Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction 00:02:21: Freedom means something different to everybody 00:04:19: Part 1: figuring out your freedom - a scale 00:07:00: Freedom factors: time, trust, tasks, and a mind map 00:11:41: Part 2: how to find your freedom… 00:11:57: … 1: time 00:15:16: Idea for action: this-or-that transparency 00:18:19: … 2: trust 00:20:31: Idea for action: project on a page 00:25:04: … 3: tasks - wants, needs and want-nots 00:27:22: Step 1: the "wants" 00:33:19: Step 2: the "needs" 00:35:00: Step 3: the "want-nots" 00:37:51: 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, where every week we talk about a different topic to do with work and share lots of practical ideas for action and tools to try out that we hope will leave you, and to be honest us, with a little bit more confidence, clarity and control.  And this week, we're talking about how to find more freedom in your work.  When we think about freedom, it feels relevant, I think, for all of us, because the more you dive into freedom, the more you realise this is a universal need that we all have, which does make sense. Who doesn't want to feel like they've got freedom in the work that they do?  We want to feel like we've got the ability to be in control, to direct ourselves about how we work and what we work on.  It makes sense that this is something that is important for all of us.  But what's so interesting is that often, our organisations have been built over time in a way that creates command and control within an organisational structure, but takes it away from individuals, so it takes the control and the freedom from individuals and gives that control to the structure of an organisation. Now most organisations, I think, are moving away from that very traditional ladder-like command-and-control world, where essentially you do what you're told in the way that you're told, and it's all about begin compliant, because I think most organisations recognise now that that's not how anyone does their best work.  And there is a really interesting article that we'll link to about organisations that have been on a real mission to provide a more liberating environment.  They actually call them "liberating organisations". What I found interesting about these case studies I was reading is that lots of them were very traditional organisations, so they had been more command and control, and had made a very conscious effort to go, "We can see that that's not going to help us be successful in the future".  So, if you're a manager or a leader, or you're just really interested in some of those examples, maybe have a look at that HBR article that we'll link to. But today, we're really going to focus on how you can find more freedom, what does that look like for you, and the ideas for action that you can take. Helen Tupper: So, when Sarah and I have read around this topic, the things that come up most consistently are that freedom at work is a balance of autonomy and accountability; so, people feeling like they have the space that they need, and then almost the ownership of their outcomes.  But when Sarah and I were talking about it, we were like, "They're really big topics.  Autonomy; space is massive!" and it means different things to different people, so we wanted to get a bit more specific about it, so we asked out community on Instagram for what this means to them. They told us that freedom meant for them: trust, empowerment, flexibility, authenticity and choice.  What I find really interesting with that is those things are really different.  I want the freedom to work in a way that works with me, so flexibility; I want the freedom to be myself at work, so authenticity.  We cannot assume that this means the same thing for everybody, and it is useful to have that in your awareness. We also talked to people about what was most likely to be getting in the way of the freedom that they needed, and they shared with us that it was: process, so feeling like they had to do things in a certain way, because that was the way stuff was done round there; pressure, so the amount of things they had to do didn't give them the space to do anything different; constantly changing priorities, so feeling like, "Okay, I know what I'm doing, I'm on board with it", and then it just changes again and again; micromanagement, that came up a lot, "I haven't got that autonomy I need, because I have to do it in a way that works for my manager"; and the workload, it's just too much work, almost you can't see the wood for the trees, that kind of thing. So, in order to help all those people that gave us all that input, and you and honestly ourselves a little bit, we are dividing this podcast into two parts.  So, part one is going to be all about how you figure out what freedom means to you, and also maybe what it looks like for you today.  And then, part two is going to be about how you find your freedom, so practical things that you can do to get the freedom that you're looking for. So, I'll kick us off with part one then, figuring out your freedom.  For this, it's useful to think about, "What does freedom mean to you and what might be getting in your way today?"  So, Sarah, if I was to ask you those questions, what would you think? Sarah Ellis: I think freedom for me, my go-to is, "Am I free to choose how I work?"  I think how I work really matters to me.  And when I think about how it starts to then merge into other areas, like where I work, where I'm spending my time, I really don't like being micromanaged, and I've been lucky, I've not found that that's been a real constant in my career.  But the few times I've got anywhere close to that, I find that very difficult, and I respond well to space, almost having freedom.  When I've got a clear sense of what I want to achieve and where I want to go in a project, I want the freedom to do that in my own way essentially.  I just see time and time again that I've done my best work when almost the conditions that help you to be free have been in place. Helen Tupper: And I guess because we've talked about this before and it's one of my values, it definitely is an area that we've reflected on a lot, so it's so interesting to see how important it is to other people as well.  Because it's one of my values, it's deeply important to me, and I don't think our definitions are that dissimilar.  So, my definition is about, "Making choices without constraints", and you used the word "choice" as well. For me, constraints can come in all kinds of form.  Other people can be a constraint, like when other people want me to do people, or they do it a certain way.  I always like to feel that I have got a choice.  Whenever I feel forced, it's almost this freedom trigger for me.  Whenever I feel forced by other people to do something, I go on red freedom alert!  I sometimes talk about that Braveheart moment like, "I want my freedom!"  I feel like I need to really protect it at all costs. So, for you to reflect on this, I think it's worth thinking first of all, what does it mean to you; and just spend time getting to some of those nuances that Sarah and I talked about then.  And give it a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of how much freedom you feel you have right now, because it will just give you a little bit of a signal of what work you might have to do. Sarah Ellis: I think it's useful to break freedom down to be a bit more bitesize so you can figure out where to focus.  Now, you might need to focus on all of these areas, but as I was going through this process, I realised that I think firstly, you'll have different actions depending on where your focus might be, but also you'll probably have different priorities.  I can think of different points in my career where different ones of these factors, these freedom factors, have been more important than others; and I think it does change over time. So, we're trying to move away now from this idea of freedom being all things to everybody, and we can describe it in so many different ways, to drill down a little bit now into some freedom factors.  So, we're going to describe this in three ways, which is: time, trust and tasks.  So time is, where do you spend your time; trust is how you do your work; and tasks is what you work on.  So, I found that quite useful. Maybe you're looking at those three now and thinking about now, on reflection, if you were red, amber, greening each of those, for example, where would you be?  Or, if you were doing a scale of 1 to 10, if that feels more useful for you, where would you be on each of those?  That, I think, helps to pinpoint where are you right now in terms of finding your freedom, and is there one freedom factor here that just feels more important? When I did this, for example, I was green, green, red; amber, red maybe.  So I was like, time, where I spend my time, I feel green on that, and we're going to dive into each of these, so I won't describe it in too much more detail; trust, I felt green, in how I do my work; and then tasks, I was like, "There's some amber-redness there", and that's where I would want to focus when I'm thinking about freedom. Then, when you've done that, do the mind map of all the things that are getting in the way of you finding your freedom today, including yourself, just to make sure we don't end up blaming, but also I think there's never going to be just one thing that's getting in the way of finding your freedom.  So, what are all those things?  Are they people; is it type of work?  What are the things that spring to mind?  And again we both did this. I think, first of all, doing the mind map helps you to think about all of the different answers to that reflection; but then we both quite quickly got to, "But are there one or two things here that feel like they're getting in the way more than everything else?"  So, Helen, do you want to share the couple that you came up with?  And I came up with one quite quickly as well. Helen Tupper: Yeah, so I think my first one's probably poor prioritisation, so I almost don't focus what I want to freely do, because I'm trying to do so much.  And so, I think more time spent prioritisation, even just at the start of the week, and then sharing those with the team, would be really helpful.  But then, I also think I have become a bit of a bottleneck in lots of places in our business, and so there's quite a lot that people need to review with me, or get my input on, and I want to help other people to do their work, but I have become this unmoveable part of it as well, and that often means that there are things that I need to do every day, or in the evening, or at certain points of the week, and that takes some of my freedom away, in terms of sort of the task-based stuff, I think, what I want to spend my time on. Sarah Ellis: Yeah, so I was actually reflecting on this last week; and to be very specific, I still think I need to work on an idea that Oliver Burkeman actually taught me, brilliant author of Four Thousand Weeks, all about time, where he said, "It's not just about getting better at saying no, it's about getting better at saying no to the things we want to say yes to", and I still do that.  That gets in the way of my freedom, and I don't quite make that connection at the moment, and I think even by thinking about this for today, I was like, "That's quite useful.  Have I thought, 'This is hard to say no to, but it equals finding more freedom; is that a really helpful carrot to help me to do something that I find hard?'"  So, that was one. And then I think my second one, which I think is more general, but probably links to that first one, is just being over-committed to delivering too much, almost to your point on, I think I'm good at prioritising, but I still feel like almost that list is too long.  And you're overcommitted, because actually you have committed to those things, and I really don't like not delivering on commitments, and so therefore to deliver, you then end up losing lots of your freedom, because you're like, "Well, I've said I'm going to do this". It probably goes back to again, I've said yes to something because I wanted to say yes, but without doing that knock-on impact.  So, if I get frustrated about not getting enough freedom, I do think a fair bit of that is me getting in my own way.  Now, I think that would have been very different when I was in organisations.  So, I also reflected that part of this is almost about thinking a bit about, and recognising, the system that you're working in, and where does that really help you with freedom, because I think actually some of the big companies I worked in helped me to find freedom in some ways.  I worked a four-day week some of the time; that helped me find some freedom. I think working in a small company has taken away some of my freedom in different ways that I'd not anticipated, which we're now going to talk about exactly how we're going to get it back again, because I'm very committed to this. Helen Tupper: We're going to go into part two now, so you've got three different ideas for action here, which are all linked to the time, the trust and the tasks, and we'll talk about it a little bit, take it in turns, and then we'll give you the details so that you can make the change that would support your development.  So, Sarah, do you want to go first with time? Sarah Ellis: So, for time, we think this would sound a bit like, "I work where other people want me to be, not where I need to be".  So this, I think, will be on lots of people's minds at the moment with every organisation figuring out hybrid working, "Are we going to tell people when we want people in the office?  Are we going to give people lots of choice and lots of freedom about being in an office?  Are we going to say everybody's fully remote, so we just get together to collaborate?"  So, this is both on individuals' and organisations' minds. For us, when we were thinking about this, I think it goes back to this principle of, so often we think time equals hours.  I think if you do that, it becomes more transactional, your thinking becomes transactional; but also, you become very black and white, I think, about how you think about your time.  But if you can reframe your time to not being about hours, but being about outcomes, I think it changes both the conversations that you have, but also how you consider your own freedom in terms of where you spend your time. So, our suggestion here, just to get started in terms of mindset is, be very clear about what are your outcomes, "What do you need to achieve?  What does that look like?  How are you going to measure success?" and then, connect those outcomes with your "wheres".  So, rather than where just being, "I just like working at home every day [or] I want to work in the office four days a week", almost thinking about, with the work that you need to do, those outcomes you need to achieve, where would that work best be achieved for you, because this will be personal for you? As Helen and I have already described, there is some work that we need to achieve together, where some of that work is best achieved with us in a room together.  Some of it definitely, even though we're still working together on something, is best achieved remotely and in our own space and in our own time.  So, I think that just helps you in terms of framing, and I think there is a "where watchout", just before we get to the idea for action, because I just hear this from so many people, which is we're so keen to get more freedom that sometimes we agree to do the same amount of work in less hours or days. Helen Tupper: It's like, we are the trade-off. Sarah Ellis: Yes.  So, your trade-off becomes, "I'm so keen to have a four-day week [or] I'm so keen to work a nine-day fortnight [or] to finish at 3.00pm so I can pick my kids up from school", whatever it might be, that what we then do is we're maybe making that transition to find more freedom, so in the pursuit of freedom; and the trade-off we make is just thinking, "I will find a way and there is no other trade-off", in terms of, it's not about less work. So essentially, you have less hours to do the same amount of work.  And unless you are incredibly unproductive, which I just don't believe anyone listening to this podcast can be, then all that means is you're going to be working late nights, it's going to be stressful, or you'll be working in those times where you're not meant to be working.  So, I think as somebody who has worked in lots of different ways, I think this is a really important watch out, and I've done this well and not so well, and I've seen this work for other people, where they were really hoping to get freedom, and then you don't achieve that thing you were hoping because of that. So, here's our idea for action on this one.  If the where, in terms of freedom, is really important for you, our idea here is to have a go at something called, This-or-That Transparency.  This now gets very, very practical.  This is this idea of trade-offs and choices that I was just describing in the "where watchout".  So, with something like this-or-that transparency, it means you're getting used to practising sharing that you can't just do everything, or certainly you can't do everything right now, in the here and now. Maybe this looks like, we're experimenting in our team at the moment with using a planner in Microsoft Teams.  What that helps us with a little bit is thinking, if something new goes onto the planner, what moves or what doesn't happen?  Or, it could be just a conversation.  So sometimes, when other people might say, "We need these things to happen", it just stops you from going, "Yes, and…" and you just add everything on; and it helps you to go, "Okay, well I'm working in these places, so that work won't work then".  So, it just helps you to have that challenge. Or, maybe it's just a weekly email that says to people, "This is what I'm working on at the moment, this is where I'm working", and you're just again being very transparent about that this-or-that trade-off.  I just find the this-or-that is just a useful framing all the time to keep us honest in terms of prioritising, and then it just connects back to this point about time.  You can't find more time; it's not a thing, but we do all get used to defaulting to going, "Oh, yeah, okay I'll just keep adding that to that". Helen Tupper: I find it really helpful as well just to talk this through with people, why I'm making the choices that I'm making.  So, I might say to Sarah, "I'm going to work from home today, because I really want to get my head down on those things, and by the time I've got into London, I end up getting distracted and all kinds of stuff", and just helping someone to understand that this is why I'm choosing to work where I am helps me to just feel more confident about the decisions that I'm making; not that you need to justify your decisions to other people, but if you're part of a team and you're all trying to do this, then at times you're going to have to make team choices. You can't always have a team making individual choices about their wheres, otherwise no one's going to come together in the right place at the right times.  So, it is useful to understand which of your wheres are most important and why, and then your team can help you to protect those and you can work out, "Which ones can we come together on?" so I do find that useful to understand about people. Sarah Ellis: Imagine even as a team all sharing, what does freedom look like for you; when have you got your most freedom in a week; and where do you feel like you need to find some more freedom in a week?  Just some hopefully easy-to-answer questions that everyone could just do a bit of sharing on.  I wonder then whether you could all help each other, because as you said, this feels all interconnected.  It's quite hard to do lots of this by yourself. Helen Tupper: So, our second area was all about the trust, and a big part of this will be about trust.  So, you finding freedom means that people will have to trust you to work in a way that works for you.  But what this might sound like when it's not working is that, "I'm working in a way that works for other people, but that doesn't work for me".  I think probably, this is most connected to people saying the thing that was getting in their way was being micromanaged.  If you are feeling like you are being micromanaged, someone else is defining what you work on, when you work on it, how you work on it, that probably isn't going to be working in a way that works for you, and it is probably going to feel like you're not trusted to do that. Ultimately, you are the expert in how you work best, you know when you're most energised, you know the environments you need to work with, and what we want you to do is to start with you.  When you're trying to create this trust, we want to start with, "This is what works for me and why", but then ultimately be open to other people's input, because they might have some valid things to contribute, so you don't want to kill that in the conversation, but you do want to start with your freedom first, otherwise they might impose what works for them onto you. So, to bring this to life about what this could look like, we've created a scenario, like a podcast roleplay; I love it!  I like it, because I, in this role play, am your manager!  Let's say I said to Sarah, "Sarah, we're going to be creating a careers festival over the summer and I'd really like you to lead on it", then what we would want to do in response to that, given that Sarah is the expert in how she works best, is Sarah then to define how she imagines making that happen, and then share it with me for challenge and build; not to approve, not for me to say, "Yes, that's okay [or] no, that's not", but to almost say, "How could that be even better?"  It's that space for building, rather than approving, that we're trying to create, to give someone the autonomy. Every time you go to someone to agree or approve something, I think you reduce some of your autonomy over it, because it feels like they're checking in and checking up.  What we really want them to do is have a more adult-to-adult conversation about how you do your work.  So, challenge and build creates that, and what we want you to do is to be in control of that conversation. Sarah Ellis: So, Helen and I were chatting about practically, what would an idea for action here look like?  One of the things that I found really useful, and also recognised that when I've not done this, it's been a miss, as in it's got in my way, is having project on a page.  Project on a page, let's imagine I'm doing this careers festival that Helen's asked me to lead, is just summarising on one page, maybe it's a Word document, maybe it's PowerPoint, whatever works for you: what is the objective; what are the outcomes; what does success look like; and, how I'm imaging I'm going to make this work.  So, that might be some ways of working principles. So for example, I might be saying to Helen, "Ever Monday morning, I'll send you a project update with the three things I think you need to know.  I suggest we get together for 45 minutes every couple of weeks, and we talk about priorities, people, process and problems", so perhaps I put a bit of structure in.  It's not you're presenting a project on a page and hoping for no response, which I have definitely done in the past; you're also asking some really good questions, because this is meant to be a conversation, because otherwise you're solving, rather than involving, your manager. Maybe I'd be saying to Helen at that point, "So, what might I be missing?  What can you imagine could get in our way?  How else can I keep you updated?"  Or even almost asking Helen, "Do you want to be more involved at the earlier stages of this project, or do you want to be less involved?"  So, that project on a page becomes a joint agreement that I think everybody feels confident and comfortable with, but also that you keep coming back to, because there's no point doing this and then never looking at it or iterating as you go. Actually, Helen and I were even reflecting on a small project that I'm working on at the moment where I haven't done this, and it has felt like exactly as Helen described, where I've said to Helen, "We're going to need to make a decision on something", I'm running something past Helen, and wanted her to just go, "Yeah, sure, let's make some progress".  But I feel a bit like Helen's been, "No, I've got some more questions", and it has felt a bit like, we were saying, the closest we would ever get to micromanaging each other.  Whereas, in my head, I just thought, "Why can't Helen let me get on with this, it's fine?" whereas Helen's thinking, "I've got five more questions". I think with that specific piece of work, if I had done a project on a page, I would have got to clarity, but then also, Helen could have given me more freedom to work in a way that works for me, in terms of how I want to do my work.  Whereas actually, we've slightly stalled because we've not done this.  And then you do, you do feel like you've got less freedom on something where you feel like, "I should have just been able to move forward". Helen Tupper: Actually, just reflecting on that situation a little bit as well makes think about, sometimes I wonder whether the language of, "This is a bit of a freedom flag for me", is a way that you could bring it, because if you had said to me, "This is a bit of a freedom flag for me.  I'm feeling like there's something that I want to do that I'm not getting the space to do", could have maybe been an easier way into a conversation about that.  But then obviously, I sometimes think that the more detailed someone's questions are, the more there's something that's unsaid. Sarah Ellis: It's sort of a freedom flag for you! Helen Tupper: Yeah, or because the questions, detailed questions, maybe they're fine, they're useful; but there's probably a bigger question behind the scenes in someone's head.  I think the particular project Sarah's talking about, there probably was, and I wasn't surfacing the bigger question.  What I was going to was probably quite a lot of irritating detail.  I wonder if you can say, "This is a bit of a freedom flag for me", so now I know that that's a point of language I'd be like, "Okay, so Sarah's feeling basically that I'm micromanaging her", but saying it in a way that makes it more comfortable conversation. Then, if Sarah could have asked me, "What's the bigger question in your mind?" to get me out of the detail and into something that we could probably discuss more effectively, because I think if you got to the bigger question in my mind, that could have maybe given a way to get the space; because, if you'd resolved the bigger question, rather than me distracting us with the detail…  I just think there's ways around it.  I definitely like project on a page, and in that situation, it really would have helped me.  But you would have had to go away and do that and it would have taken time. In the moment where you were maybe feeling it, perhaps raising the freedom flag and questioning, "What's the bigger thing that's going on?" in your mind, could have unlocked something in that situation.  Then we could have decided, and would have project on a page been useful? Sarah Ellis: So, our third area is about what you work on, so this is the tasks that you spend your time on.  I think this might sound like, "I feel like I'm working on someone else's to-do list".  When we did this, we were both just wry smiles, because we've all been there, and are probably still there in some ways.  It's quite rare I think to feel like your to-do list is 100% yours, or owned by you. We think it's helpful to look at the work that you're doing, so the tasks that you spend your time on in a week, and divide it into wants, needs and want-nots; so wants, the work you want to be doing; needs, the work that needs or has to be done, whether you want to or not; and what-nots, the work that's getting in your way.  Divide this into a pie chart and do an intuitive split, so across the week, how much time are you spending in wants, needs and want-nots.  Obviously I've made Helen do all this beforehand, because I was like, "Well, lets' just check it all works".  So, Helen, what percentage of time did you get to for wants? Helen Tupper: So, 20% of time on wants, and I say that because when I first started it, I said 10%, but I think I was being a bit negative, so I've reflected on it.  20% want, so that is the work I want to be doing.  50% need, like I feel there's 50% of the time spent doing something that just has to be done, and repeatedly has to be done; and I think I spend 30% on want-nots, so work that feels like, at times, it's getting in the way of my wants actually. Sarah Ellis: So, one of the things that we reflected on is, I think you often have quite an emotional response to wants, needs and want-nots, because it feels frustrating, maybe worse than that, maybe it feels constraining, you might feel like you're not using your strengths, or you're not getting to do your best work.  You could probably see what you'd like to be doing, but maybe that's not what you're spending your time on. So, we were like, you could end up almost going round in circles, or feel like you're stuck.  So, I think you want to move away from emotions, we obviously don't want to ignore them, but get quite practical about going, "How are you going to change that pie chart?  That pie chart is not going to change itself, so what could you do for wants, needs and want-nots?" For wants, we were saying we think it's helpful to think about your perfect day in the life.  So, we actually mention this earlier already on the podcast going, "If you were spending a day doing the work you want to be doing, what is that work?"  So, Helen, if you were going to do that, just give me -- Helen Tupper: I love this question! Sarah Ellis: "Yes, please, give me that question!"  She was like, "Don't talk about it for yourself; ask me, ask me"!  So, go on then, you've got your perfect day tomorrow, what are you going to be doing? Helen Tupper: I'm going to start with a breakfast meeting pretty early, like 8.00am, where I'm going to have a really good curious conversation with somebody and finding stuff out; that will be quite ideas-sparking.  Then, I would go back to the office, probably then have an hour to create something, because that conversation would have sparked some ideas, so there'd be some kind of framework or toolkit or asset or an article, there'd be something, and I'd want to get on it straightaway and feel like I had the freedom to do that, to create that; and the freedom to put that out into the world.  So, it would be both a time thing and a trust thing for me there; time to do it and the fact that Sarah would be, "Helen's creating another random article, off she goes"! Then, I'd be thinking, "I've got to do a bit of work", because up until then, I'd be like, "Well, that's the work I want to do", but now probably, what I mean then is that I need to get onto the work I need to do.  So, I'd then spend a little time just looking, "Okay, what do the team need me to do, what are their priorities?" so I'd spend a bit of time getting a bit of clarity and just prioritising some of those needs. Then, I think I would do some summer sessions for clients, so I could connect with learners and help people with their career development; that would feel super-fulfilling, and I like to squeeze quite a lot in, so maybe two sessions, I'd squeeze in there.  Then, I'd need to spend a bit of time with you.  I'd need to maybe do a podcast, or maybe you and I would be talking about something, we would need to have -- and it could be virtual, or it could be in person; I don't need to be with you, I need to do things with you, but whatever worked best, I'd like to have a good chunk of Sarah time. Then, I think I would end my day either going out connecting with some other people, that could be one day, or maybe just a little bit of listening and learning, a bit of a podcast on the train, something like that.  That would feel lovely, I'd feel like that was a great day. Sarah Ellis: So, even just I think of that sense of doing that, it's really nice to talk it through with someone else, but how did it feel, Helen?  So, if you were going, you said to me about 20% of your wants, the sort of work you want to be doing, so you've just described 100%, so we have just gone from 20% to 100%; but, what does that prompt you to think about doing, in terms of actions you might take or changes you might make? Helen Tupper: Yeah, it's interesting, because I think if I think about a day, I have a lot of that in a week actually.  But what I think I'm wanting more, and maybe it's a bit too idealistic because I think I want more of that in a day, and I think some of the want-nots probably get in the way of that.  It does make me think that actually, I obviously love my work, I love what I do, and it does make me think, well your perfect day is essentially a big part of your working week; you're just looking for more of that on a day-to-day basis. It also makes me think some of that might need to be planned in a little bit more.  So, curious conversations over breakfast don't just happen, you've got to put those in the diary.  So, if they're that important to me, then plan them in, make them more of a ritual for the way that I work.  I think having some kind of focus, like I need time to create one new tool a week.  I'd really love to do that; I think it's me at my best, quickly taking a conversational concept -- Sarah Ellis: I'm sure so would our listeners! Helen Tupper: Yeah!  It's helped me to think more specifically about one or two things that I don't think happen as regularly as I would like them to do.  But honestly, my perfect day probably doesn't need to be every day.  I think there are just moments in that perfect day that I'd like to work into my week. Sarah Ellis: Well, I guess what we're aiming for here is not to go from 20% to 100% every day, but probably for that 20% to more regularly feel like 50% or 60%.  And we often have mini mantras in Amazing If.  So, Helen and I find it really helpful just to have almost they're just mini statements that help us to propel us forward and to make progress, depending on what's happening in our worlds at the moment. We actually do have one right now, which is just, "Thinking ahead"; they're not very revolutionary!  We're talking a lot at the moment about thinking ahead, and the reason that feels so important to us is because we are trying to make some changes for everybody across the team, in terms of how much time people spend on the work they want to be doing, I think one of the realisations that we have had thinking about this is, you've got to think ahead. As Helen described, redesigning some of your days, some of your weeks, how you spend some of your time, what all this looks like, it doesn't just gradually happen to you, you have to really create this change.  So, thinking ahead is really helping us, because most of the time, I think with this, you can't overnight very quickly make this stuff happen. So, we have started to look and go, okay, so we have been trying out using our Fridays in a very different way.  We call them Freedom Fridays actually, talking about freedom, and our Freedom Fridays are where we don't commit to lots of things in the calendars, we use them for curious conversations, we use them for learning.  So we're like, "Okay, well let's experiment with Freedom Fridays", but when we first had that idea, we couldn't just do it that Friday, because you've got meetings, or we've got workshops that we're running. For us, I think, almost doing the contrast between where you are and the perfection, but then you can kind of work back from that, and as Helen said, she realised that, "Actually, I've got quite a lot of this, but maybe just not enough within a day".  And then for us, it has prompted us to do this kind of thinking ahead.  Then, we've actually got very practical actions in terms of changes that we're making.  So, I think this has moved us from maybe being quite emotional about, "We're not doing enough of the work we want to be doing", to actually very practical.  So, that's your first step. Helen Tupper: Step number two is to challenge the work that has to be done.  So, this is the one that I said was taking up 50% of my time.  So, my biggest chunk of time personally was spent on doing the work that has to be done.  Sometimes that is true, but I don't think it always is, because maybe you are feeling like you have to be the one doing the work, or that work has to get done by a certain date.  I definitely self-create deadlines for no sensible reason that I can think of. But for this one, for step two, think a little bit about, with whatever work is falling into that big bucket for you, what you could stop, is there anything you could just stop if you really looked at it hard enough; what you could maybe stall, so maybe something could slow down, do you need to do all those deadlines quite as fast as you might be creating them; or, what could somebody else do? I think what's really useful here is to run this by somebody else as well, because I think you can protect this pot quite a lot; you're like, "It definitely needs to be done, and I'm definitely the person who needs to do it, and you justify it all the time. Sarah Ellis: Which sounds exactly like you every week! Helen Tupper: Yes, Sarah.  Gosh, does anybody else think that I have to be very robust to have a relationship with Sarah?!  I'm joking!  But actually, in all seriousness, Sarah is a very good challenger; you are.  And so, I would make assumptions, and you would look at those assumptions, often without the emotion that I might have when I'm making the decisions about those things and say, "Well, what if you weren't doing this, who could?" or, "What if we did slow that down for a month?"  You're very good at challenging, or coaching me, but also challenging me at the same time; you're a challenging coach.  I think, if you have any of those people in your work life, they are very, very helpful to bring into this process. Sarah Ellis: And so, the final step, which is about your want-nots, so this is the work that's getting in your way, and we were thinking, "Well, if this was easy to solve, you probably would have done something already".  So, we reckon you've got to have a go at doing something dramatically different.  So, maybe this is almost thinking about, "What's the idea that you have discounted because it's too ambitious?" or, "What's the thing that you never thought you would do?" Maybe you're positioning it as a pilot or as an experiment.  So, we have got a couple of things where we're thinking, we do things that we have been doing for a long time.  You know often, because you can do something for a long time, you just feel like, "But that's just what we do" but also, at the same time, it is feeling like it's getting in your way?  Maybe it's time-consuming, maybe it feels like it's taking away some freedom in that day.  Maybe it's not really now work you want to be doing, but it feels hard to let go of for some reason. We've got one thing that we're looking at at the moment where it feels hard to let go of, because we have always done it, since day one pretty much, month one, of Amazing If.  And so, that's where we were saying, almost you've got to rip up the rulebook.  You know, it's the Sacred Cow thing, isn't it?  You've got to let go of those Sacred Cows and go, "Imagine that didn't exist, how would you feel about that?" or, "Imagine if we experimented with maybe doing that in a completely different way.  If we remind ourselves why we do that thing, what are four other ways that you could still achieve that 'why' that look very different to the way you execute on it today?" I think this is where you've got to either come at the why, or the problem, from a completely different perspective.  Certainly, it's helped us.  It helped us when we were thinking of a couple of different examples here, because I'm not sure incremental action is the answer here for the want-nots, because if it was -- Helen Tupper: It would be easy, wouldn't it?  You'd just fix it. Sarah Ellis: You'd be smart enough, yeah. Helen Tupper: You'd be like, "I do want to do it", and just go for it and just don't do it, just change something tomorrow.  But you're like, "Well, no, it has to be that fundamental a change that it makes that big a difference to your freedom". Sarah Ellis: And again, I don't know what you feel about this, Helen, but I feel like this is hard to do by yourself.  We got to some good answers on this one when we were literally critiquing our own business to check that this idea works, and we got to some good stuff; but I think I needed that inner conversation.  So again, whether this is a work friend, whether this is a manager, an informal mentor, but someone who I think probably understands your work well enough, has got enough empathy in terms of your day-to-day that they can help you to explore this, I think that is useful. I think all of this, of the three, I think all of them probably involve other people, but this one just feels like trying to fix this all by yourself I think puts a lot of pressure on your, but also you probably won't get to such good think in your answers. Helen Tupper: So, we'll stop there, because I think we've given you a lot to help you with the topic of freedom.  Just a recap, so that part one was all about figuring out your freedom, so thinking about that RAG status, red, amber, green, on time, trusts and tasks at the moment, and mind-mapping what was getting in your way.  And then, part two, we gave you all those different ideas for finding your freedom.  So, if maybe the issue's a bit about time, we talked about the this-or-that transparency; if it's more about trust, we talked about the project on a page; and actually, if it's more about tasks, that pie chart that we just mentioned there. Sarah Ellis: So, thank you so much for listening, everyone.  Everything we have talked about today will be summarised on the PodSheet, so don't forget to have a look at that, if you just want a helpful -- it's kind of project on a page; it's sort of podcast on a page, to be honest!  So, that's there for you if you need it.  And we do really hope we have helped you to figure out and find more freedom through the work that you do and in your Squiggly Careers, because I think this is a really important topic, and one that we really hope we've been helpful with.  So, thank you so much for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon.  Bye for now. Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.