The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 180 - Balance

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: I am coming at you today with an email from one of our friends/listeners, Clare, which provoked a bunch of thoughts and ideas in me, as I was reading it, about balance, and how you and I think about that. And what I then chuckled to myself in realizing was, you and I have tried to do an episode on balance, I think, three times before.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: Maybe fourth time, lucky? Let's try again.

Jen: Yep. Fourth time's the charm. Maybe this one won't make it to the cutting room floor. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Okay. So thank you firstly, Clare, for sending through this amazing email. I'm just going to paraphrase, but the essence of the questions that she was posing to us, that she was curious for our thoughts on are around how we think about balancing certain things in our life, such as sprinting versus resting, or knowing when to push and strive versus practicing patience or acceptance, and was just curious for how we might think about identifying when we're in a place where we might need to reevaluate balance and how we think about balance. And I know for a fact (because we've tried three times), that you have some great thoughts on balance. So how do you, Jen Waldman, think about balance in your life?

Jen: Oh, I love this question so much, because it gives me a chance to debunk a myth. And that myth is that when it comes to life, balance means everything's weighed equally. And in my experience, that is just not true. And instead, I think about balance as like a day-to-day reevaluating of priorities and the resources that you have available. And I feel like everyone can relate to this, especially right now, where every single day, it feels like the world is changing. That one day I might have, if I think of my resources, I might have time, or energy, or creativity, or money, or relationship to devote to something. And the next day, I might have less or none of some of those things. So it's not necessarily about having the same amount of time, and energy, and creativity. It's about the reality check of, "What do I have? And how am I going to prioritize the things that are important to me with the resources that I have available to make good on those things?" So, you know, I really think of balance as like almost a daily check-in.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, firstly, that's amazing. And secondly, the question that I was immediately curious about is, what does that look like for you? Like, if balance...which, I just am so obsessed with this definition. Balance is about the day-to-day weighing of resources that we have available. Maybe like, what might a practice of doing that look like? Like, is it a question you ask yourself in the morning? Or how...how do you actually practice that?

Jen: Well, I think the first thing is getting clear on, what do you identify as a resource? Now when we talk about resources, the most obvious ones are time and money. But there are lots of other resources that we are spending every day. And some of those resources can be refilled. And some of those resources, once depleted, are just gone. So I think part of that is having a moment with yourself to ask, "What are the resources that I have? And how do I identify them? And which ones can I get more of? And which ones, when I use them, they're gone forever?" Like time, for example.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: So, I think that's the first step.

Pete: I love this so much because it captures the reality, which is the resources we have available to us differs every single day. And so, balance looks different on any given day. And you know, I've often thought about...when someone asks me about balance, I often wonder, on what timeframe are you looking at this through? Because...and I think I've actually, I've written a blog post about this which I'll put in the Box O' Goodies. It's a little comical because we don't have snowplows where I am in Melbourne. I was noodling on this idea of...take the snowplow driver, who in the middle of winter, I imagine is working tirelessly, day after day after day, to clear the snow from the streets. And if you looked at their life for the four months of winter or the three months of winter, one could argue, "Well, they're out of balance. They work all day, every day, non-stop." And then if you extended that timeframe to be twelve months instead of the three months, what you might find is they actually have an incredible level of balance, of "work-life balance", because they work for three months of the year really hard but then maybe they take summer off, maybe they go on a holiday, maybe they catch up with friends and family, and they use that time to, you know, I guess "balance" out the rest of their work life. So I know it's a slightly comical example, but I just...the thing I often think about is, when we're talking about balance, what time frame are we talking about? Which is why your idea of checking in every day is just really appealing to me, because it's acknowledging that on any given day that might look different.

Jen: Yeah. And you know, I almost feel like this episode is going to be more questions than answers, because it's so hard to be prescriptive or directive in any way about how someone else might find balance. Because our relationship to each one of our resources is totally different. Like, I have a very functional relationship with time. I have a very good sense of how I manage my time. And I have at least a realistic relationship with money, where I know how much money I have, and I know how much money is coming in, and how much money is going out. I have a completely dysfunctional relationship with energy management, where I typically don't know that I'm almost out of energy until I'm out of it.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah.

Jen: So for someone like me, I need to actually pay more attention to the energy management than anything else, where someone else might be totally dysfunctional with time management.

Pete: Yeah. I feel called out because I think that's me. I'm the person who's more in tune with energy management, something I think about a lot. And, you know, balance on any given day for me, it looks like making space for things that I know recharge my energy, like going for a swim every morning, or meditating, or doing my morning pages, or doing a workout. I spend a lot of time thinking about maximizing or trying to improve the amount of energy, or at least being cognizant of the amount of energy I have on any given day. And sometimes that comes at the expense of time management. I'm like, "Oh, I totally underestimated how many other things I would get done today, like work related, because I focused so much time thinking about, 'I need to spend this time on my energy.'" And so, I sometimes tie myself in a knot with my time management. Hmm. Interesting.

Jen: Yeah. And I guess maybe the follow up question is, well, once you identify that, what do you do about it? Like I was joking yesterday, with someone, that this has become my accidental year of self care. Like, I didn't really say, "Oh, I'm feeling depleted in the self care department. I better tend to that." But when I'm looking at my life right now, I'm like, "Oh. I found a new therapist. I've been going to the gym, doing my, you know, 6:30am workouts. I'm working with a meditation teacher. I'm implementing a meditation practice. Right." So I realized that I had an energy problem, and I started solving it without even an awareness of it. Like on the one hand, how cool, and on the other hand, like, wish I had been a little more intentional.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. I'm so obsessed with this, like, this process...again, I know this is like more questions than answers...but this process of getting clear on what the resources are, or getting clear on what we're better at prioritizing in terms of time, money, energy, or whatever else that may be, and then looking at (with intention), where are the gaps, and how might I think about addressing them, or think about them differently? It feels like a really good process.

Jen: Yeah. And you know, to dig in to another element of Clare's question...you know, a lot of the examples Clare is giving are two ends of a spectrum. So, sprint and rest. And I know we've talked about this on an episode in the past, which was called Seasons. Part of finding balance on the spectrum is, once again, like busting that myth that not everything has to be equally weighted. You're not necessarily in balance if you are between a sprint and rest. I think it's more about acknowledging that you can't stay in a sprint forever, just as you can't stay in rest forever. But there are times when you need a sprint, and you need rest.

Pete: Right.

Jen: I think it might be less about idealizing this concept of balance, and more about standing in the reality check of what you have, right now, on your plate. Like in that Seasons episode, if I am remembering correctly, we talked kind of similarly to what you were saying about the snowplow. That like, I have these certain seasons in my life where I sprint pretty hard for, you know, a month or two. But I know that at the end of that sprint, I have this program that I run in the summer that affords me all of this time to rest, and I can recharge. And then in the fall, I'm like off to the sprint again. So that feels like it's designed for balance, but it's not that I'm having to sprint and to rest at the same time. Does that make sense?

Pete: That makes total sense. And I'm like, I'm trying to work out if I agree with, or implement a similar process. Like I was thinking as you were sharing...or pointed out that Clare kind of articulated the two ends of the spectrum. And I was thinking to myself, "Huh. How human, that that's what we do." You know, we go all in on the sprint and the work.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And then we go all in on, "I'm going to take three months off and do nothing." So, it's such a hilarious thing that we do as humans. And I guess I was wondering, and like challenging myself to think about, is there actually...again, back to like the daily thing that you mentioned, the daily question. Is it actually "data"? And again, I think this is very unique to situation, to individual. But like, is it actually better to think about like, what's the middle of that spectrum? Where you have a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, or a tiny bit of this, and a tiny bit of that, not all on one end or all on the other end, if that makes sense. And it reminded me of this idea that came through in Greg McKeown's latest book, his assertion was, "You should only do, on any given day, what you can recover from on that day, in order to avoid burnout." He shared a journey where he went through a significant period of burnout. And he shared...one of his lessons was, "I should only do today what I know I can recover from today." And I just, I wonder if that's a conflict with the two extremes that we sometimes do as humans.

Jen: Ooh, I actually really love that. I love that so much. And I believe in that. I believe in that. Because...I'm just thinking about my own patterns. When I'm in a crazy sprint, I still get eight hours of sleep.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Like, I'm not sprinting to the point of, "I'm flat on the floor."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: It just means the intensity of the effort that I'm putting in is a lot more extreme.

Pete: Right.

Jen: But I still am taking care of myself. I think, you know, we start to get into some dangerous territory when we're working to the point of we cannot take care of ourselves.

Pete: Right. Yeah. And then, the running metaphor. It's like, you're still hydrating as you're going.

Jen: Exactly.

Pete: I mean, you don't really stop and hydrate mid-sprint, but you might have a drink of water at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes me think, like, what are your non-negotiables, then, on any given day or week or month? Like, it sounds like obviously sleep is one of them. Are there others that may be useful to share with listeners, and what you think of as non-negotiables to help you feel in balance, whatever that means to you.

Jen: Yes. And I'm sure it will not surprise you that it actually starts as a zoom out before it gets to a zoom in for me.

Pete: Of course.

Jen: I have, you know, a twelve-month bird's-eye view of my year on a single page, with the ship dates I've committed to. And I know, from my own experience, that I really can only take on one high effort project at a time. If I take on more than one high effort project, the quality of my work suffers, and like the ability to, I guess, recover from the work goes down. So I try to really be strict with myself, that I'm only taking on this one like really hard thing at a time. I can take on multiple projects at a time, but only one that is like really going to tap all of the resources at the same time. So you know, I start with that, and I refresh my twelve-month overview every quarter. So I always know twelve-months out, what are the ship dates I have committed to for big projects. And then from there, I can start to tackle in smaller chunks. What does that mean for this quarter? What does that mean for this month? What does that mean for this week? And if I am really able to see that far out, then I feel a sense of confidence about being able to tackle this day, because I know what's in my reserve and how much I need to reserve because of what's coming down the pike.

Pete: Love that. Hmm. And I guess if it's worth sharing some of my non-negotiables that I think about on any given day...which, for long-time listeners, will be unsurprising. But I think about my non-negotiables in a, what I sort of label in my head as like "healthy habits". And within those I have sleep, like you mentioned. I'm pretty ruthless about making sure I get eight hours.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And then my morning swim, meditating, and journaling. Those are basically non-negotiable for me from a healthy habits perspective.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: And I actually have this like separate notebook that I just call "Healthy Habits". And basically, I want to try and do four things that I consider to be Pete's healthy habits, two of which are pretty much guaranteed, which is the swim and the meditation. And then the morning pages, I'm not necessarily counting that, because it's such a habit. But then, I kind of have two others. So one day, it might be a walk. One day, it might be a massage, if I'm feeling like I want a massage that day. So I have a master list at the start of the notebook, that is, "These are the kinds of things to try and do." And then, I kind of just pick from that master list each morning. I try and pick three to four things, which are my non-negotiables. So, that's the healthy habits perspective. And then for my work on my projects, I guess a non-negotiable that I have is, I work off that 1-3-5 kind of to-do list idea, which is you have one big thing that you want to accomplish that day. And the idea is that if it's the only thing you could achieve that day, that would be a successful day. So, I start with that one thing. And then if and when I finish that one thing, I have three kind of medium- sized things that I try and get done. And then if and only if I get those three done, I then have like five often just admin things that I want to get done. And so, they're kind of the two things I think about as non-negotiables, which I guess is a way of me trying to prioritize or think about balance, in a way.

Jen: Ooh, I am going to borrow some of those ideas. I love those so much. It's funny, because my non-negotiables are really about creative thinking time. You know, I always have time in my calendar for Magic Time, and White Space. Those are like the two non-negotiables, for me. I get up in the morning before anyone else in my house, so my alone morning time is also a non-negotiable for me. But I love this idea of having a list of healthy choices to make.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: So that when you know you haven't made one yet, you're not scrambling and then going, "Well, I don't know what to do, so I'll do nothing." I love that you have this like prepared list, a menu of items. That's so brilliant.

Pete: Yeah. And I think it goes full circle to what you said earlier, about acknowledging each morning, the resources you have available to you. It's sort of like, "Okay, you know what? I am slammed today, and I'm tired, and I'm exhausted. So today, a twenty minute walk around the block, that's a healthy thing that I could do."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Like it's just, I'm meeting myself where I'm at. That's it. Whereas other days, it might be, yeah, like I said, like I'm booked in to go to a massage or something, which is a bit more of a time investment and cost investment. So it's kind of like, I like the idea of them being different levels of accessibility based on where you're at.

Jen: Mmm. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I feel like the theme of this conversation you just named, as, "Meet yourself where you are. Meet yourself where you are." You know, the thing with balance is we often wish we were somewhere other than where we are. So, we feel out of balance because we want things to be different than they are. But if we can stand firmly in the reality of where we are, then we can better prioritize our resources and find balance in this moment.

Pete: That feels like the mic drop right at the end of the episode. But before we finish, I just want to say thank you, Clare, for this juicy question.

Jen: Yes. Thank you, Clare.

Pete: And listeners, if you also have a question, feel free to email us at hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com. If you have any questions or ideas that you'd like us to noodle on, we'd love to hear from you. And with that, I think that that is The Long and The Short Of It.