Spring is in the air. On my daily walk in Central Park this morning, it was a thrill to see the variety of Spring flowers blossoming all around….big patches of yellow daffodils and candy striped tulips on the ground below, white cherry blossoms and forsythia on the trees above. Combined with warmer temperatures, brighter sunshine and bluer skies, Spring ushers in a welcome burst of energy and the hope of new possibilities.
I’ve long advocated for the importance of spending your evenings disconnected from work, focusing instead on truly renewing activities. Whether relaxing, socializing, spending time on hobbies or fitness, the goal is to spend our time off in a way that restores our energy and brainpower for peak performance the next day.
Yet, intense workloads and challenging projects can make it hard to turn work off at night. The tangible satisfaction of getting a few more tasks completed or solving a complex problem you don’t have time to think about during the day can cause you to gravitate back to your computer. It’s counterintuitive, but resisting the lure of work at night is a better path to performing at peak.
To help motivate you, I'm excited to share the results of a new study featured in this Harvard Business Review article: Want to Be a Better Leader? STOP Thinking About Work After Hours Published by a team of three professors in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the researchers explored how effective leaders were depending on how they spent their evenings away from work. Spoiler alert: actually proves this theory that when we turn off from work at night, we perform better at work during the day. It always makes me so happy when studies come out that prove, with evidence, things that we kind of know in our gut and maybe have even experienced. Conducted by a team of professors at Purdue, University of Florida, and Florida State University.
They studied 73 managers and a paired direct report for each. For 10 days, the managers would report whether they spent the evening thinking about work or they spent the evening truly disconnected and just enjoying their time off and how they felt in the morning. Managers felt more energized, more identified with their leader role when they had detached at night. Managers who thought about work or ruminated about work problems in the evenings came to work feeling drained and less identified and motivated to be in a leader position during the day.
So the managers felt the benefits, but what was really validating is that they the researchers then interviewed the direct reports of each of those managers at the end of every day to ask how that leader performed. For the managers who had reported disconnecting the night before, their direct reports found their leader to be inspirational and powerful all day long. Direct reports of leaders who ruminated about work in the evenings reported their leaders to be less inspirational, less effective and less valuable to them.
It always makes me so happy when studies come out that prove, with evidence, things that we kind of know in our gut and maybe have even experienced. So, I hope that you'll take this to heart. Whether you are a manager, an individual contributor, or an entrepreneur, the value of disconnecting at night and having a true shift in focus to renewal activities will make you a better worker, leader, manager, performer. By spending your evenings truly disconnected from work, work will become more meaningful and fun for you.
If those boundaries have blurred for you, claim them back. Plan your evenings well so that you have fun, engaging activities to do. Align on expectations with your team and boss about after-hours communication so you feel more confident NOT checking email. Make a very mindful transition as you close out your work day, tying your day in a bow and then go have a wonderful evening. It will make you a better performer.
January is “Get Organized Month”, an official holiday designated many years ago by the professional organizing industry. It makes total sense because January is the time when we have this urge to take control of our spaces, our schedules, our habits, so that we can achieve whatever other goals we have set for the year.
Ahhh, the holidays. While we fantasize about this season as a warm and rejuvenating time -- the truth is the end of year can be overwhelmingly busy and so packed with pressure that we aren’t able to enjoy ourselves.
With visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads (thanks to the lights and music pumping through stores and holiday fairs, and everyone’s social media posts), we can caught up in trying to live up to the hallmark vision of the holiday season. We can get so stressed over buying the perfect presents, being the perfect host, and cooking the perfect meal that we can’t wait for the holidays to be over.
Last Friday, I ended up working much later than I’d planned—and it took its toll on me. At 5:30pm, I was wrapping up my week at the office and looking forward to dinner plans with a friend who was in town. Unfortunately, at the last minute, my friend texted me that she wasn’t feeling well, and needed to cancel our dinner.
Ahh, work-life balance — we all crave it, yet it seems so incredibly difficult to achieve. With a constantly changing workplace, it’s easy to say “It’s impossible….my job is just too demanding.” Add to that the extra chores related to the holiday season while simultaneously juggling end-of-year projects and reporting, and it can especially become an uphill battle.
As we step into this season of gratitude and togetherness, it's understandable if your heart feels heavy given the devastating wars and widespread suffering across the globe. Celebrating abundance and blessings may feel challenging against the backdrop of so much loss, trauma, and destruction experienced by others. Yet, we need ways to fortify our strength, resilience and compassion during difficult times.
Years ago, before the digital revolution, workplaces had a “Keeper of the Files”—let's call her Mable. Mable was like a human version of the cloud, storing and retrieving information quickly and accurately. She would create order in the chaos of paperwork and file folders. But as we continue moving towards paperless offices and the vast internet of everything while still managing printouts, mail, and other physical documents, everyone has to become their own Mable. However, this is no small feat because not everyone is a natural organizer.
I’m often asked, “What do I mean, never check email in the morning? At all?” I’m not against this powerful communication tool, but it’s also highly addictive. Research shows people now spend an average of 19 hours a day on screens. Can you just imagine all the things you could check off your to-do list by cutting down your email time?
