Some good ideas and sentiments that resonated with me, but mostly this was nothing new or even clearly explained, mixed with rambling sentences, quirky jokes and lots of privilege. In this episode we give a spotlight into the climate change crisis, why it’s important to stand up for what you believe and Mikaela comes armed with the do’s and don'ts.

In her book, Grace discusses the importance of taking breaks in-depth and the topic comes up in several chapters. She suggests asking yourself the following questions to determine how often and how long your breaks should be: Although not as hard to read as I initially expected, I did find myself at the end of each chapter having no idea what the point was she was trying to make. Knowing what I do about Grace, it’s hard to understand where she is coming from when she herself perpetuates the concepts and “cultures” she is trying to pull people away from. The OED, an etymological dictionary based on historical evidence, doesn’t explain why the meaning of “hardly” changed so dramatically. Our guess is that the “-ly” adverb evolved from emphasizing the energy needed to cope with a difficult situation to emphasizing the difficulty of the situation itself.In the second part „Hardly Working“: Redefining self-care as being productive, the matter of wanting or needing to „have it all“ and the art of doing nothing. Credit to Grace for curating some really interesting research and clearly being very knowledgeable on business and the working environment today. Sadly, the way that research was presented was a little bland and repetitive for my liking. This is a surprisingly dense book yet I don't feel like I absorbed much of what it was saying. Something I enjoy while reading this kind of books is the science at the basis of concepts. Or at least the account of other people’s personal experiences. There is nothing about that here. This is a book about Grace.

in this week's solo episode we're looking at how to stand out from a job application alone - from the POV of someone who's been going through application after application! i've been hiring a LOT this year and I've learned so much as to what stands out, and what is an absolute no-go, especially in a really competitive market. Every single person can benefit from this book. Grace writes with complete honesty and it’s refreshing to read something that genuinely comes from the heart, rather than a load of ‘do this, do that’ mantras. She’s witty, funny and smart which keeps the book easy and entertaining to read, whilst also providing fool proof ways to change your day to day life for the better. Not only that, she speaks the holy grail of hard pills to swallow by calling out the ‘hustle-porn’ plastered across social media, of which we have been brainwashed into thinking is healthy. Thank god someone said it. We are blessed that someone of Grace’s following and influence has spread awareness of the soul destroying work culture we all participate in. Think of it as a school of life. You’ll come away from each episode with actionable advice to help you achieve balance, success, and fulfilment whether you’re working hard, or hardly working. Number one: priorities. You can plan everything in the world, but if you're not doing the things you should actually be doing, then you're going to have a problem. One of the things I find really helpful for that is the Eisenhower matrix, which ranks things on importance and urgency and gives you a square where you can say, OK, these are the things that I need to be doing.However I do appreciate taking the approach of productivity as a means of self care, It’s an interesting point of view that we don’t hear more of and something that has resonated with me as I think too often it’s suggested that self care is supposed to be easy and instantly gratifying. Also, I find this book very repetitive. My mind literally went blank while reading some parts. It almost looks like something I could have written in high school. It’s just the same concept over and over again.