Credit: Flickr / Mike BairdMy friend introduced me to this concept recently and I’ve found it really helpful.
Rest days: complete break from work (I call them “no computer” days).
Buffer days: get through the myriad of small things that pile up.
Focus days: move the needle on Big Projects.
Some observations:
Rest days need to happen before they are more a “collapse and don’t get up” day. I have been working on a schedule of 5 days on 1 day off. Until I switched to this I would keep going until I couldn’t, and then would deem that a rest day.
Rest days should include going out into the world. These are the days when I go and see art galleries, or museums etc. Or even just driving to the next town for iced tea. It’s not enough to just not touch the computer. I also need to get away from it.
Buffer days feel unrewarding at the time but make a big difference. Buffer days are what make focus days possible. Before I would feel bad on days when all I did was a bunch of small things, and now I just tell myself “today is a buffer day, getting all this out my head and off my list helps me focus tomorrow”.
Of course not every day should be a buffer day. I try to limit myself to 1 in 5. For reasons I don’t really get, this is often the Monday (regardless of working through the weekend).
This concept forces me to be more organised. E.g. I don’t respond to email every day, but I should on the last day before a rest day.
If I’m not organised enough I’m restricted to mobile and tablet. I see this as a good thing – nothing improves my empathy as a mobile developer than being purely mobile for a period.
I love Momentum (chrome extension) for Focus days especially. I put my “focus” or milestone in the the “what do you want to achieve today” and I’m reminded of it each time I open a new tab. If I have the same thing in there for more than one day, and definitely two, it’s a sign that something is wrong.
I bought my laptop home with me for the long weekend. I was writing code at 9pm on Wednesday night. Last week, I worked Sunday night.
Sounds like I have a work-life integration problem, right?
I used to have these strict rules – laptop stays at the office. No work at the weekends. I drew lines around my day, theorizing that if I had a full evening and couldn’t work, I would have a real break.
I didn’t used to have my work email on my cell phone. Now I do – one of them even beeps when it arrives. I turned it on because I spent a day in transit and another at TEDx and wanted to be semi-available. I didn’t get round to turning it off, and mostly just keep it on silent. It’s not the problem I imagined it would be.
When I arrived in KW, I didn’t know that many people and was in a relationship with someone who worked at the same place. Since we broke up, and I’ve been finding different things to do with my evenings (even if that is often hanging out on the cross-trainer watching Drop Dead Diva – Amazon). Maybe I needed those rules, as I got over grad school and the constant guilt. When, frankly, I didn’t have as much else to do.
But now it’s a different story. And, I worked Sunday night because Friday afternoon I took off to do someone a favor – the timing worked well, I got a jump on Monday. Sure, I was working late on Wednesday but I left the office, worked out with my trainer, had a nice walk in the sunshine to pick up some dinner, and then came back to it as my colleagues in Australia arrived for the day, which meant I could sync up with them. And sometimes things are easier to do without interruptions – so after everyone else has gone home!
At any time, I could turn email off on my phone. But mostly I just don’t bother to look at it. I could return my laptop to the office, it’s just a couple of minutes away anyway. The symbolic separation was only ever that, and I don’t feel like I need it anymore. Besides, I travel for work. A lot. It’s pointless to pretend that doesn’t impact my life – it does. In positive ways, because I experience new things and see cool places, but in negative ones too. It’s hard, sometimes, but it’s a choice – so clearly I think it’s worth it. I just forget that when I’ve spent 8 hours in San Francisco airport waiting.
I read an article with Marissa Mayer and one of the things she mentions is that burnout happens when you miss the things that are important to you. The thing that if you miss it, it ruins your week. I’m not completely sold on this theory, or perhaps it’s just for me a week with no down-time would be a stressful and miserable experience. But I see the point – I didn’t lose out on anything by working a couple of extra hours on Wednesday night, I felt good about what I got done and enjoyed my chat with the Australian. And it was a free choice – perhaps that is the most important thing. I didn’t have to.
Anyway, the upshot of all this is, my work and life are a little more blended than they used to be, and I’m OK with this new way.
On the way to Toronto my friend is telling me I need to give up bagels, and I say, there’s enough change in my life right now without introducing more. But that I think it will be better next month. She says, “you always think that; you said that in August, too”.
She’s right. This month’s major source of stress has been the number of talks I’m giving. But – what have I agreed to in the first week of November? Another one. And at a Catholic school too, when I oppose religious schooling. So now I feel stressed and guilty.
Then at ONCWIC, someone gives the advice – track your time, noting that sometimes trying to please, and agreeing to something means that you’re not doing another thing that is actually more important to you.
It’s amazing, you go to these things and you hear the same comments from different people, with different stories behind them, even things you have concluded yourself. And yet – almost every time I am inspired and motivated, and grateful to have heard it again.
The impostor panel at GHC is always one of the most popular, perhaps because it’s so hard to believe that these awesome women, who seem so successful and together, are wracked with doubt the same way we are. Every year (at least!) we need this reminder. I was talking to an amazing colleague who mentioned the panel, and how much she enjoys it every year, saying it gives her hope that she can be that awesome one day – whilst I look at her and think, woah you are so awesome, I will never be as awesome as you.
In the same way that reminder is helpful, so is the one for saying no. It is hard to say no. You want to make people happy. You want to take advantage of opportunities. You don’t want to let people down.
The reminder – if we don’t let other people down, we often do that at the expense of letting down ourselves, and our true priorities.
Meanwhile, for me, a bet I placed a little while ago has proven successful way beyond what I expected. And I feel a little overwhelmed, like, I know I aimed for this but I never thought it would happen and now it’s reality and… I doubt myself. I’m nervous to do it, but also nervous that this opportunity will disappear. Particularly with so much else going on, I feel like I would have liked to clear the way a little, so I could focus on this and only this.
But, it never works out that way, does it? When there’s not much going on I seem to have to seek out my adventures, but when life is chaotic adventures are thrust upon me. All you can do is set your priorities and try hard to stick to them. Work hard, but not so hard that you burn out.
Go and get that same advice again, in the hope that this time you’ll do a little better following it than before.
It was inevitable, the amount I’ve been flitting about, and the number of bugs that have been going round, but Thursday last week I came home early and pretty much keeled over. I barely got up for 3 days. Monday I got up but I was berating myself for being so lazy, annoyed at myself for having no symptoms left but still feeling so utterly unable to do anything.
The following day I woke up feeling amazing. Like, “wow I was sick, this is me normally”. After a great and productive morning I went out for lunch instead of eating at work and shortly after was ill some more.
So I was sick for 5 days and when I was finally feeling better I got food poisoning. A day later I am still feeling rough (and irritated!). But, more than anything, overwhelmed and behind with everything. Travel has this week and next being four day weeks, which is stressful. I’m also giving four talks this month, which is insane.
I feel pulled in every direction – trying to be good at my job, trying to contribute to the community, trying to be interesting, trying to be healthy and keep working out, trying to make time for my friends and my boyfriend.
It feels like I’m failing at every one of these things. I did pretty well the other week – 5 workouts (3 at 6am), dinner with a friend and mentor, girl geeks, lots of code produced. But of course the following week is an utter fail and at this point it’s got to a feeling of, “what’s the point? I’ll try and sort my life out – again – when I get back.”
The irony is, this next trip is to Seattle, where my friend and I will talk about “Secrets of Superheros”. We’re talking about the people we admire, who achieve a lot, and strategies for being a superhero too – or, more likely, realizing you already are.
During that one (rare) good week, someone asked me how I contrive to do everything. I told her it was by not responding to email. It’s like, yeah, you see me doing something useful, but there’s a lot slipping through the cracks.
And yes, my inbox is out of control. But getting everything in is always a challenge, and there are always things that I don’t manage to do. It’s the trick of the one positive thing, I guess. Saying, yeah, I’m stressed by the long list of emails I should respond to but I’ll dash of a quick reply to this one that is most bugging me. Shrugging off the fact that last night I ended up working late and then reading a whole novel, and managing to do something productive this evening in spite of it. Leaving the office at 5 to make it to one spin class this week, because one is better than nothing.
Yesterday might have been a disaster, but there’s always something you can do today that will make today at least slightly less of one, so don’t write it off as hopeless. Do it.
I’ve determined that 6am workout classes are the way to prioritize and fit in exercise. As a result, I’ve discovered that there’s something quite depressing about oversleeping and thinking “because I did not get up at 5:30 I am not going to fit in everything I want to do today”.
But on Monday I made it, and again this morning. And instead I thought – this is how committed I am to achieving everything I want to.
Crazy audacious goals, are, by their nature, hard to reach. The hardest part of a 6am workout is just making it out the door. Manage that, and the rest is pretty easy.
I’m trying a new strategy here. I have an option of two 6am classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. One is spin, which I adore, and have to leave at 5:45 for. The other is bootcamp, which is a little scarier, and I have to leave at 5:55 for. So I set my alarm for 5:30 and on Monday my feer of bootcamp propelled me out the door and up the road in time. This morning I was groggy after a later night than I should have had (Girl Geek dinner) and ended up at bootcamp.
Which wasn’t as bad as I feared. And whilst it’s likely that I still won’t achieve absolutely everything I want to today, I do feel that I made the best start I could.
What strategies do you employ for tricking yourself into things? And fitting everything in?
I have had a pretty appalling week in terms of the difference between what I wanted to achieve, and what I did achieve.
Things outside my control:
Re-aggravating shoulder injury. So much pain. Increased sleeping due to pain killers. Two trips to chiro (feeling a lot better now – finally).
Car is broken and needs a bunch of work, so we have to decide – do we buy a new one?
Server issue on something I was working on sent me down a rabbit hole where I assumed it was my fault.
Hotel sent me away with someone else’s bill (turns out, you can’t use that to do your expense report).
Things I planned/did badly:
Did not plan for a 4-day week (supposed to be on holiday today. Instead I will try and do a couple of hours work whilst packing).
Did not plan for sorting things out in order to go away. Including – checking everything for an event we’re running the week I return.
Did not plan for coming back after a week away.
Agreed – in fact, suggested – that I should go back to New York for two days, the week I get back.
Got overwhelmed and panicked.
Did not break what I was doing up well.
Did not say no. The biggest stress has come from working on something for my old team. A series of events have meant that I wasn’t able to make much progress on this until Monday afternoon. I’ve been stressed by and resenting that what I’m doing is some way away from the circumstances I agreed to. Could also have postponed a couple of meetings.
Prioritized that over the one thing that I really hoped to achieve for myself and my new team this week – getting readability.
Broke my email once a day as I tried to get through the backlog before I go away. Probably necessary, but could have structured it better rather than just going to email “between” things or instead of thinking about what to do next.
Things that worked well:
Broke things up better once it was apparently that someone else was going to have to finish what I started.
Was transparent about what I wasn’t going to get done to my new team.
Have amazing colleagues who are taking control of the event stuff whilst I’m gone.
Spoke to another amazing colleague so she can finish the feature I’ve been working on. Outlining what was happening and how it was working made me feel more capable of doing it myself in the short amount of time left!
Very lucky that my chiro was willing to be flexible and fit me in.
When working through the evening, (9pm Wednesday, 11pm Thursday) took a break for dinner. Wednesday was just a sandwich and some time with my book, Thursday I went out with work colleagues. Reminded me how much I love my job and how awesome most of the people I work with are.
Back in May, I started checking email only once a day (and sometimes not at all if I had no meetings). I had to accept that no-email days would be scarcer than I’d like, but overall it’s been a good experiment. Typically I get through it as fast as possible (< 15 mins) and once a week I have a longer purge of my “star for later” items. Here’s what I’ve found:
Most emails do not need an instant response…
… and if someone is trying to make their disorganization your emergency, you probably don’t want to give them one anyway.
I loathe having a reactive workflow and do my best to avoid it. A reactive workflow is terrible for your productivity. The argument against email once-a-day is that stuff arrives that you “need” to respond to. Sure, on occasion. What I’ve found is – not often. And by not being instantly responsive you train people to be organized in what they ask of you. In a real emergency, they can reach you by other means. I’m always on IM, and I make my phone number available. What’s amused me is when people have panicked because they couldn’t get me via those means, it’s not like me checking email more often would help. I mean, sure, even if I checked email more often, I wouldn’t check it whilst giving a talk.
For me, the stuff I want to be responsive to arrives in other places – code reviews and bugs. I can check on those things there, not in my inbox. Then it’s more deliberate, “I’ve done my current task, what am I going to work on next?”
Fewer hours at work, no discernable change in productivity.
First thing I noticed – that I checked email when I was stuck. Second – I felt happier. Third – I was getting more done and going home earlier. You know the last 30 minutes of the day when you’re tired and not making progress? Email is a good time-filler there. Makes you feel productive, but really just keeps you away from your non-work life.
People miss things anyway.
People who check mail more say that they use filters heavily. They also admit that from time to time stuff gets filtered out that they should have read. Everyone is missing stuff. When you send an email and it’s important, and you don’t get a response, you follow up. I make a point of asking people for things in person wherever possible. But no system is perfect, so I advocate doing what works best for you and makes you happiest and most productive.
Being transparent may not be the best way.
Not everyone is wild about my attitude to email. It frustrates me, because I feel that I’m more on top of email than most, but because I’m transparent and set expectations (you’ll typically receive a response within 24 hours, but no promises), if someone wants to they can seize on it as something to complain about (provided they don’t have to provide concrete examples). I think you could check email once a day – maybe less! And, if anything comes up just trot out some excuse like, “oh I was in the zone, I didn’t get to email yet”, or “no, I must have missed that” or “sorry, bunch of meetings”, and get away with it…
Make the most of it while you can.
My job title is “Software Engineer”, not “emailer”. I’m ruthless on email because I’m only interested in it such that it allows me to be a better engineer, or further certain causes (female engineers). Right now, I am not seeing any great problems caused by my attitude to email. In 3 months I’ve missed perhaps 3 things, but am happier/more productive/going home earlier and it’s not clear that short of having my phone beep with every new email I wouldn’t have missed some things anyway. I don’t know how viable this approach will be as I progress. Can a tech-lead check email only once a day? Maybe. Can a manager? Definitely not (yet another excellent reason not to take the management track).
So for now, I’m sticking with it. And enjoying it, because I’m not sure it will be viable forever.
Credit: flickr / Esparta
Interesting case-study: I’ve been doing once-a-day on my work inbox but continuing as normal on my personal inbox. Work email status: under control, pretty on top of it. Personal email status: chaos.
Mid- way through June, I paused, and wondered – why was I focusing on little things during a month of big things? I hope that end-of-May-Cate realized that this was something that June-Cate would need to stay sane. This month’s focus gave me permission to make time for small, unimportant (but important to me), things in order that I wouldn’t get buried by the big things.
The big things were – launch. I’ve been working on Google+, it’s very exciting to share what we’ve been creating with the world. Unfortunately, my visa didn’t arrive and so I couldn’t be in California with the rest of my team (a big thing, yes, but one I can do nothing about. I’m trying to stay calm and wait it out). I’ve now started working on a 20% project, which is really cool. The article that I’ve been working on went through several iterations and will be out soon. I gave an Ignite talk (this has been a vague but big-scary goal I’ve had for a while, it was good to stretch myself in this way). And my co-author refined and I edited my first journal paper. Since he’s done most of the work for it, he’s first author – but still, exciting! Towards the end of the month, two other big things came up – first is the panel Serena and I are working on, and second is a web-profile, which I’m going to keep quiet about until it’s out. But still – exciting! Not exciting but still big things – I actually got sick, as in, go to the doctor, give me antibiotics sick. I tend to get the same couple of things again and again in response to stress, and I don’t think I’ve ever needed an emergency doctors appointment before. That sucked.
Anyway, in the midst of all this I read a lot of books – especially novels. Made time for breakfast at my favorite cafe a couple of times a week. Went to the gym. Went out to things happening around town. Applied face-masks. Walked to uptown for dinner. Tried a couple of new restaurants. Got a pedicure. Didn’t travel – June was my first month without a trip in… I don’t know how long. Had a guilt-free day off. Basically, I tried to carve out as much unstructured free-time as possible. It’s been great.
July may have to be the opposite. There are a number of bureaucratic things that I’m not on top of – filing my taxes, claiming health-insurance coverage, etc. I also want to get out and explore more – to that end, I may need more structure. My boyfriend and I are going to plan things for the weekends and go and do them, first up is an aerial exploration thing, but we’d also like to go canoeing and stuff.
So July’s theme is Organization. I’m not particularly excited about this, but who does get excited about filing taxes? Some things just need to be done. Exploring is exciting, but it’s easy for this weekend not to be the right time to do whatever it is, the point is to plan and make it the right time.
How was your June? And what are you planning for July?
Arriving, stressed, on a Monday morning the other week I decided to shut the mail tab on my browser, with no intention of opening it again. This impromptu panic started a new thing – I’m checking (work) email at most once a day, if I have a meeting. No meeting days – usually one a week – are now even better than before. I think I’m more productive, but it’s hard to quantify. Those half an hour chunks which seemed only good for going through email turn out to be surprisingly productive.
I’m definitely happier and less stressed out by my inbox. I appreciate the good things that arrived (my patent is going through! Yay!) and get less stressed by the bad things. It could be the novelty – we’ll see how that goes. People are supportive of my eccentricity with respect to my inbox. It’s hardly a secret that I loathe email, and I’ve managed to keep the volume low by sending as little as possible.
The worse thing that happens is that I miss something important, but if it’s that important someone will IM me. I missed meeting someone when they emailed at the last minute, which was unfortunate, but hardly the end of the world. The tradeoffs that seemed so worrying turn out to not be very bad at all.
I think, though, that what really makes me happier is that I’m drawing lines around my day, which means that I feel more in control. It’s like not taking my laptop home with me after work. I could take it home with me and not work, which a lot of people seem to, but by not taking it home I don’t even give myself the option. It’s not, “oh I could catch up on X but I want to read my book instead” – it’s “I’m home now, what do I want to do?”
Of course, there’s a lot of things which I don’t define as work which others might – and my personal laptop carries more than it’s share of guilt. Events to attend. Talks to prepare and papers to write. This blog. What’s important to me is that whilst I might be stressed out by having too much on, I’m not stressed out by my job. I’ve drawn a clear line in my head between what is my job, and what is not – even if it’s professionally helpful to me.
There’s a few people at work who are legendary for their balance. They probably call it something different, but interacting with them I see that they too draw lines around their day. This is when I go home. I don’t work at the weekend.
Those people legendary for balance? Also incredibly productive.
My view is that that I work as long as I’ll be productive, then I leave. I don’t work later than that – at best, I borrow productivity from tomorrow. At worst, I do that and mess things up that I have to fix tomorrow. As a result, sometimes I leave at 4, sometimes I leave at 7. Overall, I don’t think I do more than 45 hours a week.
I’m not sure it matters too much what the lines are, or where you draw them. The point is, to have some – you’ll be happier for the control.
What lines do you draw around your day?
Cookie Consent
We use cookies to improve your experience on our site. By using our site, you consent to cookies.
