Is Your Flexible Schedule Burning You Out?

On paper, Sean was doing well. Early on in his career, he had put in an immense amount of effort into his work and advanced to the level of firm partner. Now as one of the top leaders in his organization, he had more freedom to set his hours and had chosen to use that flexibility for his wife and children. For Sean that meant dropping off the kids at daycare in the morning, trying to be done by 4 PM to have time with them before dinner, and starting work a few hours late one morning a week so that he could watch them attend their swim class. But leveraging that flexibility for his family while also striving for excel in his career meant that he was logging back onto his computer after everyone else went to sleep and trying to finish up work at midnight. Then he set his alarm for 4:30 AM in an attempt to exercise before the kids woke up. (The workout rarely won out over the snooze button.) Sean wanted to be an amazing husband and father, and a successful partner at the firm, all while not ruining his health in the process through sleep deprivation and lack of exercise. But even though Sean spent a lot of time with his family, he rarely felt fully present because he always felt behind at work. What did this lead to? Burnout. Can you relate? Sometimes the blessing of a flexible schedule can turn into what feels like a curse when you don’t have enough time during normal work hours to get your job done. You’re left trying to do it all at odd hours, making you feel maxed out. But not using flex time feels like a missed opportunity, especially as leaders are often told to model using the benefits that employees are offered. So what to do? As a time management coach for over 16 years, I’ve found that a fully flexible schedule can be a recipe for burnout where you feel like you’re not measuring up anywhere. It can also lead to feeling constantly distracted because you’re never quite sure if you’re doing the right thing at the right time. And it can cause you to feel guilty for taking time to relax because you always feel like you should be putting in more hours somewhere. But there are ways to be more strategic with your time and make flexibility work for you. Here are the steps you can take to restore your work and life and show up fully present in both areas. Define What’s Enough Not having clear, realistic standards for what’s “enough” in the different areas of your life can set you up to feel like a failure. After we objectively evaluated his schedule and goals, Sean realized that he needed to modify his perception of what was enough in terms of time with his family. That meant giving himself permission to work until 5 pm and to skip the morning swim classes, so that he could start work at 7:30 AM instead of 9:30 AM those mornings. If he traveled and was away from his family, he did want to use his flexibility to end early on a Friday. But most days, Sean realized that giving himself more time to work during the day served him and his family best. Also, between giving himself permission to work more during standard office hours and finding ways for him to be more strategic with that time, Sean decided that he was not working past 10 pm unless it was an absolute emergency. This gave him the ability to sleep and consistently get up for his early morning workout. To define what’s enough in your life, set more standard work hours for yourself or have a target number of hours that you work per week. Then determine what the most important personal time investments are for you, such as dinner with your significant other or going to your kids’ games or shows, as well as those commitments you’re OK skipping, like standard practices or lessons. Clarify Where You Add the Most Value Tim came to me as an executive, husband, and father of a large, blended family. He was always feeling guilty—guilty when he was working and not with his family, and guilty when he was with his family and not working. I worked with Tim on defining what was enough in different parts of his schedule, as I did with Sean—but we took it a step further. To actually compress his work hours to a less flexible timeframe, he needed to radically clarify where he added the most value. As a senior leader, he had to ensure that he was producing results for his corporation. Although he had flexibility with his work hours, Tim found that almost all of his scheduled workday was spent in back-to-back meetings, which forced him to work on nights and weekends to get his work done as an independent contributor. To free up time, we did a meeting audit, where we took a look at the meetings he was accepting to determine which were really necessary to attend. After this assessment, he started to reduce how many meetings he went to by declining them, delegating them to other team members, emailing his thoughts, or attending only the decision-making part of the meetings and leaving once the execution part began. This allowed Tim to open up hours during the day to focus on strategic initiatives, like a roadmap for an organization-wide effort, as well as meeting with other executive stakeholders to get alignment on that plan. Tim performed at a higher level and received a promotion by ensuring that when he did work, he was doing so on the most valuable use of his time. Best of all—he stopped feeling guilty and had time back in the evening and on weekends to spend with his family. As a senior leader, there will always be more tasks that people want you to do than you can get done. To succeed, decide on where you provide the highest value in terms of the organization’s goals. Focus on those areas and then eliminate as many of the activities as possible that fall outside that scope. Make People Unhappy in the Short Term When Sarah came to me as a director in an international organization, she had the flexibility to work from home, to take her kids to school, and to touch base with friends and family during the day. But that flexibility made her feel obligated to accept calls with international colleagues late at night when she really just wanted to spend time relaxing with her husband after her kids had gone to bed. Sarah realized that by trying to make everyone happy in the short term she was making herself really unhappy. Like Sean and Tim, Sarah started by defining what was enough in terms of work hours and where she added the most value. Then she realized that she needed to take another step: Set boundaries. That meant not touching base with friends and family during the day unless it was absolutely necessary. It also meant having international colleagues schedule meetings at a time that worked better for her. If a time did fall in a less convenient time (and it was non-urgent), she requested those meetings to be scheduled up to a month in advance. Sarah no longer gave everyone immediate gratification in terms of having access to her time. But by being less flexible, she showed up as present, happy, clear-minded, and helpful versus distracted, stressed, and sometimes even annoyed in her interactions. This benefited those around her and massively decreased feelings of burnout. Be Really On; Be Really Off Henry had a very successful career as the senior partner in a 400-person law firm and had senior leadership responsibilities in two other enterprises. He also had a family he cherished with a wife and two young children. On the surface, he had it all, taking extra time to be with his wife and children in the morning and being home most nights and weekends. But he always had one eye on his mobile phone so he could be available—just in case. Making himself always on call meant that he never felt fully at rest. Through our work, Henry realized that he wanted to be more present at work—fully in that space and not as engaged with personal items in that time, even when he was working from home. But he also wanted to be much more present with his family. He made it a rule that when it was time to be with his wife and kids that he needed to leave his mobile phone in a basket on silent. He wasn’t allowed to look at it until after his kids were in bed. This shift from full availability and flexibility in communication to a more defined line of “on” and “off” helped Henry to feel happier and more refreshed on a daily and weekly basis. He also gave himself permission to go on vacation and not check in on work at all, which was a first for him in years. If you find yourself tethered to your phone or smart watch, create rules about when you can officially turn off. It could be that from when you log off before dinner until your kids go down to bed that you’re disconnected with work. Or you have “no email” weekends, where you don’t check your work inbox and only emergencies can reach you via text. The exact times and rules can vary, but the important point is that you create a space where you and the people around you know that they have your full attention. . . . As a leader, there will be times when a truly urgent situation calls for being available to work after hours. There will also be times when you can and want to flex for your personal priorities. But by being more strategic and proactive with your schedule, you can increase your confidence that you’re investing your time in alignment with your priorities and reduce your probability of burnout.

Is Your Flexible Schedule Burning You Out?

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