You know, one of the greatest lessons
I've ever learned from the many I've learned from you,
was how you structured your life.
That when you were at work, that was work
and you kept it clean and you delineated to your family,
"Hey, hands off.
I'm here and I'm focused on this thing.
And when I'm at home," you did the same thing to your staff
from work, you said, "Hey, hands off.
I'm here."
People are working under very extraordinary circumstances.
How do you define those places?
You know, I struggle with it myself.
It was much easier to carve out spaces
when I had an office to go to and a home to go home to.
Now, we're living at work and we're working at home.
It's all blurred and it's a huge challenge for everybody.
No one's had an easy time with it.
So, what I think I've done, which has been very helpful,
is I've stopped and decided really what hours I want to work
because I've found myself surprisingly working
many more hours.
Like 8:00, 9:00 at night, I'm still returning messages.
I'm like, "What am I doing?"
It just blends, so I decided that my work hours
from this point forward,
and this happened about six weeks ago,
was gonna be 9:00 in the morning till 6:00 at night.
And if anything comes in after that,
it would have to wait until the next day,
as it would if it was on your desk.
I also had to separate my work space.
I was working off my kitchen counter, the hallway desk,
everything and so I realized what I needed was a huge table
which I didn't have, so I took over my bed at my home,
my apartment.
And I laid out all of my papers to organize myself everyday,
so I moved to the guestroom (laughs) upstairs
and I'm sleeping there
because I needed to have that separation of space.
And for my employees, I required the same.
I asked everyone who was working at home,
"Send me a photo right now of where you're gonna work.
Where's your separated workspace?"
Because everyone was gonna need to be productive
and even the photos that I got
that were like a couple of photos were a nice desk,
but they had sunglasses piled up in a jar,
they had some ski equipment.
Just had to clear all that up 'cause this a workspace.
And the last and the hardest thing to do,
and it took me two weeks to break the addiction,
is to put your phone away when that 6:00 bell rings.
Put it away and don't look at it
because that phone could control you,
no matter how mature you are.
And it took me, I knew I was addicted,
it took me a solid two weeks to feel okay
and not neurotic about doing that.
You know, you just walked through
so much of what I've done.
I had to convert my garage so I could have a desk.
I had to have a workspace
and I didn't have one anymore after our fire,
so I had to make one.
And I really needed that extra set of hours in the day,
but I took it too far.
I've been getting up at 4:00 am everyday.
I'm taking, not only early, but I'm keeping it up late.
And I'm going crazy.
I have to stop that, I have to put some hours on the clock.
I love that.
We haven't gotten to our guest yet,
you're gonna have to now help them.
So, first up is Joyce.
Joyce, are you there?
Yes, I'm here.
Hi, Joyce.
Rachel, here.
And more importantly, Barbara there.
Oh my god, you're gorgeous.
Hello, Joyce.
Thank you.
What would you like to know?
Okay.
Well, first off, hello to both of you.
Hi, Rachel and Barbara.
This is so exciting.
So, last year I started my own business.
And prior to that, I was used to going into an office,
so even though I was working really long hours,
I still had that true separation of work and personal life.
So, now, like many of us,
I just feel like now I'm just living at work.
So, my question to you is how do I find a balance
between running a business and having a personal life?
We were just discussing this exact topic, Joyce.
But I could tell from looking at you,
you have energy to the moon and back.
So, you can work a 14 hour day and not even think about it.
I would suggest really end your work day,
set an alarm so it ends.
And make an appointment with something else,
whether it be dinner, a conversation on the phone,
a Zoom call, or whatever you like to do with someone else
so you stay true to yourself
'cause you're the type that'll work around the clock,
I could tell.
And if you have another appointment to do something fun,
it's almost forced behavior.
And a lot of us need that.
We work on restrictions and if you have a lot of energy,
it's really hard to self-restrict.
So, I would suggest you set an alarm as a basic,
and then listen to the tips we just gave.