Get your sh*t together: How to achieve work life balance

0:00Hello and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me Fern Cotton. Today, well it's September, which I'm sorry no matter how old you get means that back to school feeling. So after a hopefully brilliantly fun summer, let's get back into a successful work routine without burning ourselves out. What people don't understand is that where perfectionism drives us, shame is there. Self-care is a form of productivity and you cannot have productivity without self-care, but also you cannot have self-care without being productive. Perfectionism says to us, hey, if you look perfect, work perfect and do it all perfectly, I can help you avoid ever feeling judgment, blame, criticism or failure.

0:43If someone is over committing and saying yes to everything, that's often because they struggle to assert boundaries. And that's a symptom of anxiety. You've got to leave and think how much of it was the fact it's a shit idea. How much of it was that they're just looking for something else. So I had to really try and objectively judge why somebody had rejected me. We talk about my mental strength from being an athlete. I feel like since retirement, I do have a lot more struggles mentally. How much do you trust your intuition around something versus thinking, I'm not professional at this, so somebody else should do things?

1:16Waking up and having a bit of purpose is very important. Oh my gosh, there's going to be so much good stuff in this episode that I need to remind myself of, quite frankly. But I hope it will be really useful for you two, no matter where you're at with your relationship, with work and ambition and motivation at the moment. We're going to start with Grace Beverley. She is going to chat through how to set boundaries to create a work-life balance that works for you. Brené Brown, one of my heroes, tackling a big old topic, perfectionism. I need that one. And Alex Partridge is coming to us live from last year's Happy Place Festival, offering some really practical tips if you're feeling anxious at work.

2:00Then Trini Woodall gets into how she's built her professional confidence and how she deals with rejection. It's a big one. Ellie Simmons has some great relatable advice about how to know when it's time to quit and find a new career passion. And then we're back to Grace Beverley, who will help you create new organisation habits so you can spend less time procrastinating and more time enjoying the work you're doing. The market's uncertain. revenues tied and hiring on hold that's why results driven companies are using upwork to keep work moving go to upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast no bulky overhead no rigid long-term contracts just the right expert right when you need them work smarter and faster with upwork go to upwork.com now and find your freelance expert that's upwork.com Post a job for free and get started today.

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4:29Right, here we go. This is the show.

4:53you wrote a book working hard hardly working which totally um dives into this subject matter of being successful yet not burning yourself out and knowing what your strengths are and putting boundaries in place that you don't completely crumble and burn out you're running three successful businesses the onus is on you if they're not doing well you can't run and hide they're your babies you want them to succeed yet you don't want to hit burnout and I think also it's a very western but also very British thing for us to boast about how busy we are some people do that not everybody or just be absolutely drowning in tiredness because you're pushing yourself and you say in the book we are at this sort of strange point where you're either or you're not sure if you're completely burnt out or by social media standards not quite productive enough right some of us are just like I don't know which one I am I'm sort of burnt out but also am I doing enough I'm not achieving enough and we're all a bit sort of lost in that maybe yeah yeah no absolutely and I think it's a hugely important topic when it comes to actually like diving into where you sit within that and what our own boundaries are and like understanding that self-care is a form of productivity and you cannot have productivity without self-care but also you cannot have self-care without being productive like sometimes self-care is about reaching that deadline that you said you would reach three times and now you know you're you're letting it not happen again like there are two sides of this and it's really hard to know on social media I think one of the biggest issues is the fact that you're talking to so many people and you don't know if that person needs a little push at that moment or if they do need to sit back or whatever it might be I think in terms of what I've done to be able to get to a point where I at the moment and like you know comes in waves but at the moment feel like I've got a good balance of you know what I'm happy with it's a number of different things it's understanding that balance is not a 50 50 at all if I've set up my work in the right way then I really love what what I'm doing and like that doesn't need to be the same for everyone and some people can think that going home at seven from the office is like terrible but actually like I I love work in lots of ways and I'm really really fortunate to be in the position I'm in working on something so amazing and like why why shouldn't I love it and actually knowing that actually that doesn't need to be my mum said something the other day that like really resonated with me someone had said to her like you're never happy you're always wanting to go to the like next thing and you just finished this one and now you want to do this one and like you just need to like you just need it and she was like no you don't understand I'm happy because I'm doing all of these things all the time and I was like oh my god that's me and I've always like ingrained it in the way where I think that like there's something wrong with me because I'm wanting to do the next thing and go on to the next thing and aim for whatever it might be and I like scold myself constantly like you should just do this you should just do this and actually we are all different types of people and actually if that's what's making me feel energized at the moment like that's absolutely fine and that's a hugely fortunate position to be in and like great if that if the thing that you enjoy can also be the thing that makes you money and like all of these things don't get me wrong you're not going to enjoy every day of it but it is you know it's a great position to be in I think boundaries are a huge huge part how are you with those I have got better and better and I think that running a company you can't have a certain amount of boundaries because if it needs you it needs you but I also think that you can have the rest of the you can't use that there's an excuse to not set any boundaries the rest of the time so for example I have some really hard and fast rules around like how I spend my week so I on weeknights I will only do things two days like I will not go any further than that and like if it looks like I'm free on those extra days it's I'm not free like that's time for myself and I know the second I go over that threshold is the second that everything will be effective work home life personal tasks like whatever it might be I know that I cannot go over that threshold so it's a one-in-one-out process it's understanding like how I recharge as a whole it's understanding how to say no to things even if they sound like great things because you've got too many things in that week or whatever it might be a huge part of it as well as an entrepreneur has been hiring people that are better than me at what they do like your team and your business is only ever as good as the people within it and like learning to hire really fantastic people and relinquish control and delegate effectively has been without a doubt the best thing for my mental health but also for the business I think that there is you know even at a managerial level so not even looking at like the entrepreneurship kind of angle we're ingrained with this kind of fear that makes us hire people that are not as good as us like it's seen as this it's like a protection mechanism because you don't want to feel worse about yourself and you don't want to feel replaceable but actually I think that there's a huge amount of value in always always always hiring the best person that you could possibly hire and like if that means that they can take over like all of this and they can make you be able to do something else or whatever it might be fantastic being able to delegate and relinquish control has been so so so important in order to mean that the business is not me yeah when it goes back to looking at your strengths again and knowing that you can play to them.

10:07I'm the same with, you know, like Anushka who edits the podcast. I can't edit a podcast. I haven't got a fucking clue. But I, if I then work with someone who's brilliant at what they do, I've got more time and energy to go, right, how am I going to research this podcast as well as I can? How am I going to create a new idea for something? It's about really playing to your strengths rather than trying to be everything for everybody, which is ultimately going to lead you to burnout. Yeah, exactly. claim. I started as a shame researcher 20 something years, 21 years ago, I guess. And I first started studying just women in shame.

10:41And I remember interviewing people, you know, in their 50s, 60s, that their whole lives were defined by it. And for those of you listening, thinking, okay, what is she talking about with shame? I'm talking about this deeply painful experience of believing that we're flawed and somehow unworthy of love and belonging and connection, that something we've done or failed to do makes us unworthy. And it's very different than guilt. Guilt is, I did something bad and shame is I am bad. And we know from now probably going on 60, 70 years of research that guilt is helpful. Guilt is when I hold a behavior up against who I want to be and my values and there's cognitive dissonance.

11:25It creates a psychological discomfort. We're like, shit, that is not who I want to be as a daughter, as a partner, as, you know, a professor, a leader. And I need to, I need to bring things into alignment. Shame is a whole different thing. Shame is I'm not enough. I think the good news is I think what you need is probably self-compassion. You know, when I think about self-compassion, I always think about talk to myself like I would talk to someone I love. And when I hold up how I talk to myself, when I screw something up versus how I talk to my children, it's just, it's night and day. You know, if I, if my kids make a mistake, I'll first say, you know what, it's okay.

12:08You're human. Making mistakes is a part of, this is part, this is a part of who we are. You know, when I make a mistake personally, I think to myself, God, you idiot. God, you're so stupid. and I would never, ever talk to my kids that way. Do you think it's getting worse because the notion of perfectionism is ubiquitous, you know, now more than ever? And we can see, we can't see it, but we think we can see it on social media, this weird, elusive perfection that we'll never quite reach and therefore self-compassion is sort of dwindling because we think we're missing the mark constantly because there's this amazing perfection that we'll never quite get to.

12:47It's really interesting that you brought up perfectionism at this point in our conversation, because what people don't understand is that where perfectionism drives us, shame is there. So perfectionism is a function of shame. Yeah. Yeah, it's really funny. Oh, it's such a painful lesson to learn. Like I'm processing it as you're saying it going, of course, this is why I keep fucking up. No, I mean, it's so it was really funny. A million years ago, when I when I thought it was just me first came out, I did like a had a little microphone on my kitchen table at home. And I did a little read along.

13:26And someone emailed and said, Oh, man, I know this book is on shame and women. My friends and I don't really do shame, but we have a lot of perfectionism. If you ever decide to do anything on perfectionism, will you send an email blast out? And then there was like a five line signature, like her name, her title, her company. But then under the signature, there was a little PS that said, the two are not related, are they? Yeah. And so I wrote back. And the bad news is. Yes. And the bad news is, yes, because let me, let's break down perfectionism because it's so helpful to understand it. So the thing to understand is that in the research and data and by social psychologists and neurologists and neurobiology people, the opposite of perfectionism is healthy striving or striving for excellence.

14:19So for people who are successful at striving for excellence, perfectionism is not the path, it's the greatest barrier. So what perfectionism is, is actually one of our most dangerous defense mechanisms. Perfectionism says to us, hey, Fern, if you look perfect, work perfect, and do it all perfectly, I can help you avoid ever feeling judgment, blame, criticism, or failure. You just need to do it all perfectly. I'm right here. We can do that. So what it is, it's a defense mechanism against shame, judgment, belittlement, failure. So we try to do it. And inevitably, we fail because perfection doesn't exist.

15:05But for those of us, and it's really a process addiction. Because for those of us, myself included, who struggle with perfectionism, when we make a mistake, or when we inevitably, regardless of how well we do something, feel shame, criticism, blame, we don't say to ourselves, man, this shit does not work. I'm not doing this. We say, I wasn't quite perfect enough. Yeah. What a horrible little vicious circle. Vicious. Yeah. So then we double down. So I call perfectionism the 20 ton shield. We think we carry it around to keep us from being hurt. But what it actually does is it keeps us from being seen.

15:48And it is so addictive. And in the workplace, again, it's spotting the signs of anxiety. The biggest manifestation of neurodiversity in the workplace is always anxiety. Spotting what an anxious employee looks like. Is someone abruptly removing themselves from a situation, from a meeting? Is someone turning up late when before they were quite punctual? Is someone saying yes to everything? If someone is over committing and saying yes to everything, that's often because they struggle to assert boundaries. And that's a symptom of anxiety, recognizing what an anxious employee looks like. And I think as business owners, the key takeaway I've learned is that if you accommodate neurodiversity, if you put things in place that enables the neurodivergent mind to become activated, there's so many positives.

16:44And how do we do that? We can allow people to have flexible start times. So many people come into work and they're already frazzled because they've been overwhelmed by the rush hour traffic or the busy tube. And in meetings, don't let the loudest voice dictate the decision to a problem. Give the problem to the group and then let the whole company go away. And in their own time, they can submit solutions to the problem. Because if you let the loud employee in the meeting dictate the decision, quite often the neurodivergent employee will be sat there at the table, tapping their foot, biting their fingernails, too anxious to contribute.

17:24More often than not, the best ideas are trapped inside anxious mind. And things like normalizing fidget toys and noise cancelling headphones, giving a map of the building. there's so many things that if you accommodate neurodiversity within your business then you'll give yourself a competitive advantage over your competition. If you are in the workplace and you've got a diagnosis or not but you've got an inkling maybe listening to this very chat has made someone go god yeah a lot of this is really ringing true. If you are in the workplace and that anxiety is eating away at you how can we put things in place to help ourselves because yes you're right if you are a business owner everything you've just listed is so highly important that we create a really diverse workplace where everybody's got a say and that we're accommodating for how people's minds work very differently but I think you know I've perhaps worked out a few coping mechanisms like you know doing a festival like this is not necessarily a calming scenario not gonna lie this morning felt like running into that woodland and never coming back and I can put a few things in place to just dampen that anxiety but I've certainly had times in other jobs where the anxiety has been so intense that I've left the job you know I left covering for Zoe Bourne Radio 2 because I couldn't get a hold of that anxiety and my brain was so fizzy and so non-stop that it was too much what do you do if you're in a situation where you're like oh that feeling is coming on up it's there.

19:02What are you doing to just quieten that down a bit? Recognising it is super important. Recognising your own early signs of anxiety and advocating for yourself. I think the intuition that so many of us have is so strong. Advocating for yourself in businesses, finding a buddy in the company that you work for and being confident to be able to open up with them and tell them I'm struggling now. Can you cover for me? And actually just allowing, I think movement is so important. If I'm having an anxious moment, just standing up and walking around the office or advocating for walking meetings is so important.

19:46I mean, there's loads of breathing techniques you can do. You can remove yourself from the situation. You can take a timeout. All of these are useful things. I always have a fidget toy if I'm doing a podcast i don't today um but putting movement into the situation recognizing what caused the anxiety is super important recognizing what was said what happened that triggered that thought and and how you're responding to it i think body doubling is a super useful tool to cure anxiety because it lowers the expectations and it takes the pressure off when you're in that office and that anxiety is peaking.

20:29If you've got someone who you can lean on in that moment and actually you feel safe with that person, then the workload is spread between the two of you. You're allowed to work from home. It's really important to understand the legal obligations that companies have. If you're struggling with anxiety, you're allowed to ask to work from home. You're allowed to ask for flexible start times. You're allowed to have a quiet space in the office and to decompress and to advocate for walking meetings around the office. So there's lots of things that legally you're allowed to do if anxiety is really disabling you from doing the job that you're capable of doing if you were working in an environment that was tailored to your brain.

21:13Understanding what those are, you don't have to have a diagnosis of any neurodivergent conditions to ask for these things. And I think it's important to really recognize your rights as an employee. Anxiety should never stop you from achieving and being able to do what you're able to do. The market's uncertain, revenues tied and hiring on hold. That's why results driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to Upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork.

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23:28All right, let's get back to it with Trini Woodall, Ellie Simmons and Grace Beverley. I think when our self-worth is in a great place, that applies to our personal life because then we value our love for ourself and therefore how people treat us in their life and decisions we make. So I think that's very my personal life. And with work, my wouldn't should and could comes from trust. Trust of the team. Trust they're making the right decision. Trust I'm making the right decision. It's more about trust. So if in my personal life I have times of questioning, it's about my self-worth. And in work it's about trust.

24:05That's how I separate it out. I totally get that. And I think when you, especially when you look at the work bit, when you love what you do. Yeah. And you so desperately want it to be perfect. I'm talking from my perspective. I want things to go really bloody well. It's hard to trust because you've got to let go. You've got to relinquish control. Yeah. Let other people do things and hope for the best some of the time. And that is... It's a tricky one. Do you... Where does your sense of, I guess, in your work life and your personal life, your sense of confidence come from in what you're doing and those decisions you're making?

24:44Like you say, you know, maybe you learned a lot of these lessons early on in life and you understood there would be consequences to things in your actual life. Are there any moments in particular that stand out maybe in your early years where you thought that was a lesson I really didn't want to learn, but I had to. And it's given you the resilience, the drive, the confidence. I think when you have an idea for something. So I had an idea of something before I started training London in 98. Susanna and I were doing a column in The Telegraph. and the internet came about and there wasn't even e-com but I loved it I'd always loved tech I had my first apple in 84 right I'd been obsessed and so I said Susanna we want to do something online because I think everyone's going to go online we need to do stuff so I did for a weekend this fast I was doing in this avian bottle and it was this red powder and I think because I just wanted clarity and somebody said if you have a good idea to have two days where you just have this fast and your brain will become clearer all right so after day two my brain was fried and i've got shit day three i had clarity so i wrote down what i felt the idea was and i shared it with susanna and then we went off to see cable and wireless which is a now defunct company but they were a company who had done some promotion with the horse whisperer which had a cd rom cd rom let's take back to those days.

26:09Yeah, our floppy desk. Yeah, which had something to do with e-com. And not e-com, but just online. I think they had a site online and anyway. But I just thought they're the people who know stuff. I mean, that's how embryonic it was. So we went to see this one. We said we wanted to, you know, have a destination online. Women call it ready to have all these different, you know, cooking area, beauty area, clothing area, everything. And she said, what money are you wanting to raise? I said, 500 ,000. Susanna kicked me hard under the table because this was not in the script. and um and she said why the fuck do you ask and I said well I just had to have a number out of my head so then two weeks later we get an email I think there were emails by then and she said you you didn't ask the right amount we're going to we think it's 650 ,000 pounds you need um and um you know I was like what do you want in return she said well we want the logo of cable and wireless on on the website so then we started a business from that and then we raised money and it was a time called dot-com boom.

27:06It was when everybody was making things. So it was a time when you'd go to, there used to be this red herring conference. So Michael from Calm was talking about it. I was talking. It was really early cowboy days. So very quickly we hired 60 people and I thought I'm not, I don't know how to run a business, so I'll hire a CEO. I don't know how to market this thing. So I'll, you know, so literally Suzanne and I are the founders. I worked crazy at it. Yeah. in an intense overworking way. I'd call Susanna up at 8.30. She'd just had a baby and say, where are you? And she'd say, I'm breastfeeding. And I said, well, when are you coming in?

27:40There wasn't even, well, how is the baby? It was very, all my attention was on this. But I did hire in these people thinking, I'm not qualified to do this. I sort of have an intuitive idea. And within 18 months, maybe two years, we had to close the business. And Susanna was going off having another baby. And I had to close the business. and I remember sitting now in this tiny office because we'd had to give up the lease I had to let everyone go I'd wanted to give them all three months salary they were really great set of girls and I sat there in this office feeling really low thinking what the fuck is next you know and I went off to a retreat in Arizona called Cottonwood which is a rehab but they do retreats for afterwards when you're just doing work on yourself and you're in recovery and it was it's called an inner path workshop so it was about getting to yourself looking at your fears and all that stuff and I remember doing this cacti walk through a bit of the garden looking out at the desert and I had that moment of saying I don't necessarily a higher power is that concept of something that is stronger than you and I just said whatever's going to come has come but let me be open to whatever is going to come so I'm open I'm not trying to write the script I'm surrendering because it's you know this last six months has been hell and I came back to England and Susanna and I about nine months before we're done pilot for the BBC and then they called up so will you do the show about two weeks after so but that moment had really made me question all these things about how much do you trust your intuition around something versus thinking I'm not professional at this so somebody else should do things so when I started Trini London nine years ago I mean 10 years ago I had the idea but we launched several years ago I did the opposite of what I did then so I've got to trust my gut yeah and I have this big thing the difference between intuition and instinct so if I think of instinct for me it's you know step away from the stove it's hot yeah and it's generally for me a stepping back it's like you know whereas intuition is something is hitting you in your stomach and it will guide you forward so I nearly think one is more positive than the other you know instinct can be protective you know you run down the street and there's a car coming at you you know you instinctively get out of it yeah but intuition is more interesting and it's when we really value our intuition so in those early days of trini london i had to really value and say trini you know know that you know women in this way know that you you know stick to remembering there's some moments when i felt will anyone ever get the idea you know i saw lots of people to raise money once I kind of got to a certain stage and I saw 250 people and one did you know so just that when you it's like being an actress where you're continuously turned down for a role so you've got to leave the role you know you've got to leave and think how much of it was the fact it's a shit idea how much of it was that they're just looking for something else how much of it was that maybe they saw some people this morning and in fact they never want to invest in this area anyway.

30:43So I had to really try and objectively judge why somebody had rejected me. I mean, I'm always fascinated whenever I've interviewed sports personalities about the bit after you retire, essentially, because you know that that career is not going to go on forever. Sporting careers, you know, depending on what the sport is, they do stop early. So you've always got that thought of what's next, but you've also got this mindset that is naturally competitive. Otherwise, you wouldn't be in sport in the first place. You've obviously filled your time greatly. You've been making award-winning documentaries, doing lots of charitable efforts as well.

31:20I mean, was that a thought during your professional swimming career? Like, what is next? What do I do after this? Do you know what? It's funny because we have an amazing support system when we are in the pool and with the team. And they're always telling us to think about what's next, like to plan the future. but when you're so in the zone and so just bubble wrapped in your career as a swimmer you never actually think about the future for me as well especially I think being so young from Beijing 13 and London 2012 the biggest games for myself and having a home games I was 17 so I never really focused on school and education and I'm not the most academic anyway so I didn't have that to fall back on but still I was so just wrapped up in being a swimmer that I never really thought about the future so when I made that decision to retire there was that massive question what is next and I didn't know and I don't know like I'm very thankful and grateful for all the opportunities that I'm getting but you lose a massive part of yourself and that identity and it's really funny actually because I love planning like I love being organized I'm getting more relaxed now not being a swimmer and not having that structure but it's funny when I was a swimmer I knew where I had to be not just a day but the week the year the four-year cycle of a Paralympics and then all of a sudden that goes out the window and I actually hadn't planned my future but I think in a way I was the total opposite because swimming was so regimented I needed that escapism I needed to get away from being so regimented that I could wake up and do whatever I wanted to do but actually there's pros and cons to that the pros is that I've got this freedom to do whatever but then the cons are there's too much choice and I didn't actually know what I wanted to do so yeah it was very much figuring things out and also I think the it's funny like we talk about my mental strength from being an athlete I feel like since retirement I do have a lot more struggles mentally because you for me when I was a swimmer I had that tangible thing that I knew I was good at my medals were something that gave me confidence whereas now you say like maybe you're winning the BAFTA or something is is good but you're still like questioning to yourself actually what am I good at now like that thing that was swimming has gone and that there's nothing to grip onto to give me that security that I'm okay that I'm working hard or that I'm doing something you know so interesting I think so many people grapple with this the the amount of your self-esteem that comes from achievement and also what not only what you know you're good at but what other people see you as so other people like you are you know an elite athlete and that is that is your identity so then when you're not in that arena you're free-falling you know what what am I who am I It's a really big question.

34:22Do you feel any closer to figuring out or even caring about figuring it out? You know what? I think caring. Yeah, I'd like to have that confidence to know that I'm OK at something or good at something. But there is still that questionable thing. Like you're still even four years retired now. And I love I I'm trying to I think I'm getting to the point where I'm now figuring out what I don't like doing, which I think helps to figure things out. so I'm like I know what I'm like in doing so I think that's helping because I think happiness is the biggest thing and I think I'm getting to that point where I'm loving what I'm doing work-wise and I'm loving what I'm doing social-wise so I'm getting that balance better I guess the pendulum swings back a bit because I remember even like watching that Usain Bolt documentary which I just absolutely loved and you could see towards the end of his professional career he was so desperate to go to Rio Carnival party drink loads it was like he felt you know because you do miss out on it all your life as you said is so regimented I'm imagining you're in the pool at like 5am every day you're just it's your life and and then when you get the opportunity to do all the other stuff it's like I can do all of it but of course that's not sustainable either you know there is that moment of balance where you know you've got the structure but it's not as regimented but equally you're not just you know moving about doing whatever you want whenever you want because that then becomes boring yeah it's having that fine balance and I think for me I knew when I wanted to retire because I was getting more resentful I was whereas beforehand before leading into Tokyo 2021 before those couple of years before those games I was all I wanted to do was swimming and be with my teammates and be traveling whereas I remember going on riding to the tube to training before Tokyo and be like if I had time I could be doing like yoga or I could be doing hanging out with my friends so you know mentally that swimming it was a good time to retire in Tokyo because I was just getting more resentful and I've never ever been like that and you want to do and especially sport you've got to give everything to it you've got to live and breathe your sport you've got to think about the things that you do outside the pool you've got to think about sleep you've got to think about walking eating all this is just affects your time in the pool so yeah I was very much ready to just not think but again like you said then to have that balance I think is really really important because I think we all need purpose don't we we all need a purpose to wake up and have something to do because if you wake up and think oh yes you've got all this choice sometimes too much choice is actually the worst thing because you you don't know what to do and waking up and having a bit of purpose is is very important If there's someone listening to this right now who feels apathetic, unmotivated, just meh, like we've all been through it, when you just feel like, I don't care, I don't know, I don't want to get out of bed.

37:16What would your first step be to motivating yourself and getting into a productive mindset? So I always talk about the fact that motivation purely comes down to habits, like habits are the backstop for all motivation. you cannot like no one wakes up and feels motivated first thing in the morning or some people do I personally do not at all it all comes down to habits like even just you getting out of bed and brushing your teeth and washing your face like those are habits so the more things that put you in a productive mindset that become habits the better so the productivity method itself is based on a few very simple kind of methodologies so the first one is to make sure that every single day you are writing down your to-do list but it's not going to be a to-do list it's not going to be a list of an endless list of things and you've got kind of like washing your hair and sending a really important email on the same list weighted to the same importance when you know that if you just washed your hair today it probably wouldn't actually be a successful day um you're going to split that to-do list into quick ticks tasks and projects love do you know how much i love lists you are speaking like i'm almost salivating lists to me are the cornerstone to sanity but they are the cornerstone and there is also there are scientific reasons behind why they are the cornerstone because when you go about your day and you race into your day and you're starting something straight away without having done this before you are depriving your body of the dopamine hit it needs by defining what success is so yeah I need to send this email and then ticking that off oh that without that that tick what dreams are made I can't it's I do a full line through and a tick done dead to me heaven is there a better feeling no I don't think there is but it's also like when you start to realize that it's like your body actually needs it like you You need that dopamine hit of being like, I have done that task.

39:20And if you race into your day feeling like a headless chicken without having got through all of these things, then you are literally depriving yourself of the dopamine hit that you need by defining what success is, aka writing out your to-do list, and ticking it off, achieving success. Are you the sort of person that you've got to do the worst thing first? Like one of my friends said her husband, I'm going to give him a shout out, Liz and Al. Al said to Liz his saying is eat your frogs eat the frog eat the frog first I don't really get the analogy but I understand the sentiment do the worst thing first is that a good idea?

39:55I think you'll know if it's a good idea for you some people do need a warm up and I think that we shouldn't like shame people for not all productivity methods working for them but the point behind it is the fact that like you gather proof that you can also do today so like first of all you've got the worst task done that's amazing by like 9 15 you're already feeling pretty good about yourself but you've also proven to yourself that today is going to be a good day so there's like two different sides there's a psychological side and also the fact that you've ticked it off and literally got it done but the the way i do things with this kind of split up to-do list is that these quick ticks are under five minutes the tasks are five to 30 minutes and the projects are 30 minutes plus right and like you can kid yourself that it's going to take longer than a to-do list but it like it's categorically not you're still just writing things down you're just putting them into their pre-aligned place and then what you're going to do is you're going to choose out of those so it can be from any category you're going to choose three non-negotiables and the reason for this again is it's the dopamine thing but it's also that it's so easy to look at a huge list whether it's split up into categories or not and feel completely overwhelmed and feel like oh my god i can't get this done today and the whole point is is that actually probably if you chose three things on that list and you got them done and they weren't all quick ticks that would be a successful day oh hugely but what so many people do is they get this kind of fear and you end up procrastinating by either doing less important tasks or by just looking at it and being like oh my god there's so much to do and it's like take it three ticks at a time like honestly just three ticks at a time but work out by the end of this day which are the three things in that to-do table which is what we call it what are those three things in that to-do table that you absolutely need to have got done heaven you prove to yourself again and again and again that today doesn't need to be big it doesn't need to be getting everything done what it cannot be is you spending day after day after day getting a well overwhelmed at how many things there are that need to be done rather than like breaking that down and feeling worse because you haven't done them there's nothing worse like i've got one thing on my list that i keep thinking oh god and it's just it's still on the it's still my same bloody post-it and it hasn't gone and I know that if I just do it tomorrow yeah which I can I'll feel so much lighter and better we underestimate that amazing feeling and we yeah we underestimate as well proving to ourself on like a micro level that like we can do it and like it sounds so childish and it sounds so like but we do like you you have a really hard day you finish the day you feel drained you get home you're dreading the next day already you get up in the morning you need to prove to yourself that you can do today before you start proving to yourself that you can't yeah and that's what writing down this to-do table and those three non-negotiables do like that's literally all it is yeah and if you need if you're the type of person that needs to eat the frog as well and you need to like do the worst task first like you know how good you'll feel tomorrow if you do that task first thing i think that purpose part from ellie is so important the work or the job itself can change over time but it's so useful to have had that chat with yourself about what you fundamentally feel fired up about achieving or giving back to the world.

43:07My work-life balance is a roller coaster. So over the summer, like many of you parents, it was an absolute shit show of a juggle, trying to keep the kids entertained, keep on top of work. I had the Happy Place Festival, so it was all quite overwhelming. So I actually really like September. I really like the kids getting back into the school routine. I've got the chance to get a little bit more organised in the day. I know how Monday to Friday works and I really want to prioritise using my time wisely so I'm not procrastinating as much so I can have more downtime, more time to try and do nothing, which I'm absolutely dreadful at.

43:46That is my latest goal. A massive thanks to everyone whose voices you've heard today. There'll be links in the show notes to their full episodes if you want to listen back. Big thank you to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios and to you, I love ya.

44:09so

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