Hello there!
Hope you are having a good weekend. I took a few days off last week - off my phone and laptop and just hung out in nature, went on hikes, drank some wine and chilled with my wife. It was great and while I wish I could say I had 17 different brilliant ideas pop in, it was still a great break.
On to the 3 things for today.
on losing work-life balance
if it is NOT about the what, then what is it about?
on creating a transition between work-mode and family-mode.
Let’s get on with it!
on losing work-life balance
Most of my conversations with my students and even in The Quad Squad revolve around this. We are going through a weirdly difficult time and while we are all hoping it gets over soon, I think finding sanity in here is more important than wishing it to be over. While we think things will be fine when 2020 ends, we might find that a good chunk of 2021 is going to go this way as well. Rather than despair, let’s have a plan of action. And what that requires is awareness of what’s going wrong.
The issues can be essentially boiled down to a bunch of factors. A non-exhaustive list is below.
either there's no work at all or there's too much work. As employers and companies and our co-workers adjust to the new way of doing work, to the increased pressures, trying to stay afloat, trying to keep revenue coming in, there's a cascading effect that just rocks everyone.
there's always work. It never ends. It is a bottomless bucket. You finish a bunch but there's always more.
other people's lack of boundaries and personal preferences infringes on your style. If a colleague works at midnight because that's when they get enough alone-time, then you are stuck waiting on a response from them until that time.
weekdays and weekends are blurring together. Responding to emails on Sunday and taking calls then has become normal.
space is blurring together. We sit on our couch and watch TV. We also sit on our couch and answer work emails. Or lie in bed and take calls.
We are doing work but not feeling productive. There's no real end to the work-day. This means there's no feeling of success or satisfaction at the end of the day. Only the constant guilt if you could've done more. Or if there's something you forgot and dropped the ball on.
Stress. Anxiety. Sacrificing personal time - physical activity is sacrificed, as an example.
Sleep takes a hit. Either because we have calls/work at silly hours. Or because of the compounding stress. Or both.
When you add in chores at home, things go haywire. Because you might have just wrapped up a meeting at work and normal practice might be to chill for a bit. But now, chilling means doing the dishes or prepping the vegetables. That leaves you with the feeling that your work-day is extremely long when it actually is not.
There are 3 things I recommend, and a fourth one as well (which is a post by itself). They all require you to do something though, beyond just skimming this post.
They are
maintain a time-log. Seeing where your time goes is powerful.
no WhatsApp/email/whatever after 6 pm. Replace 6 pm with whatever time you want to end work at.
waking up at the same time daily. This one works for me as I have an early start on days I coach. Instead of waking up at 6 am on non-coaching days, and at 3.45 am on coaching days, I just wake up at 3.45 am on all days (except weekends, when I sleep in until almost 7 am).
For an in-depth understanding, do read the full post.
if it is NOT about what, then what is it about?
We know vegetables and fruits are good for health.
We know sleep is good and necessary.
We know getting some exercise is important.
We know too much stress does not make us feel good.
Most of us don't know how our phones work or how a plane flies. That doesn't stop us. So, we don't need to know things like pathways and all of that.
While there are a few things we should know - the fruit >> the juice, as an example, that's not what is preventing us from doing what we need to do about our health or our fitness goals.
Then, what is it about?
It is an important question for us all to consider. And answer. Not just read it and partially agree. Instead, spend the next 5 minutes and mull it over.
I’d really like to know what you think. Please mull it over for yourself, and if you feel like sharing - just reply to this email and let me know. I hugely appreciate it.
the transition from work-mode to family-mode
I was thinking about my earlier post - the work-life balance one - and I realised a huge missing piece is learning to transition and compartmentalise the two aspects of your life. Especially when we are all stuck at home and working from home.
Well, here’s what you need to do.
Have a method to transition from work-mode to family-mode. Let's say you aim to finish work at 6 pm. Have an alarm that goes off around 5.45 pm. That's your signal to start wrapping things up. When that happens, what you need to do are
write down things that are pending/incomplete
write down things that need to be done tomorrow
write down your thoughts on the stuff you worked on today
And once that's done, you are officially done with work.
A few more clean-ups to do.
Switch off your laptop. Yes, switch it off. Not just close it.
Turn off notifications on your phone. If possible, have a work-mode where all email apps are maintained.
On to the actual transition, which is you mentally switching from being at work to being with the family. This can be a 5-minute routine or much longer. A 5-minute routine that can work is simply you sitting quietly without any devices and switching gears in your head. Getting ready to play your role of parent and spouse, rather than just arbitrarily wandering in.
I prefer a longer routine as I need time for myself as well. Especially after a day of interacting with other people, as an introvert, I need to get some energy back by being with myself. So, I spend 20-30 minutes doing breathing drills and my OS resets. And as I am doing this, I gently coax my mind to stop thinking about work and just being in the moment. At the end of this, along with the above "turning off the laptop" stuff, I am done with work and I am free to spend time with the family.
It won’t work immediately. It will require courage. Some tinkering and tweaking. But as you keep tweaking it and seeing how it works, you will find your system.
You cannot afford to not do this.
And that’s it from me! Thanks for reading/listening. And do take 30 seconds to share one of the above posts with ONE friend. That’s all I ask.
