Speaker 1: Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tid is to work what I call a split shift.
Speaker 1: So my kids have never been huge fans of sleep,
Speaker 1: even when they were babies. They seem to need a
Speaker 1: lot less sleep than other kids. But many babies and
Speaker 1: toddlers do go to bed relatively early, and this causes
Speaker 1: one of the first dilemmas that many new working parents face.
Speaker 1: You need to put in a good chunk of ours
Speaker 1: to do your job, but your kids go to bed
Speaker 1: by seven thirty pm. If you work until six thirty
Speaker 1: pm and then have a half hour commute, you barely
Speaker 1: have time to run in and kiss them good night.
Speaker 1: This evening dilemma can be a challenge for people without
Speaker 1: kids too. I mean, maybe you'd like to volunteer one
Speaker 1: night a week, or join a softball league that practices
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays at six pm. Then you talk
Speaker 1: yourself out of it because you need to work fifty
Speaker 1: hours or more per week. But before we start worrying
Speaker 1: that no one can have it all, I think that
Speaker 1: in many jobs this isn't the right way to view
Speaker 1: this choice. You can definitely work fifty hours a week
Speaker 1: and still have a good personal life. The key is
Speaker 1: realizing that you really have two choices. One is the
Speaker 1: most obvious one. You just keep working until all the
Speaker 1: work is done. Then you go home too late to
Speaker 1: do anything except watch TV, and then you can feel sad.
Speaker 1: But if you have a little bit of flexibility in
Speaker 1: your work, you could instead work what I call a
Speaker 1: split shift. Here's how this works. Rather than leave the
Speaker 1: office at six thirty, you leave much earlier, let's say
Speaker 1: five pm. You get home five thirty. Now, instead of
Speaker 1: thirty minutes with your kids, you have two hours before
Speaker 1: they go to bed. This is a much more substantial
Speaker 1: chunk of time. Of course, the work did not magically disappear.
Speaker 1: But here's what happens. After the kids go to bed
Speaker 1: at seven thirty, you hop back on your laptop or
Speaker 1: phone and do whatever you didn't do from five to
Speaker 1: six thirty PM. You return those emails, You plan tomorrow's meetings,
Speaker 1: You finish that report. You stop at nine pm and
Speaker 1: still have some time to relax before bed. By splitting
Speaker 1: your shift, you are trading off work time for TV
Speaker 1: time instead of work time for family time. If kids
Speaker 1: aren't the issue for you, you can substitute whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you'd like to do in the evenings, leave
Speaker 1: the office at five pm, go practice with your softball team,
Speaker 1: then hop back on the email after you've shown everyone
Speaker 1: how well you can pitch. It turns out this is
Speaker 1: a choice a lot more people are willing to make.
Speaker 1: A few years ago from my book, I know how
Speaker 1: she does it. I collected time logs from women who
Speaker 1: had big, demanding jobs and who also had kids at home.
Speaker 1: I found out that about half these women work to
Speaker 1: split shift at least once during the week. They tracked.
Speaker 1: This is how they were able to work jobs that
Speaker 1: required long hours while still spending quite a bit of
Speaker 1: time with their families. Since I wrote that book, I've
Speaker 1: done some additional research, finding that many men do the
Speaker 1: exact same thing. Now. I know this sounds like working
Speaker 1: a split shift means you could never relax. But no
Speaker 1: one worked a split shift seven nights a week. No
Speaker 1: one even worked at five. But by opening up the
Speaker 1: evenings after their kids went to bed two to three
Speaker 1: nights per week, these parents were able to advance at
Speaker 1: their jobs and enjoy family life too. It really is
Speaker 1: the best of both worlds. Now, not all jobs can
Speaker 1: do this, and maybe you work in an office where
Speaker 1: you can't choose when you leave. But I found that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have more flexibility than they might think.
Speaker 1: So if you do have some flexibility in your job,
Speaker 1: figure out if a split shift might work for you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not sure, but you know what, I bet
Speaker 1: you some people in your office are already doing this.
Speaker 1: Anytime you get an email from someone at nine pm,
Speaker 1: there is a good chance they're working that split shift.
Speaker 1: You just don't see the two hours they spent with
Speaker 1: their families before they sent those emails. They probably aren't
Speaker 1: going to tell you about it either. I wish they would,
Speaker 1: but that's a more complicated subject for a different time.
Speaker 1: I do know that putting in a split shift means
Speaker 1: I can work long hours and still have dinner with
Speaker 1: my kids and put them to bed too. It's a
Speaker 1: key part about how I have it all, and maybe
Speaker 1: it can be for you as well. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram. At Before Breakfast pod that's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeart media dot
Speaker 1: com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.