Taking a Month Off Work: What Happened and Lessons Learned

The Decision to Simplify

• 💡 After eight years of a labor-intensive narrative podcast, Nora and her team decided to make significant changes to simplify their workload and pace.
• 🚀 This involved shutting down Patreon and Apple Plus, moving archives to Substack, changing the podcast format to a call-in style, and renaming it from "Terrible Thanks for Asking" to "Thanks for Asking."
• ⚠️ The team also stopped producing a daily show, "It's Going to Be Okay," due to financial non-viability, which meant a smaller workload, revenue, and team.

Personal and Team Impact of Hustle Culture

• 🧠 Nora reflects on a decade of intense hustling, writing books, screenplays, and creating podcasts, admitting she never turned off and passed stress onto her team.
• burnout became prevalent, leading some team members to seek less stressful roles.
• 🌱 Despite the fear of doing less in a culture that demands more, Nora embraced her theme of "less" for the year, finding it liberating.

The Month-Long Break and Its Outcomes

• 🗓️ To take a four-week summer break, the team worked ahead by stacking interviews, writing posts, and editing audio.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Nora spent this time in Europe with her family, calling it a "trip of a lifetime" during a crucial family inflection point with older children starting new life stages.
• 📵 During the break, Nora intentionally disconnected, leaving her computer and iPad without email, focusing on reading and being present with her family.

Re-evaluation of Work and Identity

• 🎯 The experience reinforced that work does not need to be one's entire life, allowing team members like Grace to pursue personal creative projects (writing a novel) and Marcel to manage personal matters and family time.
• 📈 Despite a 50% loss in subscriber revenue after platform changes, Nora reports feeling 100% less stressed, believing that "less is more" even if it doesn't yield more money.
• ✨ Upon returning, Nora feels a renewed sense of creativity and excitement for her work, describing it as "work zooies" rather than pressure-driven hustle.

Redefining Productivity and Life

• 💬 Nora emphasizes that being alive is doing something, and life is not just about frantic work but also about fun, silliness, and connection.
• 📞 The team is now working a reasonable amount, continuing the "Thanks for Asking" podcast and encouraging listeners to share their own relationships with work and sabbaticals.