#11 - Sister Talk: Leave Work at Work... and Take Back Your Life
Finding work-life balance as a multifamily professional or realtor is tough
We’ve all been guilty of it at one point. Our work stress, tasks, and thoughts tagalong with us all the way home instead of staying in the office. When you’re juggling about 550 things at once, it’s easy to let work spill over into other areas of your life. Before you know it, you feel like a failure at work and at home. No bueno.
On today’s Marketing Home, Marketing You podcast episode, we are sharing tips to help us all be better about leaving work at work so that we can be as successful from 5-9 as we are from 9-5.
I encourage you all to listen to the podcast and then write these tips down, memorize them, put them on your desk at work, on your mirror at home, somewhere that you will see often to remind yourself how to leave work where it belongs. Customize and make them your own!
tip One: Realize that bringing your work home is a bad habit
I think I just heard a resounding “duh” as you read that. But think about it - you have to learn (recognize) that you have a bad habit so that you can unlearn it. Once you unlearn it you’re able to relearn something else, preferably a good habit, like leaving your work at the office. Think of it this way: We aren’t getting rid of a bad habit (which is HARD) we are replacing it with something good (much easier)!
If you’ve been carrying work home for years, then it’s going to take some time to break that habit. James Clear makes a great point in his book “Atomic Habits” that we don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems. Think about it from your work environment perspective - if you aren’t meeting a goal or there’s something that’s just not working, we don’t expect that system to have a different outcome until we change it. So when we have a bad habit, we have to unlearn that system so we can relearn (and replace) a better one. We learn, to unlearn, to relearn.
tip Two: Focus on setting constraints for work and home life
Parkinson's law says that work expands to fill the time available. Confused? Think about it this way…imagine you have a project and have an 8-hour deadline to complete it. You almost always use the whole 8 hours to finish the project. Why? Because you know you have eight hours. Now let’s say you have the same project and only 2 hours to finish it because you leave for vacation the next day. C’mon, y’all all know that “vacation-mode magic!” Suddenly you become a superhero, and all your work gets done in record time. You get really clear on what’s most important and crank on those areas. The rest gets left out. And guess what. That’s ok.
Your work expands to fill the time available so built-in constraints (these are self-imposed) force us to focus on what matters most and cut the rest.
One constraint that I’ve set for myself is to not check my email before 8:30 each morning. It’s not a big, life-altering constraint, but it’s one that’s helped me separate my time (and mind) at home and at work. Here is what I’ve found. If I break the constraint and check email beforehand my at-home ritual is interrupted and the rest of the day doesn’t go so well. So the time I thought I was gaining by starting work earlier ends up kicking my butt later. It’s just not worth it to me.
All this to say, it is SO important for you to give yourself time frames that are for work and time frames that aren’t for work. These are little ADULT-sized rules that we keep because we know it is good for us in the end. Remember don’t sacrifice long-term benefit for short-term gains.
tip Three: Have a wrap-up ritual for your workday
This can look any way you want it to look AND it should be totally your own for it to stick. Maybe you leave time at the end of the day so you can button up things and leave feeling like everything is ready for tomorrow, and maybe part of this is learning to be okay with leaving some things undone (deep breaths for my fellow “want-to-get-it-all done” types). A good wrap-up ritual for me is to outline my big three priorities for the next day and doing a daily KISS analysis.
PRO TIP: Set an alarm for about 30 minutes before you’re planning to leave work so that you can start that wrap-up ritual and not be stuck at the office for an hour or so longer than you planned to. This has been a real lifesaver for me. I love to sneak in just one more thing and before I know it, I’m getting home after dark totally fried and grumpy with the husband and dog (totally not fair)! The alarm gives me just enough time to finish the email I’m working on or come to a good stopping point on a report and start to set up my next day.
Whatever it is that makes your brain say, “Okay, work time is coming to a close.'' — find it and keep doing it!
tip Four: have a home-life ritual to get out of work mode
Find something that gets you out of work mode and into whatever role you need to step into when you get home. A lot of you are busy moms and dads or your caring for aged parents. You carry a super heavy load every day and I know you want to be the best in all areas of your life. But it’s hard to go from butt-kicking property manager or realtor to patient mom of a two year old, right?
I don’t have kiddos, so I can’t pretend to be the expert there. I seriously am in awe of those of you juggling it all! But I do have a husband that I love and I don’t want to shortchange him on having a wife that puts just as much effort into our relationship as I do in my business. It’s not always easy and I can find myself bringing work-mode home IF I don’t keep up with my home-life ritual. Something that I find helpful for me is to pause in my driveway before I walk into the house, take a few quiet moments and really think about WHO I want to be when I walk in the door. And then I immediately change clothes into something more sexy. Wait…what? Jokes, people! I change into sweat pants, silly! The physical act of changing clothes helps my mind and body switch gears from work to home.
Mastering those transitions are KEY. I have found that putting on fun music on the way home rather than listening to work-related podcasts helps my mind transition from work mode to home mode. Ask yourself how you want to show up to the next role you have - wife, husband, mom, dad, etc. - and then find ways that help you transition into being able to show up that way.
Tip Five: identify triggers for work anxiety
We’re pretty much reachable 24/7 nowadays with email, social media, and other communication platforms, so it’s even more important that you understand what is going to trigger you back into work mode. If you need to silence your emails every day starting at a certain time, so you don’t hear that ‘ding’ every 15 minutes, that’s okay. Do it. Silence that thing! Even if you’re on call all the time, make sure that set constraints on how you respond during “off hours”. Do what you have to do so that you don’t flip that switch back to work mode.
And if your boss is expecting a response…TUNE into this podcast. I have some tips on that, too!
Tip Six: Find an Accountability Partner (HEllo, Boss baby!)
Find a friend that has the same goal that you do of leaving work at work and talk to each other about what worked well and what didn’t go so hot. When you find weak areas, you can bounce ideas off your accountability partner on ways to improve. Plus, sometimes, your accountability partner can help you see triggers that you didn’t even know that you had.
PRO TIP: Find a friend that can tell you to shape up when you’re slackin’ in the relaxin’ department.
Bonus tip: Find a hobby
Your hobby might be to watch TV (Netflix is calling my name too, don’t worry). The thing I’ve found with TV though, is that you’re still able to scroll through your phone while you watch. I’ve found that reading a book, or cooking, or any activity that keeps me from doing multiple things at once really helps me to disconnect entirely. Maybe doing something physical like Zumba or going for a walk is more your speed. Find whatever it is that you enjoy and helps you make the most of your time with yourself or with friends and family.
Tune into this episode when I get busted on my awkward ZUMBA moves 🤪.
The biggest thing to remember is that you are a team, so work as one!
If your company culture is one that encourages being connected all the time, figure out ways that you can work together to alleviate some of that pressure from each team member at different times, so everyone gets that break they need.
Links we mentioned on this episode:
Atomic Habits - James Clear - Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results.
Private Sprout Facebook Group - #Sprouters