Reclaiming my time from the demon
“How do you like working for yourself?” folks often ask me these days. Underneath the question is almost always a flavor of “Are you terrified you might not make enough money?” (A little.) Or, “Are you loving the newfound freedom?” (Slowly.)
I’m slowly loving my new life because the biggest difference has been my relationship with time. Or more specifically, adjusting to life without the time demon on my shoulder. That’s having to unlearn years and years of learned behavior: the nagging feeling that my time belonged to someone else.
Sure, I’d had jobs as a student where I got paid by the hour -- so my time was for rent then. But in my salaried career life, I remember the exact moment when the nagging feeling first entered my mind almost 15 years ago. The time demon had taken its seat.
It was about 9:30 in the morning on a weekday. I was working in a public-facing job for an elected official and had gone to a community event the night before. I had decided to hang back for a bit that day, and was out walking the dog.
My cell phone rang. The boss. Said politician had a habit of leading with terror, so I instinctively prepared for the worst and answered the call. He was inquiring into my whereabouts.
“You’re on my time. MY TIME!” thundered the voice into my handset. (It was my personal cell phone in an era when we paid for minutes, so it was technically my airtime. But this didn’t seem quite the right moment to raise that issue.)
My dog likely had no idea why she was suddenly circling the neighborhood much faster than usual, but my chastened self high-tailed it into the office with one shoulder slightly lower than the other. The time demon was firmly planted and never went away, even at night or on weekends.
It was a leadership-by-counterexample lesson I carried forward as soon as I was leading my own teams. I told them early and often that I didn’t care about the hours they kept as long as they delivered the work. And that I expected they would take time to care for their health, their dependents (human and animal), their homes, their cars, their hobbies -- always on the notion that a balanced employee is a happier, better-performing employee. Please book that midday doctor’s appointment, sign up for that class and go have lunch with that friend who’s in from out of town, I said.
But it was a lesson I never internalized for myself. Whether I was compulsively checking my work email when I didn’t need to, or sweating the example I was setting for my team when I found myself out of the office more often, I still had the time demon on my shoulder.
That is, until I became self-employed. The time demon suddenly disappeared, and the absence of its weight on my shoulder caught me completely by surprise. As if a part of my very self had vanished. It’s no longer a given that I’ll always be working between the hours of 8 and 5 Monday through Friday. But it still feels, sometimes and somewhat, like I should. The time demon is like a phantom limb.
One recent day, I decided to go for a run in the middle of the afternoon. “No one can stop me!” I exclaimed to myself as I clocked a couple of miles. I had the benefit of a break, some fresh air and exercise, and I’m sure the rest of my work that day was better as a result. But if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know that anyone would have tried to stop me from that midday run in my last 10 years of working for others either.
I would have stopped myself instead. Burdened by the perceived expectations of others or my environment.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, how much time have we spent at work but not on work? On workism or bulls**t jobs? I certainly wasn’t honest with myself for many years. Too much self-worth tied up in being busy, being important, being needed.
In so many ways, my journey into entrepreneurship has been a stretch beyond my comfort zone by doing. Holding myself and my work out as the message I’m communicating to the world. Networking more. Taking an improv class. But it’s also a stretch by not doing. And so, when my kid recently came home from school a couple hours early because of the weather, I was able to close the laptop and stop working for the day.
I need to walk the walk, after all. As a coach, I help my clients with their relationships with time, and the examples they set for their own teams.
So, to my leaders out there...
If you believe the time of others belongs to you, you’re doing it wrong.
If you believe every moment of effort produces the same level of results, you’re doing it wrong.
If you believe an employee’s worth is measured by how many hours their butt is in a chair in the office, you’re doing it wrong.
Time to ditch those time demons and start doing it better! Please get in touch today if I can help.
(Originally published on LinkedIn)