The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Why You’re Always Overwhelmed | The Psychology of Priorities & Procrastination

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Starting point is 00:01:30 t-e-e-u-p-com and remember to use the code marianne 30 Netflix once said their biggest competitor was sleep and honestly that tells you everything about modern life we live in a world where everything feels important all the time every email every opinion every task every notification competing for our attention and in the middle of all that a lot of people have completely lost sight of what actually matters to them. So in this episode, author Lily Silverton and I explore procrastination, comparison, overwhelm attention and why modern life makes it so hard to prioritise ourselves. I hope you find it really useful if you do like and subscribe for more. Hi, welcome to psychology actually. I'm Dr.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Marianne Trent, a qualified clinical psychologist and we are welcoming our guest today for today's episode, Lily Silverton, author of Prioritized This. Welcome, Lily. Hi, Marian. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. So tell us a little bit about why prioritising anything is a good idea, Lily. Well, we, I think as you very well know, particularly within your work, we live in a very demanding world. We have very demanding lives externally. We have very demanding lives internally in terms of what's going on in our psyches. And we can be made to feel and we can make ourselves to feel as if absolutely everything is important in life or as if we don't quite understand what's important and what's of value and what will benefit us always. And by thinking a little bit more deeply

Starting point is 00:03:16 about priorities and prioritizing, I think we can begin to some extent, not entirely, of course, but to some extent to shape the reality that we walk through, both in terms of what we're doing in the world, but also in terms of how we feel internally. Yeah, absolutely. And I have read your book and I've made some notes. I really like it. It's really interesting food for thought.

Starting point is 00:03:44 And there's a couple of kind of things that really struck me as I read it. And there was a phrase, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. And it's like, yeah, it really does, isn't it? Because we're constantly just overstimulated and not really knowing where to attend to. And as a result, maybe doing a pretty rubbish job of everything or most things. It's hard. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:04:12 And I mean, that's an old quote. So that's from the 1971, I think the thinker wrote that. And, God, like if they could see the world today, right? The amount of information that's going on, the severe lack of resources that we have in terms of our attention. And also how much money and effort goes into some of the, so drawing away some of that attention from us, you know, from social media companies. Yeah. And there's two points that are resonating with me from that is that even older, even further back, apparently the Romans had said, got everything moved so quickly and it's really hard to keep up with all this change and all this progress. So this is not a new thing, you know, like humans have said this since humans existed, I guess, you know, since the wheel was invented.

Starting point is 00:05:10 Like, well, this is wild. When I found that out as I was doing the research for the book, I found that such a funny point because we do tend to think that we are so exceptional and that the way we think is so exceptional and so on. And it is, I think people will see this as a big era of change because it has been. But yeah, that, you know, regardless of how humans have lived and how they've been operating, they've always felt that things are moving very fast. Yeah. Yeah. And then the other point is that people and corporations make big money from us having split focus or from us not paying attention to the things that maybe would make us more money or would help us to have better sleep. And there was a company that you mentioned in your book. Tell us, tell us about the

Starting point is 00:06:04 Netflix analogy. What they'd said is their biggest competitor. Yeah, this is Reid Hastings, the CEO or was it, I think it's still CEO now, but was saying that their biggest competitor is sleep. So it is when people, and I check this over and over again to check, did he really say this, or is this, you know, something the internet's made up and it does appear that it's an absolutely legitimate quote. Perhaps said slightly ingest, but as, I mean, as you know, as a clinical psychologist, often the things we say as a joke are the things. we really mean. If people slept less, then Netflix would get more watch hours and, you know, we'd have more money. I should go to that is the issue. Yeah. And it's that autoplay, isn't it,

Starting point is 00:06:54 that comes up at the end after, you know, by the time you find your remote, sometimes sometimes it's starting playing and then, you know, that sunk cost fallacy, oh, we might as well continue now, or we've already seen what happens next. Like, yeah, that really blew my mind. So, yeah, thinking about a couple of your chapters, if that's all right, to think about what might be really helpful for our listeners and our viewers. I really like the stuff on procrastination, and that maybe speaks volumes about me. Why is procrastination so tricky for us as humans? There's many reasons, but one of the most important, and I speak about quite a lot in the book, is we have, as I mean, again, as you well know, conflicting desires at all times. And in terms of our brain

Starting point is 00:07:48 and the way it operates, we have one desire, right, to plan for the future and think of future me and anticipate and take the actions that are going to support our long-term objectives and aims. And then we have this other network of conversations in our brain that says, don't do that at all. You know what you should do. You should do exactly what you want right now. And that's going to be fucking amazing. So you should do what's going to feel really good now. And in the book I talk about like it's really just two quite opposing forces, perhaps like a tabloid versus a broadshe editor, which feels very relevant at the moment, having just, you know, gone through the elections. And that these things fundamentally, these pathways in your brain fundamentally want different

Starting point is 00:08:42 things and that often the short term wins out. And when it comes to procrastination, that means that we put off perhaps doing the things now that we know we should do and we seek instead to sort of feel better in the moment. And I think the big thing with procrastination is that everyone thinks it's a time management problem and in part it is absolutely and it's also a habit of time management, mismanagement, let's say. It's also completely and utterly fucking normal. So everyone procrastinates to some extent. I procrastinate and that's a whole chapter in the book. You know, we all procrastinate. I know lots of people who write about it and they still procrastinate. It's very normal.

Starting point is 00:09:23 natural and healthy to procrastinate a little bit. It's more when it starts impacting your life. But that we think it's a time management problem and it is. But there's also this huge element of emotional management and how we are, you know, if we don't want to do something by not doing it, we make ourselves feel better. Because if the idea of doing something feels uncomfortable and feels hard or feels like, say it's a big project, a big personal project that you've wanted to start for ages, but you keep putting it off and putting it off. You know, perhaps there's that fear of failure. Perhaps there's that perfectionism, perfectionist side of you that's scared to do something,

Starting point is 00:10:04 scared you won't do it perfectly. And so you put it off. And so by putting it off, you are assuaging. Is that the way is it? Aswaging? I pronounce that correctly. Those feelings. You know, you are making yourself feel better.

Starting point is 00:10:19 You are self-soothing. and we don't really acknowledge that enough when it comes to procrastination. We're just saying to people, you know, do X and Y. And of course, your work is so fundamentally incredible on this stuff because it's about getting people to dig in and say, okay, but what are the emotions that you're trying to avoid here? Yeah, and I love the idea. So I've got Trello board, which is how I run everything. I run, aside from my clinical work with clients, I don't use Trello for that.

Starting point is 00:10:50 yeah, like all my podcast stuff, anything I've got to write. If it's not on Trello, it's not happening, which is like a project management software for anyone's not familiar with that. But I will look at that when I've got some time and I'll be like, what am I going to do now? And I'm not going to do that now. I'm going to do that now instead.

Starting point is 00:11:08 And in your book, you speak about something, I think, called affective forecasting, which is such a powerful and important idea. It's not something I'd heard of before, actually. But it's the idea that we'll look at what's ever on our to do list and be like, well, I'll much prefer to do that a different day. Or we anticipate that it won't be as difficult on a different day. And of course, you know, largely it's probably going to be the same as if we did it today. Talk to us about that, Lily.

Starting point is 00:11:37 Yeah, effective forecasting is so fascinating because our brain, as you said, essentially thinks to itself, present me doesn't want to do this. Present me right now in this moment doesn't. But next week, me is going to be a completely different kind of person and that person is really going to want to do it. And that's why, I mean, there's other reasons that play as well, but it's why we'll do things like not start a new habit on a Wednesday, but say, I'll wait till Monday because we have that idea. First of all, that future me is going to really want to do that and be really great at it. And the version of me on a Monday morning is going to be a different version than the me on a Wednesday morning as well. But generally, you know, you are still you. I am still me in the same

Starting point is 00:12:22 version. And so while you may have a slightly more motivation at various different points, depending on other circumstances and things that are going on in your brain or your life, having this idea that future you is going to do something a lot better or is going to want to do something is fundamentally wrong. It really is. And I think just knowing yourself, So there's knowing if you're going out on a big weekend or you're going away with certain people that maybe, yeah, don't schedule that for the Monday afterwards. So there's knowing yourself and knowing what's reasonable. But also, yeah, like if I don't want to do this task now, I'm probably not going to want to do it next week either. So then it's how would we think about our priorities?

Starting point is 00:13:03 Is that really important to us? Should we think about reprioritizing that? So we've got more on our plate of what feels more abundantly within our comfortable, wheelhouse or that we want to do. I guess life isn't always that simple, but is that like a clear communication if we're always like, no, no, don't want to do that, don't want to do that? Well, I think that we put things off because it makes us feel better. But then if we actually think about it, a lot of the things that we put off, the pain and stress that they cause us later down the line by pulling them off is always actually stronger and more pronounced than the relief, say,

Starting point is 00:13:44 that we get from not doing it in the moment. So I think that's one thing to start to think about for yourself in terms of how, in terms of emotional management and how you are experiencing the world. Obviously, we're not going to do things perfectly if we never will. But thinking of this in terms of, well, A, if this is really important to me, how can I make this more important?

Starting point is 00:14:09 How can I make it so that I act on it? What are the barriers that I need to move through? say it's a big personal project we're talking about at this point. What are the barriers that I need to move through? Is it that I need to work on my fear of failure? Is it that I need to work maybe with a partner, you know, not on the project itself, but on just getting things done? So we call it body doubling in coaching where you just do something with someone else instead,

Starting point is 00:14:34 just to get you there. And then sometimes that action can lead to that motivation and that can create some momentum. Do I need to? And then if it's something, say, your taxes was something that you put off. So it's not maybe a big important project, but something that's more urgent, thinking about, okay, but how can I break this down? Because it's a very big task and it feels intimidating and say, like, really not one with numbers, then it's going to feel very intimidating to your brain.

Starting point is 00:14:58 And your brain is going to shy away from that because one of your brain's main priorities, aside from staying alive, is conserving energy because that helps it stay alive. So tasks that take a lot of effort, use up a lot of energy. And so sometimes your brain will shy away from that, particularly if you have habits around shying away from things which are difficult. So it's about how can you break things down and make them more manageable for your brain? How can you make it so that you don't get that visceral reaction of like, absolutely not let me do something else? I'm going to ignore that thing on the to-do list until it's so big that it's actually causing a lot of stress in my life. Yeah, because our brains are clever things.

Starting point is 00:15:38 You know, they're trying to always be averse to pain and stress and move away from that. And so if it feels really big and really awful, it makes sense that we're going to look for, you know, easier options. But yeah, like I like the idea of in the book that you talk about, maybe don't do the whole thing. You know, start 10 minutes. And then because when we do that, I mean, how many times have we done something? We were like, oh, actually, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. So just make a start.

Starting point is 00:16:09 And then you might find that it kind of flows more easily. And then if it doesn't, at least you've made a start as well. And then you know that actually it is quite a challenging task. And so you might need more time than you thought you did versus if you leave it till the last minute, you start it. It's actually quite hard. And then you're a bit fucked because you don't actually have the time to do the project or whatever it is. Was it for the procrastination topic that you spoke about the four quadrants? and breaking things up. Guide us through that.

Starting point is 00:16:39 So that's called the Eisenhower matrix or the priorities matrix, which is just very convenient for me as opposed to something I named. And you divide your tasks from your to-do list, and that might be like your short-term daily to-do list, but maybe your greater to-do list as well in terms of the things you want to do with your life. And you sort them into four quadrants according to whether something is urgent, and important whether something is not urgent but still important whether something is urgent but not important or whether something is not urgent and not important and then you can sort of work

Starting point is 00:17:21 through and see if something is urgent and important you need to do that thing right now so that's one going to be on the list of things you absolutely shouldn't put off if something is not urgent and not important then there's the question of like why is it on there in the first place and then you've got the tasks which maybe have less urgency but are really important and that could be where there's personal project type things for all and those are the things that always get shoved down the list and shove down the list because they're not urgent that they might be really important to you and then again that question from before of how can you bring more urgency to it so that you know you can do the things you can prioritize the projects and things that are really truly

Starting point is 00:18:00 important to you and then when you think about the other quadrant which is maybe not so grandly important but quite urgent. So that might be like admin-y stuff. That for those I always recommend that instead of doing it one by one, so that's admin or bills or whatever, rather than doing it immediately when it comes in, you can group them together and do them once a week or twice a week or once a day, depending on the type of work and life you have. And that you're not constantly drawing from your attention and energy bank that you've got in your head and you can use some of your focus and attention for the more important things and then you can group those little things together and you'll get all those dopamine hits you know the reason we like doing those little

Starting point is 00:18:46 things quickly is because when you tick something off your to-do list you get a dopamine hit in your brain your brain likes that chemical and and so it's always going to seek that out and it's going to seek out those small hits um and so what you want to do is kind of fight against that slight and group them together. So you still get that hit, but you also weighed through the discomfort of maybe doing the bigger tasks that need to be done

Starting point is 00:19:11 and keeping your focus and attention on them rather than let me be split the whole time by smaller little things. And that's, you know, put your phone on, do not disturb when you're working so that you're not constantly, oh, I better reply to that WhatsApp from my kids school quickly and so on.

Starting point is 00:19:25 You know, you want the urgent stuff, the truly urgent stuff to get through. but it's also a really big point of remembering, so I'm going on a bit now, of remembering that other people's urgent is not your urgent. Yeah, that's so important, isn't it? It's so important and we so often forget it and I do the same. And I'm not saying for anyone listening that your boss says something's urgent

Starting point is 00:19:52 and you decide it's not. Don't, you'll probably just lose your job after a while if you work like that. However, just thinking, you know, It's everyone's the main character in their life and everyone is moving through assuming that people are going to move and respond, hopefully move and respond in the ways that they want. And it's our job sometimes to make sure that we are not sacrificing who we are to those bigger personalities or bigger characters who maybe it feels like place more importance on stuff. And so we're understanding.

Starting point is 00:20:29 you know what, it's not urgent that I respond to that email from that particular colleague today. I can leave that until tomorrow. That is not urgent on my plate and I need to prioritise and think what is because otherwise you're always going to be responding to other people's demands and timetables and ways of being rather than understanding what's truly important to you and how you're going to move your own life forward. Yeah, I think before I became a parent, I was very much able to flex and probably just create more time in my day or maybe have shorter breaks to be able to get other people's changing priorities flexed for. So yeah, your boss comes along, your manager wants something done.

Starting point is 00:21:16 And I think certainly now I'm a parent, I can't always just do that. And so I think something can be really powerful is to say, actually, yeah, if this is urgent, and this is important, you can be like, to your manager or your boss, can you help me look at all the other bits I've already got to work out maybe what doesn't need to be done as quickly today by this week? Because I definitely can do that, but I can't then do all these other things as well, because that would be a well-being detriment to yourself.

Starting point is 00:21:48 Yeah, absolutely. And I wrote this in something recently, I can't remember that it was an article or a newsletter, but I wrote about this idea of if someone comes to you, with another thing to put on your plate, that trying to go back to them and saying, I've got these three priorities, which one should go first, that you go back to your manager. And so it depends on the type of manager you have, but I think often if you do that when, you know, I work with loads of companies, if you do that with confidence, then that shows assertiveness

Starting point is 00:22:22 and it shows that you are considering and thinking things through and not trying to take too much on. If you have a completely toxic boss who's very challenging to work with, it probably won't work as well. But if you have a, you know, receptive smart boss who understands that you want your employees to be prioritising their work and not trying to do everything all at once because if everything's a priority, nothing becomes a priority. Nothing has done that well. Then I think that approach is really, really successful. Yeah. And, you know, you might be like, but they must already know all these things I've got on my plate. And it's again just thinking, actually, we are the main player in our own lives.

Starting point is 00:23:00 Everyone else might just think we're going to advocate for ourselves or they're so consumed with what's on their own to do list. They're just not thinking about what was already on ours. So it's okay to self-advocate and to kind of bring that up to them so long as they are kind of relatively speaking, a decent human, hopefully. Okay. So we've done all these things. We've kicked procrastination to, you know, to touch as much as that. possible. And we've done the things. But then of course, you know, we're then comparing ourselves to our colleagues, how they've done it. We're comparing ourselves to others on

Starting point is 00:23:34 social media that seem to be having a better time or have got more followers or more engagement or more likes. And we've got this whole comparisonitis, which then can equally well really, really scupper us, can't it, Lily? Yeah. Comparison is such a huge topic for everyone, myself included, you know, as I say in the book, I am my first student, you know, I imagine perhaps it's, you know, you don't go into this kind of work unless you need the support in the first place yourself. When it comes to comparison, the big key that I found for myself and for the people that I work with is not trying to never compare again. So if you try to never compare, I think you just fail slightly because we are.

Starting point is 00:24:23 are, I don't want to say, we're biologically wired to compare, to want to understand how we are doing compared to the people around us. We have social brains. Our brains developed within social conditions and around and in response to other people and what they were doing in life. So that is really, really ingrained in us. And trying to not do it is a little bit, little bit like trying to push away any feeling. You know, if you push away some sadness, it's going to come up in some weird and not wonderful ways later down the line. And I think it's similar with comparison that we need to accept it,

Starting point is 00:25:06 that we need to say, you know, I am a comparative creature by nature. Some people will be more so than others. And how can I acknowledge that this is how I am? and a part of me, but try my best to use it in a way that doesn't too negatively impact my own sense of self, my own self-worth, the way that I navigate my way through this world. And I think there are many tools that we can use there where we can interrupt our brain pattern, you know, our thought patterns and what we're saying to ourselves around comparison. and we can challenge them, we can be mindful about how we use social media so that, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:51 if you are looking on social media repeatedly at people who you compare yourself negatively to, I would call that a self-harm. I would call that a version of self-harm to be doing that, repeatedly, repeatedly, because you are trying to make yourself feel bad and succeeding at making yourself feel bad and that's a matter of like okay how have I developed this habit and what can I replace this with because this is not benefiting me this is not helping me in my own life whatsoever yeah and there's that non-intentional self-harm which can be around for so many of us but that is what it is we are creating our own toxic environment and keeping on lashing that that stick on ourselves and it's just, it's not humane and it's also not necessarily going to help us any closer

Starting point is 00:26:42 to our goals. And there was a really powerful question in the book that was like, when you're looking at this person or these people and comparing yourself to them, you know, do you actually want their life and all that entails? Can you tell us about that, Lily? Yeah, and it's when I use myself all the time. It's just saying to yourself, okay, I'm looking at this, I'm looking at this amazing holiday and this house and the bag or whatever or that success professional success yes i want some of that and then it's saying okay but do i actually want their entire life do i want their experiences do i want their relationships do i want the way that they treat other people and the way that they operate in through this life and do i want to give up my own do i truly want to give up my own

Starting point is 00:27:35 relationships with people and my own experiences and my own ways of being and you know more than nine times out of 10 you know 99 times out of 100 where the answer is no I don't I don't actually want that I want an element of it and then it's working out okay well if I want an element of it what's perhaps even the layer that's a bit deeper than that do I really want that handbag or do I think or is my brain telling me that by having that handbag I'll feel like I've got a bit more status and I'll feel a bit more confident and I'll feel a bit more assured and then it's going okay well if I can't afford that you know what are they called Birkin which you know most most most people in the whole world could not never will insane prices well how can i then work on my

Starting point is 00:28:34 confidence how can i work on the feelings that i want that i think that thing will give me whether it's a holiday whether it's a house whether it's a handbag and i'm not saying this is so straightforward because obviously there's like deep inequality in the world that is really unfair and you know I think systemically there needs to be a lot of change in terms of our society. But before that arrives, if that arrives, we have to think, like, how can I better support myself? And how can I look a little bit deeper behind some of those feelings of, like, envy and say, okay, well, how can I turn that into something where I am supporting myself, where I am prioritizing the things that are going to make me feel better? instead of prioritising perhaps the constant comparison. And then when it comes to social media,

Starting point is 00:29:27 I strongly, strongly recommend if you're in that sort of, as you called it, unintentional self-harm spiral around looking at posts and comparing yourself negatively, I strongly recommend resetting your algorithm. And you could, because it's obviously it's going to feed you. If you're looking at the bags or the gym girls or whatever it is

Starting point is 00:29:44 and feeling shit about it, it's going to keep feeding you them and it's going to keep feeding you more and more extreme content around them. So resetting it, Choose a couple of things like nature sounds, you know, cats, whatever it is, buildings, like whatever slightly less emotionally engaging content, and searching that over and over again, clearing out your old search history, and then you'll see that your Discover page at least is just full of that stuff.

Starting point is 00:30:12 Perhaps even muting some of the people, if there's friends who don't make you feel very good about yourself right now, muting them for a little while. You know, you don't need to see that content. And that's something I've definitely done myself. If you are struggling with fertility and you've got a bunch of friends who are doing nothing but posting pictures of their kids, you don't have to be the person that's there for them right now.

Starting point is 00:30:37 You don't have to be seeing and liking all their stuff. You are allowed to set a couple of boundaries and step away. You'd be prioritising yourself and you're not wishing them ill harm. You're not saying I don't want you in my life anymore, but this is unintentionally harming me. And that's such a really nice tip for kind of preserving and maintaining and improving your well-being. And you had another one as well. You had an exercise called the Well-Being Cups exercise.

Starting point is 00:31:03 Can you guide us quickly through that one, Lily? It's such a simple one. I love it. It's a, you draw four cups on a piece of paper and they can be any cup you like. It could be a tea cup, could be a wine glass. The first cup is the things that bring me joy and happy. If you like that word, I don't use it so much, but happiness. You've then got a cup that brings you purpose and meaning,

Starting point is 00:31:27 makes you feel aligned and engaged with this world. And then the other two cups are the things that don't bring you joy and don't bring you purpose. And then you divide all the stuff that goes on in your life, all the people into those cups. And obviously we can't just completely cut out immediately some of the people or things or activities. that don't bring us joy and don't bring meaning. However, it's about seeing like, okay, how can I do more of the stuff that brings me joy and meaning? And how can I empty out a little bit or drink less from those other cups in order to feel more, you know, more like myself and more like I can?

Starting point is 00:32:11 I've got the resources to navigate this challenging, complex, demanding world. Yeah, and the nature of jobs and the nature of jobs and the nature of. of relationships in the nature of being a parent is that sometimes you might have aspects of that same person or same relationship in multiple cups. Absolutely. Yeah, 100%. There's never just one things are not as simple as dividing them into cups, annoyingly. Yeah, not as black and white. I really, really enjoyed your book, Lily. So it's called Prioritize This and it's by Lily Silverton. I'm assuming it can be accessed to wherever people get their books.

Starting point is 00:32:50 Is it also an audio book? Yeah, it's also an audio book. If you didn't mind my voice today, then I'm the one that reads it. If you did, then don't get the audio. It's not a good idea. And yeah, it's all around how to prioritize more helpful ways of thinking or behaving

Starting point is 00:33:04 in this modern world, whilst also recognising, I guess, that the world will continue to be itself. So what I found with a lot of self-help books is that they promise the absolute world, And they promise that if you just read this book, then life is going to be perfect. And, you know, this is how it's going to be from now on. And I fundamentally and strongly disagree with that.

Starting point is 00:33:27 And so I was trying very much to offer a book that provides the kind of support that goes alongside, you know, incredible psychology work that you guys do. But that really meets people where they're at in their lives and supports them that way. Yeah, I did really enjoy it. So I will definitely leave your review as well. Can people come and follow you on Instagram, Lily? Is that the best place to keep up with you and your work? Yeah, I'm on Lily underscore Silverton on Instagram and I do a bunch of mindset-y stuff type stuff on there. And then I also have a newsletter on Substack, which is the same name as the book, is called Prioritize This.

Starting point is 00:34:05 Amazing. I'll pop all the links in the description and in the show notes. But thank you so much for your time. Thank you for writing this book. As I said, I did really enjoy it. and yeah, people can find all the details in the description. Thanks again for your time, Lily. Thank you. Thanks so much for your time in watching or listening to this episode. If it's resonated with you, please do share it to your socials, tag myself, tag Lily in socials. We love to hear from you.

Starting point is 00:34:33 And this really does help the show to grow. I am Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere. So do come and connect. And let me know if you've got any ideas for future guests or episodes too. Lily and I spoke off camera about both having experienced losing our fathers, especially losing our fathers when we're pregnant with our youngest children. Not an easy thing to do at all. If you have experience of grief or want to understand someone who might be grieving, please do also bear in mind the grief collective book. If you're a big fan of psychology actually, I think you'll also really like the companion podcast series called Inner Work.

Starting point is 00:35:10 They're all exclusive solo episodes with me. And I explore some of the real life thoughts, reflections, feelings, insights about what it's like to be a psychologist, what it's like for this to crop up in my life, in my work, in my day-to-day, and the reflections, insights, and kind of growth moments that I have as a human and as a professional. I think you'll love it. You can come and grab a free three-day trial on Apple Podcasts. You can also grab a trial on Patreon.

Starting point is 00:35:38 and you can subscribe on YouTube and directly on Captivate. You know that bit after a client session, when you want to grab a drink, maybe make yourself some lunch, perhaps eat your dinner or have some wind down time. But as any clinician knows, when you've still got notes to write up, it can feel hard to get on with your day. And sometimes if it's been a really involved session, it can feel like that bit for each client

Starting point is 00:36:03 can turn the 50-minute appointment you'd budgeted for into a 75-minute one. and imagine that on repeat for all of your weekly sessions. Well, this episode is brought to you by WriteUp, and their new A.I. Scribe is a tool built for clinicians who'd quite like their evenings back. Write Up's AI Scribe is your in-session companion, and works whether you're in-person or remote.

Starting point is 00:36:27 It picks up the clinically relevant details and uses them to draft your clinical notes for you. And the best bit, it'll do it in the structure you usually use. You read, you tweak, You sign off, done. No more, I'll write it up later, guilt spiral at 9pm. Writeup is UK-built, GDPR compliant, and made specifically for healthcare professionals. And because it understands the way we work, not just the way American systems work,

Starting point is 00:36:54 I think that like me, you're going to love it. Right now, you can grab your free 30-day trial of write-up, which includes a four-hour free trial with AI scribe. Then you can see how it handles your notes before you commit to it. to anything. Head to writeup.com to give it a go. That's W-R-I-T-E-U-P-P-com. And remember to use the code Marianne 30.

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