Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction

00:00:51: Scales of challenge

00:01:45: Workaholic meaning

00:04:29: Useful links on workaholism

00:06:54: Reasons to change

00:08:53: Ideas for action…

00:09:20: … 1: redo your to-do

00:15:20: … 2: partner up

00:16:56: … 3: notice your narrative

00:21:13: … 4: switch over

00:28:09: … 5: design your team ways of working

00:34:25: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi, I'm Sarah.

Helen Tupper: And I'm Helen.

Sarah Ellis: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  Every week, we talk about a different topic to do with work, and share some ideas and actions that we hope will help all of us to navigate our Squiggly Careers with that bit more confidence and control.

Helen Tupper: And today is one of those topics that I always kind of feel a bit funny talking about, because it's one that I feel like is quite a mirror to my own behaviour.  So, I always feel like I've got quite a lot to learn, as well as hopefully creating a conversation that other people can listen to and learn from.  So, our topic for today is workaholism.  We're going to cover some workaholism watchouts. 

So, in the conversation, we'll talk about what it is and what it isn't, why it matters as a topic that you might want to think about for yourself, and what to do if you identify with any of the things that we talk about. I think one small flag, or a big flag I suppose, before we get started is that I think there are scales of challenge with workaholism.  So, for some people, this is a small thing that might be getting in their way; and for others, it's a really, really significant part of every day.  And we are trying to cover the breadth of things in our conversation today.  But we do want to say that if you feel this is something that's really affecting you and it's really getting in your way at work, then there are other sources of support that you can go to beyond this podcast that might be useful.  And we've put the links for you in the PodSheet.  So, we're going to give you some practical ideas for action today.  But if you need more than that, there are places that will help you, and you'll find them on the PodSheet.  Just go to our website, amazingif.com, go to the podcast page, download the PodSheet and you'll be able to find it, or just email us.  We are helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: So, what is it to be a workaholic and what isn't it?  I think the most important thing that it's not is it's not about how many hours that you work.  So, I think probably intuitively we'd all be like, "Oh, they're a workaholic because they're always working", so it's about lots and lots of hours, but I think it goes beyond that.  I suspect, having read quite a few of the research and the articles that we found on this, workaholics probably are working a lot of hours, but it's more than that because it's an inability to disconnect from your job, and to the point where it is detrimental to other aspects of your life, so your relationships, your mental health, your physical health.  And so, your work starts to dominate, I think, everything about who you are. 

And I think it probably feels, when I was reading some of the descriptions, inescapable, really hard to then figure out like, I'm sort of in this -- I probably maybe even recognise that I feel like maybe I'm in this kind of workaholic moment or time in my job or in my career, but it's very hard I think to see a way out or a way through this.

Helen Tupper: I think I have waves of workaholism, I think that's where I've got to, and I only see it when it's too late --

Sarah Ellis: It's hard, isn't it?

Helen Tupper: -- when I realise that loads of things that I love doing, like the people I like spending time with, the things that I enjoy doing at home, like cooking and having people over, and I'm like, "Oh, I've not done that".  Actually, I say this quite a lot, but it's about recipe books.  I always think, "What is the last time I opened a recipe book?"  And if that has been a long time, I know that there's probably been something like work getting in my way.  Because for me, opening a recipe book means that I want to cook and invite people over and make a nice event.  It's more than just opening a book, it's what me doing that actually means.  So, if I've not done it for a while, it's likely that I've let work get in the way of that area of joy in my life.

Sarah Ellis: I'm just trying to think if I've ever opened a recipe book!

Helen Tupper: What were you talking about this weekend?  Oh, you moving house, and I was talking to Sarah about some things that I could buy her.

Sarah Ellis: You were like, "Do you want some pans?" and honestly, I was actually quite offended.  I was like, "I feel like she doesn't know me at all.  She's going to buy me some cooking pans or something"!

Helen Tupper: Yeah, but you like things to look nice in your kitchen even if you're not using them.  I thought you would like some nice --

Sarah Ellis: Sure, but still!

Helen Tupper: -- you know when you open your new cupboards in your new house, looking at some nice…

Sarah Ellis: It made me question our friendship, if I'm honest.

Helen Tupper: Well, this is making me question it now!  Great gratitude!

Sarah Ellis: I was like, "Oh, maybe a pan or maybe a plant".

Helen Tupper: Yeah that's true.

Sarah Ellis: That's what I've actually requested; I've actually requested a plant!  And one of the things that you can look at that I actually found really helpful, there are two links that we've got on workaholism, one which is four different questions where you rate them 1 to 5 in terms of how much each statement feels like you.  So for example, one of the statements is, "I work because there is a part inside me that feels compelled to work".  So, 5 would be, "That feels really like me", 1 would be like, "No, that just doesn't feel familiar at all".  So, you can have a look at that, that's a good place to get started. 

And then there are 20 questions as well that I probably found that more useful, because the 20 questions are more nuanced, and they give more descriptions of what it could look like to be a workaholic. I think probably the reason I found it more useful was -- we've named intentionally this episode Watch-Outs, because I don't think right now I go, "Oh, I feel like I'm a real workaholic".  And when I did either of the scores, I didn't come out particularly high.  But you start to recognise some of the questions or the statements, the ones that you kind of connect with. 

And then, almost as Helen's just described, you can then start to figure out, "Okay, well how can I start to notice?" because I do think this sort of creeps into your life; and then, what could you put in place so that you don't leave it too late?  Because I think that is probably what happens a lot of the time.  It sort of over time edges in, and then suddenly you find yourself in this moment, and it's almost only when you come out the other side that you're like, "Actually, I could have done something different in that moment if I'd have had a bit more awareness".  So, I liked looking at both actually, I found it really helpful.

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I found them helpful too.  One of them I came off as not a workaholic, and the other one I came off as very much a workaholic.  So, I think maybe they're signals rather than the exact answer.  But maybe if you are supporting someone else with their development as a manager, a mentor, or just a colleague who's talking to somebody who might be in a bit of a tough time, I do think that they can provide some sort of objective things for you to review and just say like, "How many of these things feel like you?"  And the gist is, if it's quite a lot, then you're leaning more towards workaholism tendencies.  So, I think it's quite a good starting place just to self-assess or support somebody else with their assessment as well. So, maybe you do the assessments and that gives you a bit of an indication of what workaholism looks like for you right now. 

Then, I guess you've got to have the motivation to do something else.  So, why change; why do something else?  Well, workaholism is problematic for lots of different reasons.  So, it is a significant source of stress, because people often, to Sarah's point earlier, they can't stop thinking about work.  It means that you've got a lack of resilience to the ups and downs that you experience in work and life, because particularly work, you're so connected; we've talked before about this idea of enmeshment where you become what you do, and therefore when everything's going great, you might feel really great about your work, but when everything's feeling really hard or difficult, then you take that very, very personally, because you've not you've not got this world outside of work to balance that view out of. You can be quite disconnected, I think I've felt like this before, because maybe you're not spending time with people outside of the bubble that you've built around your work. 

You can often feel quite disconnected from other people's experiences or what they're doing.  And I think for me, I probably felt emotionally disconnected at times from other people.  And there's a really interesting study that we'll link to as well, loads of links this week everybody, about the relationship between workaholism and productivity.  I think sometimes you go, "Well, I work a lot but I achieve a lot", and you can maybe create a narrative that reinforces these unhealthy patterns of work.  But the research actually shows that workaholics hinder the generation of new ideas because they don't give their brain a rest, and they end up doing things on repeat, potentially making more mistakes.  And I love this statement from the research, I think it's really compelling, "It has been found that workaholics not only affect today's productivity, but also future business success".  And as somebody who is motivated by achievement, that for me is a real call to action to do something different when I maybe feel these workaholism waves in my work.

Sarah Ellis: So, we've got five ideas for action for you today.  I'm just going to summarise them quickly so you've got them and you know where we're going, and then we'll go through each one in turn and talk a bit about how it might work and how it's worked for us.  So, one is to redo your to-do, two is partnering up, three is noticing your narrative, four is switching over, and five is about designing your team ways of working.  So, let's start with the redo your to-do.

Helen Tupper: So, what often happens for workaholics is they create an ironically unachievable list of things to get done, which then becomes quite demotivating and frustrating because there's always something else on the list.  But the reality is, if there was nothing to do, then they would feel lost, because for them, being a workaholic means there's always more to do, there's always more jobs to get done.  And so, the list, the endless list kind of reinforces that, and it becomes this cycle of a negative work pattern that doesn't really help them to feel good about their work, but reinforces this, "I need to be busy all the time, I need to keep doing, I can't possibly stop and slow down".  So, it's quite unhealthy.  The endless to-do list is a very common behaviour of a workaholic, quite a common attachment, but it's quite unhealthy because it's a very hard pattern to break.  So, we need to redo the to-do list so it isn't this endless list of jobs that is impossible to get done.

Sarah Ellis: And so, the recommendation here is to try and come up with a process or a system that is more about mapping and prioritising.  So, that's the sort of two skills that we're trying to bring together.  So, Helen and I then reflected on, what do we actually do?  What do we do in this area that has worked for us, or even maybe nearly worked, that you could improve and get better?  So, I had a brilliant boss that I worked for who I think drilled this idea into me.  And ever since we started Amazing If full-time as our jobs, it's really worked well. 

And he used to always say, "What's the one must-do for today?"  It's like, "What is the one thing that matters most?"  And he was like, "If you do that one thing really well and you give that your time and your attention and your focus, that's a day well done".  And it was like, "Well, there'll always be more, there'll always be tomorrow, there'll always be more things on the list".  But it was kind of, I think, probably the joint focus of like, it's one thing, so that forces the prioritising, and it's the today-ness, so it's very short term.  So, I don't think you've done potentially any mapping there, but I think I have found it useful for prioritising.

Helen Tupper: And mine, at the moment this seems to have worked for me for most of this year, so I kind of give it some success, it's worked for me for a number of months this year, is my diary.  So, I have a paper way of doing this, and my diary has the week on one side, so divided into days, and on the right-hand side, it has a notes page.  And I do a dump.  Whenever an action that I think I want to work on comes, it just goes on the dump list, which is just the notes page.  And then, what I do is I'm very intentional about carrying it over to, "Well, what day do I actually believe that that's going to get done?"  And there's a limit of how many actions, just because of how big the squares are for the day, there's a limit of how many things that I can write in that day.  It's something like six, I think it has about six lines. 

So, I cannot plan to do more than six things in a day.  If I achieve more than six things, fine, but I cannot plan to do more.  And most days, like today, I just had three things.  I carried over from my list three things, and I've done three of them; win-win. But I don't really worry.  If I carry some things over to the next week, it doesn't really stress me.  I don't see my list as a thing that I need to complete, I just see it as a dump, carry over to the day, there's a maximum amount that I can possibly do because of how big these boxes are, and then that's fine, I just move it to another day.  So, my achievement is not completing the long list.  I do think this isn't the complete solution though, because I still feel that I need to tick off the things that I put on my days, and I'm not very necessarily very strategic about those things.  But that does feel better to me than the long, never-ending list that never gets done.

Sarah Ellis: So, a few of the thoughts we have here that were sort of work in progress for us.  If you've listened to David Allen talking on the podcast about getting things done, he talks about this idea of having the one ultimate list.  And again, the idea with that is not that you complete it, it's that just everything in your head has a home.  And he has that phrase, "Your brain is for having ideas, not for holding them".  That has just really stuck with me.  And so, I have been using that, probably a little bit sporadically.  My work has been a bit different over the past three or four months because I've mainly just been writing lots of words in Word documents.  So, there's not been a lot to add to that list, but I was finding that useful. 

So, that's another technique. One of the things that Helen and I were actually talking about before recording the podcast is, we have a win-watch every quarter.  And there was that great phrase that we've talked about previously where we've been looking at things like productivity, "Your diary never lies".  And I do actually like things that are kind of confronting and keep you accountable.  And we were saying, we have a win-watch which really helps us to stay focused every quarter, like what are the wins that we're looking for; but what we never do is then map that win-watch to our diaries and to our priorities.  And I think that would be a more nuanced way of what we're describing, because then you'd go, "Well, okay, if it's really important for this quarter that we do a great job of this event for all of our learning partners, okay, where can I see time showing up in my diary in terms of working on that?  And how frequently is that showing up?  And am I giving it enough time, or am I sort of hoping that it's going to happen?"  So, I guess what that is, is zoom-out and zoom-in thinking in action.  You're zooming out to wins for a quarter, and then you're zooming in to, "Well, what does that mean for this week?"

Helen Tupper: So, idea number two is about partnering up.  So, the risks really of the workaholism watch-out is that when you are driven by these kinds of behaviours, you can work on your own and do it in the way that works for you, and you're sort of shutting out other people's ideas and perspectives because you're just reinforcing this sort of pattern of workaholism behaviour. 

So, forcing yourself to partner up with somebody else helps you to see things from their perspective.  To the point earlier around if your brain is tired it's not brilliant for coming up with new ideas, if you are working with somebody else, you are naturally going to bring those different ideas, those different perspectives in.  So, it is a counter to the diminishing impacts of workaholism. But also, I think it does act as a bit of a mirror for your behaviour. 

Because let's say, for example, if I'm in a very kind of workaholism wave at the moment, and then I work with Sarah, who works very different to me, my working patterns are like, "Let's get it done, let's not get up until we do it, let's keep going".  That's very much me in that mode.  Whereas Sarah would always be like, "No, no, we need to take a break, we need time to think, we need to go for a walk and we can talk there".  And that's a real mirror to, "Oh, somebody does this differently to me, somebody who is equally as successful and sometimes more so does not work in the way that I'm working.  So, this does not have to be the default of what a good day at work looks like".  And I think partnering up really, like I say, it counteracts the things that aren't very good about workaholism, but it also gives you just a mirror to, "Oh, maybe this isn't the only way you need to work".

Sarah Ellis: So, idea number three is about noticing your narrative.  So, I think when you're in a workaholic wave, or just generally if this is feeling like you day in, day out, there will be that chatter, that inner monologue in your mind, and it will sound different for all of us, but it could be something like, "I've got no choice, I've got to keep working", or, "People are putting pressure on me, so it just means I need to work 24-7", or, "If I don't do this, no one else will", whatever those statements sound like.  And I think just noticing them, maybe even writing them down rather than, I think sometimes we maybe avoid them or ignore them.  They're a bit like, or I don't think they're a million miles away from our gremlins, because I think those statements are probably mainly driven by fear, like fear of somebody else not doing a very good job.  So, "Well, I've got to do this because if I don't, no one else will".

Helen Tupper: That was mine, "If I don't do it, it won't get done", that kind of a one!  What would yours sound like?

Sarah Ellis: Not that!  What would mine be like?  Mine would be more, "Well, if I don't have my work, who am I?"  Mine would be more like an existential crisis, like who I am is the work that I do.

Helen Tupper: I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing at us, just the difference in our answers!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah I'd be like, "Well, yeah, what am I, who am I, what would I even talk about?"  There's one of the statements I said to Helen about in that list of 20 things.  And you do have to be quite honest with yourself when you're reading them.  And one of the 20 questions is like, "The thing that you enjoy talking about the most is the work that you do".  And I was like, "That is quite true for me quite a lot".  But I think it is because I enjoy it and because I am passionate about what we do.  But you don't want to be one dimensional, right?  You don't want it to be the only thing that you do.  But I think that's what it would sometimes sound like.  So, I think if you can notice that and notice, is it a bit more fear-based; is it a bit more ego-based?  It's never going to be great, but at least once you've noticed it, you can think, "Okay, well what would an alternative be?  What would a new narrative sound like?" We both had a go at doing this and again, they do sound quite different because our personalities are different.  So, mine is a really specific one which is, "I need to walk to do my best work".  And Helen?

Helen Tupper: Mine is, "All work and no play is completely pointless".  Play doesn't have to just mean -- play is just the joy in life, like doing things that give you joy, like what is it for if you -- I don't want to just have play, but I don't want to have work without play.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  And there were some examples actually if you do read any of the articles that we'll link to, where people talk about, "I need downtime to rest and recover because then I'll do my best work".  So, whatever it is, I think in that alternative, if you are doing this, the new narrative has to feel compelling for you.  So, I do sometimes have one where I think, "Oh, well what's the point of running my own business if I don't get to choose how I work best?  That's one of the upsides of running your own business".  Or I sometimes have one that's a bit more stick than carrot, which is, "I can't talk about maybe these ideas or these actions credibly in some of the career workshops that we do if I don't practice what I preach". 

You know, there's no point in me talking about things like active rest and then going, "Oh, yeah, but I never do it because I'm just working all the time".  And I think that also helps to hold me to account and go, "Oh, no, it is okay to not work all the time and it is important to be present". So, one of the other things about if you're more of a workaholic, you're never present with other people.  So, someone might be talking to you about what's going on in their world, but you're actually thinking about the work that you're doing or what you've not done on your to-do list.  So again, we might sometimes talk about focus and presence and being present in some of our workshops, and that is a bit of a forcing function for me to say some of those statements.

Helen Tupper: So, idea number four is about switching over.  And the point we're making here is that if you have a tendency to behave in these kind of workaholic ways that we've talked about, that might be part of you.  I think sometimes it can be a result of the environment you're working in, so I think sometimes it's just it feels like, "This is how I have to work to be successful here".  But I think very often, it is a motivation in you to work in this way.  So, for example, I definitely have lots of these tendencies and I think it goes back to probably a combination of a fear of failure and a value of achievement.  I think those are probably my two feeders of these ways of working.  Now you're not going to change, I'm never going to love failing, I've tried to cage that confidence gremlin, but achievement is a part of who I am. The switch-over trick here really is to make sure that you're not attaching that need that you have just to work.  So, for example, my need to achieve, if that is just on my work, it can become quite obsessive for me.  I think that's the sort of behaviour that I end up with.  Whereas if I switch over and look at, "Well, where else can I get that from?"  So, over the last year and a bit, I've been doing my house up and that's a distraction from workaholism.  Maybe I have home-aholism; is that a thing?  I don't know, home-aholism!  But I spend my evenings, oh my gosh this is so sad, like last night I was looking for a lamp.  I spent a long time looking for a lamp.

Sarah Ellis: I know you were because we were -- this is how sad we are and how old we are, we were messaging about light switches and I was like, "I like these ones", you were like, "Yeah, I like them", like little old grannies already!

Helen Tupper: But it turns out home-aholism, or maybe health-aholism, or these other things that you can maybe do, do provide a bit of a balance.  And I still have that need to kind of obsessively look at something and get really deeply invested in something.  That is just who I am.  But when I make sure that that's across more than just my work, then that is a healthier thing for me to do.  I'm not changing who I am, I'm just making sure that all of that energy, all of that bit of me isn't going on to one thing.  And to be honest, that could be the same for health or anything really.  I think it becomes unhealthy when you attach that level of identity and effort and achievement onto any one thing in your life.  I think it's a bit of a risk.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, because I think the temptation here is, as a workaholic, you think, "Well, what I am trying to do differently is switch off", and I almost think that that feels too hard.  It feels probably too far from your starting point.  Whereas switching over, turning your attention in a different direction, I think is more useful.  So, I mean exactly as you were saying, Helen, I was with my 7-year-old yesterday helping him do some of his homework, and he's got to learn this poem, and I won't --

Helen Tupper: Mine too!  Our children are the same age and they're probably learning exactly the same thing.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, they're probably learning the same poem.  And I was like, honestly, I can remember this poem and I get quite invested in it.  Poor, poor guy.  I do feel for my 7-year-old sometimes.  And he has to do some of these challenges at school, and it's like a wheel where you tick off these challenges and stuff and you get badges, and I am so invested in this wheel.  And I was trying to explain it to him, and I don't even think he quite understands what it is yet, but I'm like, "Right, Max, we're going to do these things and this and it's going to be so brilliant", and I've talked to my partner a bit about it, and he's like, "Well, how do you know so much about it?" 

I was like, "Well, because I read the document and it looks really great", and I'm basically living vicariously through my 7-year-old! But I do think it helps me to, back to that being present, I'm switching over and I do work at weekends a bit at the moment.  But so then it makes it even harder sometimes to not be always thinking about work.  But then when I switch over to thinking about basically him and his homework, and I sort of dip in and dip out of the bits that I can do of his homework, I'm like, "Right, learning a poem, great, I can help you with that.  Let's do that".  One of the other exercises I have done, which actually Helen and I did the same learning programme, but Helen said she didn't do this bit because she was working.  I was like, "Oh, the irony!"

Helen Tupper: The irony!

Sarah Ellis: But, you know some exercises, maybe you just do them when you need them, but they really stick with you?  I was on this programme where they just gave you a blank piece of paper, and you were partnered up for it actually, and it just said, "Just imagine a point in your life where you're just really satisfied and you're content".  So, it wasn't like everything you could ever wish for has come true or you love every aspect of everything, but it was just about contentment, satisfaction.  They just got you to draw and to describe what was happening, like how would your week pan out? 

Who are you spending time with?  What kind of work would you be doing?  And it was like, "Go wherever your brain takes you".  And it wasn't trying to do a fast-forward 10, 15 years.  But equally, they weren't super-timebound about it.  It was like, "Basically, just imagine a good week for you".  It's a bit like the designing-your-life stuff that Bill and Dave do, if any of you have read Design Your Life. So, I just remember sketching this out and then talking to somebody about it, and it does give you real clarity about what matters to you in your life.  So, if you're now thinking, "Well, I don't know what to switch over to", I think doing something like that almost helps you to kind of zoom out, but it also helps you to think a little bit about, "Oh, what do I care about?  What could I spend time on that would make me just feel good, and the things that I really enjoy?"  It can be a useful reminder or refresher, but I think it provided me anyway with a few really important aha moments around what I was looking for from my life.

Helen Tupper: I think that's what vision boards do for me, I think they do it in a similar way.  Just for a moment of levity before we move on to our final idea, would you like to hear a poem that I remember from my school days?

Sarah Ellis: You can remember from when you were in school?

Helen Tupper: Yeah, yeah.  I think the quality of poetry might have moved on, because the poem I remember was, "I eat my peas with honey, I've done it all my life.  It makes the peas taste funny, but it keeps them on the knife".  That's my high quality education!

Sarah Ellis: Oh my gosh!  I mean, I guess it stuck with you, the rhyme stuck.

Helen Tupper: Yeah!  I think I learned that when I was about 5!  Yeah, it's lasted a while.

Sarah Ellis: I don't remember learning any poems.

Helen Tupper: Useless things take up space in your brain and I'm like, I can't even remember your phone number.  I've known you for 20 years and I don't know your phone number, but that poem is lodged.

Sarah Ellis: It's so weird, isn't it, how that's gone.  You know you have short-term working memory and then you have long-term memory.  I'm like, "That has made it into your long-term memory".

Helen Tupper: I know, I'm embarrassed myself!  I'm like, "Get rid of that!  Store something else in that space!"

Sarah Ellis: And so the fifth and final idea for action is about designing your ways of working as a team.  And we were reflecting on how this so often gets missed, and we were actually saying we feel like we could do more of this, because it's often just hard to make the space and the time to do this really well.  But I think this is probably something, from what we've talked about today, there are a few things that you could do that actually could be quite fun.  And as long as this doesn't feel super-serious for anyone, we were thinking, well, you could share your score.

So, you could do the 5 points, the 0 to 5 and get a score; or you could go down those 20 questions and maybe choose the top two or three for you, so people don't have to over-reveal anything that doesn't feel comfortable. What we then thought would be quite fun, we both had a bit of fun doing this, was almost like your confessions of a workaholic.  So, "My confession when I'm in kind of workaholic mode is…".  So, Helen what's your one?

Helen Tupper: I've decided to choose a more embarrassing one, because I don't think Sarah liked my other one.

Sarah Ellis: I did like it; what was wrong with your --

Helen Tupper: Oh, no, now you're going to make me share two!

Sarah Ellis: Oh, no, I want both now!

Helen Tupper: Oh, no, that's awful --

Sarah Ellis: I'm sorry, I'm going to have to have --

Helen Tupper: -- I've got two!

Sarah Ellis: I want two confessions!

Helen Tupper: Oh, no, how have I landed myself…!

Sarah Ellis: I think people will relate to your other one, so you have to do two now.

Helen Tupper: Okay.  So, my other one that I think Sarah was like, "I don't think that's good enough", was that I have my phone by my bed and my work emails are the last thing that I look at before I go to sleep and the first thing that I look at when I wake up, which is I find embarrassing.  Do I really have to share another one?

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  Well, because now you've told me, so I need to know.

Helen Tupper: Oh, no, because this is so embarrassing!

Sarah Ellis: Go on!

Helen Tupper: This is so much worse!

Sarah Ellis: Go on, go on!

Helen Tupper: Oh my gosh.  I read my work emails on the toilet sometimes.  That is so bad!  Things that you should not admit on a podcast that quite a lot of people listen to! 

Can we move on really quickly?  Right, you've got to do two now.  You've got to do two.

Sarah Ellis: Oh, two?

Helen Tupper: Yeah.

Sarah Ellis: I'd only thought of one.

Helen Tupper: Well, come on!

Sarah Ellis: We were only doing one until you came up with a new one.  Mine were quite different.  So, I thought, I think my confession is I'd often rather be working than doing anything else.  It's the thing I probably would choose to do, even over other things that I enjoy, and sometimes over friends and family.  And like you said, it's not something -- they're often not things you're proud of, right, or they make you a bit embarrassed.

Helen Tupper: Yes!

Sarah Ellis: Like, yesterday, I was thinking this, I was going into London to do something not work, it was a Sunday.  I was going to see a show called The Six, which was brilliant, with my sisters, but I did work on the train on the way there.  So, I was reading a book about psychological safety!

Helen Tupper: In front of your sisters?

Sarah Ellis: No, by myself!  I'm not that bad!  Albeit, my family do have a phrase where they call it The Sarah Book-off.  So, I probably do have a bit of a track record of doing that some of the time.  But yeah, I think my confessions would definitely be sometimes about the choices I would make about how I would want to spend my time.  Like, would I rather, I don't know, go swimming with my 7-year-old or write a bit more of our book?  Always write a bit more of our book.  Also, I hate going swimming because it's hot and horrible.

Helen Tupper: I'm kind of hoping no one's listening to this bit.  They're just going to read the PodSheet and they'll miss out on our embarrassing confessions!

Sarah Ellis: Yeah!  And then, maybe a few things that are less embarrassing and perhaps more practical.  We think things like deciding how you're going to use tech, and wherever possible, single-use tech, helps to prevent people working too much.  So, rather than multiple apps and tech in all sorts of different places, I think that sort of perpetuates this idea of always-on-ness.

 And things like response times.  So, often teams don't have -- they've never had a conversation about expected response times.  And then, I think everybody gets used to this idea of like, "Well, I should be responding now.  I need to always have my emails on, or certainly I need to be responding very quickly to emails".  And things like shared team priorities.  So, I think when you're in that kind of workaholism space, it feels so probably lonely and you feel really isolated.  It feels very much about you, I think, though you do often see some of these tendencies maybe as a team because of culture or pressure to deliver on something.  But I think if you have shared team priorities, you realise, "Oh, this is more than me.  This is not just about me". I've actually found that I think as we have grown Amazing If, it feels a lot less about just us. 

It was always you and I, and I felt like you and I just worked pretty much all of the time.  And we definitely had some of those workaholism waves, particularly when you're trying to get a company off the ground and those sorts of things.  If I reflect back on how I spent my time when we first started Amazing If, for at least a couple of years, it was either with a very young kid, because we'd both got very young kids at that time, so it was either that, being a mum, or it was working, and there was nothing else, there was no other fun stuff.  I didn't see people that much, I didn't see friends that much, I had stopped lots of the other things that I enjoyed personally, like I wasn't going to the theatre. 

I talked about going to the theatre yesterday; I wasn't going to the theatre.  I wasn't volunteering, I wasn't mentoring, so much stuff got stripped away.  I think probably, if I look at that list of 20 things, more and more of those things kind of crept in, because it feels like you're in that kind of tough moment.  But I think as things become more shared, then actually you're sharing the responsibility, you're sharing the pressures as well.

Helen Tupper: Which is what I think an ideal team is all about, right, that we all know what is happening, maybe in work and outside of work, if that's possible, because I think that contributes to pressures; and that there's a desire to share the load with each other so that everyone gets better together, which I think is right back to that quote at the start around what we're doing when we're doing that, is everyone is more productive and everybody's supporting the future success of the business, which is kind of the opposite of what happens when we're in this kind of workaholic mode.

So, thank you for listening, because we know, I think, it's quite a hard topic.  I think it's quite a confronting topic to kind of go, "Oh, this might be me".  So, well done for listening this far.  And hopefully --

Sarah Ellis: To our random stories!

Helen Tupper: -- not be like, yeah, our random stories, not going, "Ignore, ignore.  I don't want to hear this any more!"  I think, yeah, good on you for listening this far.  But more importantly is action.  So, we will summarise all of the different things that we talked about, lots of the links that we've mentioned, we'll put all that in the PodSheet.  Some people get in touch, they're like, "Where can I find the PodSheet?"  Loads of places.  Either on Apple, if you listen there; it's on the show notes; or on our website, go to amazingif.com; or if you follow us @amazingif on LinkedIn, we always post it there.  And if you are still stuck, just email us, helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.

Sarah Ellis: But that's everything for this week.  Thank you so much for listening.  Good luck if you are going to take some of those actions.  I think a lot of the actions are useful for us anyway.  And if you really need some support, please do have a look at those links in case you need to kind of dive a little bit deeper.  We'll be back with you again soon, so bye for now.

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.