[2022-11-22] Balancing work, community, personal life

Today, I spoke to a group of employees at the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Each time I'm asked to give a speech, I develop a new set of remarks. And while I include some common elements, such as how I learned of my ovarian cancer, I usually come up with a unique structure and pick different examples from past posts and my lived experience to meet the particular needs of the audience. Today, I focused my remarks on striking a balance among the commitments pertaining to our work, community and personal life. I defined "community" as anything and anyone that didn't fit in the other two categories.

Priorities

Before addressing the three areas of focus, I started with a discussion of priorities, because they apply to all three.

Priorities are a bit like a personal budget. Few of us have a personal budget, where we write down how much we're going to spend on shelter, food, clothing, entertainment. Instead, we tend to have a gut feel for what we can afford and where we're spending our money. We often create a budget only when we're forced to, for example, when our expenses start to outpace our income. In my experience, the same is true for our personal priorities. We often have a gut feel for where we think we should be spending our time and where we're actually spending our time—and the greater the disconnect we perceive between these two, the greater our level of stress.

I shared the story of a friend of mine who experienced a burnout after more than a year of relentless pressure associated with being heavily implicated in the federal government's pandemic response. I met with her a few months into her health leave and recovery, and she shared with me a visual and document she had put together to articulate her priorities, as I explained in Where we spend our time. My friend identified 10 priorities:
  1. Sleep
  2. Unstructured time
  3. Exercise/self care
  4. Time with her mother
  5. Being a parent to her kids
  6. Time-sensitive tasks
  7. Writing
  8. Learning
  9. Forward planning
  10. Work/professional development

What really stood out for me was my friend's explicit category regarding time with her mom. As she and I discussed, our time is limited in two ways:
  1. the number of hours in a day (24) or a week (168)—a known and fixed quantity, and
  2. the number of years we have on this earth—an unknown and variable quantity.

My friend was realistic that her time with her mom (who is 88) is limited. I expressed a similar uncertainty about my own longevity—as an ovarian cancer survivor. Now, I could dwell on the fact that I have a serious, potentially life-shortening illness. Or I could take cancer's reminder that my existence is finite (as it is for all of us) and use that as inspiration to maximize my time on activities that are important to me and on the people I care about.

Inspired by my friend, I came up with my own list of priorities (which I wrote about in My priorities):
  1. Sleep
  2. Health
  3. Family
  4. Friends
  5. Writing
  6. Food
  7. Organizing
  8. Learning

Health includes cancer follow-ups, preventive medicine, risk reduction, regular tests, exercise, self-care, fostering mental health, and spending time outdoors and in nature. Food—which some might see as an odd choice for a priority—is on my list because good food is both a source of pleasure (making it, eating it, sharing it) and a foundational element of health (physical and mental).

I later added a ninth priority—peace—inspired by this quote: "I am at a place in life where peace is a priority. I deliberately avoid certain people and situations to protect my mental, emotional, and spiritual state." Now, if you look at peace as a priority, you're not going to find it coming up that often in my accomplishments log—that's where I record my daily achievements and which priority they align with—but identifying priorities isn't just about reflecting what is; it's also about reflecting what is hoped for—not unlike a personal budget.

Work

With respect to work, I shared three things I had learned in the last few years and one thing I wish I had learned sooner.

I am not irreplaceable
The first thing I learned is that I wasn't irreplaceable. Actually, I was irreplaceable, but not at work. The only place where I can't be replaced is at home. It took me a week after my diagnosis with ovarian cancer to finally step away from work. I said to myself: How can I leave my bosses, my colleagues and—most of all—my employees when they are already overloaded with work related to the pandemic? But once I admitted that I could no longer handle the stress of my job and the stress of dealing with cancer, I did leave. I decided that I needed to spend as much time with my family as possible because, at that point, I didn't know how long I had to live. So I left, and I was replaced—the very next day.

It's OK not to be OK
The second thing I learned is that it's OK not to be OK. Not long after my first cancer treatment concluded, I woke up early one morning and couldn't get back to sleep. I started reading the news, which led to a story on cancer and subsequently to references to ovarian cancer recurrence. It all left me feeling a little down. In fact, I felt gloomy for the whole day and wrote about that in my blog that night. Jenesis readers responded with so much encouragement and advice, much of which was excellent. One person shared that I am lovable, whether happy or sad: "We love you in the darkness and in the light." Another spoke about the particular challenge of facing cancer: "You are human and all of us have good days and bad, but fighting cancer accentuates the peaks and valleys." Just as it's easy to believe that we are irreplaceable, it's easy to believe that we are valued only when we're excelling and overachieving. Now, granted, for some bosses, that's the case. But for many of us, our bosses and our colleagues and our staff want us to be healthy, happy and engaged.

Vulnerability
The third thing I learned is that my vulnerability gives others permission to admit when they're struggling. In responding to my gloomy post, several Jenesis readers spoke about the significance of vulnerability. One said: "Every time someone is vulnerable about how they’re feeling it helps someone else feel less alone." Another replied: "Your feelings are also a lesson to us for those times that we feel down or discouraged." And a third responded: "In the many roles you assume—wife, mother, daughter, mentor, writer, boss, etc.,—this type of disclosure is inspiring."

This wasn't the first time I had heard that our vulnerability helps others. A woman I worked with years ago, who shared her story of dealing with anxiety, said something similar: "It’s as if being vulnerable is the key to opening the door to that safe space. And I honestly don’t think there is another key that will do it." The earlier employees can share when they're feeling overwhelmed, the earlier their leaders can intervene to ensure that they don't go all the way to burnout. For people in leadership positions, your vulnerability makes it easier for your employees to be vulnerable. I love one particular exchange between the boy and the horse in Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse (a gift from a dear colleague). The boy asks the horse: "When have you been at your strongest?" And the horse replies: "When I have dared to show my weakness."

Saying no
The fourth thing I shared under the category of work was something I was actually never very good at: saying no. Now, I'm not suggesting that you say no to your boss just so that you can practice saying no. In fact, your boss is your top priority. It's their job to tell you what to do. But, as I wrote in a post called Saying no, here's when it makes sense to say no, or at least to provide your boss or someone else requesting your time with additional information:
  1. The task belongs to someone else. Not only can it be bad for your time management to take on such a task, but it can also damage your relationship with the colleague who is the rightful owner of the work. (We used to call this "mowing someone else's lawn.")
  2. There's not enough time. If saying yes would result in over-promising and under-delivering, you need to speak up.
  3. The request is truly above and beyond what you would be expected to do and saying yes would jeopardize your other projects or a personal commitment outside work.
My Saying no post includes eight suggestions on how to say no gracefully, but here's one thing you can do to preempt the requests: create a to-don't list. We all have long to-do lists, but how many of us have to-don't lists? When I was an assistant deputy minister of communications, my chief of staff and I came up with Jen's to-don't list—largely things that I would no longer approve and that would move forward on the review of one of my directors general.

Having a life-threatening disease also made me rethink where I was spending my time. In November 2020, after three rounds of chemotherapy, I created a personal to-don't list of things I would no longer do (or at least greatly limit), including associating with people who are negative or selfish, doing optional things out of a sense of obligation, and consuming news stories that are depressing or disturbing.

And for all the requests you get that are discretionary, you can take a page from four women researchers who honed their ability to decline such requests (as I expressed in The practice of saying no). When presented with an opportunity, they ask themselves:
  1. Does this opportunity fit my research agenda and identity? [Will it help me achieve my career goals?]
  2. Does it "spark joy" (with a nod to Marie Kondo, doyenne of organization)? [Am I truly excited by this opportunity?]
  3. Do I have time to do a good job without sacrificing existing commitments?
  4. Does the opportunity leave space for my personal life?
  5. Am I uniquely qualified to fill this need?

Community

The second area I discussed today was community, which I defined as anyone or anything outside your job and yourself. This includes kids, pets, parents, siblings, friends, school, neighbourhood, organizations you volunteer with or are a part of.

Relationships
The demands on our time can be extensive, but so can our desires to be part of something outside work and outside ourselves. That's as it should be. In the last four years of my career, my top priority was work—judging by how much time I spent on it. When I wasn't working, I would spend time with my family, but I really didn't have time for much else. Once I stopped working and started cancer treatment, I had time for so many things that I would put under the community heading:
  • I launched my blog Jenesis, which takes 3-4 hours a day but allows me to give back to readers and benefit from so many connections.
  • I spent more time with my extended family: my mom and my siblings.
  • I could invest in friendships—old and new.
  • I could talk to neighbours.
  • I could volunteer more, including with my husband.
I have found all of these activities and relationships to be uplifting. So, to the extent that you can, make time for relationships.

One of the experts I quoted in a recent blog post on burnout said: "Social contact is nature’s antidote to stress and talking face to face with a good listener is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system and relieve stress." The experts advised:
  • Choose someone who can listen without becoming distracted or passing judgement.
  • Try to make the time spent with friends and family positive and enjoyable.
  • Avoid negative people.
They also recommended that you connect with a cause or community that is meaningful to you; helping others can bring immense pleasure and help reduce stress.

Passions
Pablo Picasso is quoted as saying: "The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away." Finding our gift means figuring out what we love to do and what we're good at. For most of us, once we figure that out, we want to share our gift with others. Often, it's in that sharing that we find purpose. It's healthy to have a purpose outside our job. It gives us a place to focus our energy while taking a break from work. And often, we find solutions to work problems when we're doing something completely unrelated to our job.

Having a purpose can also help us find meaning in challenging situations. Early on in my cancer journey, I wrote a mission statement: wring every positive thing out of cancer, grow from the experience, and be an even brighter light in the world, both during and after treatment. That made it easier for me to turn a negative into a positive.

Now, I recognize that I have way more time to nurture relationships and exercise my passions since being on medical leave and subsequently retiring, but one thing you can do in your relationships, especially with family, is find the moments between moments. When Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, was asked how he found time for a personal life while working insane hours, he said: "You have to find the moments between moments." The person who asked the question—writer Ryan Holiday—interpreted that to mean the special moments that emerge naturally between the big, planned events. Holiday says: "I’ve never understood parents who complain about 'being a chauffeur' to their kids." He adds, "instead of seeing the drive as an obligation or an inconvenience, why not choose to see it as a gift? A moment between moments." He maintains that something special happens when parents and children spend time together in vehicles: "Kids will share things in the car they wouldn’t say anywhere else."

I have a lovely memory I shared recently of a spontaneous moment some 15 years ago when my husband and I and our kids were driving around the Saguenay region of Quebec. When "Where Is the Love" by the Black Eyed Peas came on the radio, Shane and Mel started singing along, as they knew the lyrics to the verses. When the song reached the more melodic chorus, I chimed in, as did Chris. I still smile when I recall that carefree day, driving through the country on summer vacation, with all four of us singing.

Balance
Now, despite the fact that I have more free time than ever before, I have to be careful not to overcommit. I make a conscious choice to keep my obligations to others in balance, as I explained in Things other people want me to do. Writer Jenée Desmond-Harris says that she started dividing her to-do list into three categories:
  1. things I have to do,
  2. things I want to do, and
  3. things other people want me to do.
Note that the third category is not called "things I do for others." Some of that is already captured under categories 1 and 2, such as taking a child to the dentist or spending time with a parent. Category 3 is things other people want Desmond-Harris to do but that she does not need to do nor want to do. Her advice to us is this:
  1. Complete the things you have to do
  2. Expand the things you want to do
  3. Minimize the tasks others want you to do

Personal Life

That brought me to the final category, namely, your personal life—the stuff you do to maintain your physical and mental health. Why did I put this third as opposed to first? Well, I'm a realist (in addition to being an optimist) and I know that many of us spend more time on our job than any other single task. That's completely understandable. Our jobs provide money, which enables us to live and to support our family members. Beyond that, our jobs are often a source of purpose, intellectual challenge and pride. I often quote research from Gallup, which found that when employees strongly agree with one of two statements—"I like what I do each day" and "I do what I'm best at every day"—they are 4½ times more likely to be thriving in life than those who don't. That’s not just thriving in their career, but thriving in life. That’s because career well-being is the greatest determinant of a good life—more than social, financial, physical or community well-being. So our jobs are important to us.

Next, many of us spend a considerable amount of time on others, whether that's our kids, our pets, other family members, our friends, or people who are part of our communities. Again, there is so much good that is derived from the give and take in relationships.

The challenge—sometimes—is finding time to take care of ourselves.

Let me briefly tell you the story of how I learned of my ovarian cancer. My story begins at 3:00 AM on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. I woke up with pain in my abdomen unlike anything I had felt before; I decided that if I were still in pain in the morning, I would call Telehealth Ontario. At 6:00 AM, I awoke again and was, indeed, still in pain. So I called Telehealth Ontario and, after answering a whole battery of questions, I was advised to go to the nearest hospital emergency as soon as possible. By 7:00 AM, I had arrived at the Queensway Carleton Hospital.

Now, I'll pause the story there to say I could have done what many of us would do in that circumstance: I could have decided that some meeting or obligation at work was too pressing ("I don't have time to be sick") or I could have convinced myself that it was probably nothing ("I'm already working from home; I'll just take it easy today). But for some reason, I did something unusual for me: I went to the hospital. I may have been helped by the fact that we were all working remotely and I figured that I could do much of my work from anywhere, including a hospital emergency department. So I packed my tablet, my phone, my chargers, and off I went. I wasn't too concerned about the pain in my abdomen. I guessed that I was having an issue with my gallbladder. All morning, in between chats with nurses and doctors and various diagnostic tests, I continued to work. I even did a meeting by Zoom from the hospital. By 1:00 PM, I was having an ultrasound. By 4:00 PM, the ER doctor called me into a small room and told me, "I have good news and bad news: the good news is that you don't have gallstones, the bad news is that you have ovarian cancer."

What I learned from that experience and wrote about in my blog is that one task you can't outsource or delegate is taking care of your health. My ovarian cancer was discovered by chance because my gallbladder (which I call George) and the gallstone I do have (which I call Gracie) decided to kick up a fuss. You may have heard the saying that "if you don't make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness." The most important message I want to convey is take care of your health. You're all familiar with the most common messages regarding your physical health—eat well, exercise, avoid tobacco, alcohol and drugs—but here are some you may not think of or have been putting off:
  • see your healthcare provider whenever something comes up that doesn't seem right—trust your instincts;
  • see them once a year for preventive medicine;
  • go for all diagnostic tests they order, including cancer screening.
It's easy to put off health-related responsibilities as life's routines—work, family, community commitments—consume the majority of your time. It's also understandable that you may avoid medical appointments and tests; after all, who wants bad news? But medical information allows one to take action—early. For example, as part of my treatment for ovarian cancer, I underwent genetic testing, which showed that I am at high risk for breast cancer; so I undergo more frequent testing to mitigate this risk.

Taking care of your body is like owning a car. You can pay someone to change your oil, rotate your tires and fix your brakes, but you have to stay on top of your vehicle's maintenance schedule and get it to the shop when needed. You have to heed the warning signs and respond appropriately. You need to consult professionals when things get complicated. Unlike a car, however, you have only one body. There are no trade-ins. No back-up in case the first car breaks down. No hitching a ride with someone else.

I frequently say that you are the head of your medical team. This has never been more true given the challenges seeing a family doctor, the high degree of specialization in healthcare, and backlogs in medicine. You are best placed to have the entire picture of your health. Take notes at your appointments, or have a friend or family member along who can listen with you, keep a calendar of medical appointments and tests, and go back to your doctor if a treatment they've prescribed doesn't appear to be working.

Sleep
If you recall my friend's priority list as well as mine, you'll remember that sleep was at the top of both. Arianna Huffington wrote a lot about sleep a few years back in her book Thrive. You might relate to this analogy.

Look at how mindful we are of our smartphones. People have little recharging shrines all over their houses, with a cord permanently attached to an outlet right by the door or by the bed. For many of us the first thing we do when we get home is make sure our phone gets recharged.... We're all exquisitely aware of the recharging routine of our phones: how often we need to do it; how long it takes; how long we can go without recharging it; where the nearest outlet is. And yet, on the flipside, with our bodies and our minds and our souls, we'll run them right into the ground until they shut down.

She goes on to say that many of us are sleep deprived, which reduces our emotional intelligence, self-regard, assertiveness, sense of independence, empathy toward others, quality of interpersonal relationships, positive thinking, and impulse control. Similarly, in The Way We're Working Isn't Working, Tony Schwarz wrote that sleep influences our effectiveness in waking life more than any other behaviour. Despite this, "sleep is also one of the first behaviors many of us are willing to sacrifice, on the mistaken assumption that doing so will allow us to be more productive," he says.

My best sleep strategy is listening to stories: they put me to sleep and back to sleep better than anything. Becoming a disciplined sleeper is one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves. (See Sleep, More on sleep and The Sleep Solution.)

Gratitude
In addition to getting enough sleep, I highly recommend practising gratitude. A Harvard Medical School article had this to say:
  • In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.
  • People feel and express gratitude in multiple ways. They can apply it to the past (retrieving positive memories and being thankful for elements of childhood or past blessings), the present (not taking good fortune for granted as it comes), and the future (maintaining a hopeful and optimistic attitude). Regardless of the inherent or current level of someone's gratitude, it's a quality that individuals can successfully cultivate further.
Something as simple as thinking about or writing down three things you're grateful for each day can make a huge difference.

Summary

To sum up, here's the advice I shared today:
  1. Figure out what your priorities are—be explicit, write them down.
  2. Next, try to close the gap between how much time you want to spend on these priorities and the amount of time you actually spend on these priorities.
  3. Remember that the only place you're irreplaceable is at home.
  4. Believe that you are valued even when you're not OK, and recognize that your vulnerability gives others permission to be vulnerable.
  5. Get better at saying no, especially to things that can be and should be done by others—remember the saying "just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
  6. Make time for relationships—family, friends, neighbours, even colleagues—as these will sustain you in hard times and give you an opportunity to be strong when someone you care about needs it.
  7. Understand your passions—the things you love to do and are good at—and spend time doing these, especially if your work doesn't call on you to use these skills.
  8. Value the moments between moments—the everyday incidents that are memorable.
  9. Be efficient and disciplined in completing the things you have to do so that you can make time for the things you want to do, and minimize the things others want you to do that you neither have to do nor want to do.
  10. Take care of your health—never forget that you are the head of your medical team.
  11. Figure out what works for you to enable you to get good sleep.
  12. Practise gratitude.