When I was in the throes of writing my book, amBITCHous, I got a call from CNN asking me to appear as an expert giving advice to “workaholics.” I agreed. This was both ironic and hilarious given that I was, at that time, the quintessential offender, coming in to my office at noon each day to begin writing, then dragging myself home between two or three a.m. to grab some sleep, then get up, and do it again. For the first time in fifteen years, I wasn’t regularly running, practicing yoga, and weight training. I’d stopped cooking and had substituted healthy eating with order in/delivery. I hoped that my husband still remembered he had a wife. I figured I wouldn’t have any friends left by the time I delivered my manuscript. I loved my work, but I was way, way out of balance.
On the CNN segment, another expert who had created a sort of twelve-step program for workaholics said, while sitting in an empty conference room, “The problem is, no one shows up for the meetings because they can’t drag themselves away from their desks.” My niece and I guffawed, watching and replaying this lament.
Problem is, being chained to your desk isn’t funny, as you and I both know. Something’s got to give, or you’re not going to have a life. Even if we love our work, we’ve got to feel that we’ve got it going on outside of the office.
Here’s my advice for having an affair with fun—at work and in your personal life.
How to Motivate Yourself to Workout
Schedule with yourself an early a.m. workout three days a week—get up, have your cup of coffee or tea, a quick bite, and then lace up and go. Tell yourself, “I’m not allowed to go to work until I’ve worked out.” Be firm with yourself. Don’t procrastinate and say, “I’ll work out after work”; chances are, you won’t. Starting your day with exercise boosts your energy level, your mood, plus jump-starts your ability to effectively brainstorm work strategies. Oh, and your clothes will fit better—always a boost to our sense of well being.
Double Down
If you can’t bear to take time out from work to workout, turn your exercise time into professional development sessions. For example, Audible.com lets you download a variety audio information resources, including books, magazines, newspapers, radio shows and original programming using your MP3 player, Apple iPod, Pocket PC, Palm Handheld, or on CDs you burn yourself.
The Wall Street Journal provides a daily 55-minute audio edition of up to fifteen top stories from the pages of the Journal, updated each day at 6:30 a.m. ET.
Do your workout while briefing yourself on the day’s top business stories. What could be more of a win-win?
How to Dig Out of Your Hermit Hole
Call up two friends today and schedule a dinner with each person—one next week, and another in three weeks. To take the pressure off and increase the odds that you won’t cancel, agree that you’ll meet at a casual restaurant—nothing fancy. Keep it simple, show up, and be prepared to chill and enjoy non-work-related human contact. You’ll leave remembering, “Oh, yeah. This is the part of me that had gone missing; I enjoy spending time with my friends.” When follow up invitations come your way, accept without hesitation. What you’ll find is that, though you initially think of 525,600 reasons not to go, once you force yourself to do it, you’ll be delighted that you did.
Do the Math
You said that you’re always behind, never able to catch up.
Do you have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, doing everything yourself so it’ll be done right, or to “save” money? (Women are 110 percent more likely to answer yes than are the guys in our lives.) Have you ever calculated how much this is costing you? I’m guessing not.
Time to do the math.
First, figure out the real price tag for hiring someone to lighten your load. Let’s say you clear $100,000 a year operating a small consulting firm; that breaks down to $48 per hour. Now let’s say you spend six hours a week running errands that anyone with a car and a sense of direction could do. Plus six hours a week doing household chores. That comes out to $576 (12 hours x $48/hour). You could hire a competent person to do the same work for $18 per hour ($216). So you’re losing $360 a week by doing the work yourself.
Right about now you may be thinking, “That’s easy to say for someone who makes $100,000; I can’t afford it, though.” Okay. Let’s do the math with $75K. That breaks down to $36 per hour. Now let’s say you spend six hours a week running errands that anyone with a car and a sense of direction could do. Plus six hours doing household chores. That comes out to $432 (12 hours x $36/hour). So you’re still come out ahead.
Every hour you needlessly burn up by failing to delegate is time you could be investing in your “affair with fun”—and it’s one of the key ways women self-sabotage.
I’ve worked with hundreds of women who have trouble rationalizing outsourcing—and it doesn’t matter how much they earn. If you crunch the numbers, however, you’ll have objective figures that prove it makes sense to free up your time for what really counts. Ask around and find yourself a good cleaning person, a part-time or full-time executive assistant, a computer whiz, and other support people that can complete tasks for a fraction of the time or money it would take you to do it yourself.
Stop wasting time thinking, “I need another me” and spend the money for a “mini-me”. You’ll end up a lot richer—at home, and at work.
Book a Haircut, Highlight, and Facial Today. And Get Some New Clothes
Let me guess. Your hair is unruly. Your roots are retro. Your skin is suffering. And you burn up at least half an hour each morning ruminating on, “I don’t have an f___g thing to wear”—and that’s thirty minutes that you could be working out rather than feeling like a twenty or thirty or forty-something matronly frump preparing to lumber into the office each day.
Plus, the number one reason I hear women site for why they don’t go out, for fun, is, “I don’t have anything to wear.” And, honestly, they’re telling the truth—because they put having a functional, easy wardrobe at the bottom of their priorities pile.
My new assistant of five months, Vanella, not only organizes my business life—everything from bills, calendar, press clippings, filing and organizing, scheduling appointments, bank deposits, monitoring deadlines, to building and stocking new bookshelves—she is also a fashion design student in NYC. Lucky me. Over the months, she’s professionally coerced me into purging my closet and then shopping for pieces, one by one, that have built into a cohesive, easy (every piece works with the others), hip, professional wardrobe. Believe me—my life is so much easier now that I can pull together an outfit in under five minutes and be on my way, to see a client or to deliver a keynote, looking and feeling pulled together and relaxed.
Spruce up. Use the free personal shoppers at major department stores—they’ll do all the work for you, alert you to sales, even deliver clothing to you that you can try on in the comfort of your own apartment and return, no obligations, if those pants make your butt look big, etc.
Clean out your closet. Invest in your self-esteem, in your image. Doing so will invigorate you and render you more open to life outside of the office.
Take Care of Yourself—Now
Call before sundown today—and I’m going to hold you to this—to schedule appointments for any medical exams that are overdue. Are you current on your mammogram? Gynecological exam? Annual physical? Dental exam and cleaning? A woman’s most overwhelming stress comes from carrying around the knowledge that, “I ought to get my pap smear … I’m overdue.” Or, “It’s been three years since I’ve had a mammogram.” Or, “I’ve never had my baseline mammogram, even though I have a family history that warrants doing so.” Or, “I haven’t done it, even though I’m at an age where I should have had that baseline two years ago.”
Don’t have a doctor, or don’t have one that you trust and like? Get physician referrals from your friends (not your professional colleagues—keep this part of your life separate and private). Then call—within five minutes of having gotten the referral; don’t delay. You’ll feel a huge weight has been lifted once you’ve penciled in your appointment.
These tactics are a great start to finding your way back to yourself, to getting your enjoyment of life—at work and in your personal life—back on track.
You deserve nothing less.
By Dr. Debra Condren author of amBITCHous
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