0:00

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0:05

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0:07

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0:10

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0:12

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well-being benefits to help you and your people

1:01

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1:06

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1:08

small business to the next level when you sign up for

1:11

the IKEA Business Network for free today

1:13

by searching IKEA Business Network. Hello

1:22

and welcome to another episode of Working Overtime,

1:25

the biweekly advice focus catch up to workings

1:27

well done steak. I'm

1:29

your host, Ronald Young Jr. And

1:31

I am your other host, Isaac Butler. I've noticed we're

1:33

doing all these steak related tags at the top of

1:35

the show. I don't even need beef anymore. I don't

1:37

know why we're doing this. Oh

1:40

man. That's in my head now, Isaac.

1:42

I don't know. What are we

1:44

talking about today, Ronald? Okay,

1:46

Isaac, to catch you up, as you

1:48

know, in my last session of Working

1:50

Overtime, we talked about unexpected interruptions and

1:53

what it takes to complete work during them. Well,

1:55

to continue that line of thinking, my

1:57

life is beginning to return to some semblance of work.

2:00

of what you would consider normal. And

2:02

now what I've been dealing with is the

2:04

stress of playing catch up to the mountain

2:06

of work and the requests that I put

2:08

on hold while I was dealing with my

2:10

mother's illness and then subsequent death. So it

2:12

feels like in a lot of ways, I've

2:14

just been kind of coping and existing, but

2:16

now there are expectations now that work resumes.

2:18

And honestly, that is stressful. Have you ever

2:20

had to deal with the return to work

2:22

from any interruptions? You don't have to get

2:24

into the specifics of what the interruptions were,

2:27

but did you cope with the stress of

2:29

the return to work afterwards? Yeah, definitely.

2:31

And first of all, let me also say,

2:33

I know we talked about this, Mike, a

2:35

little bit, but I am really so sorry

2:37

for your loss and I know how much

2:39

your mother meant to you. And I'm glad

2:41

you're still here. I'm working and working overtime,

2:43

but if you wanted to have taken a

2:45

break, I would totally have understood because... Thank

2:47

you, Isaac. It is really hard to come

2:49

back. It's so hard. I've had three big

2:51

disruptions over the past year. I

2:53

had COVID, which knocked me out for like

2:55

a week, but then I don't feel like

2:57

my brain really returned to normal for probably

2:59

two, two and a half months. You know,

3:02

like I could still get work done, but

3:04

I got mentally fatigued very easily. My

3:06

daughter had some health problems. As

3:08

soon as those were resolved, my dad went

3:10

into the hospital for two months, you know?

3:12

And so there's been some really

3:14

difficult navigation that had to get done there.

3:17

It's sometimes that's been, oh, I'm getting less

3:19

stuff done now. And sometimes it's been like,

3:21

oh shit, nothing is gonna get

3:23

done for the foreseeable future, you know? No,

3:26

I 100% get it. It feels like the

3:28

moment when you're in it, when you're just like, nothing's getting done.

3:30

And then at some point when you're kind

3:32

of through it or you've poked your head

3:34

through it, now you're like, I have to

3:37

get everything done. Like, this might have cost

3:39

me in some cases. And

3:41

I feel like now, like I said, I'm returning

3:43

to what I would consider to be a normal

3:45

routine for me as normal as it can be

3:47

now anyway. But as I consider that return, I'm

3:50

wondering where to start when it comes to catching

3:52

up. So here's what I've done so far. I've

3:54

emailed clients about the status of the work. And

3:57

a lot of folks were gracious about letting me take some time.

3:59

So now I'm re- reaching out to them to

4:01

tell them, I'm ready to get back

4:03

into it. But that's just step one.

4:05

By now, deadlines have been blown, and

4:07

I'm trying to resist the urge to

4:09

rush to complete everything, but stuff still

4:11

needs to get done. How do you

4:13

think about prioritizing tasks when you fall

4:15

in behind, Isaac? It's really hard because

4:17

as a freelancer, you tend to have

4:19

long-term projects and short-term projects, right? Yes.

4:22

And the reason why the long-term projects are

4:24

long-term is because they require an enormous amount

4:26

of work, way more than the short-term projects.

4:29

And so you do have to keep going

4:31

with those while you're completing the short-term stuff.

4:34

So this is how I tend to think about

4:36

it. First is the things that reasonably can just

4:38

be put off, right? If

4:40

there's a deadline, you can get an extension

4:42

on. If there's something that isn't time-sensitive, just

4:45

ask for a new deadline, get it off

4:47

your plate so you're not thinking about it,

4:49

right? If there's, like, I'm talking about like

4:52

a short-term thing, but it's not time-sensitive, move

4:54

that short-term off. That is not a priority.

4:57

The next stuff is the

4:59

stuff that's due in a year or whatever, right?

5:02

Figure out how much of it you can do

5:04

in little pieces day by day, and

5:06

then just know that there'll be

5:09

more fallow times where there's less short-term work and you're

5:11

gonna get more caught up with that. And

5:13

then the third thing is stuff that is really

5:15

deadline-sensitive. I have to deliver

5:18

a podcast episode to someone by Thursday.

5:20

I have to make this jewelry to

5:22

mail to someone who bought it off my Etsy

5:25

store, or they're gonna tank my rating or whatever

5:27

it is. Those things do

5:29

get a higher priority. The

5:31

way to think about it, I think,

5:33

is that you're literally triaging, right? You're

5:35

just triaging the stuff that's coming in.

5:38

And sometimes when you're super busy, regardless

5:40

of whether it's because you're coming back

5:42

from illness or a death in

5:44

the family, or just because suddenly

5:46

lots of people want to work with you, you

5:48

do reach a point where you just

5:50

have to triage shit and you just have to make your peace with

5:53

it. It sucks, but you gotta do it.

5:56

I like that. I like that. I like that

5:58

you've thought about this, that there's parts of it. looking

6:00

at it saying, I don't know how

6:02

to do this, but knowing that it has been

6:04

done and there's other people have kind of gone

6:06

through it is very helpful information. And

6:10

when we come back, we'll dive deeper into

6:12

a game plan for returning to work and

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plant-based is

14:00

too distracting, I go to a coffee shop. If it's a

14:02

coffee shop where I know the staff and I'm gonna wanna

14:04

talk to them all day, I go to somewhere where no

14:06

one knows who I am. If being by myself is a

14:09

problem, I schedule a work date with a friend. You just

14:11

create a situation where you have to work. The

14:13

second though is should you lose a

14:16

day to Dave the Diver or whatever?

14:18

Don't beat yourself up. Everyone has had

14:20

the experience of seeing the mountain of work

14:22

and thinking, nope, I'm out, right? Like everyone's

14:25

had that experience. A sort of saying in

14:27

my home that I find very helpful that

14:29

my wife and I say to each other

14:31

all the time, we say to our daughter

14:33

as well is, you are not the

14:35

first person who has had this problem. You

14:37

know? Like everyone

14:39

has had this problem, whatever it is. You

14:42

are not gonna come to your kid's

14:44

school with a unique problem. They have some

14:46

way of handling whatever it is. So just

14:48

know that if you lose a day to

14:50

being distracted, it's okay, it's okay. Just forget

14:52

about it and move on. The

14:54

third is to just pick something off

14:57

the list and do it, right? Particularly

14:59

if you're stuck and you don't know

15:01

what the priority is, forget about priorities.

15:03

Just pick something and do it. It

15:05

will create the momentum to do the

15:08

next thing. It will prove to you

15:10

that you can do things which will

15:12

help fuel you to do more. Okay,

15:16

Isaac, I have one more question. To conclude

15:18

this therapy, I'm sorry, to conclude this episode

15:21

of Working Over Time, stay

15:23

with me. The

15:28

IKEA Business Network is now open for

15:31

small businesses and entrepreneurs. Join for free

15:33

today to get access to interior design

15:35

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15:38

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15:40

help you and your people grow, and

15:42

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15:44

purchases, deliveries, and more. Take your small

15:47

business to the next level when you

15:49

sign up for the IKEA Business Network

15:51

for free today by searching IKEA Business

15:54

Network. Whatever

15:58

you think about the presidential campaign,

18:00

to just go into bed and try and

18:02

get in the next day. What's your strategy?

18:04

Coffee, heavy metal? I believe you

18:06

know my listening music of choice when I have

18:08

a lot of work to do is jam bands,

18:10

but not heavy metal. Look, the

18:12

responsible thing to say here is that if you

18:14

still have the energy and focus to do the

18:16

basics, do the basics, right? That's what I'm supposed

18:18

to say, but I wanna be honest that like,

18:20

often I don't do that. Often I neglect the

18:23

basics in fact, right? Cause the basics are often

18:25

quite low priority and sometimes

18:27

that's okay. I wanna

18:29

say that one thing you can do is if

18:31

there's times of day when you know you're

18:33

at your most productive, protect those times of day,

18:36

right? I'm at my most productive

18:38

in the mornings, right? So it's like, I try

18:40

not to have meetings in the morning. Thursdays is

18:42

when I do my podcast recordings for this show.

18:44

And so Thursdays is when I try to cram

18:47

as much non-writing stuff as possible into that day,

18:49

because already, you know, this is gonna throw the

18:51

day off if I'm thinking about it from a

18:53

writing perspective or whatever it is. You can just

18:56

like think through your schedule in some ways. And

18:58

also, you know, like if you write better in the

19:01

morning, maybe wake up a little earlier and go to

19:03

bed a little earlier to maximize the amount of time

19:05

we call the morning. But also

19:08

you're not gonna be at full capacity at this point in

19:10

your life. You're just not. I wasn't

19:12

at full capacity after COVID or after my father

19:14

was doing well enough that I didn't have to

19:17

go back and forth to DC every week or

19:19

two. You know, like these big life events, they

19:21

take a toll. And if you're a human being

19:23

who is in touch with your feelings and in

19:25

touch with the world around you, which is important

19:27

to being a creative person, you're gonna feel them

19:29

deeply and they're gonna fuck you up every now

19:31

and then. And that is okay. And

19:34

so the thing that happens, which you talked about

19:36

a little bit at the beginning of this episode,

19:38

you're in the unenviable position of having to catch

19:40

up, which another way of putting it is do

19:43

a ton of extra work while also not being

19:45

at your best. And none of

19:47

that is your fault. And you have to

19:49

just forgive yourself and be kind to yourself

19:51

when you're not always up to that task,

19:53

because it's a huge ask. It's a really

19:55

huge ask. And I'm talking as much to

19:57

myself as anyone else, because I'm very happy.

19:59

hard on myself, right, is that

20:02

otherwise the anxiety of this will eat away

20:04

at the mental energy we need to do

20:06

our work. Because all of it's going to

20:08

processing the anxiety, you know what I mean?

20:10

So it might be on a given day,

20:12

you don't get as much done, you take

20:14

a nap, you go for a walk, you

20:16

have a good cry, you talk to a

20:18

friend, you go to a movie, right? That's

20:20

okay, like all of this stuff is helping

20:22

us heal and be human, which will then

20:25

make you more effective during those free times

20:27

that you have. At least that's how I think

20:29

like with my level of endurance and when I

20:31

get tired and everything else, like that's the strategy

20:34

that works best for me. Do you know what

20:36

I mean? My wife is someone who's really good

20:38

at marathoning work. You know, she could work for

20:40

a 12 hour day, get up the next day

20:42

and do it again. I'm just not wired that

20:45

way. And so I have to like, accept who

20:47

I am. You know what I mean? Yeah,

20:49

I really appreciate it. And I honestly, I want to

20:51

say thank you to you, June, Cameron,

20:54

Kevin, the entire working team, because this has been

20:56

like a really tough time. Oh, I don't mean

20:58

to get choked up, but it has been like

21:00

a really tough time. It's always really let me

21:02

talk about it like on the show. And I

21:04

really appreciate that. Like, I really don't have any

21:06

other chances to really like process and you know,

21:08

I have friends and stuff that I talk about

21:10

this with it all that but like, as a

21:12

part of my work, like, you know, being able

21:15

to process it out loud and talk to people

21:17

who like understand and for us to be able

21:19

to channel it to maybe a listener that's going

21:21

through something like this. It means a lot. So

21:23

I really appreciate y'all taking the time and humoring

21:25

me on every one of these sessions

21:27

that I've talked about this. Well, I don't

21:29

consider it humoring you. I think that it's

21:31

like, really important

21:34

to talk about this stuff. You know, you're

21:36

going through it right now. So it's raw,

21:38

which means these questions are coming up, which

21:40

I think is really wonderful. And I'm really

21:43

grateful to you for like giving of yourself

21:45

and not trying to ignore that this is

21:47

coming and coming up with some random BS

21:49

creative advice question, you know, I

21:52

think that most creative people, most people who

21:54

do creative work, you know, we're not that

21:56

great at siloing off these different parts of

21:58

our lives, right? Because we have to this

22:00

as the material. And so

22:02

one of the nice things about working as

22:04

a show, I think, is that for

22:07

an interview show, we do a little less siloing

22:09

of that stuff as well. You know, we're not

22:11

the dispassionate third party asking

22:13

random questions. We're people with real stakes

22:15

in this stuff who are really interested.

22:17

And so I really appreciate you bringing

22:19

it to the show. I think we've

22:21

all benefited from it. So thank you.

22:25

All right. Well, thank you, Isaac. And I'm going to go

22:27

play Dave the Diver now. That's all

22:29

the time we have for this episode. But let me

22:31

leave you with one last piece of advice. I

22:34

think you should subscribe to Working wherever you

22:36

get your podcasts. And if you have ideas

22:38

for things that we could do better or

22:41

questions you'd like us to address, we'd love

22:43

to hear from you. You can send us

22:45

an email at working at slate.com or give

22:47

us a ring at 304-933-W-O-R-K. If

22:53

you'd like to support what we do,

22:55

sign up for Slate Plus at slate.com/working

22:57

plus. You will get bonus content, including

23:00

exclusive episodes of Slow Burn and Decoder

23:02

Ring. And you'll be supporting

23:04

what we do right here on Working.

23:06

Thanks as always to Working Over Times

23:08

producer Kevin Bendis and to our series

23:10

producer Cameron Drews. We'll be back on

23:12

Sunday with a brand new episode of

23:14

Working. And in two weeks, we'll have

23:16

another Working Over Time. Until then, get

23:19

back to work. At

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