Own Your Time Sharon Smith
What if boundaries weren’t just a self-care buzzword but the thing actually standing between you and burnout?
In this episode, I’m joined by Sharon Smith, leadership coach and founder of Own Your Leadership, for a no-nonsense conversation about time, boundaries and why saying yes to everything is a fast track to overwhelm.
Sharon shares the behind-the-scenes of how she went from burned-out teacher to boundary-setting business owner and what she learned the hard way about people-pleasing, capacity and leading well.
If you’ve ever felt guilty for saying no, if your calendar is packed but nothing feels meaningful or if you just need someone to tell you it’s OK to not be available 24/7… this is the conversation you didn’t know you needed.
In this episode you’ll hear:
Why saying yes to everything nearly broke Sharon and what she did instead
The difference between managing and leading (and why it matters more than you think)
Why boundaries aren’t selfish, they’re a leadership skill
Sharon’s brilliant concept of the “Curiosity File” for managing ideas + distractions
How to time block like a CEO
What it really takes to reclaim your calendar and your energy
The mindset shift that changed everything for Sharon (and might for you too)
Read the transcript:
Please note - this podcast episode was transcribed by an AI tool, there may be some typos or errors.
What if running your business didn't mean sacrificing your time, your health, or your weekends? Welcome to On Your Time. The podcast where we trade hustle culture for mindful, sustainable success. I'm Sarah Stewart, and around here we're all about getting more time for what really matters. In today's episode, I'm joined by the fabulous Sharon Smith, leadership coach and founder of On Your Leadership.
if you've ever felt like boundaries are a bit of a mystery or you know you should be protecting your time, but actually doing it feels impossible. This conversation is for you. We're talking about why boundaries aren't just a personal development buzzword. They are a leadership essential.
Sharon shares what happened when she stopped saying yes to everything.
How protecting her time made her a better leader, and why setting limits is actually the most loving thing that you can do for yourself and your team. Let's get into it.
Sharon, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks very much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah. No. It's great. Remind me where it is that you are dialing in from. So I'm based in West Lothian. But I actually spend a lot of my time up in the Highlands as well, so. But today I'm in West Lothian.
Okay, lovely. It looks nice, and your face is nice and bright. Are you facing the window? I am, and I'm looking out on a beautiful oak tree in front of me as well, so it's all lovely. Lovely. It's a lovely place to have my day to go to. Charlie. I'm really fortunate, you know, I am also fortunate because I'm looking out my window and there's trees in front of me as well.
It really does make a difference. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And for the squirrels I think about in the banks of the heat. So let's let's get into the conversation then. Take me back a little bit and maybe explain to me and the listeners what led you to start your business, on your leadership and maybe also where sort of time because obviously we're on, on your time.
So where sort of time maybe intersected with that and your decision making and things. My goodness, I actually I honestly think that every twist and turn in life has lead me here. You know, sometimes I think pathways clear. Nice. So my background's on education. I was a primary teacher. And I worked my way up the ranks to acting head teacher.
And then I went to national role, and then I became, I got improvement officer at a local authority. And over that time, I had some great leaders, and I had some really poor leaders. And I realized that I thrive on relationship building. And during the course of my career, we obviously had Covid. At that point, I was, working to support the wellbeing of teachers, working with a couple of coaches, one of them being actually one, you guess that you had previously seen.
I felt she, I worked with her during that time. I did a coaching qualification at that point, and it was it was the thing I think, that got me through that period to Covid. Was that professional learning that I've sitting at that time. And then when I moved from that rule that I had, I went into local authority and I ended up in a really, really busy role.
It was a clear role for professional learning and leadership. And it was at that point, and I had realized that my leadership journey did not until any professional learning about leadership, you know, I was just one of those leaders. He ended up in a leadership role without having been taught the theory behind leadership and actually how leading is different from managing.
And, you know, all of that, that the things we need to know about leadership to be an effective leader. So that became really clear to me. This role was on a fixed term role, and it was actually a role that was impossible. It was absolutely impossible to achieve what needed to be achieved in the time that I had.
You know, I worked full time and I was working for evening, and I was back in Cairns and it was it was tough, really tough. It was actually an unachievable goal and everyone in the team was burnt out. There was no debate and nobody had time for each other, sadly, because we were just running from one thing to the next.
And I actually saw the opportunity of that being a fixed term role as my exit door, and it was an opportunity for me to step over the threshold from the world of education, of full time secured employment. Some might see I had, and to running my own business. I thought if I was going to work as hard for somebody else, I might as well work as hard for myself.
And I started a coaching, company, and I was coaching everybody. And anybody that needed coaching, I felt, becomes going to transform the world. And then soon realized that I was talking to nobody. And from a marketing point of view, I needed to actually have a bit more of a niche. And at the time, all my clients were actually leaders, bizarrely, and just thought, you know, I just maybe need to go back to what I know now, having spent some time really learning about the city and understanding of leadership.
And I'm working with leaders that are meeting assistants. Create all your leadership and let's make it about people really taking ownership and understanding what that means to them and how they can do it better for themselves and for their teams and who they are. That's what I love, that the I was actually scribbling a note there because I didn't want to forget a point that came to mind there.
And so you talked about, the difference between managing versus leading. Yeah. And the the listeners may not know the nuance to that. And so I just wanted to ask in your feel like from your standpoint, what is the difference between managing and leading? Managing is more about the to do list. The H.R to do lists, the operational side of being a team leader, a manager, whatever title you have.
But being a leader is about, for me how you turn up, how you behave. The more strategic vision is required in a leader as well. You know, not just looking what's in front of you, but looking way ahead of you and looking at the bigger picture. And you're so a leader is very much about people. It's very much about creating a safe space for people to work.
You create a culture, you know, we actually we don't. There's stats that I don't have in front of me, but we don't leave our jobs because of the job we normally. And often we don't leave our jobs because of our managers, because we've not been led by good people. And for me, I was I was really aware of that in my career.
Those managers who were great, those leaders were like, brother, I would do anything for them. You know, I would work whatever I had to do, I would really step up and step beyond what was my role for these people, it is managers who don't see you. You don't appreciate you, who don't, respect or want to listen to your voice.
You don't include or not collaborative. They're the tech boxers. They are the people that are maybe striving for their own career. Thinking about everybody together. And actually, for me, a leader beats leaders as well. And so there's there's that distinction. You can be a leader and manage very well because you all have to do the managerial side of it.
But not all managers lead well. Yeah. So interesting. And I'm sure we could talk about that nugget a little more. Okay. And, and you've, you've shared before that, you know, maybe initially that your, your viewpoint was that a great leader meant saying yes to, you know, everything. What what was the like maybe the or the light bulb moment that sort of changed that thinking for you.
Do you know, said I, I, I learned the hard way. 2016 for me was my year of doom. I had more bereavements than I care to mention. It was just horrendous, including losing my dad. A statement about my stepmom, my mother in law in that year, and it took its toll on me emotionally. You know, my capacity was low anyway.
But we also had a perfect storm in schools. At that point, I was the head of a quite a big primary school, and due to various reasons, I was the only one standing in the school and the senior leadership team. The other three people were either in class or they were off for, various reasons. I had never planned to be a head teacher.
I hadn't had any head teacher training. I really hadn't been in that position. I'm a great working woman, by the way. You know, I just, I'm there to support all the all the, the, and I for me, it was the time of year of coming into winter. I just needed to make sure that my team were, well, so, you know, all teachers are going to see their children are the most important people in school.
For me at that time, the most important people were my teachers and my learning assistants and my janitorial staff and my office staff, because if they went off sick, I had to take over, you know, I had to cover the class or I had to, you know, step up. So I, I gave I gave absolutely everything. I didn't know to see, you know, I, I had no one coming in really.
There was someone who was appointed a mentor and, you know, she was on a busy school. So I didn't have that opportunity really to be there, tapping into that person all the time. And I'm a self-confessed people pleaser. I wanted to get it right for the parents. What can I give kids, what to carry for the pupils? And I just kept saying yes, yes, yes.
And if you know anything about applying to school the Christmas time, it's magic, you know. Yeah. And you know, I wanted to make sure my teachers had their non-contact time so they could prepare and plan. At some point, I actually found myself taking like about nine classes in the gym all by myself with the learning assistants to be able to give my teachers the non-contact time so that they weren't burning out.
But in all of that, I just, I just crashed and burned. And for me, if now looking back, if I had actually stopped and just here to all back and kept very simple, I perhaps wouldn't have got to that point that we'd have sustained for much longer period of time. And actually, when I came back by that point, I came back.
They had, we were so complete team. Everyone was back, plus another head that they had given to the school, realizing that the capacity that we had. So, you know, it was a really unique set of circumstances, but it was a it was a huge life lesson for me. That's for sure. Yeah. So yeah, learning to say no was a must for me.
I had to and I should have. And if I had done so then perhaps I wouldn't have got to the point I got to. Yeah. But you're right, I think with a lot of these things it does take living through it to then actually learn and, and take the insight and the learning from a situation. You know, I'm sure there's, there's plenty of scenarios where I've kind of been similar and, you know, and I reflect back and I'm like, I shouldn't I should have been doing all of that.
But yeah, living through it then, like, I know now what I wouldn't do. Yeah, absolutely. And for me, Knights also unveil word of the the physical signals in my body when I'm stressed as well. It's been another lesson I've learned, not just from that, you know, from a time perspective, but I now have a clear awareness of those physical symptoms of my body when I'm just doing too much.
That's really interesting as well. Yeah, yeah. I can relate to that too, in just a second. Each thing. You know, Sarah, it's just it's but or a circumstantial but certainly much more, much more mindful of how I manage my time and how I manage my anxiety as a result of having gone through a period of utter deficit of time and emotional, you know, lack of emotional capacity.
Yeah. And the so, so Sharon written a great guest post for my blog, all about Boundaries and some of these things that we're going to, unpick a little bit more here. But had written that protecting your time and energy isn't just a gift to yourself. It's, it's it is that critical part of the leading. Well, and I, I like that's a great quote there, you know.
And do you want to maybe unpack that a little bit? Just in terms of. Yeah, the the thinking about the time energy and how that, links in with, with leadership and leading. Well, I think, you know, as leaders, we all have our role, but we also have, a commitment to our goals and our KPIs and our mission and our purpose and our team
But if you're a people pleaser and particularly if you're a people pleaser, then you can end up saying yes to things that aren't important to roles. Okay, I have a quote. Let me just find it. Harriet Beecher, it's not the quest. Just she calls people pleasing a disease to please. It's actually a self-sacrificing behavioral compulsion.
Wow. Which is? She's got a great book, actually. L comes back from when we wanted to be part of tribes and not be exiled into the wilderness, and. And some of us today still carry treats. And, you know, our in childhood certainly can inform, our behaviors. But if you're like me and you are a bit of a people pleaser, you can't say yes to everything because you're not wanting to disappoint other people.
And we can often be involved in conversations as well. That might help. That might take us to lean into something that we can ask away from our focus of what we are leading on. And, you know, it is nice to be involved in conversations that are of interest to us, but I think it's really important to have that space and to protect our time by really asking ourselves questions about whether something is important at that given time for us to not now.
I might have a conversation with another team leader. I might have a conversation with somebody at the weekend and be inspired by something they see and think. All of my team would like to hear that. But to protect my sanity and to pay my time, I really need to ask if that's important. And if it is, then I don't necessarily need to be the person that's part of that conversation.
I might get to delegate that to somebody in my team who's got an interest or is looking to develop a skill or whatever that, you know, might be met by taking part in further exploration of that conversation. But if it's not meeting my targets or just knowing, or it's not something that we could look at from a strategic point of view, but it's kind of spiked my interest.
And I have a curiosity file that I use, and I just know it and my curiosity fail to see this is something that I'm interested in, but not know. And that because I always think something spike should and it's important to, you know, look at it at some point, but that doesn't mean it has to be. Now. So we're taking just that mental note or that, you know, physical not all.
I like the idea. I'll come back to that. And that saves our time. So stay focused on what's important for you to know. Learning to delegate that if if you can will allow me, the leader or any manager to spread themself less than a menu stage or set up less, then you turn up better for the people that you work with, you know?
Thank our kids at school or our doctor. We don't want our doctor to be so emotionally exhausted because they've just taken on too much that we're not getting the best service from our doctor or the same from any professional. We are maybe buying a service from. We want them to turn up the best they can be. We want to turn out for our families the best that we can be.
So we want to load speed in ourselves to send. So if we don't protect our time and energy, then we end up bleeding from a place of depletion and that shows up in our decision making. It shows up in our patients and it shows up in really good teams. So actually boundaries aren't selfish. They're actually selfless. Yeah. And it's really important that we remember that.
And I have to remind myself that all the time because I by default go to my, yes, military. And actually I sometimes need to go no.
There's a couple of things coming up there for me, that really enjoy hearing your sort of perspective on all of that. I particularly like the name, the curiosity file. That is great. I put all my ideas and things that sparked my interest. I've got an asana board and it's just called ideas, which is really boring, but, I may well change it after the recession, but it's like you say, it's somewhere to put all that stuff.
Yeah. So that I know I'm not going to forget it, and I and when I do then have some capacity, I can come back to it. So yeah, I really, really like that idea. And I think the other thing that was coming up for me there, as you were speaking, was the importance of the the team and the people around you like being able to trust your, your people and, you know, to then allow you to be able to delegate and, and so on.
Yeah, that that sort of was coming to mind as well. I think that's important as well as a leader. One of our jobs is to grow our people, and by doing everything ourselves, we're not doing that. So if we know our teams well, we have regular conversations about people's professional development, then when opportunities arise, the right thing for us to do, not only to protect our time, is to allow people to be trusted enough by you as a leader, to go and explore that and see what that can bring back and what our team can benefit from that experience, and leaving the judgments to somebody else.
I think that's a really empowering thing for them to, so it's a win win for everybody really, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. On the topic of boundaries, and you said I forget the exact words you use there. Like they aren't selfish. I forget what you then said. A selfless, selfless. Yes, I have it.
If if people like. I mean, I know a lot of people that are reluctant to sort of put boundaries in place. The maybe also don't fully appreciate what a boundary means. Like, might you be able to just explain to explain a little bit more about that and like, yeah, helping someone would be shift their mindset when we're thinking about boundaries.
It's an interesting thing. Isn't that because there's such a misconception about boundaries? I think it's just a first of all, it's self self-preservation. But boundaries are actually are not about shutting people out. It's about sharing. Almost like guides to other people. You know, your your name, you're setting parameters, clear parameters. They're not excluding people, but explaining what it is.
That's why you're doing it and why it's important. And actually you also are modeling good behaviors to other people. So for me, my first experience of that was in my very first, in fact, was my second year of teaching. I'm still a traditional teacher, and we had this, great woman who came into our team. She just she was an assistant head teacher, but she had a young family, and she was highly respected by everybody because of her or how she turned up every day, their presence and what she did for people.
And she was one of my best leaders I've ever had. She eventually became the head teacher, and she was tremendous and a real mentor for me. But she she managed our work life balance brilliantly, and she really set the precedent for everyone else. So she didn't necessarily stay at all, you know, ridiculous hours in the building. But she might have gone home earlier.
She might have looked after kids and then picked up work afterwards. She didn't email if I was to the people and at that time were talking, you know, I think I'm talking 2002 at that point. So it was prior to times, you know, that we have the ways of communicating and, and scheduling things as we do now.
But what she did was then give everyone else that permission to do the same, because she modeled that behavior, she set her boundaries. And by doing so and still turning up as an excellent leader, everyone else then was given permission by heart to do her behaviors. So boundaries don't necessarily need to be, something that's a negative thing, but actually also a gift that I gift other people to see.
Actually. And as long as you're not using it and abusing those boundaries, you know, and you're not, you're still delivering and you're still being the leader, the manager that you need to be, that boundaries, can make a real difference if they're done with positive intention. And being clear on what's okay and what isn't. You know, if I need some time, some ticked time to do a bit of deep dive in my work, then I'm going to see guys and blocking this time out in my calendar, you know, I quite often see in school, unless the school's burning down.
Don't interrupt me. You know, to have a big don't disturb sign on my office door, because sometimes you just need protector time to be able to do a deep bit of work. And if you don't communicate that well, and if you don't hold that expectation, then you're not setting the boundaries for you and everybody else. And it's really important that protecting that time then protects our energy and ultimately protects our focus.
And you are so much more productive when you have the boundary set around about your time. Which then help you to meet effectively, then helps you like for school. It was always, always about school improvement. So then allowed us to improve, you know, skill and the learning. And it's empowering for you as a leader, but also in painting for your team because they see you do it.
So then the Arsenal, it's alright for them to do that as well because we need to, you know, we're equals here. I might be your manager, but actually your work equals and if you need protect time to do a bit of deep work I'm going to give you that protect time. I'm gonna it's okay for you to have that.
So it's not it should never be seen. Something is.
A negative thing. But for me that the key to all is how we communicate it. Yeah. That's what I was actually going to go next was just the I agree with you, I think the communication part is massive. And I think you know if we then start thinking about how we can help to reclaim our time, you know I would be with you the, the communication is quite a big piece of that.
Yes. We can have like all the time management hacks and different things. But, you know, one of the, one of the, the, the issues I see a lot, particularly in the consulting work that I do with larger organizations, it's the way people are communicating and, and, you know, not communicating the boundaries as part of that, but also just communicating in general, like the amount of, confusion that can be generated with an email that's not, you know, if you're not taking the time to craft a good email, it can generate like even just this.
Like last week, there was an example where there was an email and it it maybe wasn't written in the best way and went to a client. And then we're having to get on calls and trying to resolve it was actually if we'd just taken the time and carved out the bit of time to allow the focus to write a proper email, it it maybe wouldn't have like escalated in the way that it yet.
And that probably comes from somebody being completely overwhelmed. They're doing everything really quickly. They're not checking the work, and they think that inefficient and they've done something quickly. And actually it's backfired. Yeah, yeah. Are there other ways that you would be suggesting, recommending when we're thinking about like reclaim, you know, how to then reclaim some of our time back?
For me, it's about looking forward and being quite. Quite intentional with our calendar. Like I do a lot of time work and, and a question I wish I could remember the person who said everything that we do takes time. So why do you not block time for it? That's a good one. Yeah. And also when our calendars are white blank pages we are inviting people to take our time.
So for me time blocking is crucial because if I have an hour's worth of emails I'm going to put an I wrote in my diary and it's blocked for emails because these emails need to be done and they need to be done within my working hours, and I need to find time to do it. So yeah, my calendar is very flexible because life's not perfect and things come in and hijack my time.
And I move that block to another time on a calendar. And that really helps me get my time back. And if I have managed to do something in less time then when when for me, I don't clear that time on my calendar. I've got some time back and that's protected time for me. And I think that we do need to be selfish with that.
And, you know, plan time for our conversations. If you if you're working virtually or you're working in an office, you might have an open door as a manager or as a leader for an hour in the morning and an afternoon so people can come and chat to you about things that they need to. But with that time, unless it's crucial and really urgent, either email me and I'll pick it up at a different time, or come see me in the next day when I've got that open.
Yeah, I don't want to open doors, but when they know that that's you're free, you're available for any conversations that need to happen about progress, about new ideas, whatever that may be. Yeah. On top of your regular one to ones and that kind of stuff that you have. You know, that's interesting because I've, I've, suggested that to a few different places recently about having, like an office hours where people can come and drop in and, you know, get that question answered or whatever, unless it was something that was genuinely an emergency.
You know, it's trying to then steer people towards those times when it works for you to be able to, to have that. And then you were saying the at about the emails, making time for it to be in your working day rather than having to do it outside of work. So I think, you know, a lot of listeners, and a lot of my, you know, peers, friends and so on, you know, we do have a busy day today, but then we also are, you know, parents, carers, you know, we've got partners.
We're also probably getting to that age now where maybe looking after elderly parents as well. Yeah. And so I think the being able to weave in so that you're actually doing your work boundaries within the work hours so that when you're because life outside of work is also demanding. Yeah, yeah. It's, life is crazy for some people.
You know, I think I'm in quite a good time. Sort of such that, you know, I've just found myself in a bit of a life void that it's it's all quite quiet. Touchwood. That stays that way. But for some people, life is incredibly busy, you know, and being your job role isn't just, just doesn't just define you.
You have what home life is like as well as working. And when they are at that, he's a human being, not a human doing. We don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. And I think that's a really important thing to remember that we have so much going on in our personal lives that if we are exhausted from our work and lives, we've got nothing to get from our personal lives.
And likewise, we need to kind of find that that balance because we're not machines. We are human. I think the key for me is to show ourselves some self-compassion. See, to think we can constantly hurt ourselves. So the next step about we're not doing things well enough. I'm not good enough. We can go down that sort of come from confirmation bias root of finding where we're not doing things well enough and we're not succeeding when actually, gosh, we are succeeding because we're juggling so many plates and still standing.
Yeah. And I think we have to find that self-compassion. We have to, stop just pushing through and hiding from the truth and actually being absolutely honest and open with ourselves. Because until we are, then we're not going to make a change. We are the only people that will make a change about how we manage our lives.
You know, I think we all are. Certainly I did with things were very, very busy in my life. Wait for somebody else to fix it. And actually, the only person that's going to fix it is ourselves. So and again, if I had fixed it and taken, you know, the right steps when things were crazy busy for me in school, I probably wouldn't have burnt out.
But I think protecting our time. Cutting out all of the unnecessary things. Really taking an introspective look in what it is that we do in our daily lives, in our personal lives and our working lives. Having a look, you know, are we spending time on stuff that's not in our control of the tool, that circle of control where you look at what you can control and then what you can influence and then what you can't control.
It makes a really good tool like we used to always use. So, I mean, it wasn't even a tool that we used. It was almost a phrase in my last team that we would see is that within your circle of control and then that, you know, immediate realization, actually, no. Well fuck it. Let's move on, because we're not going to spend any time talking about it.
It's not for us to concern ourselves, for us, and then doing these kind of, you know, that Eisenhower Matrix is a great tool for actually just deciding whether or not if something is really important for us to do, can we delegate it? Can we and, you know, offload it? Can we just not do it at all? And and even within our personal lives, like we we all feel a bit compelled to, to go to the next gym class or to, to go out with our friends when we're invited.
But actually, we probably need to just stop and reflect and see if that's right for us and help us find some balance, because it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks about how you lead your life. What really matters is how you think about how you lead your life and how it's working for you. So I think just taking that opportunity to realize that you are the only one that's going to make the change.
So what are you going to do? What are you going to do about it? Because and and work, you know, as I said before, when we model a good work life balance to our colleagues, then that creates an environment where people can do their best work and have a life. Because too often, particularly in the corporate world, you're not expected to have a life, you know, and you can be there working endless hours because it's always what people have done.
But that's not necessarily how we should be. So it's up to us as leaders to certainly model that work life balance in work, and remember to try and do the same in our personal lives as well. Yeah, I love and you know, that story topia actually talks are not necessarily great as well. But that dual awareness of you do your best work when you are rested.
Yeah. Whether whether it is invested in your work being your personal life or your professional life. So you need to find that time to rest with the eight hours of eight hours of work, hours of rest areas. So for clean eight hours of sleep and making sure that you try and get that, that balance. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
The, the the, the remote work, like, you know, we, we touched earlier, you were saying it was like 2002. And when things were like, different than what they are now and like, I certainly see the remote work, being an issue, you know, like, if you if you aren't intentional with your technology, you your phone is constantly on you, you know, you can be getting notifications.
You know, I can be sat on my laptop maybe doing something for my like, play a personal. And then there's I see like little pings coming up or whatever on teams. And I'm like, oh, what what have you found? Works for leaders who are working from home. When we think about boundaries, it's the difficult one. And I don't think it's necessarily for leaders solely set up, to be honest.
I think it's everybody but supports making sure you do your absolute best to just be on in working hours. So when the end of the day comes, pick it out of office or and turn your notifications off. These are, you know, simple things that we can do to stop us being distracted by work during our office hours. I think that's key.
And I think that's something that we should model. I, I have I've got divided opinion about working hours. And, you know, I think when we went into lockdown, people were very much, well, I work best, best in the evening or at night. So that's what I'm going to do. I work and I still think there should be some autonomy for when we, if we are working remotely, how we do that.
But I think with that autonomy, we also need to be available if need be. So you have to be available during the time that the rest of your team are working. But also you need to remember to use the scheduling tools now so that people are not expected to answer an email at night time. I really don't like, you know, that sort of the message that goes out that says, I'm working at this time because it suits me.
Please do not feel you have to respond to this email at this time. I just don't think that's right with scheduling tools. Now, if you're going to write an email at night time by apps, by all means do it. But schedule it for 9:00, fearful in the morning when it lands. And if that's your racket hours, you know, whenever your working hours are.
I think that's an expectation that should be there for everybody. Work when you need to work. But, make sure that you're not impinging on other people's time. Because let's face it, if these other people don't have the notifications off, they are going to be distracted by that. And there is going to feel that compulsion of having to respond.
Yeah. And and even if you don't, if you're a people pleaser again, like me, that's going to eat away at you all night. Yes. Yeah I agree. Yeah I use this scheduling when I'm like, yeah, if I know someone's like on vacation. But I've, I'm remembering oh I must ask them this. I'll write the email but schedule it for when they come back.
Yeah. And that's so that it's there. And then again, you know. Yeah, sometimes there are the odd evening when I'm on my own and I'm working from home and I'm catching up on a couple of bits. But yeah, I would then write the email, but then just schedule it to send the next morning. Yeah. And I think that's the whole point of using whatever platform it is you use for your work.
I think one thing about remote being a leader remotely is remembering to still stay connected with your your teams, and you know, whatever. So for me, I use Microsoft. I obviously other brands of ways and ways of keep it connected. But just you know, having second regularly with your people so that they still know that you're there because being remote does not mean that you're not connected.
And I think as a leader, it's crucial that you still stay connected with your people. So the odd, you know, the odd conversation just off, you know, for example, my my husband's work and his previous employment, these two meet for half an at 9:00 and half an hour at 1:00 every day. And the either we talk about cases in hand or they would just sit with a cup of coffee, but they were connected whilst they were remote.
And I think that that connection is still really key, so that you feel that you're part of a team and you're part of a community and that you have an opportunity to collaborate and you're actually just having your what would be office chat through your electronic device. But it's like Microsoft Teams. If you've got a teammate in your diary to do something, then your availability is going to shoot everybody else.
If you're not available because the systems are linked to your calendar, and then that is key for your boundaries as well. So you're for your protected time. So keeping your calendar up to date with what you're doing is really, you know, people don't see exactly what the content is. You can just show that you're busy. But it also then creates clear parameters for your teams that you're not available to chat at that point.
Yeah, yeah. So important. What a great conversation. I have got some quick fire, questions for you as part of my, my new segment, which is called the Take the Time Crunch. And, it was my son that came up with that name, and I think it's great. So the first one is, if you could wave a magic wand and help every leader adopt one habit or one mindset shift, what would it be?
And we can maybe make this an extended one and add why? Yeah. Well, I've spoken a lot about my calendar and I would actually see. Make your calendar your most important tool in your leadership toolbox.
Because we can't be strategic as a leader if we're stuck in operational under the chaos. So if we are intentional with our time and we don't have all that white space for people to fill up, then we're able to use our time to leverage, you know, time as a leverage as a leader. And we need to be able to use that time to lead well.
So I think if our calendars are one of the most important assets we have, we need to use them more effectively. I love that so much. Yeah, I, I'm with you. I think it's, it's interesting the number of people that actually don't use their calendar like, they know they work maybe with a to do list or whatever, and then maybe have, like the odd meeting in their calendar, but they're not using their calendar like, I'm with you all the way.
I don't even have a to do list. Like if I feel like in my desk, there's no set. Not set, not but not to do anything. Because every time I block something, I'll put a little actually just use the word in brackets. And then I need to go to the notes of that meeting that I've put my calendar.
And that's where all my reminders are of what I need to do in that block. I've got menopausal brain, etc. I don't hold things very well, I forget, so I might in the middle of the night, wake up, send myself an email which has got a quite often do, so then I can go back to sleep without worrying.
And that email contains everything. And then I just turn that into a calendar appointment, find when I'm going to do it, and it's all there for me. Yeah. So I just I use it as my to do list. And obviously somebody has got an important meeting in the can't find a time in my calendar. I'm going to make time for them.
And they just need to, you know, ask me for that. But otherwise every minutes allocated to a task. And I think that's really key to us as leaders and to just, you know, members of our team, every minute of your time should be allocated a task, whether that is reflection, whether that's deep focused strategic work, whether that's emails, whether that's meetings.
And it's not about micromanaging, it's about realizing our calendars are not white paper. We're busy. Yeah. So much good stuff here. So that my next quickfire was then what, a business tool or app that you can't live without. Maybe it's the calendar, then, if we already answered that. Well, is that actually, I'm going to. I'm going to confess.
This might be no surprise to you as a solopreneur. It's ChatGPT. And actually it is chat to me because it saves me so much time. You know, I work for myself by myself. I don't have any freelancers working for me, so actually behaves like my own p m and when I'm overwhelmed with my to do list of stuff and I can't get clarity because my brain's to fill, then I just ask the right questions and it gives me a starting point.
And quite often that starting point, all I need, you know, just a need a little. It's almost like my peers sitting next to me in the office, you might see. Or have you thought about that? And it plays the same role for me. And I find that really useful. And it saves me so much time. Yeah. Amazing. I love it too.
I use it a lot. We. What is your weirdest time saving hack?
I think it's that better by actually putting all the detail into into the appointment. It's not really anything, you know, awful, exciting or weird. It's just that I don't know anybody else who manages a calendar like that. And I think I'm perhaps not talking to you. I'm not. But like other people, people think that that's what we are.
Try with pi, I do that, I would, I just have a notepad but but to do list I actually put in my to do list saves me so much time worrying about something or trying to remember what I'm going to do. And when you're juggling lots of plates, you do easily forget, particularly with the of course I'll be in what is Europe meant to be doing in that time.
So actually having a very clear saves me can save was 20 minutes of thinking. You know we can sort of that paper that I think I might have put something dynamic to it, you know. So it's a small shift, but it's quite an impactful one when it comes to being productive. Yeah, yeah. It's so true. I talk a lot about, you know, like a to do list on its own will not help you get stuff done.
You need it with your calendar because you might start the day, you know, and I hear lots of people talk about, you know, what are your top three things for the day or what's the, you know, what's your five things that you're going to do today? But if you've got a back to back day of meetings, there's no way that five things are going to fit in that day.
Yeah. And and then you just end the day not having done the things on your to do list. And you feel really bad about yourself. What is actually if you use the two together and make the space in the calendar to actually do the thing, like what you do. Shannon, then I think it works a little better. I'm sure that are easier ways to do it.
But you know, I, I use what works for me because I actually really don't have the time to put my head into other stuff. So as I say, don't do not fix what's not broken. Yeah. You know, it works well for me. Yeah, I love it. And then lastly, given we've been talking a lot about boundaries, what is one boundary you will never apologize for and protect and the one how to.
Maybe.
You know, a quick story. I mentioned at the start that we have a, a basement team in the Highlands as well. I'm very fortunate to have a second home up there. He covered. We would go up every weekend middle of nowhere. I had no internet. We didn't have Wi-Fi at that time. And no signal. So I could never work up there.
And we went most weekends. So for me, that was my protected wellbeing time. I couldn't work, so I gave my all Monday to Friday. The really go over the night of me at that point, but I had that space and time to just be to be that human being and that mental clarity that comes from having that rest time is really important.
So for me, I will always do my best. And when I have wife, I have had to prioritize and I approach it slightly differently now. But taking the time to rest so I can turn up as my best person is, for me, the most important thing. And I'll never apologize for that. Yeah, I love that. Mine's similar.
My my answer would be sleep. That's so. Yeah, yeah. I do not compromise on my sleep. No, no. Yeah. I've got to say it. Yeah. That comes into my kitchen and I'm. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so, so much for joining me and sharing all of your wisdom and stories and things. Is there anything else that you would like to share that we haven't already covered?
I, I think we've, we've covered it, but I think it's really important actually. People stop and be self compassionate because an effort to get anything away from this conversation, you're the only person that can make those changes. Yeah. So how do you do that. And ask yourself regularly how you do it. And if you can practice some time on a weekly basis to look at your your calendar, to look at your week and actually see what you could have done differently to be able to gain some time back.
I think that's important. And unless we block that time out, we're not going to do that. So that has to be something that we consider as important to do. Yeah. Love that. Where we are so aligned, you and I and like our approach to all of this that that I yeah I get all my clients to do that as well.
Yeah. I think it's key that we don't do enough. And I think we need to give ourselves permission to do that. Yeah. I agree, and where can all the listeners find you, Sharon. Where where will they find you? Still got my website. Is dot on your leadership dot quarter UK. And if you click along to the links back there, you will get the links to me on Instagram, on LinkedIn and my email contact numbers and everything that's going on really for me at that given moment in time.
So it's probably the best place to find me amazing. I will make sure that that is in the show notes as well. Thank you again for joining me. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for having me. It's been a great chat. Thank you so much.
Thank you for listening to Own Your Time. If you have enjoyed today's episode, maybe you've been nodding along, taking some notes. Do me a favor and leave a quick review or a comment or, hit the like button. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, whatever options you have, please do so. It really does help. And I would also love it if you could share this with someone who needs a little bit more calm in their calendar.
Until next time. Bye for now.