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Speaker 1: Work life balance. We've all heard the phrase, but how

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Speaker 1: do you actually achieve it? And more importantly, is it

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Speaker 1: even possible? I mean it sounds simple, prioritize your tasks,

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Speaker 1: both personal and work related, and sort them out easy, right.

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Speaker 1: But here's the real question, how do you know what

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Speaker 1: truly matters? I asked none other than Ariel Garten, the

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Speaker 1: brilliant neuroscientist, to help answer that. Ariel is a powerhouse

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Speaker 1: in brain tech and the genius behind Muse, the EEG

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Speaker 1: powered headband that helps even the most distracted minds meditate

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Speaker 1: and sleep like never before. And when it comes to

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Speaker 1: mastering mindfulness and balance, Ariel is living it. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies

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Speaker 1: for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.

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Speaker 1: On today's quick Win episode, we go back to an

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Speaker 1: episode from the past and I pick out a quick

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Speaker 1: win that you can apply today. To start with, I

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Speaker 1: wanted to hear Aril's perspective on prioritization, both from a

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Speaker 1: big picture of you, like over the course of a

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Speaker 1: year or a quarter, but also looking at it from

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Speaker 1: a day to day more micro level. Can you tell

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Speaker 1: me about how you approach prioritization. I find that it

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Speaker 1: is such a hard thing for so many leaders, and

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Speaker 1: I'd love to know how do you think about it?

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Speaker 1: You know? I guess from like a macro view, like

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Speaker 1: you know, the year or the quarter, and then more

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Speaker 1: of a micro view in terms of today. How do

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Speaker 1: I actually distinguish between the thing that's going to shift

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Speaker 1: the dial and the thing that maybe I feel like

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Speaker 1: I need to do but it's going to make me

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Speaker 1: work night shift.

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Speaker 2: That's a tough question. So as an organization, we actually

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Speaker 2: set out an annual plan and we start that process

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Speaker 2: in October. We do our annual planning, we publish what

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Speaker 2: we're going to do for the year, and then we

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Speaker 2: try to keep ourselves to that. And there's obviously going

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Speaker 2: to be a lot of shifts that happen, and part

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Speaker 2: of it is response to market demand or a response

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Speaker 2: to you know, buyer is the most important thing that

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Speaker 2: we have to deal with. I am actually very bad

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Speaker 2: at prioritization because I want to do everything, and so

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Speaker 2: I will often push myself to do more rather than

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Speaker 2: drop something that I think is important, which can then

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Speaker 2: lead to a lot of difficulty prioritizing family, the other

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Speaker 2: things in your life, and so often that prioritization goes

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Speaker 2: in two places. One is who is the pain customer?

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Speaker 2: Who is most likely to be the pain customer, and

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Speaker 2: so we need to serve them. And two is how

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Speaker 2: is this going to do the most good, the most

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Speaker 2: good for the organization, the most good for myself, the

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Speaker 2: most good for my family, the most good for the

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Speaker 2: customer or the person using the device. And so it

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Speaker 2: is a question of, you know, what's going to be

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Speaker 2: financially most rewarding because it's going to allow the sustenance

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Speaker 2: of the business, and what is also going to achieve

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Speaker 2: the highest good for these groups of stakeholders. And often

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Speaker 2: those groups of stakeholders are in conflict with one another.

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Speaker 2: You know, what's the most good for my family is

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Speaker 2: not the same as what's the most good for my company.

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Speaker 2: Obviously they both want my time, and so that's when

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Speaker 2: it has to really be a value based prioritization.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like really tough decisions to make. How have

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Speaker 1: you found yourself making them, you know, day to day

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Speaker 1: or in the moment, because I'm imagining that this is

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Speaker 1: probably a daily reality for you in terms of making

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Speaker 1: those choices. Around who gets your time.

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Speaker 2: So I mean, sometimes you don't even make that decision.

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Speaker 2: The decision is made for you. The kid comes in

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Speaker 2: in the middle of your zoom meeting and she really

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Speaker 2: wants to breastfeed, and like, sorry, it's just what's going

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Speaker 2: to be happening. Sorry, zoom meeting. You know, sometimes you

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Speaker 2: just can't. The nanny calls them sick and so sorry,

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Speaker 2: meetings have to cancel and family gets her time. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: it almost feels relieving when you don't have to make

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Speaker 2: the decision. It's made for you. Sometimes you really do

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Speaker 2: get the luxury of making your own decisions. And it's

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Speaker 2: a very good question how that decision is really made

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Speaker 2: day to day. You know, I could give you an

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Speaker 2: answer like, oh, I do it intuitively, but I think

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Speaker 2: really what that means is I try to do the

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Speaker 2: best I can and then stuff is just going to

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Speaker 2: fall into line and whatever gets done gets done. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're really imperfect when it comes to managing most aspects

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Speaker 2: of our humanity. Stuff just happens. Time goes on, people

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Speaker 2: make choices around you, They impact you. You react in

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Speaker 2: some way, and we try to put little bit of

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Speaker 2: guidance towards what we hope will happen along the way.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate your honesty. It is so hard, you know,

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Speaker 1: and I think, particularly as a business founder, it's so

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Speaker 1: easy to feel torn between the business and clients and

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Speaker 1: then what your family needs. I definitely experience that, you know,

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Speaker 1: many many times, and I still don't quite know how

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Speaker 1: to navigate it. I think something I do reflect on,

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Speaker 1: and I think it helps me procrastinate less, is that

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Speaker 1: the time that I've got, and typically my work time

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Speaker 1: is it's in front of a computer, or it's in

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Speaker 1: front of clients or with my team, and I think

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Speaker 1: about how do I really make those hours count, particularly

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Speaker 1: when if I don't make that count, There's going to

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Speaker 1: be some sort of a trade off that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to have to make later in the day when you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm with my daughter. I'm curious, like, if you can

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Speaker 1: relate to that, or if you've kind of got similar

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Speaker 1: mental processes or awareness of you know, particularly when your

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Speaker 1: mind is drifting or you're you know, processing emails in

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Speaker 1: a way that's not the most productive, what does that

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Speaker 1: look like for you?

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Speaker 2: So I absolutely resonate with this, and even as you

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Speaker 2: say it, I feel this sense of pressure and I

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Speaker 2: think what you have to do is recognize that it's

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Speaker 2: okay to have limitation, and it's okay to only do

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Speaker 2: so much in a day, and it's okay to only

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Speaker 2: be able to accomplish so much in a work session,

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Speaker 2: and then to make your choices accordingly. You know, I

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Speaker 2: used to want to say yes to everything because everything

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Speaker 2: brought such amazing opportunity. And now I unfortunately have to

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Speaker 2: say yes to a lot less things, but I continue

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Speaker 2: to find that those bring richness an opportunity. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 2: not good at saying no to things, and so I

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Speaker 2: think for me, it's more about what gets my attention

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Speaker 2: to say yes to it, and honestly, some of it

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Speaker 2: is just luck.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this quick win with Ariel. If

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Speaker 1: you are keen to get your hands on a muse,

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Speaker 1: Ariel has kindly given listeners of the show fifteen percent off.

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Speaker 1: Just go to Choose Muse, which is mus e, choose

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Speaker 1: mus dot com, forward slash how I work, and enter

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Speaker 1: the code how I work at check out, and those

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Speaker 1: details are in the show notes. Finally, if you'd like

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Speaker 1: to listen to the full interview with Aril, you can

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Speaker 1: find a link to that in the show notes. Also,

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Speaker 1: if you like today's show, make sure you hit follow

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Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.

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Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of

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Speaker 1: the Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation