If you’re pursuing change, you’ll need four-wheel drive.
So I’m typing this blog up on the exact day it will first appear. I deliver my blog on Mondays at 6 am – and I’m starting this off at 5:13 am. Worse yet, my web hosting platform just locked me out. I still intend to make my deadline.
Did I forget that I needed to get a blog and newsletter out to you guys? No. I purposely made a decision to show you one of the core concepts of my Reboot Your Day Job process – refusing to overwork.
This past week, I’ve been running promotions on social media to get a copy of my “Work Less Starting Tomorrow” PDF and companion video – both free. Ironically, one of my favorite social media sites picked up a story about a German company that is trying to move to a five-hour workday – which blew my mind a little because most of my clients come to me praying for an eight-hour day. So I was thinking about how to show the people that I most want to help – the people stuck in overwork hell – how to get free of it.
OK, so hold those thoughts. The final leg to the stool is that I’m personally applying my own process to an overworking problem in my life.
Here’s the story: I was overworking at my day job. I didn’t think it was a big deal, because frankly, I worked seventy hours a week for the first fifteen years of my working life. I went from working three jobs to keep and staying just above the poverty level, to owning a brick and mortar business, which was open seven days a week, to working for a mid-sized company. Working for a corporation, I started hourly as a file clerk, moved to the help desk and was thrilled to be able to get overtime for the first time in my life. Working fifty hours a week was a walk in the park. As I moved up, working seven days a week was no skin off my back. It was reasonable – to me. On-call 24/7 system support? No sweat. In my house, my husband, myself, and our son – all of us had jobs that included unexpected changes to our plans, even if that plan was sleep.
Becoming a workaholic was kinda like hopping into cool water and staying in as the heat rose. I didn’t really notice it.
In 2017 when I embarked on a journey to reclaim my life and figure out what was causing this feeling of not quite rightness. I was happy – kinda. But I felt low-grade anxiety most of the time. I was always worried about something at the office. I fretted over my mistakes, and I thought about work All – The – Time. Something was wrong but what?
I quit all activities except for my volunteer gig and my day job. I went on a diet, and I hired a life coach.
But the biggest thing that changed for me was I stopped overworking. I accidentally stumbled over a process that helped me get better at work, at my life, have less anxiety, and see all the ways my working style had been holding me back. True dat. All those extra hours had been really sub-optimal for my performance.
My blogs from this whole year and my website are a product of me explaining what I’ve learned.
In short order, my work week had been stuffed back into a nicely sized bag of reasonable. I still put in more than the 40 hours a week that’s mandated but not much, and I do it because that’s the size work week that suits me.
But here’s what happened next – I opened a business since I had a bunch of free time. Then I opened another one and then? I was back in the boiling pot of overworking again. The difference? This time, I’d been out of the hot water for a while, so I noticed it right away. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t willing to swim in that stew anymore. So, I’m applying my stop overworking process now to my new business. This means when my granddaughter showed up on Saturday, and my blog wasn’t done, I played with her. When Sunday dawned and my new rule – no work on Sunday was in play – I had to decide. Would I cave in and work or would I practice what I preach? I took Sunday off.
I knew also that I couldn’t just get up extra early on Monday morning to kill myself with overwork at three am to make up for taking Sunday off. I got up at five am this morning – as always. Because the key to stopping the overwork habit is to let yourself get into a box like this and figure out how to get out of it.
It was really uncomfortable on Sunday. The thought of this blog followed me all day. Last night, I woke up several times, worrying about it. I held firm though and for the first time in months, I’m going to work on Monday with a clean house and some homemade soup for lunch – because that’s what I used my day off for. Phone calls to both my parents were made while I cleaned. I also bathed my dogs, got their nails filed back to short, cleaned their teeth and ears. I organized my CD’s. Yeah, I’m having a good time remembering what it was like to listen to one artist for an hour. (It’s great.) I did my laundry. I dressed my older dog in a pumpkin costume and she and I went to the local hospital and did a couple of hours of therapy work there. I listened to a divine book on tape.
I lived my life.
If you would like a free 25-minute session – click here. It’s free, it’s on zoom, camera on or camera off. It’s my pleasure
Then I got up on time and blew out this blog – a real-life, real-time example – of how to get back on the road when life bumps you off it.
When I tell you that the key to stopping overwork is to stop overworking and then figure out how to deal with the fallout, I’m not kidding. If you try to catch up first and then stop overworking it – will- not – work. You will never catch up.
But you absolutely can figure out how to get more done in less time – when you give yourself less time.
And that’s just good to know.
Happy Monday Folks! Work hard, work smart, and work less.