I met Fiona when I was looking for someone to help me be more productive, focus my energy on leadership coaching and enjoy life more. Fiona soon realised that I could help her too as she had recently begun working for herself and needed to strike a balance in her new work-life. This is her story…

1: How Rachel helped me transition to life after redundancy

2. How to maximise your work breaks

3. How leadership coaching helped me combat my inner critic

4. How to handle conflict at work

1: How Rachel helped me transition to life after redundancy

As a writer, I’ve always loved the idea of working from home, but the reality is often harder than it looks. I struggle with time management, perfectionism, procrastination and negative thoughts far more without a regular working environment, colleagues and a boss to keep me on track.

On the other hand, I also have way more energy when I’m working from home, and I love the work-life balance – a lunchtime walk on the beach, a later start, working in track pants (don’t judge). I’m lucky that my line of work lends itself to this way of working. Of course, with the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have had to adapt to working from home.

When my company closed at the start of lockdown, and 236 of my colleagues and I were made redundant, freelancing seemed like the perfect solution. I had already been freelancing two days a week so I just had to do it for a few more days. Easy, right?

Except for those old friends, procrastination and perfectionism, popped up and instead of enjoying my newfound freedom, I felt stressed and unproductive.

“Even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone’s productive time.”

— David Meyer, PhD

Luckily, I knew someone that could help. I had previously enjoyed a complimentary coaching session with Rachel Hill, in which we had spoken about my struggles to work from home. When she touched base to offer me work, we agreed that some coaching would help.

In our first session, Rachel taught me techniques to help with my emotional blocks, and some strategies to help me return to the present moment. While emotional work may not seem a conventional coaching method, Rachel was able to intuitively sense that this would be far more valuable for me than launching straight into productivity hacks.

*Learn what’s causing your procrastination*

While the techniques I learned enabled me to work more effectively over the next two weeks, I was still jumping from deadline to deadline and struggling to manage my time. My phone was my favourite method of procrastination (who can relate?) and while I could use my relaxation tools to come back to the present moment, I would quickly go back into stress mode while working.

We decided to focus on this in my second session. Rachel taught me a range of time management techniques, and we came up with a day plan which entailed blocking out writing time. While I had tried using timetables before, I wasn’t very good at sticking to them and was a bit resistant – what’s the point in having rules when you’re the boss? But it turns out these ‘rules’ can actually give you more freedom and satisfaction in the long run.

Rachel showed me the Pomodoro Technique of breaking up tasks, and how to take mini breaks where I move, stretch, change my focus and set strict boundaries on how long each work sprint takes to ensure my work time was productive. This has already helped immensely. Instead of reaching for my phone when I get tired or unmotivated, I keep writing until my time is up, then reward myself with a short break. When you switch tasks, for example by checking an email while working on a project, it can take around twenty minutes to get your concentration back, which leads to fatigue and lowered productivity.

According to the American Psychological Association, David Meyer, PhD, who has studied multitasking, said that “even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone's productive time”.

Time blocking and the Pomodoro Technique (work sprints) also helps to make tasks more manageable. Instead of having a long list of tasks to tackle, you simply have a number of time slots in which to work as productively as you can, meaning you get more done and enjoy your downtime more.

2: How to maximise your work breaks

I’ve known about the importance of taking breaks for mental wellbeing and productivity for a while, but I wasn’t so well acquainted with their ability to help you solve problems, and come up with creative solutions. I thought I was slacking off if I went for a walk while I had an important article to write. A break wasn’t going to help it get done… or was it?

Through my work with Rachel, I have learned about the creative potential of breaks. Downtime is especially important if you do creative or strategic work. We expect ourselves to be endlessly productive, but of course, it’s hard to come up with countless ideas and strategies while staring at a computer all day.

A few photographs I took while learning how to balance my work-life

Although I was good at taking breaks at the office, now that I’m working for myself from home, I felt guilty if I took a walk, did some yoga or sat outside in the sun for too long during ‘work hours’. I still take short breaks and eat my lunch outside, but a longer, more unscheduled break seemed ‘naughty’ or unnecessary.

Rachel helped me to see that breaks are actually integral to my creative process. A break isn’t just a break – it’s a time for your brain to forge new connections, and allow space for new ideas to bubble up. Feeling guilty about this downtime is counterproductive.

After spending hours trying to tackle a particularly hard project, I took a break out of sheer frustration and was pleasantly surprised to find the answer I was looking for while soaking up some sun.

Since then I have started taking longer breaks when necessary, and find these reset and inspire me.

The same goes for procrastination. What if by putting a task off, you’re not being lazy, but instead making a plan of attack? Rachel taught me that my work doesn’t start when I sit down – my ideas have often been percolating for days or weeks in advance – so I needn’t be so hard on myself.

When procrastination goes too far, however, you can use external triggers to help you get back on track. Some mornings, I end up distracted by housework or linger over breakfast in my dressing gown for a little too long.

*Getting in the right frame of mind to work is important*

I never agreed with the theory of having to dress in work clothes while working from home. I work in comfortable, decidedly non-office appropriate outfits most days. In fact, wearing restrictive work clothes just makes me uncomfortable, stressed and less productive. For me, the clothing itself wasn’t an issue, but actually getting into the clothing.

Often I would do a few emails or simple tasks while still in my dressing gown at the dining table but found it was hard to get into more productive work, and I would easily get distracted by housework or text messages.

After too many slow starts, Rachel helped me to figure out that showering first thing, rather than mid-morning, was an important trigger for me.

As simple as it sounds (especially to those of you who would never dream of staying in your dressing gown for half the day), Rachel explained that showering provides an external trigger to my brain that I am now getting ready to go to work. All the years I got up, showered and raced off to work had trained my brain to associate showering with work.

Taking my time with my emails and a cup of tea before I started the day, as nice as it sounded, signalled to my brain that it was a day off, and made it much harder to get into office mode.

Now I try to hop in the shower straight after getting up. Even if I put comfortable clothes back on after a shower, I still feel ready to work.

There are many more deceptively simple techniques that can help you to have a better work-life balance. Rachel’s years of experience in management and coaching have given her a variety of helpful strategies. Not all techniques will work for everyone but the beauty of leadership coaching is it can be tailored to suit the individual.

3: How leadership coaching helped me to combat my inner critic

No matter how much career experience I have or how well I know I can do my job, I still battle the voice that says, “What if I’m not good enough?”

This voice leads me to procrastinate, overwork, be a perfectionist and feel exhausted.

*Leadership coaching can help you figure out the way you need to go*

Whether this is imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs, self-sabotage, self-doubt or my inner critic is largely irrelevant. The reality is, I know I would be much better off without this self-destructive inner voice, but it can be difficult to turn it off.

Even people who have been working on this for years, like myself, struggle, but the key is you can’t expect to turn the voice off completely. However, you can turn the volume down, pay less attention to it, and rewrite the messages that this inner voice tells you.

The first step is realising that the voice is just that – a voice. Each time you notice it, just say something like, “Hello, voice - thanks for showing up, but I don’t need you here.”

The next step is reframing the beliefs that lead to the messages your inner critic tells you. This will help you to pivot away from the voices you are hearing to more constructive thoughts and give you more confidence in your work and personal life.

What if the thought “I’m not going to be able to do this”, became “what have I done before that is just like this, how did I do it then and what can I use right now that will move things forward”?

Your abilities stayed the same, but your belief in them grew.

In my most recent leadership coaching session with Rachel we looked at how leadership coaching can help me to reframe my negative thoughts – and there were a lot of them – and exchange them for more helpful ones.

We then identified what choices and actions I could take, right in that moment, that meant that I could get the work done and follow through on my work obligations. And then the final piece, to commit to doing what I said I was going to do.

After this session, I felt more motivated and inspired – and had more faith in my abilities. That night I did something I had been putting off for years – because the voice that had always said I wouldn’t be able to do it was quiet for a change.

By learning about how important and easy it is to focus on thoughts that identified what I could do, noticing how motivating that was for me and then actually doing it, Rachel also helped me to see how important some of the things I had been putting off were to me and how big an effect this procrastination had on my wellbeing.

Now I’m less afraid to take on new opportunities or to get up in the morning and get stuck into my work.

Of course, it’s never as simple as a magic cure – it takes consistent practice to keep your inner critic at bay – this is one step to overcoming it, and beginning to reclaim your life.

4: How to handle conflict at work

After four months of working for myself, due to redundancy and subsequent COVID pivot, I’m heading back into the land of employment. This means that not only will I get get up earlier and wear office-appropriate clothing, but I’ll also be interacting with colleagues again.

Thanks to months of coaching with Rachel, when I was offered this job I was able to tap into my intuition and know that taking it was the right decision – even if it didn’t fully make sense. While I had enjoyed the freedom of freelancing, I missed the company and collaboration that came with being part of a team.

But having had a number of months in charge of my own destiny, I needed a crash course in dealing with co-workers again! As well as company and collaboration, being part of a team can bring conflict, so Rachel and I discussed strategies to deal with any conflict that might arise in my new job.

“We can’t change the people around us, we can only change the way we show up.”

— Rachel Hill, leadership coach

She told me about the three personality types detailed by Chris Voss, former kidnapping negotiator for the FBI and author of Never Split the Difference.

These include the assertive type who is more direct and task focused with people connection coming second; the accommodator who is relationship-oriented (ie. connecting with people first is important to me); and the analyst, who is down in the detail and needs to understand before getting to the task and the relationship.

If you’ve ever worried that someone is annoyed at you because of their tone of voice, or been frustrated at a colleague’s – or your own – lack of communication skills, understanding these types, and figuring out what your type is, will help you.

Having an understanding of how people work will make for better interactions and more satisfactory outcomes from conversations. It can also help you to understand that a person’s behaviour and responses aren’t necessarily about you.

While Chris’ strategies are primarily for use in negotiations, they can also be helpful for daily interactions in the office. After all, we are constantly negotiating with our managers and colleagues – whether it’s regarding an idea, a task, a deadline, or a day off.

If you are going into a tricky meeting, you can borrow traits from other personality types. For example, if you are an accommodator dealing with an assertive type, instead of talking about your feelings and emotions, you can try to keep things shorter and more direct – and offer solutions rather than presenting problems.

You can also try phrasing things as questions rather than statements. For example, asking, “How can we do this?” will get you further than saying, “We can’t do this”.

As Rachel explained, “We can’t change the people around us, we can only change the way we show up.”

On the other hand, Chris says emotions can be helpful in some negotiations. He recommends strategies for getting your desired outcome by appealing to a person’s emotions, being empathetic, making them feel safe and showing that you understand where they are coming from and the way they see things.

Any technique that makes for smoother conversations and more successful workplace interactions is a winner in my book!

Rachel’s experience across management and recruitment gives her the breadth of experience to help with a diverse range of career issues, and I’m looking forward to learning more from her over the coming weeks.