183: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt with Madeleine Dore

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If you feel like you've completed something for yourself, then there's a real beauty in like sort of letting that be and allowing space for the next thing, even if you're not sure what that is. I think maybe that's where the guilt or the shame or the hesitancy can come from is the association with failure. When really I think there's a beauty in acknowledging that there's always endings and beginnings even within things, even within a relationship, even within a project or a focus where we're, we sort of need that renewal. That's life, isn't it?

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Welcome back, Free Timers. I am absolutely delighted to be here today with Madeline Doerr. She is a writer and interviewer exploring how we can broaden the definition of a day well spent. You can see she's a woman after my own heart. Thank you to MBS for making the intro as a labor of love. She spent over five years asking creative thinkers how they navigate their days on her popular blog, Extraordinary Routines and her podcast Routines and Recs. And we're going to talk about how she decided to close those projects later in this conversation because they culminated in her first book that came out in January of 2022 called I didn't do the Thing Letting Go of Productivity Guilt. Madeline, welcome to the show.

Oh, thank you for having me, Jenny. It's such a delight to be able to speak with you.

I joke that I always end up embarrassing my guests to start and I have to tell you, this is one of those books where if I had a highlighter it would have been out of ink by the end and where I wanted to highlight every sentence to the point where maybe there's just Five sentences, unhighlighted. It was so exquisite. Every single word, every sentence, every page. You nailed it.

Oh, well, I'm definitely blushing. And as a fellow highlighter, that is like the highest compliment because, yeah, I'm definitely someone who underlines and you know, dog ears books. And so that's just such a treat to hear that I was able to sort of offer something to you that you could underline and highlight.

It's such a love letter to everybody. I mean, it's a love letter to humanity, but especially to creatives and especially to those who struggle sometimes with not working in a machine like way. The title itself I Didn't do the Thing Today. It's just what so many of us hold over our heads. And I want to start by reading a little excerpt that I absolutely love. You say we've mistaken doing things, being productive as the measure of a day well spent, when really that's just one of many byproducts of living well. What was in your heart to write this book? Like, I know you had done your projects about routines and interviewing others, but why did you feel this is really what I need to say?

I think it very much came from that place of getting to the end of the day myself and lamenting with a sigh like, oh, I didn't do the thing today. And then again and again, sort of seeing that that kind of measure, that standard or expectation was actually turning out to be quite limiting or harmful or narrowing for how I actually viewed the day. Because maybe I didn't do the thing, or I didn't get through my to do list perfectly, or I didn't make as much of a progress as I assumed I would. But there are things in the day that I can still count. And I just thought it was such a pity, really, to get to the end of the day and not value those things. Not value the things like connection or meeting a new person or having an epiphany or rethinking something, or even kind of seeing that maybe the to do list is something that we can do away with because we've shifted our priorities. So I just really saw this space through the conversations that I was having with people as well, and just sort of, I was seeking out, I suppose, advice from people that I thought had it all together and seeing that they also lamented that they didn't do the thing today or they didn't feel like they were doing enough. So I thought, huh, okay, so this quest for perfect productivity isn't actually making us feel any better. Maybe we need to really change the question here. And so the book was kind of, I suppose, bringing together those observations in myself and others and just trying to find, I suppose, better questions to explore and better measures for how we view the day.

It's so true that if we measure the day based on ticks on a to do list, it's so narrow and on a meta level, I have to tell you, I was immersed in reading your book. I was absolutely loving it. As I mentioned, this is one of these where Kendyl's gonna tell me, sorry, we can't export all your highlights, it's too many. But your book actually, in the moment, gave me permission to say, yes, I'm immersed in this book. No, I don't wanna do anything else today. I'm gonna drop the guilt because sometimes I'll be in that mode. And then the subtitle, Letting Go of Productivity Guilt. It's like we'll make certain choices to measure that day a different way based on rest or quality time with a loved one or even just nothing. It's like removing even the pressure that it be quality time. I see it even as I'm asking the question. And so while I was reading, I had the experience of almost relaxing my body, like that guilt of that I should have been at the computer instead of reading your book and continuing as another guest that I just recently had on. He calls it getting whisked to the end of a book because you love it so much. I just wanted to highlight that that productivity guilt is so intense and it's.

Become such a downward spiral that you feel that thing of like, oh, I didn't do that thing when I thought that I should do the thing. And so then you sort of spiral in, feeling so guilty that you don't do anything. So it kind of. You get deeper and deeper. I guess it's about sort of identifying that and getting curious about it and trying to sort of extract yourself from the spiral.

You mention a quote that I've heard before too, and also tagged because I love it so much from Federico Fellini. He says, you have to live spherically in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm and things will come your way. So after all the interviews you did, after coalescing them into this book, which I'm sure itself required a lot more of you in the process of writing it, how do you now come to think about this invitation to live spherically? How does that show up for you now?

Well, it's so interesting you bring that up because this year I've had this intention. Very much inspired by that very quote. So each year I pick a word for the year, which is, I think, a really nice way to kind of hold an intention rather than have this big list of resolutions or expectations for the year. And my word for 2023 is vitality. I was sort of researching that word. I like to look up so synonyms, and I like to look at quotes related to it. And this one from Federico Fellini popped up somehow sort of adjacently. And I thought, oh, that's really encompassing. What I want this year of vitality to be, to be spherical. Like, if you think of things that have vitality, they're like bouncy balls. And so there's like this spherical, joyful element to it. And to me, that just means that to live spherically is to go in as many different directions as possible, to pursue new things, to try out different pathways, to experiment, to be okay with kind of being a beginner again. It's just about kind of forging new paths. And to me, that's very much sort of how I've wanted to set out the year. And so I made this big list of things to try in different kind of directions that I could go in. And a lot of that has been kind of signing up to different classes and trying acting and trying dancing and trying cooking and trying to kind of meet new people and just open up different directions. And I think it's maybe opening up is the key. I think sometimes we can oscillate, which I think is important. Sometimes in our life, we have those closed periods where we really do need to kind of have that solitude and that reflection. But sometimes we have that opening up, and that's when we expand and go in different directions. And I'm just really feeling that this year, which is exciting.

Vitality is such a beautiful word. Mine for this year is thrive, which to me has a similar quality of how to brighten things and just breathe life into things. Again, you told me before we hit record that you're even bouncing around. You're not living in a home. You're in a phase of subletting. Right. So even just the environment is more vibrant and alive because it's newer for you.

Oh, yeah. Thank you for making that connection. Because it's like different directions also in place. So.

Yeah, and the serendipity of that, too, because I feel like when you're not heads down writing and editing and launching a book, the heads up version. And when you live in a location that's new or you're subletting. I know you were in France, now you're in London. There's just so much serendipity that sets in. And I wonder, do you even have a plan yet of what's next? Are you going to just wait until some synchronicity bubbles up?

Oh, it's so nice when you can kind of really listen to those connections and I suppose follow the flow of things. And I suppose I've kind of been guided by that for the last 18 months or so in terms of just going where there might be a spare room through a friend of a friend or things like that. And in terms of what's next, it's been following that flow and that opportunity and trying to relax into it because obviously there's a lot of uncertainty. On the flip side, that meant that for a long time there was a big question mark with regards to what's next. But because there's been this sort of slow reopening and following the flow, I feel like what's next is solidifying a little bit in terms of ideas. I think I speak about in the book being a sponge and really sort of seeing that there are periods where we need to absorb the world around us. We need to take in inspiration. And it might look like we're not doing anything. It might just look like we're floating along, going place to place or not even any kind of movement. But then that's so vital because we need to sort of be able to soak up the things, to be able to then have that squeeze and that outpouring of the inspiration. And often that's sort of what we look at as like sort of the busy periods that we might be in the action taking, the productivity. I do feel very well filled up. And that squeeze is starting to happen in the form of new projects and new ideas. Very much sort of pouring that into my newsletter of late. And there's sort of a bigger new topic area that I'll be sharing more on soon. Being a bit coy with it now. I guess the point is to share, though that there is this other phase to it. Like for so long, the last 18 months, as I said, it's just been this soaking up and didn't look productive at all. But I can just see now how enriching that has been. And you know, those times when you look back and you actually see the changes that you've made in yourself internally, that it's so hard to show other people, but you can really feel it. And I feel like there's that transition now to more of that squeeze.

That's so exciting. And there's such value in both phases. And I always feel very delighted when I feel like, aha, I can start to see what shape this is taking or what next topic area. When you're in sponge mode, one of the things that's so wonderful about your book is you seem like a great collector and curator. It's just every chapter is full of interesting quotes and cultural tidbits from movies and books, and it's just a very wide range of discovery that you've done. So I'm curious, both from a curation standpoint and even a technical standpoint, when you're in sponge mode, what are the ways that you collect all these little bits and bobs?

Mm. Oh yes. Okay. I might go into like a little deep dive about one of my favorite apps to do.

Yes, I would love that.

I suppose, like rudimentary. Rudimentarily. I'm not able to say that word.

I love a good new word too. You know, it's like rudimentarily, you know, all for new words here.

Yeah, we'll go with that. I am a big notes taker in my phone. Just the Apple iPhone Notes app. I've kind of got this things from the week ongoing list where I just put little observations and things and so there's a lot in there and then there's a lot also just in my journal. So I have, I guess a version of what you'd say is a bullet journal in terms of keeping kind of my to do list there. But I also do a lot of actual journaling in there and just notes from the day as well. So there's a bit of a double up just depending on. I suppose if I'm on the fly and don't have my journal, I'll just write in my phone or I will write in there if I'm sort of sitting and pondering at a cafe or something like that. So they're kind of the notes that are captured from the day. But then a lot of what my kind of synthesis and organizing happens in an app called Milanote, which is a Melbourne based startup. And it's kind of if Trello and I suppose something like notion kind of had a baby. There's what I love about Milanote in particular. It's a kind of very flexible canvas and it's kind of. You can move anything everywhere and make these columns and these boards and notes and it can completely kind of shift around and be flexible. So what it's like in many ways is having kind of a big scrapbook or a big kind of brainstorming thing that's really messy. But then as you start to organize it, it can kind of become the creative process where it's messy to begin with, but then you start to sort of see the connections and then you organize from there. And so that's where I kind of keep everything. And what that means is that I start to see themes from those notes that I've made from the day or the things that I'm reading. And I start to kind of create categories of things. And those categories might become little articles that I'll share in the newsletter or ideas for editorial pictures or maybe bigger kind of projects. And it's just really kind of a filing and sorting process from there. And so there's always to a theme, something that I can find a quote to that I've saved, or there's a poem in there. There's a whole board that's dedicated to poems that I love. And just starting to kind of find the themes within that. So the book writing process very much happened in Milanote to begin with. So I had all the chapters and then I started to kind of go back through my archive of interviews and file away things in those chapters. And then when it was ready to write that chapter, I could just export it and it would already have kind of all the different clippings and notes and quotes and things that I needed. And so there was no sort of fear of the blank page because all of my research was there, ready, and it was just kind of doing that beautiful process of puzzle piece solving. Yeah. So, yeah, that's a little bit of a glimpse of how all the quotes are managed sometimes just big spreadsheets and things. I love a quote. What can I say?

Oh my gosh. I know. Well, I could tell reading your book that it's like creating a delicious stew and you have all these different types of ingredients. I had a very similar process with Freetime, my latest book. Cause this kind of software just didn't exist five years ago in this way. But now I did something really similar where I'm collecting all these little tidbits and then I categorize them. And just like you, once I had the big book parts and then the chapters, you can kind of drag and drop things and it starts to come together. And by the way, for listeners, her book chapters are so good for I didn't do the thing today. It's like the myth of balance. The stance of indecision, the deflation of comparison, the trap of busyness. So I could just picture you, Madeleine, like, dropping your little ingredients into each chapter column.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it was like.

We'll be right back, just after this.

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Let's say for the new topic. I also think of it like shaping clay. It starts as this blob, and then as you land on the big idea, okay, that's the universe hands you the blob of clay, and then you're going to start shaping it. So when you're still in a very early phase of a new idea, how do you organize these snippets? Or do they have just a category label? Like, what type? Just tell me more about that. I don't even want to put words into your mouth before you have chapters, let's say.

I think the Blob of Clay is really accurate, actually, because it's the call of a new topic that takes a while to find, I think because for so long my focus was on other people's routines, the creative process, sort of rethinking this relationship that we have to productivity. It was almost a decade of focus on that. Even the way that my freelance writing worked was all sort of tethered to being an expert in air quotations, because I very much see myself more as a guinea pig rather than an expert on that one topic. And so to kind of end that and move to the next thing, there's a lot of fear about, oh, well, then how am I going to sort of even make a living if my living's attached to that one particular subject area? And so it's sort of finding a way to jump across to something new. Like what's the segue going to Be. And so for a long time, we're still holding onto the old thing and almost in a way, trying to find the new thing in the old thing. And that's kind of what happened, because what I've focused on for so long was our relationship to our working lives. And now, even in the book itself, it ends on this idea of connection and kindness and enjoyment. Actually, there it was. It just took me a long time to sort of see that the next thing is there. It's a continuation. And it's very much looking at those themes of connection and curiosity and how do we enjoy our lives with other people? I guess for a while it was pulling out little bits and they didn't sit anywhere. And then seeing that lump of clay, I guess, is like, okay, this is about connection now. Then I could kind of pull everything back in. And so again, it still just happens. On Milanote, the app that I mentioned, I was able to kind of bring everything back from different places, centralize it as this one big lump of clay. And now I'm starting to kind of do that thing where I'm pulling it apart and seeing different themes and different ideas and seeing whether. What does this look like if it's a podcast and kind of mapping that out? What does this look like if it's a book and mapping that out? What does this look like as a newsletter? What does this look like as a freelance thing? Like kind of just mapping it all out and guess project planning, really. And you can stay in that phase for so long. I personally can. I can plan till the end of my days. And so it's really about snapping out of that planning mode as well and actually starting to do. Which would look like starting to interview people about this particular subject.

It can feel risky also, in terms of launching all these formats. If you're like, well, is this really the big idea? Is this it? It might feel like it, and there's a little bit of uncertain there. I've also always found it remarkable how there can be a time my friend Penny and I call it a goo state, where you truly feel like you cannot see what's next. And yet, in hindsight, it's like, the seeds were there. They were already there. They're right under your feet. It's so wild. You're like, why couldn't I see this before?

It is so funny. I love the goot. That is exactly what it was. And you're right. It was there all along. And now I'm in this stage of just kind of waiting, getting all the Ducks in the row. And then I think you exit that and you think, oh, why didn't I get that going quicker? But I think all of it just requires patience, doesn't it? The goo, the planning, the launching.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about endings for a moment, because these can also be ambiguous in a different way. So I want to read a little excerpt from your book. You say, I submitted my manuscript and I knew in that moment it was also a conclusion for extraordinary routines, the labor of love that held my attention for over half a decade. It felt like a natural and neat ending. I'm just gonna dot, dot, dot. And yet I hesitated to properly acknowledge the end. To the keen observer, it was obvious I hadn't sent a newsletter in months. I hadn't planned a new season of the podcast. I hadn't conducted a new interview for years. The writing was on the wall, but I didn't want to read it aloud. Yet in letting things languish, I felt I hadn't marked the end the way I think a labor of love deserves. I could relate to that so much. Go where you want with it and then I'll ask a follow up question, but can you tell me about that insight that, oh, wow, in hindsight, I have been letting this languish, but sometimes these endings are really hard to face because there's a lot of maybe guilt in even closing a project.

There is, isn't there? And I think ties into this idea, this obsession really that we have with success in our society. And so I think it can be this pressure to keep going with things. And it's not even just projects. Staying in a job is seen as admirable or maintaining a marriage and all of these things. And obviously commitment is important, but it's this idea of maintaining something at all costs that sort of comes from a fear of associating anything that's ending as it being a failure. But just because something ended doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be a failure. Be it a marriage or be it a project or be it a career shift. It's really just acknowledging whether something still serves us, I suppose, whether we're still engaged with something. There's no point in me continuing on with a project that actually feels burdensome to me. Like, I think that readers would really detect that if you feel like you've completed something for yourself, then there's a real beauty in like sort of letting that be and allowing space for the next thing, even if you're not sure what that is. I think maybe that's where the guilt or the shame or the hesitancy can come from is the association with failure. When really, I think there's a beauty in acknowledging that there's always endings and beginnings even within things, even within a relationship, even within a project or a focus where we sort of need that renewal. That's life, isn't it?

At the time of this recording, I'm in a languishing state with my newsletters, and I'm right in the thick of it. And I find sometimes when I'm languishing, I don't even know why. There's a real quick quote that I love or letter where he says, the new thing has entered upon you. You just don't yet know what it is, and all it feels like is a sadness. But it's the new thing. It's the new thing that has entered your house or creative house. And so I'm in this mode of letting them languish. Don't really know why. And I think that's a really tricky phase as well. I love that you connected it to success, because I have this little productivity or creativity gremlin that says, we have all this momentum. Don't let up now. Or in your case, finishing the podcast routines and reds where it's like, I don't know, did you have a little gremlin saying, but you got so many listeners, like, you're going to stop all your momentum or you'll have to start from scratch. If you shift gears completely, what do you do when that little voice comes up?

Yes, that voice very much resonates. I guess that thing of like, what are you throwing away? You know, when I'm feeling bold and confident, I can just say, I'm not actually starting from scratch. What I've created here exists, and I made it and I can make it again. It's sort of having that kind of trust in myself and seeing that again. It's this continuation. There's something sort of exciting about starting anew, but you're never quite starting anew because you're still bringing everything that you've got with you. Like, I've got all the skills from producing and hosting and editing that podcast that I can bring to a new project. And I've got the listeners from that that I could update and tell them excitedly about the new project. And we take ourselves with us. And that can be really beautiful thing. Sometimes it can be a burdensome thing when we take ourselves wherever we go. I think that maybe knowing that there's so much that we take can Actually be the very thing that gives us confidence.

That's such a great abundance mindset.

Yeah, like nothing's wasted. Yeah, well, there you go. You can say that to your gremlin.

Yeah, like nothing's wasted. We bring ourselves with us for better, for worse. But it's so true. Like, the other counter to that little voice is that people are quite excited when you do something new and not everybody will come along for that journey, but it's exciting. I mean, probably some of our favorite music artists, they're not the one hit wonders. They're not the one that just play the one same song at a concert for 30 years. They're doing new things, I guess with music it would be like, okay, I like some albums and others I don't, but I still follow the arc of this artist's career over time.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe we can all have that kind of album, little additions in our lives rather than feeling like it has to be this one perfect connected thing. Can this be little, Little hits? Yeah.

You know, one of the chapters in your book, the deflation of comparison. I don't know if I'm unique in this. I don't think so. Because even social media seems perfectly engineered to foment compare and despair. How does this come up for you? Like, even with all the interviews you've done, with your emphasis on just letting go of the guilt comparison, does this still show up for you at all? And then what are your current techniques if you find yourself? I call, you know, eyes on someone else's paper.

I think that comparison is probably the core of it. Like my project, Extraordinary routines began through a lens of comparison. I felt like I was falling short and falling behind in comparison to my peers and the people I admired. And I just felt like I couldn't figure out how to make a career as a writer or creative person. In that project. I was able to get up close to the comparison. I started to interview the people I was comparing myself to. And that was one method of kind of, I suppose, easing the comparison because behind the scenes I was able to see their stumbles and the things that they felt like they sort of didn't have a handle on either. And it was very humanizing to kind of see the shared imperfections. And so that was one way to ease it. But it very much remains and it can be the thing that knocks me from my own focus. So I can sort of fall into a comparison spiral even over something like, oh, someone's written an article that I had an idea for and why didn't I write that sooner and they've done such a better job of it and now I can't do it. And so that limiting kind of lens, and then it can be really stifling. And I don't keep moving with whatever my project or idea was. That's what I really need to watch for. Because I can lose a day sometimes to sort of checking my phone at the wrong moment. Moment. And seeing something that knocks me over internally. And so I have to get kind of. I suppose it's about resilience and refocusing and almost being strict with myself, really remembering that what someone else is doing has no bearing on what I'm doing. And I think that what's really important is to turn that comparison around. And so get closer to it, if I can, through it. Used to be interviewing, but even sometimes, just like looking for things that might be useful, what if I'm comparing myself here? Is it because it's alerting me that there's something here that I want to do? And so in a way, it becomes almost a guide, that comparison. So using it as that guide and that direction and I think the greatest antidote of all. So get up close, use it as a guide. But I think the biggest sort of balm for comparison is to really return to what it is that you want to do and to do it because I think that the more we do the things that we want to do, the less what everyone else is doing tends to matter. So I just really have to sort of get myself back on into my own lane and looking at my own page, as you would say. And that tends to be what helps. But I'm very vulnerable to comparison, so I have to be strict.

I think I love what you shared. Get up close, use it as a guide, return to what you want to.

Do and do it. Yes.

Not that it's always a cut and dried formula, but if there ever would be one, that's it. Because I can tell you're probably a sensitive soul as well. Or as my friend Katherine would call it, a deep soul. And when you're a curious collector, we are scanning, we're looking at a lot of stuff. Sometimes I'll read a book and I'll just think, I'll never be this smart or like, I'll never be able to write the way this writer does. And that's really not my lane. I'm not trying to be the smartest writer that ever lived or even the best writer. I'm just a particular type of writer for my topic areas and that's okay.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I wonder how do you relate to this when it comes to the economics of creativity and running your own I'm guessing delightfully tiny business? I mean, maybe you have like full time employees and whatnot, but I would love to hear how do you stay on track, connected and in integrity, let's say with your creativity and your vision and this next big beautiful blob of clay while juggling the money making side of it, as in like you know, when to shut things down. Oh, but it's making money. Or oh, what format should this take? Well, what's going to make more money than the other? And it's like the economics of it all comes into play as well. And it can be almost a siren song like come over this way, but it might not be aligned. So how do you think about the money aspects of all this?

Oh, money's a funny one. I suppose for me. I don't even see myself as a business necessarily, but more the hat of a freelancer. So very much just sole trader, one person freelancing, I suppose, you know, it's the business of freelancing, isn't it? So it's just me as a freelancer. And in many ways there can be sort of the missing of potential colleagues or that collaboration. But there's also the empowering side of it of just sort of being a sole trader or the solo business owner is complete kind of flexibility, I suppose, and complete responsibility for myself only. And so what that has meant is that I've been able to make the decision sort of many years ago to favor having more time over more money. And so decisions are made over what kind of time that gives me rather than needing to necessarily acquire a lot of like a. The decisions are never about how much money will this make me, but rather how much time or freedom will this enable. So being a freelance writer means that I can write from anywhere. And so that gives me the freedom and flexibility that I'm craving. And that took a while to build up to that, like working as a staff writer and then sort of slowly going freelance and working kind of with various different projects in mind. What that also means is that I have set up my life in such a way that I can live on much less. So I have never sort of possessed things. So I've never had to sort of acquire a fridge or a couch or I don't have a mortgage. And that's a very conscious decision to be able to have that flexibility and to earn less and for that money to go to stretch further time wise rather than necessarily kind of buying things. And I've been contemplating it a lot lately because there is a luxury in that that I want to acknowledge in terms of sometimes you don't have the time to not have things. You know, I commute everywhere. I take sort of trains that take a very long time and I don't have a car. And you need an excess of time to be able to live on less, if that makes sense. That's a very long winded way of answering your question. But I am in this position now where I can say yes or no to projects depending on whether I want to do them, because I know that what I have can stretch. And so I keep a very detailed spreadsheet of my expenses and my income. And so I know when it's time to. Okay, I need to start pitching more to be that freelance editorial or coming up with ideas for in house content writing or sometimes over the last few years has been okay. I actually need to get a full time job for the next six months to kind of top up my bank account again. And so I'm very aware of where I'm at financially and how long I've got, because it's back to that idea of time again. And then things like book deals have been incredible in terms of allowing for that more time. I was able to get not only Australian book deal, but a US book deal because I separated the rights. So that's been something again that's been able to support this more frugal but free approach to living.

I love it. Thank you for sharing your philosophy on that. And I relate to that so much because I generally do the same thing. I'm choosing free time and quality of life. Even if something would generate a lot of money, I would rather earn less than at this point. And you're right, it is such a privilege, but basically earn less. I never assume I'll earn less. I try to keep an open mind that, oh, I could earn even more. I'm so aligned. But in the short term, it might look like earning less or saying no to something that could generate money. But if it's not truly in my spirit, in my soul to do, I'm trying to say no. Because one of the big messages of your book, it's like, life is so rich and there's so much we can appreciate and we can be so rich in time, in freedom, in creativity, in relationships and connection. Like, you said that to overly obsess about money or even to sacrifice some of those other things just for money, it's a real exercise not to do that, at least for me, when I was kind of trained and raised that way. Yeah.

And I think it still gets scary. Like, sometimes I think, oh, am I doing the wrong thing by not having a mortgage? And then later in life, we don't know how it'll work out. And I know that I've got some friends who are really good at investing, and I think, you know, they're investing a lot now so that they can have this kind of lifestyle when they retire. And I think, oh, am I doing it the wrong way around? But I just think you've kind of got to go with, maybe this won't be forever where I don't have things and I can live very lightly. So just enjoy the offering that I have right now. Being a single freelancing, thingless person is to be able to live like this. And so I'm trying to kind of embrace that while I can.

Yes. And live that. The vibrancy of it.

Yeah. Yeah.

This has been so wonderful to chat with you. Is there anything that's fresh or on your mind since the book came out that we didn't talk about that you think listeners might be curious to hear?

I think the more I speak about the book, the more I see it as a question of what is it that you want? And so a lot of my thinking has been around the complexities of wanting, really. Because it can be hard to know what you want. Sometimes want turns into greed, and what's the relationship with that? And sometimes we know what we want, but we still don't do it. And so I think sometimes it's just returning to that question of what is it that you want and who do you want to be? That I think can be really enriching if that's helpful for people.

I love that. Yeah. Thank you for adding that into the conversation and just examining our wanting. And then I feel like, as I said in the beginning, I feel your book offers a big exhale that just there are going to be days, there are going to be lots of them where we don't do the thing and they're just as valuable as the rest to just continually this practice of dropping the self judgment and blame and embracing that exhale and embracing the really quote, lazy days. We know that they're not, but they're seen as lazy from the outside. And yet those are the days where things are incubating. Not that anything has to incubate. You know, I just really appreciate that and I always like to ask because I also feel that sometimes a book becomes like a fossil of itself because you can't update the book.

Yes. Isn't that the big frustration? We should go in and edit it. Right.

Like it came out. Congrats on your over a year bookaversary now.

Oh, thank you.

But the topic probably still lives in you and evolves with every conversation that you have. So I know sometimes just focusing on what's in the book, there's always new things unfolding as well.

This is true. And I think I'm someone who very much changes their mind frequently. So I can flip flop between it's okay if you didn't do the thing to like, oh no, we should do the things. We should do the things that are really important to us and life is short. But I think the message is actually the same. I just have to remember that there are days that we get so caught up in all the things that we should do that we forget the very things that are important to us. And we forget that actually those things sometimes have their own timing and we should trust that and we have to have that patience. And so I think the book is ultimately a reminder of even doing the important things. There is a process. We're human even with that. We are told to seize every day and we want to, but actually there's a human fallibility and we won't actually seize every day. So it's just about kind of remembering that as well.

Yes. And it also makes me laugh. The paradox of just about anything that any one of us could write in A nonfiction book. I still lose sleep in free time. I talk about hard work versus uppercase age versus lowercase hard work. And I'm kind of eschewing uppercase hard work and even goal setting. Two different sections of the book. And still sometimes I'll lose sleep. Should I have told people? Is it actually all about hard work and discipline and goals are so important, but the book is written, it's out. It is what it is. And ultimately, sometimes I have to laugh and just embrace the paradox of it. Just as you're saying with doing the thing, like, sometimes it's good and other times we gotta let it go. Can't carve every dm.

Exactly. And it's just, yeah, people will bring whatever they bring to it anyway. So you don't even have much control in that sense.

Okay, so last question. Your book is one beautiful series of permission slips, but if you could pick out just one to leave with the listeners today, permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be? Hmm.

Oh, there's so many. I think it would really be do something differently. Instead of measuring the day by how productive you were and how much you ticked off a to do list, really experimenting with those different measures that we spoke about. So can you be more creative with how you judge the day? Can you make it more expansive? Can you be more curious about things? And can you sort of see that sometimes it's the internal accomplishments that can be the most important. Sometimes it is that moment of connection that's the most important, or that moment of idleness and just doing the day differently in the sense of not trying to optimize it, but to occupy it and to really embrace it for whatever it was.

Beautiful. Thank you so much, Madeline listeners.

Thank you.

Get your copy of I Didn't do the Thing Today. If you love free time, if you even remotely like free time, you will love Madeline's book. It's so beautiful. And Madeline, where else should we send people to keep in touch? I know you mentioned your newsletter, what's the best?

Yes. So that's on Substack, which I'm finding is such a beautiful community for writers, and it's wonderful. So I've got madelinedoor.substack.com the newsletter is on things. And I share those little daily kind of glimpses that I was talking about, and I'll share the update for the new projects to come. But this in and of itself has essays and musings and curated links and poems and quotes and all those things.

And that's how this whole thing started because MBS forwarded your newsletter and said, yes, is this on your radar? And I go, who is this woman? Oh my goodness.

So thank you so much, Madeline, for all that you're doing, for your delightful way of being in the world, and for sharing all that you did today. I appreciate it so much.

Thank you Jenny, and right back at you. This conversation was so delicious. And what you're doing is enlivening as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks everybody for listening.

If you've listened this far, you get a gold star.

Thank you.

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