Nobody Panic - How to Reclaim Your Time Off with Fab Giovanetti

Episode Date: August 17, 2021

As the lines between rest and work become increasingly blurred and we're constantly encouraged to monetise our hobbies, how can we carve time that's just for us, and crucially, learn to relax and actually enjoy it? The brilliant Fab Giovanetti, author of Reclaim Your Time Off: The Three-Step Solution to Overworking, walks us through her three step solution to making your time belong to you again. Follow Fab on Instagram and Twitter: @fabgiovanettiBuy Fab's book Reclaim Your Time Off: The 3-step Solution to Overworking here.Want to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded and edited by Naomi Parnell for Plosive.Photos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Follow Nobody Panic on Twitter @NobodyPanicPodSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The date is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace. It's coming to London. True on Saturday the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true. Saturday the 13th of September at King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Nobody Panic. With me, Stevie, and my good pal, what's your name? My name is Tessa Coates. Is it? Yes. And today, we're not alone because we are doing an episode about how to reclaim your time off. And as two people, look, I don't want to just speak for myself. No, I do want to just speak for myself. I don't want to speak for both of us, but I'm terrible at doing it. And I felt like, we need to have an expert coming in. So we've got expert of reclaiming time off. And all of the book, reclaim your time off, the three-step solution to overworking. Fab, Giavanetti. Welcome to Nobody Panic, Fab. Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to be here. We thought we'd start by just sort of, I wanted to ask you, Tessa, do you feel like you're, you use your time off in a good way? I'll just, I don't. That's me done. Do you? No, and I think that is not at all unique to the modern, the modern working person, or not.

On work, like, I just think it's such a modern thing that we, any moment, any time I have any time off, I'm just thinking of what I should be doing with it. And I think increase, especially if you're freelance and therefore, and you might think that being freelance means it's like, you're all, you can holiday any time you want and you can holiday time anytime, but you're always thinking, I should be at work. So you never really enjoy your time off because you're just thinking what you should be doing with it. And then you're just constantly thinking about all the stuff you have to get done. And so I've never really, truly ever been like, oh, now the only times I ever have it are on a plane or on a train, which is why I like to travel so much, because you're like, I literally

cannot be doing anything else. I think it's why people like to watch love to like watch movies on a plane because you're like, I literally could not be doing anything else. I just have to sit back and be served some nuts. No one can get to me. No one can get to me. This is my totally guilt-free time. But apart from that, nothing. And so Fab, is this something that you found, like what brought you to writing this book? Probably the fact that I am the first person to have had this issue for a very long time, as since I started working, which was, I was very young. Like the stereotype of the Italian that you imagine like, you know,

the parents kind of living in the work in the countryside, that was kind of the vibe. But I enjoyed it and, you know, I could pay for stuff when I was like a teenager. I wanted to pay for my laptop, for my camera. So I worked from a very young age and I enjoyed them and also did a lot of creative work as soon as I could, which means I found that I would love to do things I was passionate about. The problem is I have an idea per second, which means then I kind of want to pursue every idea that I have. And that ended up being realizing around my own business, actually two businesses. So it came about five years ago. I realized that I would work about 60 hours a week pretty much

because I was running so many things. And then I stopped and I was like, I left the conveyor belt, the corporate ladder, collie as you wish, because I didn't want to, I wanted to live the life that I wanted to lead, and now I'm finding myself just constantly chasing the next thing to do. And I realized that that's what I do as a Taipei person, that was my pattern, and I was like, there has to be a better way. And the more I taught other people out to do that, you know, you teach where you need to learn the most. And the more I realized that there were patterns, and the patterns became what the book is about, is actually the solution is all about the things that we struggle with

but also there's a lot of mindset like you were both talking about kind of being on an airplane there's a reason why hairplane mode can become a blessing sometimes it's like bam no notification no distractions nothing and it kind of it's almost getting back to be comfortable with doing nothing

again I don't know I want to ask you actually how do you feel if I tell you how do you feel when you literally let's say your phone your battery goes off you are maybe like walking in the park or you're walking the dog or the pet toe toys which might be weird to walk a turtle, but there we go. You know, think

about how we feel when that happens. It happened to me a couple of months ago, and I felt a bit disoriented and confused, and I was like, I shouldn't feel this way just because they got nothing to do or nothing to distract me. But you know what I mean? We'll never have like a night off or it's like, oh, look at my daughter and like, oh, Monday is pretty

empty. I essentially just have a panic attack. Like, and like try and organize something. Like, get a friend round And then if I do anything that isn't like, you know, you could be learning a language for God's sake. You know, you don't know how to play piano yet. Like all of the, and I think that comes from, actually I don't know where it comes from. But like, for me, it comes from constantly when I was younger, being in living in London, not being able to pay my rent and constantly like being like at every point I could be making some money to help me to live. And then when you kind of go like, oh, actually I can kind of financially maybe, you might be a little bit better.

It doesn't matter. You're still like, but what if it goes? So you'll never be. And so that's like, that's coming from within. That's got nothing to do with my surroundings that I need to be better at. Just going like, hey, I'll read a book rather than constantly be just like not being able to read the books. I'm like, yeah, but this is a waste of, write a book. Write a book rather than reading it.

Yeah, yeah. The phone turning off thing. Like I, my phone is so broken. And currently it's like basically attached to like sort of an iron lung at the moment. It's like attached to like a battery pack that has to go with it like at all times. Like I can't. It always has to be on its life support machine. And whenever the battery does turn off, it's an immediate panic of like, what if people need me?

Even though so far no one has ever needed me. Like I'm not an on-call doctor. Like no one has ever called with an emergency. There is no like track record of like somebody needed me and I wasn't available. Like people that don't need me. And yet I'm like, it's immediate as soon as the phone turns off of being like, oh, you know? And even though like, where does, like, where does that come from? Like, you know, there's not like in, it's not like I have a history of that and that happened to me.

And so now I make sure I always have the phone available. It's like it's never happened. You must find this fab is that the world is set up sometimes to make us feel like that, regardless of what job you do, whether it's a work, WhatsApp group that you'll get WhatsApp at like 9pm. And if you don't respond to that, well, someone else will take up that brief and you've now missed out. Or interestingly, you mentioned that you're a type A person. I know nothing about. this. So what are the different types of person? The good thing about the spectrum of how we are, obviously I call myself a type A. It's kind of funny when you kind of label yourself, you're not exactly sure what that means. And it's one of those things, but what I realize is because obviously

the A, I think, comes from achievers. Again, don't quote me on it, but I guess that's part of it. So obviously, type A, you associate with people that are high achievers. And it really does depend on like your energy levels, but also some of your priorities and values in a way that for a lot of people that are quite ambitious, obviously there's ambition and success, whatever that might be, is one of the priorities. But then you have other people that have other type of priorities, like family, friends, adventure. And it kind of shapes, obviously, how you want to live your life. And I think that's one of the things that we don't realize. And what I love where you mention that, because it goes back to some patterns that have always been there and the lack of

boundaries, which now has become a conversation that a lot of us have. But my question that I head when I wrote the book a while back right before the big, the big P is over the past, let's say, year or a year and a half, boundaries were something that was broken because we realized that we needed them because there were no external boundaries that could stop us from saying, I can't talk right now because I'm on the tube or I'm in a meeting, so I am not available. Because physical boundaries of commuting, work, activities, social activities were gone. We were available. We were available. We were available 24-7 and it takes roughly between 21 to 63 days to set a habit. Think about having a whole year of that. So we completely change the way that we have expectations of the people around

us, whether it's social life, whether it's work. It doesn't really matter. The expectations have changed as has happened in a very subtle way. Nobody told us, by the way, this is what we want you to do. It just naturally occurred that you will be on Slack if you're not on Slack, you're on email if you're not even on WhatsApp. And then we realized, oh, shit, we need boundaries. So, you know, when you think about that, you realize that the boundary conversation came up because for all year, we had none. There was no excuses. We had to create new boundaries and actually have different conversations with friends, family and colleagues and bosses because now we're available 24-7. And even now the things are coming back the other way. And obviously, a new normal is approaching and

where going back to work, offices, social life, we still have to be aware that these new norms, these new habits are now in place. So we need to think about, okay, how can I actually now prioritize myself a bit more? Because about a whole year where that hasn't happened, you know, people living in like a one room bed apartment with all of their family and no way to actually have a bit of a break.

All of these things, you know, then become routines. So it's a big conversation and it's something that I think was always there, for a lot of us, but because collectively everybody had to face it. And I were like, oh, wait, yes, some things need to change. And it's really good to see that. How much of it is about saying no to things? I would say, even before the saying no, is about communication, even before that, because a lot of the time, when I ask people, like, whether it's clients, or even people that read the book, and it's like, you know, how can I set better boundaries? And I ask, okay, which areas of your life do you need to send boundaries of? And it's like, maybe it's personal life. And I ask, okay,

Have you talked to your friends or have you talked to your spouse or whoever about where you're struggling or about how you live your life or your own kind of expectations? Why would I do that? So when you don't vocalize, then you don't really know where. It's almost imagine it as a two-way conversation. If you don't understand, I'll give you this example that might help. I was working with a client and she said to me at some point we were talking like in a meeting and she said to me, I'm so impressed that you don't respond to emails on a Saturday.

today. And I was a bit taken aback. I was like, it's a weekend. I don't check my emails on a weekend. It's just the way I am. And she was generally like, this is a great boundary. And I'm like, to me it's natural. It's just the way that I've always been doing things. So once you have that communication, then you understand that then it's easier to say no or it's easier to find compromises. But we need to appreciate that other people might break your boundaries and not respect them because for them, they are not a boundary in the first place. I don't know if it's making sense. And then you can start saying yes and no. But a lot of of the time when you do that, then also you feel less uncomfortable about saying no, because you understand what you're standing as well. That's a good, yeah, that's a really good way of putting it. You've sort of drawn your own lines. So then, okay, occasionally you might go, well, on this, you know, this instance, maybe I will, but you've got your base level, which is that you don't check an email on the Saturday or whatever. How, what can people do to start reclaiming their bedtime? So let's plunge in, plunge in to step one. Plunge in.

Excellent. So the step one, actually there's a step zero. Sorry, we're going to take it back. Back up. We played it too hard. Everyone out of the water. Yeah, ready. Step zero.

Dipping in, dipping in. Step zero is actually the one that everybody's terrified about, which is, let's say about work. Obviously, we're talking about work first, especially in the book. But write down everything you do on a given week for work. And I wanted to write it all down and start seeing really multi-hyphen people like ourselves might actually be cringing at this because it becomes more of a mind filled. But first of all, bring the awareness to what are you actually doing during your week?

Because all of us have said at least once, oh God, you know, I've got nothing done today. And then when I talk to people, I'm like, no, actually, you replied to 17 emails, you did this little thing, you responded to that person. So really starting to understand where is your time going. If you want to reclaim your time, you need to know where your time is going. that's step zero. God, yeah. Tessa's literally like, show me anxiety. That'll be a big job for Tessa.

I just, my shoulder, look at me. My shoulders are up, way up by my ears. I just like, that's so, because people say like, what do you do in the day? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, okay. And often when I do say like a specific thing to Tessa, like,

oh, what have been doing this afternoon? Like, oh, a bits and bombs in the thing. And I thought I had a carrot. You're like, okay. Like, so I suppose if you're unable to, I mean, I'm the same. Like, I will, I'm very much a person at the end of the day. I'd be like, well, I didn't do anything today because in my head I haven't achieved the one thing maybe I wanted to achieve, but I did do other things.

But I'm very down on myself all the time and I'm always like, well, like genuinely, I'm like, well, so if I've got like a big job on, I'd be like, yes, but I could have got up earlier and worked on my novel. Like, realistically, you've got to sleep and also you don't have to do, like, that's fine that you didn't do that, you know, you've got to be like, but then I suppose if I was truly reclaiming my time off, maybe I would get up early in my novel. Anyway, look, I'm jumping ahead. We don't know, Steve, because we're only on step zero. I'm sorry, I'm in the bottom of the deep end trying to fetch a brick. Get back on the shore for God's sake. Okay, ready. Step zero, write it down.

What are we actually doing with the day? What is, we can't reclaim the time until we know what our time is spent doing. Exactly. And then you do that, you know, you have maybe candles, music, bubbly, whatever you want when you're doing this gorgeous exercise, just get it done, make it enjoyable as much as you can. Just to give you an idea of why it's so helpful, you can do a simple exercise first, which is the brother, done list. So I have a do list of things that I need to get done, but also have a physical done list. And every day I write down everything I do. Once it's done, I've write it down. The days that I do that, I feel more in control or how much I've done during the days. The days that I don't because I forget.

And I still struggle because mentally, this is how our brain works. So we really struggle to actually recall everything that we have done. We tend to always look forward, right? So I started doing the done list because that's my biggest problem, is literally being able to quantify and kind of feel kind of controlled. And so that's an example of why actually writing everything down is going to help you, because then you actually retain the information. So that's the broader little thing.

And do you do that at the end of the day, like as you're going to sleep? Or do you, as it's happening, do you write them down everything as it's done? You did it and then you just write it down. Test, I'm a goldfish. I don't remember the thing. If I wait too long. So it happens. And it's not enough just to tick it off.

We've got to physically write it out again, yeah? I personally prefer that. There's loads of studies about the retention as well of actually writing things down. We don't do that enough anymore. Well, there'll be stuff on your to-do list that you write down. There'll be stuff that you do in the day that is on top of your to-do list, like that, you know, that comes up within the day that you couldn't have a plan for.

So I suppose you're done list. That's why you then maybe write it down. So you were like, oh, that person emailed me and I had to email them back. That wasn't on my to-do list. because that just kind of care of it. So maybe that's life came at me while I was planning to do something else. And you just see it. And I think that's the other thing. You can actually start seeing it. And then it also helps you then understanding how many things you can down realistically in a day. Let's say, let's go back to the novel writing maybe as a thing. If that's the one thing that you want to do,

but you have 20 things in your to-do list, as you start writing what you've done doing the day, you might see that you don't even get to do five other things that were supposed to be there. and you can start being a bit more kind to yourself of how many things you put on the day and start ranking them as well so that really really helps so that helps you sorting out what you have that might help as well with your thing

Tessa where you'll be like you know like yeah I can do I can do this and this and this in 20 minutes and then when it actually turns out you know that was like go to the gym make lunch reply to five emails and that's like in a 20 minute period you can't you can't do that

so I suppose that is like you'd be able to look back and go like, oh, that's realistically what I could get done and you can like fit that in the future. And same with me. I mean, of course. To be honest, like, it is really hard and I think that's why the reflection point, which is probably the least sexy point is important. And that's why it's step zero. And then it helps you doing the rest because then one, two, and three are the three steps that actually are related to the different tasks that you do. So let me explain. One, two and three are simplify, delegate or automate. And the beauty of a lot of these things is then you can do them also for your personal life afterwards. So what you will do once you look at all the tasks that you're doing,

and again, I'm a bit of an OCD, so like it's a bit of color coding maybe for me. There's a bit of ranking, just figure out what's going on. But then you can actually start seeing there will be tasks, like again, recording a podcast or even writing or, you know, I don't know, auditioning, whatever that might be. These might be in your zone of genius. You will find there are a handful of tasks that are the ones that you really love doing, that you prioritize. And those tasks you don't really want touch. I call them again in the book, The Zone of Genius. But then there's a lot of tasks like emails, accounting, joy. It can be anything, like even people that maybe have a very simple job, you might still have some things like communication elements that you find that are still in

there and you want to understand what is the best next step that I can take for this task to make it easier for myself and to actually reclaim that time. And this is where you get your choice. Can I simplify? Can I delegate or can I automate this? task. And this is where you go through the different tasks that are not in your zone of genius, not the tasks that are the ones that you love, the ones you're passionate about, the ones that you do more naturally and faster. So zone of genius might be things that you definitely have to get done or that you just want to get done. I would add them to the ones that you have to get done because when it comes to jobs. It's like happy tasks on your list. You're like, they're good.

Oh, I'm looking forward to doing that. Yeah, exactly. It's like the things that you do because you love them, but also the ones that help you pay the bills. I always recommend to start with work because then once you can do that, then you can tackle your personal life because that is a whole other kettle of fish as well. And then you go through and you say, can I simplify this?

Which usually is, again, in the book I talk about little tactics as well. But this is the simplest thing you can do anyway, like when it comes to simplifying, because it can be anything from grouping, it can be anything from actually kind of looking at the task and actually breaking it down a bit more. It can be prioritizing as well. So a lot of the time simplifying is

easiest job, but also requires you to actually get through it and understanding how to do that. Delegating and automating are the ones that, you know, you have to figure out a bit more, but to be honest, once you set them up, it's so much easier because you're literally giving it to somebody else or to another tool. So, you know, when it comes to delegating, that could be team members, virtual assistants, hiring somebody, depends on the job that you do, but if somebody around it, they can actually take some of these tasks off your back. And that's obviously the the main thing about it. But I would say that's the thing. Like if you can delegate like an area almost of what you do that you're really fun, you're struggling. For me, it's been accounting

since day one. I have an accountant who I love and like like literally I worship. And she helps me because I know that's one of my big like, you know, lax. It's one of the things areas that I don't feel comfortable about. So I would see delegation is a big thing. And again, if you want to go from a personal life perspective to reclaim your time when it comes to obviously personal life, that's where maybe involving your family, your spouse, your partners into some of the things that you do can be really helpful. So that's where you really think about delegating in different areas of your life. It's a tricky one to get your head around, isn't it? Because I think we're so, if you can do something like yourself, like if you can, I mean, you can technically do everything yourself.

And then you're like, well, I'm not paying somebody else to do that for me because inherently in a lot of the delegation or the automation will be a financial, you know, it will probably cost you more to do the thing. or if someone else does this thing for you. And then you think like, no, I'll save that however much money because I can do that. But it's like, but if it cost you, it costs 12 pounds to do, but it took you 24 hours straight through to do it, that is 50 pence an hour and you would have been better off going to work for an hour. You know, like if you actually, and I think that's a very tricky thing, especially, you know, regardless of where your financial state is, if you aren't very numerically minded and you aren't good at being like, okay how many hours will this actually take me to do what is my time worth whereas you know what can

I pay somebody to do I um I recently did it because I was trying to do a complicated thing in a in a word document and I didn't have word and I was like be damned if I'm going to pay for the word on Mac I can do this and I was like and I started doing I was like see this is fine I can do this by hand and then I was like and then I eventually like sort of calculate I was like this will take me like 60 hours And then I was like, pay, just pay for it. Just pay. You don't have 60 hours of your life. You know, just pay the money. Let somebody else do this for you. Take that time back. You, you know, go and make that money doing something else that you could do in your zone of genius, whatever. But I think it is so instinctive to be like, nope, I'll do it myself for free, thank you.

And I was like, where is that line about like, it's free? Sure, it didn't cost you anything, but it cost you your time and your time is sort of all you have. And also, as well, I suppose people who are listening who are like, well, I can't, you know, I've been in the situation and I'm often in this situation. I was like, well, I actually can't pay anyone to do anything. And then that's why it's so hard sometimes because you see people being like, yeah, I have a cleaner. And you're like, cool. I can't. But I suppose there will be other ways you can delegate.

Like you said, flatmate, partner, your sister who lives around the corner, and she's kind of got some time in her hands, would you mind this week helping me out? I think people feel very uncomfortable, especially in this country, asking for help. And I think it's so important that we get more comfortable doing it. Because the worst that happens is they go, oh, I can't. And you go, no worries, that's, you know, that's it. We've got a bit of a, I don't know, a bit more time now, maybe a couple of hours we've managed to claw back in the day because my sister's come around and done my laundry, which is great.

I'm looking after our child, but, you know, it's just like a slightly unfair switch, but that's fine. My problem is that then I don't know what to do in that time. You're still thinking, I should, okay, I've got it. I've got two hours. I should do the most productive thing I possibly. can do. I'll do more work. That's probably why the book has got the carrot and the stick. And you will think, actually, which one do you think is the carrot? Do you think is the conversation about mindset is like what drives people in? Or is the little hacks and tips that drives people in?

Oh, yeah. I guess like the hacks and tips. That's what people want. People want to save the time. And if I created a book and I've wrote a book that was just about that, people would love the sound of it. But then after two months, there will be probably back to square one. because you're like, yeah, what did I do with this book? So the first half of the book is all about understanding what, like, your values in general. That's like a big conversation, I know. But also what does success mean to you? What are you trying to achieve and what goals you have?

Because that is the big part of it. Whether you say, I want to work just two days a week because I'm still a stay-a-home mom, but I want to do a side-assel or I want to do a little job or whatever it is. And you feel actually, by doing that, I will be able to work a bit, but then spend a lot more time with my children and have fun and whatever. That is starting to understand really what your values are and what a successful day is to you. A successful day is a day that I can spend two hours doing coloring books with my kids or whatever that is.

Or it's a day where I can actually have a full hour of adventure every day out in the woods. I don't know. It's just the little things and rituals that we can build around our day that really kind of can fill our soul. Nobody's going to be like at the end of their days thinking about, oh, I wish I worked more that spreadsheet like in 1995. That was a great day. Why didn't I do that? You're not going to think about that. You know, I'd say I wish I did that. I'd spend more time on my spreadsheet or I spend more time on a word document. So the mindset thing is the hardest bit of the work that we have to do and

realizing how do we want to live our life? Once you understand that, then you have enough motivation to make a bit more of that time for yourself. I talk about being bored in the book and why that's actually such a great thing. Because once you get used to these things to actually to play, to be bored, to just like empty your mind the touch, then you'll see that these things will come to you. But we're too busy to even think about it. So it's really like not robbing yourself of your time, which is the most precious thing we have. That's very helpful, especially for me, that it's okay to be bored because I think the moment I feel bored, I feel like I've failed with my downtime. Tell me a bit more about the importance of being bored. Like, why do we need to be

board. Have you ever heard of chronotypes? No. So it's a very fancy word and then I'm like, what? It's just a fancy word to explain, again, and I'm going to say non-fancy way, so apologies for the very basic explanation. But it talks about like how we deal with our circadian rhythms and our energy levels throughout the day. And there's some incredible books, one from Daniel Pink and one from Michael Browse, which again, I wish I remembered exactly the names of them. But they talk about chronotypes. And people will recognize them, if I see. say early bird, night towel, and another few in between, because we know those two, but actually most people are not early birds or night towels. Most people have two energy dips. So what we see

from the chronotypes is that we all work at different energy levels. So I'm doing a little wave with my hand, if you can imagine it in your head. And you will imagine that the time that we're most creative, that we're most excited, were great ideas, is the time that we have our most focused time of the day, right? The peak of the mountain, imagine it, or the wave. It actually is not. what happens is that we have peaks and then we have a little surge we go down and that's where we are a bit more tired and then there's a time we're coming back up so obviously like again it goes as a wave the time that we're most creative the time that we actually that our creative juices are working the most is the time after that surge so our body is naturally like relax and then after that we're going back and before we get to that peak because the peak time is where our most focus most analyze like when we're very analytical then

and this is where you want to do the focused work. But when it comes to having ideas or maybe even wanting to be stimulated by reading, by music, it's really that time right after we take the break, which we should. Most people don't when they're getting tired. But if you do, then there's a magic moment, right, when you're coming back up, where your creativity bursts and when you are more receptive.

Basically, if you were to literally rest and let's say be bored, you know, if you were to actually do less, take a break, take a walk. This is one of the reasons. There are a few like reasons and studies about why you have the best ideas in the shower, right? But it always goes back to kind of making that space and allowing that distraction and that time. And just from boredom, you can get, again, great ideas. You can actually get proper rest. You can, is the time that you are more stimulated to do fun things for yourself. Chronotypes teach us a lot, not just about how we work, but also why we do things in a different way. That's amazing. I was just thinking there about the idea of rest.

Like there's a study. And this came out of the Soviet Union. So, you know, take from it to what you wish. But about sort of like improving productivity in workers who I think were like moving iron girders. Like that was their day. You moved iron girders from one place to another. We've all done it. Who among us have not moved an iron girder?

And they were sort of working themselves. You know, you started at 8 a.m. You finished at 8pm and you just like carried on until you were totally exhausted. Various scientists arrived when they like sort of started being interested in studying like rest and what it meant. And they moved half the group. And they moved the iron girder for 20 minutes. Then you had to stop regardless of, you know, what you'd achieved. And then you had to be completely still for 10 minutes. And everyone just had to stand there. And initially everyone was like, this is the stupidest experiment I've ever seen. Everyone all just stood here where we could be

moving the girders. And then it's like, start the clock. Let's go again. And they, the results were like astronomical. It was like, I was hundreds of percent more that you could achieve if you were like forced to stop and to rest and to regroup. We're like, and now we go again rather just like pushing yourself constantly through exhaustion, you know, the working day is like, we go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Rather than being like, we go for a bit, I pause. And now I'll be at my best again for a bit. And now I pause.

Rather than this sort of like pushing ourselves to burn out every single day idea. What are the signs that you are overworking? You know, we talk a lot about burnout. And I was just wondering if you knew of any signs that people can kind of watch out for, that they kind of need to stop. One of the problems or one of the things with burnout or even just that overworking feeling is that it might present differently for different people. Now, I've lived with anxiety for 20 years of my life. So I can understand when I'm going to a point where I cannot take things anymore.

But so many people actually experience this level of anxiety for the very first time in the last couple of years. One of the problems and one of the things is that when it comes from getting into with your body and starting to trust how you feel, that is going to be very different for everyone. because again we all have different experience with like actually our brain trying to tell us to stop. There are a couple of things that you can ask yourself like pretty much what you have mentioned in Stevie as well is can you remember the last time that you took an actual break?

Like, you know, like think about this past week when did you take a proper break for work that was on your lunch and also your lunch wasn't at the desk? You know, what did you do for that break? I usually literally what I do, I'll go out and walk in nature at least three times the day even if it's like 20 minutes because I know. I could say to myself

oh well there was that kind of couple of hours yesterday where I didn't really do much. You're like, yes, but I was thinking about work and being annoyed that I wasn't working. I suppose it's the difference between that and being like, I'm having a break now where I'm not allowed to think of anything to do with work. I'm going to look at some birds outside. And I suppose that little subtle thing doesn't feel very different. But actually when you do it, it makes all the difference. It's like the last time you kind of went like, I'm not working at all.

That is a big sign as well. So I think that there's an element of if you can start to recognize some physical signs, especially if you kind of like keep pushing it. That will be a great way. And that's that. But the thing for me is that when you get to the point, probably a bit too late. So you want to start understanding how can you kind of set some of the practices? And literally the biggest question that I ask everyone is like, where's the last time you had a break? And what do you do during that break? And when I ask the people the question, after a few times, they will be like, no, yeah, I was thinking about work still. So it happens. It's quite natural for us. And I think it's It's almost one of my favorite tips when it comes to that is just rekindle with hobbies. But hobbies that are real hobbies, no hobbies that you do because it's kind of a hobby, but it's not because you still want to get paid for it. Like, I don't know, podcast. I know that is a big thing, especially for us when you run one. But maybe you do a podcast as a hobby.

And sometimes I'm questioning these creator things. It still is probably part of your job. So can you actually think about some things that you do just because you want to, not because you're tracking, you know, your runs, not because you are like doing it with a purpose. because you're following a training plan. We need to rekindle with spontaneity as well. And once we can do that, then it's not just a case of taking the breaks. We actually are taking the break for real when we're doing it.

So, you know, go with the body first, but also think about just what is your day looking like. And my last thing that I would say is, do you know when your end of work day time is? That's another big sign of what we're working. Like, does it change? Is it there? Do you check your emails at 10 because you're like,

God, I forgot to tell X, Y, Z about this. That is a big one. You know, all of these little things will start giving you a bit of a picture where you're at right now and what do you need to focus on. Yeah, and also, like, Gmail hasn't helped anything with that scheduling feature because it just means that I just send emails all the way through the night, but schedule them for, like, cool times the next day. So they aren't on the hour, so no one thinks of schedule them.

So it doesn't look like it was scheduled. 832 AM. Hello, we've all done it. She was up and about. Yeah, but not too early. So, yeah, there's so many things that are kind of pulling you in the wrong direction and trying to make you this kind of productivity machine, but you're not. And yeah, we need to kind of remind ourselves. It's a lot.

Yeah, it's so, oh, God. I hope my help. I feel like I give you so much. It's so massive, isn't it? Because I think the sort of reclaiming the time is in two very distinct things, that one is this like, you know, the simplify, auto. automate, delegate, what am I actually doing? What is at the time I want to reclaim for myself? What can I put in place? How can I simplify it? Business, business, business. But then it's like, okay, then it's the second wave, which is like mentally, how can I reclaim this time for myself?

Because I'm doing the, I'm doing the relaxing hobby, but I'm thinking about work. It's both the boundaries that you set with other people, but also the boundaries you have to set for yourself within yourself. For yourself. For yourself. And I think that's almost like a harder battle to to win. Reclaim your time. It's in all good bookstores. I cannot wait to go and read it and finally reclaim something. The kindness that you're going to show you to yourself by taking things one step at a time and recognizing when you're sabotaging yourself is it's going to be the biggest lesson that you're going to learn. It's good to do all the things, but there will be days where you're not going to do exactly what you said, or you're not going to be able to stick to your schedule,

where you're going to be thinking about work when you're on a walk. The worst thing that we can do is beat ourselves up for it. The world is enough, giving us enough to think about for us to even beat ourselves up by just trying to be better. So just be a bit kind to yourself, kids, because it goes a long way. That will be my last thing. That's a great way. What a lovely way to end it. I will be kind to myself. Thank you so much, Fab. It was like so genuinely excellent and really, it's made me personally feel a lot better about the week ahead because I've been very stressed this week. I'm going to start putting those things into practice. I'm going to absolutely devour the book. I can't wait to read it. If you're listening, go and buy Fab's book. How does you reclaim your time off by Fab Gio

Giovinetti? People want to say hi. You can find me everywhere, literally everywhere, social media manager, so that's what I do, at Fab Giovanni, which is FAB, G-I-O-V-A-N-E-W-T-I-I-T-I. Come and say hello. Amazing. You can follow us at Lobdy Panic Pod and I'm at CVM-V-M-S as a 5. Tessa. I'm at Tessa Coates and if you have any suggestions or you want to talk to us about things that you've learned or if you've managed to reclaim your time in an exciting way and you want everyone else to know about it or you simply want to say hello. It is Nobody Panic Podcast at gmail.com and we love to. Thank you so much, Fab. And let's during the working week. During the working week, not on the weekends. Not on the weekends. Go forward this week and reclaim. Let's all just reclaim this week, guys, okay? It belongs to you. Get it back. Thank you so excited. Thank you so much, Rob.

Thank you so much. And thank you everyone listening. And we'll see you next week. Thank you, everybody. Bye.