Kids, Fido, and WFH: A Short Survival Guide

Welcome to the new new normal. Many of us are now WFH for the foreseeable future because of the new coronavirus. And now — our kids are home too?! Hello, double-duty!little kid holding crayons

The two largest school districts in the country have switched to remote learning in response to COVID-19 — which means a very new reality sets in this week for many working parents: double duty as a remote employee and educational supervisor.

There’s a BIG difference in working remotely from a quiet home and doing so in a household shared by rambunctious children and excitable pets — who hew to Murphy’s Law and somehow know how to show up at the worst possible moment. We know that this is a tough time, so we came up with these tips to help!

Make a plan for education and entertainment.

Your child’s school will likely be instituting remote learning. Some schools have sent home laptops and iPads that would normally stay at school, and some companies have made extra devices available for their employees to take home and use. Check if you don’t have a device for your child to use.

 

In case you need them — WiFi resources.

Not everyone is in the same economic boat. Some families may not have WiFi. To help, telecommunication companies are stepping up. “During this extraordinary time, it is vital that as many Americans as possible stay connected to the internet — for education, work, and personal health reasons,” said Dave Watson, Comcast Cable Chief Executive Officer.

 

Be flexible.

Coronavirus is taking work-life balance and throwing a hundred monkey wrenches at it. Balancing child care, home school supervision, and work is not for the faint of heart. You’re going to have to stretch in new and different ways to make things work. Try getting up before your kids to get some work in before the morning breakfast / walk the dog / feed the hamster / brush your teeth hustle begins. Alternately, clock some night owl hours to catch up if that works for you. Try working in shorter increments of time and taking advantage where you can. These are most unusual times, be kind to yourself, and be realistic about how much work you can actually get done.

Create boundaries.

Put a sign that says: “In a Meeting” on the door to the room where you’re working. That can help kids understand that you are busy and can’t be disturbed. If your space is more open plan, get creative, and put an “In a Meeting” sign on the back of your laptop. Create physical boundaries in whatever way possible to delineate work time and playtime.

Define work hours.

In this land of the new normal, the old rules won’t necessarily apply. Manage expectations. Have a frank conversation with your manager — and be realistic about what you can do. These are temporary measures in a time of crisis — do your best to meet work expectations, but also do your best to make sure your supervisors understand that you are pulling double or triple duty with kids at home. Perhaps you have a schedule of on and off-hours that don’t exactly map to a “typical” workday — with one or two hours of work occurring before breakfast, and another one or two after the kids have gone to bed. Get creative. We all need to work together.

Take breaks. Safely.

Here’s the deal: WFH with kid(s) in tow is a lot to handle, no matter how many arms you have. And now, with social distancing measures in place, it’s even harder to figure out how to structure the day between work and kids and recess and play. Are playdates ok? Outdoor playdates? Playgrounds? Parks? Dr. Eli Perencivich, an infectious disease doctor and epidemiologist, told The New York Times that organizing play dates around an isolated outdoor activity like biking or hiking, or having the kids run around a big, uncrowded park is a safer bet than the local playground. Other pediatricians are recommending virtual playdates, via Skype or FaceTime, instead.

Get in the groove.

The bottom line: get into a routine that works for you and your family. It’s going to be vital to plan ahead and schedule your days and keep a balance of work, planned school activities, and free-play. Things are constantly evolving — we have to stay limber and roll with the theoretical punches.

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist — Karina writes, edits, and produces compelling content across multiple platforms — including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties.

The flight from Los Angeles to Phoenix was short. In the hour since I’d departed balmy, 75-degree LAX, I reviewed my resume, mentally practiced my elevator speech, and reread the job description for the position I was flying out to interview for. Despite some general nervousness, I felt good: energized, charming, and ready to turn it on to impress my would-be employers.

And then I stepped outside into the already 107-degrees-at-11am heat and I thought I was going to die. I was ferried from air-conditioned car to air-conditioned building, and by the time we stepped outside again to go for a late lunch, the temperature was 117 degrees. While I was driven around Phoenix, I remarked to my potential coworker that the city felt like a ghost town. He told me that when it’s really hot (4 to 5 months out of the year), people just don’t go outside during daylight.

Despite this and other warning signs, when the employer called me to extend a job offer, I just mentally plowed through all of those red flags and said, “SIGN ME UP!”

I was there for six slightly miserable, totally tumultuous months before the startup I was hired for imploded and I packed my bags and moved back to LA. But heat and disappointment notwithstanding, I got a lot out of the experience. “Fun” isn’t the right word to describe it, but it was a career and life adventure I’m glad I had and, under the right circumstances, would totally do again. If you’ve ever wondered about moving for work, consider the following before packing your bags.

1. Can you afford the move?

Unless you’re going to do it yourself with a U-Haul, moving costs are insane. Just to move the contents of my 1-bedroom apartment to a new place in Phoenix was $1,600. A cross-country move for a full house can be $5,000 or more. Some companies will offer relocation assistance, but it’s usually only for moving out, so if, at some point, you decide to move back, those costs are on you.

Even if your relocation is covered, another thing to consider is the cost of living in a new city. You probably know that apartments/real estate varies widely based on where you live, but so do expenses like gas, car insurance, utility costs, insurance, and health care costs. Online tools like the PayScale calculator will give quick estimates of how your cost of living might change – it’s not encyclopedic, but it’s a start.

2. How’s the job market in the new city?

There’s probably a reason why the employer is having a hard time finding local talent.

In many cases, it’s because people in the area lack the specific skillset or experience. In my case, it was because I had experience leading pitches for biotech companies. The flipside to this is that if an agency is having a hard time finding a candidate, it’s because there’s probably not a great need for it in that locale. It’s great to feel wanted, but this can mean that if the job doesn’t work out, you may not have a lot of other employment options.

3. Why are you taking the job?

Are you yearning for change? In other words, is this a great opportunity…or are you simply scared that you won’t be able to find another job?

If you think you have to move just to make a living, you probably have more opportunity in your backyard than you think. You may have to hustle to find and then win new clients, but don’t forget: there are nearly 30 million small businesses in the US, and most of them need advertising and marketing. If you love where you live, dedicate yourself to making your career work.

4. Considering your goals, will the job be worth it?

If you’re underwhelmed in your current scenario – in either work or life – and a fancy agency comes to court you, it can be easy to get carried away and sign on the dotted line without much thought. Will it:

  • Expand your long-term career prospects?
  • Give you a radical and desirable personal change (e.g., moving to New York, frequent international travel, pay for you to go back to school)?
  • Pay you a ton more money?

You’ve got to decide what’s right for you, but taking a job in a strange new city for just a lateral move that you’re making because you’re bored or you feel desperate is a recipe for despair and resentment.

Proceed with caution.

In the end, when the agency I’d taken a job with shut down, I could not wait to turn my back on Phoenix, leaving with little more than some shiny new bullet points to put on my resume and the knowledge that LA is truly my home. Despite the fact it was hot, hard, and lonely, I don’t regret my move. If I could go back and do it again, though, I probably would have asked the recruiter if they would let me freelance for a month to make sure it was a good fit.

Ultimately, you’re the only one who can decide if moving for a job fits in your life. A lot can happen, but the key is to make sure that whatever does happen, you’re in a better position than when you started.

Lisa is a Creative Circle candidate and seasoned advertising copywriter who lives in Los Angeles. Her background includes both in-house and agency work on Fortune 500 and global accounts in the consumer and healthcare/pharmaceutical fields. She excels at words, fashion, and cats. If you want to work with Lisa, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

Change is hard. Really hard.

How many resolutions have you set that never made it past February? If the number is big, you’re not alone. Research has suggested that while 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, only 8% of those resolutions are actually achieved.

Why?

Because resolutions rely on motivation.

Motivation doesn’t work.

Motivation is based on emotion and emotion is unreliable. Not that motivation is bad. In fact, it’s great when you can get it. It’s just not something that serves as a good foundation for lasting change.

Unfortunately, we often can’t control things that impact our motivation. What happens when you lose a client, have relationship issues, get a new and unreasonably demanding boss, or need to care for a parent in failing health? These, and thousands of other things, affect your feelings. They tend to bring down your levels of enthusiasm and energy. And when we feel down, motivation goes down. When motivation goes down, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow’ becomes all too easy.

This is when resolutions and commitments waiver and often fail. What’s worse is that repeated unsuccessful attempts to change work against us by lowering our self-confidence and our belief in our self-control. We blame ourselves for our lack of progress and we go out looking for things that will motivate us. But it’s the strategy of relying on motivation that got us into trouble in the first place.

If you’ve tried to change and have consistently failed, the issue isn’t you… it’s your strategy.

Forming new habits is the key.

As actions (resolutions) start to become habit, the emotion and our focus on them naturally wanes. This is actually a good thing because habits don’t rely on motivation or thinking things through. It’s why we can drive while our mind is elsewhere. Habits are automatic.

And forming habits is the key to long-lasting change.

How do we form habits?

Stephen Guise (Mini-Habits) suggests that the key is to set your objectives ‘stupidly small’ – so small that resistance to doing it is minimal and your chance of success is high. They should be so small that it takes no more than 5-10 minutes (or 3-5 minutes if needed) to accomplish. Take that new habit you want to form and break it down to super small mini-habits to get you started.

  • A resolution to eat healthier becomes a commitment to eat one vegetable a day.
  • A need to live within a budget can start with stopping all Starbucks (‘insert your regular money-wasting purchase here’) visits.
  • The desire to exercise daily for 30 minutes becomes a commitment do one push up a day.
  • A goal to be more collaborative with colleagues can start with a commitment to compliment one person’s idea or work every other day.

This approach was backed by a classic Stanford University study that focused on kids who had trouble with math. One group was instructed to set small math goals, while a second group set long-term goals. The first group accurately solved 80% of the problems. The second group correctly solved only 40%.

The Benefits of Taking This Small Mini-Habits Approach

  1. Starting small reduces internal resistance which means only an infinitesimally small (laughably small) amount of willpower is needed. If it takes more than this, you’ve not set them small enough.
  2. Doing something small is infinitely better than doing nothing. And setting big goals typically leads to doing nothing.
  3. Success at doing small things builds a positive feedback loop which increases self-efficacy. From this positive foundation it’s easier to do a bit more than the minimum as time goes on. From here, it’s easier to ‘scale up’ over time.
  4. And even if you don’t scale up, doing something small every day builds a routine. This is enough to grow into a lifelong foundational habit.

Other Habit-Formation Tips

  • Develop a plan – Select your mini-habit. Pick a trigger (e.g. time of day) which will prompt you to implement it. Select a reward. Write these down.
  • Track your progress – Keep a log on how you’re doing. Note occasions when you’ve scaled up in duration, difficulty, overcoming obstacles, etc.
  • Develop a reward system – Give yourself a reward (e.g. a hot bath or a phone call with a friend) only after you’re finished with your mini-habit for the day.
  • Surround yourself with a support network – The people you spend time with do impact your habits, both good and bad. Surround yourself with people who are good at what you want to achieve.
  • Build in accountability – Your log tracking your progress holds you accountable to yourself. Telling your support network what you’re doing so they can encourage you will help you to be accountable to them.
  • Focus on avoiding loss – Focusing on avoiding loss leads to change more often than focusing on gaining something (Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success). For example, envisioning a life plagued with heart disease has a greater chance of leading to a healthy lifestyle than imagining yourself looking good in a swimsuit.
  • Use a vacation to break a habit – Behavior associated with habits often start with a trigger which tells your brain to perform its habitual learned behavior. Vacations change those triggers which breaks up our normal behavior patterns. For this reason, Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) says that vacations can be one of the best times to break yourself of an unwanted habit.

The good news is that habits are malleable throughout our life so it’s never too late to improve something for the better.

Robin Elledge is the founder of Janus, a coaching and consulting firm in Los Angeles. Robin’s greatest passion is working with people to improve their ability to effect change within their company, team, and themselves. She has over 30 years of experience supporting and coaching leaders at all levels, from CEOs to those who are just beginning their management journey.

If you’re at a point where the stress of your career is impacting your quality of life, you’re not alone. 39% of adults in the U.S. experience stress in professional situations; 29% in balancing family and work. Maybe it’s the stress of having too many days that start with early morning conference calls with clients and end with working to meet late night deadlines. Perhaps you can’t deal with the rage you feel when the client sacks your most brilliant ideas and asks you for a “Got Milk?” inspired headline instead. Or maybe you’re like me, and you wake up in the middle of the night worrying that a robot is going to take your job in five years.

Whatever got you to this mid-career crisis, now you feel irreparably fried and like it’s time to get out of the industry. So, what do you do now?

First, get your head in the right space.

Whether the solution is finding a new job or just making a small change, it’s critical to get some mental space from your work issues before you make any life-changing decision. Then you’ll know you’re making thoughtful choices that are based in reason and not simply having a knee-jerk reaction that you may regret later.

If it’s possible, take a few days off, or use your weekend to seriously recharge. Block out time for yourself just like you might block off time for projects. It also might help to seek out therapy. A therapist can teach you skills to better handle your challenges and reveal other opportunities for change. If you have health care coverage through your employer you probably have access to mental health benefits, or even an Employee Assistance Plan, which provides benefits like a certain number of visits to a mental health professional, financial planning advice, and similar services that can come in handy when you’re trying to figure out the rest of your life.

Then, do some soul-searching.

If you’re able to get time for yourself, start asking the hard questions. Swapping careers is a big jump, and for some, a big risk, so getting specific about your wants and needs in a new job needs to be a serious step. Some questions to ask could be:

Do I still enjoy what I do?
Perhaps switching to a different company or organization in your industry is what you need, instead of a significant career shift.

Is it something, or someone, in my current work environment that’s making me unhappy?
If you have that one co-worker you can’t seem to shake, consider a different department or asking to be reassigned to a different account. If the entire work environment is getting you down, it might be time to find a new one.

What am I great at and what tangible skills do I have?
List your abilities out if you need to, so you can see where else they might translate.

Where do I want to be in five years? 10 years?
Keep asking yourself this until you have a clear picture of the type of person you want to be.

Take an honest look at your answers. If you’re at the point where the fear of the unknown feels less awful than the dread of another Monday, you’re ready for a change.

Now, make time to move forward.

If you know what you want to do next:
Congratulations! You’re that much closer to transitioning to something new. Your next steps are to address the skills gap, in case your expertise won’t transfer laterally.

If you need to acquire new skills, there’s no shortage of online learning options. If you can’t swing new training or classes, start with MeetUps and networking events in the area you want to shift to with the goal of getting to know more about the types of people who’ll be your future colleagues.

If you have no idea of what you want to be when you grow up:
There’s no easy answer, but start by looking at your strengths and what you love. If there’s still nothing that stands out to you, reverse engineer a career by looking at people whose lives you love and want for your own. (No, Beyoncé doesn’t count.)

There is perhaps no more daunting feeling in the world than knowing you can’t continue as you have been, yet also not knowing what you want to do. As you did when getting your head in the right space, take time and work through it with yourself and others. This is another part where a knee-jerk reaction will risk you being no better off than where you are now.

If you’re not quite ready to make the switch:
Volunteering for a cause can make you feel like you’re doing something more meaningful or worthwhile than what you’re currently doing at work. Volunteering can also help you build a new network, make new friends, and burnish your self-esteem — all of which can make you happier, in general, and make it easier to stick it out in your present circumstances until you’re ready to take the plunge.

Many of us also find extracurricular creative outlets to be essential. Discover the things you enjoy doing; they can give you a feeling of accomplishment that you just aren’t finding at your job. And above all, remember that you deserve to be happy and it’s never too late to make a change – mid-career crisis or not.

Lisa is a Creative Circle candidate and seasoned advertising copywriter who lives in Los Angeles. Her background includes both in-house and agency work on Fortune 500 and global accounts in the consumer and healthcare/pharmaceutical fields. She excels at words, fashion, and cats. If you want to work with Lisa, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

Without self-reflection on who you are as a creative, how can you decide where you want to go in your career and how to get there? How will you gain confidence in figuring out what kind of client or employer might be interested in hiring you for your unique skills, and for what reasons?

“Developing your personal brand is essential for the advancement of your career and development,” wrote consultant and executive coach Glenn Llopis in “Personal Branding Is A Leadership Requirement, not a Self-Promotion Campaign.”
What you can do to become aware of your own strengths?

First: Stop, relax, and think.

Identifying and developing your personal brand isn’t the same as making a list of goals, dreams, aspirations, or wishes for what you want to be. It’s a little more challenging than that — you will need to engage in a little self-reflection. Find some quiet time without distractions. It won’t take all day — in fact, you may be surprised at how quickly and naturally your own sense of self will emerge, once you give it a chance. That self-knowledge is always there, in the back of your mind. All you need to do is tune in.

Then: Get to know your strengths and weaknesses.

This creative exercise requires a little time. Designers and writers especially find inspiration in their own memories, thoughts, and imagination. To apply the same thinking to your professional brand, “Examine your past experiences in work, in school, and in life, as well as the interests, skills, knowledge, talents, dreams, goals, and preferences that these experiences reveal,” counsels executive coach Debra Benton in “Self-Reflection Helps Your Personal Brand.” The aim is to understand your own background so you can decide how you would like to appear to prospective clients or employers.

To get started, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What situations bring out the best in you?
  • What inspires you? Sparks your creativity?
  • What are some things that energize you and that you enjoy doing?
  • What challenges make you want to get going?
  • What makes you feel strong?
  • How have you handled disappointments? Do errors, failures or setbacks throw you off?
  • What do you like doing for others? How do you make other people feel good about themselves?
  • What makes you feel supported or encouraged?
  • What do your customers or clients appreciate most in you?
  • What do you find most rewarding about your work?
  • What do others seem to think you do very well?

Try not to pass judgment on what you are discovering. An honest evaluation of your capabilities, experience, and intentions is not the same as a session of self-criticism. We are all allowed to make mistakes. Both our victories and our setbacks make us who we are and help us to understand ourselves and what we offer to our clients, our community, and our world. You want to get to know your own gifts and weaknesses, because that knowledge is ultimately the pillar of your true strength.

Llopis said: “Challenge yourself to think about what your intentions are and what you are capable of delivering to the communities you are serving, both in and outside of the workplace.”

Julie is a Creative Circle candidate and experienced freelance writer, editor, and content creator in Santa Monica, California. A mentor and a career adviser, she cares about the community of freelancers who are finding new ways to work successfully in today’s gig economy. If you want to work with Julie, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.

Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. -Susan Scott

In this era of digital communication it’s easy to overlook, ignore and avoid the relationships in our lives that need work. If you have ever sent an email when you should have picked up the phone, purposely dodged someone’s cubicle, or sat in fuming silence during a frustrating meeting… you’re not alone.

Sometimes we avoid a difficult conversation because we don’t know what to say or we’re afraid of what we’ll hear in return. Other times, we convince ourselves that we don’t have the time to deal with it or we don’t want to hurt another’s feelings. Or, we may lack the courage to confront the issue directly.

Having a difficult conversation is hard work. Changing the trajectory of a poor relationship takes effort. But avoiding the obvious problem can lead to anger, frustration, exhaustion, and even depression. If you have a difficult relationship, think about how much time and energy it sucks from you. Think through the benefits to be gained by improving it and then dive in to ensure those benefits are realized.

1. Prepare what you want to say

Start with your goal. What do you want to get out of the conversation? It should never be about being hurtful or ‘winning’ an argument. If that’s your objective, quit while you’re ahead. Your goal should be around developing a better understanding, getting past a roadblock, resolving a specific issue, being more productive, and/or moving forward with a specific activity or objective. Clearly state your goal in terms that are specific to your situation.

Next, write down what you want to say and organize it into key points. It’s best to keep the information limited. No one likes having a laundry list of issues thrown at them. Prioritize your list and plan on focusing on only the 2-3 most important issues.

The person you’re talking to may need help understanding the issue so be prepared with examples. Also, be prepared to discuss the impact – on you, your team, the project, or the company. Your concerns will carry more weight if you can clearly explain why it’s important.

Make sure you can describe the issue in ways they will find compelling. Remember the adage that everyone is asking, WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). Think about what motivates them and how they want to be perceived. How will their own goals be helped by improving their relationship with you? Weave this information into what you want to say.

2. Practice

Ask a friend to practice with you. Do a role play. Ask your friend to be objective and offer honest feedback on how you can improve what you’re saying. However, being prepared does not mean memorizing a script. Trying to remember exact wording could add to your nervousness and it doesn’t allow for the natural ebb and flow of conversations.

3. Prepare yourself

Start with how you’re thinking about the conversation. Labeling it as ‘difficult’ means you’re anticipating problems which will add to your jitters. Think about it as having a constructive conversation to move forward; an opportunity to develop new ideas, hear a different perspective, or identify alternatives. Anything to reset your thinking in a positive direction.

Before the meeting, take steps to calm and center yourself. Take a walk, practice a mindfulness exercise, have a cup of tea, focus on your breathing and take the time to collect your thoughts.

4. Deliver. Stop. Ask. Listen.

It’s often good to start by acknowledging the discomfort for you both. Explaining that you know this might not be an easy conversation for them shows empathy and can be the start of a productive dialogue. Also, be aware of your tone of voice. It’s often said that 10% of conflict is about the issue and 90% is about the tone of voice. Work to remain calm, patient and interested.

Explain that you’d like a chance to voice your concerns and that when you’re done, you want to hear their perspective. They will be less likely to interrupt if they know their turn is coming. Once you’re finished explaining your key points, pause. Stop. Give them a time to absorb what you said. Silence can be hard but is often needed to show respect for their feelings.

Ask for their perspective. Express a genuine interest in hearing their side of the story. Only by hearing one another out can you accomplish the goal you set in Step 1. When the other person explains their perspective, it’s important to truly listen with an open mind. Work towards finding common ground between you and determine your mutual goals.

Take ownership for your piece of the problem. Chances are that you both contributed to the relationship getting to the place it is. You will have more credibility; more influence in this situation if you acknowledge your role in creating it.

5. Work toward ‘next steps’

Make a commitment. Find something in your difficult conversation that you can commit to that will improve the relationship, even if it’s only a small step. Encourage them to do the same. If they’re open to something bigger, discuss making a larger commitment to one another or develop an action plan. One commitment that is often made is to discuss issues with one another on a more timely basis in the future, should they continue to arise.

Be patient. Unless the issue is simple you may not fully resolve it in the first conversation. If this is the case, schedule another conversation. Even if you can’t reach any other resolution, resolve to continue the dialogue and schedule it for a specific date.

Remember: the relationship won’t fix itself and it may get worse unless you step in. And what’s the worst that can happen? That you crash and burn? That you’re rejected? This would show that you tried which sure beats knowing you lacked the courage!

Robin Elledge is the founder of Janus, a coaching and consulting firm in Los Angeles. Robin’s greatest passion is working with people to improve their ability to effect change within their company, team, and themselves. She has over 30 years of experience supporting and coaching leaders at all levels, from CEOs to those who are just beginning their management journey.

I love deadlines. I really do. As a freelance writer and editor and a lifelong procrastinator, I know that without firm deadlines, I’ll let my tasks drag on and on. I’ve noticed, however, that many creative freelancers like me are ripe for exploitation from demanding clients. We accept tight, unrealistic deadlines from clients who, whether they are aware of it or not, are taking advantage of a writer’s or designer’s fears of losing out on an assignment or the client altogether. But, freelancer, your fears are misplaced. I want to convince you that you’ll win when you refuse to accept unrealistic deadlines.

Crazy-short deadlines are not good for you

Research has demonstrated that overwork and its accompanying stress and exhaustion can interfere with making good judgment calls. “You’re simply more likely to make mistakes when you’re tired, and most of us tire more easily than we think we do,” said the Harvard Business Review’s executive editor Sarah Green Carmichael in “The Research Is Clear: Long Hours Backfire for People and for Companies.” “Keep overworking, and you’ll progressively work more stupidly on tasks that are increasingly meaningless.” Harsh words, but she drives home an important point: Overwork does not work.

Moreover, the health risks associated with overworking are real, and your impaired health does nothing to improve the client’s bottom line. Putting your client’s needs before your own reduces the leisure and relaxation that is key to de-stressing and appreciating your day-to-day life. Weekends/time off are for you, family, friends, outdoor activities and leisure. If you miss out on all that life enrichment, you’ll lose those special and rewarding moments, and even risk your personal life and important relationships.

Don’t make accepting unrealistic deadlines the norm

Sometimes your client may have a last-minute emergency where you want to step up and help out. Fair enough. When you routinely accept such deadlines, however, it isn’t good for you or your client. It’s normal to let our fears dictate our behavior from time to time, but if you get into a consistent pattern of jumping higher and higher at the client’s command, you will inevitably become exhausted and stressed out.

Don’t imagine that your clients will appreciate your going the extra mile or 10, or reward you for your sacrifices. In fact, your modus operandi simply trains your clients to demand faster and faster turnarounds. In the words of Meridian Health Plan CIO Tom Lauzon, quoted in “Don’t Always Aim to Meet Unrealistic Deadlines,” “When you finish a project with an unrealistic deadline, your reward is another project with another unrealistic deadline.” Overly demanding clients don’t empathize or understand what you require to deliver your assignment and will keep pushing you until you set limits.

So, how do you respectfully say no to unrealistic deadlines?

  • Be professional, clear and brief.
  • Do not get defensive, justify yourself or make excuses. You have a right to set limits that will improve your functioning as well as the quality of the work you produce, and to deliver to that client.
  • Stay calm and be positive. The person you’re addressing will appreciate it and mirror your low-key approach.
  • Be rational, but keep a sense of humor to reduce tension.
  • Remind clients of your achievements and successes on their behalf as you set limits.

And finally, practice what one of my mentors calls “the old ‘assume’ trick.” It really works: Begin by thanking clients in advance for their understanding of your need for more time to do the best job. When you seem to assume that clients will understand and say yes, it makes it a lot harder for them to say no.

What will happen if you set boundaries for an over-demanding client?

In the vast majority of cases, that client will have greater respect for you, and understand that you are a busy professional and not some dilettante artiste trying to shirk the hard work of creative writing or design. The worst that can happen? You lose the exhausting clients who drain your energy, and then you have the time and inner resources to replace them with better, more responsible people and businesses. We are all entitled to some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, as Aretha Franklin famously put it. Saying no clears space for you to say yes to opportunities that will advance you professionally and reward you appropriately.

Julie is a Creative Circle candidate and experienced freelance writer, editor, and content creator in Santa Monica, California. A mentor and a career adviser, she cares about the community of freelancers who are finding new ways to work successfully in today’s gig economy. If you want to work with Julie, contact Creative Circle Los Angeles.