Why Working Less Won't Make You Happier

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0:33We started our fundraiser for Mariah. She was a close friend in my heart, but she was also family. She was my sister-in-law. She unfortunately passed from a car accident, so it wasn't something that we were prepared for. Shortly after we got the news, I was put in charge of helping with the funeral arrangements and everything. And just looking at the overall cost, it didn't feel right for me to ask the family that's grieving for money. That's what made me go to GoFundMe. And it just became a network of people that were willing to come together to help. GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people.

1:11You really do miss out on the opportunity to help people if you don't ask. When you actually put your heart, your soul into it, and you're like, this is the reason I'm doing it, it helps a lot. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com. Arrayo Original Podcast.

1:35Before we get started, if you're enjoying reworking, make sure you're following or subscribing where you're listening. It helps us reach more people and means you'll never miss an episode. Welcome to Ask Tim Anything. Today's episode is all about something we all want, work-life balance. Now, I have to be honest, I'm not sure balance means working nine to five, Switching your laptop off and never thinking about work again. For some people, that's the dream. For others, work is something they genuinely love. The challenge isn't how many hours you work, it's whether your work is running your life instead of supporting it.

2:07So today we're talking about boundaries, burnout, ambition, and how to build a career you're proud of without sacrificing everything else that matters along the way. Now, I'm no career coach or therapist, but I've spent a lot of my life building businesses and experiencing this work-life balance challenge personally. learning from brilliant people along the way. So if there's something I've learned that could help change your way of working a little differently for the better, then I've done my job right. Let's get into today's questions.

2:41So we've got a question from Emma in Sheffield who got in touch on email at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk. Her question is, you always seem to be on the go all the time, whether it's speaking on The Apprentice or doing your podcast. I'd love to know how many hours a week do you actually work? Do you really switch off at 5pm when the working day is done? Well, there's a lot of different answers to this. And I think I've got to just tell you the honest one, right? Because my wife will be listening and my worried mother will also be listening. And the honest answer is I work an awful lot. I don't tend to finish work at five o 'clock anytime.

3:19and my days tend to be long starting today I was up at half five I had to get some stuff prepared before I left out for six o 'clock I had to pick up a young man called Tyler came to work with me and we've been doing stuff all throughout the day right so no day is normal and no day is set for me but actually I enjoy that so you list all the stuff that I'm doing about speaking apprentice and the podcast there's a myriad of different things in there but all of those things I enjoy so when I'm thinking about work I don't want to give you the cliche answer like I never switch off and it's always gone to go but I don't watch the clock when I'm working and that's where I think we need to get to when we're discussing about work the reality for me is I don't think there is an ideal mix of how much work you should do and how much time you should switch off I think there's an unhealthy balance when you can do too much work and don't get enough time definitely and you should never prioritize things that impact your health over making sure that you live well because the better you are the better your business will be the better your work will be the better your relationships will be however i think the reality of where we are today many people have to work to live and that's really important because bills are high bills have to get paid people want to go on dates or want to go on holidays that's not going to come out of thin air but I would say the ideal holy grail for me and what I'm trying to aspire to is find a work and a life that's aligned a good friend of mine wonderful mentor in my life a woman called Karen Blackett she talks about work in this way she calls it everybody should find a work-life blend you want to find something that blends in with your life which gives you the relationship interactions that everybody in the world needs but also fills you with a purpose-driven output which you get paid for that's the holy triangle which i think most people are trying to aspire towards and if you can find that then the work and the hours don't matter so much you then focus on the impact and how fulfilled your life is but for many that is a distance away but that's what i drive myself through is trying to find work that aligns with who i am what i enjoy and working with people that I want to spend time with.

5:38I wish I could say I switch off at five o 'clock. I work weekends. I work into the early hours of the morning. I probably get about four or five hours sleep a night, right? But that works for me. I am good at working at level. And because of the work that I do, that allows me to push through when I need to. That being said, I also like long holidays and big breaks and switching off and going and watching my kids compete at competitions, spending time with my wife at restaurants. I have a balance, which means I put the time in to afford the things that I want in life. And that's the way that I get around stuff.

6:18It may not be the healthiest, but I know what my priority and focus is. For you, Emma, I think, or for anyone thinking about the work-life balance, I think what you've got to do is say, see it as a bit of a bank account. If you're putting stuff into it, you want it to grow and accumulate interest and be better as a result of coming out on the other side and if your work is only taken away from you then you might want to think about is this the right thing for me to do or can I find other activities outside of work which build up that balance so you're better at equilibrium for me I'm really lucky everything I put in on all the different things I do gives me a huge amount of rewards hence why I keep wanting to put in I hope you find that as well we've got a question in from Tom in Newcastle I constantly feel guilty when I'm not working even when I'm on holiday I find myself checking teams just in case there's something someone might need does that ever go away do you ever get this well I do get this Tom I totally empathize with what your position is but I get this because I really care about the work that I'm doing and I I know there's a lot of people who are reliant on sometimes my feedback or direction.

7:32But what it also highlights to me, Tom, and this might be something that you need to think about, is that I forced myself to be central to lots of decisions, which is great for my ego, but it may not be great for my well-being or the growth of the thing that I'm responsible for. because if I can't go away and allow myself to recover, recuperate or go and get some necessary downtime, then maybe I haven't built the thing correctly or I haven't got the support structure in place to allow me to do that because no one should feel guilty for having downtime. Everyone deserves it. It's a human condition.

8:13It's the reason why we sleep and recover. Our bodies are made up of that, right? We need to be able to stop working and rest and live, enjoy restaurants and parties and other things. That's okay. But there's also a bit where if you feel that you should always be there, that shows a caring part of your personality where you really care about what you're doing. So that's not a bad thing. It's just making sure that it doesn't become negative where you become a bottleneck, where you're the only central one to every single decision. Because you never want to be the sole factor that something might succeed or collapse, because that just means that you've built it around you, which means that you trust yourself.

8:55OK, but people might not trust that as a process. I think for many people who need to be central to everything, they can suffer sometimes with a lack of trust or they want to have full control. And I think that's OK because ultimately you definitely can trust what your own capabilities are because you know them best. But I think the only way that things grow and scale and become more efficient is that you have to empower people with knowledge and information. and then you have to trust them to get on with stuff. And for you, if you're a leader, if you're a manager, a business owner, or even if you're in a relationship, like you're thinking about parenting and stuff, you have to be able to empower somebody with more information that you might have.

9:41So sharing is caring, but then you also have to step back and trust them that they're going to deliver based on what you've taught them. Otherwise you have to question yourself, are you that good a teacher? And have you made a mistake and passed along the right pieces of information? If I have a team of people who are constantly checking in with me after I've told them what to do, I'm more worried about their capability than mine. Because if I've given you clear instructions, you didn't question me at the time or give enough information, and you just said, yes, Tim, I understand, and you're troubling me while I'm on the sun lounger, then we might have to have a different kind of conversation.

10:12But I understand exactly where the concern and angst could be. And I definitely still get the pang, at least in the first three or four days of a holiday, thinking oh my gosh what's happening what's going to go wrong what should i do next what you should be doing as somebody in work responsible for teams or responsible for a company is that you should build in mitigating factors which allow for you not to be there but everything can continue smoothly most people are really afraid of doing that because they're worried that they'll become redundant and they'll no longer be necessary but what actually you're doing is giving a gift to other people will reduce their risk and can cover the inevitability that sometimes you might have to go home and get a bit of a kip so I definitely get the guilt when I'm away on holiday my wife always berates me and gives me dirty looks across the sun lounges when I'm checking my emails and I do it because it's a bit of a habit but I also do it because I like the ego of being in charge and then being a deciding factor but that bit of ego reminds me that I need to empower other people to go and make the decisions so I can enjoy my pina colada in the sunshine.

11:24This podcast is supported by GoFundMe. My name is Veronica. We started our fundraiser for Mariah. She was a close friend in my heart, but she was also family. She was my sister-in-law. She unfortunately passed from a car accident, so it wasn't something that we were prepared for. Shortly after we got the news, I was put in charge of helping with the funeral arrangements and everything. And just looking at the overall cost, it didn't feel right for me to ask the family that's grieving for money. That's what made me go to GoFundMe. And it just became a network of people that were willing to come together to help.

12:01GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform trusted by over 200 million people. You really do miss out on the opportunity to help people. if you don't ask. When you actually put your heart, your soul into it and you're like, this is the reason I'm doing it, it helps a lot. Start your GoFundMe today at GoFundMe.com. That's GoFundMe.com. GoFundMe.com.

12:27We've got a question in from Priya in Bethnal Green, an area I know very, very well. East End, I love it. Her question is, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given about work-life balance? Do you still use it today? Well, Priya, I've got two. I'll be greedy here. That's typically my nature, isn't it? You say one and I'll give you two. But the first one is one I always use. You might remember I talked about Karen Bleckett when I was talking about work-life balance before. She tells me when she thinks about work-life balance, she restructures it. She talks about a work-life blend. She says, find work that fulfills your life and you'll never have to think about a balance because it will always be there.

13:04I love that because it's really about finding your purpose, aligning yourself to that purpose and then doing work that fulfills that purpose. So if you can find a place which aligns with who you are meant to be, you don't have to worry about the balance between work and life because they overlap. For many of us at work now, our work inevitably overlaps our life because you spend huge amounts of time at work, probably more time than you spend with your partner or your children or your significant others. And that's quite hard to circle sometimes. So therefore, if you're going to spend so much time, and time I think is the most precious commodity we have, you might as well do something that you really enjoy and actually is going to give you a great amount of benefits.

13:48The other piece of advice that I'd say is that you don't have to do everything today. I think there's a huge amount of pressure on everybody to do everything immediately. Everything's immediate. You get an email, you have to reply to it within an hour, or you think that you're dissing the person who sent it. You get a text message, the alert goes off, the dopamine rush, you pick up the phone and you press the reply. There's so much speed in everything now when I think the best piece of advice I've got is to reverse that and slow down. If you can slow down, take your time, actually you'll be more productive and you have a better engagement at work because you're not just constantly rushing.

14:25When I go into workplaces, I see everyone running. Everyone's running 100 miles an hour, running to the water cooler, running to the microwave, running to the meeting. Sometimes I just want to see the person who's walking casually to their next thing, taking a breath, understanding what they want to do, why they're doing it, and just having a controllable focus around what they want to do when everybody else is running around frantically. So work-life blend and just slow down. That's, I think, what you need to do to get a great work-life balance. And I definitely try to use both of those as much as I can today and always.

15:01don't ask my wife she'll probably say that Tim you're nonsense you're always running around anyway but the attempt is there you've got to give me a bonus for that that's it for this week's ask Tim anything if today's episode has reminded us of anything is that success looks different for everybody there isn't a perfect number of hours to work or a single blueprint for getting it right what's important is finding a way of working that is sustainable not just for this month but for the long term ambition is a brilliant thing but so is having the energy to enjoy the life you're working so hard to build if today's episode helped send it to someone who might need to hear it too thanks for listening thanks for your brilliant questions and keep them coming via the social media or email reworking at bowermedia.co.uk i'll see you next time on reworking

15:53this was a rayo original podcast