- I think we're all dying to know this
just a little bit deep down in our souls,
we just wanna know if we're doing okay.
(relaxing music)
What's up socials?
Welcome back to Amy TV.
I get a lot of questions, pretty much everywhere,
Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, all the places
on how I manage my work/life balance.
This is not coming as a surprise to me
because you probably hear me so much on this channel
talking about work that it's like,
what do you do for fun, Amy?
'Cause we're starting to get a little concerned.
I personally believe that total work/life balance
is not a really thing,
so that's gonna make this video a little bit awkward.
At the same time, I'm also like, I really wanna know,
how do I achieve work/life balance.
Also, meaning of life, that would be good to know, too.
Even though I don't think it's a real thing
that you can ever get to and go,
oh wow, I really figured this out.
I think you do ebb and flow in those moments of,
it feels better and it doesn't feel as good
and always trying to figure out how you can get better
is what I try to do.
So there are some things that I have figured out
that I know help me with this,
and these are my little hacks on work/life balance,
but it is not perfect all of the time.
Perfect doesn't exist anywhere in my life, unfortunately.
Sorry, Luce, you're not even perfect.
So I thought I'd share some of those things today,
stuff that I have done, these little hacks,
that have at least helped me to start to figure out
where I can find my nice balance of work and life.
Before we get started, I'm not sure if you've heard,
but I upload every Wednesday and Sunday.
If ya don't know now ya know
and it is time to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.
Also, really helpful if you hit that notification bell,
'cause YouTube went ahead and told us
that that is the only guarantee on this platform.
I love you YouTube, I love you.
I had to get that one in though.
All right, let's get into it.
This is my list of work/life balance hacks.
The first thing that I did,
and I did this a number of years ago,
really got started in 2009,
didn't actually come to full fruition until 2011,
was to decide to do the work that I absolutely love
and would want to be my every day life.
I don't think a lot of people can say that they do that
and I really get bummed out by that.
I want that for you.
I hope that you tune into this channel
and you think about what that means for you
and that you actively try to find a way to make it happen.
But that's essentially how I started
hacking work/life balance, is making work a part of my life
that's really enjoyable and something
I'm excited to do every day.
The next hack is a piece of that.
It's waking up early and getting started.
So the earlier that I'm able to get into this office,
which you guys know, I've talked to you
about waking up at 5 a.m.,
really making up that time that people are not bothering you
and doing some of the stuff that makes you most excited
and the things that people are trying to pull you away from
when they're emailing you and giving you
their honey-do list.
Waking up early is a great way to get a head start
so you don't feel like you need to go later into the day
where that would start to invade some of your lifetime,
your free time, your off time, your family time.
Next, you know I'm a planner.
I like to plan.
And so I plan every single week.
I plan my meetings, I plan the work I gotta get done,
I plan my exercise routine, I plan my personal time,
I plan a lot of stuff,
and so doing that on a weekly basis
really gives me an idea,
is this gonna be a really work-heavy week?
Is this going to be a personal stuff heavy week?
What does it look like?
Do we have room for emergencies?
Do we have room for changes anywhere?
Do we have room to just relax?
Planning every week gives me an idea
of how rundown I'm going to be versus
how enjoyable the week is going to be.
And that sort of equation comes from
a healthy amount of work and a healthy amount of life.
To follow that up, you know how much I love Google Calendar.
I follow my calendar pretty rigidly throughout the week.
Not just those moments that I've blocked out, right?
The dream is for every minute on the calendar
to be blocked out, right?
Like you could actually follow that.
No one can actually follow that.
The more you have blocked out for getting things done
or spending time in places you would prefer to the better.
But there are also moments on the calendar
that don't have anything on them at all.
And that's my breathing room
and that's my opportunity to go oh cool.
I can actually maybe do something around the house
that I've been wanting to get to
and is not urgent whatsoever,
and therefore it is not on a to-do list.
Or maybe I'm just gonna take some time to myself,
go to a park and read.
I love saying that out loud
like I actually go to a park and read.
I actually do not prefer to go outdoors.
(laughing)
Doesn't it sound good?
Like, I'm gonna go to the park and read a book.
I would much rather sit on my couch
and not be worried about getting a sunburn.
Do I look like I go outside?
Let's get real here.
Here's an important one for me
because of course I am self-employed,
having a work end time.
A lot of people that actually have a normal job
can say that they're doing pretty good on this front, right?
Like, they clock in from 9 to 5 and that's it.
Other times you have a job that's supposed to be that,
but sometimes you stay later,
and so you really need to make sure
that you're balancing that throughout the week,
you're not staying late all the time
'cause your honey is not going to be
okay with it when you get back.
For me it's really important because this is my office
and in the next room is my living room, my kitchen,
my dining room, over there is my bedroom.
So being able to draw the line and say,
okay it's time to stop working.
This is your end time based on
everything that's on my schedule and what I have going on.
That's really important
and it's very good for work/life balance.
I'm much more likely to walk out of here
at a specific time based on what I have going on,
what Vinn has going on,
anything that's happening,
and I know we talked about this in my nighttime routine
because it's important to me to be able to say,
okay, I'm gonna now go get ready to spend
the evening with my husband or whatever the case maybe.
By having an end time I don't feel like I'm scrambling
to finish work when he walks in the door
and we're both hungry and we're
trying to figure out what to do,
then you don't eat very well because you end up ordering in
because somebody didn't stop working on time
and figure some other thing out
that was probably healthier.
Just having a work end time is a great idea.
Another hack for me has to do with
my office moving a lot of the time.
So I'm here when I'm doing my home-based work.
This is Vlog Boss Studios headquarters,
but a lot of time I'm traveling,
I'm on a plane, I probably commute on a 747
more than in an Uber, like it's ridiculous.
We have to travel a lot both for clients,
I'll be speaking somewhere.
A lot of work stuff happens outside of this city.
So what we try to do is build in personal time
while we go and visit places
because why else would you build travel into your work life
unless you were gonna get to know
these different environments, these different cultures,
different food, different things
that you can do in all these cities.
So if we're taking a trip to London to speak,
we're gonna extend that.
We're either gonna meet with more people for work
to make the most of it work wise,
and also in the evenings go experience different places
and have tea time somewhere.
There's lots of different things to do
in all these different cities.
That's just one example of something that we love to do,
extend our time when we visit London.
Shout out to my UK viewers.
That makes travel a lot more exciting to look forward to
because as much as I love the work that I do when I'm there
it's so much more fun when we can say,
okay, it's time to check out and genuinely enjoy
this life experience that's happening.
That may seem like a no brainer.
It's not a no brainer.
It's very easy for you to let work just tire you out
and make you not want to do anything at all.
I have had trips to different cities and different places
where I literally didn't leave my hotel room
because I was just not having it.
My next hack has to do with a little bit of life
and a little bit of work at the same time,
and anything I can do to be passively learning
while doing something else is great.
I've been listening to a lot more podcasts lately
and audiobooks,
and I just love being able to do other things
while I am continuing to learn,
like passively with my earbuds.
I'll take Lucy for a walk
if I actually decide to leave the house,
which she enjoys 'cause she needs the exercise,
and I like it because I feel like I'm fulfilling her day
but also making the most of the time.
This could also be while picking up things around the house
or cooking food,
I'll be listening to podcasts like constantly right now.
I feel like I'm continuing to do a little bit of work,
educate myself, while also taking care of things
that I need to have done in just my personal life.
My next hack is one I'm actually kind of excited about.
There was a time where I couldn't even
really tell you if I had a hobby.
I also really can't tell you that now.
I really shouldn't have,
that shouldn't have been the lead in.
(laughing)
Like oh drum rolls, does Amy have a hobby?
Like no, Amy really doesn't have a hobby.
But, I am finding that there are
things that I enjoy learning more about
just like personally.
Lately it's been a lot of like
how do you hack healthy eating and make it more fun
or make it more tasty and sort of like,
I've been using that as my hobby.
I've been looking into like, how do I make pancakes
that look really pretty on Instagram,
but also are super high in fiber.
You probably saw that on my Instagram lately,
if that sounds familiar.
That's cool because on a Saturday morning
I'm more likely to go work out
'cause I'm gonna want my yummy pancakes,
and then I'll come home and not go straight into
wanting to work on something because I'll wanna be
in the kitchen and like playing with my kitchen tools
I got on the wedding registry and trying to do this thing
because it's a Saturday and that's what
you should be doing on a Saturday morning.
That's another part of work/life balance,
telling yourself you should be doing something
on a Saturday morning because it's what normal people do.
That's helping me.
That is helping me a little bit.
So yeah, I'm just finding that I'm getting excited
about these little things that are more hobby,
more like fun, more Pinteresting
I guess is what you could call it,
and not work related.
So it makes me want to take a break
and just do something totally different.
My next hack basically contradicts everything I just said
and that is to work on the weekend.
I actually find that working on the weekend,
I'm filming this on the weekend,
I upload videos on Sundays,
not just because it's the time that you guys enjoy them,
but because I like to do
a little bit of work on the weekend.
And that's because I feel like I'm gonna be more balanced
if I know I get something done every single day.
I will feel like I moved forward every single day,
but it doesn't mean that that entire day
needs to be dedicated to work.
And then if I want to take a Friday afternoon off
I can do that, and I know for a fact
I'm gonna pick up a bunch of things to do on Saturday,
get a few more things done on Sunday,
a Friday afternoon off isn't that big a deal,
'cause quite frankly, everybody's checking out on Friday,
so that's probably a good idea.
But also, Lucy's had some emergencies lately
where we have to go to the vet,
and I'm like, okay, I have to literally remove everything
from my calendar for an entire afternoon
just to accommodate driving her all the way to the vet,
having an appointment.
By the way, she's fine,
it's just that when these things happen, she's older,
you just want to take care of them
because otherwise it's gonna start
to affect your schedule long term.
Working on the weekend helps me have
more of that flexibility.
My next tips are related to the calendar.
Again, blocking.
I like to schedule free time,
you know, I have to schedule it.
Because if there is open moments on my calendar
that I would prefer not to be,
my assistant will schedule anything in those spots
because it's always about when can we get these things done.
'Cause I book things out so far.
So if I don't have a huge block on my calendar
that says do not schedule anything,
it's gonna get filled.
And it's very hard to keep up with
free time when that is the case.
You may or may not have that happen to you.
You might do that to yourself.
I know a lot of people who overschedule themselves
and they forget to factor in that free time.
So that's super important.
This also goes into scheduling and blocking out date night.
I've been talking to Vinn about this a lot more,
and I'm like, we can barely find,
I'm not kidding, we finally booked a honeymoon.
We got married seven months ago.
Okay?
We finally booked a honeymoon.
It's gonna be closer to our one-year anniversary,
and we found one stretch of seven nights
that it was possible.
So I was telling him based on that,
it's really important that we start outlining more often
these times where we just want to spend an evening alone,
not committed to other people or committed to work
or committed to travel,
and that's been really important to us lately
because we are realizing how much our time escapes us
when we start to really keep the hustle going.
And work/life balance really takes a toll on that side.
And the last hack that I share is not because I think
cellphones are the devil,
because quite frankly I love my phone.
I don't ever want to let go of it.
I told you before on my nighttime routine,
I tuck it in bed, meaning it stays in this office
while I sleep in another room.
I like to have separation from it
'cause it makes me have even more fun when I am on it,
talking to you, posting fun stuff on Instagram,
or whatever the case is,
and so the one other thing I wanted to mention
is that I try to leave my phone away from the dinner table.
When Vinn and I sit down for dinner whenever we can,
we were so excited to get a dinner table
'cause in our last house we didn't have enough room for one,
we were so excited to get a dinner table.
So the fact that we can sit at it now, we love that.
And even if we have a hard time with work/life balance
at the table during conversation,
we'll talk about work a little bit more than we should
and we'll talk about a little bit of life stuff
because it seems like work is life
and so we'll forget to talk about the personal.
It's so much better when you're not constantly
looking at your phone in that moment,
because really, truly,
if we're sitting there having dinner together,
we should just be talking to each other.
He's been at the office all day,
I've been here working all day,
and just being able to connect,
it really feels crummy when one of us
is on our phone too much.
Even if it's me and I know it's something I feel like
I'm contributing to the conversation,
but it's just not that great.
So the one thing that I like to try to do
is see if we can keep our phones away from the dinner table
for that amount of time,
and even if we have them close by
we're really good at not looking at them
because we kind of wanna have that moment.
I mean it's like what, 20 minutes.
So those are my work/life balance hacks,
just a couple of things I figured out,
a lot of things I still haven't figured out.
I love to continue to learn how to be a good human
and pass it along to you.
But I wanna know what you do.
What are you doing to hack work/life balance?
Leave it in the comments below
'cause obviously I still need some education on this,
and I'd really love to hear from you.
If you enjoyed this video, please give it a thumbs up.
Thank you so much for doing that 'cause that really helps me
try to figure out what we're gonna do next,
and I'm always trying to get you excited about what's next.
So thanks for that.
That's all for today socials,
thank you so much for tuning in.
I appreciate it as always.
Make sure you subscribe for good vibes,
and remember to continue to go after the life that you want
with some good work/life balance.
Cheers.
(relaxing music)