Women’s Month spotlights continue, and today we’re sitting down with @Karina_Mikhli — fractional COO, workflow consultant, and someone who found Coda while looking for something else entirely.
In this conversation, she talks about the calendar manager she built to solve a very real scheduling headache, the formula that unlocked a whole new way of thinking, and how someone who describes herself as an introvert ended up founding one of the world’s largest fractional communities. Oh, and she does dramatic improv.
Read on, it’s a good one!
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What drew you to Coda, and how has your use of it changed over time? Would you believe a friend hiring me to learn Notion to help her? I was working as a workflow consultant, and a friend had a Notion setup that wasn’t quite right, but didn’t have time to figure it out. So she literally hired me to do it for her, knowing I’d have to learn Notion first. In looking for courses on Notion, I came across Coda, so when I was done with my work for her, I taught myself Coda and never looked back. (I unfortunately could never convert her to Coda, but we’re still great friends nonetheless :))
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What’s a doc or project you’re really proud of that you built with Coda? One of the most useful things I created for myself in Coda was a calendar manager. As a fractional COO, I had many calendars to juggle, and although SavvyCal (which I use for scheduling) allows limits across calendars, it doesn’t include internal events. Coda let me build a solution for myself that I’ve been using for years. Basically, I use the GCal pack to pull in all my events, set limits via formulas, and then it blocks off days when it hits the limit. I shared a version of this in the gallery that can be found here: Calendar Manager
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Was there a specific “aha” moment where Coda really clicked for you? Yes! I can’t remember exactly when it happened, and it didn’t happen right away, but at some point, I started thinking in tables and how they connected, and understood the formula language (more or less) and its power, and that just made so much possible.
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Do you have a favorite Coda trick, formula, workflow, or small build you love sharing with others? ForEach is a game-changer. I couldn’t understand it at first, but saw an explanation that finally clicked. I now use this so often, especially when I need to “batch edit” on a table: I just create a button with a ForEach, and it’s done in seconds.
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What’s a tool, habit, or ritual that keeps you grounded when things get overwhelming? As an introvert who founded a large community, this can happen a lot, so I use two things religiously: time blocks, limiting when I actually “meet” with people, and a master to-do list separate from today’s to-dos, so I know what to focus on. I try to limit today’s to-dos to 3 or 4 at most, and also not too many big (i.e., focus or project) tasks a day.
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When you start building something new, are you more structure-first or chaos-first? I’m definitely more structured first. I don’t have it all mapped out, but I need to have an idea of what I’m doing and how, so I often think it through. When I have a good sense of where to start, that’s when I actually start building. It often morphs, obviously, but at least I have a way forward to test.
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What do you do outside of work that people might not expect? I perform dramatic improv, and it’s so much fun and recharging. My troupe is called Thrice the Drama.
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If you could teach a 30-minute workshop or TED Talk on anything (not work-related), what would it be? Wow. That’s a hard one, and it’s very hard for it not to be work-related in the least bit since that’s so much of my identity, but I guess it would be on how we change and to try things because you never know where they can lead. I actually took a storytelling course and did something like this on how an introvert accidentally founded the world’s largest fractional community (all true :)), but still work-related unfortunately.
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Finish this sentence: “I build because ______.” I build because it gives me superpowers and lets me optimize the systems and workflows I need (or my clients need).
A huge thank you to @Karina_Mikhli for sharing her story and giving us a peek into how she thinks and builds. If you see her around, don’t be shy! She’s the kind of person who turns a scheduling headache into an elegant solution and somehow also finds time for improv. We’re glad she’s part of this community!
More spotlights are coming throughout March, so stay tuned for more incredible women in the Coda community.
