Structure vs. Flexibility

My in laws gave me a t-shirt for Christmas that says "Am I working from home or living at work." It made me chuckle when I got it as I have worked from home for over 5 years now. But over the last three months as I transitioned from a corporate job to self-employment, I have faced some additional challenges. I thought I'd share a few thoughts on going from structure to something less structured and more flexible.

Background

I like to maintain structure in my life. Those of you that know me are chuckling right now as that is probably an understatement. I think the real root of this is that I like to have a plan and execute on that plan. I find that when I do that, I'm much more efficient and effective at accomplishing those things that I need to.

 The way I handle this with my last couple of corporate jobs was to basically know my relative sign on and sign off times. Then I would mix in with that any variations (soccer games, church activities, etc.) that could potentially impact that. The one thing that I tried to maintain some flexibility with was when I would work out. I generally tried to get something in during the day as I found that more effective for the work out and productivity in general.

Hopefully this paints the picture of how I like to plan and then execute on that plan.

The Last Three Months

When I transitioned away from my corporate job, I knew immediately that I wanted to try making being independent my primary focus. My first reason is that I really wanted more "control" over my career. I didn't want to continue depending on a single entity and I also wanted some additional flexibility to deal with some ever changing family situations. My wife and I also have some long term goals that will require less structure.

This has not been an easy transition and I'm certain that I still have a ways to go. Some of that will come as the business officially launches this month and I have to introduce at least some additional structure to meet commitments. But I’d thought I’d share a few thoughts in the hopes that it may help someone going through or considering something similar.

Lessons Learned

I think the most important lesson I learned was the importance of giving myself permission to do things differently than I had been. That mental shift was super important but also hard to maintain. I'll point that part out as I go through some of these lessons learned.

Goals and Objectives

One lesson was that even though I didn't have any immediate deadlines, I still need to have goals and objectives and I needed to prioritize them. At first I found myself going from one extreme to the other - meaning that either I was focused 100% on professional things or not focused on professional stuff at all. I'd find myself easily distracted by something that needed to be done around the house instead of sitting down and working on my business plan. We also had some key family things going on that I was able to be a part of that would have been much more difficult had I been in my normal job.

Permission to be Present

That leads to one permission I had to give myself. Giving myself permission to be present in whatever I was doing or whatever was most important at the time. It was real easy for me to be tending the grandkids but to have my laptop open to work on something. That's not what they really want Grandpa to do. So I learned that for that hour or so that I was the adult in charge, I could put aside my work and just enjoy time with them. Then there were other times that I could hear the chaos or laughter of the kids but I had specific things I was working on that I wanted to get done and so I would give myself permission to just focus on the professional things and let someone else work things out with the kids.

Stop Focusing on Hours Worked

That led me to giving myself permission to stop focusing on how many hours I worked. Even though it has been years and years since I last had an hourly job, there was still this traditional expectation that you worked 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. That's just how I grew up in the corporate world and I don't think most companies have really moved past that no matter what they say or what policies they put in place.

I do want to be careful here because definitely putting in the time is a requirement, especially when launching a business. Quite some time ago I had a colleague tell me that he didn’t' really understand how I could get things done so quickly. I hadn't really thought about that but I started paying attention and trying to identify how and when I was the most efficient. Now that I'm on my own, I am seeing that if I focus on things I have learned, that I can now get things done even faster without email, calls, slacks, etc. constantly interrupting me. So If I can get something done in 2 hours that used to take me four, why do I worry about it not taking long enough.

This mental shift is still an ongoing thing. For example I know that I'm fully launching my podcast next week. I have a list of tasks that I want to accomplish. I'm not quite sure how long they are going to take. If they take 10 hours then I need to be grateful to have all that extra time. If they take 30 hours, I still need to get them done.

Knowing Your Own Habits and Taking Advantage of Opportunities

That leads me two the last couple of lessons I want to mention here. Knowing your work habits (when and how are you most productive, most focused, etc.) and how to apply that to your top priorities and then learning how to take advantage of different methods/times to work. Here are some examples of both: I know that I like to get in my personal study first thing or I never get to it. I also know that I like to workout before I eat lunch as that provides a good break. I also know that I'm a night owl, but not necessarily for work. I'm also easily distracted by little things so focused time is important.  Those are my work habits.

Based on that, I’m still working on trying to find my ideal working schedule. I get up and do my study and then generally try and spend a couple of hours doing work stuff. Then I work out for about an hour and eat lunch and then work for a few hours. I know that doesn't add up to 40 hours a week but keep in mind what I said about hours.

The other thing that I have learned to do is to multi-task which allows me to take advantage of different methods and work times. For example, last week we had to take my son to the airport. It was an hour drive. Instead of being the driver, my wife drove and I put my head down in my laptop and got multiple hours of work done during that drive because I was able to focus on just a single thing. I've also learned that there are certain things I can do while I've got the TV on. For example: today I'll be watching the Rose Bowl. While I want to enjoy the game, I know that there are some less intense, more routine things that I can do while watching the game. I have found that there are times when doing certain work related tasks while doing other things is just fine. I know that violates the principle of being present. The key here, and I'm still working on this, is knowing when you need to be fully present in whatever is important right then and when you can take advantage of multi-tasking.

Wrap Up

Like I said, I don't think I have this figured out completely and when the full business launches next week, I'm sure I'll need to adapt. But right now, I feel like l'm getting a better handle on things. I've pushed past the need to have a dedicated 40 hours a week for work. I'm finding ways to be more efficient and knowing when I can multi-task vs. when I should not. I believe I'm more present with more of my priorities than I have been in the recent past.

I'm really enjoying the new flexibility I'm finding because I have more control over when/where/how I get those things done that I need to.

So my recommendation, if you have an opportunity to introduce more flexiblity into your life, do it. Be careful about how far you take that and make sure that you know what you want to accomplish. And then once you get into a good routine that builds in the flexibility, take advantage of it.