In this episode of the Transform Your Workplace podcast, Brandon Laws interviews Cindy Baker, a career and small business coach, about how to navigate the new normal of working from home. Her strategies come from ten years of remote work and over 25 years of studying human behavior, happiness, and successful principles. Through the years, Cindy has not only learned how to manage her own stress effectively, but she’s also been inspired to write her new self-help book, Rockin’ Life From Home, to pass on this knowledge to others. This episode contains simple strategies for finding peace and gratitude amidst the chaos of remote work.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Cindy Baker is an expert in the fields of human behavior, mindfulness, spirituality, alternative healing, happiness, and success principles. A career and small business coach for over ten years, Cindy is passionate about helping others find lasting happiness through simple time-tested methods. Years of experience navigating remote work and family pressures has culminated in her book, Rockin’ Life From Home: Success Strategies to Balance Family Life and Working From Home.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, Sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
TOP TIP FROM THIS EPISODE
Gratitude, practiced over time, leads to a more fruitful life.
According to Cindy, showing gratitude is a necessary aspect of mental wellness. But how do we practice gratitude when the world keeps throwing obstacles at us? Instead of allowing stress to rule our day-to-day, we must focus on the small things. Cindy said, “One thing I’m always grateful for is, no matter what’s going on, the people that are dearest to my heart. And I’m grateful really for every single day.”
And our expectations and intentions play a big part in our ability to focus on what is good. As Cindy talks, coaches, and counsels her clients, she tells them that “over a period of time, if you get up every morning and you expect to have a good day, or you expect whatever happens that day, you’re going to be able to manage it.”
Cindy also emphasized that, when it comes to gratitude, we can start in our home. She said, “You know, we’re talking about boundaries and managing family and work at the same time. And that is a great place to start. [We can say,] ‘Thank you so much for allowing me to work. Thank you so much for allowing me to have this quiet space. Thank you for not bothering me while I’m on a conference call. I really appreciate what you did.’ We can start in our homes and really observe how it affects our loved ones.”
This seed of gratitude then extends to the workplace. Showing appreciation isn’t hard, but it does require us to cultivate the habit of noticing and saying “thank you” for what we have.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Finding Clarity Through Journaling
“I don’t journal every single day, but when I feel like I really need a process for things that are going on in my life, I’ve turned to my journals. I have several of them from throughout the years, cataloged and so forth. I do hand-write, but I don’t write in full sentences. I do sometimes get creative and put words on a paper. I might doodle. So there are various ways that you can journal.”
“A lot of times people feel pressure because they don’t know where to start. […] And we have over 60,000 thoughts going through our heads each day. And that’s a lot of thoughts to manage. So when we’re able to really think through the process and express it through a written word or artistically through doodling and so forth, it allows us to fully process the emotions and the thoughts behind it so that we can release it.”
Implementing Manageable Lists
“I’m always asking myself, what can I manage in a day? What is reasonable and realistic? Because I want to feel successful at the end of each day. I don’t want to feel overwhelmed. I want to feel like I really accomplished things. We really do thrive on being able to attain things and move forward and see that success. So keep your list manageable, which really means a small list. […] Depending on how long each task will take, you probably want five to seven if they’re lengthy, or if they’re very short, eight to ten.”
Chunking Your Time
“If you’re going to work a standard eight-hour day, you want to create chunks of time and then manage the time within those chunks of time. Instead of looking at the whole day — you know, you alluded to making a list — we’ll take that short list and say, ‘okay, what’s the most important now? What do I need to do? And what timeframe is most likely available to complete that task?’ And consider your energy level. If you’re a morning person, tackle your hard stuff and get that out of the way. So I organize my time based on my energy level — when I perform at best.”
Keeping Our Focus on the Present
“The only power we have is in the present moment. […] Practicing mindfulness is basically training our brain to stay more present. And when we do that, when we’re really present, we’re in a state of observing. And when we’re observing, we notice what thoughts we’re having. And when we notice what thoughts we’re having, then we can quickly delineate ‘is this a thought that’s helping me or is this a thought that’s hurting me?’ Research shows one to two minutes can actually help change the brain chemistry in our mind.”
The Willingness to Pivot
“If I have an agenda, and my child needs something, and I’m holding onto that agenda really hard, I’m not being flexible and I’m not being fully present. Because I’m wishing my circumstances were something different than my actual present state. So it’s vital that you have an agenda, but it has to be held loosely to accommodate things that are unexpected. We don’t want to hold onto an agenda in a rigid manner.”
[…] So it’s not really the time that we’re spending. It’s the quality and how we’re using it.
Balancing Work, Kids, and School
“We’re not able to be a hundred percent in both areas at the very same. You have to get creative. You have to look at the personality of the child and see how you can communicate to your children what you need and what you expect of them that’s realistic and age-appropriate. We must be flexible [with our time].”
LEARN MORE
Interested in finding out more about successful strategies for remote work? Grab Cindy’s book, Rockin’ Life From Home, on Amazon. Or you can head over to her website at cindybakerlifedesign.com. to read some helpful blog articles about the topics discussed in today’s podcast.