Ep 176 Who's in Control? You or your Work?
===
Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, everyone. Welcome to this episode. Today, we are going to talk about who's in control you or your work for many of you. I know that you work a nine to five and you work for an employer and some of you have your own business or dream of your own business. And so if you are working in a job and then creating your side hustle as well.
Sara Mayer: This episode may be more complicated for you, but we are going to talk about the growing concern between the boundary [00:01:00] between work and personal life. And many people struggle when they try and balance those two things, work and their personal life. And it's not. Always about a balance. It's more like a teeter totter.
Sara Mayer: It's like trying it's sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down and then you get back in swing. And so I think it's. It's probably safe to say that there is no such thing as work life balance, that there's always going to, there will always be competing interests. So you may have something that is more of a priority right now.
Sara Mayer: And so that's taking focus. And then at some point you need to swing to something else, but it's about making sure that you're touching all the things in your life at some point. within probably the month so that things [00:02:00] don't get out of whack. So there are a few signs if your work is in control of your life.
Sara Mayer: So the first one is a constant connectivity. So checking emails, messages all the time, obsessively checking notifications and just always being connected to work. I always think about the woman, this is my. Ideal client or the image that I have in my head of my ideal client. And I don't know why, but this is how I see her.
Sara Mayer: She's got her back to me and one side, she has her suit on and the other half of her body, she's dressed in vacation clothes and she's at the Disney line with her kids pulling on her. And on the other hand, she's typing on her laptop at work. So it's someone who's half in and half [00:03:00] out of every experience because they're trying to balance work and their personal life.
Sara Mayer: And so because of that, they're never really fully present. So I don't know if you feel that way, but I know sometimes I feel that way. And so constant connectivity is one of the signs that maybe your work may be taking over. The next one is inability to disconnect. So feeling compelled to work. Even doing personal time.
Sara Mayer: So on vacation with the kids, you're feeling pulled to that work to get that done. And that's okay when you're in the middle of a passion project or you're launching something, but it is a sign that your work is taking over and you don't have the ability yet to manage what your schedule looks like so that you can truly enjoy the experiences that you have.
Sara Mayer: And then of course we [00:04:00] have the impact on your physical and mental health. So maybe increased stress, burnout, and fatigue. And we all know that we can sustain. a level of stress as we build something really quickly or over six months. But at some point, we need to take a step back and slow down in order to maintain our physical and mental health.
Sara Mayer: And then we get into neglecting personal relationships and hobbies. So lack of time for family, friends, and personal interests, and really Not having the ability to connect with others, I actually was just watching, some episode of a podcast about a bachelor couple, bachelor, bachelorette couple, and they were talking about how they just lost connection and they were so busy building a business.
Sara Mayer: And I think that happens often where,[00:05:00] we end up focusing so hard on certain things that we forget. To connect with family, friends and then also to enjoy our hobbies. I don't know about you, but I've been in experiences in my life where work has truly taken over. I've told the story before about Bob, this guy I let into my bedroom, basically, not in the way you're thinking, of course, but because every morning I would get up because he got to work early and would.
Sara Mayer: Do this very complicated report. And so every morning I would wake up and the first thing I would do was turn on my phone to look at Bob's report. So I liked to say that I invited him into my bedroom, into my bathroom. When I was brushing my teeth, I was thinking about this report, the entire drive to work.
Sara Mayer: And then the first stop I made [00:06:00] when I got into work was to Bob's desk. And so I think it's really important to think about how our work is impacting our life, our entire lives, and how we might regain control of our life. So here are a couple strategies. So the first one, setting boundaries. Establishing clear limits for work and personal time.
Sara Mayer: And I know that there are going to be times that are busier than others when it comes to work, but also when it comes to your personal life. And so I think it's important to recognize those times, but also really think about what. What are my ideal work hours and what are the things that I know will change based on, if you're in [00:07:00] finance and you close the month or some things like that.
Sara Mayer: So I think it's important to think about those things. The next one is prioritization. So learning to prioritize tasks and delegate when possible. So many times we as leaders Can do the job that somebody that maybe, reports to us can do or supports us can do, but we can do it much quicker. And so it's really important as you move into roles of leadership to make what I like to call the hard left turn where you are.
Sara Mayer: Inspiring and empowering others to get the work done and you are. Leading them rather than doing it for them. And so learning to prioritize and delegate is a skill. It's a balancing act. [00:08:00] And if you're in a business where you're driving revenue or you own your own business and you need to bring in revenue, that's always the easiest thing.
Sara Mayer: to put on the back burner because there's usually a lot of pressure around it. So if you can learn to prioritize bringing in the revenue, that will ensure that you are not doing busy work rather than the important stuff. So there's a couple of time management techniques. There's the Pomodoro technique, time blocking and batching tasks.
Sara Mayer: I'm a big fan of batching. In fact, you are a product of my batching. Once a month, I sit down to record four episodes of my podcast, and I also write four blogs, if you. Don't see the theme already. It's fours. So I write four blogs. I do [00:09:00] four episodes of my podcast. I write four emails and that's helped me to really balance my time.
Sara Mayer: So I'm not constantly task shifting. I'm working in a chunk. On a certain thing and being creative. Now I will tell you that this is the calendar appointment that I tend to, when I see it come up, because it's a big chunk of time, I tend to say, Oh, I have to check my email or, Oh, I need to do this. But once I actually commit to doing it, I love it so much.
Sara Mayer: I enjoy this block of time. Try and do that. Try and time block your time and batch the tasks in a row that you can do That are all of the same topic and then I think it's really important to take a digital detox So regular breaks from screens and work related technology Is so [00:10:00] important. Once a month, I do a no tech day and sometimes I will go somewhere and just hang out like at a day spa, or sometimes I just do it at home, but it is one of the most refreshing days of my month.
Sara Mayer: Now I will caveat that with, please tell your friends and family that you're doing that or send some type of auto message because you don't want the police beating down your door. Because your friends think you're missing. So just know that I did have a client do that once. And her husband really thought she was missing in action.
Sara Mayer: So now I understand that these are, seem very simple. They're not always that simple. It's the commitment to getting yourself in a place where you can set boundaries. You can prioritize what's the most important, and you can try some of the [00:11:00] time management techniques and create that digital detox.
Sara Mayer: It's never going to be perfect. You can create the best plan, but if you don't review and reflect on that plan, it's not going to go anywhere. Now let's talk a little bit, if you are employed, the role of employers and organizational culture. So employers really do shape our own work life balance. And so even if you aren't employed, If you are an entrepreneur and you have a team, think about this for your team.
Sara Mayer: How are you shaping employees ability to create their own work life balance? Now, some employers do have flexible work arrangements and If you don't have that at your job, I encourage you to ask for it because [00:12:00] sometimes they will give it to you. And if you are an entrepreneur, consider creating it now, remote work, flex hours, and compressed work weeks all have.
Sara Mayer: Different places, but they don't, they aren't always as beautiful as they may seem because working from going from an office to working from home is very different as we all probably experienced or most of us during the pandemic. It's a lot easier to blend your day and to be working all the time. So that goes back to that time management.
Sara Mayer: Flex hours, amazing as well. You're going to put in a heavy load of work and then you're going to get some time back and then compressed work weeks. Sometimes that has been a blessing in disguise, but also sometimes it's a long day if you're doing like a 12 hour day so that you can have an extra Friday off.[00:13:00]
Sara Mayer: So the company that you work at truly does have values and norms that influence employees, work life balance. And so if you are just starting a job or interviewing for a job, I encourage you to ask, what is that culture of work? And. One of the things that I found when I was working is that many companies, the bar was really high in order to be successful.
Sara Mayer: And in order to be successful, you had to work all the time or be perceived to be working all the time. However, I found that to be untrue or false because I was able to get my work done in a lot shorter timeframe. And. When I focus on productivity and getting it done in a compressed timeframe, I still had to be [00:14:00] at work the same number of hours.
Sara Mayer: So I think that's an important conversation to have with your supervisor about flex time and also how the company is rewarding those who get their work done efficiently because many companies. Don't have flex time or don't allow you to leave early, but I was able to change that culture at one of my companies where we did start letting people go home on Friday if they had accomplished all their goals, because.
Sara Mayer: They'd already done what we needed them to do. So I think that there's ways that you can influence the culture. And that is something that I encourage you to do. Now, I want to talk a little bit about technology because technology has a role in work life. Integration, so it helps and [00:15:00] hinders us. So it allows us to be connected.
Sara Mayer: We have the ability to see everything we want. We're not waiting for a fax or a letter packet in the mail and. Technology enables us to work remotely, collaborate, and be flexible, but there are blurring boundaries due to that constant connectivity, as and the constant notifications. Let me just share my.
Sara Mayer: Perspective is that many times we go to meetings and we leave with action items and then we go to another meeting and we haven't addressed those action items. And so I think it's important that we take time to build into our schedule time to work and. When we're in that time to work turning off you'll see if you're on YouTube all these notifications I have right now on my phone and I left these on for the purpose of [00:16:00] This podcast, because I wanted to show that if I was actually trying to get anything done in this 15 minutes, I think I have 20, like 25, a lot of notifications, and that's a lot of mind shifting.
Sara Mayer: So I turn my notifications off. I love to work on airplane mode. I know that sounds a little crazy, but I love to work on airplane mode because that allows me. to use my phone if I need my phone for work, but not to be distracted by all the incoming things. A great way to clean out your inbox too is on airplane mode.
Sara Mayer: All right. The other thing that happens a lot when we're trying to work Is that we have so many things that are built up in our mind and our reminders and all the things that we need to do stored in our head. And I [00:17:00] highly encourage you to either get a paper planner, that's mine, or. Get a project management software.
Sara Mayer: I love Asana. So you can find that on my favorite things on my website. Also link it in the show notes here. But you can get Asana or some type of task tool and that's a great way to keep track of all the things that cross your mind so that you don't have to clog up your mind with, Oh, did I remember to do that?
Sara Mayer: Oh, do when do I need to do that? Oh, what is the document that is required for this? And just a friendly reminder, your email is not. A task tracker. It's not a place to track task, track your tasks. It truly is a communication tool. So just know that if you're using it to keep track of what you need to do, it's not the proper tool for [00:18:00] that.
Sara Mayer: So I encourage you to get a proper tool for email, because email truly is about communication. So who's in control? Your work or you? And it's. If it's not you, it's time to take control. And how you do that is you determine what you want your daily life to be like. And then once you've determined what you want your daily life to be like, you need to go out and create that.
Sara Mayer: So it may be creating boundaries at work. It may be figuring out how to manage. All the things coming at you through email notifications, all those things, it may be setting boundaries. It may be creating a better way to work, but until you have really designed that life and decided what it's going to be, you can't move forward and your work is truly in control.
Sara Mayer: All right, bold goal crushers. It's time to get [00:19:00] out there and create the life that you choose because you do not have to work double time to crush your goals. So let's get to it.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
Sara Mayer: I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
