January 22, 2025 • 26 mins
Gillian Goddard, an endocrinologist and author of The Hot Flash newsletter, shares how to manage a busy life by looking at weeks instead of days
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Jillian Goddard to the show. Jillian
(00:30):
is a practicing indochronologist in New York City. She also
writes the Hot Flash newsletter that is a popular part
of the Parent Data Empire. So, Jillian, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Laura, Yeah, excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Sure, So, as you mentioned, I'm an undochronologist, which means
I take care of people who have problems with their
hormones and the glance that make those hormones in New
York City, and I have been doing that for a
long long time.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And then in the last eighteen.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Months or so, I have started writing about women's hormonal
health for Emily Oster's Parent Data and that's been really
fun because actually I was a journalism major as an
undergrad and so it's been great to circle back to
using those skills in a way that kind of ties
(01:31):
my previous career and my current career together.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I was going to ask you a little bit about
that career evolution. What made you think like now's the
time to do this? It was this something that'd been
in the back of your mind for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah, so I had, you know, I started my practice
about a little over ten years ago, and it takes
some time to build a practice, and at that my
kids were young at the time. I have four kids,
and at the time they were you know, very small
preschoolers and early school age. And then as I built
(02:06):
my practice and my kids got older, the practice became
a little bit more sort of I mean, I don't
want to say autopilot, but established, and there were good
routines there. I love seeing patients and they're always interesting
and I always learned something from them. But there's when
(02:27):
you run your own practice, there's only so much career
growth that you can do with that. And I was
really kind of casting about a bit for a way
to use my brain a little bit differently, to think
about things differently, and then this opportunity to work with
Emily fell in my lap, so it was good timing
(02:51):
as it were.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So, yeah, no, that sounds wonderful. And I would imagine
because of this, because you spend some of your days
practicing medicine and you spend some of your days more
on your writing stuff, that you have probably very different
schedules depending on what they're day is. So maybe could
talk through what your daily life looks like, but understanding
that these are these are two different schedules entirely.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, so I really do have exactly that, two separate
types of days in my schedule. I have two days
a week I spend in the office seeing patients, and
on those days, those days start very early, so my
alarm goes off at four forty five. I get up,
(03:36):
get out of my house before anyone else is usually awake.
It's usually very quiet when I leave. I drive to
my office, which is about half an hour away, and
then I prepare for patients and do all the things
related to seeing patients for the next ten hours. So
(03:56):
I see patients from seven in the morning to five
in the afternoon and sort of accomplish all the paperwork
and administrative tasks that go along with seeing patients.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I try to do that.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Mostly on those days as well, So I try to
be really efficient when I'm in the office, and then
I try to be in the car by about five
thirty head home. I have four kids who are in
high school, in middle school, and I've got one my
(04:32):
youngest is in third grade, and so there's I help
with driving, I help with homework. I do I used
to do when my kids were little.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
I used to do like a second shift. I do
not do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I now that my kids are older and they're up
and around, I really try to keep the evenings more
focused on spending time with them, barring something emerchant. Yeah,
and so those are patient days on my and you'll
notice there were there were some things that were missing
from that, so like there was no exercise in there,
(05:10):
not a lot of eating.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
No I do eat, but.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
There's little days are verious. Days are very devoted and
it's one patient after another for the next parton.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I usually see between twenty five and thirty people a day,
so it is one patient after another for ten hours
on the days when I'm at home, So three days
a week I'm at home. Those are my writing days,
and I I sleep in a smidge. I sleep until
(05:41):
five forty five, so it feels late, feels like.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And then I actually try to do.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
An hour of work before my family is kind of
up and moving around, and I really try to know
exactly what I'm planning to accomplish in that hour beforehand,
so I don't get up at five forty five and
go what should I do?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
From six to seven.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I have a specific task in mind, and it might
be to edit an article. Today, I worked on the
editorial calendar for the upcoming month. I have a really
specific and finite task. It is not a time when
I do sort of deep writing.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
At that point. And then my kids get up.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Everybody is our around and about, and that process takes,
you know, it takes a little while to get them
out the door. And then at eight I usually walk
out the door with my youngest son. We walk to
school and I continue on. I usually run on those mornings,
I do like three to.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Five miles, and then a couple days a week.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I actually then go straight from that to a pilates
lesson and then I come home and get myself settled
in to work. And on those days I like to
write in the morning till about three o'clock.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And then because that's when the people start coming back.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
From school and and so then I try to do
all the other things when they're here. So they're pretty
good about about meetings and stuff. Although I did quite
famously post on Instagram signs that I put all over
my house when I had an important meeting that they
(07:30):
were going to be coming home from school in the
middle of.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I don't interrupts a.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Meeting, yes exactly, But so I'll do meetings, I'll do
phone calls things, things that if they come in, you know,
it's not the end of the world. The one exception
to that is if I know I'm going to be
doing something like this like guesting on a podcast, I
schedule it during school hours.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, well, long experience, I know to do that as well.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Although there was a famous time I was giving a
talk virtually and I wound up with a five year
old on the screen with me.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So that was that was an experience, for sure. But
he's far cuter than I was, so it actually probably
made it all go better. Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So, what time do you have to go to bed
to wake up at four forty five or five forty
five depending on the day.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, So I have a hard and fast ten pm bedtime,
and we have a pretty specific evening routine at our house.
My youngest is still going to bed fairly early. He
crashes around eight thirty or so. Between nine fifteen or
so and ten o'clock, my middle two kids, who are
(08:43):
fourteen and eleven, we sit down and watch a TV
show with them. So it's my husband and I and
the two kids, and we've so we've watched a lot
of Seinfeld, We've watched all of the Office, we've watched
and right now we're watching The Good Place, which they
(09:04):
actually really really like. They get all wrapped up in
the cliffhangers. So yeah, and then my daughter, who's fourteen,
she stays up. She's usually still doing homework and stuff
after that, but the eleven year old will go to bed,
and so will I. So lights out at ten o'clock.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Excellent. Well, that's good. And maybe that's a little bit
less sleep.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Than you'd like on the mornings when you have to
wake up at four forty five, but it's you know,
a good amount then on the days that you're waking
up at five forty five, right.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean, when I have tracked my time over
the years, I have found that the number of hours
I sleep is remarkably stable. Even when I had babies,
I get about seven and a half hours of sleep
on average over the course of a week.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yep, same here.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Well, we're going to talk a little bit about that
viewing life in terms of a week when we come
back right after this quick ad break. So I am
with doctor Gillian Goddard, who is an endocrinologist in New
York City. She's also the author of the Hot Flash
newsletter that is part of Emily Oster's parent Data Empire. So, Jillian,
(10:09):
we're just talking about how you sort of get different
amounts of sleep on the nights that you are going
into the office to see patients versus the days that
you are working from home. But I think in general
you kind of think about life in terms of a week.
So it's not like you're like, oh, no, I got
too little sleep that one night, Like, well, I know,
I get a little bit more the next night and
over the whole week. Things tend to come out or
(10:30):
like you don't exercise on the patient days but you
do on the others. Can you talk a little bit
about that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I mean, I sort of have an idea of kind
of what I want my week to look like, and
I stick to a pretty clear template. So, you know,
in addition to not exercising on my patient days, I'm
not always home for dinner with my kids. On patient days,
I might get home in time to do to drive
somebody to a later activity. I don't always get to
(11:00):
like leisure activities like reading on patient days, but I
know that they're really limited days and that I have
a lot more control and flexibility, and I'm a lot
more present on the days when I'm working from home.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So even though I really do.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Work from you know, ten to six most days. When
I work from home, I'm I'm My office is like
a fish bowl, it has glass doors, it's hard to
hide from everybody. So I feel like I'm still here,
I'm still present, I'm still involved in sort of what's
going on.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Well, there's also weekends.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
They come to they talked, we've talked about weekdays, but
there's definitely also weekends, and so I feel like I
fit a lot in on those days too. I'm not
a hard and fast, like don't work on the weekend
kind of person.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I don't like to do clinical work on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I just like to have that boundary unless I'm call
and need to respond to a patient emergency, of course,
But on the weekends when I'm not, I really try
to kind of hold that boundary. But the writing is
much more fluid. And in general, I would say, you know,
there's people who are really like have hard fast boundaries
(12:19):
between their work, and there's people who integrate their work.
I know you've talked about that before, and I feel
like with my clinical work, I have these hard fast boundaries,
and with the writing work, it's completely integrated into my
everyday life.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it's just an entirely different sort of thing. I
was wondering about that. Yeah, you'd mentioned on your clinical days.
I know it only takes you about thirty minutes to
drive to work. I'm guessing it takes you more than
thirty minutes to leave work.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Sadly it does.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Traffic in New York City is a lovely thing.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Takes me.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
On a good day, forty five minutes and on a
terrible day an hour and a half. Yeah. Yeah, it's
only twice a week, so only twice a week. It's
really not back with all sorts of things. I mean,
it basically means I spend three hours of the week
commuting total. If I don't count driving children places.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well that's but well we can talk about that because
I think one of your sort of life hacks here,
as I've looked at your schedule and all that, is
that you live in a very walkable community.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And that is intentional, right, very much so.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
So we live in a town that's just outside of
New York City.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
It's suburban town.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But even where we live in our town is very
is very intentional. There's a main street in our town,
and the commuter rail station and the school are all
very centrally located.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And so.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The best thing about that.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Is not just that all walk places. Often my kids
can be really really independent. I will sometimes walk to
school with my eight year old, but he doesn't have
to be picked up from school anymore. So all my
kids can get themselves to and from school by themselves.
My oldest son, you know, plays on the varsity soccer team.
(14:18):
He manages all of that completely on his own. And
and they will do things like if they need like
a poster board or something for school, they can walk
into town and there's a drug store that will have
the poster board and they can get that on their own.
And so we really focused on making them very independent
pretty early, which helps with things like shuttling people around
(14:46):
at the at the end of the day. We also
now have a third third driver in our household, with
cash pluses and minuses, but it is on the whole,
on the balance, I think helpful.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah no, but I mean having kids be able to
walk places on their own versus needing somebody who's over
sixteen to drive them everywhere just opens up several years
where they can get themselves around.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That would not have been the case without that.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
So yeah, I mean we actually, you know, in our
little like string of houses, there's like a whole crew
of elementary school kids that walk to school by themselves.
And we actually live so close to the school it's
we're on the same block.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
They don't even cross the street. So it's pretty good.
It's pretty it is.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
They can also go to the library by themselves, which
is nice.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah. Yeah, But you know what I also thind is
so interesting about you, Julian.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You make time for.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
All sorts of other things in your life too, So
you volunteer extensively, I believe with your your church community.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about how on
earth you find the time for that.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Well.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So, yeah, So I am currently what is called the
warden of my church, which is essentially like being the
president of the board on like a not for profit board.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Essentially.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I do that on my writing days, and there have
been times when I have been involved in my church
where that has taken more time. Currently, it's not a
big time commitment. It's probably a couple hours a week
on the whole, aside from aside from you know, actually
(16:25):
attending services, which I would do anyway. And so I
you know, those those are some of the meetings that
get scheduled into those like post three pm spots.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
It's really important to me.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It's been a community that's been really important to our family,
and so you know, it is important to me to
play a role in kind of making it that community
for other for other people, and and I really.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You know, I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And like you, I also singing in my church choir,
which you know, unlike volunteering for the for the board,
is you know, purely for my own joy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Understood, understand that what's quite selfish.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Well, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's fun to do that, Yeah, it is, it is,
And I've I've gotten to know some people, you know,
in our church community that I didn't know as well,
and so it's just been really lovely from that point
of view. And one of my children is very into
music and is kind of coming up the ranks behind me,
and so that's also kind of fun to see him
(17:40):
be interested in some of the same things that that
I'm interested in, because that's not a guarantee when you
have kidds, never, never, is it. So how do you
come up with your ideas for writing newsletters? I come
up with them for in a few different ways. When
I first when I first pitched myself, I pitched myself
(18:03):
as sort of writing about more broadly about women's hormonal health.
But you know, menopaus is having a bit of a moment.
And one of the things that we did early on
to kind of make sure that this was a viable
option for a newsletter was they asked me to brainstorm
fifty ideas or fifteen ideas, and I came up with
like one hundred right.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Off the bat.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
There's just there's so much to write about, and so
I still occasionally go back to that list. We you know,
it's if you write a newsletter a week and it's
been and it's been a year, I'm.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Only halfway through that list.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
But I also pay attention to what's happening in the news,
kind of what types of things are being covered in
the health news, like on the New York Times Well page,
if they happen to have an article that isn't about
ozembic already, they tend to do with that a lot.
(19:00):
So I pay attention to that, and then I look
at the journal. So today, when I was working on
an editorial calendar, a couple of things were studies that
have just come out that were reported on. But I
also just go and look and kind of look for
studies that catch my eye that I think people will like.
I sometimes I'll do a piece where it's about several studies.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And I'll call it like, you know, like a little
mini journal club.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
And there's there was like the perfect piece for that
today and one of the journals about jazz dancing for
fitness and menopause.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I couldn't resist it. Hits all all all the buttons there.
I mean, you can just you can't help yourself from
clicking on that really exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
It's like, uh, medical literature, clickbait, Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
No, but that's like, that's wonderful that they had you
come up with the fifty ideas because that when I
talk to people about starting podcasts, for instance, they're like, well,
I'm going to record an episode.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I'm like, you're not going to record one episode.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You should record at least a few, and you need
to have ideas for like fifteen to twenty because you know,
once you get your first three out of the way,
it's like, okay, well now what like your audience is
going to keep coming back for more, and so you
need to keep coughing them up. So we're absolutely, yeah,
we're gonna take one more quick ad break and then
we'll be back with a little bit more from Jillian.
(20:25):
I am back with Gillian Goddard, who is an indocrinologist
in New York City is also the author of the
Hot Flash newsletter. So one thing we have in common, Jillian,
is that we spent the past year listening to all
of bach. So maybe you could talk a little bit
about how that experience was for you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, So when you first mentioned that you were going
to do it, we were actually at a retreat together
to plan the year, and I was like, oh, you know,
I know Bach, of course, but I don't know Bach
(21:04):
and I have like some ideas, but you know, I
love music. Music is a super important, you know, to
me and has always been a part of my life.
And I was like, this would be such a fun
way to like spend a little time every day, and
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
What was amazing to me was.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Because I sing with my choir, how much of some
of the music I already knew, and how funny it
was to listen to people sing German words too, Like
I could hear the words you know in English in
my head and I was like, wait, I know this one, and.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
So that was really fun.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I also had a pretty good familiarity with a lot
of the cello concertos that people love and that they're
toward the end of the schedule that we did, and
so that was a really kind of nice way to
come into the the final stretch.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But I thought it was really.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It was really interesting to me how conversant I became
and how comfortable I became in a subject that I
knew something about but not a ton about, and I
actually really really had a great.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Time with it.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, which is why we're listening to Beethoven.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So Jillie and I.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Are listening to all of Beethoven in the course of
twenty twenty five. We're only a few days in as
we're recording this, but so far, so good.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
We've been listening to a lot of early Beethoven.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
It turns out that he was also a very early composer,
a bit like Mozart in that regard, although a little
bit younger in I guess timeline than Mozart.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But yeah, it's been interesting to see these.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I was joking with one of my kids after I
heard some like after it was the piano quartet or something,
I'm like he composed it was fourteen, like telling my kid,
have you been composing anything lately? Right?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, that's what it's been fun, because you know, my
eleven year old is very into music. And I actually
inherited a bunch of which we haven't used these yet
because we don't have these like early piano works on
record at home. But I inherited a bunch of LPs
from my grandfather that include all of Beethoven's symphonies and
and so we've been talking about how we're going to
(23:14):
like listen to them together, and and I'm like, he's
he was your age when he wrote this.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
It's kind of fun. It's impressive.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, So, Jillian, what's something you have done recently to
take a day from great too awesome.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
I got myself a new coffee mug, and it's taking
every day from great to awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What's so amazing about this coffee mug. I'm very curious.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It's the perfect size. Okay, So I have two favorite mugs.
One that I take when I go into the office
because I take my coffee with me. And that one
is a lovely one that was gifted to me by
the Parent Data team and it has like a logo
on it and everything's quite nice. But the one I
just got is one that I use at home and
it is quite large, but it Santa got everyone in
(24:04):
our family one of these mugs if they were in
our stockings on Christmas morning, and they have your zodiac
sign on the outside, so I always know which one
is mine. No one can take it. There are no
other scorpios in the house, and uh it's just it's
like the perfect size to to really enjoy my morning
cup of coffee. And I am I always tell people
(24:28):
I love my coffee. Coffee is one of my favorite
things in the entire world. And when patients think I'm
going to ask them to quit their coffee, I'm always like, no, no,
I'll never take Away'm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Not going to do that. Now, I'm very curious how
many ounces we're talking here.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I mean, I don't know. It doesn't say but it's
a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
It's a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Okay, it's easily like two normal sizes ougs. But then
I don't have to go back a second time.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
That's true. That's true, which is which is helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
We're all about coffee here on a show called Before Breakfast,
So uh well, we'll we'll take that U. And we're
glad to hear that U. Doctor Gillian is not to
make us give that up either. So what are you
looking forward to right now? So I have a new
project in the.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Works that I'm really enjoying working on. I am in
the very early stages of writing a book, and so
I am looking forward to that.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
That's so awesome, and I love that you are a
journalism major and then you had this whole separate career
and then have come back to still writing the book
at this point, so that's really really cool. Well, Jillian,
thank you so much for joining us. Where can people
find you?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah, so you can find me. I'm on Instagram and
I'm Jillian M. Goddard on Instagram and you can find
the Hot Flash newsletter at parent Data dot org.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, and everyone,
thank you for listening. If you have feedback on this
or any other episode, you can always reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. And in the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to make
the most.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If
you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me
at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is
(26:23):
a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
they have for the rest of us. So today I
am delighted to welcome Jillian Goddard to the show. Jillian
(00:30):
is a practicing indochronologist in New York City. She also
writes the Hot Flash newsletter that is a popular part
of the Parent Data Empire. So, Jillian, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, Laura, Yeah, excited to have you here.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Sure, So, as you mentioned, I'm an undochronologist, which means
I take care of people who have problems with their
hormones and the glance that make those hormones in New
York City, and I have been doing that for a
long long time.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
And then in the last eighteen.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Months or so, I have started writing about women's hormonal
health for Emily Oster's Parent Data and that's been really
fun because actually I was a journalism major as an
undergrad and so it's been great to circle back to
using those skills in a way that kind of ties
(01:31):
my previous career and my current career together.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
I was going to ask you a little bit about
that career evolution. What made you think like now's the
time to do this? It was this something that'd been
in the back of your mind for a while.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Yeah, so I had, you know, I started my practice
about a little over ten years ago, and it takes
some time to build a practice, and at that my
kids were young at the time. I have four kids,
and at the time they were you know, very small
preschoolers and early school age. And then as I built
(02:06):
my practice and my kids got older, the practice became
a little bit more sort of I mean, I don't
want to say autopilot, but established, and there were good
routines there. I love seeing patients and they're always interesting
and I always learned something from them. But there's when
(02:27):
you run your own practice, there's only so much career
growth that you can do with that. And I was
really kind of casting about a bit for a way
to use my brain a little bit differently, to think
about things differently, and then this opportunity to work with
Emily fell in my lap, so it was good timing
(02:51):
as it were.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
So, yeah, no, that sounds wonderful. And I would imagine
because of this, because you spend some of your days
practicing medicine and you spend some of your days more
on your writing stuff, that you have probably very different
schedules depending on what they're day is. So maybe could
talk through what your daily life looks like, but understanding
that these are these are two different schedules entirely.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, so I really do have exactly that, two separate
types of days in my schedule. I have two days
a week I spend in the office seeing patients, and
on those days, those days start very early, so my
alarm goes off at four forty five. I get up,
(03:36):
get out of my house before anyone else is usually awake.
It's usually very quiet when I leave. I drive to
my office, which is about half an hour away, and
then I prepare for patients and do all the things
related to seeing patients for the next ten hours. So
(03:56):
I see patients from seven in the morning to five
in the afternoon and sort of accomplish all the paperwork
and administrative tasks that go along with seeing patients.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I try to do that.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Mostly on those days as well, So I try to
be really efficient when I'm in the office, and then
I try to be in the car by about five
thirty head home. I have four kids who are in
high school, in middle school, and I've got one my
(04:32):
youngest is in third grade, and so there's I help
with driving, I help with homework. I do I used
to do when my kids were little.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
I used to do like a second shift. I do
not do that anymore.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
I now that my kids are older and they're up
and around, I really try to keep the evenings more
focused on spending time with them, barring something emerchant. Yeah,
and so those are patient days on my and you'll
notice there were there were some things that were missing
from that, so like there was no exercise in there,
(05:10):
not a lot of eating.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
No I do eat, but.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
There's little days are verious. Days are very devoted and
it's one patient after another for the next parton.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
I usually see between twenty five and thirty people a day,
so it is one patient after another for ten hours
on the days when I'm at home, So three days
a week I'm at home. Those are my writing days,
and I I sleep in a smidge. I sleep until
(05:41):
five forty five, so it feels late, feels like.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And then I actually try to do.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
An hour of work before my family is kind of
up and moving around, and I really try to know
exactly what I'm planning to accomplish in that hour beforehand,
so I don't get up at five forty five and
go what should I do?
Speaker 1 (06:06):
From six to seven.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I have a specific task in mind, and it might
be to edit an article. Today, I worked on the
editorial calendar for the upcoming month. I have a really
specific and finite task. It is not a time when
I do sort of deep writing.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
At that point. And then my kids get up.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Everybody is our around and about, and that process takes,
you know, it takes a little while to get them
out the door. And then at eight I usually walk
out the door with my youngest son. We walk to
school and I continue on. I usually run on those mornings,
I do like three to.
Speaker 4 (06:48):
Five miles, and then a couple days a week.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
I actually then go straight from that to a pilates
lesson and then I come home and get myself settled
in to work. And on those days I like to
write in the morning till about three o'clock.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
And then because that's when the people start coming back.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
From school and and so then I try to do
all the other things when they're here. So they're pretty
good about about meetings and stuff. Although I did quite
famously post on Instagram signs that I put all over
my house when I had an important meeting that they
(07:30):
were going to be coming home from school in the
middle of.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
I don't interrupts a.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Meeting, yes exactly, But so I'll do meetings, I'll do
phone calls things, things that if they come in, you know,
it's not the end of the world. The one exception
to that is if I know I'm going to be
doing something like this like guesting on a podcast, I
schedule it during school hours.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, well, long experience, I know to do that as well.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Although there was a famous time I was giving a
talk virtually and I wound up with a five year
old on the screen with me.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
So that was that was an experience, for sure. But
he's far cuter than I was, so it actually probably
made it all go better. Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So, what time do you have to go to bed
to wake up at four forty five or five forty
five depending on the day.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Yeah, So I have a hard and fast ten pm bedtime,
and we have a pretty specific evening routine at our house.
My youngest is still going to bed fairly early. He
crashes around eight thirty or so. Between nine fifteen or
so and ten o'clock, my middle two kids, who are
(08:43):
fourteen and eleven, we sit down and watch a TV
show with them. So it's my husband and I and
the two kids, and we've so we've watched a lot
of Seinfeld, We've watched all of the Office, we've watched
and right now we're watching The Good Place, which they
(09:04):
actually really really like. They get all wrapped up in
the cliffhangers. So yeah, and then my daughter, who's fourteen,
she stays up. She's usually still doing homework and stuff
after that, but the eleven year old will go to bed,
and so will I. So lights out at ten o'clock.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Excellent. Well, that's good. And maybe that's a little bit
less sleep.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Than you'd like on the mornings when you have to
wake up at four forty five, but it's you know,
a good amount then on the days that you're waking
up at five forty five, right.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean, when I have tracked my time over
the years, I have found that the number of hours
I sleep is remarkably stable. Even when I had babies,
I get about seven and a half hours of sleep
on average over the course of a week.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yep, same here.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Well, we're going to talk a little bit about that
viewing life in terms of a week when we come
back right after this quick ad break. So I am
with doctor Gillian Goddard, who is an endocrinologist in New
York City. She's also the author of the Hot Flash
newsletter that is part of Emily Oster's parent Data Empire. So, Jillian,
(10:09):
we're just talking about how you sort of get different
amounts of sleep on the nights that you are going
into the office to see patients versus the days that
you are working from home. But I think in general
you kind of think about life in terms of a week.
So it's not like you're like, oh, no, I got
too little sleep that one night, Like, well, I know,
I get a little bit more the next night and
over the whole week. Things tend to come out or
(10:30):
like you don't exercise on the patient days but you
do on the others. Can you talk a little bit
about that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
I mean, I sort of have an idea of kind
of what I want my week to look like, and
I stick to a pretty clear template. So, you know,
in addition to not exercising on my patient days, I'm
not always home for dinner with my kids. On patient days,
I might get home in time to do to drive
somebody to a later activity. I don't always get to
(11:00):
like leisure activities like reading on patient days, but I
know that they're really limited days and that I have
a lot more control and flexibility, and I'm a lot
more present on the days when I'm working from home.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
So even though I really do.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Work from you know, ten to six most days. When
I work from home, I'm I'm My office is like
a fish bowl, it has glass doors, it's hard to
hide from everybody. So I feel like I'm still here,
I'm still present, I'm still involved in sort of what's
going on.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Well, there's also weekends.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
They come to they talked, we've talked about weekdays, but
there's definitely also weekends, and so I feel like I
fit a lot in on those days too. I'm not
a hard and fast, like don't work on the weekend
kind of person.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
I don't like to do clinical work on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
I just like to have that boundary unless I'm call
and need to respond to a patient emergency, of course,
But on the weekends when I'm not, I really try
to kind of hold that boundary. But the writing is
much more fluid. And in general, I would say, you know,
there's people who are really like have hard fast boundaries
(12:19):
between their work, and there's people who integrate their work.
I know you've talked about that before, and I feel
like with my clinical work, I have these hard fast boundaries,
and with the writing work, it's completely integrated into my
everyday life.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, it's just an entirely different sort of thing. I
was wondering about that. Yeah, you'd mentioned on your clinical days.
I know it only takes you about thirty minutes to
drive to work. I'm guessing it takes you more than
thirty minutes to leave work.
Speaker 4 (12:44):
Sadly it does.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Traffic in New York City is a lovely thing.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Takes me.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
On a good day, forty five minutes and on a
terrible day an hour and a half. Yeah. Yeah, it's
only twice a week, so only twice a week. It's
really not back with all sorts of things. I mean,
it basically means I spend three hours of the week
commuting total. If I don't count driving children places.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well that's but well we can talk about that because
I think one of your sort of life hacks here,
as I've looked at your schedule and all that, is
that you live in a very walkable community.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
And that is intentional, right, very much so.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
So we live in a town that's just outside of
New York City.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
It's suburban town.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But even where we live in our town is very
is very intentional. There's a main street in our town,
and the commuter rail station and the school are all
very centrally located.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And so.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
The best thing about that.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
Is not just that all walk places. Often my kids
can be really really independent. I will sometimes walk to
school with my eight year old, but he doesn't have
to be picked up from school anymore. So all my
kids can get themselves to and from school by themselves.
My oldest son, you know, plays on the varsity soccer team.
(14:18):
He manages all of that completely on his own. And
and they will do things like if they need like
a poster board or something for school, they can walk
into town and there's a drug store that will have
the poster board and they can get that on their own.
And so we really focused on making them very independent
pretty early, which helps with things like shuttling people around
(14:46):
at the at the end of the day. We also
now have a third third driver in our household, with
cash pluses and minuses, but it is on the whole,
on the balance, I think helpful.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Yeah no, but I mean having kids be able to
walk places on their own versus needing somebody who's over
sixteen to drive them everywhere just opens up several years
where they can get themselves around.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
That would not have been the case without that.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
So yeah, I mean we actually, you know, in our
little like string of houses, there's like a whole crew
of elementary school kids that walk to school by themselves.
And we actually live so close to the school it's
we're on the same block.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
They don't even cross the street. So it's pretty good.
It's pretty it is.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
It's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
They can also go to the library by themselves, which
is nice.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah. Yeah, But you know what I also thind is
so interesting about you, Julian.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
You make time for.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
All sorts of other things in your life too, So
you volunteer extensively, I believe with your your church community.
Maybe you could talk a little bit about how on
earth you find the time for that.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Well.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
So, yeah, So I am currently what is called the
warden of my church, which is essentially like being the
president of the board on like a not for profit board.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Essentially.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I do that on my writing days, and there have
been times when I have been involved in my church
where that has taken more time. Currently, it's not a
big time commitment. It's probably a couple hours a week
on the whole, aside from aside from you know, actually
(16:25):
attending services, which I would do anyway. And so I
you know, those those are some of the meetings that
get scheduled into those like post three pm spots.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
It's really important to me.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
It's been a community that's been really important to our family,
and so you know, it is important to me to
play a role in kind of making it that community
for other for other people, and and I really.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
You know, I really enjoy it.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
And like you, I also singing in my church choir,
which you know, unlike volunteering for the for the board,
is you know, purely for my own joy.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Understood, understand that what's quite selfish.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Well, that's a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
It's fun to do that, Yeah, it is, it is,
And I've I've gotten to know some people, you know,
in our church community that I didn't know as well,
and so it's just been really lovely from that point
of view. And one of my children is very into
music and is kind of coming up the ranks behind me,
and so that's also kind of fun to see him
(17:40):
be interested in some of the same things that that
I'm interested in, because that's not a guarantee when you
have kidds, never, never, is it. So how do you
come up with your ideas for writing newsletters? I come
up with them for in a few different ways. When
I first when I first pitched myself, I pitched myself
(18:03):
as sort of writing about more broadly about women's hormonal health.
But you know, menopaus is having a bit of a moment.
And one of the things that we did early on
to kind of make sure that this was a viable
option for a newsletter was they asked me to brainstorm
fifty ideas or fifteen ideas, and I came up with
like one hundred right.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Off the bat.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
There's just there's so much to write about, and so
I still occasionally go back to that list. We you know,
it's if you write a newsletter a week and it's
been and it's been a year, I'm.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Only halfway through that list.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
But I also pay attention to what's happening in the news,
kind of what types of things are being covered in
the health news, like on the New York Times Well page,
if they happen to have an article that isn't about
ozembic already, they tend to do with that a lot.
(19:00):
So I pay attention to that, and then I look
at the journal. So today, when I was working on
an editorial calendar, a couple of things were studies that
have just come out that were reported on. But I
also just go and look and kind of look for
studies that catch my eye that I think people will like.
I sometimes I'll do a piece where it's about several studies.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And I'll call it like, you know, like a little
mini journal club.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
And there's there was like the perfect piece for that
today and one of the journals about jazz dancing for
fitness and menopause.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I couldn't resist it. Hits all all all the buttons there.
I mean, you can just you can't help yourself from
clicking on that really exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
It's like, uh, medical literature, clickbait, Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
No, but that's like, that's wonderful that they had you
come up with the fifty ideas because that when I
talk to people about starting podcasts, for instance, they're like, well,
I'm going to record an episode.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
I'm like, you're not going to record one episode.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You should record at least a few, and you need
to have ideas for like fifteen to twenty because you know,
once you get your first three out of the way,
it's like, okay, well now what like your audience is
going to keep coming back for more, and so you
need to keep coughing them up. So we're absolutely, yeah,
we're gonna take one more quick ad break and then
we'll be back with a little bit more from Jillian.
(20:25):
I am back with Gillian Goddard, who is an indocrinologist
in New York City is also the author of the
Hot Flash newsletter. So one thing we have in common, Jillian,
is that we spent the past year listening to all
of bach. So maybe you could talk a little bit
about how that experience was for you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, So when you first mentioned that you were going
to do it, we were actually at a retreat together
to plan the year, and I was like, oh, you know,
I know Bach, of course, but I don't know Bach
(21:04):
and I have like some ideas, but you know, I
love music. Music is a super important, you know, to
me and has always been a part of my life.
And I was like, this would be such a fun
way to like spend a little time every day, and
I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
What was amazing to me was.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Because I sing with my choir, how much of some
of the music I already knew, and how funny it
was to listen to people sing German words too, Like
I could hear the words you know in English in
my head and I was like, wait, I know this one, and.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
So that was really fun.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I also had a pretty good familiarity with a lot
of the cello concertos that people love and that they're
toward the end of the schedule that we did, and
so that was a really kind of nice way to
come into the the final stretch.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But I thought it was really.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
It was really interesting to me how conversant I became
and how comfortable I became in a subject that I
knew something about but not a ton about, and I
actually really really had a great.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Time with it.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Yeah, which is why we're listening to Beethoven.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So Jillie and I.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Are listening to all of Beethoven in the course of
twenty twenty five. We're only a few days in as
we're recording this, but so far, so good.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
We've been listening to a lot of early Beethoven.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
It turns out that he was also a very early composer,
a bit like Mozart in that regard, although a little
bit younger in I guess timeline than Mozart.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
But yeah, it's been interesting to see these.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
I was joking with one of my kids after I
heard some like after it was the piano quartet or something,
I'm like he composed it was fourteen, like telling my kid,
have you been composing anything lately? Right?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Well, that's what it's been fun, because you know, my
eleven year old is very into music. And I actually
inherited a bunch of which we haven't used these yet
because we don't have these like early piano works on
record at home. But I inherited a bunch of LPs
from my grandfather that include all of Beethoven's symphonies and
and so we've been talking about how we're going to
(23:14):
like listen to them together, and and I'm like, he's
he was your age when he wrote this.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
It's kind of fun. It's impressive.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Yeah, So, Jillian, what's something you have done recently to
take a day from great too awesome.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
I got myself a new coffee mug, and it's taking
every day from great to awesome.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
What's so amazing about this coffee mug. I'm very curious.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
It's the perfect size. Okay, So I have two favorite mugs.
One that I take when I go into the office
because I take my coffee with me. And that one
is a lovely one that was gifted to me by
the Parent Data team and it has like a logo
on it and everything's quite nice. But the one I
just got is one that I use at home and
it is quite large, but it Santa got everyone in
(24:04):
our family one of these mugs if they were in
our stockings on Christmas morning, and they have your zodiac
sign on the outside, so I always know which one
is mine. No one can take it. There are no
other scorpios in the house, and uh it's just it's
like the perfect size to to really enjoy my morning
cup of coffee. And I am I always tell people
(24:28):
I love my coffee. Coffee is one of my favorite
things in the entire world. And when patients think I'm
going to ask them to quit their coffee, I'm always like, no, no,
I'll never take Away'm.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Not going to do that. Now, I'm very curious how
many ounces we're talking here.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
I mean, I don't know. It doesn't say but it's
a lot.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
It's a lot.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Okay, it's easily like two normal sizes ougs. But then
I don't have to go back a second time.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
That's true. That's true, which is which is helpful.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
We're all about coffee here on a show called Before Breakfast,
So uh well, we'll we'll take that U. And we're
glad to hear that U. Doctor Gillian is not to
make us give that up either. So what are you
looking forward to right now? So I have a new
project in the.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Works that I'm really enjoying working on. I am in
the very early stages of writing a book, and so
I am looking forward to that.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
That's so awesome, and I love that you are a
journalism major and then you had this whole separate career
and then have come back to still writing the book
at this point, so that's really really cool. Well, Jillian,
thank you so much for joining us. Where can people
find you?
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah, so you can find me. I'm on Instagram and
I'm Jillian M. Goddard on Instagram and you can find
the Hot Flash newsletter at parent Data dot org.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Well, thank you so much for joining us, and everyone,
thank you for listening. If you have feedback on this
or any other episode, you can always reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. And in the meantime,
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to make
the most.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If
you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me
at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is
(26:23):
a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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