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Gen Z Perspectives on Time and Time Management
407 Plays3 months ago
Generation Z views and navigates the world differently than past generations - Including their perspectives on time and time management practices.
This episode features Dylan Diamond, co-founder and CEO of Saturn, a calendaring app that is revolutionizing how Gen Z is managing time. Dylan provides insights on how Gen Z looks at time and how Gen Z can develop and implement empowering time management skills.
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Transcript
Introduction to #GenZ Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome. This is hashtag Gen Z, a podcast that explores generations, see who they are, how they're different from other generations, while also being an incredible blend of those who came before them. We explore what they think is cool, what moves them, and why they do what they do. I'm your host, Megan Grace, and it's so nice to have you here.
The Challenge of Time Management for Gen Z
00:00:31
Speaker
In this episode, we're diving into a fascinating topic. Have you ever felt like despite how hard do you try to get it all done, either just never enough time in the day or that you're constantly running late and behind, You're not alone. Time management is a key professional skill, and one that takes time to hone. A study by Time Watch found that barely half of professionals feel like they have everything under control at work on a given day. But executing good time management has positive benefits, such as increased focus, productivity, and decision making, while also experiencing reduced stress. So it's clear that managing time and looking at time in a productive manner is critical to the career success.
00:01:12
Speaker
But not just thinking about time management, we have to factor in that Gen Z has grown up in a time where time and space are a little bit more fluid and they've looked at it differently than previous generations. They've been aided by technology and social media, so they've known a world where they can always feel connected to others and to the larger world through the internet at just about any time. With constant connection, it can also feel like there are more demands and influences on how a person can or should be using their time. Think about it. Young people today have to manage school or work, extracurriculars or after work activities, alongside managing their health and wellness and interpersonal relationships. Certainly other generations have had to manage these same priorities, but other generations didn't grow up and develop their initial time management skills with technology that provides what feels like constant notifications to be doing more, connecting more and being more places.
00:02:05
Speaker
This episode is going to break down how Gen Z views time, how they've learned to manage time, and what the future of time management could look like.
Meet Dylan Diamond: CEO of Saturn
00:02:13
Speaker
In this episode, I'm joined by Dylan Diamond, the co-founder and CEO of Saturn, the first calendars built specifically for high school students. The app helps students become more productive and engaged members of their communities by better managing their class schedules, after-school activities, and community events, all while connecting with their friends. Dylan first built a calendar app in 2015 in search of a tool that could help manage his high school's complex schedule. Three years later, Dylan and his co-founder launched a similar calendar app but for other high schools. Today, Saturn is a leading mobile app supporting students at almost 20,000 schools
00:02:52
Speaker
and millions of students have used it during the past school year. Dylan's a former Tesla software engineer and a former teal fellow. I had such a great time learning from Dylan and I hope you do too. So help me in welcoming Dylan to the conversation.
00:03:09
Speaker
Well, I'm very excited to welcome today's guest and new friend. Very exciting topic. And I think it's going to be so much to learn about and from Dylan. So Dylan, welcome to the conversation. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, Dylan, you've had such a an interesting story and a fascinating career. You're so young and you've accomplished so much already. So tell us a little bit about your story. Who are you and really what has your journey been like to the work that you're currently doing? Yeah. So I'm Dylan Diamond, co-founder and CEO of Saturn. Today, we are the largest calendar for Gen Z specifically in high school and college. But my story first is I grew up in a town called Westport, Connecticut. ah It's about an hour 15 train ride from Manhattan, went to the public school system there. And particularly in the high school, Staples High School, that's where I started building a lot of apps. And when people ask me today,
00:04:05
Speaker
How did you learn computer science? I think that there a lot of therere there are two main forks that you could go down. One is you take an online course, you build a calculator app, tic-tac-toe game. ah The other is you have a problem that you want to solve and you will employ any tool, learn any skill to solve that problem. And when I was in high school, I remember distinctly freshman year, I realized, like many other high schoolers, that you grades start to matter. And in middle school, ah they're sort of a freebie. But in high school, they really start to matter. And I ended up learning the tools, Objective C, web scraping, iOS development through a bunch of online courses. Stanford was helpful in particular and built my first iPhone app. And it was an app that let
00:04:52
Speaker
you know I was able to check my grades from my phone because that was something that you were unable to do from ah a phone before you had to go onto a computer. After class, everyone would line up in the library to try and check their grades and see how their GPA moved. So long story short, is I built an app for myself, a tool for myself. It just happened to be in the form of an iOS app because I carried my phone in class.
The Genesis of Saturn: From Idea to App
00:05:15
Speaker
and a bunch of kids would say, hey, Dylan, how could you get access to your grades before me because you're not going to the computer and there's no app. And that was the start of realizing that I could build not just for myself, but for the broader audience at my school as friends pressured me to put the app on the app store. So I made an iTunes connect account, published the app back then after review took about a week. And once the app was live, it just started spreading word of mouth. And within that first week, all 2000 kids
00:05:46
Speaker
downloaded the product and it was really empowering, humbling, and really just cool to see everyone in the hallways of this huge high school using this product that I built in my high school bedroom in my free time. And that told me that the power of distribution specifically with with mobile, with the iPhone, was a really interesting canvas that I could use to express myself and build products that hopefully others would find useful. But first and foremost, they benefited me as tools. Later down the road, built a bunch of other products. I got involved at Tesla at a young age after I created a, it was the first Apple watch app for the vehicle. My parents had got Model S. I just got the first Apple watch.
00:06:31
Speaker
And I did cross country and track. And I thought, hey, you know apps like Garmin and Strava are really cool. Why don't they exist for the the car? Because at the time, Tesla had a pretty you know primitive app where you could flash the lights, hunt the horn. But there was no data. There was no mapping, no tracking. So I built ah an Apple Watch app in iOS after that and ended up at Tesla as their youngest software engineer. I was there for about three years. i said But that was kind of a huge chapter in my life that we might get into a little later. And then Saturn, you know, the the precursor to it was solving the problem, another problem I faced later in high school.
00:07:07
Speaker
which was how who are who are my classmates, and which of my friends are my class. Everyone would post their schedule on Facebook and I thought there had to be a better solution. And that's ultimately how Saturn was born and no calendar app worked for our crazy school schedule. So those are kind of the origins and some different products I built in high school. I later went on to do a dual degree at Penn in the M and&T program and then have been working on Saturn for the last five years. You said like 14 different technology things that I'm like that is amazing and I'm so i like I am amazed by people that have such different jobs that I do because I'm thankful that they have them um and it's you know what I love about your story is that you could have had like an amazing villain origin story of like
00:07:52
Speaker
learning technology and then taking it to do evil things, right? And you were like, hmm, let me solve problems for me and my peers, so which I love. And like, we're not, maybe we're going to get into that and talk you about Gen Z. But I love that you said this is just a very simple problem that like is very common within my high school. And let me figure out and like use my tenacity to, to solve it for not only myself, but other people. I love that. If you would have told me and when I was in a high school that high schoolers were building apps. I was like i appetizers like what's going on here because it just was not a thing we were doing and we were was barely even a thing to like have a blog or a website. So I love how much we've evolved and also how technology has been integrated into not only like students using tools as you know but like students building tools I think is so cool and I'm glad that your high school is able to benefit from that.
00:08:40
Speaker
Let's talk about Saturn. You've mentioned it, you've sprinkled, you've teased us with it a little bit. Tell me more about it. What is it and really what inspired you? It sounds like there was a few different iterations of it, but what inspired you to create this platform and the ways that it serves its users? The first incarnation of Saturn was a website that kids from my high school could log into, upload their schedule. I had scraped the courses and the teachers at the school, so it would autocomplete and it would spit out your classmates. And I distinctly remember being in homeroom and the teacher would pass back your paper schedule for the upcoming semester. People would take a picture of it, post it on Facebook at the time after that, you know, Instagram stories and whatnot.
00:09:26
Speaker
and try and look in the comments, create group names and Google sheets to figure out who their classmates were. Because if you're a high school kid, your friends are really defined by who you spend the most amount of time with. And especially in the younger grades, a lot of your friends are made through your classes. And this was a behavior that existed well before I you know arrived on the scene. And I think when you were in high school and when our grandparents were in high school and everyone wanted to make friends, reduce loneliness loneliness and know who was in their class. um So I built that website. I was used by the whole school, all word of mouth, zero marketing. Then the next year challenged myself to take that site and put it in a mobile app as Swift had just been released by Apple, new programming language. I had previously known Objective-C and and wanted to challenge myself to build a mobile app in Swift. So I put the app on
00:10:18
Speaker
or maybe I put the schedule sharing product on your phone and then also realized that there was another big problem that I faced as a student, which was where to go because our calendar rotated in like an A through D schedule was always changing. ah There were events after school. I never knew who was going to those events. And everyone would set their iPhone lock background to be a screenshot of their schedule or put the binder sleeve, their schedule in the binder sleeve, and they would hold it in front of them in the hallway, which was kind of crazy.
00:10:51
Speaker
So I thought, hmm, I already have a database of everyone's in classes and when they're meeting. What if I just integrated that with a calendar and built it for my school? So that was how an app called I Staples was born. Staples High School is my high school. And that took the usage of this product from the peaks of the semester when you were getting your classmates to the entire year, every single day, multiple times a day, by everyone in the school. And that was pretty profound. I didn't think much of it at the time because I was going on to go work at Tesla and go to Penn. But this was a tool that started to become woven into the fabric of the the community and that people relied on multiple times a day.
Saturn's Impact and Growth in Schools
00:11:35
Speaker
So I then went on to school and I met my co-founder, Max Barron, who was a Wharton student at Penn.
00:11:43
Speaker
And we were just shooting ideas back and forth. He was working full-time as the youngest managing director at a big marketing firm, working with top brands. I was working full-time at Tesla. We both were more fixated on our entrepreneurial and professional lives than perhaps our pen social lives. So we both were not in Greek life. And I think that bonded us a little bit. And we started to ping pong some ideas back and forth. And he stumbled across the Google Analytics data for the iStaple's app and was like, wow, The first year, 30% of the school used it daily. The third year, though, just three years later, 90% was using this product every single day. That's pretty cool. What if we expand it to a different school? Have you ever thought about that, Dylan?
00:12:26
Speaker
And I was saying, no, you know, I'm at Tesla, I'm trying to save the world there, and a pen, not really for me, but he's a persistent guy. And he kept pushing me and we launched it at a neighboring high school, Weston High School, and then Greenwich High School, Darien, New Canaan, all these towns. and Fairfield County, Connecticut. And we were seeing 50% adoption within the first couple of days. ah So that was a leading indicator to us that, hey, maybe this is something. And ah it turns out students at my high school didn't just need a calendar, but millions of students at every single high school
00:13:04
Speaker
needed a calendar, and that's how Saturn was born. The original apps were all white-labeled, so again, they were called i, they were in school, iGrantage, iWestin, and it was a different app in the App Store, which I think built trust between the product and the user, because rather than feeling like a conglomerate app that was built by some big company, by adults stealing your data, this is a homemade product, could have been built by a version of me at at that high school, and it took over the school immediately. and you know the usage and the retention were best in class. So we started to get inbound from venture capitalists and we're really fortunate to be connected with the team at General Catalyst for our first round of funding in 2019. We left school then and since then the product has grown from I think maybe a couple dozen schools to 20,000
00:13:55
Speaker
And we've raised around 60 something million dollars and I think I have one of the best teams in the industry. So I'm really proud of progress, but also the road ahead is really exciting. That is amazing. First of all, congratulations on that growth and
Why Saturn is Essential for Gen Z
00:14:10
Speaker
success. I think it's there's a lot of people that want to create something. um, out of the identity of being a creator. But I love that so much of your momentum has been like, you also saw saw a problem, solved a problem and then realized that problem is pervasive and maybe people do need help. Personally, I'm going to just say that I'm really glad that I recently just finished watching Silicon Valley on HBO because it has helped me follow all the things that you just said from a technical role. Yeah. And I imagine what, what if we just rewrote it with your story now? A fun fact, our closest mentor is Dick Costolo, who ah ran Twitter and was a writer, I think, on the third or fourth season of Silicon Valley. ah So it it is funny, the parallels, but they did work with the the real tech people to write that.
00:14:56
Speaker
I love that. And I, it's it's funny. I was like, I feel like I'm talking to Silicon Valley right now. This is amazing. So, you know, you've really framed this idea of there was a problem in time management. I think that for previous generations, it's this, you grow up and you learn time management, um, through maybe through a little bit of like trial and error, baptism by fire, whatever you would call it, the whole concept of like taking your schedule with you. in having it on your phone or having it printed in the binder until you had it memorized is something that, as you pointed out, previous generations have done forever. So it's great that you all have started to solve a problem um for a newer generation in managing that. I also think that, and I just have this theory, that time is a little bit different with Gen Z and the way that Gen Z views time and manages time.
00:15:38
Speaker
you are of Gen Z, which is helpful. You're going to be a representative right now. But what are some of the mindsets or perspectives that Gen Z has around time and time management? Because really, as you know, your users are Gen Zers. And so you are probably the best person to tell us a little bit more about this. It's a good question. And I think that today people associate time management with how you do it in your professional lives. So typically tools like Google Calendar, Outlook, um but it starts long before it starts the second you have a schedule. That could be, ah you know, elementary school, really middle school, maybe a little more dynamism, and then certainly high school. And there's so much innovation happening in enterprise.
00:16:20
Speaker
there is no innovation happening outside of enterprise. The reason for that is because Google and Microsoft, great companies, they make their money in enterprise SaaS. So the more seats at a company, the more people who are employed at the company, the more money they make from that company for Google Workspace or for Office 365. And that's not bad. It just means that the products that we are getting outside of work are not optimized for the ah the communities that we're part of and the rituals that we do every single day. High school specifically is a nightmare. The calendars are rotating a lot. The districts designed them that way because it ensures that classes meet the same amount of time, i.e.,
00:17:02
Speaker
mondays and fridays typically have a lot of holidays cancellation so you want to make the schedule rotating so that when those things happen you're not really seeing class disruption so it's a good system in that way but it's built for the school not the student so it makes it really hard to navigate and to circumvent that people before Saturn were using paper ah you know sheets in their binder images. theyre you know My high school had a tube TV in the hallway that would put a static PDF of the schedule up each day so you would know what the the schedule is and they would email it out like the day of. It was a mess.
The Shortcomings of Existing Time Management Tools
00:17:37
Speaker
And I think that I didn't set out to build a company or build a calendar. It was really
00:17:42
Speaker
I just want to get to class on time, know where my friends are, and not feel stressed throughout the day. Because you can imagine being a rising freshman in high school, multiple middle schools merging into one massive high school, and you're lost, you have anxiety, you don't know who to talk to. The school is a maze. and your calendar app doesn't work for you. There's no data. It doesn't have the events in your community. You can't search people. You can't even input a phone number to invite someone to an event. It has to be email, and kids don't use email. So that's um those are just a lot of the problem statements that ultimately have resulted in and our mission now, which is really around being a calendar. And the it hasn't always been the straightest
00:18:25
Speaker
path in that we have dipped a lot into ah communication and messaging and social. And in the really early days, we were much more of an educational focus. But I think ah Gen Z badly needs a calendar. We filled that need for millions of high school kids today. We want to fill that for college and have you not just be your first calendar, but be the last calendar that you use. And I think that Things around people are lazy. They don't want to input all these events. RSVPs are not as firm as in the workplace. And in terms of the interface, one of our values at Saturn is make magic in the mundane. And when you think about a calendar, you think about mundane black and white piece of software that you never smile to open. You're like, wow, I have to do all these things. and You look at all the blocks. So we want to make it delightful. We want to make you smile when you have to look forward to your day. And the last thing we'll say,
00:19:17
Speaker
is time is the most valuable resource. It's what democratizes every single person on the planet. You have the same 24 hours in a day. So the most important decision you make every day is how do I fill that time? And that's what we're here to do, give you time back in your day, not be a product, yet another product that steals time from you with endless algorithmic feeds that are just not good ah for young people, not good for society. So I got two things on that. um ah To date myself you you talked about how your high school is like sending out the daily email or like they would have it on the screen ah My senior year I read the announcements and that was every day the only time that we would maybe that was my first podcast was reading the morning announcements But I was the person like we did this audibly
00:20:04
Speaker
said, we're on a fill in the blank rotation schedule. We will go one, three, five, and seven today. right like that was how That's how we managed it. yeah right It was like me. but Somebody wrote the schedule, and I just read it to everybody, and that's how we went about it. And so I'm so glad. like I think back to my life, I'm like, yeah, it would have been really nice if that was just like on my phone. But like we weren't allowed to use phones in school at that time. So like it just I'm laughing where I'm like, man, even an email would have been like a big deal for our high school to get that out to people. but I'm glad that you are solving that problem because you point out that, and I love this, that time is arguably our most valuable asset in today's world because it's ah a very different economy, a very different mindset about what value is. And I think that Gen Z is certainly, view I think there's a different perspective on time and how we fill our time with Gen Z. And I would love your perspective
Social Media's Influence on Time Management
00:20:56
Speaker
on that. When you think about you and your peers, when you look at the concept of time,
00:21:00
Speaker
What are some things that would characterize the way that Gen Z is viewing time and managing their time? ah So there's the idealistic answer. and but But then there's the more realistic answer in high school. And we've surveyed you know hundreds of thousands of kids on this. um In high school, it's mostly you have your structured day from 7 AM to 3 PM. You have extracurriculars. And then you have what I call um homework and TikTok time, in that this generation And TikTok was not my generation in high school and really college, it's the current one. But they spend way too much time just scrolling and they're not as structured. And that, it you know, you'll say when you're in your 20s, hey, I'm gonna get coffee this day, we'll make a calendar and vitals, I'm that too. But in high school, they don't have that flexibility. In college, much more so, but you probably aren't jotting every single thing down. Some kids do, but you aren't jotting everything down in your calendar. but
00:21:55
Speaker
And that's because the calendar is reactive and sort of proactive. You go to the calendar once you've already made the plan. The calendar should be informing us of how we could spend our time. Not where are my friends on Find My Friends, but where will my friends be? um Too often there's the story of, I use the word story ironically, but imagine you are living in New York and you're going to LA for a trip. Uh, your friends in l LA might not know you're there or you might not think to message them, uh, until you are, um, you might not think to message them at all, but you may post an image of yourself, say at the Hollywood sign or something, uh, on your Instagram story on the drive back to LAX to fly to New York. Your friends will swipe up and say, Oh, you're in town. Let's make plans. Let's see each other. And yeah it's like, no, too late. Uh, and there's just not that, uh, there's no platform. There's no.
00:22:47
Speaker
incentive to notify people of where you will be, not just where you are. And Gen Z, what Snap has done is made it socially acceptable to share your location with 50 plus people. Now, I would never do that, but young people share their location with dozens and dozens versus the you know handful I have on Find My Friends. And I think that that's great for in the moment, but the calendar is a trove of data. And if you could use the calendar to almost predict the future, but it's not using inferences, it's certainty, that would be really cool. And that's our long-term direction we want to go. But I think that's where Gen Z needs the most help. Yeah, I think that and that is such a good kind of ah stepping stone. So we've talked so much about like high school.
00:23:29
Speaker
um And high schoolers grow up to go to college most of the time or they grow up and they eventually
Transition from High School to College
00:23:34
Speaker
go into work, right? And so um we learned so much of our early time management in this structure of being a teenager under like our parents roof potentially or under the structure of a high school, right? And we I find it really interesting and I'm i'm glad that you we put high schoolers in these like highly structured environments of like you will go to this class, this class, this class, then this extracurricular activity and then you will have you know a slice of time at the end of the day to do, as you said, homework and TikTok time. um And then we get to college and we're like, have at it. And so we wonder like the why the wheels fall off the bus, because as you started to point out, there isn't this like intentional skill development of being proactive with the calendar, allowing the calendar to be curated and something you look forward to and that skill of
00:24:21
Speaker
kind of knowing about what's ahead for you and looking forward to what's ahead for you. um My background is working with students in in college. And the the number one thing that my first year students would say is like, I just have so much to manage now and no one's helping me manage it. I don't have the tool to manage it and I don't have the skill to manage it. um So I'm glad now that you have an app that can help people do that. um and And, you know, I really want to start thinking about how we can see time management among Gen Z evolving as they're moving into the workplace. And I know that you aren't doing a ton of work in, as you would say, like the enterprise side of it or the workplace side of it, but you've been a part of a workplace and you've been a part of these professional environments. So I'd love for you if you can speak a little bit about how time management, especially from a work lens, is looking for Gen Z.
00:25:09
Speaker
You use the tools that you have at your disposal in the workplace in your personal life. But it's very much work comes first, and then personal calendaring is an afterthought. And the tools that you use, like if you use Google Workspace at your company, you'll use that personally. But I think people aren't as rigorous about their schedule. They often forget to make plans with people. Friendships can stay out of touch. and it's ah and now Again, i don't I don't think I'm the archetype of a person kind of in their mid-20s in terms of calendar because I'm very focused on my calendar because I'm building a calendar. But what I observe is that things happen a little more at the last minute. and
00:25:56
Speaker
We love the high school and college demos because they're this sandbox that they have so much entropy. You are looking for that spontaneity. Once you get into your 20s and you start working, I think that um your routine is a little more set and your calendar is dictated by work, which is an external factor. And the tools there aren't bad for work. It's just they don't... we're And we're not trying to get people to move off of their enterprise products. We just think that there needs to be room for both and that people need to prioritize calendaring for their personal lives more than they are today. And and I think, ah as I said, we want to be your first calendar, but we also want to be your last. So our ultimate goal is for every single person who uses Saturn in high school to use it in college, and then for those who use it in college ah to continue using it with them alongside any work tools that they might use.
00:26:51
Speaker
It's a really interesting you say that of like, it feels like in the workplace, we learn whether it's you love it, you hate it, but you do it anyways. Like you use your workplace calendar for work and then everything else falls by the wayside. um i'm You and I are probably two people that could talk about like the joys of ah a well-planned calendar till the end, ah you know, at the end of time kind of thing. I think that where you're heading with this ideal of being like the last calendar is really important because I think there's a lot of people in their personal lives from a workplace or those who are kind of entrenched in the into the workforce where work takes everything out of them. And they're like, I don't want to have administrative work of managing my personal calendar.
00:27:33
Speaker
So I'm just going to let things fall by the wayside and cancel on plans or because it never made it to the calendar. I have found personally, I'm the friend that will send the calendar invite for random lunches on the weekends with my friends, but people still check their calendar and people don't cancel on me all that much because really it is something that when it's applied to your personal life, I feel like you stay on top of the things you say you're going to say that you say you're going to do.
Importance of Enjoyable Calendar Tools
00:27:56
Speaker
My role is always like if it's on the calendar, it's going to get done. um And so I really am excited for having a tool like yours be something that is more, as you say, like a delight for people to use. um And I hope that it can help permeate into those personal lives a little bit more to allow that excitement around having a good calendar because I do think that where you're at in this idea of like,
00:28:18
Speaker
It can bring connection to people and um better integration into their communities, I think is going to be fantastic. Because I do think that not everyone just nerds out about creating their calendar, ah potentially like you and I do. I got a few more questions for you.
Advice for Gen Z Entering the Workforce
00:28:30
Speaker
One, there's probably some Gen Zers out there that as you've identified, they're starting to move through college into the workplace. What advice do you have? for those who are kind of in their early careers, learning professional time management. What advice do you have for those fellow Gen Zers that you might be able to lend to them to be able to kind of really crush this time management game? Taking a macro lens at it. I think people often dictate their multi-year goals based on one sub-line and a resume, which shows how long you've worked at a company. And then that ends up how yeah you know where you spend most of your time.
00:29:08
Speaker
But if you're not happy doing it, it's unfortunate that people waste so much time you know stuck in a job or living in a place they don't want to just because they feel they have to. And I'm not saying a calendaring tool will fix that. I think that it's more the mindset of how valuable time is. And really, you are in control of that and not to get caught up in ah you know being content, I think the one thing is the more entropy, the better. So with Saturn, it's can we show you people who are free? Can we surface opportunities and events for you to go to so that you get out of your house, you are more connected, you're not just doing TikTok? um I do think that the same thing applies in your 20s, in your professional career, where if
00:29:55
Speaker
you know, there's an opportunity if if a friend from New York in high school is going to be in the city the next day, someone from college, if you're free later in the evening and something's going on. um Everyone's very focused on the now, but not the future. So as I said, find my friends, SnapMap, it's the now, but no one's building for the future and everyone's building for the past. Instagram is all about the past. The present with stories, the past, even well, stories is the past 24 hours. Saturn's story is the next 24 hours. So even in our product, we have circles at the top, which say where you're going and not where you were, but where you will be. And I think people need to look more forward to where they will be. Um, and, uh,
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't think it it should matter if you are super organized and use a calendar or not because the calendar is not about color coding and bubbles and you know feeling like you're a meat freak. The calendar is about connection. The calendar is about spending time with others or with yourself with being intentional and getting ahead of it, not just letting your calendar you know whip you around and tell you where to go, if that makes sense. Absolutely. I love the way that you frame that of like looking forward to the next 24 hours. and that excitement of like what's to come. I know like I've even just got, again, calendar with ah some lunch with a friend next week. And I'm already looking forward to Thursday to see her because I haven't seen her in a while. And it's like, again, that's more than 24 hours in advance. But it's something that I was like, oh, I'm so excited to see my friend, Mandy, for lunch next week. I'm glad it's on the calendar. um And I love that what you all are doing with this idea of giving so people something to look forward to next.
00:31:30
Speaker
um And I'm excited to see this grow. I hope that it continues to impact positively kind of the the ah the lives of the people that you're helping, not only develop time management skills, but change the mindset around how to manage time and look at time. um So I got one more question for you, Dylan.
Gen Z's Independence and Opportunities
00:31:47
Speaker
And I asked this of all my guests, but you spent a lot of time both as with your end users and then with your peers. so But what is your favorite thing about Generation Z? I think that for the first time, they're not which It could be a double-edged sword, so take this with a grain of salt. They're not just following in the steps of their parents and they're taking charge of their own ah career and what they want to do because the access to information is at their fingertips and they're the first generation that will be supercharged by AI. you know We were really with the
00:32:21
Speaker
internet. And I think there are certain professions, if you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, you have to go to school. But if you want to be a builder, if you want to build something distributed to millions and billions of people, you can do so without that. And I think, you know, college is great. But also, I think that the internet and technology democratizes Gen Z. So everyone can go get it if they want to. And the The thing is, is but I've met so many young people who are building, who are creators. um It doesn't even need to be engineering, right? It could be podcasting, it could be building you know doing your own TV show. Even the positives of a lot of social media is it's made people creators and they don't need a talent agent, they don't need to audition, they don't need to do all these things. that it's really
00:33:06
Speaker
about um giving the reins to them. And that is something that people had to follow ah predetermined paths before. And, you know, I'm a member of the Teal Fellowship and that is all about, you don't need to go to college if you want to follow your dreams and passions. Absolutely. I think um I love that you said kind of like knowledge and technology is democratized. And I'm really interested to see what this generation does with those tools in their hands. um Because in my and almost decades-long study of Gen Z, at the heart of it is like just young people with a lot of energy that want to do good things. And just like you, you're like, let me solve some problems for people. um And I have this technology to do that. and so
00:33:53
Speaker
um I'm excited to see, I mean, it's cool to be watching Gen Z grow up a little bit like this, but there's still so much more growing up that they get to do and to be able to see that um and see what they accomplish with the tools that they have. So Dylan, it has been an absolute delight to be able to spend time with you. definitely learn a lot more about technology beyond my viewing of Silicon Valley. um It's been enlightening enlightening to say the least. um But if people want to follow along with the work that you're doing with Saturn, um or just you and your professional journey, where can we send people to keep up with the great work you're doing? Yeah, you can search Saturn on LinkedIn, join Saturn dot.com, check out the app if you're a high school or college kid in the app store if to search Saturn.
00:34:32
Speaker
Wonderful. To all of our younger listeners, go get that um and have a delightful calendaring experience. But Dylan, it has been so fantastic to spend time with you. Thank you again for all the insights you've shared. Thank you. It's been great to be here.
Tips for Effective Time Management
00:34:48
Speaker
Another thank you to Dylan for sharing such important insights about Gen Z's perspectives on time and how they're practicing time management. There are a lot of demands on the time and attention of Gen Zers today. between school, work, personalized, and other activities, it can be a lot to manage, all with the backdrop of social media hanging behind it. And how they practice and view time management and their early careers of life will impact how they approach time management later when it comes to work and other aspects of their personal lives, such as managing a family. Dylan framed the landscape of time and time management among Gen Z with some important perspectives. First, the expectations of time management for young people are often unsupported
00:35:27
Speaker
by adequate tools to effectively do so. Second, there are many transitions of time management for young people in Gen Z, from the highly structured setting of high school to a much more loosely structured environment in college, and then many adapt to whatever time management practices used by their employer when they enter the workforce. But there's so much more to life than work in school. So supporting proactive and personalized time management is a key skill for living a full and enriching life. Even if you're not a member of Gen Z, I think there's something to take away in looking at time a little bit differently. But Dylan also shared some insights for Gen Zers who are looking to focus on managing their time better.
00:36:08
Speaker
First, look at time as a valuable asset. There's only so many hours in a day and having an idea of how to productively use that day can be important to achieving goals. Second, your calendar can be a a powerful tool that allows you to look forward to something in the future. Having a well-managed calendar can help you see the opportunities that lie ahead and engage in more opportunities to be present with the people in your life. To follow along with Dylan and the work of Saturn, be sure to head over to joinSaturn.com or follow them on Instagram and LinkedIn. And thank you for tuning into this episode. It's always so great to have you here. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribing is the best way to make sure you don't miss new episodes when they become available.
00:36:56
Speaker
And speaking of new episodes, I'm always looking for new topics to explore and guests to chat with. So if you have a suggestion, I now have a pitch form on my website. You can find it at meganmgrace.com slash podcast. And finally, a big thank you to Leah Kramer who edited this episode. Leah is the Gen Zer behind the scenes bringing this podcast to life and I really couldn't do it without her. Thank you again for stopping by. Let's continue this conversation and we'll chat soon.