DW182: 5 Ways to STOP Being a Workaholic with Diane Rolston

Diane Rolston: 00:00:00

Do you feel a bit of burnout coming on? Are you wanting to work less and enjoy life more? Then you need to listen up to this episode as I go through the five ways to stop being a workaholic.

: 00:00:09

You're listening to the Dynamic Women Podcast. Each week, you'll be inspired by our global community of women. They'll share with you tools and stories to help you be dynamic in every area of life. Here's your host, award-winning coach and the CEO and founder of Dynamic Women, Diane Rolston.

Diane Rolston: 00:00:43

Hello, lovely dynamic women and welcome to the Dynamic Women Podcast. I am Diane Rolston, your host. I wanted to come to you today to talk about the five ways to stop being a workaholic. Because last week, I talked all about how to know if you're a workaholic and how it's hurting you. And I did a quiz. And maybe you did the quiz of how much of a workaholic are you. And it said how much you are and it gave you a little tip about what you can do. But today, I'm going to like dive deep. So do you feel like you have a little bit of burnout coming on? Are you wanting to work less enjoy life more, probably right? Then listen, I'm gonna go through the five ways to stop being workaholic, I'm also going to talk about in each of those five, three practical steps so that you can start working less. And then out of those 15, I'm gonna go pretty, pretty quick here, I encourage you just to listen out for like two or three that you will implement this week.

Diane Rolston: 00:01:47

So let's talk about the five ways to stop being a workaholic. If you want to know first of all, if you are a workaholic and how much of a workaholic you are. And then you can do the quiz. I'll make sure that it's in the show notes here. And I encourage you to go back to the last... the last episode so that you can listen in to what I talk about with being a workaholic, maybe already know you're one. Okay, so let's dive in.

Diane Rolston: 00:02:11

The first thing that you can do to stop being a workaholic is to limit the hours in the week for productive work, productive work. You're maybe having a lot of busy time, maybe not productive time. But like how many hours a day do you actually want to work? And I'm talking about like Monday to Friday, how many hours a week do you actually want to work? If it is on the weekend, how many hours a week on the weekend are you going to work and then actually block in some time to relax and recharge? You have to stop over scheduling yourself. And the only way you're going to do that is by limiting. These are the hours I'm working. These are the hours I'm not working. Have you done that? Have you actually blocked it in your calendar like not working? That's kind of important.

Diane Rolston: 00:02:57

The second thing you can do to stop over scheduling yourself is putting in time in your calendar for other activities. So there are 10 areas of life- fun and recreation, family, friends, your spiritual life, I can go on and on and on. A lot of times, our schedule is just filled with things from work, from business, from our career, from things we're striving for personal development oftentimes can be bumped up as well, because we're reading and we're taking this course or that course listening to podcasts. We're doing all these different things that we see as development for our career. But it isn't the personal development area, but are the things like fun things that you want to do. Right now I'm doing stand up comedy. In the past, I've done African drumming, I play soccer. So that's the other areas. I just went for lunch and to see in Vancouver, the King Tut exhibit that was on it was really cool. So that was just like time for other areas of life. So look at your calendar, see other areas of my life in my calendar and if not, books on it.

Diane Rolston: 00:04:03

The third thing to stop scheduling yourself is to book things for yourself during the day. So for example, Monday morning, I go to Pilates. I also noticed in my schedule this week that I have a counseling appointment, I also have acupuncture, and then you might think well then when are you working Diane? Well, I have other things that are happening like evening meetings that might be happening. And so I take the time to do these other things during the day because otherwise I get to the end of my day and I go man, I'm not going to do that. So book these other things in during the day that normally would get pushed off. Maybe you book a friend lunch, doctor's appointment, could be reading and you're reading your favorite book a little bit every day, going to the gym. You have to stop over your scheduling yourself in these other areas by doing these other things.

Diane Rolston: 00:04:50

Now the second way, major way that you can stop being a workaholic is learning to say no. Might be hard for you. I've done some podcasts, blogs on saying no, I think there's one around saying no to clients who don't want to work with. And there's another one in there as well. So I'll make sure that that is also in the notes so that you can click through and check those out as well.

Diane Rolston: 00:05:16

So the three things in learning to say no, first, you have to be clear on what you want. So by doing the wheel of life, you want a copy of that message me. And then you can either have it or I can go through it with you. But be clear on what you want in all areas of life. When you know what you want, it's easier to say no to the things that you don't want.

Diane Rolston: 00:05:36

So the second thing is stay, say yes to the things that you want, so that you can say no to the other things. So, for example, if you know that your health is a number one priority, and you want to be saying yes to your health, then it might be something like I do that I go to the gym at nine o'clock every morning, or I walk on my lunch every day. So that when someone says to you, hey, do you want to go do this? Or can you be in this meeting? You see what the strong yes is it's in your calendar. And then you actually would have to say no to the thing you're doing in order to go and do this other thing, which should be seen as less important that point. So have a strong, strong yes so that you can say no.

Diane Rolston: 00:06:21

And the third thing around learning to say no, is you can share your yes with others, like people are like will you be on this board? Or will you volunteer for this? Will you help with this? Can you take on this extra task? You could say, right now I'm focusing on my health. And so I'd love to I just I don't have time for it right now, right? And so I've had someone say to me, oh, I'm focusing on my family right now. My family needs more of me. And so I can't take on anything else. Like I totally love that. I was like, wow, okay, that's that's where your priorities are right now. That's amazing. Congrats for you. That you don't have to say any of this no as an answer. But I know for a lot of you, me, myself included, that is a... that is a thing for me. Yeah. Being able to just share that stronger, yes, helps people to understand and helps have them back off. Because you've probably experienced people asking you again and again and again and again.

Diane Rolston: 00:07:18

So this are the three ways to learn to say no, the third thing you can do to stop being a workaholic, is to get over perfectionism. Now, this takes, I'll say this, this takes a journey. This takes a little bit more. But I'm going to give you three things that I've done that I talked to clients about that I found very helpful. The first thing is 80% done is better than perfect. Because a lot of times your 80% is actually like 120-150% of somebody else's. So 80% is better, better than then perfect. I fumbled while talking about these different things. I could have said that's not good enough. That's not 120%. So I'm going to pause this are going to stop this, I'm going to go back, I'm going to re record it. But it really doesn't matter, does it? Like, are you thinking, oh, she fumbled over her words. I'm not I'm not listening anymore. No, the point is, I'm getting this out, my team is going to be able to put it in different places. Because 80% done is better than perfect. It helps me to have a whole bunch of 80% out there, which again, are probably over 100% Rather than be just focused on getting perfect every time.

Diane Rolston: 00:08:31

The second way to stop being perfect is to bring someone else on board, that could be for two things. One, the skills piece and the other piece for accountability. So for the skills, I was really suffering from perfectionism around my blog forever. And so in the beginning, what I did was I got my blog to about 80%. And then I brought someone else on to edit it, format it and put it online. Right, so she had the skills. The other piece around that was I was accountable, because I had to pass it over to her. And so there was a due date. Coaches can be accountability. But bringing, bringing someone on helps you to be accountable, and to just get it out there.

Diane Rolston: 00:09:10

And the last piece around getting over perfectionism is creating milestones for yourself. So a lot of times with perfectionism, we procrastinate and we hold things off. And we do it last minute because we're freaking out about not being able to do it perfectly. But if you have some milestones like by this date, I'll have the draft done or the outline done. And then by this date, I'll have the draft done by this date, I'll pick the photos by this date, I'll have it up. All those milestones help you to just focus on that little piece rather than be overwhelmed with the whole, the whole of it and set expectations in advance. When I wrote my book, we were on a time crunch. And I knew that I would want to be a perfectionist about it. But instead I just said you know what, this is version one and edition one. And if I noticed that there are errors or I want to do more with it. I know that I can make an edition 2. That took the pressure off.

Diane Rolston: 00:09:58

So I'm talking today about out the five ways that you can stop being a workaholic. And I'm actually giving you 15, because each of these points has three to it. So let's talk about the fourth way, don't micromanage others. So if you bring others on a virtual assistant, some vendor to do some work for you, someone under contract, three things you can do to not micromanage them, one, be super clear on an instructions. This is how I want it done. Right, and be clear, and then be brief be gone sort of idea.

Diane Rolston: 00:10:30

The second is just you ask them for updates, like by this date, give me this type of update, or give me a weekly update, so that you're not having to follow up with them. That they are giving you just like and here's where we're at just a very simple message works. We don't need to have a big meeting or conversation that makes you work more.

Diane Rolston: 00:10:51

And the third thing is when you are a... when you are in a place where you are the cog in the wheel, look at it, step back and say, do I need to pass this off as well, right? Because if you're the cog in the wheel, that means you're probably a workaholic, and you don't have time to do something. So maybe you need to pass that piece off as well. Or if you are working too much, what else from what you have can you pass off? What other work do you need to pass off to that person or to someone else, right? Because if you're working too much, you probably have too much on your plate.

Diane Rolston: 00:11:29

And number five way, the fifth way to stop being a workaholic, is to be less accessible, be less accessible. I can remember leading my Dynamic Year Program and telling everyone, tell your loved ones, tell your friends, tell your co-workers, your team, whoever it may be, that you are in a full-day workshop and that your attention is here and that you're not going to be accessible. Someone didn't and they were they were messaging during the program. Like we're all in a room together. And what she said was, well, they were asking me where something was. And so she was way too accessible, that she was willing to drop what she was doing, that personal development, that business development that she was doing with us in the room in order to help someone else on her team, even though she said that she wasn't going to be accessible.

Diane Rolston: 00:12:24

So the three ways that you can stop being accessible, be very clear on your communication channels. So what is the way that you prefer that people reach out to you. I say to my clients, email me about something if you need support, so that I'm in that headspace of I'm going into my email, and now I can reply. I tell them only text me if it is an emergency, if you actually need to talk to me, or if it's like a wonderful celebration. So that's when you text and that's when you email. And so I'm very clear on those communication channels. My VA's my virtual assistants, I have two of them, they know that we use the project management tool to talk about each task that we have. And if they do need something in an emergency way, they WhatsApp me. And that's a lot of times, you know, because long distance to the Philippines is much better than WhatsApp. So be very clear on your communication channels. Maybe this is one of the pieces that you need to take on board because you're like, where was that message again? Was it through text WhatsApp Facebook Messenger, LinkedIn messenger, Instagram messenger, email, was it on our project management platform? Like ah, so having so many makes you too accessible, and makes gives you a headache causing you to work more.

Diane Rolston: 00:13:42

The next thing you can do is turn your phone to do not disturb. So on my phone, it actually is constantly the side. In Japan, they call it manner mode. I always have it on silent on the side. I actually screen my calls too. So if I'm receiving a phone call or a message from someone, and I'm not ready or in the space to be able to take that I'm working on something else, I don't answer it. Sometimes with friends, I don't answer a message and say, hey, I'll call you in an hour. And then I pull up my laundry and I start folding laundry as I'm having a great conversation or I'm driving somewhere I'll have a great conversation with them at that point. So turn your phone to do not disturb especially at night, so that you're not inundated with notifications because you really need as a workaholic, you need that time to refresh, relax on the blog. And the last way to be less accessible is tell people you cannot be reached on vacation. So you know how to set up probably the email notification if anyone emails you that it says hey, I'm on vacation, I'll get back to you on such and such a date. You can even say please email back at that time because I'm not going to be able to go through all of the past emails if it's important. Email me on such and such a date like maybe the second day you're back. The first time you can figure it out. And then don't be jig if someone messages you honor that don't answer to them or give them you know, be very brief with your answer and or by email, be brief with your answer. So they don't think that they can keep calling you or texting you to your phone.

Diane Rolston: 00:15:18

So those are 15, 15 different ways to stop being a workaholic. Which two or which three are you actually going to bring into play this week? It's so important to stop being a workaholic, because if you don't, it's really going to kill your energy, kill your passion, maybe even kill your spark that you have. If you're interested in knowing a little bit more about if you're a workaholic, how much of a workaholic are you, please do the quiz that came in the last episode. I'll make sure it's also in the notes so that you have an opportunity to easily click through and do that quiz. Hope you having a great day. Until next time, stay dynamic. Bye.