Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma mea podcast.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to biz Inbox. I'm m Vernon, bringing
Speaker 2: you your weekly dos of unfiltered workplace wisdom. Well, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Davidson, also trying to help them dig into
Speaker 1: some workplace truth today.
Speaker 2: And if you are new here, welcome, because biz Inbox
Speaker 2: is where your professional dilemmas get sold. No names attached.
Speaker 2: So whether you're navigating office dynamics, launching a side hustle,
Speaker 2: or dealing with the manager from hell, We've got you
Speaker 2: covered and your identity stays completely under wraps if you
Speaker 2: choose to do so.
Speaker 1: Today we are diving into whether loud working is worth
Speaker 1: the hype and that awkward moment when your entire workplace
Speaker 1: discovers your Instagram handle, Oh my goodness, embarrassing.
Speaker 2: No, we'll help you out.
Speaker 3: You out.
Speaker 2: First, I want to dive into a question that I
Speaker 2: feel like I could have submitted myself. It's from Lulu
Speaker 2: and she says I am the Queen of procrastination, which
Speaker 2: I'm going to say, no, Lulu, I am. Instead of
Speaker 2: finishing tomorrow's urgent report, I just did a full house,
Speaker 2: deep clean, scrolled TikTok for hours, and created a beautifully formatted,
Speaker 2: color coded to do list, which I then ignored. I'll
Speaker 2: literally do anything to avoid the actual work. Do you
Speaker 2: have any tips at all? I need serious help, Sarah,
Speaker 2: I'm sad to say that I also need serious help.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Well that makes three of us.
Speaker 1: And the hilarious part of this is when I was
Speaker 1: reading this question to think about, you know, have a
Speaker 1: little think in advance about what I would suggest. I
Speaker 1: found it a hard one, and because it was a
Speaker 1: hard question, I ignored it. Did a full house, deep clean,
Speaker 1: scrolled TikTok for hours, I made a beautifully formatted, color
Speaker 1: coded to do so I wouldn't have to answer the
Speaker 1: question because it's a hard one.
Speaker 2: But it's such a funny question because I feel like
Speaker 2: we all do it. But Sarah, okay, out of all
Speaker 2: of us here, I mean, I'm not sure what Lulu does.
Speaker 2: I'm sure she's amazing, but you are the one who
Speaker 2: has very successful businesses. So you're clearly doing something right
Speaker 2: that I'm sure doesn't involve procrastinating.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we all have our moments. One of
Speaker 1: the things that really helps me is, firstly, I try
Speaker 1: and identify the reason, because sometimes your reaction is different
Speaker 1: or the action should I say that you can take
Speaker 1: is different depending on what it is. So for example,
Speaker 1: if you're procrastinating because you're exhausted, I think sometimes the
Speaker 1: temptation is just to push on keep going, especially if
Speaker 1: you've been sitting there doing something for a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: You're like, no, I just need to finish. And sometimes
Speaker 1: it's counterintuitive, but maybe stop. Like sometimes it isn't pushed through.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if it's tiredness, you're actually not going to get
Speaker 1: any clearer or any more energized by just sitting there
Speaker 1: staring at the same thing over and over again. So
Speaker 1: one thing that's really helped me is if that's the reason,
Speaker 1: if it's tiredness or brain fog, I actually stop for
Speaker 1: a minute, get up, maybe go for a walk, get
Speaker 1: a cup of tea, come back and try again later.
Speaker 1: But sometimes it might be that you need to break
Speaker 1: the circuit just because you're emotionally flat. So sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: get up and like you might need to go and
Speaker 1: do a workout. Like sometimes the procrastination and leaving the
Speaker 1: task and coming back is a good thing. If it's
Speaker 1: not one of those things if it's not something that
Speaker 1: needs a bit of action before you can keep going.
Speaker 1: The best thing that I ever do is to break
Speaker 1: the big, scary, overwhelming task into mini tasks and then
Speaker 1: give myself little awards after each one.
Speaker 2: Ooh, what's a reward like?
Speaker 1: If you do want to have a little scroll, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I can't have a ten minute scroll until I've done
Speaker 1: a thirty minute block of this hard task. Or you know,
Speaker 1: I want my second coffee for the day the afternoon slump,
Speaker 1: but actually I haven't earned that yet because I haven't
Speaker 1: done thirty minutes of my work. So I kind of
Speaker 1: build in little treat of things that I would want.
Speaker 1: And I know it's probably not like the best advice
Speaker 1: to use food as an incentivization, but sometimes it's a snack.
Speaker 1: It's like I can't go and get a snack or
Speaker 1: I can't go on my coffee break until I've done
Speaker 1: this mini task. And I actually think breaking it into
Speaker 1: smaller tasks, you don't even need to think about tasks
Speaker 1: two to ten. All you need to think about is
Speaker 1: number one, And suddenly your brain it frees up so
Speaker 1: much space for you to just begin because you're not
Speaker 1: trying to begin the entire thing. You're just beginning this
Speaker 1: small thing. It's less overwhelming. The fear that you get
Speaker 1: from the size of the task is often what creates procrastinations.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like dividing it into a list
Speaker 1: makes things more manageable. And then the other thing that
Speaker 1: I do is I actually just create obstacles for myself,
Speaker 1: Like I know that my biggest destruction is social media.
Speaker 1: For other people, it might be other things, it might
Speaker 1: be TV, it might be whatever it is, but I
Speaker 1: know that. You know, my problem is I want to
Speaker 1: scroll and then I say I'm going to scroll for
Speaker 1: five minutes, and I get on a tangent and then
Speaker 1: like eight hours, I'm still sitting there.
Speaker 2: You're just in the dark with your light on your face. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Literally, I'm that mean. And so I make it hard
Speaker 1: for myself. I put my phone like physically elsewhere, so
Speaker 1: there's an obstacle. I'll turn it off and like it
Speaker 1: takes a little while for your phone to boot up.
Speaker 1: And then when you pick up a phone that's off,
Speaker 1: you can't say all your notifications or you turn your
Speaker 1: notifications off. Like building in obstacles to the things that
Speaker 1: allow you to procrastinate further. It's like hacking your own temptation.
Speaker 1: You just remove the temptation. And it sounds really basic,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I think humans are pretty basic. If there's
Speaker 1: a distraction, remove it and then it's less distracting.
Speaker 2: So true, especially with this phone scrolling thing, because I
Speaker 2: do turn my phone off a lot of the time,
Speaker 2: and I think when you do that, you also become
Speaker 2: so hyper aware of exactly how much you pick up
Speaker 2: your phone without even realizing you're doing it, like subconsciously,
Speaker 2: and it's quite confronting. I pick up my phone so
Speaker 2: many times without realizing I'm doing it. I have two
Speaker 2: tips as well, because I am such a big procrastinator
Speaker 2: that these two things basically saved so much of my
Speaker 2: time just from actually doing my work and not procrastinating.
Speaker 2: I'm sure my mum, mea managers are gonna love hearing
Speaker 2: this episode from me. But basically what I do is
Speaker 2: I first they figured out my energy levels throughout the day,
Speaker 2: because everyone has different jumps and energy and you just
Speaker 2: have to be just aware of your energy, figure out
Speaker 2: like where you feel most productive. And I realize I'm
Speaker 2: not a morning person, but I've had to become a
Speaker 2: morning person, because that's where all my energy goes. It's
Speaker 2: like in the morning, if I do things, it has
Speaker 2: to be done before eleven am, because then I go
Speaker 2: into a bit of a slump between like eleven and three,
Speaker 2: and then I get another burst of energy after three pm.
Speaker 2: And I know we're recording this at three pm. So
Speaker 2: that's why I look a bit dull, right, well, so proud.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing is is that I'm so lucky
Speaker 2: to be a creative here because it was actually my
Speaker 2: producers who noticed my energy levels. And I realize that
Speaker 2: a lot of my recordings end up being in the mornings,
Speaker 2: because I like, you sound like shit after three pm,
Speaker 2: Like you just.
Speaker 3: Some constructive criticism here, literally just.
Speaker 2: Like after you've had lunch, like you can't get anything
Speaker 2: good out of you. And I'm like, okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: And because I am a big procrastinator as well, So
Speaker 2: once I feed out my energy levels, I realized that
Speaker 2: the method of choice for me to get work done
Speaker 2: was eating the frog. I have to do the hardest
Speaker 2: thing first, and then once I've done that thing, I
Speaker 2: just end up doing everything else because you've got the
Speaker 2: hard thing out of the way. So if you're like me,
Speaker 2: and you have a lot of energy in the morning
Speaker 2: and you want to do everything in the morning. Try
Speaker 2: to eat the frog the method, because once you get
Speaker 2: the hardest part of your workday out of the way,
Speaker 2: if you're able to do so, everything else just seems
Speaker 2: so much easier and you're less likely to procrastinate. It
Speaker 2: is like the best thing I've ever tried. I also
Speaker 2: wrote a piece about it, which will link in the
Speaker 2: show notes, because I tell everyone to eat the frog.
Speaker 2: It's so good.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so clever, because I do think
Speaker 1: you can end up. You think you've sat down to
Speaker 1: start the task you being procrastinating about, but really you've
Speaker 1: just been doing the busy work. It's like I did
Speaker 1: the formatting. I literally chose the font, and it's like,
Speaker 1: is that really did you really start or are you
Speaker 1: just choosing the font?
Speaker 2: Did you really start or are you just playing with
Speaker 2: your color palette? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Literally.
Speaker 1: But then one of the ones that actually I forgot
Speaker 1: to mention at the start that is so so basic
Speaker 1: and it's almost laughable that this is a tip, but
Speaker 1: it actually really really helps me sometimes as well, is
Speaker 1: just count down from five, Like when you get to zero,
Speaker 1: you just start like that's so good is just sitting
Speaker 1: there Like you're just sitting there going, oh, I can't.
Speaker 1: Then you get up and you're walking around and you
Speaker 1: get a cup of tea and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I probably need a Wii. You go where you come
Speaker 1: back like pacing around. Sometimes it's like just count have
Speaker 1: from five and don't give yourself the option. When I
Speaker 1: get to zero, I'm starting like there's no choice. And
Speaker 1: suddenly you kind of can't procrastinate anymore because the countdown's
Speaker 1: counted down. You know, we're at zero. It's team out
Speaker 1: a zero. You got to do it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I'm going to try that next time
Speaker 2: because that sounds right up my alley. So whoever's procrastinating
Speaker 2: their work and listening to this episode right now, if
Speaker 2: you're going to stop, you're going to do one task
Speaker 2: and then you're going to come back and listen to
Speaker 2: the rest of the episode right now. Okay. Our second
Speaker 2: question comes from Carly in Newcastle, and she says, I've
Speaker 2: just started a new job and I'm desperate not to
Speaker 2: be the forgettable new person. Beyond bringing treats and smiling,
Speaker 2: what's one unexpected thing I can do to actually stand
Speaker 2: out and make genuine connections. The office already has a
Speaker 2: fun shirt guy and a sour dough lady. Help me
Speaker 2: find my workplace identity without trying too hard or being weird.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is really foye.
Speaker 1: I mean, Carly, I feel like you're doing so well
Speaker 1: even by caring about this, Like I love that you
Speaker 1: want to be memorable.
Speaker 2: I think also, like beyond bringing treats and smiling, like
Speaker 2: I'd love to be known as the girl who smiles,
Speaker 2: like the smiling girl, Like that's so sweet and I
Speaker 2: love joice everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I think my best advice on this one
Speaker 1: is make it something you can sustain. Like I think
Speaker 1: it is easy to want to be like the fun
Speaker 1: shirt guy or the sour dough lady or find your thing,
Speaker 1: but don't force it if it's something that you're not,
Speaker 1: because then once you're the sourdough lady, you've got to
Speaker 1: bring sourdough for the rest of your time at that workplace.
Speaker 2: And that's expensive, right, Like you're also funding that, like
Speaker 2: it's a side hustle that you're getting nothing out of it.
Speaker 1: Like if you don't like making sourdo don't become the
Speaker 1: sourdough lady because everyone is going to expect it from you.
Speaker 1: You'll be memorable for the wrong reason if one day
Speaker 1: you start trying to charge them for the sowdough that
Speaker 1: you've been making this whole entire time. So main point
Speaker 1: number one is, don't become the sourdough lady unless you're
Speaker 1: really ready to commit. But point number two if you
Speaker 1: don't want to be the person who brings treats and
Speaker 1: kind of does something that you know it's kind of generic,
Speaker 1: but you want to be memorable to make connections. One
Speaker 1: thing that I always did, which I actually loved doing
Speaker 1: because it was really rewarding for me as well to
Speaker 1: learn interesting things about my colleagues that I otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 1: is to make notes or don't even need to write
Speaker 1: it down. But whenever someone mentions like, oh, I did
Speaker 1: that at golf on the weekend, or oh I did
Speaker 1: that with my dog because I love you know, I
Speaker 1: breed dogs, or my mom's a dog breeder, or I
Speaker 1: have a dog grooming business on the side, everyone will
Speaker 1: drop a little fun fact about themselves at some point,
Speaker 1: and instead of just bringing a random treat that's generated
Speaker 1: to everyone, Why don't you create some kind of thing
Speaker 1: that you do with that person, whether it's bring them
Speaker 1: a gift or send them a link to their email.
Speaker 1: When you see that there's like if they have Golden Retrievers,
Speaker 1: for example, you see an ad for the Golden Retriever
Speaker 1: meet up boy, Like I think there was one in
Speaker 1: Melbourne recently that was like the most Golden Retrievers ever
Speaker 1: in one spot and they said a Guinness World Record, Like, oh.
Speaker 2: My actual dream, Like that is what heaven looks.
Speaker 1: Like to me, legit, but like if someone says that
Speaker 1: to you, if you said that to me at work,
Speaker 1: then for me to send you back that link one
Speaker 1: day and say I saw this when I was like
Speaker 1: scrolling and it made me think of you. That's how
Speaker 1: I feel like you can create a really genuine connection
Speaker 1: that's so cute, or bring them in like a cute
Speaker 1: dog treat that's for their Golden Retriever, or you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a golfer, like next time there's a tournament
Speaker 1: coming out, just say oh I saw that there were
Speaker 1: tickets or whatever it is. I feel like there are
Speaker 1: ways that you can connect with someone and they will
Speaker 1: remember you like you don't have to be remembered by
Speaker 1: everyone is the same title. You don't want to be
Speaker 1: the entire officer's funshirt guy. You can just be the
Speaker 1: thoughtful person who remembered that I like, go on retrievers.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a really cute way to do it.
Speaker 2: That's so nice. That's actually so good. And also like
Speaker 2: what people will love about you, Like I think even
Speaker 2: outside of the workplace, anyone that like has showed that
Speaker 2: they paid attention to what you said and listened and
Speaker 2: considered it and then thought of you when they saw
Speaker 2: this thing. It's just so so nice. It's such a
Speaker 2: good quality to have as a person in general. And
Speaker 2: I also want to say that, like people could just
Speaker 2: know you for just being kri like just being a
Speaker 2: really nice, good coworker. Like you don't have to have
Speaker 2: a stick or you don't have to have a thing,
Speaker 2: because I think like people should just know you as
Speaker 2: who you are as a person. Then they should know
Speaker 2: your name and just don't think too much into it
Speaker 2: because it would just come naturally.
Speaker 3: That's so true.
Speaker 1: Reminds me of oh my gosh, my terrible memory. Guys,
Speaker 1: if you've listened to a couple of episodes you'll not.
Speaker 1: I have a really bad memory, and I can never
Speaker 1: think of the powerful example that I'm going to remember it,
Speaker 1: like Midnight Tonight. But there's a TV show where someone's
Speaker 1: trying to manufacture their own nickname, and it's like, you
Speaker 1: can't give yourself the nickname, like you have to wait
Speaker 1: for it to come from what other people think of you.
Speaker 1: So I also think, don't try and manufacture the thing
Speaker 1: you remembered for, Like you said, just be who you
Speaker 1: are and let everyone decide the thing that they love
Speaker 1: about you. Like it's kind of nice to think that
Speaker 1: if other people around you were asked what's the most
Speaker 1: memorable thing about Carli, that they would have a different
Speaker 1: answer to what you might think, Like that's lovely about relationships.
Speaker 2: Our next question comes from Drew and she says this
Speaker 2: is all about how to navigate social media when you've
Speaker 2: joined a workforce. So she said, I'm being flooded with
Speaker 2: social media requests from older colleagues at my new job.
Speaker 2: I'm quite active on my personal account and prefer keeping
Speaker 2: work and personal life separate to complicate matters. I don't
Speaker 2: want to accept some colleagues requests while declining others they
Speaker 2: would know by now I've seen their requests. Help. What's
Speaker 2: the most professional way to maintain my social media boundaries
Speaker 2: without offending anyone? I actually have no answer for this.
Speaker 2: I love how it's older colleagues.
Speaker 3: If I left my job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really interesting one, and I think it's
Speaker 1: increasingly common because I don't know, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: even this wasn't an issue because you didn't really have
Speaker 1: social media. You didn't have to worry about that, and
Speaker 1: if there were connections, it was more professional anyway.
Speaker 3: It was like LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: So I think, as someone whose entire life is social media,
Speaker 1: including my career, like I'm probably not the most qualified
Speaker 1: to talk about the delineation of the two and keeping
Speaker 1: them separate. But when I was in corporate and I
Speaker 1: did want to keep my career and even my side
Speaker 1: hustle very separate, I didn't want anyone to know that
Speaker 1: we had started the business when we did, so I
Speaker 1: didn't tell anyone. You have two options. You can either
Speaker 1: create two and some people don't mind managing their work
Speaker 1: page and their personal page. But that's more if you
Speaker 1: have a business, and if you don't. If you're at
Speaker 1: a workplace, it's kind of a lot of effort to
Speaker 1: just create a separate personal It's like two life of
Speaker 1: ones with your work criens, and one isn't yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like yeah, literally, it's like a fin stu.
Speaker 2: I love this business so much, having a great day
Speaker 2: at work.
Speaker 1: Here's love extra learning, here's a financial review that I'm
Speaker 1: reading with my green juice. I think that's probably a
Speaker 1: bit much unless it's the case of having a business
Speaker 1: page in a personal page.
Speaker 2: And they've already had friend or requests from their personal
Speaker 2: page as well, so they, like the colleagues, have already
Speaker 2: established they found the personal page.
Speaker 1: And then I think in that situation, if you do
Speaker 1: come to a position with some of your work friends
Speaker 1: where you want them to be you're not your real friends,
Speaker 1: and you want to accept them, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to accept everyone, I think you are going to have
Speaker 1: to just accept that. You will probably offend some people,
Speaker 1: like if they are going to know that you haven't
Speaker 1: accepted their request but you still don't want them to
Speaker 1: be your friend. There's really no way around it. My
Speaker 1: big thing is just make clear rules for you on
Speaker 1: who's going to become a real life friend versus a
Speaker 1: work friend, and when you let people cross that boundary,
Speaker 1: people might get offended, but at least you know where
Speaker 1: you stand. It's like, well, but we're not friends, we
Speaker 1: don't hang out, Like is the rule that we've got
Speaker 1: to hang out outside of work? Is the rule that
Speaker 1: we do other activities? Could you justify it to them
Speaker 1: if they actually confronted you, like if they said, why
Speaker 1: didn't you accept my request? Could you actually say, well,
Speaker 1: because I have coffee with that person, I don't have
Speaker 1: coffee with you. Like, if you could justify it, then
Speaker 1: you shouldn't feel bad about it, even if they are offended.
Speaker 1: If you can't justify it, and it's simply because like
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't like your fashion or something,
Speaker 1: then that's where it gets a little bit harder.
Speaker 3: But it's your page.
Speaker 1: You don't owe them anything, So in the end you
Speaker 1: probably just have to get comfortable with the fact that
Speaker 1: you might offend some people. But that's the same with
Speaker 1: everything in life. It's your page. You don't owe it
Speaker 1: to anybody.
Speaker 2: It's so true. But I could personally never I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I'll accept you right now, here's some money, take everything.
Speaker 1: No same. I mean, my other thing is I'm so
Speaker 1: curious that your colleagues would know that you'd accepted some
Speaker 1: people and not others, Like how would they know that?
Speaker 1: That's really interesting the level of forensic.
Speaker 2: If it was on Instagram and they went back Injury's profile,
Speaker 2: they would see followed by and then mutuals Oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: You probably could be confronted.
Speaker 3: You got to be brutal. Would someone actually ask you that.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone would actually say, hey, you haven't
Speaker 2: accepted my friend request. But also I don't know who
Speaker 2: like these people, Like they could be like boomers who
Speaker 2: are just like think that it's all free for all.
Speaker 2: Like my mom is someone who would definitely be like, hey,
Speaker 2: you haven't accepted my friend request.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but my mom also thinks that like people's pages,
Speaker 1: like the newsfeed, she gets confused about what's public. Like
Speaker 1: sometimes she'd be like, oh, yeah, I thought that there
Speaker 1: was an update on the news or something. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: that was a comment on someone else's wat Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a messy. It's messy out there, guys.
Speaker 2: It's a messy. So be prepared to have the conversation.
Speaker 2: But also, if I just started a new job and
Speaker 2: all my colleagues suddenly wanted to be friends with me
Speaker 2: on social media. I'd be really excited about that.
Speaker 3: It's a compliment, for sure, it's so good.
Speaker 2: But that's just me and how I think about myself.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other thing to unpack.
Speaker 1: I also think, think about what you like posting, Like
Speaker 1: what do you use your social media for? And do
Speaker 1: you want to have to think every time you post
Speaker 1: my work friends are on here?
Speaker 2: Oh that's such a good point. That's probably what Drew's
Speaker 2: dealing with.
Speaker 1: Like, what's worse than not accepting someone and then knowing
Speaker 1: about it is you accepting them and then defriending them.
Speaker 3: That's way worse.
Speaker 2: Or constantly having to like upload and then realize and
Speaker 2: then delete and then add close friends and then it's
Speaker 2: this whole thing. It's gonna be like management. It's going
Speaker 2: to be too much admin. Oh, good luck, Drew, too
Speaker 2: much ADM. Like, that's just so much we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 3: But we were pretty useless on that question.
Speaker 2: We made this question way deeper than it needed to be.
Speaker 2: Please don't smile. Well, thank you so much for helping
Speaker 2: us clear the biz inbox. If you have a work question,
Speaker 2: send it our way. You will find a link to
Speaker 2: submit your questions in the show notes. You can tell
Speaker 2: us your name if you want, or you can remain
Speaker 2: completely anonymous.
Speaker 1: It is your choice. You absolutely can remain anonymous. I
Speaker 1: mean half of these questions could have been submitted by me,
Speaker 1: who knows. They all felt very much like they could
Speaker 1: have been. And if you missed any of our episodes,
Speaker 1: just grow back in your feed.
Speaker 3: We'll be back in the biz inbox next week.
Speaker 2: Bye see ya. Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of
Speaker 2: land and waters that this podcast is recorded on