Saving Space

A few of you know that in mid-September, I took over the Acting manager role for my unit from a fellow newsletter subscriber here (hello Zubin!). Under normal circumstances I am sure that a management role could be a very rewarding one. But when Acting, you are in effect doing two jobs—which makes the task undoubtedly more taxing.

At first I was asked to take on this role for 2 weeks. Then it became 6 weeks. Now it will most likely extend until January 2022. With every extension of the timeframe, I've had to invest more seriously in problem-solving issues I thought I'd just leave for the new boss. I've also noticed that the more I've stuck around in the position, the more colleagues are involving me in resolving operational and inter-collegial issues.

On a case by case basis, you think, “Sure, I can take a call. It won't take up too much of my time.” But every 15-minute call is 15 minutes less to get your own work done. And this can add up. By way of example, in one day I took 7 of these unplanned “Can I speak to you for a few minutes?” calls. Taking these amounted to almost two hours of my day which I had to somehow find later on in order to get my initial To Do List done. Some might argue, supporting colleagues with their problems is a priority. Yes absolutely. But again, when you also have your own portfolio to attend to, the requests to 'just speak for a minute' have to be weighed against the larger picture. How to strike a balance?

Personally, and perhaps for many of you, as tasks pile up, so does the anxiety. I sleep less well which is turn makes me less focused and tired. Social skills wane: I become curt in my responses to colleagues and less patient. In short, overwhelm is not a good thing under any circumstance but certainly when in a management role it is even more important to nip in the bud. Because you have many more work relationships to manage carefully, it is important to stay balanced, calm and attentive.

In effect, taking on this Acting role has given me a live management case study in which to apply the work-life balance toolkit—one of the key pillars to my newsletter and mission. Everything that I had used in my day-to-day as a technical staff member of my unit are still in use as I wear these two hats. But the challenge I find with two roles is the simple issue of time: we can't make more of it in the day.

The “Cut Space Tactic”
A natural reaction in situations of work overwhelm is to look to see where we can 'cut' in order to make more space needed for work. Without giving away the conclusion of this newsletter, the “cut space tactic” is flawed if we want to truly establish a work-life balance. Cutting from our private lives not only deprives us of time that should be spent recharging or fulfilling important familial duties; it also, as I am learning, indirectly or directly makes someone else (your partner) have to cut from their valuable spaces as well. This may have negative consequences on their own well-being or worse still, create tension and stress in your relationship. Because the problem itself—not enough time in the day to get it all done—is impossible to resolve from a 'just make more' perspective, it seems that the “cut space tactic” is doomed to failure.

Despite appearing entirely logical to me then and now as a somewhat futile exercise, the “cut space tactic” was my first go-to some weeks back when I was struggling to find the time to do my two jobs. Here is a brief insight into the rather bleak mental process.

I inventoried my spaces as follows:
1. Sleep
2. Early mornings, afterschool, evenings, or weekends with your family/child
3. Couple moments (ie: date nights)
4. Personal
5. Exercise/fitness/wellness

I looked hard into these spaces to see where, if at all, I could cut from. One way to conceptualize your weekly time is by using a weekly scheduler form. You fill it out for a few weeks and observe the patterns of time use. Then you can make adjustments according to your ideal schedule. There are plenty out there on the internet that you can print out and fill out by hand. Below I share some of the mental machinations of the exercise as I have been doing it over the last several weeks.

Sleep: I am no longer a spring chicken, so the realm of sleep is sacred. But studies show that this is one of the leading factors in burn out — people choosing to sacrifice sleep in order to keep up with work demands. The one person who truly revolutionized my thinking on this was Arianna Huffington and her book, The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life One Night at a Time. This book follows on her earlier one called, Thrive, where she touches upon her own executive burn out. They are both great reads and very inspiring. Thanks to her, I've pretty much safeguarded nighttime and bed time routines no matter how busy my work life becomes. Right now, I will admit that I've probably lost 30 minutes / night since taking on this Acting role —largely as everything post kid bedtime gets pushed back. But I am intent on gaining those 30 minutes back as of this week.

Early mornings, after schools, evenings and weekends: during the weekdays, waking up at 5:30am and doing yoga is sacrosanct to me. This has not deviated from the norm. Certain days of the week the morning and afternoon slots with our son are solely mine, and I have kept them as such. Weekends have always been a no-go for work, and my boundaries have remained in tact there. But on mornings, afternoons, or evenings when my husband is around, I've grabbed these for more work hours. The consequence being that he's had to step up to take on more home responsibilities (and he already does his fair share) in order for me to do more on the work front. This has created tension because we didn't really talk it all through prior to me accepting the Acting position. But last week we had a really good conversation about it all and have put some measures in place so everyone knows what is coming down the line in a given week.

Couple moments: these definitely always feel fungible for no good reason, and have therefore sadly been on the cutting block of late. This of course has not been well received by my husband…and rightly so.

Personal time: personal time…what is that? This is definitely where a lot of the sacrifice has come. And let me be clear my personal space block was not a lot to begin with. Like 30 mins at lunch to read, write or relax. Now I am finding these moments slipping away.

Exercise/fitness/wellness: I learned several years ago that this is non-negotiable and have managed to keep it guarded as such.

Reframing the Problem: Do less
The “cut space tactic” yielded a few pockets of extra time but overall left me feeling entirely unsatisfied and most definitely started to create fissures in my marriage.

This then led me to re-think the “cut space tactic”: What if I just did less? Are all the tasks that are coming on my plate critical or even necessary? Are there others in our unit who are capable of doing these on my behalf? Do I need to respond to every single email in the same 24 hour window? Being a Libra, I was forced to pronounce the word we hate, “No.”

Once I was able to re-look at things from that perspective, some interesting solutions emerged where the “cut space tactic” falls short. For instance I've empowered quite a few junior staff to take on more technical responsibilities on tasks which allows them to build their skill sets. I still supervise and quality check the work. But I am not involved in all the meetings or the drafting of work product.

Another strategy has been reducing meetings and putting blocks into my calendar during the day. I've been asking myself, especially if others are in those meetings that know the topic well, do I need to attend that meeting? Or does it really need to be discussed today? Could this wait until another week? I've found that in actual fact many things can be resolved without my presence and in the process I am empowering others.

Saving Space for All
There are a number of great resources out there on prioritizing your workload and strategies for reducing meetings and email responses. All these tactics are in fact far more valuable and necessary if we are to effectively move the goalpost on work-life balance for everyone.

Because I was reminded last week in speaking with a colleague, the 'too much' phenomenon happens not only to (acting) Managers. It hits new parents, single workers, or those dealing with aging parents equally as hard. Our goal should be push back on the tendency to steal from our personal space in order to be more available for work. In fact we should be advocating to “Save Space” so we can bring the very best of us to our workplaces, drawing on the energy we gain by tapping into our passions and serving our families and communities.

So with all this as background, you may not be seeing a regular Thursday newsletter from me in the coming few months. I'm not giving up on a weekly segment but I am also not going to beat myself up if I don't get it done. I'm just going to be content with continuing to engage on this important topic and taking it all in stride.

Have a great rest of your week!

PS: Any topics or questions you want to see addressed? Shoot me a line!