Hello and welcome to the the the Traveling introvert going
to talk about workaholics. And the reason I want to talk about workaholics is
because so many of us come and live in a workaholic environment. And we might
not think about it, but you probably grew up or working in a workaholic culture
or maybe a family or even your business that you've almost self imposed on
yourself that you are now a workaholic. And what do I mean by a workaholic? And
my question to you would be when was the last time you left work on time?
When was the last time you didn't take your laptop on
vacation with you? When was the last time you didn't have your work emails on
your phone and then you were checking every time there was a ping? It is so
easy these days with the expected 24 hours access and people expecting you to
respond very quickly, that we become workaholics. And for introverts it's even
worse because part of that workaholic culture means that you do not have
downtime or recharge time or creative brain time or just time to help prevent
burnout and zoom fatigue. So thinking about your average work day or work week,
what does that look like?
One thing that some people do is every day they look at
their calendar and they try and make sure they have no more than say, two or 4
hours of meetings on their calendar. Because, let's be honest, how much are you
really concentrating if you have more than 4 hours of meetings or conversations
on your calendar? Some people go for four day work weeks, so they preserve maybe
a Wednesday or maybe a Friday morning or a Monday afternoon. So they can do
deep, focused work or just have free time for anything that might pop up. What
about vacation?
I know that a lot of people do have very limited vacation
depending on where they're living, but how can you strategically use that
vacation to get what you need as a human and what this all comes down to? And
sort of also how often do you cheque your email? How frequently do you respond
to people immediately? All of these things tend to be because we have a lack of
limits and guardrails and boundaries without limits in a fully flexible, remote
first environment, it is super, super easy just to keep on working and to be
working constantly. Not consistently, constantly, especially if you've grown up
in a school with a university, with people around you and your family and the
culture that is workaholics related.
You might obsess over your client designs, you might obsess
over your clients, you might obsess over the project that you're doing. And it
feels great until it doesn't. Because without guardrails and boundaries and
limitations, you're more than likely to work 8910, 1112, 14, 15 hours a day.
And when I say work, is it going to be quality work or is it going to be work
under stress and dress. And when you're tired, when you work these kind of
days, you're not giving yourself time to be sick, to take a break, just to
breathe, to give your eyes a rest from the screen.
There's things that we don't do. So clear limits to meetings
and work hours, helps prevent burnout, helps prevent zoom fatigue, helps
prevent you from doing harm to yourself. You need clear limits and boundaries.
Most people are way more productive and focused when they have a self imposed
boundaries, limitations, maybe even a condensed schedule. And sure, you might
not always achieve that goal of having no meeting Monday, but if you do it,
more than not, you will see the benefits.
You need to be intentional about putting in these
guardrails. You need to be intentional about setting these boundaries each
week, each day, to ensure balance and focus productivity without wasted time.
And a lot of it can be done with asynchronous sort of practises, but just
something to think about. Are you a workaholic? Thank you for listening.
This is Janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your
brand and get higher. Have a great rest of your week.
