Native English Conversation with Lindsay (All Ears English): Remote work

Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, the listening

resource for intermediate to advanced-level English learners.

My name is Anna and today we are joined by a very special guest.

We have Lindsay McMahon, who is the co-host of All Ears English.

Now, the All Ears English Podcast is downloaded 4 million times per month

and has been ranked in the Best of Apple Podcasts categories in 2018 and 2019.

As well as number one in the U.

S.

Education Language Courses.

Lindsay and her team provide courses and podcasts on IELTS, Business

English and English fluency with a focus on connection, not perfection.

Hi, Lindsay.

Thank you for joining us.

Hello, Anna.

Thanks for having me on your show.

I'm excited to be here.

I'm really excited to have you with us once again, cause you joined me,

it must've been over a year ago now.

Yeah, it must've been 2022 or 2021.

We talked about breakfast foods in the UK and the US, I believe.

We did.

It's always interesting to look at the differences between British and American

things and words because we're so similar and yet so different in many ways.

Absolutely.

But today we're going to talk about something that affects people globally,

and it's basically remote working because the pandemic, which hit all of us, was

responsible for many changes to the way in which we live our lives, most notably,

the rise in popularity of remote working.

Yes.

During lockdown, businesses had no choice but to adapt to that physical distancing

of its workforce, with everyone, including the technophobes, having to get up to

speed with the latest technology in order to function professionally from home.

So, Lindsay, what is your current work situation and have you been impacted by

this shift towards working from home?

Well, yeah, to be honest, I have not been super impacted because we were

a pre-pandemic, online business.

All Ears English was born on the Internet.

All Ears English was born as a podcast, in fact, and our website and

our courses business grew around it.

And so, from the start, we created All Ears English just in Boston.

At the time, my co-host, my original co-host was physically in Boston.

So, yeah, we did come together to record episodes.

But after a year, I had had two or three of my current co-hosts join me from

remote locations, Portland, Oregon, Jessica's in Portland, Michelle's in

New York and Aubrey is in Arizona.

So, we've always been online.

The only difference is that as a recruiting tactic, if we want to

have new members of our team join, it's a little less flashy, that we

are an online business, that we're a location independent business, right?

It's not an edge anymore.

It's expected now to have that flexibility.

So, we've lost that.

Yeah.

I found, although I did work on the internet beforehand, there

were a couple of my businesses that folded because of the pandemic.

Really?

So, two of my channels were very much dependent on the team coming

together and working in the same space.

Hmm.

So the pandemic was responsible for English Like a Native pretty

much becoming my sole focus really.

Yeah.

sometimes it's good to have one sole focus.

It can be hard to be very stretched across multiple projects and businesses.

My partner on the other hand, worked very much in a corporate, nine-to-five,

London-based job, Monday to Friday.

But when I say nine-to-five, you're following what I mean with that.

Oh, of course.

Yes.

Yeah.

So, nine-to-five, for the listeners is, just that kind of

standard start and finish time.

You start at 9am, you finish at 5pm, which in the past was the norm.

Most people worked from Monday to Friday, nine-to-five.

Yes.

These days it's very different, especially with the rise of remote working.

It's really changing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

People have really flexible hours.

What kind of hours do you work, Lindsay?

I work.

It feels like I work about eight to six.

Yeah.

I feel like I've taken the nine-to-five and expanded it.

I work a lot, Anna.

I do.

But I love what I do.

You know, I feel inspired.

I feel inspired getting on the podcast.

I feel inspired as a leader of All Ears English, you know, helping my

team grow, growing the business.

So, I enjoy the work, but I do sometimes go and grab like a yoga

class or I try to in the middle of the day and I can do that, of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's one of the benefits of remote working is that you can be a

little bit more flexible with your, with your time and decide when is more

appropriate for you to be working.

And, does that allow you to do something more interesting or

beneficial to your personal life?

A hundred percent.

Like picking the children up from school or taking a yoga class?

I think even just taking a walk, I feel like in the old school way of

doing things, the nine-to-five, right?

People were going into work in the building.

Even if you wanted to probably go for a walk, I feel that might have been strange.

I really didn't participate in that world, to be honest.

You know, I had part time jobs when I lived in New York.

I taught at English schools.

I taught tennis for a while.

I never had a traditional nine-to-five in the corporate world.

So, I'm not sure.

But it seems to me just leaving to go for a walk through the

park might have been strange.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you really have to just go with what's accepted in that particular

workplace or what's allowed.

. Yes.

Yes.

I've done a number of different jobs and some of them have been very restrictive.

Like when I worked in a factory back when I was a teenager and that was like

probably the worst work I've ever done in a dark factory on a production line where

you are literally working to a clock.

Wow.

That would buzz when it hit the time when you're allowed to go for

a quick break and buzz when you had to be back on the production line.

It was very, very oppressive work.

That is super intense.

Wow.

Yeah.

But one of the things, for my partner particularly that made a big

difference when he started working from home was the lack of the commute.

That made a big difference to his life because before he would have to be in the

office at eight o'clock in the morning.

So, he was leaving before the children were even awake, and then he'd finish

at 5:30, 6 o'clock, and he would have this long commute home, it would take

over an hour, and so the children were then in bed when he arrived back.

So, sometimes he would go a whole week without seeing his kids.

Really?

Yeah.

For him, that was really hard because at the weekends, then the

children were like, who are you?

It really impacted his bond with the kids.

And so now, working from home, which has continued, he's managed to build this

really strong bond with his children.

He doesn't have to waste two, three hours of his day just

sitting on a busy tube and train.

Yeah, and I think that's the reason I think it's the bonds that people

were able to build with their family.

That's the reason that honestly, there's no going back.

Absolutely.

I think the working world will never look the same.

There'll be different versions and we'll talk today, I'm sure, about

hybrid work and different variations of that, but it'll never look the same.

And I think people didn't quite realise that when the pandemic kind of came

down, we thought I will be home for a week, we'll be home for two weeks.

No.

Mm-hmm.

Total change, yeah.

It really changed the face of everything.

Like, London started to change, office buildings started closing down when

businesses realised, actually, we don't have to be paying a fortune to

cover the costs of office space when actually we can be almost just as

productive with our workforce at home and doing like occasional on-site work.

Yes.

So, you mentioned hybrids.

Can you explain that phrase?

So, the concept of hybrid is what a lot of workplaces are adopting now, which

means it's any mix of going into the work.

Generally, what I see is, you know, two or three times a week in the

office and then working at home for the remainder of the week.

And I think, this works out great because you do miss something when

you're a hundred percent remote online.

I, you know, I feel like I missed something in terms of social

interaction, sometimes working, but we're a small company.

I worry a little bit about people getting started with their career

when they're 100 percent remote.

Yeah, yeah, it does have an impact.

So, we'll come on to the cons a little later.

Yeah, for sure.

But I do think that cost saving is one of the benefits of work working remotely.

Although, I wonder how much as an individual, as an employee, you're

saving, because initially you're like, well, I'm saving on my train

tickets and I'm saving on my lunch.

I'm not buying my coffees and my lunch out.

Right.

But I realised that actually you're at home all day.

You have the heating on all day.

You're eating at home.

Fair point.

So, you're still buying food that you have to eat.

You're powering your life and if you need a lot of equipment, that's a lot

of stuff that you're having to pay for.

Internet.

Needing better internet.

So there are more costs attached to working from home.

Yeah, I totally agree.

So, I think wear and tear on your equipment, your laptop as well.

When I think about cost savings, I actually think

about employer cost savings.

The company is saving money.

It's not so much...

Absolutely.

I think employees are saving time.

Yes, they're getting that commute time.

They're getting three hours back, which is a big deal, but I think it's

the companies that are saving money.

There's a really interesting podcast.

Maybe I could recommend it to your listeners.

It's called Fixable.

It's hosted by a Harvard Business School professor and a business consultant.

And they actually had an episode where they talked about, they interviewed

bosses, like company owners, and they gave them advice on how do

you run a company post pandemic.

How do you keep your employees engaged?

Bring them into the office maybe once a quarter and you have to have amazing food.

You have to have all these amazing things, right, to engage them.

And that day is supposed to be more about them rather than their skill

development rather than your company.

It's very complex now what bosses have to deal with.

It's really interesting.

That sounds amazing.

It reminds me actually of YouTube.

So, I've been working on YouTube for a long time and they host these incredible

events where they get you to come in and you'll talk about strategies

or, you know, celebrate things.

But they put on always an amazing array of food and drinks and entertainment.

And so, you go, even if it's not a workshop you're that interested in that

you go just because it's an incredible event and you feel so special and yeah.

Yeah.

Things have changed a lot and that's kind of what work looks like or what the

workplace looks like now and then I think a lot of the work gets done at home.

Which is the hybrid model, yeah.

Do you think that working from home increases productivity or do you

think it just encourages people to kind of slack off and be lazy?

I think, you know, some of the research is coming out that it's,

they're not completely sure, like they're starting to question that.

I think there was sort of an assumption that yes, it definitely is going to

increase productivity, but I think the research is starting to challenge that,

especially a hundred percent remote.

When it's hybrid.

I think the research is starting to show that, you know, we're not

losing productivity necessarily, but if we're a hundred percent

remote, we might lose it more.

So, I think it's too early to tell, right?

When we gather data, we have to gather it over years and years and years.

I think, at least, five years to really see.

Yeah.

I mean, I know, and this is moving into the cons of working from

home that I struggle to detach my work life from my personal life.

So, I'll be working in the office, which is down at the bottom of the

garden, and the doorbell will go.

And so, I run up to the door in case it's a delivery or something.

And it might be a neighbour from down the street who just popped in for a chat

and I'm kind of like, uh, it's not, I'm actually in the middle of a meeting or

I'm just about to start a meeting or I'm just in the middle of writing a script.

You've just disturbed me.

Right.

Or I know that there's laundry that's just finished a cycle that needs to

go into the dryer and if I leave it until later, it will take longer.

So, just do it now.

And so you get distracted by, you know, the house and your personal life.

Right.

Which is what never wouldn't have happened before, of course.

Yeah.

Sometimes I'll see funny memes on Instagram of like a mother, like a

60 year old mom and a young, like a 25 year old professional working

from home and she'll be like,

"Mom, I'm working."

"What do you mean you're working?

You're at home."

Like she's just hilarious.

So funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I guess.

The one last thing to say about the positive side of working remotely,

and this is something that I'm potentially looking at now is, that

when you are completely remote and you don't have to go and be on site

on a regular basis, then you are free to go anywhere you want to go.

And you're no longer chained to these expensive !Commuter belts, as we call

them, the areas around these big cities where you're living, and then you

commute into the big cities and they are notoriously expensive places to live.

And so, I'm a lover of the great outdoors, the mountains, the coast,

I love nature, and I'm living on the outskirts of London in the commuter belt.

And now my partner is no longer working for the corporate, so he is now free.

And I'm completely remote.

So, we have this opportunity now to consider where do we want to live?

What country do we want to live in?

And the only consideration I have to think of is, do they have good internet?

Yeah.

Which is a lot of places.

I mean, the world is your oyster, as we say.

That's amazing.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's a really great phrase.

The world is my oyster.

We've seen this in the States, right?

So this is going to be a profound shift in migration patterns, at least within the U.

S.

We've seen people leave, let's say, let's take San Francisco.

That was where all the Silicon Valley workers were living.

They don't have to be there anymore.

People are, there's a mass exodus out of California, not just

because of remote work, because of earthquakes, because of wildfires.

There's a lot going on that's just making California a hard place to live.

So what are the next cities?

People are going to Texas.

It's going to change everything around real estate.

Right.

It's really interesting.

What are the hotspots?

Where do people want to live?

What do they want in their life?

Are they eventually going to miss the city and come back to it?

It's fascinating.

Really going to have an impact.

So, some of the cons then, we talked about the fact that you can get

distracted when you're working from home.

Yes.

I find it quite challenging.

Do you have a busy household?

Do you find it distracting working from home?

I do.

Yeah.

So, my partner also now is hybrid.

Right.

Okay.

So, my partner's here working next door two or three days a week

and that's, I actually like that.

I like having my partner around, but I am engaged with some family stuff

right now, like supporting my parents as they're getting older and things

just come into my personal email during the day and I do address those things.

Like I'll get on a call with a lawyer in the middle of the day and

I think I shouldn't but I have to.

I'm not sure what I would have done otherwise, if I had to

go into the corporate world.

So, yeah, I let things come in to my space.

I get distracted.

Yes.

Yeah, that's really hard, isn't it?

And then I find that because I'm distracted by things during the day in my

personal life, I end up pushing my work into the evening or into the weekend.

And so then my work life balance completely goes off.

Would you say that's every weekend that you push it in?

Or just sometimes when there's like a big launch or something, what does

that end up looking like for you?

I would say that the majority of the time, unless it's a special

occasion, for example, over Christmas or during the school holidays, when

the children are taking a break from their childcare settings.

The majority of the time I have to give extra time to my work because

when you own a business, when you run a business, the buck stops with you.

If don't address the problems and the business will fail and it will be

detrimental to everyone who you employ.

Correct.

So, you know, it's very hard to find the balance, but some days I

do say, you know, like this weekend I'm going to really focus on my

family and I switch the phone off.

I don't come down to the office.

I make sure there's no meetings put in on those times, but it is something I

have to actively seek that work-life balance, you know, getting it right.

Sometimes work takes over to a point where I don't do exercise for weeks.

Yeah.

I don't sleep very well and then I'm start to feel it and think,

no, I need to sort this out again.

Yeah, self care.

One thing that helped with me, I have the same issue.

I, often, my family just doesn't allow me to work on the weekend, so I can't.

No, it's not an option.

But this weekend, for example, I'll need to work for sure.

Just due to the holiday.

And then taking a day off in the middle of January, I just need it.

One thing that's helped me though, is taking my work email off my phone.

So, when I am out on the weekend or on the evening, just doing something

personal, I can't check my work email.

And that's a change that I made about two years ago.

And I don't miss it at all.

Like I couldn't take care of it anyways, so, why check it?

Why know if there's a fire brewing or something, right?

Yeah.

That's a really, really good tip actually.

Something I should probably do.

But then again, all my team have my phone number.

Mm.

Do they text you all the time?

Even, okay.

Hmm.

Interesting.

They're quite good.

And actually, I prefer to be in the know about what's happening.

Yeah.

Than not.

Yes, of course.

Because I'm just so involved, but it would be good sometimes to be

able just to completely switch off.

Yes.

And I guess we're lucky.

You mentioned that your family, you know, tell you, you can't work

and you have people to intervene if you're working too hard.

And it's the same for me.

My partner will say to me sometimes, or my kids will be like,

"Mummy, can't work today.

Want to spend time with you."

Yeah, yeah.

Some people work, are living alone and don't have that.

And I guess in those cases, remote working can lead to feeling

very isolated and lonely because they're not seeing anybody all day.

Oh, a hundred percent.

I worry about that, right.

I imagine, you know, I'm really thankful that I live with my family

and that I get pulled away and they create plans for me, right?

They just say, we're doing this on Friday night.

You're not working.

And so, thank goodness for that.

But yeah, I think that that is a big con and a danger actually,

now that people have gone remote.

For sure.

Yeah.

Especially when it comes to like mental health problems, it could

definitely lead to a rise in feeling depressed because loneliness definitely

leads to depression and anxiety.

And you mentioned earlier about feeling concerned for people who are

just entering into the workplace.

So, those people who spent years and years studying and then come into the

workplace, but are instantly thrown into remote working, they definitely miss out

on this opportunity to kind of network and find mentors and build those relationships

that are vital for career progression.

Right.

I think also they're my, I don't, this is a little bit foreign

to me because I haven't worked in the corporate world before.

But I would imagine that there's also an aspect of not learning kind of your role.

If you're just entering the company or in your early twenties, you kind of, by

going into the workplace, you kind of learn your place, you learn where you

are in the context of this organisation.

Whereas if you're just online, isolated at home.

You might be a little tone-deaf around what's really going

on in the organisation.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And also there's things that I haven't outsourced, because they're

very practical hands on kinds of creative jobs that really need

me to be standing over someone.

Like literally at the desk with them and really going through

them, which just isn't the same to kind of connect remotely, you

know, so I go, do you know what?

I'm not going to outsource my editing.

I'm not going to outsource this, that, and the other because it's

just too hard to train people up remotely to do what I want them to do.

Oh, wow yeah.

So, you know, potentially people in my team who could be doing more creative

work aren't because I don't feel like I can bring them up to speed remotely.

So, it's difficult.

But I do employ mostly, in fact, I don't think I have anyone in

my team who lives in the UK.

No.

So, you know, like that pro that we talked about, the fact that you can

live anywhere and work remotely.

I've got people living in Ukraine, in America, in Spain, you know, all over the

world, Italy, Malta, all over the place.

That's amazing.

And we all work together on this one project and it works really well.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

That truly is cool.

Right.

So talent, there are no boundaries to talent.

And I think for the big corporations, that's what they're seeing as well.

Even just, let's say a company based in New York no longer has

to just hire within New York city.

They can hire someone in Montana if they are the best in that field.

That's amazing.

Yeah, as long as the technology all works, because that's definitely

been one of the difficulties.

When there's like blackouts in Spain.

Oh my gosh!

And I just can't get in touch with my teachers and I'm like,

oh no, we've got classes!

Does that happen a lot?

It's happened a few times.

Actually, it's happened a few times in the last six months,

I think storms cause problems.

But you know, it's small things, small problems, nothing major.

So I want to just move on to giving just three tips, like top

tips of what people can do to make working from home more efficient.

Sure.

And so I'm going to lead with the first one, which is to

establish a dedicated workspace.

I think that's so important.

When I first started working from home, once I had children, I was

working just in the corner of the front room and it was a disaster.

I couldn't focus for a second because all the action was happening just there, right

behind my head and I just couldn't focus.

I was constantly distracted.

Yes.

So, having this kind of physical separation, I think is really important.

I, now I said I work in the shed, in the studio at the bottom of the garden.

So, there is this small commute of a few steps.

That's great.

Away from the house into a completely separate space.

And when I decide I'm done, I lock the studio.

And I walk away and that's me then done with work for that day.

Yeah, that's amazing.

That's the way you have to do it.

Are you in your house?

Do you have a dedicated office?

How does it work?

Yes, I'm lucky to have...

I have the office here.

We have a small apartment or we have a small house in the city of Denver, but

we have a couple of bedrooms and one of them we have converted into an office.

So, I am in here and then my partner is in, it sounds bad, but we converted

the closet into a small office.

We took all the shelves out.

It sounds terrible, but it's actually pretty good, a cute

little cubicle-type scenario.

And so, we've been able to carve out our own working spaces.

And yeah, thank God for that.

If I had to sleep in here, that would also be unhealthy, right?

So...

Yeah.

Where you sleep should not be where you work, if you can control it now in

cities, with tiny spaces like Tokyo, New York City, that's not always possible.

So, we have to try to work something out but as much as we can separate that space,

sleeping space, working space, important.

Yeah, when I first moved into the area that I'm living in now,

I was very young on YouTube.

I think I'd only been doing English Like a Native on YouTube for a year

and I suddenly found myself homeless.

So, I moved into a room in someone's house.

Wow!

So I rented this room and it was a tiny room with a double bed

and just space for a little desk.

Yeah.

And I would sit on my bed to be at the desk that was so small and I would

find that because I didn't have that separation, I would literally be up

working, editing, planning until like two in the morning and my eyes were literally

like having to have matchsticks keeping my eyes open because they wouldn't stay open.

And then I'd go to bed and have a headache and not sleep well.

And then I'd be up at eight in the morning because I'm like,

I've got to start filming at nine.

Back at it.

When the sun's up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know...

It was very unhealthy.

Oh, sounds super...

yeah.

There's always, I think for companies like ours, there's always a hustle period.

And I would argue I'm still in the hustle period in a way, but I think

there's, I had a similar hustle period where I rented a room in a house of five

roommates in Cambridge, Mass when I was in graduate school and I was working at

my desk, you know, my bed was right there.

Everything was right in that same room and there was a lot of hustle going on.

Maybe that's what we do for a couple of years, but as soon as

we can, we should try to separate.

Yeah.

Even within the same house, like an office bedroom.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And then on the theme of keeping ourselves healthy and looking after our

well-being, I think having structure to your schedule and making sure you have

regular breaks would be the next tip.

Mm hmm.

Because this is something I still have to remind myself to do.

I'll just get into like deep work.

And if my partner isn't at home working in the office with me, cause he's very good

at remembering lunchtime to be honest.

He's like,

"Right.

It's time for lunch.

I'm hungry."

Right.

Whereas I'll just work through work through and then go, I've got a

headache and I'm feeling a bit off.

Oh, it's because it's three o'clock and I haven't eaten since eight this morning.

Wow!

So, I think having a set schedule and actually allowing

a little time for a break.

Do you have a set schedule in the day for yourself?

Yeah, I'm pretty routine.

So, that's how I find that I'm able to get more done and just kind of set

bigger goals is by having a routine.

So, I take my dog for a walk at 6:30 in the morning, eat breakfast, shower.

I'm at my desk by eight.

And then I am usually hungry at noon.

So, I do go and eat lunch.

And then, but I don't take much time away from my desk.

That's the thing I could probably add in is maybe go for

a half hour walk after eating.

That would be smart actually.

Maybe I'll try that today.

Yeah.

And actually exercise after eating is very good to keep your blood sugar in check.

I heard that.

I've read that recently.

Yeah.

I think we might've read the same article.

Yeah.

And then I usually work until about six.

Right.

Okay, yeah.

I was in the habit of, I have to make every single minute count,

especially when you're paying a fortune for childcare, you're like,

I am paying for these minutes.

Yes.

I can't take a second to stop.

So, I'd be eating in front of the computer or I'd be eating while

writing an email with my other hand.

Sure.

Sure.

Or reading notes for something.

And.

I would just find that I'd get to the end of a day like that and just feel like I'd

been hit by a bus, I'd feel horrendous.

I'd feel like I was coming down with something.

My glands in my neck would be swollen.

I'm very sensitive to these things.

Wow, yeah.

And just not feel very well in myself at all and think I need to

stop being so hard on myself and make sure I have space to breathe.

Yes, completely.

I mean, it's a fair point, right?

I, we don't have kids.

So...

'Cause the thing is you have to remember that if you burn out completely,

then you're going to be taking a lot more time out than just taking

15, 20 minutes to have a break.

So, it's better to be healthy and be the best version of yourself at

work and at home than burn yourself out in the hopes of trying to get

ahead, you know, a little more.

Or worst case, if you burn out you may need to keep working,

but you won't be your best self.

You'll be a fraction of who you could be, you know, and your staff will

notice that and they will probably start to get nervous about the success

of the company 'cause our teams take a lot of cues from us as to how

things are going and how secure is their job, that kind of thing, right.

Yeah.

I'm very bad at working, in the evening, I just kind of power down.

And so I'll sit at my computer and it's like, I can't even read the text.

It's like my eyes stop working.

And it takes me forever to write anything creative.

Oh yeah.

But my partner on the other hand is fantastic in the evening.

He kind of is, you know.

Powers up?

A real night owl.

So, we have this routine now that we don't have childcare in the afternoon.

So my partner takes the children in the afternoon while I continue working and

then we swap over at dinnertime and after the kids have gone to bed, he'll come out

and work for most of the evening where I'm in the house looking after the kids.

Interesting.

Yeah.

That works quite nicely.

Yeah.

No, I think that's great to go with your rhythm.

Who was, I think, I was at a conference recently and Dan

Pink, do you know who that is?

Dan Pink, he's an author from the States.

He did a talk on rhythms, understanding rhythms.

Some people being, he had another term for it, but the morning energy, the

daytime energy and the evening energy.

And that our culture is really built around that daytime energy person.

But if you are that night-time energy, like Michelle, my co-host, she is that.

She does so much better in the evenings and you should honour that as much as

you can and try to curate your day.

Yeah.

And so I guess the last piece of advice that I would recommend for people working

at home is effective communication and collaboration with other people.

This is something I'm working on at the moment with my team

because we are so remote.

It can be very difficult.

If I don't do things like this where I have, you know, face to face one

to one interaction, then sometimes a whole week can go by and I can feel

very lonely in my work and detached.

So, I think putting in like regular checkups and phone calls.

And being really clear with your team via communication is a must.

Totally.

Yeah.

We do, I do a one on one kind of more of a business meeting with

Jessica, who is our IELTS expert.

She's on our other IELTS podcast and she also kind of helps

make decisions in the business.

So, she and I will get together every Monday for half an hour and

make decisions on what are we doing next month, that kind of thing.

And we're just experimenting now with monday.com, a task management system.

I don't know if you've tried any of them, or Click Up.

I've heard of them.

I use Notion.

Notion.

Okay.

All right.

And you've been happy with that one?

Oh my goodness.

It makes such difference.

I don't know how I ever managed without Notion in the past or any

of these kind of task management or project management tools.

I think there's a little bit of a learning curve that you have to go through to

understand how to actually use them.

But once you've got that down, then it really, if you have a more complicated

system or project, then it does help to have something like that.

It's much better than, you know, just having one...

Paper!

Huge Google document or something or paper, yeah!

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, thank you so much for discussing all of that with me today.

And hopefully the listeners have gained some interesting vocabulary

and some good tips for staying healthy and effective when working from home.

So, Lindsay, if somebody is listening to you and they haven't heard your voice

before, which would be very unusual, but if they haven't, where can they find you?

Yeah.

Thanks again, Anna, for having me on and your listeners can go ahead and just open

the search bar wherever you're listening.

If you're listening in the podcast, open that search bar, type in All Ears English,

and you will see three shows come up.

You'll see a lot of yellow.

That is our colour.

You can subscribe to the main show, All Ears English, and

we publish four days a week.

If you're on YouTube, you can type in that search bar, just All Ears English Podcast,

and you'll find us over there too.

So, thanks again, Anna, for having me on.

Thank you.

This has been a great chat.

We should do it more often.

Yeah, it really has.

Yeah.

And we did actually do another little chat over on your podcast.

So, I'll put the link to that particular episode down in the

description if anyone is interested in hearing more from the two of us.

Perfect.

So, thank you.

Have a great day.

And for those of you listening, take very good care and goodbye.

Alright, thanks Anna.

Bye.