Category: Time Management

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Disconnecting… from Impossible to Done.

Did you say Workload and Culture? Lady, we have got to talk.
The whole blog, including additional comments, read for you.

Me: So, you’re overwhelmed. Tell me about that.

Client: I got up this morning at four am because we have a big project due.   I worked until six am, let the dogs out, and I’ve been working right here at my computer until our session started.

Me: That’s, let’s see, four am to seven pm, that’s fifteen hours? 

Client: (shrugs) I have more to do when we hang up.

Man, when that client spoke those words, my heart broke. I knew exactly how they felt. If you’re struggling with workload, like my client was, the idea of leaving on time probably leaves you with a lot of “yeah, buts…”

  • Yeah, Lady, but I can’t just stop. All this work will crash and burn.
  • Yeah, but, you don’t understand the expectations at ABC XYZ Corp.
  • Yeah, but, I’m in the middle of a major corporate project with huge visibility

I’m using my Saturday to write this blog and let you know… There is hope…

Let’s tackle those objections right now.

Last week, I tackled the 5 steps to unplug in my blog, which include planning ahead and letting your manager in on your intention.

Tackling the inability to disengage is the first step in my Reboot Your Day Job program. Coaching gives you a safe place to work with someone who can help you “try on” new ways of approaching old challenges.

Although the corporate world can and should help us – by providing flexible schedules, transparent conversations about resourcing and prioritization, allowing people the freedom to determine how and when they work, supporting meeting reduction policies, and looking for ways to reduce the email / IM chatter load on knowledge workers…there’s still a lot you can do, right in your own chair, while you wait for that utopian moment.

So – why aren’t we throwing down our mice and logging off?

Workload and Culture.

At first glance, they seem like likely culprits. After all, most of us have some loose definitions of the two that look something like this:

WORKLOAD: The never-ending avalanche of requests, demands, emails, interruptions, projects, emergencies, reactivity, and problems ….. supplemented with training, upskilling, the need to understand new technology and our jobs, and our business partner’s job so we can add value and find big ideas…topped off with a dollop of ERG’s, clubs, and engagement activities so we can support our colleagues, share the joy of STEM, work toward social good, combined with expectations that we will soon be networking and innovating -possibly in a building, after packing a lunch and commuting.

CULTURE: What you see everyone around you doing, what you hear your colleagues saying, what you believe is expected behavior, and what you imagine is required of you to fit in and succeed in your company.

Those are some pretty strong headwinds

I mean, all that AND I have to wear pants? What happens to all that work and all those expectations when we unplug? Not what you think.

I’ve walked clients through this over and over. Here is what doesn’t happen:

  • They don’t get fired.
  • They don’t fail to deliver on the big project.
  • They don’t stagnate and they don’t lose credibility.

Not one. Not one single client.

Why? Here’s what you don’t see when you’re stuck in overwork.

(I’ve included links to prior blogs for a deeper dive… you’re welcome!)

Every manager, everywhere, has said “Find a way to get it done.” No manager, anywhere, meant “Work until you drop.” when they said it. Why? Because of all the negatives that overwork creates… see the list above.

So what does happen when you unplug? Well, I hate to say it… but you wind up dealing with some pretty uncomfortable things… which is why… unplugging isn’t easy.

The two reasons why clients fail to unplug.

The number one reason why people don’t succeed when they try to unplug is fear: fear of what will happen to their projects, fear of what other people will think of them. This fear prevents them from even trying to unplug. I could cry when I think of it. What a shame!

What people don’t seem to be afraid of is the lost opportunity costs of overwork, missing out on creative solutions, missing out on collaborative opportunities, restricting other people’s growth, and reinforcing a culture of endurance and overload. All of which are the direct result of overwork – for you and your company.

The second reason is discomfort – it feels WEIRD to leave on time.  It feels WRONG to not be at work while the sun is out.  It feels UNCOMFORTABLE to ignore those little pings and dings, emails and IM’s.  If there’s one thing we know, it’s that we don’t like difficult emotions. Difficult emotions drive people back to overworking before they can see the benefits and find ways to overcome those feelings.

                Oh, you thought that grief and abject despair were the only difficult emotions? 

Wake up and smell the coffee, my friends.  We humans also don’t like – boredom, being fidgety, mild anxiety, discouragement, confusion, uncertainty, and about a million other emotions that don’t require a divorce or a death in the family.  That includes that little bit of uncertainty you feel when you’ve been away from your email for an hour.   Cal Newport discusses this in his book Digital Minimalism.  I’ve blogged about it here: Learning to Carve.

So, what’s the answer?

The answer is… follow the five steps I gave you last week. Clients never believe that this can work. Heck, I didn’t believe it until I tried it. That’s why I recommend a two-week experiment. That’s enough time to overcome discomfort and see real benefits. That’s enough time to start taking the actions that leaving on time forces you to take – thinking big picture, finding creative solutions, turning to others for help and inspiration – and it’s enough time to expose the problems your overwork has been masking. Two weeks is also short enough that the whole world of work won’t collapse if I’m wrong (which I am not.)

And that? Is just the only way to find out for yourself.

If all of this is just a bridge too far for you, I get it. I really get it. I needed a coach to help me get my overwork under control. I’d like to help you too. Click here to sign up for a free 25-minute session... no hard sell, just empathy in spades and real tools you can use.

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Let’s Get Back to You

There oughta be someone you can call to help you with that.

Look, it’s not like the pandemic created this problem. Difficulty leaving work on time, leaving work at work, and leaving work out of our dreams has been a top issue for my clients from the first moment I had a client. In fact, it was the first thing I wanted help with from my first coach. Why is it so hard to just stop?

The companies we work for, the language from the top, and the messages from the managers we report to – along with the examples they set – all contribute both positively and negatively. Like diversity, commitment to employee welfare and boundaries is something you can’t just talk about once and call it good. Companies need to send consistent messaging through words, actions, and examples to be effective. Then – they have to do it again and again and again. If possible, I’d like them to do it without my having to join an ERG to prove it’s important.

But what if your company’s overload plumbing is a bit… out of order? Does that mean you’re stuck with the overflow of work? The continual back-up of things to do?

Not at all. You, my friend, possess mad plumbing skilz. And if you don’t, I’m here to help.

Here’s how to reach me, else, carry on for 5 things you can do to unplug fast and stay loose.

If you’re suffering from overwhelm and would like to work with me, sign up for a free consultation. Let’s see if I can help. Schedule that here.

If you’re out of work, or working on the health care front lines and would like to see if coaching helps, it’s my honor to assist you for free. Schedule that here.

Heard about my 6 week course – Reboot your day job? – Find out more here.

  • Number 5: Remember why you took this job. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t to slowly boil yourself in work. Whatever that reason was, it’s likely that it’s not the same reason you work late. Let’s say you took the job you have so that you could get to work on full stack projects. OK. Now ask yourself – do you get to work on full stack projects? At all? If the answer is no, you’ve got a different problem. If the answer is yes, then ask yourself if took the job work on full stack projects day and night. Hint: The answer is no. Sometimes this exercise alone is enough to re-set your perspective on those long nights and make it easier to just … log off.
  • Number 4: Leave earlier than you dare to. Clients often try to just leave a half hour earlier. Turns out there’s not enough upside to that small change to actually motivate you to endure the discomfort you’ll feel the first week you unplug. So go big. Leave on time, on the dot. Leave early enough to actually enjoy your day.
  • Number 3: For goodness sake – PLAN something at quitting time. Do not leave this up to your own brain. It is just going to ask if you don’t want to do five more emails, finish one more task, or worse yet, plop on the couch for reruns of Law & Order until you wish you were back at your desk. Plan something wonderful. Take a class, dig out a hobby, or just play a card game. Whatever it is, make sure it’s better than work.
  • Number 2: Prepare for the discomfort. You’ve established a pattern with yourself and others. For the first week, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable. You’ll wonder what people think about you… working your eight hours and leaving. You’ll feel funny ghosting all those pinging IM’s from your co-workers. You’ll worry about keeping up. Have a plan for this. Use Tech to give everyone the 411: Clearly set your status – I’m gone. Call if it’s urgent – see you in the AM. Block your calendar as “out of the office” in the evening so people with flexible schedules don’t book you for meetings. Breathe. This is scary but it just might be the most invigorating thing you’ll do all year.

And now, the Number One Way to Stop Working On Time –

Tell your boss. You heard me. Walk or Zoom into his office and tell him you’re trying an experiment. You don’t think it will cause him any issues, but you just want to let him know. You’ll be logging off – on time – for two weeks. Tell him you want to hear from him if this is a problem. And then? Follow through.

And that? Is just the beginning.

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Learn to Carve

What do digital transformation, skill gaps, and workload all have in common? They all require you to learn how to carve.

It’s Saturday at 2 pm and I’m still in my bathrobe. I’m working on my blog on the weekend. Surely there is nothing you can learn from me.

Are you still here? Well, all right. Here goes. Gartner says that in the next ten years constant upskilling will replace experience in importance in the workplace. CompTIA says that the ability of IT professionals to understand both technology and business is rising in the list of skill gaps that technology professionals need to be closing.

Beyond all that, workload and technical skill gap issues are still smokin’ hot for IT just as they have been for several years now. Oh, and by the way, your company still wants you to innovate, which means, you’re going to need some downtime for your brain so you can come up with new ideas that are all your own.

What does that mean? You better figure out how to do what you need to do, when you need to do it.

You better learn to carve – carve out personal time, carve in technical training and business training.

Did you just scream? You know I’m still in my bathrobe right?

Fortunately, I’ve been reading Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport and marveling over the ways in which addiction can help with scheduling. Stop snickering. An all-nighter does have a way of clearing your calendar, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

Among other things, he addresses these points: digital media and the attention economy have created a state of distraction which results in both an inability to focus and an activity void when we step away from it. To successfully disengage from that digital experience (think social media, surfing, news, and streaming) we have to plan what we are going to do instead. Quitting cold turkey on any behavior leaves us staring into an uncomfortable void and vulnerable to relapse. I’ve hammered on this before – you need to have something great to do in your time off, in order to let go of the emails, all the important work that never ends, and the distractions that chip away at our lives.

Cal Newport then delves into how to reclaim your leisure time. None of this is new info to people who follow this blog but what he does propose is a reverse calendar – plot carefully the time you allow for non-constructive leisure and thereby force yourself to fill the rest of your time with something better. In a word, carve out the best leisure you can. Leisure that gives you time to ponder and create just feels like you have more life in your life.

So let’s bring all that back to the office. You know you have to set aside specific chunks of the day to do focus work that makes a difference. Time for the type of serious training and continuing education professionals need is often something we try to squeeze in on the side. Kinda like your exercise and maybe dinner.

What’s the answer?

Pretty much I’m proposing that we treat training the way we treat a vacation. Those of us who’ve figured out how to actually get our time off, know we need to have it on the calendar early – before the emergency project comes up. That’s so our managers can plan around it, which they can do… if it’s on the calendar.

So your professional training needs to go on the calendar. Your boss needs the details so she can plan around it. Just like a serious vacation, you need to know what you’re going to do and how much it will cost.

Also, you need to understand what you need to learn.

Because technology as a supporting role for business is simply table stakes now, interdisciplinary training along with technical training is going to be the new normal. You can’t come up with cool ways to add value to your business if you don’t know what your business partners are doing. You also can’t offer technical solutions that you don’t know how to build. Looks like us nerds are going to have to start planning in both business learning as well as technical skill development.

Once you know what you need to learn, and you’ve found a good way to learn it, either through a real-life project and online learning, or formal training, you’ll need to budget the time and the money. Just like a vacation. What? This doesn’t sound like fun?

Here’s the other thing. You should leave town – just like when you go on vacation. Try to hand over loose ends to a teammate, turn off your cell phone and put your out of office message on. You don’t have to literally leave town but if you can get your manager and team to treat you like you have – well, then, who wouldn’t want to take on training?

Sound good? Here’s how to make it real.

  1. Get your manager’s buy-in.
  2. Schedule your learning days, plan and fund your training.
  3. Don’t forget to include the certification test. Do the whole thing.
  4. Be a team player – offer to support your buddy’s training vacation too.
  5. Use the practice of learning days to create cross-training. It’s so much better to get called back for a production issue from your class than from your first post-pandemic trip. So get the team to try like crazy to solve issues without you… just like you’re on vacation. Then, if there’s something they need to brush up on, it’ll be clear and you won’t have to call in from the beach.

Once you’ve carved out time for learning, quality downtime so you can have free-thinking for innovation, time for vacation, and time to do focused work each day, you’re well on the way to be being a master carver, 2021 style.

And that? Is just what we trained for.

If you want help getting your calendar under control, set up a free 25-minute session. I’d love to talk time management with you. After all, it’s 2 pm on a Saturday and I’ve spent the morning enjoying a novel, I’ve put out a blog and I’ll be chillin’ watching the Super Bowl tomorrow.

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Resilience and Emotions

Does a day at work leave you with the lyrics of The Animals biggest hit running through your mind? There’s a way outta that place.
Would you rather listen? Click the play button and I’ll read it to you. Enjoy!

Hello, world! Did you miss me? I took a two-week vacation from this blog because I needed a reset. I’m guessing that you probably do too.

There’s a certain rhythm to the work year, and right about now, we’ve had it. You’ve got projects you’re trying to shove through the door, reviews, holidays, and it’s all a hella-lot.

When clients in burn-out come to me, one of the first things we work on is remembering to stop. Last month, I stopped blogging on the weekends. The two-week delay is the result of me figuring out how to do this thing during the week.

What’s that? Bully for me? I hear ya. Stopping is great but our jobs often demand that we push on, do the long shifts, keep working through to deliver. That’s fine. That’s the nature of a lot of professional positions. Sometimes, we can’t “just stop”.

At some point, the weight of that relentless grind starts to take a toll on us.

That’s when we need a Big Reset.

A Big Reset is a way to get us back on the upside of our working life even when we can’t change our situation.

To accomplish a Big Reset, you’ll need two things – emotional awareness and a time affluent mindset.

Time affluence is the idea that you have all the time you need to do the things that bring meaning to your life, sufficient time to reflect, and time for leisure activities. When you have a time affluent mindset, you have a sense of time as valuable, and you’re less likely to spend time on unsatisfying activities. You’re also more willing to trade money for time, as in hiring someone else to shovel that driveway, mow that lawn, pick out your groceries, etc.

When you putting in serious hours at work, it’s pretty hard to feel time affluent. If your November was like mine, getting an eight hour night was a treat. It was get up and back on Zoom after that.

If you nodded your head, then I have a big NCIS slap to the head for you. That right there, is part of the problem. Turns out, when you tell yourself that you have no time, you’re already on the no-fun side of life.

To reset your perception of the time available to you try this – tell yourself that you have all the time you need for what matters most. For me, the mantra can trigger a calming response.

Another tactic is to do a true calculation. That’s what I did last week. A 24-hour day minus 8 hours to sleep leaves me with 16 hours. Even if I’m working twelve-hour days, I still have four hours. I sure as heck didn’t feel like I had four free hours a day. That sent me off looking at how I was spending those four hours. Turns out I was shredding them.

In Ashley Whillans’ new book ‘Time Smart’, she talks about the way our technology and distractions – emails, a quick google search, something on TV that catches our attention, a text from a friend, a quick phone call – fragment our leisure time into “confetti”.

To have a sense of more time, find ways to stop shredding your free time. A full hour spent doing a specific activity, without allowing yourself to be diverted is a sure fire way to act and feel more time affluent.

Another tactic to bring time affluence back into your world is to savor. Yes, savor. This morning, I had only one hour before I needed to start work. Normally, I get up three or four hours before my day job starts, but this week I’ve been working late. So, in that one hour, I changed my mindset. I still pulled on sweats and took the dog out for a much-shortened constitutional but while I was out there, I savored the feeling of the air on my face. I really looked at the bird feeders, noticed the birds waiting in the trees while I refilled their seeds. I smelled the air. I called my dog and when she came bounding over to me, I spent time with her. Not much, but I still threw her a party for coming when she was called. I doled out a couple of treats from my pocket, I praised her until she put her ears flat and ran in tight circles of canine joy, then we played a two minute game of tug. I made the most out of my ten minutes outside.

During a Big Reset – pay attention – decide to have a full hour break. Pay attention… enjoy what you do have – the soft rug under your feet, the brief minutes outside, the perfect English muffin you had for breakfast, and the achievements you and those around you deliver.

You’ll also need to expand your emotional vocabulary. I noticed an amazing I feeling that I really enjoy. It happens when I have a few things in a row to do, I know how to do them, I know what is needed to be done, and I’m so fully engaged that I’m firing on all cylinders. I gave this feeling a name – All Cylinders Firing. I love when I feel All Cylinders Firing. When I’m cooking, All Cylinders are Firing when I’m washing up pots and pans as the food is cooking, I’m putting away dishes while the microwave is going, I have my plate ready before the timer rings… I’m using every motion, fully engaged, and creating exactly what I want… a perfect egg sandwich and a clean kitchen. At work, this looks like firing off that email, keeping up the the important stuff, fitting work into the time allowed, with a slight smile and flying fingers.

Now I’m not saying you need to race around like a nut. The point isn’t for you to feel All Cylinders Firing. The point is … notice when you feel happy. Even on your busy days, even during the long grinds. What is it you actually are enjoying? The comradery of puzzle-solving? Do you just feel so grateful for the co-workers who are busting their butts with you? Do you love the feeling of putting up your feet on the couch while you clear out that in box? Notice these situations. Then find a more specific way to describe them than – good, happy, fun. Really notice, really define those moments. Without changing anything about your job, or the amount of time you have, you can figure out how to have more of the “I’m working but I love it anyway” moments, more of the “this is what I’m like when it’s good” feelings.

If you would like help doing a Big Reset – you can sign up for a free session with me – here.

We can’t change the situations we find ourselves in today. We can jumpstart a Big Reset by being time affluent – being upfront with how much time we do have, refusing to shred our time, and savoring the experiences available now. That Big Restart also includes noticing the moments that we enjoy even during the bustle of December and being hyper-precise with the naming of our experience so that we can find ways to add more of it into our days.

December can be a jam packed month. You might be working long hours.

You can still have a Big Reset.

And that? Is just good to know.

Do you subscribe to Eric Barker’s newsletter? You really should. He’s got a great one. My plan for this year tells me that the first Monday in December is “The Big Reset – How to notice and copy a feeling.” Ironically, Eric’s latest blog is a perfect dovetail. You can catch his blog here.

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Right Size Your Work

Thinking about the space your job takes up in your life is one way get more control.
Click here to listen to the blog, plus some riffs. Or click the video above to see the VLOG. As always, you can read the blog below.

I talk about space a lot. It confuses my coach. I say – I want more space in my life. I want more space around this task. I’m looking to add space.

“Wait,” she asks. “Are we still talking about work?”

I learned to think about time in terms of containers by reading Julie Morganstern’s book, Time Management from the Inside Out. She’s a professional organizer who translated cleaning out closets into a theory of time management. Now, I think about work in the same way.

Julie asserts that the size of a closet is finite. You get so many cubic feet and that’s it. At some point, you can’t put any more in. I like to add an addendum to that – within the space allowed, you have a finite amount of items you can put into your closet while still allowing enough room around them to keep the closet usable. Usability is flexible. There’s a maximum amount of usability – one item per shelf – and a minimum amount of usability – I can only take out the last thing I shoved in there.

When you get the most amount of items in the closet and can still use them all easily, you’ve right-sized your space. When you hit that, you can maintain order in your space easily for years.

Right-sizing your work is the process of shoving work back into the time allowed, or fluffing it out so that it fills your time nicely. Right-sizing your work is how you build for long-term endurance. Like managing an amazing pantry it’s a balancing act of things you really need and stuff you want to add in – and it’s totally possible.

Why Right-Size?

  1. Make sure you get to do the things that matter to you
  2. Ensure that you deliver peak performance at work, at an advantage to yourself.
  3. Because life is better when you’re not exhausted & missing out 
  4. Because life is better when you’re not beating yourself up for things you didn’t do
  5. To maximize your experience of work and life.

Are we still talking about work? I have a broad definition of work, as you might guess. I love work and so, I don’t groan thinking about adding in more. For me, work is anything you do, on purpose, to accomplish a return on investment.

What is Right-Sizing Work?

We all overwork and underwork in our lives. Some people overwork at their day-job. Some people underwork. Some people have side hustles they overwork. Some underwork at their small business. We invest time in relationships for a return of connection. Are you overworking or underworking that? What about your personal tasks?

When you overwork right-sizing means keeping work small enough to avoid diminishing returns – which occur when you are exhausted and it takes longer to deliver the same result. It also means making work fit inside the time you are willing to exchange for it.

When you underwork right-sizing means keeping work large enough to deliver returns on your investment. If you spend a lot of time worrying about work you aren’t doing, that’s a sign you are underworking. In this case, you want to focus on consuming the time you are willing to invest.

Is all this starting to sound like planning? It’s more than that.

Plan your time like you’re putting items into a closet. The space is finite so you have to choose what can go in.

How to Right Size your Work

  • Create positive boundaries – set cut off times that  allow for real benefits, recognize and celebrate all that you accomplish.
  • Set clear objectives for small blocks of time. Don’t plan to “work on a report”. Instead, plan to “create the first draft of my quarterly budget slide dec”.
  • Be willing to cancel, disappoint people and say no. When you overwork, you’re used to doing this to your friends. Be willing to do this with meetings and favors. When you underwork, you’re used to canceling on your work plans. Be willing to cancel on friends.
  • Have clear priorities. You’ll never get it all done.  At least I hope not.   So the only way to know which results to schedule is to have priorities.  They also help you say no. A lot.
  • Plan daily and weekly at the very least. The weekly planning session is where you face the hard fact about the space you have in your week for the things you want to do. Don’t make this about perfect, make this about learning. Plan your week, then at the end, review your progress. Adjust the next week’s plan. The daily planning session is where you quickly move tasks or time when the world throws you a curve.
  • Be kind to yourself. Always, always – this is the most important thing. It’s not about getting a A in planning, it’s about building a life that’s right for you, in every way.

And that? Is just a beautiful way to live.

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Get up, Log off, Get Gone

Look, you gotta go now.

It’s the Summer of Covid-19. Are you still at your desk?

I used to be this woman. Minus the nice bathing suit and the toned legs. Yeah, minus all of it except the phone. That briefcase would have been my laptop and instead of a beach, I’d be chillin’ on the lanai at my mother’s in Florida, but the concepts the same.

We all know that it’s good for us to leave work at work. Not so easy, you say?

Here’s a few simple tips that have worked for my clients.

Dedicate Yourself To Leaving Work at Work.

1. Don’t wait to have time, to take time.

Clients who overwork tend to think they can’t sign up for that pottery class, can’t get that dog, can’t start that work out routine until they figure out how to leave on time. This is backward. One of the reasons you stay too late at your desk is that you don’t have a clear goal for what comes next. By clear goal, I don’t mean weeding the garden if that’s your least favorite chore. Trust me on this. Schedule the class. You’ll figure out how to get there.

2. When your boss tells you to go, take him at his word.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this. The employee is overwhelmed and can’t see the forest for the trees. Boss gets concerned. “Go home.” “Take your vacation.” “Leave early today.” Employee nods and gets back to work, telling himself that the boss is nuts, or that’s nice but I have too much work. People, your manager is trying to help you. Hopefully, he or she has been around the block and can see a forward that you can’t right now. Or maybe, like me, he just knows that you’ll work smarter and faster once your head isn’t full of cotton and misery. When the boss says go, go.

3. Understand that stopping your thought patterns takes practice.

Our brains like to do what we did yesterday. Why? Because we survived. There’s no super intuitive magic going on. You can’t stop thinking about work because you aren’t taking ownership of your brain. If you don’t guide it, then it’ll do what’s easy. What’s easy? Whatever it just did. So now that you’re on vacation, now that you left your desk on time, don’t expect it to be roses. Now is the time you have to do some work for you. Now is the time you have practice directing your thoughts. It’s not fun – until it is.

4. Don’t expect there to be fun things to do unless you’ve planned them.

If you walk away from your desk and find yourself standing in the kitchen with a strong desire to refill your coffee cup and head back into your office, then just turn to your plan.

What? You don’t have one? We’re right back at item #1 again. Plan something fun. Just last week, I sat down with my coach and she made me construct a list of things to do in the evening. Things that feel good, don’t require food and aren’t about productivity or work. Brilliant. So, now? I’m heading out for my walk. Plan something good and enjoy your time off.

And that? Is just a great thing to figure out.

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The Big PP

Are you killing yourself making everyone else happy at work?
Think you need to stand up for yourself? You’re right – kinda.

Nothing will suck the fun out of work faster than trying to please everyone.  I should know, I attempted it for years.  My results? Phbbt.

Ok, this is a long one… I riff on the whiteboard stuff and there’ll be dogs barking at the end. Enjoy!

I’m pretty excited about today’s blog because I took my time whiteboarding out the message I wanted to deliver, and guess what?   I’m going to add it to this blog.  So cool, right?  Now you can get your information exactly as you need it.  You can read the blog, listen to the blogcast, or review the diagram.  Freaky good.  AND BONUS:  I did this to save myself time.

What?  You heard me correctly there, Slick. I was selfishly attempting to figure out how to get two blogs done in the time it takes to do one.  Why? Because you all don’t buy my products because of my blog, and frankly, I have housework to do.  I want to shove my two side hustles into smaller boxes so I can pick up some personal time.   See how self-serving that is?  Does it change how you think about me if I tell you the personal stuff I want to do is exercise, eat right, and just enjoy my damn dogs before they croak?   Ahh, now you don’t think that’s so selfish, do you?  Well, you’re right where I want you. We’re going take a crack at getting you to drop your people-pleasing and start making your own darn self happy.  You so deserve it.

My first attempt – too large to embed.
If you want to get a clearer copy of this, just email me – Amy@RockYourDayJob.Com

The Big PP (People Pleasing)

My own story about trying to please people at work goes like this – I wanted to learn new things, I wanted to help, so I figured out how to support an overnight system.  I was able to take on a rotation and give my teammates a break.  That felt great! Go, team!

Years went by, I became a manager, but I was still supporting things overnight, during the day, all the time.  My boss was new and made a big fuss about how many hours I was working, all the dedication I had.  I felt proud – and tired.  Years went by. The boss left.  I had new bosses, new systems, and I was still up at night, up during the day, working fifteen hours on the weekend to get my inbox cleared out, etc.  

I thought I had a time management problem.  So, during a coaching session with Brooke Castillo, she coached me on my time issue.  I’ll never forget it. First, she asked me why I was doing all that work.  I’ll paraphrase the rest:

“Because I want to do a good job,” I said. 

“Why do you care if you do well?“ She asked.

Insert lots of reasons, questions … and then

“Because I want people at work to think I do a good job,” I said.  I hated to admit that. I like to believe that I don’t care what people think about me, but that day, she coached me through all my thoughts, and that’s what dropped out the bottom. Bummer.

“Yeah,” she said.  “That’s your work.”

Happily, she didn’t leave me with that.  Instead, she went a step further.  She asked me this:

“Do you want to work all those hours?”

“No,” I said.

“Will they be happy if you work twenty-four seven?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“But you don’t want to?” Brooke asked.

“No,” I said.

“So why don’t you tell them, ‘I know you’d like it if I worked twenty-four seven, but I wouldn’t’ ?”

Boom.  That did it for me.  Suddenly, my wants and desires were on equal footing with my employers.  What I wanted – counted.

So here’s what happened next: I never said those words to anyone at work, but I thought them in my mind.  I met with my manager.  I said I was going to try something new.  I was going to try to get some work-life balance.   I didn’t ask for help with it.  I just said, let me know if you see a problem and then, I set about learning how to shove my work back into a standard time block. 

You know what happened?   My evaluations went up. I kid you not.   I slept more, delegated better, took myself off the rotation for overnights, and started learning how to work more proactively.  Why? To please me.  Who benefited? My employer.   

Straight Trippin’, dude.  

High-Five there, woman.

So what about you?  Where are you killing yourself to make someone else happy?  Really – get an example in your mind.

Now ask yourself this – do you actually control how they feel?   Yeah – you saw that coming, didn’t you? I hope so.  If we turn the page upside down, the answer key reads:  NO. 

Not today, not tomorrow, not in a box, not with a fox. 

You can be workin’ your cubicle sittin’ butt off, and you’ll never make anyone happy.  And frankly, you’re not paid to.  You’re paid to deliver results – and believe me, your boss hopes you’ll finish in time to get some sleep, ‘cause you know, lack of sleep causes lower performance at work.

Okay, so let’s tackle the BIG Elephant in the room – SELFISHNESS.

If you want to make yourself happy, then you’re selfish.

RUBBISH. 

That’s the worst bag of malarky ever, and we’ve all picked up our own sack of it as we stood at the cash register of our lives. 

Toss that idea out.  If you want to make yourself happy, then you’re human and maybe even enlightened.

If you want other people to stop being happy, so you can feel good, then you’re selfish. 

Get it?

Uh, uh.  Don’t go to … Well, if I don’t do this burdensome task that will make me stay up all night, then someone else will have to. 

That’s where this always bogs down.

Change that thought to:

Is this burdensome task my responsibility?

If no. Then, game over.  Go home if you want to.   Don’t stay late to make someone else happy if it’s going to make you sick, unhappy, miss dinner with the kids, or cause your dog to need a piddle-pad.

If yes, then ask this instead:  I’m not going to stay up all night to do this burdensome task.  I’m not going to give it to someone else (make sure this is really YOUR task; otherwise, give it back).   So now… how am I going to solve this?

See that?  That right there, refusing to kill yourself to do it?  That’s what drives innovation. That’s how come my reviews went up.   Each time I solved that problem, my life got better, and so did my performance. 

Meanwhile, back to people-pleasing – Your wants, needs, and personal life, your desire to grow is just as important as anyone else’s.  For you? It should be more so.  You worry about you.  Get your own house spiffed up.  You can come back and lend everyone else a hand later – after you’ve walked the dog and had a good night’s sleep.

And that?  Is just good to know.

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

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Getting Out of Your Own Way

OK – it’s time to put the Cheer into Cheerful time management…
If you lack follow-through, I have great news.
There’s nothing wrong with you.
It’s time to learn how to get stuff done, so you can celebrate your success.

Welcome to the final installment in my 3 part series on cheerful time management.

So far we’ve been talking about tactics. How to plan your time so you feel energized at the end of the day. How to use blocks of time to make sure you get what you want out of life.

Back in May, I blogged about an essential truth of time management. Here’s the gist of that blog:

You still have to deliver value and results to the company that pays your salary – on the regular and in good faith, but as long as you think there is something more important or someone more important than your own decisions about what you’re going to do with your next 24 hours? You’re sunk. You’ll waste time, give up time and let work slide into personal time and personal time slide into work time. You have to value yourself before you can set up a time management system that works.

And in March, I discussed how we each have to fight for our time. Here are the basics of that blog:

  1. Spend the majority of your day doing the work that is most expensive or most skilled.
  2. Plan results – not time.
  3. Refuse to work at the expense of yourself.
  4. Stop using work to escape your life. 

The titan in the room is … EXECUTION.

There’s no point in planning your days, ordering your activities or doodling about results if you don’t actually do anything. How do I know this? I’m a daydreamer, a procrastinator and I have a very hard time making myself do stuff. So how do I run two internet businesses and work my day job – and still have time to play with my granddaughter?

You can try to use willpower. If you’re reading a bunch of blogs on time management, I’m guessing that hasn’t worked so well for you. It’s not my go-to either.

You can build habit stacks. Carefully constructing triggers, habits, and rewards, like breadcrumbs leading you to your goal. Great for exercising daily, not so good for getting through a whole day.

Or – you walk your little brain through a 15-minute analysis that will open you up and make tackling your next task something you actually want to do.

I’m going to give you that process, right here. It’s going to look very simple. You are not likely to actually try it. I swear on my day-planner that this process is worth every minute you spend on it.

First, sit down and fill half of a sheet of notebook paper with all the random thoughts you have about your next task (assuming you’re procrastinating doing it.) Let’s say it’s a schedule for a project. You write all the stuff you’re thinking as in my example below. You can see it’s just free-flowing and not all that logical or positive. This is the excellent material my brain hands me when I don’t manage it well.

I’ll never get this done on time. All this stuff can’t be done. I’m just fakin’ it here. We’ll never pull this off. Maybe we can do it. If I don’t put together a schedule, I’ll never have a chance at succeeding. This project was doomed from the start. It’s not my fault. It’s all my fault. Writing this is a waste of time I should be doing email. The project is important and I can write a schedule. I hate doing this.

Great stuff, right? If I stop the process right now, or if I don’t even bother to write my thoughts down, I’ll feel overwhelmed or fearful. Those feelings send me right to my inbox to knock out a few emails and get myself a nice hit of reward hormones. I feel better in the short term but that project will still be there in the back of my mind.

Next, pick one thought.

We’ll never pull this off

Ask yourself what fact, or situation this thought is about. Make that fact completely lacking in drama. In this case, the situation is “My Project Schedule” or better yet “Schedule”.

Now, list out 5 positive thoughts you believe and 5 negative thoughts you believe about your situation or fact. I recommend doing the positives first. Notice how you don’t want to write the negatives after doing the positives.

Positive & Seems True: Our best chance is with a schedule. The schedule doesn’t have to be perfect. I can add stuff to the schedule as we work with it. I’ve done a million schedules and they always help. It’s possible we’ll succeed.

Negative & Seems True: I’m going to fail. I’ve been putting this off. I’m actually just in the same place we often get on a project, needing to understand all the details so we can help ourselves. I’m just a manager trying to do everything. I’m tired of writing down negative thoughts – I want to go write my schedule

I’ve had a lot of practice at this process and you can see in the example that my brain is quickly turning away from the negative and ready to move on. However, for some of you, finding five true and positive thoughts is going to be really hard. Try using – it’s possible, at least or it’s just to pry some positive thoughts out.

Why bother with this?

The reason you’re not taking action isn’t that you’re fundamentally flawed, weak-willed or lazy. Our brains are designed to protect us from harm. Failing at a task that the tribe wants us to do is inherently risky. We could lose our place. We could be out in the snow with the wolves hunting us down. We could die.

Our brains don’t know that we have access to hundreds of tribes on social media. They don’t know that our family isn’t going to toss us out to die if we create a bad project plan. So our brains want us to do what we did yesterday – skip the plan, skip the schedule. After all, we lived, didn’t we?

Getting all this out on paper makes thoughts into objects.

Once you get your thought, find your fact, and list out your positives and negatives, do a quick motivation check. Are you ready to work? If yes, go to it.

If not, then list out how each thought makes you feel and then imagine how you act when you feel that way. Notice the result those actions get you. Do the negatives first this time.

Schedule: I’ve been putting this off. When that thought crosses my mind I literally feel sick to my stomach, which means I feel fear. When I’m afraid, I want to run away, change tasks, cry – basically put it off.

Schedule: I’m going to fail. I feel depressed. When I’m depressed, I eat candy, get a cup of coffee, check my emails. All of those actions actually make me fail.

Schedule: Our best chance is with a schedule. I feel logical when I think it. When I feel logical, I just start listing out project steps. Then I’m closer to being done.

Schedule: I’ve done a million schedules and they always help. I feel hopeful when I think it. When I feel hopeful, I want to finish the schedule. I list out tasks. I finish the schedule

This process makes it very clear what impact your thinking is having on you getting the task done. It also gets your frontal cortex in the game. Once you lay all this out, it’s pretty hard to keep walking around procrastinating. It just doesn’t make any sense. What would happen if you scheduled fifteen minutes to do this process before you started project work you normally put off?

That? Is how I work on stuff without using willpower or habits.

That? Is Good to Know.

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

This process takes practice. Helping people through this is what I’ve been trained to do. I’ve helped lots of people change their work habits from unhappy procrastination to revitalized effectiveness. I can help you too.

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Letting Go of the Need to Get There

Our lives are miraculous and if you’re reading this, you’ve already arrived.

Potential must be a BIG word. It has to be tall – because we need to live up to it, right? It’s inscrutable because we have to work hard to realize it. We had better get to it because we don’t want to fail to reach our potential. Right? Right? After all, our managers are eager to help us and we want to be excellent.

Too bad. Because we’ll never succeed at manifesting our true human potential. It’s a massive Catch-22.

Our human potential is unlimited.

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

Listen, I’m a person who always wants to take on challenges, learn, grow, and keep moving, I mean, that is some fun way to live. But I want to give a big, fat raspberry to that idea that we all need to hurry to reach our potential, or that there is one perfect manifestation of our potential.

So I decided to get the facts. I went to Google and got the first definition that came up. (Yes, do laugh, but we’re moving on.) When used as a noun, the definition is “latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.”

Basically, we’ve got some stuff we’re not using yet. It may be useful but, we have to put some work in to make that so. When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound like life or death. It might not even be worth missing a family outing for.

Look, I don’t know about you, but I’ve got lots of “stuff” I’m not using. I’m not using my ergonomic keyboard; I’m not using my subscription to Dragon Speak. Fact is, both of those are going to require a bit of effort and time and I’m not ready. Why? Because I’m busy – I’m writing my blog, I’m rushing to get outside a enjoy a perfect September Saturday walking my dogs. I’m looking forward to getting my house clean and maybe cooking that free turkey from last Thanksgiving before I get another one. You know. I’m living my life.

You are too. Well, not my life. You’re living yours.

And that? Is a gift.

According to a Japanese Zen story, we can think of our human existence like this:

Our very existence, at this moment, on this planet, in this human form, is as unlikely as a sea turtle sleeping on the bed of the ocean for 100 years, waking up and swimming to the surface, and putting its head into a floating oxen yolk. Not just any floating oxen yolk, but a golden one, as in made of gold – heavy, sinkable gold, that is floating for a brief moment, pushed this way and that by the wind and waves. The likelihood of our 100-year-old sea turtle hitting that yolk perfectly – that’s the chances of us being here as humans, with our experiences, in this life and being aware of the present moment.

The minute I allow my quest to reach my human potential to cause me to refute the wonder of this present moment, I’ve let go of the rare gift of the here and now.

And it’s worse than that. I’ve used the distance between where I am and where I can go to mean that there is something wrong with me, here, as I am, because I’m assuming there is somewhere better to go, some better person to be.

It’s just not true.

There is no getting to my full potential, ever. And there’s certainly no getting to my potential without starting where I am now.

So go ahead, walk out into the superunknown of your own potential. Take risks, try new things, learn more stuff. Set goals; achieve them. All of that creates texture and flavor in this beautiful life you’ve been given. Work hard. Do stuff.

Just know, the future doesn’t hold a final goal that gets you to the place where your life starts with you in the starring role as a fully realized human.

Dude, you’re already there.

And that? Is a good idea to hold onto.

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Get Help.

It’s one of the most common things I hear clients say…
and it’s not “I want a better desk chair.”

Never miss a blog. Sign up here for my Monday morning newsletter – “It’s Monday”. You’ll get information about new programs and offers, links to interesting videos and books all in your inbox.

My step-dad taught me to hike. Always have a map. Break-in your boots. Use a damn stick. Know a lot of jokes and stories to tell – these are pretty much the rules. Oh, and turn around and give the person behind you a hand.

After any particularly tricky ascent, he would always turn around and offer me his hand. If I was ahead of him and I turned and offered my hand, he would always take it. Even though he outweighed me, even though I often didn’t have such a great foot plant, he never refused a hand up. He also never failed to offer one.

There’s a dignity in having someone accept the hand you offer to them. There’s a mutual respect there. It’s nice.

It’s also good to have the person you’re hiking with, turn around and offer you their hand. They remember you, they acknowledge you.

A lot of hikers will refuse that hand offered to them. They don’t want to pull the other person off balance, they might say. But I think they just don’t feel comfortable taking a hand that’s reaching out. These same hikers would be the first person to offer up a hand or food or water on the trail. It’s not the offering of help that bothers them, it’s the taking.

“I don’t like to ask for help.”

I hear that one so often from my clients. They’re talking about seeking out an assist on a problem that they are wrestling with. They’re talking about trying to finish a large project when they don’t have enough time. They’re talking about what they make it mean when they ask for help.

Here’s what it means:

Nothing.

Work is a collaborative effort. Seeking help or accepting help is just how work gets done. Accepting help only means one thing – you’ll get done faster.

It’s possible to lean on people too much or to ask for too much help, but if you’re a person that doesn’t ask for any help – this is not your issue.

So this week, set yourself up for success. Resolve to offer help once a day, and accept help when it’s offered.

And that? Is just a good way to stay on track.