Striving for Work-Life Balance (Bestie Ep) #407

I don't know the fashion rules. Well I remember now because with our youngest, our son, he was born Labor Day week, and so now forever I will remember that Labor Day is, in fact the holiday here in the fall. Of course, this is when we celebrate all of the folks out there who are working hard to support themselves

and their families as well. And yeah, we decided that what better way for us to celebrate Labor Day and then to take some time off and and not prepare for an entirely new episode instead spend some extra time with our families, maybe going some other adventures that we had in mind. So even though we released a new episode on Monday of this week. We're like, all right, well, we're gonna take Monday off and not recorded episode for Wednesday, and so every of knows we I mean, we record

slightly ahead of time. Yeah, we're not recording on the exact same day, right, So and because of that also we we we feel like we had a perfect episode that fit right for the Labor Day week. And and this one in particular is about striving for work life

balance and matter. A lot of people, I think have found that harder to come by in working from home COVID times, the lines are a little bit blurred for a lot of people, a lot more blurred some people still working from their beds or off their couch, which you know, we've had other episodes with experts like Laura Vanderkamp about how to work from home effectively, But this in particular is an episode that you and I did about what it looks like to achieve balance in your life.

And I think, yeah, all work and no play makes us dull people, and so finding that balance, striking that balance is really important for our own mental health and for the general well being of our families. That's right, And we'll have a fresh Friday Flight episode for you here on Friday, so you can look forward to that. So, Joel, without any further ado, striving for Work Life Balance. Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt, and

today we're discussing striving for work life Balance. Yeah, Joel, the percentage of professional college educated workers working over fifty hours a week and that has dramatically increased over the past few decades. And I think this is something our

listeners can resonate with as well. I'm sure there have been times in everyone's life where you feel like you're just working way too much, and so I think it's great that we're gonna discuss some of the things that can lead to over working in that imbalance in our work life balance, as well as things that we can do to fix that as well. Yeah, for sure, I think it's gonna be a great conversation. I'm looking forward

to it. But Matt, before we get to that, you just got a new bike for you, a little five year old and it looks pretty sweet. Tell me more about it is very sweet, man. Yeah, Well, so Clover, she has been really into biking, like she rides like we have a little balance bike that we only keep inside the house. It's like this, it stays clean, it's really lightweight, and we're like, no, you can't take that bike outside, but she rides it all the time inside

and need somewhere outside. She also loves riding on the balance bike, and so you know, we thought for her birthday, she like, she's a perfect candidate for you know, stepping it up to the next level, skipping the training wheels and going with this fancy bike that I came across a few years ago. It's it's by this company called Womb. Well, I will say to the whole reason behind balance bikes, the purposes to skip training wheels all together. Yeah, exactly.

There are a lot of arguments out there that say that, I mean, the balance is the hardest part, so it can be a lot easier for folks to skip training wheels all together and goes straight to like a big kid bike. Like I mentioned though, So womb is this company that came across a few years ago, and they make bikes specifically for like little kids. The center of gravity is really low to the ground and the little cranks,

you know, like they got their little feet pedaling. They're also really short, so that the you know their feet are always close to the ground in case they need to kind of set feet down for like a quick stop. They've just thought through all these different design decisions with like a little kid writer in mind. But here's the thing, man, these bikes are not cheap. Like this is not a

frugal or cheap segment. This is more like a splurge segment of our show, because like, these bikes can cost a few hundred bucks for the little ones, like for the littlest ones, And I will say I was a little bit more frugal this particular company. They have a a nice eBay store where they do sell some used ones. They don't have a ton of them, and so that's

where we actually purchased hours for Clover. But I think it's good for us to to talk about this because we talk about biking a lot, right, Like It's something that you and I that we both value. It's something that I want to see, you know, as part of my family culture. And yes, these little bikes are pretty expensive, But what I'm specifically looking for is is for you know, my kids to have a great experience as they learned

how to ride bikes. So that is something that they can take to a little more easily, right than if they were to you know, pick up that secondhand huffy which we hat picks up literally on the side of the road. Like I've got three or four bikes in our cross base in our basement because folks, I mean, they toss them out. It's like, oh, this is a great, perfectly fine bike, but in fact they're crazy heavy. You

know that these wound bikes are really lightweight. They're not designed for new riders in mind, like and a lot of times do they have the coaster break, which you know, kid bikes in the US they're required to have a coaster break. But again there's all these reports talking about how like that is a more difficult way for a kid to stop the bike because it puts them off balance. And so all of their bikes they have actual handbrakes. Uh, start teaching them from an early age that that is

how you stop the bike. Yeah, that's great, And I think it's always good for us to be able to share the ways in which we have spent more money and potentially regretted it, and and then and then the ways in which we've spent more money and we feel like it's really paid off. And it sounds like this bike for Clover has been just this step up from the balance bike, and that she's really enjoying bike riding.

She loves it, like literally, I mean, it's been raining a lot recently, but every stinking day after school she wants to go outside and ride her bike. And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry, it's been raining for like five days in a row. We can't go out again. But no joke. When we first got it, it took her two or three minutes to get started riding on that thing. And you could not have seen me smiling any bigger than you know, seeing one of my kids ride a bike, ride a big kid bike for the first time ever.

I was so proud, so happy. And it's totally worth the money when that happens, right, Yes, that's a great investment right there, And truly is I mean, we we we I'm kind of finicky about using the word investment, but really I really only want to use it and when I'm talking about something that is going to pay off in the end, uh, And we use investment about buying couches or just stupid stuff that actually isn't really an investment. But but a bike is kind of an

investment in your kids future for loving biking. That's going to save them money in the long term. So I think I can use it appropriately in that context. Yeah, Man, It's something else that I feel like you could get behind, is that this specific bike, it's gonna work for two other kids. Like, We've got two more kids who will be able to ride on that bike. And so when you know that you can take a purchase like that and stretch it out, You're not just dividing it by

one kid, You're dividing it by three kids. That is a lot of use. And uh we I'll let you guys borrow it soon as well, so you can kind of get a field for it. Man, it sounds good. I get you on board, all right, Matt, let's talk about the beer that we're having on the show today. Our friends Waffles on Wednesday. They write a blog about pursuing financial independence, and they tossed a beer away last

time they were in town. This one's called I learned it by watching you, and it's a collaboration by literally two of our favorite breweries, Burial and Other Half. I've been to both breweries, Matt, and I love what these guys are pumping out, and I'm excited to try this one that they've created together with you. Today on the show, my friend yeah man, And you may have noticed, I'm wearing my other half half like I do so often these days, stepping that swag. I really like that brewery man,

the other half up in Brooklyn. They're really good, so good, so good. All right, Matt, let's get onto the topic at hand. Today on the show, we're talking about striving for work life balance. And I will say that work life balance, well, it's it's not really the most popular term when we're discussing this topic anymore. You know. We had author Kurt Steinhorst on recently and he prefers to discuss how you can integrate the worlds of work in life.

So he's talking about work life integration and I understand that. I understand why he's choosing those terms instead, but I still appreciate the desire to achieve work life balance in our lives, and I think striving for balance in and of itself, it takes effort, right, It's like pursuing margin, And we talked about that the very first episode of this year. It feels like we're a salmon like swimming

upstream fighting the current. It's not easy, but but it's possible, and I think it's worth making that effort because all work and no play, well, it makes us really dull. And this effort, well, it might feel very much like a pendulum at times where we never quite hit it

exactly right. So while there's not really any sort of silver bullet, I don't think that we're gonna offer up in this episode, Matt when it comes to the question of work life balance and how to find it, we can at least find ways to help ourselves achieve more balance,

just a greater level of it in our everyday lives. Yeah, man, this is something I definitely want to make sure that I am striving after myself, because in a culture that idolizes work, we find ourselves chronically fatigued and exhausted because we give too much of ourselves to our work while leaving little left for ourselves and for the folks around us. Like most Americans don't even take all of their vacation time, and when they do, they find it impossible to actually

stop working. When we do that, that leads to burnout. Burnout can cause us to make worse decisions, and then oftentimes that causes us to become impulsive with our money. So this is really important stuff for us to talk about. And so regardless of the job that you have and what fields you're in, I think there is room for

more balance and striving after that in all of our lives. Yeah, all right, So Matt, let's talk about some of the symptoms that someone might be experiencing that would indicate a lack of balance in their lives. I feel like I'm a doctor or something trying to diagnose somebody right now. But I think you know some of these symptoms that we're gonna discuss here, well, the ones that you and I have experienced before, because we're normal human beings that

have prioritized work over life at different times. Finding that balance is hard to do, and and we know these symptoms because there are things we've dealt with over time, or maybe we're even dealing with now. I mean, let's be honest, you know, like launching a podcast and trying to maintain that while we have full time jobs, new

more children. It's not super easy. And so like, these are things that are are kind of hitting close to home for us and so I think maybe for both of us this is a good reminder to to keep our eyes open to some of these different signs. Yeah for sure. So all right, those symptoms. Let's start with stress. That's an obvious one, right, being consistently stressed out, that's a major indicator that we might be working too much.

And depending on the individual, well, this stress can manifest itself in all sorts of ways, and that can be debilitating, like an inability to get proper sleep every night. So if we find it hard to rest, what's a good chance that we're working too much and enjoying life too little. Yea.

And stress can leads to physical pain as well, that you know, like physical being that we actually experienced in our bodies, right, like headaches, that strain that you feel in your neck, like if you're sitting there at the office, you know it kind of hunched over in your chair,

staring at your computer. It can have a literal effect on our stomachs, ability to digest food properly, and it even affects our health and more serious ways as well, Like it's documented that working more than fifty five hours a week that raises our risk of heart attack and stroke. By a significant amounts. Man, this is serious stuff. Yeah, we talk about money, right, but money isn't as important

as your life. And I think when we're super stressed out because we're working too much and too much of our faculties, too much of our focus, too much of our attention is going to our everyday nine to five, but it turns into more like an eight to seven or something like that, then it is going to lead to a lot of unhealthiness. And that stuff impacts your wallet, but more than anything, it just impacts the way you feel, It impacts the way you move through life, and it

just makes life a whole lot less fun. And so yeah, I think it really is important to talk about this topic from a bunch of different angles today. And that leads into one of the next symptoms that people often experience when they're overworked and they're lacking balance, and that's pessimism. Well, we tend to have more negative thoughts and respond poorly to the good things that we experience when we're overwhelmed

and overworked. If you kind of find yourself having more of a negative outlook in general, well it's time to kind of reassess how balance your life currently is Yeah, and Jill, not just a sort of negative alok on on things. Another sign is just an overall lack of the other good and healthy things in our lives. If you find yourself cutting back in other areas of your life that you know are important, right, then you might be working too much, Like maybe you've eliminated exercise from

your weekly routine, or maybe like your relationships are suffering. Right, If important healthy habits are consistently missing from your daily life, I think that's a key sign that you are in an imbalanced states. Yeah, Matt, these symptoms, well, they can be a huge sign that the more that we notice these things cropping up in our lives that things just

aren't balanced. They'll work in life, just aren't aligned properly. Yeah, And a lot of folks would argue that the sort of the main cause for this that it's noble, right, Like we're working hard because we're trying to make more money, because we want to get ahead, like we we're trying to set our families up to be in a better position down the road. But unfortunately that can mean that

a lot of other areas in our life suffer. Yeah, for sure, money plays a huge part in this whole discussion about work life balance, and so we'll talk more about that in just a second right after this break. All right, here we are back for the break. We're talking about how important it is for us to strive

after work life balance, man. And you know what, I think it's important for us to address the fact that we talk about side hustles all the time, right, Like we talk about working hard to get ahead, and so how does suggesting more work help you to achieve greater balance? Right? Yeah, Matt and Jewel are always trying to give me to

work more to make more money. What's that? And now here we are talking about work life balance, but I think it's important for us to talk about side hustles and trying to make more on the side, and in fact that side hustles are not for everyone. You might be currently tapped out with what you are already doing, and so if that's you, starting a side hustle is probably going to be a bad idea. And then if you do start one, if you do have a side hustle,

do not be afraid to reassess your situation. Is it actually bringing you closer to your goals? Like do you have an actual goal set that you know that you're working towards. Oft. Sometimes the perfect side hustle can stem out of expanding a hobby and it could allow you

to replace your full time job. Certainly, for a while, you're gonna be pulling double duty, right, but eventually, hopefully that side hustle might be able to scale up into a full fledged business and you can replace that time that you're spending at your full time job with this new side hustle. We're not necessarily advocating for you to add hours that you're spending working to your life indefinitely. Yeah, and a side hustle is just not for everyone, and

it's not for everyone at all times. It makes me think of our our friend Paul, and he kind of worked for this major corporation and hate it, but it wasn't really his jam either, and so he kind of started to get into real estate investing, and you know, over time, he just found it more interesting and he found that he was doing well at it, and so he just continued to kind of ramp that up, and at this point in time he's been able to quit

his full time job. He does consulting on the side, so he is able to go back and work for that corporation on his terms and other places too, like very right, which is which is a huge benefit. And his real estate essentially funds his lifestyle, so all that consulting stuff, that's just kind of the icing on top of the cake. But yeah, if you were to try to continue once he reached at certain point with real estate to work that full time job as well, I think you realized that it would have led to a

massive imbalance. At some point, something's got to give, right and and so yeah, I think that's an important thing to note when we're talking about side hustles. At some point something has to give, and maybe it's a side hustle and maybe it's a day job, but trying to continue both in perpetuity, that's definitely going to lead you to a place where you're gonna find yourself in a

in a massive situation of imbalance. Which go ahead and talk about some of the things that can lead to imbalance, that can lead to us over working when it comes to work in our life. And you touched on this with Paul a little bit, But when someone doesn't know why they're working, right, Like we talked about the why behind our money. If you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, that can seriously lead to overwork. Not

having a mission statement can lead to that imbalance. You might feel conflicted consistently by how you are spending your time if you do not have a clear direction. It sounds like with Paul, perhaps he was looking for a little more flexibility when it came to his time, or even a slightly different challenge when it came to his work. For everyone out there, it's going to be something different. But it's hard to know what your why is if you haven't taken some time to consider what it is

that you truly want your life to look like. Yeah, so really, I guess the marching orders when you hear something like that is to find out what your why is, spend some time because oftentimes I think, Matt, you're right, like, we're we're looking at someone else's why. We're living life according to somebody else's terms and kind of what they think is important, and we as individuals need to do some soul searching to figure out what it is that we want our life to look like. And that might

involve big changes like moving or downsizing. But when we can identify our goals and then reframe our work as a means to achieve those goals, then I think we're on the right track. Yeah, And if you don't identify your why, it's gonna be really easy for your boss or if your company to identify that thing for you, right, Because, like I mean, we live in a culture, like an American culture, where achievement and you know, getting ahead that's

kind of the defaults. And while those can be great things, if left unchecked, those things can kind of ruin the rest of our life. It can cut them u Yes, exactly. I think if its like this flame, this fire, right, a camp fire is this beautiful, wonderful thing when it's sitting there where it's supposed to be, you know, like Smokey the bear wants it exactly where the kids can sit there and they've got their smores, right, But if that fire gets out of that firing, well, then it's

a serious problem. That's why think it can be helpful for us to view achievement in getting ahead through that lens. Only you can prevent achievement fires, right, So we're going with that, Okay, perfect, all right? So another root cause that can really lead to a good amount of work life and balance is out of control spending. It's not having our finances in order. Finally, we're talking about money.

It's in the title of the podcast, like we should get to that a little bit sooner, but yeah, we're we're there now. So out of control spending truly can force us to work more than we want to. And that's a real problem, racking up debt, buying more stuff that means being forced to up our income. Man, we I hate hearing about that, Matt, where the where people have essentially pigeonholed themselves in the corner by racking up credit card debt because they found curbing their spending to

be just too difficult. And I know it's easier said than done, right, we talked about it a lot, but it is something that we have to do. If we do want more of a work life balance, if we don't want to have to work more to fund our lifestyle, well then we need to have a simpler lifestyle, that's right. And so the solution here is to create and stick to a budget, which, like you said, easier said than

done for a lot of people. If you're in bad shape, get some help and some accountability, Like, do not let the reason for your work life imbalance be that you are consistently spending more than you make. We are actually gonna do an episode on budgets next week, so you can look forward to that one showing up in your podcatchers soon. I'm at the edge of my seat right now.

It's gonna be a good one. Yeah, man. I think another root cause that we need to discuss that leads to uh A work life imbalance is difficulty actually working. You might be on the clock, but constant distractions could be keeping you from working efficiently on the good stuff. And you're not the only one that has this issue either. It takes an average of twenty three minutes for an

individual to refocus after getting distracted. Believes that as someone who works from home, I'm pretty sure it takes me that long to like fully get back into the groove. Yes, completely. If you're distracted from a specific task you're working on by an email, or your phone buzzing in your pocket, or just a coworker coming in, you know how hard it is to get re engaged in that task that you were working hard at. So how do we ta hole this? Well, we have to make changes so that

we can actually get the things accomplished. Then we need to get accomplished instead of just quote unquote like being at work having our work day dictated by whatever email comes has come across our inbox. Most recently, that's how

we kind of fight back. And I think that's why we're seeing kind of a rising popularity of companies going to five hour work days because they're realizing that a traditional forty hour workweek well involves just a lot of employee distraction, and if they can get their employees to buy into working fewer hours but being a hunter percent focused during those work hours, they're going to have employees

that are just as productive, if not more so. And so one of the things that man I would suggests doing a time audits, which sounds like a fancy term for just keeping track of your time. Right, this has made a huge difference in my life. Just like you want your money being spent towards the things that you actually value, we want your time going in the same direction,

towards the things that you actually care about. When you are spending your time in a way that prioritizes the people you love and and includes the interests you value, you are far less likely to feel out of whack. So, just like with our budgets and tracking or spending, our dollars should reflect the things that we value in our life, in the same way our schedules should also reflect the

things that we value. Yeah, and I think, Matt, another helpful way to combat a difficulty actually working while we're supposed to be working is shutting out the noise around us so that we can get those important and crucial things done. And so, Matt, my job in particular is one where I feel like I have to be responsive more immediately. I do have timely things happening a large part of the day and that I have to be able to react to quickly, and so I can't always

shut these things off. But I do have to find key times to be away from email and slack in order to accomplish the bigger tasks that I want to get done. So this is obviously get a vary by job,

by industry, by the culture of your workplace. But the more time that you can separate yourself from the constant buzzing and distraction and people around you and focus on a particular item of work, the more productive you're gonna be, and you might even find yourself being able to leave work earlier than you thought you normally could have getting home in time for dinner where you weren't able to do that before by letting those less important things wait

and actually having more time for those more important tasks that are things that you have to get done well. Man. I will share a quick little tip, a little strategy that I've been able to incorporate into my life as someone who works from home. Right, I've got my little home office, but that doesn't mean I can't hear my

family and my kids screaming in the background. And so I would suggest you know, you're talking about the noise of the office, Well, I've got the noise of my house, and so I would completely recommend that you get some nice earplugs, the soft kind you can kind of roll up in your fingers and jam in your ears. Dude, I am able to work so much better when I can hear nothing Like I'm not one of these people who like to turn on, you know, a bunch of music and have all this kind of stuff going on.

You know a lot of people will go to like Comfitivity. Have you ever used that app? Or I don't know if it's an app. I used to go to it on my web browser, but it like mimics the sounds of a cafe and you can do like lunch, murmur and like because some people, for them, they are able to work better when there's a sort of white noise surrounding them where it feels like they're in a sort of work office environment. But for me, man, it's the

complete opposite. I want like zen yoga like silence, and I'm able to achieve that when I actually use ear plugs. So I know that kind of sounds silly. It might be silly for a lot of folks who who do work in an office, But if you find yourself being distracted by the things that you hear, being overset or just different noises in your office, man, I would completely recommend that if that's something you can get away with

ear plugs, that's a good recommendation. Seriously, dude, all right, So I think another core root cause, uh, that could lead to more work life and balance, and it often does for a lot of people. It could just be your job is a big issue and you could be in a field that's demanding or have a boss who only cares about the profitability of the company and ringing as much productivity out of you as as they can.

So if your supervisor is the problem, well you might need to seek to work in a different department or even consider switching companies. And if you work in a soul sucking industry, you might want to consider what it would look like to switch careers altogether. And it might not be as crazy as it sounds, especially if it allows you to spend your time in a way that reflects what you value. And I know that these decisions, well they're not made overnight, Matt, right, Like people aren't

like cool, Yeah, all right, I'll switch jobs tomorrow. But it is one of those things that you might need to start working towards. If you realize that your life is in a state of imbalance, if you're if you're exhibiting some of those symptoms as that we mentioned earlier, well then kind of making the long play to switch careers or to find another employer that can start today, although it might take a few months or even longer

to actually get there. Right. Yeah, For a lot of folks, though, leaving your job or changing industries altogether may not at all be a possibility for you. If so, it is crucial to develop hard boundaries, and so after the break we'll discuss more of what some of those boundaries might look like. Alright, Matt, we're back from the break and we're talking about work life balance. Let's talk about the ultimate way to achieve it. Quitting your job. I'm out

of here life, right. Some people might need to do that if it's that bad, right, And I just want to give a personal example from my life. Man. I had this job where I was producing a morning news show that was basically my first big time job out of college, and it was it was terrible. I gotta be honest. I didn't like it. I learned a lot, and I was glad I took it because the learning curve was steep, and I feel like, you know, I basically got initiated into the radio production world in no

time flat. You paid your dues, Yeah, very very much so. But my job was based around the news, and the news never stopped. I've heard that before. And I had to book guests for the next day, and so I had to stay on top of the news and basically at the same time, I had to wake up just ridiculously early. The shows like that started five in the morning, so I had to be up at like three. Yeah,

I remember you've talked about this before. And then maybe you would get a nap like later that day, but otherwise you're still hanging out with your friends like during their normal hours. And and then you know, after my nap, I had to look at the news again and try to book then the other guests for the for the upcoming for the show the next day. It was just

too much. The job wasn't conducive to having real boundaries, at least for me, and so I quit five months later, and I didn't really have kind of the next thing lined up yet, but I just knew I couldn't continue. And the great news was I was financially okay to be able to do that. But yeah, maybe for some people quitting is the only way to achieve work life balance. I just want to throw that out there, that that

is a possibility. We mentioned the job being the biggest issue, and it might be the only way to get rid of that issue is to to leave all together. Yeah, Joel, And what I want to point out here is that you were in a financial position to take that step right. When you first took that job, you didn't know that eventually you were gonna want out, But you started doing smart things with your money, and that allowed you to be in a position were you were able to say,

peace out. You know, I'm out of here. I'm gonna go travel. Yeah, I sure didn't know it was going to be that quick. But well, for a lot of folks, though, quitting may not be an option. Uh And if so, it's important to figure out what the expectations are and when it comes to communicating and getting your work done with your employer, right, your your boss might even commend you if you proactively draw some hard lines around your

personal time. So hopefully you know, through conversation you can define those hours with your boss, you can figure out what it is that you need to get done. And then the other vital part of that is making sure

that you're able to communicate that to your colleagues. That way, you're still an important part of the team, right, Like, you don't want to just say like, okay, these are my boundary is now and have that be a detriment to what you would be able to contribute to your team, Like, you still want to be able to get the work done and hopefully this will allow you to get your work done more efficiently and at a higher caliber at

the same time. Yeah, and and that in in our culture right now of basically constant connection and our employer thinking that we should respond at all hours of the night. Well, that constant connection to technology, I think can make us think that we're more productive than we actually are. And if we're always present via email and slack, are we giving ourselves the time to think through our bigger goals

and the impact that we're actually having. And I think we're not oftentimes right because we're just responding to the immediate things and so basically always being in touch, it's not really a good thing for us. So consider taking

work email off your phone. I deleted work email and Slack from my phone because I realized that it was more of a distraction than it was helping me actually get things done at work, and that the things that were more pressing and needed what my direct supervisor could text or call me, and I let her know that, I said, you can reach out to me via via a phone call or a text if there's something that's urgent and that happens you know, a couple of times a year, but at least now I have this kind

of clear conscience when I go home that I don't need to be checking any of that stuff. It just doesn't need a factor into my evening. And I know that not everyone can set such clear boundaries, but a lot of us can. Many of us can, I think a lot of us can, but we're afraid to sure, Like like we're just afraid of taking those steps because we think that like, oh, that you know, that's not going to allow us to get that advancement, or oh,

this is gonna affect this. But I think that's a great challenge for us to take and to see, like does this actually affect the quality and the quantity of work that I'm truly able to get done? I think it will affect it in the positive if instead of constantly doing work or constantly replying to emails, if we're able to essentially batch our work right Like it makes

me think of like doing dishes. We don't do dishes all day long, like every time there's a dirty plate or dirty fork or at least I mean that's not how we roll, like, but we put everything in the sink and at the end of the night, after the kids in bed, I go and I tackle the dishes and it and I can knock them all out and no time. When we have this constant trickle something like email, I feel like it just wears on us. And I just think those constant notifications, though not necessarily urgent, can

just you know, like a like a dripping faucet. It just wears on us mentally. And man, I would even suggest for folks. This is something I've done recently, is like I still have email on my phone, but turn off your notifications. I'm not talking about your sound notifications or like the banners, like the pop up banners, but something I've done recently is I've turned off badges notifications like the icons that you can show up at the

top of your phone. So you've got your email app and when you have an email, there's a little red dot with a little number in there. You can turn that off and so I can still go to my

email and check my email. I know there's unread emails there, but you know what I don't need is for that number just to constantly increase when I'm off the clock, one constant reminder, yes, exactly, and so why have that on, you know, why why have it looked like something that needs addressing, Because like they make it for a reason, like it's to get your attention. And so that's an easy little change that you can do on your phone, going to notifications, go down to your email and turn

off notifications altogether. I mean that reminds me just kind of of you know, something I briefly mentioned at the beginning of the episode, which was certain employers going to five hour workdays and they've found that their employees are more productive. And it's because so much of what we do when we think we're productive by just being at work, right that, well, we spend a lot of time, it turns out on social media or walking down the hallway

or having lunch. I mean, there are all these things that take our focus away from the task at hand. And if we can just kind of concentrated in this smaller amount of time but we're uber focused, then it changes our workflow and allows us to have more freedom

in the other hours of our lives. And those employers seem to be talking about how successful, how good it's been for their company and for their employees, and so I think you're right starting the conversation with your employer or with your direct manager, using some of these stories as kind of fuel for the fire, as kind of your artillery right in the fight to take back some of some more of your life and some more of

your autonomy. That's a great place to start, and I think you can help kind of start that conversation going with your boss and it can help lead to a greater work life balance in your life. We're talking essentially about kind of like technological boundaries, and we're talking about time boundaries, but let's dive into our minds a little bit.

Let's talk about mental boundaries. So many jobs today involve information and ideas that it makes it even more difficult to turn off our work in order to achieve that work life balance. Right. Got to admit that's my main struggle really. I mean, like, forget about our cell phones, like our brains, like they are the real culprits here when it comes to the inability to truly turn off our work. And so how do we take the steps in order to make sure that our minds are in

a healthy spot. We want to make sure that not only are our bodies off the clock, but that our minds are off the clock as well. And the first thing we need to do is start with eliminating these physical cues to work that we've been taught thing about, right like removing your work email from your phone. If

that's what's necessary, turn of those notifications. Maybe for a lot of folks, that's actually leaving at five pm from the office and even taking vacations, right Like, we a lot of employers say that there are a certain number of vacation days that you have, but oftentimes people do not take those vacations and maybe sometimes there's a lot of guilts associated with that. Oh yeah, I think there's a ton of guilt associated with taking vacation in our

modern workforce. We feel like we're slacking and we're leaving our work to other people to do while we're gone. And I think that's why people want to stay connected, because they don't want to let their colleagues down. But you have to be able to take vacation in order to get that break, that mind rest from work. You're gonna come back more recharged than ever. Just like if you work a few hours in a day, but you're more focused, you're probably going to be more productive too.

And I think another step that we can take to make sure our minds are in a healthy spot is giving ourselves time to be still and quiet, to remind ourselves to the things that truly matter and that that can be prayer, that can be meditation. However you incorporate

that into your life. But Matt, I mean, we talked with five am Joel about waking up early, and I'm I'm telling you that time in the morning where it's just me is so helpful to have some stillness, to not have tasks kind of flying my way for at least a part of the morning. That's become one of my favorite parts of the day. That's the rest of your day, like out of the gate, right, Yeah, So for me, that's been really important. I think the more that we can incorporate a little bit of stillness and

quietness into our lives, that's good. And that's coming from a guy who's a complete extrovert and has a really, really hard time doing that, but I've realized the importance of it, so I'm making it happen. And once you've done those things, I think the next important step is to replace the cues that would lead you to work with cues that will lead you to live life. And a lot of that is going to and all likelihood

involved some scheduling. Scheduling time with friends, time for hobbies, time for your community, time to volunteer, and time to work on your personal health. Yeah. Often times for a lot of people, these are the kind of things that if you sit them down at a seminar or like at a personal development meeting or something, right like, they'll write these things down at the top of their list and they'll say, like, these are all the things that

are important to me. But when it comes to how we spend our days, like, do we actually do these things? I mean not as much as we work. And I'm not saying that we should match every hour that we work with family time or community time, you know, just all these different things. But we are so intentional with the time that we spend working, right Like, We've got deadlines that we have to meet, we have calendar reminders, we have you know, events scheduled on our calendars throughout

the week that have to do with work. And we need to be just as intentional and just as proactive with the other non work areas of our life. And so this makes me think of just a few days ago, you and I with a bunch of buddies, we hit up a local bar slash restaurant that's gonna be closing later this week. A friend of ours, he shot out of text and he said, fellas, we need to hit up the graveyard one more time to enjoy their delicious wings on half price wing night. Of course that's how

we do. Yeah, we're getting that deal. But all it took was just a little nudge a text from a friend to get seven guys together who haven't seen each other in a while, and we caught up and had a fantastic time. I just know that I want to see myself and I want to challenge myself to be that intentional and that proactive with the time that I

am not spending working. Yeah, man, I think as as we're talking about striving for work life balance, it's really important, after all the things that we've discussed, to really give yourself reasonable expectations. Because of perfect work life balance, well, it's it's not always achievable. As our lives evan flow, we can't always have it exactly like we want, and that's okay. I think there are seasons where more work and less life or vice versa is going to happen

because we're not perfect. And I've had to tell myself too at times, Matt. In a season where where I've been a little bit busier with you know, doing the podcast and Emily and I'm at we we've had to have discussions about this that I'm going to at times fail or not do as well at something as I would really like to do, and that's because of the

specific season that we're in. But even in the midst of that, I can identify the key components that are gonna help me feel connected to the highly valuable things in my life. For for example, dinner every single night with my family, I'm not going to miss that, for pretty much anything three times a week, riding my bike, not gonna miss that either, and just basically not being

in tune with social media almost at all. That has led to just a greater ability to enjoy work life balance, even in the midst of kind of a busier season for me. Mean, I like what you said. They're right, perfection, it is not the goal. There are going to be

certain busy seasons in our life. But I think as long as we were working towards an average of a balanced life, that there are some key areas and components of our life that we shouldn't be willing to compromise on, but taking time for ourselves, creating more rigid boundaries around when we work and when we play, actually using all

of our vacation time, like that's a must. That's one that I feel like you've mentioned recently as well, like making sure like I'm going to take that vacation time right, this is the year the vacation for me. I'm taking it all. But doing all these different things like these are important steps to helping us to achieve a better work life balance. And when we feel more rested and fulfilled in our lives away from work, I think a lot of us will be surprised to see that we

become actually more productive when we are at work. Yeah. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I think it's definitely true for work. Yeah. You know when you spend like a few days away from work and you're thinking, oh, I just can't wait to dive back into it. Well, I love my job, but it's also nice to get away from from a week and remember that I love my job. Because I think in the middle of it, I don't feel like I love my

job every day everybody needs a break, man. But ultimately, when I look back and I'm looking at the ability to get to do what I do every day, I'm like, oh, yeah, I do love my job. But I especially realized that when I get away from it for a little while, I will say, absence of this beer that we had today on the episode also makes my heart grow fonder. That gives you want more of it? Yes, I do. The beer that we had on the show today was called I Learned it by watching you, and it was

a collaboration beer between Other Half and Burial Brewing Company. Matt. This was delicious, It was wonderful. What would your take

on it? Well, I'll tell you, but first let me tell you what I think of this collaboration, which is so this is between Burial and Other Half, And honestly, what I imagined was, what if you picked up Asheville with its mountains, and you like transplanted it up into Brooklyn and so like right across the river, you had Asheville across from Manhattan and all of its crunchy Asheville granola goodness, Right, how cool would this like bizarro world

fantasy land be with all of its amazing breweries right across from Manhattan. Yeah, I mean Brooklyn. Brooklyn has its own I think claims to coolness for sure, But what if what if you married it with Asheville and that's too fantastic American cities put together. I mean, that'd that'd be a good That'd be a match made in heaven. And I don't know if I could handle it. But yeah, these are two of my all time favorite breweries, so when they do something together, I totally want to taste

it and when they're taking note for sure. Yeah, and this beer was super tasty. What were your thoughts on the actual beer? So I had high expectations because I'm assuming, you know, based on two of the top tier breweries in the country making beer together, that it's going to be ridiculously good. And I gotta say it was. This was like darn near a perfect I p A. I just really appreciated the attention to detail, the fact that it wasn't overwhelming, but it was also just incredibly juicy

and delicious. And yeah, I feel like the hot profile stood out enormously. Uh, And that's exactly what you want in an I p A like this, So two of the best at the top of their game making something just utterly delicious. Oh yeah, man, for me, it was juicy. It was a little bit tingly from from that hot bites. That's how you know they didn't skimp hop them out exactly. It's like you're licking an iron volt battery. Um Like, I feel like that this was just a great example

of a double dry hopp I p a UM. I feel like it almost had like a sort of like jasmine kind of honeysuckle floral notes to it as well. Just lots of flavor, but at the same time, real light, real easy to drink, very delicious. I'm incredibly thankful for our friends Waffles on Wednesday for swinging through Atlanta and dropping this one off for us. For sure, they picked this one up at Burial I guess when the road trip.

Very cool. I think it was a barrel yeah. But yeah, they've got a great blog and they're great people to boot. So all right, Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. For folks that are listening and you want show notes for this episode, we'll just check out our website how to money dot com and they'll be right there for you. Yeah.

And also if you are looking for a new credit card, while you're there on the site, go to how do money dot com forward slash credit Cards and there you'll see our favorite picks for credit cards, for what credit card you should use based on how you spend your money, and if you sign up for a new card via any of those links, it helps out the show. So thank you in advance. Alright, buddy, that's going to be it until next time. Best Friends Out, Best Friends Out.