Tag: work-life balance

Spice up Your Planning

Spice up Your Planning

Posted on by kbodtmann

Sometimes productivity and planning can get stale, boring, rote. I often fall victim to planner fatigue. If this is you, consider changing the way you view your time so that it becomes more exciting, totally different, and yours. Let’s take a more traditional system and take a rebel approach. This may just spark some motivation.

Consider the tried and true “quarterly” planning that most people employ. I have seen others take these 3-month chunks of time and rework them. I have heard of others breaking down the year into something that is more natural for them. Some start the new year in September to follow a school-like approach. I recently learned that each “quarter” is actually 13 weeks and not 12 – this new nugget of information blew my mind. How about you take a leap with me and let’s rework the system.

What if … November was the start of the new year and hence is Quarter 1. Each quarter has 1 week to reassess your life and make plans/choose the new goals for the next quarter. 1 week of planning and12 weeks of passionate work toward your goals.

Such a system would look like this:

Halloween is fun and then November comes. Suddenly we are thrust into holiday planning, organizing decorations, seasonal jubilation. Seems like everyone else is slowing down for some turkey. NOT YOU. You have started the holiday sprint and Quarter 1. You capitalize on the natural energy of the season and begin to buckle down. You find enjoyment in the ease that your extra planning and hard work will bring you when the holiday fun finally rolls around. Never again will Christmas Eve be filled with a hum of stress and agitation – you will be zen. November is the time to get those exciting events on the calendar, stay ahead of shopping and gift wrapping, and put extra effort into getting work done AT WORK and not AT HOME so you can really appreciate time with family at end of November and December. January wraps up the quarter and allows you time to get in touch with what you really want for the year ahead. No New Years Resolutions to fizzle out. January, you are recovering and allowed to take some much-needed respite in a cold winter month that is filled with snow, fireplaces, and quiet. This is the end of your quarter. You are just getting warmed up for the year ahead by intentionally slowing down, instead of already depleting your willpower.

Quarter 2 – February/March/April. Sow the seeds. It is still cold and not much to do but plan for spring/summer. This is a great time to really focus on your own passion project. The family is settled. This is time for you to move the needle forward on something you want for your own life.

Quarter 3 – May/June/July. Spring and Summer are all rolled into this one. Start planning family trips and focusing on decluttering for the spring. Front-load projects and tasks in the Spring to have a laid-back Summer. Enjoy time with friends. Barbeques. Late nights on the porch. Fresh air. In July, you will have the time you need for friends. Barbeques. Swimming. This is also the time to assess your personal wellness, workout plan and to be strategic about your health plan for the year. This follows your natural energy to get some more UV and prepare for the lack of clothing that accompanies this Quarter.

Quarter 4 – August/September/October. End of summer and welcome fall. August is a great time for planning back-to-school necessities for children. Halloween costumes. Focusing on family agendas and new schedules. Buying new planners and reassessing systems. Figure out what is working for your flow and eliminate unnecessary tasks. Set Boundaries. Halloween ends the year with the start of your New Year in November. Time to start getting ready for the warmth of the holidays.

What I love most about breaking the year into these unconventional time frames is that each beginning of a quarter is a time where you would be strategically planning for life events that are upcoming at the end of that quarter. It works for me and it might just work for you too at this stage in your life. Be a rebel and make your own untraditional system, or follow mine. New systems bring new energy and a chance for a fresh start. Who doesn’t love that?

Toxic Positivity as it Pertains to Work Culture

Posted on by kbodtmann

The general definition of toxic positivity is to suppress the full array of human emotion that is normal or natural in favor of positive feelings only. It is OK to feel sad, overwhelmed, tired, and angry. You do not always have to have a sunny and upbeat attitude to be a good person or a stellar employee.

Lately, I have been thinking about this personal concept and how it may apply to work culture. I would like to broaden the definition of toxic positivity to include what I see happening day to day within people’s professions. First, complaining about an issue or a problem within your working life is not always negative – in fact it can lead to dramatic improvements for everyone in the corporation if the problem is acknowledged appropriately and steps are taken to improve the issue. Unfortunately, many leaders have a hard time taking criticism and tend to surround themselves with “yes” people. Often the employee bringing up an issue ( in hopes to make things better) is viewed as a problem starter, an annoyance. This is really unfortunate as a lot of growth can be had when you embrace change. Change can only occur when you are willing to accept and find value in other people’s viewpoints.

Secondly, I would like to expand the definition of toxic positivity to include pressure for a positive attitude and directives for self care when there has been purposeful decision making from management that makes it difficult to do so. I am going to call this – Professional Toxitivity. To be constantly reminded by leaders and managers to take time for yourself when your work culture is telling you to continually add more to your plate – this is Professional Toxitivity. Leaders should lead by example but ALSO enforce policy changes that enable those around them to pursue self-care as they see fit. It is easy to espouse truisms about taking time for yourself while sitting at your desk with lessened or different obligations than you once had. Employees are hustling day to day to manage the overflowing responsibilities that they have to their clients, patients, audience, students etc. which leaves them with little time to work on personal growth and development.

My suggestion for leaders everywhere including Principals, CEO’s, Direct Managers is to truly ask and listen. What does your employee need? For teachers, it may be 30 minutes less with their students at end of day to make their lesson plans for the next day. It may be an assistant that takes some of their admin tasks away so they can focus on deep work ( truly teaching your children) and not shallow work ( answering the barrage of parent emails throughout the work day with resulting documentation). For health care workers, it may be an ENFORCED lunch time where they can take a breath without writing charts or answering calls. It may be strategically helping implement ways to delegate or automate chart writing, phone calls and documentation, etc. It looks like building a culture that empowers and allows their staff to say “no” when they know adding that extra project or appointment will overwhelm them and cause their quality of work or care to diminish or their work-life balance to suffer. I know this is possible because I have worked places that do this.

There is a trend for progressive businesses to implement strategies like this and it may look like unlimited PTO and shorter work days for their staff with resulting paradoxical increases in revenue and goal achievement. Enable employees to have pride in their craft and help them accomplish their work goals with autonomy and efficiency. If you do this, they will finally have the TIME they need outside of work for self care – which will look differently for each person. No more Professional Toxitivity. It is good to challenge the status quo and give honest feedback so everyone can benefit.

The bottom line: Instead of instituting another work wellness program, enable employees to achieve their work goals in a time productive way so they then have the agency to choose wellness in their own time and in their own way.