Where is your third space?

I think you would agree that there is more to life than work. A lot more.

Then why can so many of us be found…

…sending emails at 10pm 

…checking our inbox on a Sunday afternoon

…opening our laptops at 7am and closing them late into the night?

That doesn’t seem very sustainable. Nor very life-friendly.

Are we forgoing our right to disconnect? Or dare I say, our responsibility to disconnect?

(Fun fact, the ‘right to disconnect’ is part of the workplace code in many countries and companies around the world.)

Maybe you remember a time when you left your office and on your way home you slowly transitioned to another frame of mind, and only picked up work thoughts again on your way to work the next morning.

But it’s not quite as easy when we’ve been spending so much time working from home over the past two years. Work blends with home and with life and it needs some intentional untangling.

And sometimes, it can seem like that’s your responsibility as a leader, to be on top of everything, at all hours of the day or night. But I’d say that’s both an illusion and a lie we tell ourselves.

Because if we’re not careful to disconnect from work, we can easily find ourselves burnt out. 

And if our own health doesn’t feel like an urgent motivator, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that creativity and even efficiency rely heavily on pressing the pause button. 

In the latest Grow your Influence podcast episode, my co-host Kristy-Lee Billett and I talk all about how important it is to disconnect from work.

Tune in to learn all about:

·        The third space and where you can find it now that the commute doesn’t punctuate your day as much

·        The law of diminishing returns and how it affects our productivity

·        Examples of how leaders we’ve both been working with have created work/life separation that works for them

·        Why it’s so important for leaders to role model the right to disconnect

·        How to communicate this to your team and peers. You’ll get plenty of ideas to inspire your own way of disconnecting and leave with more sustainable ways to do work and life.

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