🏔 Releasing #Productivity & Making Your Work More Seasonal — with grace allerdice

Amelia [00:00:02] [Music overlapping with introduction to the episode] Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients. I'm Amelia Hruby, writer, speaker, and founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio.

Amelia [00:00:14] On this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia [00:00:22] Download your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig and join us as we do it all off the grid [intro music jams and then fades out].

Amelia [00:00:39] Hello and welcome to off the grid. I'm your host Amelia Hruby, and I am coming to you between seasons to share a very special episode.

But first of all, happy new year!

The podcast has been on hiatus since last summer, but we popped in for a really special episode last fall.

And today we're popping in again for another really special episode before … drum roll please … season two will launch in spring 2023.

I promise it's coming y'all. I haven't finalized if we're gonna have new episodes in March or April yet, but they will be here on this feed for you in the springtime.

Amelia [00:01:20] Today's episode is actually getting a little bit to why we've been on a podcast pause in a roundabout way, of course.

So over the past few years, I've really been leaning into seasonal living. And for me, that has to do with both identifying internal seasons and living with external seasons.

So in the winter, I like to lay low. If I'm going to be honest, I am more likely to be curled up on the couch, watching reality TV than I am to be bright and shiny on the internet making new, amazing, magnetic, informative content for all of you lovely listeners.

I'm so happy you're here listening. If this is a season where you feel most magnetic, I love that for you, but it's definitely one where I just wanna be under a blanket on the couch.

So in the past, I would have forced myself to make new content anyway. I would have pushed and pushed and not let myself off the hook, not let myself do what my body wanted to do.

But over the past few years, I've really learned that if I don't heed my internal rhythms, my internal seasons, life will only end in burnout.

I will only end up exhausted and frustrated and resentful of the work that I get to do.

Amelia [00:02:37] Maybe you can relate? Maybe at some point you have pushed past your limits or you have noticed that you were going into an internal winter, but forced yourself to stay out there being all summery sunshine all the time.

Or maybe you've noticed that the world around you is in the midst of summer and feeling super alive, but internally you feel tired and just want to rest.

And you haven't let yourself heed the lessons or the messages of your internal or external seasons.

Amelia [00:03:10] That's definitely how I lived for a really long time. It's definitely something I've struggled with. And it's definitely something that today's episode is going to share many, many antidotes to.

Amelia [00:03:22] Today on the podcast, I have a return guest, my dear friend and colleague and mentor, Mary Grace Allerdice. She's someone who I've learned from practically, spiritually, emotionally, in so many ways through her podcast Homebody and her former community Kin, as well as through one-on-one sessions. We work together in a lot of different vessels. And this year we are launching a course called Living Systems.

That's all about cyclical design to live and work through your own rhythms. In some senses, it's a productivity course. You'll hear us unpack what that means to us in this episode, but it's really about what I was just talking about, learning to get to know yourself so that you can shape your cycles and rhythms by what suits you. So in this episode, we're going to talk about living systems, which is the name of the course, as well as the concept by which we're always getting to know ourselves, shaping our tools and routines and processes and adapting, our lives to suit ourselves. Now you may be wondering, what does it have to do with off the grid? Amelia, I am here to learn about leaving social media. I don't really care about you and your seasonal living. Hopefully your monologue is not quite as harsh as my internal critic…who you just heard come out. But I do think that this is really relevant to those of you who are here for marketing advice or business advice without social media.

Because when you choose to step away from social media or to launch a business without social media, you need to have other systems in place for doing your work and sharing your work with others.

And what living systems can do is help you learn how to create systems from that genuine internal, place of who you are, rather than just adapting systems from the external world that don't really fit you. Right? That's how most of us ended up on social media in the first place.

If you heard the first episode of the show, those four myths, it's like social media told us that we needed to be there to get clients or customers for our business. We saw other people around us do that.

So we're like, we just did it.

That's so often how we take on habits in our lives and particularly in our businesses. And living systems is about pausing, like pressing pause on all of those behaviors we've,

just picked up from the world around us and checking in with like, wait, what do I actually want and desire to do? And how can we create systems that support that? Not support the sort of arbitrary goals that are handed to us by the world. Not support the rigid, rigorous, overwhelming ways of working that are misaligned with our internal seasons and the seasons of the world around us.

So I hope that you will tune in to this episode. When Mary Grace was on the podcast last time, it was one of our most listened-to episodes about energetic sovereignty. And everything we talk about in this episode about seasonal living, productivity, the role that systems can play and how powerful our projects can be. It's such goodness, y'all, you're really going to love, I think, every second of it.

Amelia [00:06:32] So stay tuned.! And then at the end, or right now, if you're ready to go on living systems already, head to the show notes because there's a link to learn more about the course.

There's a link to sign up to get a few emails from us if you'd like to kind of flirt with the idea of joining us in February when we start with the first cohort, the Earth cohort.

And there is a discount code to take $50 off your registration. So you can use the code OFFTHEGRID to save $50 if you register for this first cohort that begins February 16th.

So I'll let you listen to the rest of it and hear it all in the conversation. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for listening to off the grid. I can't wait for a whole new season with you this spring, but for now, here is my super special conversation with Mary Grace Allardyce about living systems.

mary grace [00:07:29] Do you want to start the conversation or would you like me to guide us into jumping in?

Amelia [00:07:35] Yeah, I can guide us in. So I thought we would just open this conversation with the question of like, what is a living system? Why systems? How are they alive? Tell me, Mary Grace, like what is a living system to you right now?

mary grace [00:08:00] It's so many things. The first thing I wanted to respond was just kind of quipping. It's like, well, it's living because you're in it.

It's alive because you're in it.

I also think it's arising from a lot of a big component of my growth as a person. My education as a human being, as well as someone who does creative work and is someone who's just always trying to get closer to what feels true for me has been gardening, has been learning how does this piece of land want to be?

What is a way to steward water so that these plants grow better? How do I deal with invasive? All these things that we grapple with or we have to relearn as someone who didn't grow up knowing all of these things.

mary grace [00:08:37] You just start to see that everything is alive, that everything is interdependent. is sort of hitched or has inputs and outputs with everything else. And to me, it's like informing a lot about like, like seasonality means something when I'm stewarding plants and land and thinking about water. Seasonality actually is something that it means instead of something that it represents and it has like implications and consequences. And I feel a lot of the time where we're talking about things about like how we manage businesses or time, things like that. We're talking a lot about willpower. We're talking a lot about effort. We're talking a lot about through that industrialist frame where it's only about outputs and it's only about maximizing output at all costs. It's like, well, what if we thought about it in a way that was more interrelational.

mary grace [00:09:29] What we thought about it a way where an ecology of productivity is the way that we're again like seeing, which is another way of saying like — how do we create an interrelational way of like manifesting what is inside of us and making that visible and alive on the outside. In a way that leaves us with more energy because we see in the new. Even just the ways we like mono crop and like extract from land .

It becomes more expensive the more you do that. It becomes more impossible the way you do that. This is something literally cannot grow in that soil anymore.

So it's interesting that we would, you know, a lot of us have embodied that sort of frame around productivity and production in a way, sort of an industrial agriculture model. Sometimes we don't have a choice, but what if we did it in a more regenerative way?

mary grace [00:10:13] What if we did it in a way that we're thinking about and caring about the whole system as as opposed to just trying to extract as much from ourselves and the things around us as possible.

mary grace [00:10:22] And I think the creative way of thinking about living system is also like, how do we design an ecosystem around us, like gardeners, like we're taking responsibility for this environment as a steward, so that the environment is more conducive, to us producing the kind of fruit or flowers that we want.

So that's some of the ways that I'm thinking about it. How about you?

Amelia [00:10:45] So much in what you said that I really want to respond to. I think the ways that you come to this sort of idea of living systems from a really ecological perspective, from gardening,

I've really found my way in from a feminist perspective and from kind of my unlocking of all of the ways that I felt like I had been forced into a sort of masculine system of the world and of productivity.

So we could think about the 24-hour cycle as a masculine hormonal cycle and the ways that feminine hormonal cycles are more closely tracked to menstrual cycles. For folks who menstruate or not, you could think about the ways that, as you were talking about productivity and monoculture and the kind of forced productivity of the way that we often will grow things, we could think instead of the reproductivity of our own bodies or of the earth and the ways in which to have these regenerative cycles, there have to be periods of both like rest and of activity. And so when I think about a living system, I think about a system that is attuned to that cyclical nature as you've been talking about. And when we locate that in our work lives and our creative lives and our day to day, month to month, year to year lives we have to — in my opinion — like really intimately get to know ourselves and our context and the world, that we are like locally situated in as well as you know nationally and globally situated in but I think a living system really starts with our like immediate ecosystem of our bodies and of the places and people that we surround ourselves with, and an attunement to what feels good and what works and how can I get or do or have or crave more of that instead of, you know, what I think we both did for so long, what most people have done for so long.

Amelia [00:12:49] Which is force yourself to work within these systems that harm you, feel bad, expect more than your body or your mind or your spirit could ever produce. And so for me, living systems is a lot about disconnecting, unlocking. I see a puzzle piece and I'm pulling my puzzle piece out of that puzzle and trying to start a new puzzle with that bit.

mary grace [00:13:00] Yeah, I think that makes sense. And I think it's also, because a lot of us do a lot of our work digitally now. We're interacting with computers, with applications, including our tools and our ecology as well. And some of the ways that I've been, the two things that I've been thinking a lot about that are helping me sort of, I mean, we're using the word productivity because people know what it means, not because it's necessarily our preferred word, but some of the processes that are making me relate to it in a different way. One is gardening and the other is alchemy.

And in the same way that like the difference between like an industrial sense of productivity, which is solely focused on maximizing output and profits and extraction…

mary grace [00:13:56] Whereas a Living System, it's conscious, actually. It's assuming that the environment is so conducive and can't help but produce. It can't help but be creative. So if you think about your favorite plant, maybe it's your favorite flower or fruit or vegetable, it grows on something. It is a product, of something for lack of a better word.

And if we think of like a like a plum tree or tomato plant, tomato is always my tomato is my teacher. It's going to be a lot harder if the tomato is also trying to be the soil and the rainfall. And also, it's going to be a lot harder if the tomato is trying to be in every stage of its development at the same time, it's going to be hard. It's like if it's trying to germinate and fruit and decompose and compost and reseed all at the same time, it's really impossible for the plant in itself to be anything except what it is. And the plant can't help but produce an insanely amount of abundant fruit when it's the season, when it has the conditions, when the system around it is conducive.

So in a sense, when it belongs where it is, and when it's the season that it belongs in, it really can't help but make what it was made to make. And to me, that's a living system.

It's really reframing our idea of productivity around life as opposed to extraction in the way that like, yeah, we produce fruit and flower. Our life is made to produce something. However we want to think about that, whether it's framing it with destiny or just something that's a little bit less macro. But I think it's also, it can become a path for us to belong to ourselves again and belong where we are and to put us in the creative driver's seat of crafting an environment around us, crafting tools and habits and rhythms and seasons around us and within us so that we're able to, we can't help but produce what we're here to make.

Someone who's pregnant isn't like, today I will make a heart, tomorrow I will produce an ear. Today, it's in an environment that can't help but grow a baby.

mary grace [00:15:56] And it's like, that's sort of the living, it can't help but make life. This is happening. It's not like, now I will go into labor and now the thing that was within me is without me and I have manifested a life.

No, it's just happening. And so to me, I'm really interested in ways of working, especially now that we're working in such a digital sense, like how do we make the ways that we manifest things, we produce things, we get things done, plug into the fact that like that's true.

Like that's just how this planet works and how this life works.

Amelia [00:16:25] Yeah. What a like beautiful premise underneath all of that, that just, you know, of that life will prevail and that we... you know, when I plug everything you just said into this course that we're offering into living systems, it just feels like the seed at the center of it all is just that we are all creative people with brilliant purposes in our lives and the world.

And there's so much work out there, in my opinion, of like, you know, self-help work, personal development work about like finding your purpose and figuring out your mission and like what's the one thing you're like meant to do or what do you what can you do right now but I don't think there's a lot of work around or a lot of, you know, courses, books, whatever I found much less around how can you create the context in which that purpose will rise to the surface almost no matter what.

I mean life can happen things get in the way. Your tomato plant can be in the best garden ever and then the aphids arrive. Your bugs come and you're like, shit, we were so ready to grow and then something has happened to us. But I think that what I see us doing with Living Systems is really trying to create these ecologies, these ecological contexts in which our purpose is going to come forth. They're going to to like emerge because we've enriched that soil so intentionally, we've fertilized ourselves. We've watered ourselves and so we are going to grow.

And I think that the beauty of that is it also takes so much pressure off us as an individual, right?

Amelia [00:18:16] Because I don't know about you, but every time I tried to like sit down and like figure out my purpose with, you know, an ebook, it never worked. So it's like, what?

But in my journey over the past few years, as I, you know, unplugged from academia, where I was for a long time, as I unplugged from like some employment situations that were less than ideal for me, as I unplugged from a lot of bad relationships and started to really create a context in which I have a lot of flux.

For me, I have a lot of flexibility over my day-to-day life.

I have a lot of freedom to do what I want when, and all these beautiful things emerged. My business emerged.

Before that, my book emerged. This course emerged. It all came from not me trying to figure out my purpose, but instead me tilling that soil of my daily life and the systems I put in place to support myself.

mary grace [00:19:11] I feel like I want to pick up where you left off. It feels very American, but that could just be because I'm an American, at least nationally, if not in other ways, where we are so individualistic.

We think of ourselves the whole centering the, “I think, therefore I am,” because I have a mind, therefore I exist and it belongs just to me.

I think we lose so much when we forget our interrelationality, not only with the more than human world that's all around us, but with one another.

And so even the way that we've structured the course is around connection and around like being with one another. There are things that we can accomplish only with one another. There are things that can transform only with one another. for me anyways when I feel that friction of like...

I don't have time to do this thing that's really meaningful for me that would change my life like that's a friction but it's also giving me information like i built a system which i can't do the things that i need to change like that's a red flag for me it's starting to be something that I learned to listen to with a lot of grace and i think it's the end so I think just remembering that we exist within a system.

mary grace [00:20:19] Which a lot of times, we're talking about in a negative way where we're like — we exist in Late Stage Capitalism or we exist in an extractive system. But we also live within a lot of really beautiful systems.

But because we are mostly attuned to looking at things that are made out of metal, we've sort of forgotten that we're in it.

But that being said, I think a really simple way to describe how systems help us honor our energy is that we can notice, they help us remember who we are and what we desire to produce, like what fruit we desire to produce.

And I've made a lot of things. Some of them are businesses, some of them are projects. And I think something that has been really noticeable for me is when I was the one making decisions, which you are if you own a small business, a lot of it comes back to you.

It's like, oh, look at how I just reproduced the thing that I don't like.

mary grace [00:21:08] And getting really curious about that, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who experiences that. But something I've done lately is really, what would it look like to program more of this like multilayered seasonality that we live within? What if each month had a cycle for me? What if each quarter had a cycle for me? What if each quarter had a role within a larger cycle of the year? What if this year had a larger role within, thinking about the body or the context of my work or my personhood.

mary grace [00:21:38] And on a micro level that's looked like something really simple where I have two weeks out of the month — it’s time based on the moon — where I don't see clients. I don't record things. I don't do external facing things. I don't have to hop on zoom and have meetings or discovery calls or things like that. It's really invisible time where I can do all the other things, maybe it's catching up on admin, maybe it's like processing a lot of stuff that I took, and maybe it's like doing some of like the client build work, all these things. And something about that for me has been incredibly regenerative.

mary grace [00:22:13] It’s felt like restoring my shores because it's being aware of my own energy enough to know that these sort of outward facing things are really challenging for me. Or I shouldn't say they're challenging— they take a lot of energy from me even if I enjoy them. And just even just holding a boundary with that or creating a system around that to where I don't even have to question it when someone's like, Oh, can you do X, Y, and Z?

I'm like, oh, actually, no. That's during the two weeks, so I can do it at this time, or we can't do it. And so that's a way of honoring myself. It's a way of honoring what I need and honoring what feels good.

And if I know I have a tendency to be a people-pleaser and compromise my boundaries to make it more convenient for others, which is something I know about myself, I can just make it possible that people can't book through me directly.

They have to book through a system that just has it programmed in already. So there's ways that we can use technology to help us honor our energy and hold our boundaries and sort of help us.

I feel like my system is like holding up the wall for me while I learned to regulate around a different load of work and cycle of work that feels much more generative for me.

Amelia [00:23:00] Yeah, as we were talking I was just thinking about how systems are often some combination of like what I would call like personal policies or boundaries or something like that plus some type of tool that's going to help you as you kind of put it place like automate or enforce that in some way.

And so often systems are really like when we talk, when I was just talking about kind of disconnecting or unplugging from those ways of working that are so programmed in and so normative and so often based around cycles that are not seasonal, that are not grounded in our bodies and lives.

Systems, I think in their earliest iterations are often just ways of of automating and process-izing your boundaries, so that you are not constantly having to spend your very precious life energy on making the same decision over and over and over again.

You know, that's what a boundary does. And then you can turn that into a system by using tools like booking links, like emails, auto responders, like Notion databases that will help us turn those boundaries into systems that can hold us so that all of this other beautiful stuff can emerge from there.

Amelia [00:24:38] Because you get so much life energy back when you're not constantly telling people no when they ask to book with you on XYZ week of the month.

It's interesting as I hear you say that. Something that also comes up for me is like, I've talked a lot in various places about doing like a no meeting week each month, and I've heard other people start doing that ask me about that. And then it's been interesting to realize at different points last year where I had encroached on things for myself such that that wasn't possible at certain times. And I had to be like, oh, like the problem there, it was like in my system again.

And also for you to have those two weeks a month off, you've had to change some of your offerings, you've had to make different choices so that it's possible. I've had to do the same thing, like to actually have a full week off every month, I've had to shift like, do I include calls in all my packages? And I don't anymore.

Like, where do I have to make these choices at different places? It's not always just about putting up the calendar link. It's about having to, where I'm going with this, is seeing the macro system and how all of these different decisions you're making in different places can lead to this result of, for me, my calendar is overbooked and I am exhausted.

So I noticed that the week before my no meeting week, I would have twice as many meetings as usual because I was just saying yes to everyone and slotting them in at a different time. And I had to back up and be like, okay, why are there so many meetings at all? And how do I shift this?

So something I've done this year in the spirit of fewer meetings is I've taken all of my booking link off my website. It used to live on every page and be everywhere. And now it's only available by contacting me and asking to create a call, which has already reduced my call frequency, which is helping with just having more time freedom in general, which is really important for my productivity in general.

Amelia [00:26:34] But I'm wondering…maybe we can just kind of see how our brains do, just trying to like take this off the prompt on the spot. But, you know, a lot of people who might be tuning in, like, it may not be meetings that are their thing, they may not have, they may work a job they don't have control over, you know, not everybody is in a position to kind of block off time the way that we have.

But what are other ways that systems have helped you honor your energy in your life or in your clients' lives that you or we both have seen these sorts of living systems support more life for ourselves and the people that we care about and work with?

mary grace [00:27:10] One of my favorite questions that I've been asking now around, like when I'm doing like builds, custom builds for people, it's like, okay, what is something that you really love that's happening right now? and something that you really hate?

Like earlier, you were talking about, and then the aphids come. And you're like, yeah, but the aphids are also part of the system. So what does it mean that there's aphids here?

What does that tell us? What's not here that this is happening?

Or what, like, it gives us information. And that's something that I think thinking ecologically has taught me a lot. It's like, just because something's here, yeah, it may not be what we want to happen, but it gives us, it tells us a lot about what we need. And so I think, what are those areas of friction?

You know, it's like, maybe you can't have a life where you don't have meetings. But you know, there's a lot of companies now that are actually noticing a lot of happier employees and less turnover and more productivity from just having Fridays where there's no meetings, or working shorter hours or what are things that you can ask for?

What are ways you can honor yourself within the context? It's like, I feel a lot of friction when, and what are those things?

For me, it was like starting to use Notion as like a way to manage projects and tasks and all sorts of things so that I didn't feel like I was having to try to remember things all the time.

mary grace [00:28:30] And so I think a lot of an answer to your question too is also like self-awareness. Like what's the thing that's causing you a tremendous amount of anxiety and friction?

Is it that you have to spend 30 minutes looking for something every time you need it and you never know where it is or where you are?

Is it that these people keep emailing you instead of putting it in the task manager? Is it that so-and-so never gets back to you?

Is it that we don't know who's responsible for what? Like all these things accumulate friction and they don't actually have anything to do with our job. So we could actually like eliminate, so many, 99% of the cases, they're completely solvable.

And they're all really small things, but they start to build up over time.

mary grace [00:29:10] And so I think some of those like where can we like flex a little bit of like ingenuity and creativity because not only will the company you work for benefit from people being more quote productive, but they also benefit from you feeling better and being more creative. And there's so much work and studying happening around that right now to back it up. And I think what happens when we start to reduce that friction or that constant like, Oh my gosh, this person emailed me. We're spending all that energy being like, no, we're juggling meetings where we can't have a deep thoughts like we're in reactive mode, we're not in creative mode. And that's like not where we get anything really meaningful done really, in my opinion.

So we have to be reactive at times, but I think at best it's like less than 5% of the time.

So how do we create a system that allows for more of the creative driver seat? I think regardless of what your role is, whether you're running a business or you're running your role.

Amelia [00:30:00] I think that last piece is really important. I think part of what we do with living systems, why they're so important to both of us, is because they help us take our power back by just reducing how often we are in reactivity and purely reactive to other people's asks and other things that are going on.

Amelia [00:30:28] My systems help me stay out of my inbox more, which is really important because the more time I spend replying to emails, I'm just in other people's needs and questions and things.

The other thing I was thinking as you were talking is I keep trying to come up with the formula for what is a system, but maybe the simplest one is it is just an intention plus a process, or it's like friction plus process equals negative friction or something like that.

[Laughter]

Amelia [00:31:05] And I think if someone's wondering how might I use systems in my life. Just taking stock of those moments of friction, which can be as simple as for me, they're always just like, I don't like doing this. Like as soon as that shows up, it's like, okay, so I probably need a system. And maybe that system is a tech tool. Maybe that system is a checklist. Maybe that system is an embodied ritual I do before I go do that annoying thing I don't want to do.

There are lots of different ways the system can take shape. And I think that's part of why you know, I've had a number of folks ask me like, Is this just a Notion course?

Is it like an email? Like what is the what of the course? And the what is not the tool. Like we both love Notion, use Notion for probably the majority of our systems.

Amelia [00:31:52] However, what's important in Living Systems is learning to identify those points of friction and then figuring out what type of system is gonna work best for you.

And that may be Notion, it may be an automation, it may be a manual process.

I have many a rant to go on about where I automate things and where I actively do not, even when people try to make me, because sometimes what I need is that manual process, is that checklist, is that writing it down.

But yeah, I think that just learning to identify the friction so that we can be creative in how we reduce it and make systems that eliminate it or relocate it or a lot of different things you can do with it.

Amelia [00:32:37] But I think that can happen with your calendar, it can happen with your inbox, it can happen with how you log on for the week, it can happen with how you reply to certain types of emails, it can happen with how a client buys something from you, it can happen with how you communicate with your boss every week.

There are so many places where it's like, if anything in your day to day work life feels bad, we can probably together figure out a living system to help it feel better. That's really what the systems are for, in my opinion.

mary grace [00:33:30] I agree. Yeah, it made me think about, to me, obsessing over the tool isn't as interesting of a question because the rate of technology, everyone's coming out with a new app, new tool, new that's going to be happening for ever.

And it's sort of, to me, if we think about it, putting it back in non-digital world, it's like, is the important question, whether the land is in Georgia or Nebraska or Jordan or like, yeah, those things influence our inputs and like it determines the type of ecology that we're in, but we're still in an ecology.

It's still like water is still a thing. Soil is still a thing, which is why I think we've gone really elemental and how we've structured the cohorts because we're learning sort of the principles of soil are the same. The principles of water are the same regardless of where you are and what tool you're using.

mary grace [00:34:00] One of my big rules is like — if it's not broke, don't fix it. Like if something's working, keep doing it. You're learning something about yourself and the place where you are or the tool that you have.

And so I think remembering that we've gone elemental, we've gone seasonal for a reason because we all have every environment, every system, digital or not, has a way that they plug in and sort of have to relate to these elements and we have to do that as people as well.

Amelia [00:34:46] Yeah, definitely. And I think part of what we love about Notion is just that it's incredibly flexible and it really allows you to emphasize what we've been emphasizing here, which is like — attuning to yourself and creating things that are for you.

Which for me had always been a struggle with other tools I'd used, like Asana or Airtable or whatever else. I just felt like I was constantly contorting to the tool instead of really having the flexibility to make the tool serve exactly what I want.

Amelia [00:34:58] That said, I think a lot of people land in Notion and we don't know what we want and we don't know what we want it to do. And then it's like, well, I'd much rather go to Asana because it's going to tell me I need tasks and then I could come up with tasks, right?

Like it goes back into that reactivity piece. I think Notion really doesn't give you that so much. And it really like invites You have to figure out what you need and desire and then go create it there.

Amelia [00:35:23] And speaking to those elements then, we've kind of, well, we've, as you said, structured this course around natural elements, but there are also these core elements of productivity and of our work lives that I think we’re focusing on in this course.

So the first one in the Earth cohort that starts in February 2023 is the Project. And I'm wondering if you could kind of unpack for us, like what is a project and why are we starting there?

mary grace [00:36:00] Some of it is selfish because I feel like project management or project stewardship is maybe my biggest life flex.

But really, I think it's helpful because it really grounds us in time and space with what we're doing. I think if we're using the metaphor of building a house or cooking a meal, a lot of times when I go into people's digital spaces, it's amazing to me that the level of lack of awareness of what is even on the stove and how long has it been cooking and when is it going to be done and what ingredients do we need?

mary grace [00:36:30] And a lot of those are project questions and they're really, really important. And I think a lot of the reactivity comes around like a lack of prioritization around projects, not knowing what they are, not knowing how to sort of like steward them and scope them, define them.

And I think sometimes that comes from a fear of like failing at them. It's like, well, if I give it a deadline, then I could miss the deadline and fail. And it's like, yeah, you could.

But we need to know that, right? And doesn't mean you're a bad person. It may also just mean that it actually wasn't that important.

It makes us sort of confront the boundaries of our time, the boundaries of our energy, which is why we've put it into the Earth element.

It makes us confront the boundaries of our priorities, which I think is really important, because boundaries are also potential and their limitations.

You can't honor anything if it doesn't have an edge to it. There's no flow. If there's no edge, there's no productive fire if it doesn't live in a pit, you know, like our cauldron. Like if it's not being useful in a useful container and a useful vessel, no magical cooking is going to happen.

And so I think projects are sort of like the first thing that I think getting really clear on how these are managed, what they are, what your process is like that really starts to bring so much shape to anything that starts to feel like scattered or confused or just isn't rowing the boat in the direction that you want.

Amelia [00:38:00] Yeah, I love your metaphor of cooking or of the stove. And I just saw Marie Poulin who's like a Notion mistress mastery person.

mary grace [00:38:05] I think mistress is a great mistress.

Amelia [00:38:08] Yeah, but it kind of means something else as we know.

mary grace [00:38:10] That's true. But it's also could be what we want and what we mean.

Amelia [00:38:12] Yeah, I think of her as like a queen of Notion YouTube and learning.

I just saw saw that she had like a tweet and a little thing about how like, we only have we have a limited number of burners on our personal stoves. And sometimes we want to put something on we have to take something else off.

And I think it's a nice metaphor that plays into what you were just saying, and how I'd want to extend it is just that all of our stoves are also different.

So I think there are a lot of like project management frameworks out there that are really based around you know, like you get x number of projects, or you should care about these six areas of your life and have projects in each one.

But I just, like, that's not how it works. Like what we keep saying here over and over again is that each of us is different and we have to attune to our own selves.

So some people I've found work a lot better with like six small projects at a time. Some people need one and that's it, like one thing that is everything, that’s who they are and what they're doing.

Some people need two things that are equally big so they can just bounce back and forth between the two.

Amelia [00:39:25] Some people can really differentiate between projects in a personal life and projects in a work life. And that depends a lot on how your job or your business is set up. Some people can't. Work projects are happening, no personal life. Personal life, no work. It's just so fluid and flexible and different for all of us.

Amelia [00:39:45] And I think that when it comes down to it, we all have projects. Even if you're listening to this, and you're like, I don't have a project.

Like if you brush your teeth once a day, oral hygiene is a project in your life. I'm here to claim any thing.

Keeping yourself alive is a really hard project. Like let's be real. Keeping your teeth in your mouth, really hard project for some of us, myself included.

Amelia [00:40:10] You know, and I think that like the projects are there. And so often to that point, like we're convinced that like, well, I'm not like writing a great American novel or I'm not like starting a brand new business, like I don't really have projects. But we all have things that we do and we all have things that we care about and those are our projects because the project is simply like the container for each of those things.

To circle back to your original point, which is like what we do in Living Systems and why we emphasize projects is that when all those containers are just like really fluid and don't have any limits and don't have any boundaries and don't have any processes and don't have any systems — then our lives can really feel out of our control.

Amelia [00:40:57] They can feel really aimless. They can really feel like we don't know where we're headed or what we care about or what we're doing, or that we have any power over it.

And by creating these like distinct vessels for our projects, whether that be through a deadline, through a routine, through a priority list, whatever system we put in place. Then, I think we just reclaim so much agency and power and care in our own lives — not just reacting all the time.

So whether you love projects or you think you have no projects, Living Systems is for you.

mary grace [00:41:30] Yeah, because you definitely have them.

I love all the things that you said. I feel like projects, I mean, it's learning how we do things in the world.

And so I think for me too, it's like, there's a precision that I think that earth can really help us get about it's like, where's the edge of the the garden bed. Where is the edge between the beach, the sand and the water?

And earth really helps us get clear about that. So I think when we don't have a clear sense of how we do things or what we're doing, or we don't have a clear project sense, it makes it really hard to get support because we don't know what we're working on and neither does anyone else.

And we expend a lot of energy and we're not sure where it's going. And we're like, have we made progress? I'm working all the time. Why am I not making more money? Or why am I not done with this thing yet?

And it's like, but it gets massive. Well, I'm working all the time.

And it's like, well, that doesn't necessarily mean that in and of itself is not a valuable thing.

mary grace [00:42:31] And so I think Earth can help us get more precise because the problem isn't that you're not doing enough. It’s probably that it's not directed or that there isn't a lot of precision there. So maybe it's like you're not saying No. Maybe it's that there's too many weeks. Maybe that something isn't available and needs to come off the stove.

And i think that to me project management and manifestation are very closely linked because it's learning how we manifest, how we bring the things inside of us, outside of us in a way that works, in a way that's integrated.

And so to me, stewarding projects is a manifestation skill, which I think has also been taught in a way where it's highly individualized.

It's all about your inner work. And I think inner work is part of it, but I think it's also some skills. It's also something that we need to learn to systematize and learn to scope.

And there's some really practical ways that we can just get really good at manifesting.

And we're getting really good at alchemy, getting really good at changing our reality by learning to do projects.

And that's been very true in my life and a really big differentiator. It's like the magic of projects is the magic of world building.

It's like the productivity maybe is instead like alchemy. It's like how we transform this reality into the next thing. And we do that every time we make something.

And so I think I can't really like understate a, why we're starting with this piece and b, how like important it is for us to like meet our own personal way of doing that.

Amelia [00:43:59] Yeah, I think that this is reminding me that like project management and living systems in my sense are this kind of missing link between like vision and execution.

And many of us I think are very visionary and struggle to execute or if you're a Capricorn rising like me, really good at executing and struggling to like vision and plug in with the bigger picture of like, why I'm executing all the time? What am I doing? What I'm constantly doing?

Amelia [00:44:29] And I think that a system and a project really serves you at either end or any place on that spectrum.

It helps you if you're really visionary and you need to become better at executing the vision, a system can take you there.

If you're really great at executing and getting shit done, then a system can help you plug back into that more visionary piece.

And so it's so flexible. Living Systems are so flexible that really, if you desire to plug into your purpose and find ways to manifest it, then this course, I think, is a way to do that.

It's a vessel for learning more of those skills that you were just talking about. That manifestation isn't simply, you know, I think it often gets taught as like, well, as just the visualizing process — like manifestation is just learning to name what you want to come to life.

And I just think that's false. Like, it's not just learning to ask the universe for the thing you want.

Like the people who are the most powerful alchemists, the most powerful manifestors are the ones who learn to get really clear about what they want and then understand the ways that they have to collaborate with their context to bring that to life.

And that's what systems do. They give us those collaborative actions. And it's not just systems, it's a living system because that requires constant attunement.

Like, you know, I create tons of systems and I'm adapting them constantly because I'm changing constantly.

And that's how we get what we want. That's how we make it happen is through that incremental, iterative, systemic process.

mary grace [00:46:16] And that's what makes it alive, right? That it's adaptive, like that resilience and adaptability are inherently connected.

So it's not here to put you in a box, it's here to give you a structure so that you can adapt in a resilient way.

Amelia [00:46:32] Exactly, and like it's why we don't have a six point checklist for how the system we’ll teach you is gonna get you everything you want.

Like we can tell you there are these four natural elements. We can tell you there are like projects, tasks, a few other different vessels that we pour our work into.

But from there, it's about the creative process, the active process, the alive process.

And I don't know about you, Mary Grace, but I'm just hoping that this course really calls in people who are ready to do the work on those levels.

Like people who are really ready to be active and alive and create beautiful, gorgeous things that I never would have dreamt up.

Like, I want artists, I want business owners, I want writers, I want dancers, I want people who just are really good at managing a household or wanna get way better in the domestic sphere.

I want people who are alive to join us in living systems.

Like whatever your life is, you can bring it to the vessel of a course and we can help you activate it even more. I can't come up with quite the right, I guess, alchemize what you're meant to do next.

mary grace [00:47:45] Yeah, because it's not about being precise in like this Virgo sense, it's about being precise about who you are.

And like, which I think to me is where I'm really excited about. And I find that the people whose essence I want to manifest in the world the most, sometimes are often the people who are also struggling to sort of get the scaffolding together the most.

And I'm like, we need to cut that down, because what you want to make definitely needs to exist.

So definitely wanting to just be supportive and educational and make that happen more beautifully and more elegantly more easily for people so that that can be the case.

Amelia [00:48:30] I love that. Yeah, not all of us are Capricorn risings who just scaffold unintentionally all the time. That's me. Not all of us unfortunately have that gift slash curse, but no, I agree with you. Just so many beautiful people in my life, and I am sure listening to this, who have things in them and us, that the world really needs and so much gets in our way of actually bringing them to life.

And so living systems just eases that path. It doesn't have to be all struggle. It doesn't have to be so hard. It doesn't have to feel like an impossible feat.

It can be much easier because it can be systematized. It can be a process. It can be attuned to you and who you are. And I will cut, myself off there because I've already gushed enough about everything that we're doing and who we want to join us. So let's give folks the specifics. So if you're listening and you're like, all right, 50 minutes in or however many minutes it is from your recording, like I'm sold.

What am I buying? How do I join you? Mary Grace, why don't you tell us a little bit about like the Earth cohort and this course that's opening in February?

mary grace [00:49:38] Well, we're starting with this Earth element because earth is really like foundational to holding. We have to have a container to put all of our our things in and so I think for this season, we're really focused on like the structures the limits the boundaries the projects.

mary grace [00:50:04] And what it looks like to steward those things and get those really in order so that we have something to work with and so that you experience a lot more like clarity, a lot more resilience and strength and defining like, what is enough work What even work am I doing? Like what is even going on?

mary grace [00:50:20] And really getting into the meat of like that manifesting energy. Like how do we do how do we bring something earth-side that's inside of us. And what are the skills, what are the tools, what are the templates, what's the support that i'm gonna need in order to make that happen.

And you learn to clarify and scope projects so that things are less overwhelming that there's more flow, thinking seasonally and how you're going through your weeks your months your quarters your years.

And also just talking like how to, again, honor your energy — what needs to happen for that to be more successful? How do we get okay with making things fail-able so that we can create the things that we want to instead of the things that we feel like we have to?

Those are some of the things that we're really bringing to this. I feel like you'll say it in a much more organized way.

Amelia [00:51:00] No, I think that that's definitely correct.

Week by week, just looking at the earth cohort, our intention is to kind of begin with identifying like the zones of your life — what are the different gardens that you're attending to right now? how do they all fit into the garden of your life as a whole? where are you giving more or less focus during this particular season that we'll be exploring that together?

That'll be kind of our week one topic. And then in week two, after we've identified those zones, we’re looking at projects in these different areas. So how do I identify and create projects? how to honor your energy, how to make them and failable as Mary Grace has been talking about.

Amelia [00:51:48] From there in week three, we'll move into cycles and cycle tracking as well as rituals for checking in with our progress.

So this is where we start with prioritization. We've identified the projects now, how do we prioritize them? What different time scales do they need? Are they daily things, weekly things, monthly things? How often do we need to check in? How much rest time do we need to build in? All of these different sorts of questions.

And our goal is that by week four, I don't think I've mentioned these are all four week cohorts yet, but they are.

By week four of each cohort will have this sort of foundational piece in place. So week four of the earth cohort — the cohort that's all about zones of your life and projects and prioritization — ideally you'll have some type of projects database or zones database and a vision kind of for the very least the season ahead maybe potentially the year ahead.

Amelia [00:52:40] And again that can look like a lot of different things this is so flexible so it may look like a literal notion database that's called projects that we've helped you identify all these different aspects of.

It may look like a page in a digital journal that's just a checklist for every time you start a new project, all the things you're gonna figure out about it before it begins.

It may look like a sheet of paper that you copy and do that on every time. It may look like a beautiful vision board of all the different areas of your life organized by how much space you want them to take up this year.

There are lots of different ways that those pieces can take place. But that's kind of our week by week overview of the Earth cohort.

Any other thoughts on Earth, mary grace?

mary grace [00:53:05] Yeah, I think, you know, bringing in bounds and boundaries — what are the things that you wish you could hold that you can't? How do you need the system to support you more? And what does it look like?

Yeah, I think just getting better at bringing those things Earth side. We were so good about all the different ways that this could possibly look for how someone does it. And so it's going to be a really beautiful combination of education and getting really nerdy about how these things happen, combined with co-working time, working together, crowdsourcing solutions that work just for you.

mary grace [00:54:08] We'll, of course be offering a couple of templates and things and scaffoldings that have worked really well for us and our systems.

But again, because everyone's brain and process and goals so different. This is not like a template-based course. This is a principles-based cohort where we're focusing on what we can accomplish together, how we can get you closer to manifesting your projects and your business and your goals and really thatcan't build anything if there's no foundation.

Amelia [00:54:32] Also, so true. And if you're somebody who's like, okay, that all sounds great. I get the concept, Mary Grace and Amelia, but what is the what that I am buying? Because I'm sometimes that person…

Here's your bullet point list of the what of the how the course works. So there will be four 75 minute live classes with us one a week. They will be on Thursday afternoon, evening, depending on where you live in the world.

Then there will also be four 60 minute co-working and accountability session. So we'll have a live class on each Thursday and then there will be an hour at some other point in the week that we will vote on and figure out together as a cohort where you'll be invited to just come bring your questions, bring your vision board, bring your notion and get support from us. So you know if you've got a super technical notion question, great we'll figure it out. If you just need to like talk through your dreams with somebody for 20 minutes, great we'll do that too during those co-working times.

And then there will also be, there will definitely be Notion templates. We're huge Notion nerds. So we will provide those kind of as they come up and there will be access to a collaborative, nurturing online community that we're planning to host in Discord for the four weeks of each cohort.

Amelia [00:55:45] So you'll also be able to check in, ask questions, support each other in that asynchronous space throughout the course.

So that's the what in addition to all of this beautiful, I want to say creative, spiritual, ecological, goodness and principles that we've been talking about here that will be kind of everything we explore together as we earth and unearth your projects this season.

mary grace [00:56:13] I hope you join us. I think if you like want to add to cart right now, there's a link in the show notes where you can do that.

There's also a link in the show notes where if you're like, I would love to lurk a little bit more and get more curious about it — there's a link to just like learn more and to get our emails about this course so that you can sort of like make decisions over a slower period of time, depending on where your nervous system is at right now.

Is there anything else I need to bring up like logistically before we tie bows on everything?

Amelia [00:56:55] Just head to the show notes. If you're ready to buy, great, join us. If you're ready to get some emails, great, put yourself on the list.

And I just, we both hope, I think that this conversation was nurturing for you. And we of course hope that you'll join us in the Earth cohort, but there are also air, water, and fire cohorts to come.

So you can learn more about those on the sales page for Living Systems.

We will maybe do more podcast episodes about them. Who knows? We'll see what happens. Maybe that's our system, maybe it's not. We haven't decided yet.

That system is alive with our energetic capacity.

Amelia [00:57:22] So head to the show notes, get all your links, and I'll see you in living systems, friends.

mary grace [00:57:30] See you in living systems.

Amelia [00:57:35] Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Find links and resources in the show notes and don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig that's softersounds.studio slash b-y-e-i-g. This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our Music is by Purple Planet and our logo is by n'Atelier Studio.

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