Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is to work smart when working after hours. Make
Speaker 1: sure you know what you are trying to accomplish so
Speaker 1: you can get done and move on with your day.
Speaker 1: One of the most unfortunate work life narratives out there
Speaker 1: is that big jobs inevitably require long hours. Long hours
Speaker 1: mean you will never see your kids. Thus, many parents
Speaker 1: and mothers in particular just won't be or shouldn't be
Speaker 1: in the running now. This is obviously a problematic thing
Speaker 1: for organizations to believe, as they cut themselves off from
Speaker 1: a lot of great leaders. But it's also a problematic
Speaker 1: thing for individual parents to believe, since people limit their
Speaker 1: ambitions when everyone seems to be screaming that no one
Speaker 1: can have it all. But it turns out there is
Speaker 1: a lot wrong with this story. Sure, plenty of jobs
Speaker 1: require more than forty hours a week, but in my
Speaker 1: experience looking at thousands of time logs, very few people
Speaker 1: log more than sixty hours a week averaged over the
Speaker 1: long haul. Even more intriguingly, many people who work long
Speaker 1: hours do not work those hours from say seven thirty
Speaker 1: am to seven thirty pm, which would preclude seeing their
Speaker 1: young kids during the week. A little creativity means people
Speaker 1: can work long hours and see their families. When I
Speaker 1: collected time logs from women who had kids and who
Speaker 1: made over one hundred thousand dollars a year for my book,
Speaker 1: I know how she does it. I found many moved
Speaker 1: work hours around to preserve family time. The most common
Speaker 1: method was what I started calling a split shift. Here's
Speaker 1: how it works. You end work at a reasonable time,
Speaker 1: however you define that. Let's say five pm or so.
Speaker 1: You hang out with your family, including young kids who
Speaker 1: go to bed relatively early. Maybe they are in bed
Speaker 1: at seven thirty pm or so. Then, at least a
Speaker 1: few nights a week, you do more work after the
Speaker 1: kids go to bed. You split your shift some during
Speaker 1: the day, some at night. Working from eight pm to
Speaker 1: ten pm is the same as working from five pm
Speaker 1: to seven pm, only in the former world. You are
Speaker 1: trading off work time for TV time instead of work
Speaker 1: time for famly time. That is a trade off a
Speaker 1: lot more people are willing to make. I found that
Speaker 1: about half the women in my study worked such a
Speaker 1: split shift at least once a week. Or its cousin
Speaker 1: working from say five am to seven am in the
Speaker 1: morning before the kids got up. Of course, you'll notice
Speaker 1: that I said working from eight pm to ten pm.
Speaker 1: I did not say working from eight pm to some
Speaker 1: undefined time in the middle of the night. Someone recently
Speaker 1: sent me a note saying the split shift should come
Speaker 1: with a warning label to make sure people use it responsibly.
Speaker 1: So here it is. We all sometimes work outside traditional hours,
Speaker 1: but if you do plan to work after hours, be
Speaker 1: that at night or in the early morning, or on
Speaker 1: what are supposed to be your days off, you should
Speaker 1: be intentional about it. That means creating a defined list
Speaker 1: of what you intend to get through. The most obvious
Speaker 1: choices are those things that actually have to get done
Speaker 1: for tomorrow. Prepping for meetings, answering an important email you
Speaker 1: didn't get to before five pm, finishing up a proposal
Speaker 1: you plan to submit the next day. This list should
Speaker 1: be short and reasonable. You would not get through a
Speaker 1: one thousand email backlog between nine am and five pm,
Speaker 1: and you won't from eight pm to ten pm, either,
Speaker 1: so don't set that as a goal. Create your list,
Speaker 1: and then when you are done, sign off. Indeed, I
Speaker 1: would suggest giving yourself a strict time limit for your
Speaker 1: split shift to force efficiencies. If you go to bed
Speaker 1: at eleven PM, working from eight to ten allows you
Speaker 1: to have thirty minutes of leisure and then thirty minutes
Speaker 1: to get ready for bed and wind down. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you could just do ninety minutes of work and have
Speaker 1: an hour for reading or crafting. Or I'd also suggest
Speaker 1: not automatically doing a split shift. The truth is that
Speaker 1: most people only do it a few nights per week.
Speaker 1: The most common scenario is two to three nights per week.
Speaker 1: Four is pretty much the max. So I'm not really
Speaker 1: concerned about this, but don't do a split shift just
Speaker 1: to do it. Maybe on Tuesdays you normally sit back
Speaker 1: down to work, but if you don't actually have any
Speaker 1: work that needs to get done for the next day,
Speaker 1: you don't have to work. You can just be done.
Speaker 1: It's okay. When you have intentions and you keep your
Speaker 1: list short, then a split shift can be a great
Speaker 1: way to have it all a big career and time
Speaker 1: with your family. When it gets out of control, it
Speaker 1: can feel like life is no fun. So if you
Speaker 1: are working after hours, it's important to work smart In
Speaker 1: the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's
Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. You can send me your tips,
Speaker 1: your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E
Speaker 1: the number four then Breakfast pod. You can also shoot
Speaker 1: me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Should I look forward to staying in touch.
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