom that I was working with was carrying.
3:45
Amy Briggs: Every time I was coming to someone's house, they were apologizing to me about something.
3:49
Amy Briggs: And the things that they were apologizing for, like not rotating their toys, giving their kid a snack when I was on my way in.
3:55
Amy Briggs: So they had a mouthful of food, forgetting that I was coming.
3:59
Amy Briggs: These things made perfect sense to me.
4:01
Amy Briggs: And I didn't think that they were apology worthy.
4:04
Amy Briggs: But I noticed that time after time, they were really eroding these moms, especially, sense of their own worth as parents.
4:12
Amy Briggs: They felt like they were failing.
4:14
Amy Briggs: And it became so clear to me that there was this system around modern parents.
4:19
Amy Briggs: I had really young kids at the time.
4:21
Amy Briggs: I was a working mom.
4:22
Amy Briggs: I'm in all these homes with other working moms.
4:24
Amy Briggs: All of my friends are in the same boat.
4:26
Amy Briggs: And it's here's the bar.
4:28
Amy Briggs: And every time we come to reach it, it's further and further afield.
4:32
Amy Briggs: And all of the activities and achievements, quote unquote, that we're supposed to be doing to be a great mom that social media is sharing with us, or that we're reading in parenting books, or we're listening to podcasts about, is so unwieldy and unsustainable and is taking people away from what I know clinically is the most important part of parenthood.
4:56
Amy Briggs: People are missing the big enchilada.
4:59
Amy Briggs: They're not connecting with their kids because they're constantly chasing the schedule and the meal prep and the Pinterest level birthday parties.
5:08
Amy Briggs: And I became obsessed with this idea of how can I chip away at some part of this mental load that people are carrying?
5:15
Amy Briggs: What can I do to solve part of this problem in a way that will scale beyond what I can do as a solo clinician having these meaningful conversations with every woman that I'm meeting?
5:24
Amy Briggs: And that's where the idea for Aviva was born from.
5:28
Michelle Gauthier: That is so cool.
5:29
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I want to pause for a second and say the way that I'm hearing it is you had a chance to go into people's homes, and just the energy that you felt in their homes of these moms drowning, despite really trying their best, felt like a bigger deal to you than the actual therapy that you were doing.
5:50
Michelle Gauthier: Like it felt like the more present problem than the one that you came there to solve.
5:55
Michelle Gauthier: Does that feel true?
5:57
Amy Briggs: Absolutely.
5:57
Amy Briggs: It started to be the most present problem.
6:00
Amy Briggs: And then it was also mirrored everywhere else in my life.
6:03
Amy Briggs: I felt it personally in my own household.
6:06
Amy Briggs: All of my friends were experiencing the same things.
6:09
Amy Briggs: Once you become aware of a dynamic that you hadn't been previously aware of, you start to see it everywhere.
6:15
Amy Briggs: And it's this kind of confirmation bias.
6:17
Amy Briggs: Like this was everywhere.
6:18
Amy Briggs: I became so keenly aware of the mental load that I was carrying and that all the other women that I knew were carrying, yeah.
6:27
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, I love that too, because something that I hear a lot from people, even if they just listen to the podcast, but especially if they're my clients, is that they feel like everybody else is managing it, but they're not managing it.
6:40
Michelle Gauthier: So if you had this secret window into everybody else's lives, not secret, like they invited you in there.
6:46
Michelle Gauthier: How's I make it sound like you snuck?
6:47
Michelle Gauthier: But it does feel that way.
6:48
Michelle Gauthier: No, you're right.
6:49
Amy Briggs: Like I always tell people the experience that I had, especially because of the moment in time I was doing this.
6:55
Amy Briggs: But in general, I would say therapy is a very personal, intimate space.
7:00
Amy Briggs: You're working with people's children, there are often significant challenges going on.
7:05
Amy Briggs: And I really saw what life was like.
7:07
Amy Briggs: Like the curtain was peeled back in a way that I probably would never see with most of my friends.
7:12
Amy Briggs: Because when friends are coming over, like I clean my house, right?
7:16
Amy Briggs: We put away our toys.
7:17
Amy Briggs: We tell our kids, finish your snack.
7:19
Amy Briggs: Someone's coming over.
7:20
Amy Briggs: Make sure you have one to offer them if they're having kids here too.
7:24
Amy Briggs: We do all these sort of performative things to make it look like everything is together, but I got to see where things weren't together just like they weren't together behind my closed doors.
7:33
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
7:34
Amy Briggs: And I think we are all largely in the same boat.
7:38
Amy Briggs: These are external forces working upon us as a culture and as a society.
7:42
Amy Briggs: And there's a reason why there's a loneliness epidemic.
7:45
Amy Briggs: There's a reason why there's a diaspora of women leaving the workforce.
7:49
Amy Briggs: It's not just you.
7:51
Amy Briggs: These are cultural systemic problems.
7:54
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes.
7:55
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, everybody, did you hear that?
7:57
Michelle Gauthier: It's not just you.
7:58
Michelle Gauthier: We're with you.
7:59
Michelle Gauthier: Amy and I are with you.
8:00
Michelle Gauthier: So is everybody else listening?
8:02
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so if you had to describe the problem that you were trying to solve when you came up with the solution of I think I'm gonna create an app, how would you describe it?
8:12
Amy Briggs: So I was first of all looking for just one slice of the mental oath that I could go really deeply on.
8:18
Amy Briggs: And I wanted only to tackle something where technology could take on that job fully.
8:24
Amy Briggs: So many people listening might be familiar with the data coming out of McKinsey and reports on women's household labor.
8:31
Amy Briggs: And we all know that we are disproportionately doing much of the household labor, even if we are the breadwinner or the solo parent or whatever the situation may be.
8:40
Amy Briggs: And I thought, what if there was another column in this graph that was technology?
8:44
Amy Briggs: And which one of these items on this list could technology fully do?
8:49
Amy Briggs: I chose scheduling and schedule management because I had the hypothesis that technology could do the full thing.
8:56
Amy Briggs: So that I wouldn't be something where I still had a big onerous job as a woman in my household to make the wheels continue to rotate.
9:07
Amy Briggs: Yeah.
9:08
Amy Briggs: And I also knew that it was a really heavy task, is a sneaky task.
9:12
Amy Briggs: I think if people take a step back and you think to yourself, how much time does it take you to schedule yourself or if you have children, your family at first pass?
9:20
Amy Briggs: A lot of people I interviewed were like, it's not that bad.
9:23
Amy Briggs: I hate doing it, but it's not that bad.
9:24
Amy Briggs: And when I started saying, if you could track for me how many hours it is for a week and let's talk in a week about it, it's a huge amount of time.
9:31
Amy Briggs: And it's an interruption that really has a time cost to it because every time you're distracted by the theme days, the early dismissal, the child care changes, the sick days, the schedule Tetris that any parent knows all too well that's taking you far afield from whatever you've set out to focus on.
9:51
Amy Briggs: So I liked that aspect of it.
9:52
Amy Briggs: And I liked that of the hundreds of people I talked to as I was researching this topic, I met one woman who was like, Yep, I love scheduling my family.
10:01
Amy Briggs: It brings me so much joy.
10:03
Amy Briggs: I can't wait to get into a fresh calendar and put all the dates in.
10:06
Amy Briggs: And everyone else was like, oh, I hate this.
10:09
Amy Briggs: I don't want to do it.
10:10
Amy Briggs: It is the bane of my existence, but I have to.
10:13
Amy Briggs: And no one else in my family looks at the calendar, and I am the default parent on this, and I would give it away if I could, but I can't.
10:19
Amy Briggs: So all of those things made me think this is the right avenue.
10:23
Amy Briggs: This is how I give people back their time in a meaningful way.
10:26
Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
10:27
Michelle Gauthier: And I just want to point out one thing here.
10:29
Michelle Gauthier: Something that we talk about a lot with overwhelm is just getting smaller and smaller until you have a solvable problem.
10:37
Michelle Gauthier: And I love that you didn't try to take on the whole thing because obviously the whole thing is a problem, but you were very specific and focusing on just the scheduling, because even if you don't solve, let's just say the women's equality in the home, that's gonna be a lot bigger one to solve than scheduling.
10:54
Michelle Gauthier: But if you solve scheduling, there will be more brain space available for women to work on having a more equal load at home.
11:01
Michelle Gauthier: So I love that you got so specific on what exactly you were trying to solve.
11:06
Michelle Gauthier: What kinds of numbers did you see when people were telling you how long it took them to do scheduling?
11:12
Amy Briggs: For many people, it was like 20 to 25 hours a week that they were spending just on their family scheduling.
11:21
Amy Briggs: So not themselves and their job, but like their kids' coordination, things with school, after school activities, any kind of childcare, apprising their partner of what the plan was.
11:33
Amy Briggs: That was a pretty common metric there.
11:36
Amy Briggs: And when I built, I actually, as a non-technical person, joined a tech incubator in Chicago, built out the first prototype of a Viva myself because I really wanted to be sure that I was solving the problem I set out to solve and that I was actually helping people.
11:50
Amy Briggs: And with a manual, like really clunky version of a Viva that had no interface, no front end.
11:58
Amy Briggs: People were consistently recording, saving four hours a week.
12:01
Amy Briggs: So I was like, this is huge.
12:04
Michelle Gauthier: Like it's not even pretty yet when you were doing that, but it was working for sure.
12:08
Michelle Gauthier: Oh my gosh, that's awesome.
12:10
Michelle Gauthier: I love that you did it yourself too.
12:12
Michelle Gauthier: I feel like it is so important when you're trying to solve a problem for the first time to really be the one who does the work and understands the ins and outs of it.
12:20
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so then what happened?
12:22
Amy Briggs: People were consistently saving time.
12:24
Amy Briggs: I refined the product.
12:26
Amy Briggs: I talked to everyone I could who I was running through two-week trials about what was working for them and what wasn't.
12:32
Amy Briggs: And what I really was starting to realize and look for were two different signals.
12:37
Amy Briggs: Scheduling, when you think about it on a surface level, it's a boring topic.
12:42
Amy Briggs: No one really likes to talk about it.
12:44
Amy Briggs: It seems pretty cut and dry, but it's actually quite personal and there's a lot that goes into it.
12:49
Amy Briggs: So, what I started to realize, the two signals I was looking for were A, time saved, because obviously, if you as a parent are having to comb through your email and find every schedule item and manually extract those things and put them on a calendar and reconcile the times, and then when time changes happen and all of the domino effect, that takes time out of your day.
13:11
Amy Briggs: And again, a shifting cost when you have to divide your attention back and forth with these tasks potentially all day long.
13:18
Amy Briggs: But the other piece of it is this much more ephemeral, like how it felt for people to do that job.
13:26
Amy Briggs: And what I found was there was so much shame and guilt for people wrapped up in not doing this perfectly when it's a task that is ripe for executing poorly.
13:36
Amy Briggs: Like there's no safety net, there is not a good system in place.
13:40
Amy Briggs: It almost always is defaulted to one person, and that one person is almost always juggling so many other tasks.
13:48
Amy Briggs: And yet, when we do drop the ball, when we do miss something, the way we feel about it is really outsized to whatever we miss.
13:56
Amy Briggs: And I think that's because when it comes to our kids, that's a glass ball, right?
14:00
Amy Briggs: People don't want to drop that ball, even if it is something like a spirit day where no one's life is depending on whether or not they were in the appropriate gear.
14:09
Amy Briggs: We don't want to have our kids come home and have a disappointed look on their faces because we let them down.
14:15
Amy Briggs: That feels terrible, that erodes our feeling of being a good parent.
14:19
Amy Briggs: So I thought if I can give that back to people, if I can clear the way of this noise and guilt of I'm always missing things, I'm always forgetting, some things in my email that I'm not gonna see, I'm gonna miss that birthday party, or I'm not gonna get to the camp sign up in time.
14:36
Amy Briggs: If I can relieve that stress, what kind of bandwidth is opened up for people for connection, for little day-to-day moments that are the building blocks to building your esteem as a parent, to having some bandwidth for yourself, to not running on no margin.
14:53
Michelle Gauthier: I love that you brought up the point about the outsize reaction that we have as parents.
14:58
Michelle Gauthier: I was literally just thinking about this the other day.
15:00
Michelle Gauthier: So my son is 18, he's a senior.
15:02
Michelle Gauthier: When he was in second grade, he had a tutor who came to his school to help him.
15:06
Michelle Gauthier: And one day my son was homesick and it was snowy and it was a yucky day in the Midwest.
15:10
Michelle Gauthier: And the tutor went all the way to the school, and the school had to tell her that he was sick because I forgot.
15:17
Michelle Gauthier: Like he was sick, and you go into that panic of what am I supposed to do with work all day?
15:20
Michelle Gauthier: I've got this sick kid at home, whatever.
15:22
Michelle Gauthier: So she texted me and said, Oh, I heard Oliver is sick.
15:25
Michelle Gauthier: And you would have thought I accidentally murdered someone.
15:28
Michelle Gauthier: It was just like, I am so sorry.
15:30
Michelle Gauthier: And keep in mind, I paid her for the session.
15:33
Michelle Gauthier: Like she technically drove all the way to the school and then drove back home and I paid her for the whole session.
15:37
Michelle Gauthier: I still remember how I felt when I forgot that.
15:40
Michelle Gauthier: Or I messed up and scheduled two things on weekend one time and had to cancel with a really good friend after I had told her that I could go on a trip with her when I couldn't.
15:48
Michelle Gauthier: And I still like, I don't know what it is about that particular subject, but I just want to underscore that the way that women feel is so bad, so shamey around it.
15:59
Michelle Gauthier: I don't think we should, but I think we do often.
16:02
Michelle Gauthier: So I love that you brought that up.
16:03
Michelle Gauthier: So if I had the ability to just skip ever missing anything, that would be really super amazing.
16:10
Michelle Gauthier: So, how do you do it?
16:11
Michelle Gauthier: What approach did you take with this app and how does it work?
16:14
Michelle Gauthier: And what kind of results have you seen so far?
16:17
Amy Briggs: Great question.
16:17
Amy Briggs: And I do want to underscore the story that you just shared.
16:20
Amy Briggs: I have those stories myself and every single other woman that I spoke to the entire time I've been building this app.
16:26
Amy Briggs: And as I was motivated to build it, everyone has these stories.
16:30
Amy Briggs: Yes, it's holding these things.
16:32
Amy Briggs: And you have essentially, congratulations and grown child, and you still remember it.
16:38
Amy Briggs: Absolutely.
16:39
Amy Briggs: So the approach that we took was I tried to identify where is this problem primarily happening.
16:45
Amy Briggs: And I think for modern parents, the problem is primarily in your inbox, in your email inbox.
16:51
Amy Briggs: Many people have third-party apps as well.
16:54
Amy Briggs: Those third-party apps also send email notifications.
16:57
Amy Briggs: So I decided that tying everything to a user's email would be a great way to get all of their calendar needs on the calendar.
17:07
Amy Briggs: Of course, there are one-off situations where maybe you're making plans verbally or you might have to enter one or two things manually.
17:15
Amy Briggs: But for the most part, your schedule is in your inbox.
17:17
Amy Briggs: And the way Aviva works is you set parameters as a user for what you want and is important to you.
17:23
Amy Briggs: So if you know your kids are in sports, or their classroom teachers send a newsletter, or you like to get updates from the PTO, or you want to know when packages are delivered to your doorstep, or the doctor's appointments, you tell Aviva that during your onboarding.
17:39
Amy Briggs: And then from that point forward, everything that fits the criteria that we've set.
17:44
Amy Briggs: So we've done most of the work of tuning a team of agents essentially that combs through the data in your email and finds the things that are calendar related that you're going to need and automatically schedules them for you, even if you never see or open an email.
18:01
Michelle Gauthier: That's the great part.
18:02
Michelle Gauthier: You might want to say that sentence again.
18:05
Amy Briggs: So if it's buried and you're missing it, you're not missing it anymore.
18:09
Amy Briggs: And I think what's really great here is people described even early on.
18:14
Amy Briggs: Users would tell me this is like a safety net for my plan.
18:18
Amy Briggs: I don't have to worry anymore that something's falling through the cracks.
18:21
Amy Briggs: I can let go of this feeling that I'm missing something.
18:24
Amy Briggs: Now you have a full sense of everything that's going on for you because Aviva automatically finds it, automatically turns it into an event in the app.
18:34
Amy Briggs: And then it also goes to your Google Calendar automatically.
18:38
Amy Briggs: So you don't have to change your behavior.
18:41
Amy Briggs: You don't have to open the app.
18:42
Amy Briggs: You can actually see all of this in your Google Calendar that you've connected.
18:46
Amy Briggs: And it goes a few steps further than you might even be going for yourself.
18:51
Amy Briggs: Because I know from doing this task myself for a number of hours that I think would rightfully qualify me as an expert and probably everyone listening as well.
18:59
Amy Briggs: It's thousands of hours of doing these tasks that it's not just about going to the birthday party.
19:05
Amy Briggs: It's who's getting the gift?
19:07
Amy Briggs: When is it being purchased?
19:08
Amy Briggs: Do we need a carpool?
19:10
Amy Briggs: It's not just that there's early dismissal, it's that childcare maybe needs to change.
19:14
Amy Briggs: The pickup person needs to change, someone needs to rearrange their work schedule.
19:19
Amy Briggs: So we parse information in the description of events with exactly what you need, but not more than you need.
19:25
Amy Briggs: So if there's a schedule change or you need to bring items or there's a waiver to fill out or things like that, we've got it covered.
19:32
Amy Briggs: We also set reminders proactively for things we know you're likely to forget.
19:36
Amy Briggs: So we remind you a week ahead of time to think about a gift for a birthday party that's on your schedule.
19:41
Michelle Gauthier: Oh, that's amazing.
19:42
Michelle Gauthier: How does it do the reminder?
19:44
Amy Briggs: Does it pop up on your calendar or so?
19:47
Amy Briggs: Right now the reminders live within the app, but it is something we're definitely exploring, putting on people's calendar.
19:53
Amy Briggs: We've played back and forth with that a little bit.
19:55
Amy Briggs: And that does seem to be something that user to user, there's some preference there.
19:59
Amy Briggs: And we definitely don't want to overload people with too much on their calendars.
20:02
Amy Briggs: But as a thinking forward feature, I would love for that to be have some optionality around it that it could go on your calendar if you wanted it there.
20:11
Amy Briggs: And then we also flag conflict automatically.
20:13
Amy Briggs: So if two things are overlapping, you'll see a band on the top of the event and you'll know there's a conflict and see which event is conflicting and you can reconcile it.
20:21
Amy Briggs: That anticipation of need is really where our development and focus will continue because that is what parents need.
20:28
Amy Briggs: It's not enough just to have the concrete information.
20:32
Amy Briggs: It's all of the pieces that even if you're really good at keeping a schedule, likely you are just keeping in your own head about what goes in the bag or what you need to do next or how much time it's going to take to get there.
20:43
Amy Briggs: If you could download that information to your calendar, then you could share it with other people who are participating in childcare.
20:51
Amy Briggs: Then it doesn't live in your head.
20:52
Amy Briggs: You're freed some bandwidth that you currently are using on something that you probably don't derive any joy from.
21:00
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, yes, you're right.
21:01
Michelle Gauthier: Except that one woman.
21:02
Michelle Gauthier: Except that yes.
21:05
Amy Briggs: That's funny.
21:06
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I love that.
21:07
Michelle Gauthier: That is so great.
21:08
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so if people are like, I want to check this out, I want to try this app, where can we find it?
21:15
Amy Briggs: Great.
21:15
Amy Briggs: So Aviva is in the app store for iOS, iPhone users, and in the Play Store for Android.
21:21
Amy Briggs: It's called Aviva Smart Family Scheduling.
21:24
Amy Briggs: We always start with a two-week free trial because I hate nothing more than trying a product and it's feature gated.
21:31
Amy Briggs: So I can't really tell what it does until I've paid for it.
21:33
Amy Briggs: So it's the full functionality of the app.
21:36
Amy Briggs: You can give it a try and see if it's a fit for your family.
21:39
Amy Briggs: And then we are on Instagram at with underscoreaviva.
21:44
Amy Briggs: You can reach out to me personally on LinkedIn.
21:46
Amy Briggs: If you are a career shifter in the tech space or want to know more about how I did this as a non technical person, I would always be happy to chat.
21:54
Amy Briggs: And then our website is withaviva.com.
21:57
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, amazing.
21:58
Michelle Gauthier: I will definitely connect.
21:59
Michelle Gauthier: To you on LinkedIn.
22:01
Michelle Gauthier: That's great.
22:01
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, wonderful.
22:03
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much.
22:03
Michelle Gauthier: I will be downloading and checking out this app.
22:06
Michelle Gauthier: This sounds fantastic.
22:07
Michelle Gauthier: I consider myself to be, I might even be the second person who enjoys planning, but the only reason I enjoy it is the way that it makes me feel when it's all done.
22:16
Michelle Gauthier: When I'm like, okay, I've got it.
22:17
Michelle Gauthier: I understand all of this.
22:19
Michelle Gauthier: And I feel like this app could help me get there more quickly.
22:22
Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
22:22
Amy Briggs: We would love to try it.
22:24
Michelle Gauthier: I love it.
22:25
Michelle Gauthier: Okay, great.
22:26
Michelle Gauthier: So now I'm going to ask you two questions that I ask everyone.
22:30
Michelle Gauthier: So the first question is what's a rule you've made for yourself that you rarely break?
22:47
Amy Briggs: Because I know that if it's on my person, that I'm not going to feel good about how I spend the time.
22:52
Amy Briggs: It's going to be a distraction.
22:54
Amy Briggs: And for so many reasons, not what I want between my face and my kids' faces during the limited time in the day when we get to be together.
23:01
Michelle Gauthier: I love that.
23:02
Michelle Gauthier: What kind of results have you seen in your life from that rule?
23:05
Amy Briggs: I think because I started this very intentionally when my kids were babies, that it started, do you mean to proceed was an easier path than if I had just decided to do it now that our lives are busier and more chaotic, and I have a business that I've founded and they're in grade school and more moving pieces.
23:23
Amy Briggs: They get my undivided attention.
23:26
Amy Briggs: And I get to feel that I've given that to them.
23:29
Amy Briggs: I think that connection.
23:31
Amy Briggs: And I think connection is not about the huge family vacation, although that's wonderful.
23:36
Amy Briggs: It's not about the birthday parties, although those are beautiful.
23:40
Amy Briggs: It's the little in-between moments that are so easy to miss because we're always doing so much and so distracted.
23:48
Amy Briggs: And I really feel a lot of pride and joy over the little things that I get to see, like the interactions between my daughters, or they tell me something funny that I could totally just gloss over and not even see or hear.
24:04
Amy Briggs: So I think that's the biggest result for me.
24:06
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, that's definitely if you were to say, what are the top three things that women feel guilty about based on what I see and hear every day?
24:14
Michelle Gauthier: That is one of them.
24:14
Michelle Gauthier: Like I'm always so distracted, especially with my phone.
24:17
Michelle Gauthier: So the fact that you started off as you intend to finish and are modeling that to your kids is amazing.
24:23
Michelle Gauthier: Okay.
24:23
Michelle Gauthier: And then the second question is what's something completely unrelated to work that you love right now?
24:27
Michelle Gauthier: It can be anything.
24:28
Amy Briggs: I recently learned how to play Mahjong.
24:30
Amy Briggs: Oh, fun.
24:31
Amy Briggs: Very fun.
24:32
Amy Briggs: Highly recommended if anyone is looking to jump on board the hobby band wagon.
24:37
Amy Briggs: And it is a habit stack for me because I play with some of my friends who are also busy working women.
24:44
Amy Briggs: And we do it at a time that works for everyone when everyone's kids are tucked into bed.
24:48
Amy Briggs: So it's a great time to see friends, be social.
24:51
Amy Briggs: And I also like it because I feel like anytime I'm learning something new, even if it's just a game that my mind can be focused on, that feels really good.
25:00
Michelle Gauthier: So absolutely.
25:02
Michelle Gauthier: How fun.
25:02
Michelle Gauthier: I feel like mahjong is trending.
25:04
Michelle Gauthier: Like I have a couple of clients right now who play.
25:06
Michelle Gauthier: It seems like it's the cool new thing.
25:08
Michelle Gauthier: I gotta get in on this.
25:09
Michelle Gauthier: Also, I love like decor and beautiful things.
25:12
Michelle Gauthier: And I keep seeing all these pretty mahjong boards.
25:15
Michelle Gauthier: I'm like, oh, this is right up my alley.
25:17
Amy Briggs: Yes.
25:18
Michelle Gauthier: Very aesthetic.
25:19
Michelle Gauthier: Perfect, perfect.
25:20
Michelle Gauthier: It was so nice to meet you.
25:22
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for being on.
25:23
Michelle Gauthier: And we will put the link to get your app in the show notes.
25:26
Michelle Gauthier: Um, and hopefully people will give it a try.
25:29
Amy Briggs: Thank you so much for having me.
25:30
Amy Briggs: It's been a pleasure to talk to you, Michelle.
25:33
Michelle Gauthier: You too.
25:34
Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
25:41
Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
25:48
Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.