I cofounded a mental health startup; yet I keep working weekends. Why?
🦄 The “start-up unicorn” people keep talking about is clearly this mystical ‘work-life balance’ that keeps eluding me.
(P.S. Scroll to the bottom if you want a 5-step checklist for how I’ve been working to fix this.)
In every new hire onboarding, I’m at my most annoyingly passionate when I’m talking about the value of work-life balance.
“This is extremely important to us at Bravely!”
I’m earnest. My eyes — if they ever have sparkled before— would be sparkling at that very moment (or maybe it’s just sun bouncing off my screen). I truly, genuinely, honestly mean it. And I’d like to think I do a good job of shoo-ing people offline when I see them on slack during their downtime.
Yet, when it comes to myself…
Every other Sunday night, I wonder to myself why it’s happened yet again. 🙄
Why does this happen?
Is it poor discipline? Bad boundaries? Old workaholic tendencies? Why am I still working even when my laptop is begging for rest?
🔔 Reason #1: Remote working means notifications going off the rails, all around the clock.
If you haven’t already been working remotely, the pandemic will have almost definitely made it happen. Work has gone from something you leave at the office, to something that sits in your living room.
From Slack to email to Notion, you’re constantly subjected to a cacophony of pings that might as well be morse code for: “someone’s hard at work, you lazy sack of ****”.
👀 Reason #2: Social media means comparing myself to what everyone else is achieving?
I can’t tell if social media likes to make me feel like I’m the only one not thriving, or if I’m just really bad at life. Either way, it’s exhausting.
On LinkedIn, the world and their grandma seem to have flourishing professional lives that are #hustling #raising #winning #hiring #acquiring #hashtagging.
Then when you’re tired of feeling inadequate about your career, jump on Instagram or Facebook and despair at seeing the same thing again. This time, on the “life” side of things.
🤹🏻♀️ Reason #3: New expectations now center around being perfect at “balance”.
5 years ago, we felt the pressure to go hard at work. The things you’d most commonly heard were GSD, hustle, go hard. Now it’s flipped. That’s no longer the trend. It’s all about “balance” and “self-care” now.
We spend our days racing around trying to get through our tasks so we can get around to doing more to feel better, but then we’re left feeling like it’s still not enough. Could it be because it tough to realise that balance doesn’t mean perfection across all sides?
Because it seems to me that work-life balance now means:
💻 keeping work strictly in its box while being wildly successful
🛹 having hobbies
👯♀️ having friends
✈️ travelling (maybe not right now)
👨❤️👨 keeping your relationship gooey and romantic
🚁 doing interesting things
📺 being up-to-date on Netflix
🏠 having a well-kept apartment
🥗 cooking interesting healthy meals, 🌿 all while keeping your 2̶0̶ 2̶5̶ 30 plants alive.
The demands of this work-life balance feels more like a balance-beam act where I’m frantically juggling too many balls and I’m about to go flying into the wall.
Somehow, it feels like yet another way to fail at something.
🤐 Reason #4: It’s hard to establish boundaries at work (a.k.a. say no).
Workplaces don’t like it when you say no. And very often, pushing back or renegotiating becomes an uncomfortable experience. More uncomfortable than, say, not having enough time to ourselves.
You end up trying to do it all at work, then going home to start all over again.
But how do you make space for life, if someone else is piling what goes onto your ‘work’ plate — leaving very little room for anything else?
Companies, managers, bosses: these are the people responsible for making a conducive environment for work-life balance.
A leader or manager can preach work-life balance all the want, but they ultimately they fail if they don’t create psychological safety at work for their team to be able to stand up and say “that’s too much for me to take on”.
So what have I learned to I do?
I don’t have it all figured out, but here are the things that have helped me:
🔨 Fix #1: Redefine what “balance” means to me
The standard self-care listicle always seem to consist of taking baths and taking walks. Yet, I know of people who answer emails on their walks and read business books in the bath. 🤷🏻♀️
I’ve learned to drop the things that don’t matter so I can make space for the things that make me content. I’ve intentionally redefined what balance means to me, not everyone else.
“Happiness is self-contentedness.”
– Aristotle
🚧 Fix #2: Setting boundaries for myself!
If people keep sucking me back into work…
I’ve set boundaries for myself, and I’ve made them clear at work (I stick to it with rare exceptions). My notifications get switched off. Or hell, often I put my phone away entirely. The best way to unplug seems to be just not being plugged in at all.
If my workload is too much…
I try to diligently communicate on your time on. If there’s work I can’t take on, I show how it’s simply not possible within the amount of time I have.
If I keep drip-feeding myself work tasks on days off…
I repeat this to myself: my weekend starts on Friday when I clock off work, and starts again on Monday morning I’m back to work. It’s not just about having Saturdays and Sundays to enjoy. I need time to wind down before I can start relaxing, so do not say yes to that a quick call or that quick email.
🤚🏻 Fix #3: Using my 5-step checklist for reclaiming my down time
✅ If I’m taking my time off outside of the normal weekend, I switch on my email responder and set my slack status to away.
✅ On Friday night, I switch off my work notifications on my phone.
✅ I have a list for how to be intentional with keeping work out of my down time. If I’m finding it hard to switch off because a small task is nagging at me, then I get it done quick. I allow myself only 2 exceptions, if I’m going to do something, it’s got to be something that can be done by the time I finish my coffee.
✅ If there’s something that comes to mind, I jot it down and intentionally leave somewhere else out of sight. Not on my phone where I have access to!
✅ I now plan in advance what to do with my “life-time” based off the type of rest that I need. It could be any of the following, or something else entirely:
🚪 Setting boundaries
👯♀️ Spending time with people
🙅🏽♀️ Spending time alone
🛌 Being a Netflix slob
🏔 Experiencing something new
🤲🏼 Working to fulfil a need
💆🏻♂️ Pampering myself
But for now, it’s the evening and work time is over. If all else fails, I will shut my laptop down, give it to my husband to put on a high high shelf, and walk away to enjoy my well-deserved time off work. 😎🏖
Want to say hello? Say hi 💌 mel@bravely.io or on the 👋🏻 bravely discord.
