Episode 132: Working Brighter In The Hustle Culture
In today’s episode, I am talking with Brittany Berger, the founder of Work Brighter, a digital media company. Brittany has raised a one-woman battle against hustle culture and her addiction to it.
Let me check Instagram one more time.
Go Go Go is addicting.
During this social distancing time, I keep hearing people say that we can finally stop hustling and use this time to get in touch with ourselves. The problem with that thinking is it implies that hustling is something that was forced upon us.
But in reality, hustling is something we choose to do as a coping mechanism against our uncomfortable feelings of sadness, grief, anger, doubt, and uncertainty.
For those of us with High Functioning Anxiety, these mechanisms can lead to even greater levels of anxiety. We all rail against hustle culture while at the same time actively embracing it. This coping mechanism has become a valued cultural norm to the point where we even glorifying it.
So what would it be like to stop embracing the hustle culture altogether?
My guest today has raised a one-woman battle against hustle culture and her addiction to it. Brittany Berger is the founder of Work Brighter, a digital media company that helps productive unicorns go beyond working smarter to a version of productivity that makes room for “unproductive” things like rest, self-care, and fun.
She started Work Brighter after 5 years running content marketing in high-stress startups that prioritized hustle, growth, and scaling over self-care and mental health. Now that she’s changed her own mindset, she spends her time helping other high achievers define balance for themselves, advocating for mental health awareness, and dancing...always dancing.
That Brittany walks her talk, which is one reason this interview is so amazing. She believed the hustle culture lie with all of her being and shares not only her burnout story but what she has created and the values she lives by now.
Listen to the full episode to find out:
Brittany’s transformational story of burnout with all the nitty-gritty details
What self-care really looks like
Why it is so hard to unhook that belief that we can rest only when we have earned it
Practical tips for when your to-do list is 500 things long and your boss is breathing down your throat
How to get out of the cycle of pushing during the week and collapsing on the weekend
Resources mentioned:
Instagram @workbrighter
Twitter @workbrighterco
Book recommendation: Rest: Why you Get More Done When you Work Less
+ Read the Transcript
Brittany: Working smarter and the traditional world of productivity and hustle culture. It was all very black and white and life is not black and white. And so we needed to work brighter instead,
Nancy: Go go go is addicting. During the social distancing time the one thing I keep hearing is we can finally stop hustling and get in touch with ourselves.
The problem with that thinking is it implies that hustling is something that is forced upon you. But in reality, hustling is something we choose to do as a coping mechanism against our own uncomfortable feelings, sadness, grief, anger, doubt, uncertainty. For those of us, with high functioning anxiety, those feelings can lead to anxiety.
So we hustle in order to deal with our anxiety and feel more comfortable. And this coping mechanism that we all do has become a valued cultural norm. We all rail against hustle culture while at the same time actively embracing it? No, I would actually say it's more accurate to say glorifying it. So what would it be like to stop glorifying it all together?
And that is what my guest has done. Brittany Berger has raised a one woman battle against hustle culture and her addiction.
Your listing to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane.
Brittany Berger is the founder of work, brighter.co a digital media company that helps productive unicorns go beyond working smarter to a version of productivity that makes room for unproductive things like rest self-care and fun. Brittany started work brighter after five years running content marketing in high stress startups that prioritized hustle growth and scaling over self care and mental health.
Now that she's changed her own mindset. She spends her time helping other high achievers define balance for themselves. Advocating for mental health awareness and dancing, always dancing. Brittany walks her talk, which is one reason this interview is so amazing. She believed the hustle culture lie with all of her being and shares, not only her burnout story, but what she has created and the values she lives by now.
Brittany and I talk about her story of burn out Not just the transformational story, but the nitty-gritty details. What self care really means why it is so hard to unhook that belief that we can rest only when we've earned it. Practical tips for when your to-do list is 500 things long, and your boss is breathing down your throat and how to get out of the push during the week collapse during the weekend cycle.
Brittany. I am so excited to have you here. Thanks for joining us.
Brittany Thanks for having me.
Nancy: I'm really intrigued to hear your story. And so we're just going to jump right into that. So tell me about the day you realized you were burnt out.
Brittany: Oh, wow. I guess it was less of a day and more a slow burn where it was months of other people telling me I was burnt out and it took a while for me to believe them.
But I think it was a period from like November, 2016 to March, 2017. And I had been going through burnout for a while all of my chronic illnesses were flaring because of it. And I was hospitalized while I was away at a business trip in November because of the combination of just everything.
And it was, I was supposed to be at a conference, so I missed the whole conference and was in the hospital instead. And I was alone in a strange city. And so that was like a little bit of a wake up call for me that I was doing too much. I didn't really know what to do about it. But then by March, I realized that a big reason that I was so burnt out was because of how much I was working.
And I kept trying to work through the burnout. And by March I decided that cannot work. And I decided that I would leave my full-time job and take a little bit of what I call a Self care sabbatical and take some time just focusing on getting healthy and letting my business's passive income stuff, like happened in the background.
And then when I felt better, I went back to the business.
Nancy: So the hospital thing that was in November, and then you say it was another five months before you actually had the real, come to Jesus. Have I got to make some changes.
Brittany: Yeah, I did not figure it out quickly. I was so stubborn and I think a big part of it was my family had started to really get concerned.
There was a weekend around March where my sister came up and came up to visit from where she lived and she just got real with me about how much my health was scaring my parents. And so I just really started realizing that it wasn't just me, that the burnout was impacting. And I think it was it says a lot about my mindset at the time that doing it for myself, wasn't enough to make me actually do it.
But realizing that my, my partner, my parents, my sister, it was impacting them a lot too. I was like, all right, I shouldn’t do this to them either.
Nancy: So if someone's listening and they're they are interested like, oh wait, I think I might be where you were in that November to March period. What were some of the symptoms, what was going on in your head, as you were trying to push through, what were you telling yourself?
Brittany: I was just constantly telling myself that I wasn't doing enough and that despite how I felt and how broken and exhausted I was I couldn't rest until I finished. So I really looked at rest and just taking time away from my business and earning a break. I looked at it as something that had to be like earned and I couldn't succeed until I did that, but then I kept changing the bar for success.
And so it just never happened.
Nancy: Okay, so you recognized this is too much and then, or I'm burnout, but then it was kind of like, but once I get there, wherever there is, then I can stop and it'll be okay.
Brittany: Exactly. Like I, at the time I was working full time and I had both a blog with an email, with a course, with a paid course, as well as a freelance writing business.
So I essentially had a day job and two sides on top of the chronic illness. And so I just, I was telling myself that I needed to make enough money to pay all these medical expenses of dealing with burnout. And so I kept telling myself that, once I make this much money, I will work less hard, but then.
Working that hard would put me in the hospital and I would get another medical bill. And so then the amount of money that I needed to get up this endless cycle. And in between November and March, I also realized I would need so much less money that this thing that I'm working towards, if I just. I stopped for a while, but the reason I was so sick and had all these medical bills was because of how much I was working.
And so I realized that they were feeding into each other.
Nancy: So the burnout was causing the chronic illnesses to flare more.
Brittany: Exactly. Exactly. I like I have had inflammatory bowel disease, my whole life. And it had never been like a huge problem, except for a month at a time, it had never been a two year long problem before, but because I was never letting myself rest, it never went away.
Nancy: Yeah. It constantly fascinates me how our bodies give us signals and we just ignore them..
Brittany: Yeah Oh, I have a very long history of that. Yeah.
Nancy: Yeah. me too! It's sad to say that it's a skill because not a good skill, but
Brittany: yeah, it all comes down. I think we've all heard that phrase pain is weakness, leaving the body.
I think that phrase is really damaging. Like I grew up as a dancer and we heard that a lot and I really internalized it. And then eventually dancing on an ankle with two completely torn ligaments. My foot was literally connected to my leg by a thread. And I was ignoring the pain because I was saying that it would make me stronger and that it was weakness leaving my body.
That's so messed up. Yeah.
Nancy: our ego gets in the way, or we get addicted to the push, to the hustle, to the pain
Brittany: Like something to be glorified. It is a sign from our bodies.
Nancy: Yeah. I love that. Okay. So one phrase you have self care is my side hustle. I love that. And, self care gets so bastardized in our world. Tell me about what your definition of self-care is. What does that look like to you?
Brittany: To me, it is very non-commercial. It is not the stuff that you go out and do. It's not pampering. I like to look at self-care as kind of self-maintenance and really, yeah. Parenting and self parenting is another phrase that I've heard.
And I really liked that. And just honestly, like healthy adulting. But for me, I, when I was really in to hustle culture, I was doing nothing but working. And so for me, when I first started focusing on self-care it was things like eating breakfast. It was things like taking my meds every day. It was getting, oh God at the time, five to six hours of sleep, because I wasn't even getting that much before then.
Yeah, I was living for a while off of four hours a night. I would take a nap because I can't live off 4 hours at night, but yeah. Sleeping four hours a night. And yeah, I've doubled that, which is amazing. Yeah, it was stuff like, going to bed earlier, taking my meds, eating breakfast, eating lunch.
Really like when I was at my full-time job, the only real meal or the only, or when I was in hustle culture, despite my employment situation, the only meal I ate was dinner because I would wake up and I would work until I was exhausted and then I would eat. Yeah, so I literally used to have calendar appointments set for meals, otherwise I would forget.
So it was really just that basic stuff. Going to therapy, going to my doctor's appointments. These days, it is more I've had the basics covered. And so it also includes things like journaling and going for walks and intentional TV time where I really focus on finding something that's going to improve my mood.
So I go to bed happy and not stressed out. And yeah, for me, it's just all of those little things that you can do to maintain your mood and self care level. And it's all that kind of stuff that when you're really in the cult of toxic productivity as I like to call it where you're just defining everything by work.
It's all stuff that you attempt to really ignore. And when I first was trying to change my mindset, I recognized the fact that I didn't see a ton of value in those things. And but I did see value in hustling. And so I said that's what my hustle is going to be. Self care is going to be my side hustle.
And so that was and I also had, I still, when I left my full-time job, I had some mindset issues around taking time off and essentially taking a sabbatical. And so it was a jokey way to say oh, now my full-time job is my business, but since I'm not the kind of person that can just have one job self-care is my side.
So it was, but then also it is a testament to how seriously I took it. Because side hustles are jobs and I started treating self care like a job.
Nancy: Yeah, I like that because, so one of the issues a lot of my clients have, I had a retreat last year and we were talking in the retreat about, they know there are things that they like to do that makes them start their day off.
Like journaling would be one of them. They know that helps, but it's they feel like they have to earn it or they're don't deserve it. Or, getting over the hump of getting up every morning and journaling rather than jumping into email or taking care of the kids or whatever is hard.
How did you flip that I need to earn it mentality?
Brittany: I really just tried looking at the bigger picture and I tried connecting all of the dots. So for example, one thing that made me. Really fall in love with journaling was how much easier my work felt when I was doing brain dumps of everything on my mind and getting all of the work stuff in my head out of my head.
And so I realized that could help. Another thing was like getting more sleep. I realized that I actually like. Faster and better as a writer when I get more sleep. And so I realized that it's all connected. It's not, I like to say self care, isn't something to be earned once you succeed.
It's part of the process for success. It's not like you work then. The rest is part of the work. One book that I really love and that really helped change my mindset was called Rest. Why you get more done when you work less? And it really looked at like the neuroscience of what happens to our brains when we're.
Working like four hours a day, which is the sweet spot. The author recommended of deep focused work, four hours of that versus eight hours. And it was just, it's really eye opening and like the importance of sleep and how that actually impacts your work. I really started seeing. It was part of the process and not the reward.
Nancy: Okay. I like the idea, the pulling back. So you can flop your brain to be like, this is helping me work better, which is the goal. And turning the whole thought process on its head. Yeah. In so many ways that's really what do you do when your to-do list is 50,000 things long, and you're not working for yourself. So you're working for a boss and you haven't, you're in an organization and you're just overwhelmed by, there's, there's no way you're going to get that list done.
Brittany: Prioritization and communication.
Okay. I was super bad at this at my first job. And in that job, I eventually got a new manager who recognized my overwhelm and she taught me a phrase that's really great. And she was like, you need to say this to me sometimes. It is like when someone is asking you to do something like someone, your colleague or your boss, it's just basically stating what your current priorities are and saying okay, sure I can do that. But then what should I take off my plate to make room for it?
And so it's not, rejecting so it's not like saying to a colleague, no, I can't do that. It's saying help me figure out how I can do that. Because one thing that also took me a little bit too long to realize is that like coworkers, we don't want each other overwhelmed and like your boss it's okay.
If you can't do everything your boss is throwing at you. They might not realize that they're throwing too much at you. And that was the case with me and my manager and I didn't realize that I could say no or not know, but that I could say let's talk this out. Or like how I didn't realize that because I assumed that my boss has everything perfect and figured out, but that's not the case.
None of us have everything figured out. And so she, she didn't realize that she was giving me too much. And. Saying Hey, this is difficult. Like saying sure, I could do this thing for you this morning, but you already said you wanted me to do this thing this morning. Which do you want more just making other people more aware of what's going on? Because a lot of times. I think when we're really overwhelmed, we assume none of our coworkers can help.
Because they're all overwhelmed too. And that might be the case, but we're still all, we all want to help each other. And a lot of times it's easier than we thought. For example, continuing the boss example, like maybe she did give you two things to do this morning, but that's just because she thought they'd be easy.
And when she really thinks about it, neither need to get done right now. And yeah, just open communication as much as possible. Some bosses aren't ideal and some, cultures, unfortunately, you can't be super open and honest about that stuff, but just be as open and honest about it as you can be in your situation and yeah.
Ruthless prioritization when it comes down. Yeah.
Nancy: Because that's also then, it's back to that piece of, I need to be honest with myself, this is too much, instead of being aware of when you're amping up into the hustle culture versus when you're being authentic.
Yeah. So speaking of that, tell me, I think I know what the hostile culture is, but just for the listeners, what is your definition of hustle culture?
Brittany: I tend to define. I'm actually working on like a definitive definition for my brand right now, but it's some of the key qualities I like to point out are work for the sake of work and just taking on as much as possible.
The, for the hell of it. When you're taking it off work that serves no real purpose, that's not, in pursuit of a goal you actually care about. So there's that quote, I forget who says it, but that I love but growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer. Oh, my gosh.
Nancy: That's
Brittany: awesome.
Yeah. Like a scientist. I think that said it. But it's just such a great mindset to approach work with. Because we are just taught to accumulate stuff, success, accolades money. But how much of it do we need? That's going to be a different amount for everyone, but like knowing you're enough amount.
I think that's part of the book essentially. Is like defining your enough. I really love that because yeah, it lets you figure out how much you ha what enough work is, what enough money is that you need in your life? What accolades and yeah. Milestones you really want. And so that's one quality.
Another quality is treating rest and hobbies and fun as something that you need to earn instead of something that you've deserved and that, and really something that helps you work like I've already said, rest is work and it helps you get your job done. But like play is to, I can't tell you how many great ideas I have come from.
I have had from watching TV or going to a dance class. Actually when I used to go to my dance classes, I would come out so full of inspiration that I would go for a walk around the studio neighborhood with my with a voice memo and just brain dump the, all the ideas out of my head, because I was so full of inspiration about work from that one hour dance.
And yeah. And so rest is part of the process of success. Play is part of the process. Yeah. We're not machines. We can't just work all the time.
Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that about the cancer cell. That's really cool. Because that's a great visual to think, like why am I pushing so hard for, because I think so many times we start pushing just for the sake of pushing.
Like we don't even know what we're doing this for
Brittany: exactly, because we've just. Unintentionally opted into a contest of who can work the most
Nancy: Yeah. Yeah, totally. Because something, I work a lot with my clients on is stopping the phrase I deserve. Because they'll say I deserve this vacation and I'm like, no you need the vacation.
Brittany: I do use the phrase I deserve, but as a human being, not as like you've earned it, but as human. Deserve all of these things, no matter what exactly.
Nancy: Yes. Yeah. It's but it's that idea of, I get it because I've worked so hard is just not helpful.
Yeah. Okay. So here's, this is a personal question well personal for me. So one of my issues. Is, and I work with this with my clients too, but is that is I notice I get trapped in the cycle of I'll push really hard all week and then I'll crash on the weekend.
So I'll push really hard all week. And then on Friday, which is my day off, I'll spend the day like doing Netflix and playing on my video games. And it's not that intentional TV watching, as you talked about and. How do you know?, and I know I got into that habit. I noticed I got into the habit and I'm trying to break out of it.
But a lot of times I asked myself, how do I know if I'm wasting time or if I'm just being lazy or avoiding stuff.
Brittany: I think it's really just a matter of holding yourself aware. Yeah. I talk a lot about energy management. And for me, that helps because if I'm low on energy, then I need to do something to recharge my energy.
If I'm feeling energetic and I just am in the mood and I am feeling the pull to the Netflix remote anyway, but Check in with my energy and I'm like, oh, I could actually get up and do a jumping Jack right now. Then, oh, that might just be procrastination. And I might not actually need a 22 minute sit-com break.
Okay. So it's really, I think self-awareness and especially around your energy and your to-do lists for example, also, , if I am like feeling distracted or like I deserve a break or I need a break and I know. Also the one thing left on my to-do list for the day is something I don't want to do then.
Yeah. (laughter)
Nancy: Yeah. I can relate to that (laughter)
Brittany: that. Yeah. Very situational
Nancy: . Yeah, because the idea of like needing. Needing to be lazy. And I say that term lazy in the sense of open space, like having time to do a dance class or not necessarily being lazy, like laying on the couch in my pajamas, but just having time is something that I don't give myself very often.
Yeah. And I think that is unless I'm just totally exhausted and then I'm not taking advantage of it. Then you're just regrouping all the time.
Brittany: Yeah. I think another thing that helps is trying to focus on the big picture and instead of just the next week, because if I know I need to work again next week, then I'm going to be less likely to work myself to the bone this week. And so I know if I'm, if I have to work every week for the next 52 weeks I need to sustain myself. So I definitely, I look at sustainability. So I can't, I wish I remember who said this, but it was just a tweet. But it was. Every percent that you put in past 100% today is alone from your future self.
Oh, that's. Yeah. And so if I put in 150% this week, that means I can only do 50% next week. And so instead I look at it as I'm going to do my 100% this week. I'm going to use. Extra time. And instead of, I don't know, just scrolling Instagram, I am going to open the Kindle app on my phone.
One thing that I did amazingly last year was that I switched those two icons on my home screen and Instagram, and just the change that automatically happened was wild. But yeah, so I just look at it as I only have 150% this week, unless I am going to borrow from the future.
Nancy: Okay. That's a cool way of looking at it.
How long? So if you say like November of 2017 or March of 2017, you had your come to Jesus. How long did it take you to really unhook all that? I know you're still unhooking. It's an ongoing process, but until you started really seeing some.
Brittany: I would say maybe in the next like six to eight, 12 months is when I really changed a lot in my life.
So I had that realization that I needed to leave my job in, or that I needed to delete my full-time job in March since I had others. And I left in June. And I would say the first, definitely the first, at least six months of my, of I'm not working full time in house. I still very much had the same hustle, culture mindset, and I was working less and stuff like that, but I wasn't, it wasn't super okay with it and stuff like that.
And so I would say it took a lot and I was in therapy that time. I did a lot of journaling that time. And I also just started as I started seeing the results of working less, it started to become easier to believe because I could feel the results for myself
Nancy: and what were those results?
Brittany: So much more energy, so much more fun.
Like as an entrepreneur, it feels so weird to care so little about so many things I'm supposed to care about now, but I know that my business is serving me and I just feel so aligned and happy. I have a post on my blog. That's five signs the mindset work is working and it's just things I've noticed from the past year.
Like I used to walk around my house, singing all the time and then I don't really know when, but like I stopped singing. But I've started singing again like singing in the shower. I've started doing that again and it's such a little thing, but that's something that I now realize, like I had, I just, I had taken, I zapped the joy out of my life and somewhere I've gotten it back and I'm like singing and I'm dancing around the apartment, not just in class.
And I smile sometimes for no one reason and stuff like that. And it's just all this stuff. That's. Like it was so absent for so long.
Nancy: Yeah. Which I think that happens to a lot of us that we forget those things just disappear one by one little by little.
Brittany: Exactly. Like I hadn't even realized that I stopped singing or that I started again.
Until my fiancé mentioned something about how I think he thought that I stopped because we moved to New York and we just have smaller quarters and thinner walls or something. Because I used to walk around our big apartment. The concrete walls and stuff just like belting out in my horrible voice.
And so I think he thought that I stopped, like out of out of courtesy or something, but no, I was just depressed.
Nancy: Yeah. Thank God for partners, man. Because my husband will frequently point out to me. Like you don't laugh anymore. What happened to the laughter? and it's like oh yeah,
Sometimes we need someone else to point that out to us.
Brittany: Exactly. Yeah. Like exactly him and my sister were really the people in that time. That really convinced me before that March moment.
Nancy: and it's amazing how much convincing it takes. I think. Yeah. Even when the people we love the most and the closest to us are like this isn't okay.
It's harder for our, it just takes a while for us. Have that message sink in. Yep. Okay. So then I want to hear about, you mentioned energy management. Tell me more about that, how that works for you on a daily basis and how it really changed your life.
Brittany: Just totally changed the way I structure my day and they know that I have a leg up with this because I am in total control of my own schedule.
But even when I started doing energy management, when I still worked in house. So to give you a run down of what it used to look like. So, before I started paying attention to energy, I would get to work in the morning. I would immediately jump into writing long form, serious content.
I would just dive right in no warmup, no anything. Basically do that until I couldn't anymore. And then I would do the other stuff, like the admin, the communication, whatnot. I also, I would batch all of my calls on one day a week because that was like a productivity tip I read somewhere and I was very much in the place that we talked about before, where like I would work until Friday or until my day off. And then I would just crash. That was very much the cycle I would crash every night. I would come home from work, take a nap before I could even eat dinner. But then yeah, I was totally zapped.
And the changes that I made when I worked in house was I stopped writing in the mornings because I realized I am not a morning person. And while I can't change the fact that I have to be at work at nine, I don't have to do the hardest work right then I can wait until I've had some caffeine and some lunch and stuff.
So I started doing my admin in the morning. I started doing meetings in the morning because that's stuff that I didn’t need to be at my best for, like when I am, I'm really at my prime in terms of writing at 2:00 PM. And then again at 9:30 PM. And so I started protecting those hours and making sure that I could write during that time, I also stopped batching calls because I'm an introvert.
And so I realized that was burning me out. That it's much easier for me. Yeah. Spread out the calls and so what works now is that I have a, depending on the day, I just have a slot for calls every day and it's like my socializing hours. And so I paced myself and so it's still like time blocked.
It's still the same block of time almost every day. And it's still I know it in advance, so it's still very organized and it brings all of the benefits that batching calls brings, but it doesn't burn out my energy. Zap my will to talk. And another thing that I did was I like I was side hustling and I had always felt the pull to try to wake up early and work on my business in the morning before I went to my day job.
Since that's the common advice. Yeah. But again, energy management. I identified that I was really awake. Like I got really hyper right before I go to bed. And so from 9:30 to 1130, I would make my business hours. And so, I stopped trying to fit that work in before my day job. And then when I got home from work, I wouldn't try to dive into my side hustle right away.
I would wait until my prime hour and sometimes Sleep problems. And so sometimes I would even take a nap after work instead of going to bed earlier so that I could make sure to be awake during the energy hours. And I would still get the same amount of sleep, but I was awake when I knew I was great at writing.
And since that was my main job,
Nancy: because I love in your, before we hit record, I was talking about how much I love your blog. You have to go check out workbrighter.co.
Nancy: She has some amazing blogs and YouTube videos. The whole thing is fabulous.
And I want to talk about your clubhouse here in a little bit, but you take on that idea of the 5:00 AM, whatever they have a name for it, that everyone feels like this is what
Brittany: the 5 AM club, the miracle morning and all of that stuff.
Nancy: Yeah. Which was so I just love that you took that on because so many clients will say to me, I read that the major executives get up at 5:00 AM and do stuff. And I'm like, not if you're not a 5:00 AM person.
Brittany: Yeah. Oh my God, I'm being targeted with a New York times article right now, like in Facebook ads. And it's how to become a morning person, even if you're not.
And it makes me so angry because I am like, I'm not saying that mornings are bad or we shouldn't be in the mornings. I am saying mornings are bad for me personally. I'm saying if you're a morning person own it. If you're a night owl own it, if you're a night owl, don't try to become a morning person.
And I hate that. I keep getting retargeted with that article. But yeah. I used to not be able to set my own work hours to the extreme. And so how I adapted the energy to that was like, okay, I had to be at work at eight, but I wasn't going to do the hard work then.
And now what that looks is I am going to stay up later and sleep later. Like right now I sleep until 9:30 or 10 most days, because I know that means I can stay up later and work more and it's not yeah, It just feels so much more relaxed this way, but yeah. Instead of trying to become a morning person or a whatever, I'm all about just becoming very comfortable with what you are and owning it and leveraging it.
Nancy: I love that. So the whole thing with energy management is just being really intentional about your personal energy. And not buying into oh, I should be. Or this is what they do.
Brittany: Exactly. I like to call energy management, a filter for all of the other productivity advice out there, because the biggest problem with all of the productivity advice out there, isn't that it’s wrong. It's that it's given as a one size fits all. This always works thing when productivity is so personal. And so energy management kind of gives you a filter to run other tips. For example, the batching calls piece of advice. I can run that through my little energy management filter and say okay, that I can't batch a whole day of calls, but I can do two calls in the same hour on one day or something like that, if that fits into my book.
And so it just helps you figure out which of the hacks and quick tips out there. Will actually work for you to apply them.
Nancy: Yeah. Because a lot of my clients and I'm guilty of this too. I notice whenever, like even yesterday I had something that it's something on my calendar that I don't really want, that I'm struggling with right now.
And and so I'm like, oh, I need to develop a new system. Like what I need a new system. If I had a new system, this wouldn't be so painful. And then they go into this whole thing of looking for a new system. And now I know I don't go down that rabbit hole because I recognize, okay, new system is a red flag.
And that means, you don't want to be doing something, but all the time, my clients will say to me, oh, I just need a new system. And because there's so much freaking advice out there on here's the perfect system, but none of it is saying. Pay attention to your own energy. Like you can find a new system, but it may not work for you.
Yeah.
Brittany: Most of the time you need to improve what you have because you are called to it for a reason and it just needs some optimization.
Nancy: So that continually coming back to yourself and running everything through yourself, which is so hard when people have been focused externally on hustle culture, it's like a whole new way of being.
Brittany: Yeah. It's almost like a self-awareness exercise too. I feel like it makes you a lot more self-aware about the way you work.
Nancy: So right now, what would you say are the self-care things you do that are just like set in stone? These are. Not get non-negotiables. I
Brittany: recently learned how important my sad lamp is.
I live in Manhattan. It is winter. We are on the third floor in a neighborhood of much taller building. So no natural light comes into the apartment. And yeah, I've had this sad lamp for a while and I use it in the winter and. Super great with the routine of it until recently. And then I dropped it and I hadn't noticed that I stopped using it.
It was just like, I was cleaning one day and I moved it to clean off the table and I didn't put it back and that broke the habit. And I didn't realize until I was like, why is my sleep schedule? So off, I was like waking. I was waking up at four, 5:00 AM and then being exhausted by 11:00 AM. I was taking like two naps a day and my body just would not stay asleep no matter what time I went to bed for more than five hours at a time.
So if. If I started planning around waking up at 5:00 AM and going to bed earlier, it would still just wake up after five hours. There was one day that I woke up at 3:00 AM, because I went to bed earlier. And I realized it's because I hadn't been using the lamp. And so I really give it credit for helping regulate my sleep.
And when I'm not getting a lot of sunlight right now. So I recently learned how important that is. Other crucial things are. Journaling. I do so much of it these days in a bullet journal for me, and that's just, I love the bullet journal method. Another habit is therapy. I know it's not accessible for everyone.
But if it is it's so great. One thing that I'm trying to be better about this year is not waiting until I need to. I talk to my therapist to talk to my therapist. Standing weekly talk. And that has been great so far because it's I get proactive about it and I'm like, all right, what can I talk to her about this week instead of just, and so I'm able to treat things before they become, talk to things talk with her about things before they become like dire emergencies, instead of just having the dire emergency.
Nancy: That's very common.
Brittany: Netflix is so important. Like I said, intentional TV time is everything. I totally get that TV can be a big time waste, but it has gotten such a bad reputation and productivity. It's it can be so great. Like I actually, I like to say like natural Pomodoros. So like for example, a lot of times I use a 22, like the modern nowadays.
A 30 minute sitcom block with like commercials taken out is about 22 minutes. That is if you've been working for two to three hours, that is a great sized break and you can turn it off the autoplay on Netflix so that it doesn't automatically go to the next step. That is important. Yeah. It is an important part of this.
You have to turn off the autoplay vivo, but yeah, once you do. Great. It's I just, I like it's become a routine where like I finished up a big chunk of work at my desk. I pick one episode and I break for that long and then I get back to work. And so I kind of work in these cycles of two hours of work, 22 minutes and TV, and it's making sure and not just turning on the TV to whatever channels on yeah.
Actually picking something out that makes me happy. I highly recommend The Good Place or Parks and Rec or Brooklyn Nine Nine or Schitt's Creek.
Nancy: That's awesome. I've even gone back recently and started watching the golden girls. Yeah. Just talk about pull you out of here. Like just love them so much.
It's just, it's such a great and I, because I can remember, I love that you said that about Netflix because it does get such a bad rap. And I can remember years ago I was at a conference with Ilanya, Vanzant she used to be a big guru years ago and she said her favorite thing to do was to come home, take her bra off, lay in the middle of her bed and watch Law and Order
Because there was a beginning, a middle and an end, they always caught the bad guy. It was just like so awesome. And she would just watch it episode of that and just feel great. And I was like, thank you, for sure sharing that it wasn't, that you were sitting in meditating and being Zen, like in the middle of your bed, like you were a human being who is this is how I detress.
And I think that we need to be talking about how to do that intentionally.
Brittany: Exactly. Like I am so intentional with the TV shows I watch too. I do not just turn on any channel. I cut out like all or all like suspense shows, like I used to watch Law and Order, but I realized that for me, it wasn’t making me very nice, especially like living in New York, walking right behind me.
That is not for me. Sitcoms. I almost only watch sitcoms now and it's so great because it's just like a lot. And especially like picking out the, your favorite episodes and like the laugh out loud ones and it's just such a great way to de stress.
Nancy: That's awesome. Okay. So you, and so work brighter came out as a response to this burnout.
Brittany: Yeah, I originally, the newsletter was honestly originally called work smarter for a few months. And then I was like, I am too obsessed with working smarter. We are all obsessed with working smarter is not the answer we all thought it would. And I just got very sick of that phrase and it started feeling like working brighter or working smarter and the traditional world of productivity and hustle culture.
It was all very black and white and life is not black. And yeah. And so we needed to work brighter. Instead. I love that it started as just like a personal mantra for me that I would tell myself. And then I ended up like customizing notebooks and putting it on my whiteboard and stuff like that. And yeah.
It became very internalized and then it became so internalized that I was talking about it, like on Instagram or something, like my whiteboard would show up and people would be like, oh, I like the sound of that. And so eventually I changed the newsletter name and it snowballed.
Nancy: Wow.
That's awesome. So what's the work brighter clubhouse
Brittany: The Clubhouse is my self care community. It is where I like to say people get support for redefining their relationships with productivity work and breasts. And energy management is a really core part of it. I have a lot of courses about how to hone different habits and self-care practices.
For example, there's just a general habit building course, there's a journaling workshop coming this month and stuff like that. Yeah. So just these workshops and I provide tools for everything. So there's an energy management tracker, there's journaling prompts and, but more important than the resources.
There's the there's the actual community and accountability. I like to say it's the place where we will tell you to take a break and when to take a break. Yeah, I just actually it's I like to say the doors are closed to, for home renovations right now, but they'll be opening back up later in the spring with some new features.
Nancy: Okay. Cool. So it's like we were talking earlier about having your partner there to say, Hey, you need to take a break. This community serves as that in some ways, the mirror kind of
Brittany: exactly it is. Especially if you're working around people who are super in hustle culture. It is I think a really great balance to that.
Yeah. First realized they needed to start it because I was in all of these business communities where I realized I was, my workaholism was being really enabled. Like I would post in there oh, I just finished doing this. And like I wasn't didn't think I'd finished it until next week, but I pushed through and I did it and they would all congratulate me.
Instead of, maybe questioning or something like that. And so I realized that a lot of my bad habits were being enabled in the online communities that I was in. And so this was the. Pendulum swinging in the other direction, where in the clubhouse we do celebrate your work done, but we also celebrate your rests done.
And we celebrate the small progress, not just the big things. So you're not always pushed to make things bigger and bigger.
Nancy: That's awesome. Because I was talking with another guest who was saying that she that she, when she went through a burnout period, no one confronted her. Because she had convinced them she could do it,
Brittany: maybe she could but she shouldn’t have to.
Nancy: Exactly. And that's the problem sometimes with are those, the support systems we've built is we've built support systems that enable us to stay in this culture.
Brittany: Yeah. Yeah. I like to say it's a shelter for escapees from hustle culture.
Nancy: Oh, that's beautiful. That's really beautiful.
I like that a lot. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom around this and your experience and your wisdom born from experience, which I think is the best place that wisdom comes from. And I'm going to put the books that you shared and the work brighter website and all the information about you on our show notes so that everyone can find out more and learn more from your wisdom.
Brittany: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you.
Nancy: I especially wanted to highlight what Brittany said about the importance of communication and ruthless prioritization being open to saying to your boss. Sure. I can do that. But then what should I take off my plate to make room for it? That sounds wonderful and easy, but I know for many of my clients saying those words would immediately fire off a monger attack saying you should be able to handle anything.
You aren't organized enough. You're just lazy. We automatically assume that we should be able to do everything. And do everything well, I love this question because it lets your boss know you're wanting to prioritize the work. Also reminded them of how much is on your plate. When we start to prioritize self-care, checking in with ourselves, and reducing the judgment or need to justify, we can ask for what we need and a kind loving way that supports us and the team we are a part of.
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