Femke and Charli outline their goals for 2026 and the strategies they plan to implement to achieve them. Femke shares an update about her upcoming baby and how she plans to balance it with her business, while Charli discusses her approach to the book writing process.

Timestamps:

01:11 Episode introduction
01:59 Life updates
04:05 Goal setting for 2026: Does Femke set combined business and parenting goals? How does she plan to approach balancing them?
13:32 Femke and Charli’s plans for their business and projects this year
21:57 How can AI help manage your workload and make tasks more efficient and achievable?
23:23 Does Charli feel she has achieved work-life balance?
24:52 Working with a remote team: how do different time zones impact Charli? Managing slack updates and staying in the loop

Links:

Femke's community

Femke’s course “Product strategy for designers”

Share your topic suggestions for the show with us at hello@designlife.fm

Femke and Charli discuss how to collaborate effectively with other design creators on side projects. Femke shares her experience working with five other designers on the Design Creator's Bundle, including how the collaboration went, how they divided the revenue, and how audience size influenced their choice of collaborators and how Claud helped shape the overall strategy of the product.

Timestamps:

00:46 Episode start

01:50 Catch-up

06:33 Design Creator’s Bundle

08:41 Why did Femke decide to do it?

11:17 How does it feel to work on something like this with a group of people?

14:34 Charli shares a story about her experience being part of a bundle

15:50 How was the revenue split approached?

17:37 Did you know the people involved in the bundle beforehand?

20:01 How do you approach collaborations in terms of effort and contribution?

23:49 How did audience size factor into the collaboration?

28:11 Do you think you'll pursue more similar collaborations in the future?

29:22 What about collaborating with design creators in other ways, such as creating a product together?

Links:

Design Creator's Bundle

Femke's community

Femke’s course “Product strategy for designers”

Share your topic suggestions for the show with us at hello@designlife.fm

Charli and Femke discuss the common challenges people face when pursuing promotions, share strategies to prepare for performance reviews, and explore options for those who perform well but are unable to get promoted.

Timestamps:

0:57 Episode start

01:50 Catch up

07:25 What are the main challenged people that you mentored were having around promotions?

10:37 Thinking about promotions as a manager

16:01 Advice to people to whom it is not clear what needs to be done in order to get promoted

22:17 How to set yourself up for success l for the performance review time

28:32 What if you do a good job but you cannot get a promotion?

Links:

Femke's community

Femke’s course “Product strategy for designers”

Share your topic suggestions for the show with us at hello@designlife.fm