Detailed Notes
In the latest episode of the Building Better Developers podcast, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche discuss work-life balance strategies. For entrepreneurs, developers, and business owners, the lines between work and personal life can blur, leading to burnout, inefficiency, and dissatisfaction. This episode explores practical work-life balance strategies to maintain a healthy balance while ensuring productivity and well-being.
Read More: https://develpreneur.com/work-life-balance-strategies-setting-boundaries-for-a-healthier-life/
*The Challenge for Listeners*
Rob and Michael challenge listeners to pick a specific period to disconnect from work this week. It could be an evening, a full day, or an entire weekend. Set up technology to block notifications, inform colleagues and clients of your off-hours, and focus on personal time. The goal is to experience the benefits of separation between work and life.
By implementing these work-life balance strategies, professionals can reclaim their personal time, reduce stress, and ultimately enhance their productivity when they are working. As the episode concludes, the hosts encourage everyone to take proactive steps toward achieving a sustainable work-life balance.
*Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
Additional Resources
* Navigating Communication Tools in Modern Workplaces (https://develpreneur.com/navigating-communication-tools-in-modern-workplaces/) * Work Balance And Trading Money For Happiness (https://develpreneur.com/work-balance-and-trading-money-for-happiness/) * Balance Your Time in a Busy World: Tools and Techniques (https://develpreneur.com/balance-time-busy-world/) * Why Habits Matter: Unlock Peak Productivity and Success (https://develpreneur.com/why-habits-matter-unlock-peak-productivity-and-success/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] Oakley do. Let's get back to this. We just hit record right there. I like that. Woo. Um, I'll just do one of these until it says No. Oh, there it is. Until it does that. There we go. I have raised my hand. Lucky me. Oh, and it even swapped my little thing. Uh, I was thinking boundaries for this episode is like, how do we set boundaries between our life and our work? And I was like, oh, that's a good one. cuz we both have problems with that. Not at all. Never. But we're going to go right into this one. We're going to do a little three, a two, and a one. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of building better businesses. We are building better developers. This is a developer podcast. This episode we are going to talk about boundaries. We're going to put some gates and some fortresses and stuff like that and shoot pigs back and forth across them or that's a whole different thing. I am Rob Broadhead. one of the founders of developer building better developers. And I'm also a founder of RB Consulting where we are one of those firms that go out there. Actually, we're probably about the only firm. Not the only. There are a few out there. But what we do is we specialize in you. We sit down. We learn your business. We work with you to understand what are the ins and out, the value proposition that you bring, what is it that you have currently that is your technology stack, your footprint, dare I say your sprawl. And then we help you organize that through integration, implementation or integration, simplification, automation, innovation, all these otherations. And that's just the problem. There's just a lot of that. There's a lot of ways to skin this cat. No offense to the cat lovers out there. There are a lot of ways to leverage technology. It it's out there. It's going to be part of business. I don't care if you're like got a lemonade stand. There is the technology is involved these days. And so what we do is we take our vast experience with technology across a lot of different lines of business and we help you do technology better. We help you take that big investment and use it to make your business better to make your customers happier and everybody wins. Good thing and bad thing. Thanks talking about everybody wins. bad thing. I had a car I like had to take my car in this week and it was basically because we're sitting there the other day and daddy looks down and her feet are roughly in water in the bottom of the the car in the passenger seat. There's a leak of some sort. So, that's never fun having to take it in. And actually, what was even worse is it turns out that the guys we took it into, they're more like a body shop and stuff like that. It was actually windshield related. So now we're going to have to go back and find a windshield place and it's probably going to take forever to get that stuff actually fixed. I guess the good part about that is it's not a huge leak. It's not all the time. It's just one of those thing that's a pain. Hence the bad thing. Good thing is uh when you're like me and you've been doing work for many many years, you actually will end up going through we'll say like seasons and stuff like that with with customers. There will be people sometimes you work with for a long time and then in some cases if you're like me they go away for a while because project dies. they move on or whatever. Good thing is I've recently recently connected back with a customer that I had not worked with in many years. I don't know how many, but more than one. So, we'll just call it many. And I had worked with them for, you know, probably three or four, five years, something like that beforehand before this break. And wasn't sure if we were ever going to like cross paths again. Things have changed, business have changed, stuff like that. But now I get to come back and work with them again, which is a really good thing because they were great people. Love working with them. And so it's one of those things I look forward to. You all get to look forward to listening to Michael introduce himself. So go for it. Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malashsh. I'm one of the founders of developer nerve building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help businesses through assessments, through requirements gathering. Really, we help you figure out what you need or from your business through software. It's either through customiz building custom software, helping you identify the software tools that you need to buy or even using the tools you have. Sometimes it's just simply walking through what you have, figuring out, oh, you already have this. How do you use it? Or maybe how does this work with their business? Because some businesses buy things, they forget about them, or they just never really figured out how to fully implement it into their business. So, Envision QA will can come in there and we can help you make your software work better for you instead of you working for your software. So, I sort of I guess I didn't tease it. I said, right, we're going to talk about boundaries and in our world, in our business, the boundaries I'm talking about is our life and our business. And these are this is very much a challenge because the whole concept I guess of side hustle is starting to blur your work into more of your regular life. Side hustle is basically sacrificing some of your nonwork life so you can do more work to some extent. Now ideally the side hustle we're enjoying and so it is part of our fun time. It's our free time. It's the time that we get to control our schedules a little bit more and do what we want to do. However, as that grows, a lot of times we can become a slave to that as well. And now we no longer are doing what we do necessarily all the maybe we're doing what we would like to do but not necessarily when we would like to do it. And that is the crux of this one is it's like how do we put the guard rails in place to protect ourselves from ourselves of all people. And those are the hardest ones is because it's hard for us to it it's very easy for us to move those guardrails when we feel like it. If you've got a deadline, we got a a day that's like we just I just need to get across this thing. I need to get this thing done. I need to finish this project for this customer. I need to reach out to one more customer, whatever it happens to be. There's always more that can be done. That's sort of the nature of work. Your job is going to be there tomorrow as well. It's not something that's just, you know, here today and gone tomorrow. I hope not because if it is, not really a job. It's more of like a gig or something like that. What we need to do though is I think one of the things that's like key is have a work place. have somewhere that you work that is your work environment. It really there's really something uh very vital about being able to go to work. Like even if it's going to work is walking down the hall and going or going into the next room in your house, it needs to at least be leaving the room you're in. Many years ago, I don't even know I probably have told this story before, but there was a point where I had my desk was literally right next to where I slept in my bed. I literally could roll out of bed and actually I think I literally couldn't roll out of bed because my desk chair was right there and I was at work and that was life and I did a lot of work then but I also got very frustrated at times because I had a computer right there and it would notify me if somebody would email me or something like that which would sometime happen at 2 in the morning and it was it's too much. So you need to be able to separate that. I would also suggest although a lot of us don't do this and this is I think I think it's going to be a bigger problem for some of us than others if you're like particular if you're like a gamer or something like that is also separate your recreation area from your work area. So a lot of us because we have computers and we have TVs and we have all this stuff it's very easy for our workplace to also be our you know it could be our man cave or something like that where we've got computers and we've got television we got sports going on and things like that. Now, I like I like to use the analogy or I guess the thought of if you go to work, if you actually work for employer and your office space there has, you know, we we always customize it. So, have pictures of our loved ones and stuff like that. But if it also has like a big 60inch screen TV, you know, widescreen TV and you're blaring, you know, your latest sports team all the time or you're listening, you know, you've got music cranked out all the time or you've got a, you know, PlayStation that's there running all the time that you're like swapping back and forth, your boss is probably not going to be a fan. Just saying. That's probably not what not what they're going to be looking for because they want you to come to work and be in a work mode. Same thing is when you go to work, you should be in your work mode and then you should be able to leave your workplace and get out of your work mode. Now, I know that is a challenge, but that is going to be one of the things that we're going to talk about, speaking of challenges when we get to the later second part of that. But first, I want to let Michael throw his two or more cents in. Thanks, Rob. Yeah. So, what I like about this one is because we're talking about that work life balance, you know, setting up those barriers. Uh, and I I think I even alluded to this a couple podcasts ago in my bad where uh I had spent so much time working that I had only had a couple hours to spend with my wife for the entire week. So, it's like I was such I did not have good boundaries that week. I did not have separated my time. Well, one of the things as you're trying to figure this out, as you're building your business, you are your business, so you are always on. The biggest problem I have is turning that off. I do kind of have my space separated a little bit like Rob mentioned, uh, but due to my downsizing, I don't have as much space. So, I don't have two places to go anymore. So, it is kind of shared a little bit. With that being said though, I do try to keep my workspace clean so I have a dedicated section. However, there are still times where I go to an office space like I will go to a shared office space so I can separate my boundaries so I can kind of separate the two uh places. Be careful if you're one of those that go to like a coffee shop or a restaurant. Those can be distracting. they that could still be your place, but that's still not a perfect place. Like maybe go to a library or like a wei work or something like that. That's a little more separate separate. Now, if you're meeting clients and that, coffee shops are good. But like Rob said, have a dedicated place to go work. You know, that is what when you're there, you are plugged in, you are working. Make sure when you leave, you're not plugged in. However, again, if we are our business, the telephone's going to ring. It's going to come to us. So, you're going to need to set up office hours for your customers. If you're 24-hour support, hopefully you've hired someone to be a 24-hour support person. It's not just you. You can kind of balance that. Other things I would recommend, uh, like Rob mentioned, having the machine beep at him all night, kind of wake him up. Our phones do that now. You know, we we have so many devices in our house that make noises to alert us of things. It can be overwhelming. It can set off anxiety. You know, smart watches are great, but they can be bad. They can be distracting. They can kind of set you up to always, hey, what you just make you distracted. I've talked about this before, but look at using your look at using technology to help separate the two. When you're in work, set up your machines or your apps for work to be available during work hours. When you're out of work or off work hours, all those apps need to be muted, silenced, or otherwise put in the background. So, they're not bothering you after hours when you're on your personal time. The other thing is, and like Rob mentioned, you know, we have computers. If you're a gamer, you might play games on your computer. Try to have two different machines. It's not always easy costwise, but try to separate your gaming rig from your work rig. And if you are on your gaming rig, block your work sites. Block your work email. Don't install anything business related on your gaming rig at all because again you're going to get those alerts and that while you're playing a g oh I need to go do you don't want to get that squirrel momentum going all the time. You want to kind of be pick a lane be in that lane and when your time is up be in your other lane. Go back to your personal space your personal time or your work time. you know, kind of set up those barriers. And you will find that that is very helpful. Uh because a lot of times we don't do that and we're constantly looking at phone. Oh, did I get that email or oh, I'm waiting. Email, send and forget. Send it. They'll get it. When they get it, comes back to you. If you need it a little more pressing, send them like a Slack message. Teams, you should get hopefully a little bit faster response. But if it is an emergency, pick up the darn phone, call someone, get it taken care of, and then put it away. So just set up a schedule, set up a routine so that you can step out of your work or step out of personal time back into work so you can kind of have that work life balance again and be able to play your games, get your work done, or spend time with family. I think that's the best thing is that is that notifications are are life now. um through your phone, through your laptop, your tablet or whatever it is. And um I think one thing is yes, definitely do not don't put games on your work machine and don't put work on a game machine. Uh if you're like me, that is why I've gotten so I like the little handheld consoles better, your uh your switches and your the other guy that I have that I have the what what Steam Deck. There you go. Sorry, words are tough sometime. the Steam Deck. Um, things like that because then it's just very difficult for me. Although I have at times been like I could probably put work on. Don't don't put work on it. Uh, and then separately try to keep your games off your work stuff because it allows you to split those. But more importantly is use which has now become very much a part of all these devices. Well, use your like uh quiet times and stuff like that where you can say like do not disturb and those kinds of things where it's like all right I like for example turn off on the weekend turn off all your stuff turn off your email notifica on your phone all your email notifications slack whatever you use teams all that stuff turn that crap off it is amazing how easy it is especially like turn them off completely don't even do the little bubbly thing that says you got notifications because when you go to jump on your whatever it is, you're going to bounce into that. You're going to say, "Oh, wait. I got a I got I got little red dot. I got 50,000 messages. I got to start working on them." Um, if you're like me, I do that at mail sometimes. Like, and it's it's not always my fault because if somebody says, "Hey, go look at that." You know, "Hey, I sent you an email. I need you to take a look at that." If I go to do that and now I've got because I don't check my mail all the time, I've got a whole bunch that are unchecked. Usually I'm going to walk through all of those first. So this goes back to some other automations where you may want to just like get that crap already moved out so that you are more easily going to go directly to what you're supposed to do. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 and get the heck out of that. And that is it's going to be a habit and it's going to be a hard one to learn. But I think that's going to be your your start is to shut off notifications as much as possible. Particularly like outside of work hours. Set some work hours. shut those notifications off and then even if you are working beyond those hours, you get the bonus that normal workers get when they work out of normal hours. They actually get more productive because they don't have people bugging them because everybody else is at home. If you're going to spend that extra time working, then work. And it really is, it goes back to, you know, all of this comes back to when you're working, work. Don't try to mix it with other stuff. When you're not working, don't work. Don't try to mix work back into it. Now, we talk all the time about being able to like, you know, when you're sitting on the road, you've got dead time and stuff like that. You can you can find ways to get time back, but that's where you've got to be very careful is to make sure that you actually have dead time. Um, schedule if you can't you if you if you can't just naturally do it, it's like schedule some time where it's going to be pure dead time. It's like I yes, I could I'm sitting in a car and I'm driving along and I could be doing something else, but maybe it's better that you don't. Maybe that's the time to just sit there and think for a while or something like that. So life, the work loves to encroach on our life and it's just you're going to have to be strong. But I think that's the thing is find some boundaries, find some stuff and be accountable. Tell other people, I'm not working at this time. I get that on a regular basis. And sometimes I get annoyed by it, but my wife will be like, "Hey, it's 3:00 a.m. Are you still working?" You know, stuff like that. I'm like, "No." while I'm clacking away on a keyboard, you know, or something like that. It's like let other people know so that they can remind you as well and hold you accountable and say, "Hey, you're not supposed to be working right now." If you have kids, trust me, they will love to remind you and be like, "Hey, I didn't think you were supposed to be working right now. Why do you have that laptop out?" Like, cuz I'm taking pictures and editing video. I don't know. But whatever it is, watch out for that stuff. Uh, closing thoughts. Yeah, I liked how you mentioned, you know, let other people, you know, work with other people too and blocking out your calendar. Uh, the only other thing I would even mention is use like the social media apps and things like that. You can actually set timers or block times uh to turn off applications. um certain things like FaceTime and that with Apple you can actually block like FaceTime um sorry uh Facebook LinkedIn you can block certain applications so that you don't even go into that like you it's like oh okay oh block can't do that I I think Google did it what years ago the Google goggles to where if you're going out you can enable that and then you can't send people email or chat if you've been drinking you think of that. Think of it like that. If I am going to touch something or if I touch something when I'm not supposed to, I should get a denied or you're not allowed. You know, you can set it up for yourself so you don't have to rely on other people. Yeah. I think that's the thing is like I said is use the use the tools that are out there because they have they are now self-aware enough in a sense that they will allow you to block them or to set certain hours. And that's where the challenge is, is pick a dead time this week. Uh maybe on the weekend, it may be after 6:00 or before 6:00 a.m. or something like that. Uh if you can do it every day, if you can schedule out a week of like say from midnight to 5:00 a.m. every day and then from Friday at 6 until Sunday at midnight or whatever, block that stuff out. Set something up. Play around with your device for a little bit. you have permission to play around on your magical devices just a little bit to go schedule that stuff and shut off all notifications as much as you possibly can. Even like down to like the things should be the only thing that should be able to get to you should be emergencies and then shut off all the notifications about them, all the little the tags, the badges, all that crap. It will help. It will be a good start. And that's why I'm going to put that challenge on you because I think we do need to like regain our sanity just a little bit. That being said, I'm not even going to ask you to send us stuff. You know where to go. You know how to leave us responses. Um developer.com and uh info developer.com. Oh, I did say it. If you want to send us email, but go ahead and just let us know where you have leave us feedback. We would love it. But for now, we'd love it better if you just go out there and enjoy the day. Hopefully, it's a nice one. go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we'll talk to you next time. Bonus material. So, you mentioned uh don't install business apps on your um like gaming machine and vice versa. That also goes for your devices. If you have a dedicated work phone or a dedicated iPad or tablet, do not install anything nonworkreated on those devices. Keep them strictly business. That is going to help. And when you're working, only have those. Maybe keep your personal cell phone to the side. Set it to where you only get calls for emergency or from family members that are, you know, immediate family members. Other than that, keep it simple. Keep it only what you're supposed to be doing. And then vice versa. Do don't sync your work email to your personal devices. Don't sync your work calendar. You may have to for your wife or your family, but limit as much as you can on personal devices. We usually will end up with multiple devices. If you happen to be somebody that has two phones, like Michael said, there should be one for personal, one for business. And don't let the two intermix. Um, if you happen to have a couple of like if you have multiple tablets, have one set up for only work, have one set up for only, you know, playtime and relaxation and stuff like that. Those those like those simple things will make a difference. Uh, even like myself, I have, you know, laptops and desktops and stuff like that and they have evolved over the years, whatever their purpose are. But usually when I like move something into the entertainment zone, then I just start yanking all the other stuff off of it. And then I try not to put anything on. Although occasionally, yes, I'll have a business trip. I'm like, I just want to take one device. I'll throw some extra crap on. But the way to do that is like put it on, use an external drive or something like that. So that you can just put that wherever you want it to be and then you can pull it off when you don't. It's actually ideal for business. Actually, it's ideal for both, but especially for business because if you have everything on that drive, you can basically plug it in anywhere and if something happens to your laptop, your desktop, whatever, it's like boom, you're already ready to go. And these days with so much stuff in the cloud, you may not to have it may just be a nice little thumb drive, which even now a nice little thumb drive could be a couple of terabytes. So, yeah, you're going to have plenty to do, uh, plenty to keep you busy, whether you want to go be entertained or work. That being said, we're going to wrap this one up and we're going to try to go live a little bit of our lives, but we're also going to also work a little bit, I'm sure. As always, go out there and have yourself a great one. We will talk to you next time. [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
Oakley do. Let's get back to this. We
just hit record right there. I like
that. Woo. Um, I'll just do one of these
until it says No. Oh, there it
is. Until it does that. There we
go. I have raised my hand. Lucky me. Oh,
and it even swapped my little thing. Uh,
I was thinking boundaries for this
episode is like, how do we set
boundaries between our life and our
work? And I was like, oh, that's a good
one. cuz we both have problems with
that. Not at all. Never. But we're going
to go right into this one. We're going
to do a little three, a two, and a one.
Well, hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season of building better
businesses. We are building better
developers. This is a developer
podcast. This episode we are going to
talk about boundaries. We're going to
put some gates and some fortresses and
stuff like that and shoot pigs back and
forth across them or that's a whole
different thing. I am Rob Broadhead. one
of the founders of developer building
better developers. And I'm also a
founder of RB Consulting where we are
one of those firms that go out there.
Actually, we're probably about the only
firm. Not the only. There are a few out
there. But what we do is we specialize
in you. We sit down. We learn your
business. We work with you to understand
what are the ins and out, the value
proposition that you bring, what is it
that you have currently that is your
technology stack, your footprint, dare I
say your sprawl. And then we help you
organize that through integration,
implementation or integration,
simplification, automation, innovation,
all these
otherations. And that's just the
problem. There's just a lot of that.
There's a lot of ways to skin this cat.
No offense to the cat lovers out there.
There are a lot of ways to leverage
technology. It it's out there. It's
going to be part of business. I don't
care if you're like got a lemonade
stand. There is the technology is
involved these days. And so what we do
is we take our vast experience with
technology across a lot of different
lines of business and we help you do
technology better. We help you take that
big investment and use it to make your
business better to make your customers
happier and everybody
wins. Good thing and bad thing. Thanks
talking about everybody wins.
bad
thing. I had a car I like had to take my
car in this week and it was basically
because we're sitting there the other
day and daddy looks down and her feet
are roughly in water in the bottom of
the the car in the passenger seat.
There's a leak of some
sort. So, that's never fun having to
take it in. And actually, what was even
worse is it turns out that the guys we
took it into, they're more like a body
shop and stuff like that. It was
actually windshield related. So now
we're going to have to go back and find
a windshield place and it's probably
going to take forever to get that stuff
actually fixed. I guess the good part
about that is it's not a huge leak. It's
not all the time. It's just one of those
thing that's a pain. Hence the bad
thing. Good thing is uh when you're like
me and you've been doing work for many
many years, you actually will end up
going through we'll say like seasons and
stuff like that with with customers.
There will be people sometimes you work
with for a long time and then in some
cases if you're like me they go away for
a while because project dies. they move
on or whatever. Good thing is I've
recently recently connected back with a
customer that I had not worked with in
many years. I don't know how many, but
more than one. So, we'll just call it
many. And I had worked with them for,
you know, probably three or four, five
years, something like that beforehand
before this break. And wasn't sure if we
were ever going to like cross paths
again. Things have changed, business
have changed, stuff like that. But now I
get to come back and work with them
again, which is a really good thing
because they were great people. Love
working with them. And so it's one of
those things I look forward to. You all
get to look forward to listening to
Michael introduce himself. So go for it.
Hey everyone, my name is Michael
Malashsh. I'm one of the founders of
developer nerve building better
developers. I'm also the founder of
Envision QA where we help businesses
through assessments, through
requirements gathering. Really, we help
you figure out what you need or from
your business through software. It's
either through customiz building custom
software, helping you identify the
software tools that you need to buy or
even using the tools you have. Sometimes
it's just simply walking through what
you have, figuring out, oh, you already
have this. How do you use it? Or maybe
how does this work with their business?
Because some businesses buy things, they
forget about them, or they just never
really figured out how to fully
implement it into their business. So,
Envision QA will can come in there and
we can help you make your software work
better for you instead of you working
for your
software. So, I sort of I guess I didn't
tease it. I said, right, we're going to
talk about boundaries and in our world,
in our business, the boundaries I'm
talking about is our life and our
business. And these are this is very
much a challenge because the
whole concept I guess of side hustle is
starting to blur your work into more of
your regular life. Side hustle is
basically sacrificing some of your
nonwork life so you can do more work to
some extent. Now ideally the side hustle
we're enjoying and so it is part of our
fun time. It's our free time. It's the
time that we get to control our
schedules a little bit more and do what
we want to do. However, as that grows, a
lot of times we can become a slave to
that as well. And now we no longer are
doing what we do necessarily all the
maybe we're doing what we would like to
do but not necessarily when we would
like to do it. And that is the crux of
this one is it's like how do we put the
guard rails in place to protect
ourselves from ourselves of all people.
And those are the hardest ones is
because it's hard for us to it it's very
easy for us to move those guardrails
when we feel like it. If you've got a
deadline, we got a a day that's like we
just I just need to get across this
thing. I need to get this thing done. I
need to finish this project for this
customer. I need to reach out to one
more customer, whatever it happens to
be. There's always more that can be
done. That's sort of the nature of work.
Your job is going to be there tomorrow
as well. It's not something that's just,
you know, here today and gone tomorrow.
I hope not because if it is, not really
a job. It's more of like a gig or
something like
that. What we need to do though is I
think one of the things that's like key
is have a work place. have somewhere
that you work that is your work
environment. It really there's really
something uh very vital about being able
to go to work. Like even if it's going
to work is walking down the hall and
going or going into the next room in
your house, it needs to at least be
leaving the room you're in. Many years
ago, I don't even know I probably have
told this story before, but there was a
point where I had my desk was literally
right next to where I slept in my bed. I
literally could roll out of bed and
actually I think I literally couldn't
roll out of bed because my desk chair
was right there and I was at work and
that was life and I did a lot of work
then but I also got very frustrated at
times because I had a computer right
there and it would notify me if somebody
would email me or something like that
which would sometime happen at 2 in the
morning and it was it's too much. So you
need to be able to separate that. I
would also suggest although a lot of us
don't do this and this is I think I
think it's going to be a bigger problem
for some of us than others if you're
like particular if you're like a gamer
or something like that is also separate
your recreation area from your work
area. So a lot of us because we have
computers and we have TVs and we have
all this stuff it's very easy for our
workplace to also be our you know it
could be our man cave or something like
that where we've got computers and we've
got television we got sports going on
and things like that. Now, I like I like
to use the analogy or I guess the
thought of if you go to work, if you
actually work for employer and your
office space there has, you know, we we
always customize it. So, have pictures
of our loved ones and stuff like that.
But if it also has like a big 60inch
screen TV, you know, widescreen TV and
you're blaring, you know, your latest
sports team all the time or you're
listening, you know, you've got music
cranked out all the time or you've got
a, you know, PlayStation that's there
running all the time that you're like
swapping back and forth, your boss is
probably not going to be a fan. Just
saying. That's probably not what not
what they're going to be looking for
because they want you to come to work
and be in a work mode.
Same thing is when you go to work, you
should be in your work mode and then you
should be able to leave your workplace
and get out of your work mode. Now, I
know that is a challenge, but that is
going to be one of the things that we're
going to talk about, speaking of
challenges when we get to the later
second part of that. But first, I want
to let Michael throw his two or more
cents in.
Thanks, Rob. Yeah. So, what I like about
this one is because we're talking about
that work life balance, you know,
setting up those barriers. Uh, and I I
think I even alluded to this a couple
podcasts ago in my bad where uh I had
spent so much time working that I had
only had a couple hours to spend with my
wife for the entire week. So, it's like
I was such I did not have good
boundaries that week. I did not have
separated my time.
Well, one of the
things as you're trying to figure this
out, as you're building your business,
you are your business, so you are always
on. The biggest problem I have is
turning that off. I do kind of have my
space separated a little bit like Rob
mentioned, uh, but due to my downsizing,
I don't have as much space. So, I don't
have two places to go anymore. So, it is
kind of shared a little bit. With that
being said though, I do try to keep my
workspace clean so I have a dedicated
section. However, there are still times
where I go to an office space like I
will go to a shared office space so I
can separate my boundaries so I can kind
of separate the two uh
places. Be careful if you're one of
those that go to like a coffee shop or a
restaurant. Those can be distracting.
they that could still be your place, but
that's still not a perfect place. Like
maybe go to a library or like a wei work
or something like that. That's a little
more separate separate. Now, if you're
meeting clients and that, coffee shops
are
good. But like Rob said, have a
dedicated place to go work. You know,
that is what when you're there, you are
plugged in, you are working. Make sure
when you
leave, you're not plugged in.
However, again, if we are our business,
the telephone's going to ring. It's
going to come to us. So, you're going to
need to set up office hours for your
customers. If you're 24-hour support,
hopefully you've hired someone to be a
24-hour support person. It's not just
you. You can kind of balance that. Other
things I would recommend, uh, like Rob
mentioned, having the machine beep at
him all night, kind of wake him up. Our
phones do that now. You know, we we have
so many devices in our house that make
noises to alert us of things. It can be
overwhelming. It can set off anxiety.
You know, smart watches are great, but
they can be bad. They can be
distracting. They can kind of set you up
to always, hey, what you just make you
distracted. I've talked about this
before, but look at using your look at
using technology to help separate the
two. When you're in work, set up your
machines or your apps for work to be
available during work
hours. When you're out of work or off
work hours, all those apps need to be
muted, silenced, or otherwise put in the
background. So, they're not bothering
you after hours when you're on your
personal time. The other thing is, and
like Rob mentioned, you know, we have
computers. If you're a gamer, you might
play games on your computer. Try to have
two different machines. It's not always
easy costwise, but try to separate your
gaming rig from your work
rig. And if you are on your gaming
rig, block your work sites. Block your
work email. Don't install anything
business related on your gaming rig at
all because again you're going to get
those alerts and that while you're
playing a g oh I need to go do you don't
want to get that squirrel momentum going
all the time. You want to kind of be
pick a lane be in that lane and when
your time is up be in your other lane.
Go back to your personal space your
personal time or your work time. you
know, kind of set up those barriers. And
you will find that that is very helpful.
Uh because a lot of times we don't do
that and we're constantly looking at
phone. Oh, did I get that email or oh,
I'm waiting. Email, send and forget.
Send it. They'll get it. When they get
it, comes back to you. If you need it a
little more pressing, send them like a
Slack message. Teams, you should get
hopefully a little bit faster response.
But if it is an emergency, pick up the
darn phone, call someone, get it taken
care of, and then put it
away. So
just set up a schedule, set up a routine
so that you can step out of your work or
step out of personal time back into work
so you can kind of have that work life
balance again and be able to play your
games, get your work done, or spend time
with family.
I think that's the best thing is that is
that notifications are are life now. um
through your phone, through your laptop,
your tablet or whatever it is. And um I
think one thing is yes, definitely do
not don't put games on your work machine
and don't put work on a game machine. Uh
if you're like me, that is why I've
gotten so I like the little handheld
consoles better, your uh your switches
and your the other guy that I have that
I have the what what Steam Deck. There
you
go. Sorry, words are tough sometime. the
Steam Deck. Um, things like that because
then it's just very difficult for me.
Although I have at times been like I
could probably put work on. Don't don't
put work on it. Uh, and then separately
try to keep your games off your work
stuff because it allows you to split
those. But more importantly is use which
has now become very much a part of all
these devices. Well, use your like uh
quiet times and stuff like that where
you can say like do not disturb and
those kinds of things where it's like
all right I like for example turn off on
the weekend turn off all your stuff turn
off your email notifica on your phone
all your email notifications slack
whatever you use teams all that stuff
turn that crap
off it is amazing how easy it is
especially like turn them off completely
don't even do the little bubbly thing
that says you got notifications because
when you go to jump on your whatever it
is, you're going to bounce into that.
You're going to say, "Oh, wait. I got a
I got I got little red dot. I got 50,000
messages. I got to start working on
them." Um, if you're like me, I do that
at mail sometimes. Like, and it's it's
not always my fault because if somebody
says, "Hey, go look at that." You know,
"Hey, I sent you an email. I need you to
take a look at that." If I go to do that
and now I've got because I don't check
my mail all the time, I've got a whole
bunch that are unchecked. Usually I'm
going to walk through all of those
first. So this goes back to some other
automations where you may want to just
like get that crap already moved out so
that you are more easily going to go
directly to what you're supposed to do.
Do not pass go. Do not collect $200 and
get the heck out of that. And that is
it's going to be a habit and it's going
to be a hard one to learn. But I think
that's going to be your your start is to
shut off notifications as much as
possible. Particularly like outside of
work hours. Set some work hours. shut
those notifications off and then even if
you are working beyond those hours, you
get the bonus that normal workers get
when they work out of normal hours. They
actually get more productive because
they don't have people bugging them
because everybody else is at home. If
you're going to spend that extra time
working, then work. And it really is, it
goes back to, you know, all of this
comes back to when you're working, work.
Don't try to mix it with other stuff.
When you're not working, don't work.
Don't try to mix work back into it. Now,
we talk all the time about being able to
like, you know, when you're sitting on
the road, you've got dead time and stuff
like that. You can you can find ways to
get time back, but that's where you've
got to be very careful is to make sure
that you actually have dead time. Um,
schedule if you can't you if you if you
can't just naturally do it, it's like
schedule some time where it's going to
be pure dead time. It's like I yes, I
could I'm sitting in a car and I'm
driving along and I could be doing
something else, but maybe it's better
that you don't. Maybe that's the time to
just sit there and think for a while or
something like that.
So life, the work loves to encroach on
our life and it's just you're going to
have to be strong. But I think that's
the thing is find some boundaries, find
some stuff and be accountable. Tell
other people, I'm not working at this
time. I get that on a regular basis. And
sometimes I get annoyed by it, but my
wife will be like, "Hey, it's 3:00 a.m.
Are you still working?" You know, stuff
like that. I'm like, "No." while I'm
clacking away on a keyboard, you know,
or something like that. It's like let
other people know so that they can
remind you as well and hold you
accountable and say, "Hey, you're not
supposed to be working right now." If
you have kids, trust me, they will love
to remind you and be like, "Hey, I
didn't think you were supposed to be
working right now. Why do you have that
laptop out?" Like, cuz I'm taking
pictures and editing video. I don't
know. But whatever it is, watch out for
that stuff. Uh, closing thoughts.
Yeah, I liked how you mentioned, you
know, let other people, you know, work
with other people too and blocking out
your calendar. Uh, the only other thing
I would even mention is use like the
social media apps and things like that.
You can actually set timers or block
times uh to turn off applications. um
certain things like FaceTime and that
with Apple you can actually block like
FaceTime um sorry uh Facebook LinkedIn
you can block certain applications so
that you don't even go into that like
you it's like oh okay oh block can't do
that I I think Google did it what years
ago the Google goggles to where if
you're going out you can enable that and
then you can't send people email or chat
if you've been
drinking you think of that. Think of it
like that. If I am going to touch
something or if I touch something when
I'm not supposed to, I should get a
denied or you're not allowed. You know,
you can set it up for yourself so you
don't have to rely on other
people. Yeah. I think that's the thing
is like I said is use
the use the tools that are out there
because they have they are now
self-aware enough in a sense that they
will allow you to block them or to set
certain hours. And that's where the
challenge is, is pick a dead time this
week. Uh maybe on the weekend, it may be
after 6:00 or before 6:00 a.m. or
something like that. Uh if you can do it
every day, if you can schedule out a
week of like say from midnight to 5:00
a.m. every day and then from Friday at 6
until Sunday at midnight or whatever,
block that stuff out. Set something up.
Play around with your device for a
little bit. you have permission to play
around on your magical devices just a
little bit to go schedule that stuff and
shut off all notifications as much as
you possibly can. Even like down to like
the things should be the only thing that
should be able to get to you should be
emergencies and then shut off all the
notifications about them, all the little
the tags, the badges, all that crap. It
will help. It will be a good start. And
that's why I'm going to put that
challenge on you because I think we do
need to like regain our sanity just a
little bit. That being said, I'm not
even going to ask you to send us stuff.
You know where to go. You know how to
leave us responses. Um
developer.com and uh info developer.com.
Oh, I did say it. If you want to send us
email, but go ahead and just let us know
where you have leave us feedback. We
would love it. But for now, we'd love it
better if you just go out there and
enjoy the day. Hopefully, it's a nice
one. go out there and have yourself a
great day, a great week, and we'll talk
to you next time. Bonus material.
So, you mentioned uh don't install
business apps on your um like gaming
machine and vice
versa. That also goes for your devices.
If you have a
dedicated work phone or a dedicated iPad
or tablet, do not install anything
nonworkreated on those
devices. Keep them strictly business.
That is going to help. And when you're
working, only have those. Maybe keep
your personal cell phone to the side.
Set it to where you only get calls for
emergency or from family members that
are, you know, immediate family members.
Other than
that, keep it simple. Keep it only what
you're supposed to be doing. And then
vice versa. Do don't sync your work
email to your personal devices. Don't
sync your work calendar. You may have to
for your wife or your family, but limit
as much as you can on personal devices.
We usually will end up with multiple
devices. If you happen to be somebody
that has two phones, like Michael said,
there should be one for personal, one
for business. And don't let the two
intermix. Um, if you happen to have a
couple of like if you have multiple
tablets, have one set up for only work,
have one set up for only, you know,
playtime and relaxation and stuff like
that. Those those like those simple
things will make a difference. Uh, even
like myself, I have, you know, laptops
and desktops and stuff like that and
they have evolved over the years,
whatever their purpose are. But usually
when I like move something into the
entertainment zone, then I just start
yanking all the other stuff off of it.
And then I try not to put anything on.
Although occasionally, yes, I'll have a
business trip. I'm like, I just want to
take one device. I'll throw some extra
crap on. But the way to do that is like
put it on, use an external drive or
something like that. So that you can
just put that wherever you want it to be
and then you can pull it off when you
don't. It's actually ideal for business.
Actually, it's ideal for both, but
especially for business because if you
have everything on that drive, you can
basically plug it in anywhere and if
something happens to your laptop, your
desktop, whatever, it's like boom,
you're already ready to go. And these
days with so much stuff in the cloud,
you may not to have it may just be a
nice little thumb drive, which even now
a nice little thumb drive could be a
couple of terabytes. So, yeah, you're
going to have plenty to do, uh, plenty
to keep you busy, whether you want to go
be entertained or work. That being said,
we're going to wrap this one up and
we're going to try to go live a little
bit of our lives, but we're also going
to also work a little bit, I'm
sure. As always, go out there and have
yourself a great one. We will talk to
you next time.
[Music]