830 mid-year halftime reset, the workaholic's guide to breaks & don't outsource your brain

Speaker A: I know there are a lot of HR people listening right now, and I have something I really want to tell you. I'm going to make an assumption about you. You are a giver. You give out to your organization, but you don't often get a lot of input. You spend your days organizing the learning and development for everyone else in the org, but you don't get your own. Well, we have the most amazing event just for you. It is designed for HR leaders and HR professionals and it is called the People and Culture Unconference. And it is an unconventional conference. We use the term conference loosely for people people. There's a couple of things that you're going to want to know. We have Dr. Amantha Imber joining us. She's running a session on AI for HR leaders. My amazing friend Shane Hatton is flying from London to Brisbane to run a session on the culture Playbook. And I'm going to be running two sessions, one called the Conflict Confessional. How to handle high stakes conflict in the workplace and reinventing your HR leadership. What's next? If you want tickets, couple of things I want you to do for me. Link is in the show notes. We'll give you all the details, the program, everything you need to know. And we have a cheeky discount code for our, uh, podcast listeners. Put in the words pod in capitals P O D and you'll get a 10% discount. Can't wait to see you there. All right, I have been on a little break and I have had some big ideas while I've been off. I'm going to share the three big ideas I've had that I think you are going to need to hear. We are at halfway through the year at the moment, so I'm going to talk about this idea of a halftime reset and we're going to talk about why we shouldn't outsource our brain, as well as a guide to taking breaks if you're a workaholic. Let's go. This is a podcast about making work work. You'll learn about leadership, career growth, and how to navigate those weird work challenges. I run a HR consulting business called Boldside where I help leaders build epic team cultures. If you lead a team or run a business and you think I can help, let's connect on LinkedIn. My name is Shelly Johnson and this is work.

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Speaker A: I've been thinking about the fact that it is half time. Like in the scheme of the year, we're at the halfway mark or a little bit over. So it's August at the time of recording and I want us to think about today. Wherever you are, what does your halftime reset look like? So you've done the first 6ish months of the year and now I want you to have the opportunity to have a bit of a reset. We have five months until Christmas. Like that is terrifying. And what are you doing that's working really well and what do you want to do more of and what are the things you think? I'm not sure that's really working for me. And I do really believe in the idea of a halftime reset over the course of your year. You know, everyone's always like new year, new me or whatever and it's like, no, no, let's just have a little pause in the middle and think about how things going, where am I tracking, what do I want to tweak and change and shift? So hello, August. Let's have a little think about your halftime reset. So I've got some ideas for you of questions that I find helpful. I just got back from um, a two week break and really use that time to go. I'm gonna hit the reset button on a few things. In the way that I'm showing up, the way that I'm leading, the way that I am working. And I wanna give you the opportunity to do the exact same thing. So here is your halftime reset. I want you to think about these questions. So again, you know that I love good, curious questions and I think the ability to sit with a hard hitting question is part of your learning and your growth. So I want you to do this with me. If you are on the train, if you are, uh, on a walk, if you're on the bus, if you're wherever, at a cafe listening to this, get out your phone. Well, your phone is probably already out because you're listening to this podcast in the first place. I want you to get out your phone and I want you to write this in for me. So question number one. What are three things I'm doing right now that are driving the biggest impact? So three things you're doing really well that are driving impact. This is us thinking about the things you want to die. Double down on what do you want to do more of? And if you think about the last six months, so reflect back for me for a moment. I want you to start by thinking about those three things that have been really positive, that have led to great impact in your work, in your career, and in your leadership. So try and capture those. Sit with that question. If you need to hit pause on this pod, do it and answer those questions. Or that one question that I just asked. What are the three things that are driving the biggest impact for you right now? So capture it down. You should get a sense of one of the indicators that something is driving impact will be there's a sense of energy and momentum around it. So I want you to think about that for a moment. The second question. So again, get your notes app out, write this down. Is what work is distracting me or draining me? So I want you to think about distractions and drainers. Um, some of you are thinking right now, I'm going to put a few people's names in there. Um, you know, answer this however you will. I'm not really referring to people. I'm more referring to the nature of the work. What are the drainers in the way that you're working right now, that's really causing you to have less impact. So we start with thinking about what are the biggest impacts in your role that you're driving. But then what are the things that either distracting you, costing you, or draining you? So sit with that question. Just to me, one of the biggest derailers in people's work life is the distractions. So I want you to think about noise. Distractions, derailers, things that split your attention and your focus. Focus. The ability to focus is so important to the success of your career. So if you can look at, okay, well, what is, uh, derailing my focus? What is distracting me right now? What is noise that I keep finding myself giving my attention to? These are the things that, that are likely to be draining your energy and then they negatively affect your impact. So I want you to try and capture what they are. There should trends. So when you think about what are the trends, like when I find myself, uh, getting distracted. What triggered that or what caused that? Now, for m Me, like, I find quite a few things distracting. I think context switching is a big one for me. I don't know. Can you hear my tummy rumbling? If you can, I am obviously hungry. Uh, I've got. We've now got 30 minutes until I turn into a different person. So let's see how quickly we can get this podcast done. Um, for anyone else who gets really hangry, I see it as a bit of a generational curse. It has been bestowed on me, uh, from generation to generation in my family bloodline. Anyway, that's a complete aside. As I mentioned, I get distracted. I love that this point is about distractions and everyone who is listening. You've just witnessed a beautiful moment of distraction. Oh, uh, gosh, I got to refocus. Okay, refocus. High impact. What are we doing to, uh, have high impact? Okay, so when you think about distractions, what are they? And on the flip side, what are the things that you need to hyper focus? And one big thing we've been talking with leaders who we work with about who, uh, we work with at the moment is this idea of how you can help your team hyper focus on high impact work. Because a lot of teams that we work with, a lot of organizations we work with, they are stuck in busy, low value, shallow work that's not driving any impact. That's not actually helping their performance. And I want you to come back to, if I can hyperfocus on the right things, that is going to propel my career forward. So I want you to kind of start to consider this, weigh this up, sit with a question. What are, uh, the distractions right now? What are the drainers? And what is that costing me? So getting clear on that now I want you to think about when you do your best work, when you're in the flow state. What are some of the conditions that you need to get into that zone? So what are the conditions you need to get into that zone? So that is my, uh, next question. What are the conditions you need to get into the flow state? You will remember when you've been in flow state because there'll be a few things. It will feel like time flies by. So when you're in that state of like, your genius zone, time will stop. You're not going to be paying attention to the clock. You will also feel a sense of. It's interesting. It's kind of like two things that can feel counterintuitive happen at once you might have an element of stress, of good stress. So maybe a level of pressure around the work that you're doing, but also it will be equally energizing. So those two things are often true. When you're in the flow state. You might feel like, oh my gosh, I'm under pressure. But I feel energized by the nature of the work. So they're some of the indicators that you're in the flow state. And I want you to uh, try and recall a moment that you've been in that zone and what were some of the preconditions that helped you get into that space. And it'll be different for every person. And this is why there's no um, formula to this stuff. You've got to become more self aware because if you're able to then diagnose, okay, well what is it that I need to be my, um, to do my best work? These are some of the things or requirements that's what I want you to uncover. And then this question is random. I don't know why I put this in, but I, I liked it. I love, I love a good pep talk. Like, I just love it. And I have one person in my world I, um, really think does this. Well, Annabelle, who I've worked with for many years. Anyone who listens to the pod for a long time will know Annabelle, uh, because I've spoken about her a lot. She worked for a long time with me in a HR role as well as in Bold side. And now she's killing it doing her own business, which I am just obsessed with seeing how she has grown and progressed her amazing career. And she's like the queen of pep talks. And this week I had like this moment where I was like, oh, no, I'm, uh, not, I'm not coping. I was just like a lot of like factors, like lots of stress, like work related stress, not good stress, like probably not very helpful stress. And she gets on the audio message and, and she's like, just gives the best pep talk. I just can't describe how good it is. She's, she. It's almost like, you know those people where you envision a coach, um, in like a sporting team that they equally kind of encourage you and challenge you, slash slam you at the same time. They're like just basically like saying, hey, snap out of it. Like you have got this, you are going to do this. Like, just snap out of it. Get your head together. And we're going, we're going after this thing. Stop it. And it was like equally two of those things at the same time. And I just think I love a pep talk. And sometimes we need a pep talk. So what is the pep talk that you need? And who are those people in your world that do that for you? Because I just think. And I was trying to, um, again, I was unpacking, um, this with, uh, Sam, my husband, as to why I love Annabelle's pep talks. And I, I kind of boiled it down to two things. When someone gives you this good pep talk where they, like, help you rally, so they're, like, challenging you, but they're also encouraging you to, like, lift, they're doing both of those things at the same time. The thing I love about that is it's the confidence. And I think confidence is contagious. And, you know, when that person sees something in you and they speak it out and they, um, call it out in you, it's this contagious confidence. And the other thing I think that is in the mix. So it's both the confidence being contagious. So Annabelle's confidence in me and what I can achieve is very contagious. But then also she has this deep belief. And I think sometimes when we hit a lull in our career where we might feel, oh, uh, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I have what it takes. You want someone in your world that can speak to your potential, that can build confidence in you. So they've got that contagious confidence, but they also have this deep belief in what you have to offer and what you can bring. And, um, I don't know. I just found this week I really needed that. And I wasn't planning on sharing this, but here I am just, you know, oversharing as I do. I want you to think about who in your world does that for you and how can you surround yourself with people who have that contagious confidence and belief in you. And I know it might sound woo woo or rah rah or whatever you want to talk about, but I just think the belief. We need people in our world who believe in us just point blank. It's just like the essence of this point. And so find people who are good at doing the pep talk. And if you don't have someone in your world like that, I want you to put that down as your number one action. I just don't think people should go about their lives without having people who believe in them. And actually, I'm going to do this thing for you right now. I want to do this because I did this, um, in a. Actually in three workshops with three different organizations in the last week. We have had the privilege of training I, uh, don't know how many leaders, probably 180 leaders over the last week and a bit. And we asked them all this question. So I want you to do it with me. We ask them, think of the best leader you've ever worked for. I want you to think about them. Have you got them in your mind? Think of the best leader you've ever worked for. Okay? Now, every single person who's got that person in their mind, so I'm assuming you've got their face in your mind. They'll all be so different. Every single one of them will be completely different, except for this one thing. And I am going to make a bold guess that every single person's leader that they have in their mind, who is the best leader they've ever worked for, did this one thing. They believed in your potential, and they saw things in you that you didn't see in yourself. Like, they could all be so different. One of them might be, like, super thoughtful, considerate, great listeners. One might be super gutsy, courageous, visionary. One, uh, leader that someone's thinking of is, like, the most analytical person in the world and, like, really loves meeting structure and all this stuff. But the common thread with all of them will be they are a potential finder, and they find the potential in you. They believe in the things that you don't see in yourself, and they help you unlock that. And that's what I mean when I say, find these people. Like, everyone deserves to have a person like that in their world, especially when it comes to your career. Because so many managers, employees that I, uh, work with have all these outrageous, limiting beliefs that put this ceiling on them. And independently, they can't seem to remove the ceiling because they've placed this limiting belief. I'll never be good enough. I'll never be able to do that. I'll never be able to get up and present in front of the exec. I'll never be able to go for that CFO role that I desperately want. And I just think, you know what, if you're not going to take that lid off yourself, you need someone in your corner who can show you how, who can speak into that space and say, hey, what the heck? Like, what are you doing? It's equally challenging and encouragement. It's the amazing coach conversation where they slam you. And they make you feel like you're the best person in the world. And that's what I want for you. So you need someone who can give you a really good pep talk. You need someone. And more than that, it's really less about the pep talk and more about the qualities of. Of a mentor, a, uh, coach, a, uh, guide in your world. Someone who believes in you, someone who sees your potential, and someone who isn't afraid to step into that space and has. How can I talk? No. Has contagious confidence in who you are as a person and speaks into that. So find one, find two, find three of those people and every single person. I want you. If this is one thing you get out of the podcast, let it be that. So halftime reset, baby. Let's go. So these are the things I want you to think about. How do you have a halftime reset? You might take half an hour and a lunch break this week and go, this is my halftime reset. I'm going to think about these three questions. I think there might have been three questions. There could have been four. The first one, what are the three things that are driving the biggest impact for me right now? How can I do more of them? Number two, what's distracting or draining me, and how do I minimize that? Number three, what are the preconditions for how I get into the flow state? What does the flow state look for me look like for me? And what are the things that I need to do to set me up to get into that space more? How can I hyperfocus? And then what's the pep talk you need? And how do you get more people in your world who believe in you? That is what I want you to do as your halftime reset. I, uh, hope you noticed that there was no new me, new you, new year thing in there. Like, I don't want you to come up with any, like, new habits or just, like, transformation vibes. None of that. I just want you to think about having a little reset, seeing where am I at, how am I progressing? And let me know how you go with that if you found those actions helpful. If you take action on any of those things, message me on LinkedIn, because, you know, I love to hear about how you're getting the most out of this podcast. And I know it's been a while between drinks, because I've been on. I was on a holiday, and then I lost my voice, and then I was, like, all over the countryside. And so, you know, this is the first time I've been back in the studio in ages and I've missed you. And on that note, let's go to a break.

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Speaker A: Big idea I've been thinking about. Where is the off switch? And here I want to share with you my workaholics guide to taking breaks. So I am absolutely a workaholic and I'm trying to get better at taking breaks and I really struggle with it. It's not been something I have found easy to do. I find switching off really hard. And so I've had some thoughts while I was on leave and I've just captured them down. But my biggest thought was, where is the off switch? Like, where's the off switch? I just think everyone's like, yeah, I'm having a break. I'm switching off. I'm like, yeah, but what do you mean when you say you're switching off? What do you actually mean? Because I'm like, there is no off switch. I can't find it. And one of the things I wonder, uh, for anyone who's listening to a work podcast, I'm going to hazard a guess that you may be a little workaholic. And, um, so this is exactly for you because I hope you can relate to this. I have been trying to figure out what does taking Breaks look like for me, how do I, how do I do that in a more structured, helpful way and make that process easier? Um, one of the things that I, I know about myself is that I love work. Like, I'm obsessed with work and so I get heaps of energy from it. So it's not like, oh, but I love my job, so why would I want to switch off in the first place? But what you realize over time is the quality of the work ends up dropping if you don't have breaks. That's the same for micro breaks, like lunch breaks. We know there's stacks of research around how the quality of your work will drop if you don't take a break and have something like space from your desk, get away from the computer, get away from the screens in the same way. I think we need multiple breaks. So, uh, I've been thinking about it in a couple of ways. It's micro breaks throughout the day. So your lunch break, your little 10 minute walk, it's the end, uh, of day routine. So the closing routine. I want to talk about this in a bit more detail. In a sec. So your end of day routine, how do you switch off, um, once you finish work for the day, and then the last one is your holiday breaks, how do you switch off for big chunks of time? So three things that I'm trying to do and I want to share. Just like some of my initial early learnings, I'm experimenting with this. But I feel like a lot of people here may struggle with this as well. So I want to just, uh, toss around some ideas that I've been playing with. Let's start off with holidays. So how do you take big breaks? Not an expert in this learning. And I'm sharing my learnings as I go. And one of the things I found on my recent two weeks off was I had to do this. I had this idea of, okay, what is my off ramp like? You know when you're on the highway, you're traveling somewhere and you take the exit ramp and you go, okay, um, I'm exiting here and I start to slow down. And so I want you to think about when you're taking a big break. Could be a week, could be two, could be a month. We need an off ramp, an exit ramp to go on holidays. Because the idea that you're going a hundred miles an hour, or in Australia you're going 110 on the freeway, you're driving really fast, and then all of a sudden you just stop. You just stop. This is not how it works like momentum doesn't work like that. When you're going really fast and really hard for a long period of time, you can't just turn off like that. It's just like all of a sudden I'm going 110km on the freeway and then I just slam the brakes. No, that is, that doesn't work. Uh, and I just think, I don't know, you know, the laws of momentum. But I'm just gonna say, objectively speaking, I just don't think it works. And so, as you know, not very good at science, not my strength. So I want us to think about an exit ramp. What is the off ramp for when you go and leave? How do you progressively slow down? Instead of this idea of where's the off button? I'm trying to find the off switch and there's just no off switch. That's because we can't go from really fast paced high energy output to nothing. It just does not work. So what is your off ramp? For me, I had a couple of things. So we had, I had two weeks off and the first. And uh, this is different for me because I run my own business, but for you, you need to come up with your own version of this. So I did, um, three day kind of like stage stint where I was like dabbling. And that's just, that was my kind of. I'm slowing down. I'm going from 110km an hour down to 60km an hour, down to 40, down to eventually zero. And so I had three days where I would just check in. I was just wrapping up emails and so I was still technically kind of working, but I was doing like half days and that was my off ramp. So I knew I'm not trying to immediately switch off. I'm going to stage it out and I'm going to wrap up those annoying bits and pieces. Like, you know what, even the word or the phrase bits and pieces, doesn't that just make you cringe? Like, just bits and pieces. It's kind of like, it's kind of like the phrase chitchat just, uh, just gives me the. Just give me like shivers, like cringy. But those are like, that's the thing. You have to wrap those things up. So I spent some time doing that and then I created a list, um, for my team of things that I was either I left undone. So here's the things that I haven't done, here's the things that are kind of on my mind, that if any of this comes up, we're not going to need to deal with. And then here's the things that can wait till I'm back. And just for me, uh, working out, I've categorized the work into buckets. Things that are undone that are still in a mess, just calling it out, they're messy, that's fine, that can be left. These are things that, uh, we're going to need to chase, follow up action that I'll leave with you to action in my absence. And these are the things that, uh, can wait till I'm back. Now you don't have to be a manager to do that. Although it does help when you are a manager. Giving that clarity to your team is really helpful. You could just be sharing that with your boss and your peers of going, hey, just a heads up, here's the three things while I'm away. The messy stuff that's left undone, um, that may, you may need to know about. Here's the things we're going to need to take action on, that I'll leave with you. And here's the things that can wait till I'm back. It could be like the watch this space areas. So just being able to communicate and use that as part of your off ramp. So if you're thinking about your leave, looking at three days before I go on leave, I'm going to start to unwind. I'm going to start to do this off ramp routine, whatever that looks like. The slowing down, not the immediate hard stop. Because I just don't think that hard stop works. At least certainly not if you're a workaholic. So that was my first strategy, the off ramp. Then a couple of key things that I have found really do not help me switch off. Number one is reading nonfiction. So I've come up with. After this recent holiday, I've come up with a, I guess a little rule for myself of when I'm on holidays, I will not read nonfiction because it stimulates the work part of my brain. So I was trying to read a few books, um, which I will get to in my next big idea. I'll tell you which book I read that was nonfiction. That really did not help me unwind and I just might know not. I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm just. When I'm on holidays, I'm not going to try and do any form of personal development. None. And in fact, I'm going to try and do the exact opposite in, and I've termed it a personal development detox. So when I'm on holidays I'm having a personal development detox. I do not want to do a single bit of personal development. In fact, the only thing that I want to do is I want to listen to good music. I want to read like a good romantasy. Because, you know, anyone, anyone listening knows all the millennial women are just into romanticies. If you don't know that genre well, you should because it is good. Just I think some of us don't want to read it in public. Like, we don't want people like. So if you've got, you definitely want a Kindle for a Romantasy. I will say that. Where was I? Okay, I'm back on track. So fiction, music, sunshine, walks. The other thing, like walks. Oh my gosh. Having a daily walk is so good for rest and a break. That's one thing I've been finding as part of my rest recovery, holiday mode. The other thing I will say just, uh, really important is the sound of a champagne bottle popping. Instant break. Like champagne on arrival. I don't know. That's just, you know, take that as you will M. But I, I say all this to let you know that if you want to have, if you want to be effective in the long term, breaks aren't a inhibitor of that. They are the enabler of you being effective in the long term. And I think that's been something I've really had to grapple with. I often think breaks come at the cost of my effectiveness, but I now know that I know like, so I've deeply had to, uh, learn this. Breaks, uh, are the enabler of your long term performance, not an inhibitor to it. And I know someone listening right now who is really exhausted, who is really tired, who is thinking, I can't take a break. I want you to know if you don't get good at breaks, your long term performance will be affected. And so instead of seeing it as coming at a cost, you need to see it as an ad. It is the enabler, not the cost, not the inhibitor. And I mean, it was really interesting. Like I had that, I had that two weeks off and I felt, um, going back to the flow state, what are the conditions you need to be in the flow state? One of the things I know when I'm in the flow state is I'm able to be quite creative. So creative not in terms of painting and art, but creative in terms of ideas. I have a lot of creative ideas about, uh, how we develop leaders, the type of content we want to do for leaders, the type of upskilling we're going to do and having all these really amazing creative, or what I would consider amazing sparks of creativity, um, someone else can be the judge of that. But when I, uh, I had that two weeks off, first proper break in so long, and I really rested, it was the first time I felt like I rested. And as soon as I hopped on the plane to come back from this holiday, like with like, um, my two kids and Sam, my husband, we got in the plane and it was like the weirdest thing happened. All my creative ideas just like started to. All these ideas started to come to me just after this break and I said to, um, my team afterwards when I got back, I'm like, oh my gosh, it's true what they say, breaks are good for you. Because I haven't had hardly for the last 12 months. I've felt, um, the lowest levels of creativity I've probably felt in the last five years. I felt really like I haven't had that spark or that energy. And I have this beautiful two weeks off, fully rest, switch off. I actually genuinely felt I switched off this time because I did my off ramp routine. And at the end of it I had like this total epiphany of like the creative download of all these new ideas that I've been trying to drum up. Like a lot of stuff to do with writing, um, some new material for all these leaders we're working with. And all of a sudden it just hit me. And so I guess I say all that to go. The positive reinforcement of the breaks are, uh, what enable you to perform well in the long term and downtime with no personal development, with no like, uh, work related input, like not listening to any podcasts on work. And I say that having this, this podcast, like having a hiatus from all that and going, okay, cool, I just want to be able to just chill. Honestly, it was the best thing. And I know that, uh, there will be people listening who struggle with this a lot. And I want to encourage you as someone who is obsessed with work, the best thing I feel for my work in the last year that I've done is have a proper break. So that's the holidays one. I want to just talk about two other breaks, just briefly. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, two other breaks. So the one is like the micro breaks, the lunch breaks, uh, or the little quick walks. So how do you build this into your day? So one thing, um, that I learned from Jess Spenlove, by the way, she's just released a new book, uh, called for the Long Run on High performance and sustained high performance. I'd encourage you to get it. But she talks a lot about micro breaks. So the quick 10 minute walk without any tech. So tech free walk, 10 minutes, preferably in the sunshine outside, but just some form of movement being a really good thing for a, uh, quick uplift in your focus and performance. So going back to, we want to hyperfocus quick 10 minute walk somewhere in your day, just once a day if you can get it in there. The other thing is like a lunch break that is not at your desk. And I say this being someone who for 10 years had lunch at my desk. And one of the reasons I had lunch at my desk when I was working in HR in is because I wanted to avoid people because I was like peopled out. But if you're like me and you're introverted or ambivert, introvert, wherever you sit on that, I want you to think about going uh, somewhere away from your computer and having a proper lunch. Could be 20 minutes, doesn't have to be the full half an hour. But I guess my encouragement is again getting away from the screen, changing your environment that will have that boost. So how do you build in micro breaks to your day every day? Something I'm trying to be really intentional about and I find that super, uh, super helpful. The other thing that I want you to think about, and this is, okay, this I think is very helpful. I love when I'm like this is really good, but it's my own idea. And so it's just very, um, what do you call it? Self aggrandizing. But anyway, I do think it's good. Okay, sorry, an aside. Just bear with me again, any of this. If I say something and I think it's good, feel free to challenge me on it. If you want to DM me, uh, on LinkedIn or on Instagram search boldside and say, I just didn't really think that was that good. Totally fine. All about that life of debating out the ideas. Okay, so this is what I want you to try to try. Everyone talks about morning routines. Everyone talks about morning routines. They bang on about how important morning routines are. But what we do not talk about is how important an end of day routine is. And I would argue your end of day routine is more important than your morning routine. And the reason why is because how you finish the day sets you up for your sleep and your sleep has the biggest impact on how you start your morning. So I think this idea of the end of day routine is, is so powerful. Now here's how it works. Has anyone worked in hospital? Anyone listening? If you've worked in hospital, if you've worked in a cafe, if you worked at Subway, which is where I worked, I started at Subway. I think I was like 13, I don't think it was legal, but I worked at Subway for a long time. Um, wherever you've worked, if you have worked in a hospital job, you will know the closing routine. And every job that has a closing routine, they have a checklist of everything they need to do when the shop shuts, when the cafe shuts, when the restaurant shuts to end the day well, to set the next day up for success. In the same way, if you're a knowledge worker, you need to have a closing routine, an end of day routine. How do I shut up shop? It's closing time. How do I shut up? Because not shut up verbally, but how do I shut up the shop? Oh, uh, my gosh, we're on a roll today, people. So I want you to come up with your own closing routine. Now for me, I have a few things that I do religiously and actually it's probably only one really important thing that I do at the end of every day. I would never finish my day without handwriting. And it's hand. Handwritten stuff is important to me. Don't know why, um, but I will handwrite my top five things I must do for the next day. And that uh, is just, it's just a non negotiable. I cannot finish my day now without it. And I think it's become this discipline because what it does is it gets all the stuff out of my head and I only narrow it down to five things because there's always more than five things on your list. But for me it's what are the top five things I must do tomorrow? And that way when I go, I like unwind, do whatever, um, get into bed. There's not all these things rolling around in my head of, oh, have I got that? Do I know? How am I capturing that? And so I have an asana board for every single possible thing I have to do do over the next like few months. But what I want you to do in your closing routine, your end of day routine is what are the five things you need to do tomorrow? And you're only thinking about setting up that next day for success. You're not, you're not thinking about the month, you're not thinking about the cause. This is where we get overwhelmed and this is why again, coming back to this idea of hyper focus. I want you to think about how do I finish my day well, now, how you finish your day well, doesn't have to look like mine. So Subway has a closing routine that is very different to a bar, that is very different to a fine dining restaurant. Each shop, each hospo venue is going to have a different closing routine. You need your version of your closing routine, whatever that looks like for you. So for some people it could be an evening walk where you just unwind. For some people I know if you're, um, you've got a short commute. So let's say you work at a hospital and it's only 10 minutes from your home, so you don't get that time to unwind from the day because the commute's really short. So what I, what you might do, and it's like creating your own third space where you unwind is you might drive that 10 minutes and sit in your car for another 10 minutes at the end of your day to unwind before you walk in the house, Something like that. Whatever it is for you, I want you to come up with your own closing routine. How do I know that it is time to switch off? What are the signals I need to tell myself? And so I really want you to come up with your own version of this. For me, it's super simple, just my top five things and that is my end of day. And I write. I'm so obsessed with like moleskine, um, notebooks that are online and I write them in my same little pen. It's online notebook, top five. That's what I do. And I really want you to come up with yours. So try, try a few things out and again, if you have any success with this or you don't, either way, let me know. Message me. Love hearing from you about all this stuff. So where is the off switch? I don't think there's necessarily an off switch. I think there are practices and disciplines we all need to try to help us have rest and have breaks. So unfortunately didn't find the off switch. However, these practices and breaks helped me switch off also. Just as an, uh, aside, I was like, we were. The holiday. I was at Beautiful, we were in the Whitsundays and it was absolutely like, it was like 23 degrees. By the way, any, I find Queensland is so weird. Like, I love you, you're beautiful. Um, also weird. Beautiful and weird, which is how we would, how we want it, right? Uh, it was 23 degrees, middle of winter, and they're like, it's so cold. It's so cold. I'm like, okay, first of all, it's not cold. Objectively speaking, it is not cold. But it's really cute that you think it is. Anyway, the other thing I was thinking is about this idea of like when you are a workaholic, we're so used to everything happening fast, we think everything should be fast. So I kept thinking, how do I rest but make it really efficient? Like how do I have fast paced rest? And uh, unfortunately that's not how rest works. It is not fast paced. So just uh, realize that while I was on a little break, my last big idea is don't outsource your brain and sit with ideas you don't agree with. So let me tell you, I was in the airport, uh, just as we were heading off to this holiday and I mentioned I'm never going to read a non fiction book again on a holiday because it just gets me into work mode and I don't like it. And this book will be the last nonfiction book I ever read on a break. So let me tell you about it. I was in the airport newsagent, uh, thingy that they have and I was looking at the books and I'll get a couple of uh, options. And I saw this book on overthinking. And as you know, if you've been a listener, I am a self confessed professed self professed or self confessed overthinker. And I saw it and it was like how to stop overthinking or something like that. Like, cool, I'm gonna buy that. I need m. I need a bit of that. And I got it and it was the first thing I read. As soon as I got to this holiday place, we went, sat down, opened this book. I'm like, cool, help fix me. Fix me. And as I was reading it, I got maybe two or three chapters in. I'm like, I didn't like this book at all. I don't like it. I don't like what it's saying. I don't agree with it. I think that some of the fundamental premises are uh, incorrect anyway. And so I got maybe a third, uh, yeah, a quarter of the way through and thought I should just stop reading it. But something in me was like, no, persevere. And usually when I read a book, if I don't like it early on, I'll just stop. I don't feel like I have to finish it to be like I have to tick that off my list. But for some reason I felt like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna finish it. So I finished the book and I got to the end of it, and I'm like, did I change my mind about that concept? Do I, now that I've read the whole thing, do I agree with what the author was saying? And I got to the end, I'm like, no. I, I still find myself disagreeing with the principles that that book spoke about. However, one, uh, thing that I was really stoked about was the ability to sit with an idea that you disagree with and really try to understand it. And so I think that the skill we want to build, and certainly the skill we want to build in the age of, uh, AI is this ability to critically think, to critically analyze, and to sit with concepts that you maybe find uncomfortable, that you maybe think. I'm not sure about that, but I want to understand. And I do find that if in organizations we have people who see disagreement as a healthy thing, that see the debate of ideas is something that enables, uh, creativity, that have this analytical brain where they can, uh, analyze concepts, analyze challenging, uh, perspectives and then reach an outcome, to me, that is such a strength. And so I guess I say all this to say two things. Number one, don't outsource your brain. Do not outsource your brain. Keep critically analyzing. If someone suggests something, if I say something, if someone in your workplace says something, you're like, I don't know how I feel about, about that. Sit with it, critically analyze it. Ask yourself, what nerve is that hitting? What might be? What might I be missing here? And that was one thing I was asking myself as I was reading. Um, I don't like what this person's saying. What might I be missing here? And it just, to me is again, coming back to building this muscle. How do you sit with the ideas you don't agree with and not outsource your brain building that critical thinking muscle? So they are my big ideas that I've been thinking about over the last couple of weeks. I know it's been a while since we've caught up. Number one, get your halftime reset in. It is August. It's kind of a little bit over halfway in the year. Have a halftime reset. Ask yourself those reflective questions. Number two, where is the off switch? Um, a Workaholics Guide to Taking Breaks, people. I want you to have an off ramp to take proper breaks, and I want you to have micro breaks throughout your day and an end of day routine. And number three, don't outsource your brain. Sit with ideas you don't agree with. Ask those reflective questions. And don't read nonfiction when you're on a holiday. That's my big lesson. Hey, so good to be hanging out with you. And if you enjoy this episode, I want you to do two things for me. Number one, give us a five star rating on Spotify or on Apple. That gets the point out there and share it with someone who you think could benefit from this episode. Thanks for hanging out.

Speaker E: If you have enjoyed the show today, forward it to a friend, colleague or family member who you may think it would benefit. Shelley's business Boldside provides leadership training for a variety of different businesses. To learn more, visit Boldside.com if you would like to book Shelley to speak at one of your events, please reach out to the team via moneypodcast.com.