189. Rest Is Part of the Work: Penelope Barr on Sleep, Energy and Better Work with Prina Shah

SPEAKER_02 0:03

This podcast is for people who know that the workplace can and should be better and are ready to do something about it. You learn practical ways to change organizational cultures and human behavior without bosswork, without box teaching, without performative leadership. I am the boss of Freen of Shark Consulting, working with executives, leaders, and teams to create work cultures and environments that actually work for people. I am Freenoshark. I specialise in organizational culture change and human behaviour change. I am all about making work better with people who give a damn. So if you think I can help, contact me via LinkedIn. I am here to help you to find decent ways to change the workplace. Let's do this. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast with me, your host, Prina Shah, and I'm bringing to you today Penelope Bar to talk about something very important that is at the top of my mind, I tell you right now. Penelope, congratulations on your recent book, Win the Night to Win the Day. How are you? I'm great, thanks.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

This is my book in um opening shot.

SPEAKER_04 1:12

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah. Yeah, I'm really good. Um I have had so my book is uh the so the subtitle tells you a bit more about the book. So it's sleep well, work better, live best. Because um, you know, where where the book came from is that I am incredibly organized and incredibly productive and have been forever.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

And what I was increasingly finding was it didn't really matter how well organized I was um during the day. If I hadn't had a good night's sleep, all bets were off. And so I started doing a lot more research into well, how can I improve? I have a husband who snores all night loudly, and um also a dog who barks a lot because we live in inner city, we've got wild hares, foxes, and lots of other dogs around. So there's lots of stuff going on. And so I started thinking about and trying to understand how I could, you know, optimize my sleep. And I did what I always do, did a lot of research, did a few years of experiments, spoke to a lot of people that I know, but also spoke to a range of global experts. I went and sat on the street in a range of different uh suburbs and states and asked people um, you know, how they slept and how they worked better and how they lived better. Um and also because of the work that I do, so for the past six years, I have been living what I call 633. So I've redesigned my work life around, and it's actually my work life and my life, um, moving away from big global roles to doing six months of what I call generate, so six months of earning for the year, three months to create, so I write and I paint, and then three months to rejuvenate, so I travel and I pursue my passion projects. So the book contains all of that. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

You practice what you preach clearly. Absolutely, yes. And on top of research, I mean, you've done a heap of research, you've done qualitative research, you've done quantitative research, and you talk from lived experience as well. 633, my mouth just dropped. 633. Oh my gosh. Okay, now I have a million, million questions for you. So you've written this book, obviously, from your own life experience and you know the need for better sleep. And oh, many, many people are going to benefit from this conversation so much. What are we fundamentally misunderstanding about energy management? Is what I want to talk to you about first off.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I think one of the things about um, you know, when we're thinking about energy, and it's and it's great that people, more people are speaking about energy, but the biggest misunderstanding I think that we have is that we optimize for our time, but ignore the resource that powers that time, which is our energy.

unknown 4:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

And so you, you know, that's just a that's just a kind of like a dir, you know, why do we do that? And part of it is because we don't really understand ourselves. And a lot of people are in organizations where they don't have, you know, full control over their time or their energy. No. Like a lot of us as knowledge workers, we do, you know, we we run teams, we set the cadence for what we're doing. And often we'll have our stand-ups and our meetings in the morning. Yeah. For a lot of people, that's when they're most alive. They've got them their energy is is optimal. And so that time actually should be for deep work. Yes. Um, and then we should use the time when we're, you know, not as optimal for um, you know, for shallow work and for, you know, for admin and for meetings and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

If you're thinking about, you know, from a team perspective, you know, one of the things that's really great to do is to do an energy audit or an energy energy management process. Um, talk to kind of help you. Um, but that's really so that, you know, as a team, you can kind of understand is everyone in this team where where are they optimal in terms of the energy reserves? And then you can design your cadence around that. It doesn't mean it's always going to be perfect. And it might mean that in the middle of the day where that might work optimally for most people. But for example, my husband has the opposite circadian rhythm to me, so it comes from your circadian rhythm.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

He he really doesn't come alive till sort of three or four in the afternoon. And so he doesn't go to bed, he doesn't like he ideally would go to bed at 2 a.m. Whereas I am up at six and I'm in bed by 10 max. Um, and one of the things about circadian rhythm is we think that we can change it. We can't. It's one of the things that's that's genetically gifted to us. Yeah, and so effectively we can still blame our parents. Our parents are still trying to tell us when to put it.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating, isn't it? The whole circadian rhythm stuff. I've been learning about it more myself as I am aging, and my partner as well. And like yourselves, we've got completely different windows. So, like you, I'm the, you know, I'm the regular uh nine to five kind of sleeper to fit into the nine to five world, and that's how my body works best. But him, he's a creative, he's a musician by night, so you know, he's up until if he could be up until gosh, one, two, he would, and then have a sleep and then wake up 10, 11, you know, welcome to the world again. But our our workplaces don't allow for that. So I'm really glad that you're changing this conversation or you're giving us the understanding first off, for us to be able to understand, to do an energy audit, like hello. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah. And then even if you are like my husband or like your partner, you know, even if you say, okay, my, you know, I have to fit in with the world as it is, but knowing that you're that you come alive later in the day, it's then for you to kind of time shift and energy shift in terms of saying, okay, well, you know, I can certainly attend these things that you want to have in the morning, but I'm not going to be optimal. Or, you know, let's look at pushing some of those things to later in the day, if they're, you know, if they're really important. So if you're running a, you know, a workshop that, you know, you, you know, creativity-based workshop or something where you kind of need people to be really on, yeah, then it really is good to have an understanding of that. And then also if if you, you know, if it has to be the whole day, then it's really about kind of making sure that within that time frame that you're optimizing for energy. So you're, you know, you're you're giving people breaks and you're um thinking about how will people kind of transition between this space and that space.

SPEAKER_04 7:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Um, that sort of thing. So because we can't, we can't, you know, I and a lot of this has come from, you know, I used to work sort of 12, 14, 16 hours a day for decades.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And so it's really been hard won knowledge. Um, I just I did it because I thought I needed to to be successful. And I did it because once I started, then I'd set the benchmark for what I expected for myself and what I told other people to expect of me. And so then this treadmill, I was like, ah, I've got to get off.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah. Oh, so true, so true. And this just reminds me, Penelope, of a conversation I had recently. So I work in organizational culture change and human behavior change. And a lot of the workshops and sessions that I run are with teams who really need to have big conversations and do the hard stuff, right? So the conversation with the client himself was okay, we'll do the workshop for this um targeted amount of time because of energy management and just the cognitive load that people are gonna have. And you know, it's gonna be overwhelm otherwise, versus HR, who saw the proposal and, like, no, Prina, we need to do, or you need to do a whole day session, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I get it from HR's perspective in terms of, you know, they're looking at value for money, but the value for money, in my honest opinion, would be to have a more succinct workshop where people just don't frazzle, their brains don't fry by the end of the day. Because I think that from an output perspective, would just it would lose people altogether. And I think workplaces are still, we don't understand that.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

No, absolutely. I mean, I've I worked across um, you know, technology transformation, product change.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

There's still definitely the hero mentality that still exists, and even though I'm now in my sixth year of doing my 623 um approach, I do interim exec rolls. So I'm doing one now, and I'm constantly surprised. It kind of takes me a little bit of time to kind of recognize and and kind of confirm that this hero mentality is still very much alive.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Well, you have completely broken this hero mentality, and people listening in are thinking, what is this X33? Tell us more. You said you were in your sixth year.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yeah. So when I finished my last, which I didn't know was going to be my last big global role, yeah. I very quickly did what I always do. So I brought a whole lot of people around me and said, okay, let's start looking for our next roles together.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And what I found within a couple of weeks was actually I was coaching those people because I'd sort of worked out I I ended up kind of kind of creating this 12-point criteria to get a new role. And I thought, actually, I don't really want a new role. So I had lots of, you know, I had interviews and lots of opportunities and things, and I kept going to them and I was like, you know, I it's I just don't want to do it. So I thought I'm gonna try something different. Uh I didn't know what that was, and so I kept doing that that same coaching thing for two years. I kept bringing people um in communities, and it was great. And then I started, I had a lot of people asking me about how I worked, and so I started coaching people in six through three, and also I've got another program called Career on Your Terms, where I kind of kind of take people from sort of now to next to beyond and how. Um and then at the same time, I started writing a bit more. So I've always loved writing, I've got a degree in in English, and then I've always done, you know, internal comms roles and communications roles as part of the change and transformation work. And I sort of thought I'm gonna be give that a bit more time. Um, and so I uh someone on LinkedIn reached out and asked if I wanted to write a book, which of course I thought was a scam. And then they kept me. I was like, yeah. And at the same time, one of my sisters died. So I think it was during COVID, and she just got one day. And I've I have lots and lots of lips, lists, so I live my life by lists. And one of the things that's always been on a um, you know, a bucket list was write a book. And I was like, oh my god, you know, my sister's died, she's five years younger than me. I need to write a book. And so that then that sort of sealed that. And then from then on, I've I've been writing um ongoing. So um, but then I I sort of thought I don't want to lose my, I really, I really like work and I like I like you know corporate organizations, especially the ones that are working well. Yes. Um I thought I didn't want to lose that connection completely. And so I came up with the idea of doing interim roles. Um, and so I've been lucky to to have those um whenever I need them, which is great. Um, and I love travel. So I've I've you know I live for travel. I always have. My parents used to have, or my dad used to have six weeks' holidays, and we would travel around Australia. We've been to almost well, we a lot of Australia. Wow. Um I've always had a love, a love of travel and the ability for it to broaden everything. Um, and in fact, my daughter said to me this year, Mom, can this be the first year when I go for the whole year at school and I don't miss any school because we're going overseas? And I was like, oh, okay. I love this. Wow, wow. So so it's sort of taken me. Um, I mean, that and that, you know, the key things that people ask me about is oh, there's sort of three things. How do you organize your time? Yeah, how do you um organize the year, and how do you make money? Yes, they're the things that I really work with people on in terms of the coaching that I do. But, you know, in summary, I plan my year in November. Okay. And I basically structure it. Um, I have quarterly um check-ins, so I take a day for myself or a quarter and my family as well. Um, and then I do a monthly check-in, so I publish those on um LinkedIn. Um, I do an annual report at the end of the year to kind of assess what I've done the year before and plan for the next year. And then also each week I do a key plan on a Friday ready for Monday. And then each day I replan um what, you know, I check what I've I've planned for the morning. I replan at lunchtime as well. So I just check in in terms of okay, did I actually do those things? When I come back from lunch, I reset to say, okay, this is what I want to do for the afternoon. And before I finish for the evening, I kind of say, okay, that's what I'm doing. So I don't use complicated tools. I use Trello to kind of keep everything sorted. And then I just use a paper-based diary to kind of yeah, work through work through the day.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

I love crossing things off. And yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah, same. And and the fact that you're doing that and you do it at the end of the week, you do it monthly as well. It really keeps you on target, so to speak in a corporate language, um, to achieve whatever the grand things you want to achieve, whether it be travel, whether it be you know, a six-month contract, a sexy organization, wherever, or a three-month book writing retreat, whatever you want to do, you can do in that respect. So you're really taking agency back from um the corporate world and what we've really been taught. So you're really breaking all sorts of barriers. Um, so my next question why do so many high performers, in your opinion, treat rest like a reward?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Um, yeah, so I think part of it is, I mean, because I I did this for, as I said, for decades. You know, I I would um you know, have these lists. I still would live live my live life by lists, and I'd say, okay, when I get to there, then I can have, you know, have a coffee. When I get to there, I can have some food. And obviously, sometimes I would never get there. So I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't have a drink, you know, I would sit at my desk for hours now. And we know now how bad that is.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

But I think, you know, there's that sort of, there still is that social reward that we get from, you know, I'm so busy, I've got so many things on. You know, as I mentioned before, that kind of exhaustion as a badge of honor is still alive and well. Um, you know, when I was uh it was funny, when I was writing my book, I used to go every day to a different cafe around me because I like the um the I found that was good for kind of keeping me accountable as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

And I clearly remember this one day when I was sitting at my one of my favorite cafes and this guy walked in and spoke to a girl who was already at the counter. And he said, Oh my God, you know, I'm so tired. I worked till I worked till I finished the the slides for today at four, and then I decided I'd stay up and just practice what we're gonna work, work, go through today. And instead of saying, you know, expressing concern that he was so tired or kind of saying, you know, you know, that is is that the best way of working, she said, Oh my god, you're a beast. You're such a beast, like I wish I had your stamina. And I was like, oh, and I I I I just kind of said no, that's not right. No. Um, because they were going to facilitate a a session. I mean, you do get a euphoric, um, a short-term euphoric benefit when you you work. It's a high, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You would have felt that if you've ever done totally all of us have some beauty or at work and that sort of thing. But you know, I think one of the things that we need to think about is, you know, even if you go to the gym, yeah, often people will say, today is leg day. Yes. Tomorrow is, you know, tomorrow is arm day. We have that understanding when it comes to working our bodies and you know, high performance athletes and other athletes have that too. So if you're a part of a team, if you're a part of a basketball team, a cricket team, you don't practice everything all the time. You say, okay, we're gonna concentrate on this thing at the moment, we're gonna do a bit of that, and then we'll we'll try to incrementally get better. We measure our progress. You know, where at the gym we kind of say, okay, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it, you know, until I, until I hurt for some people, or you know, whatever my program is, but I'm not gonna do that the next day because I know that's going to that's gonna hurt um and that's gonna be painful. So I think the thing that you know, the thing then is it's this it's the same for our brain. So rest isn't what happens when rest when work is finished. It's really it's really what allows us the quality of it really allows the quality of the work to improve. Yes. You are yes, yeah, and so you're well refreshed. And you and you know, people with people listening will know that when you know, sometimes you you're struggling with a problem and then you you step away from your desk, yes, go for a work, walk, you might have a shower, you might talk to someone else, you might do a drawing, you know, might do anything else. And then just that stepping away um often often kind of allows that and enables you to have that space where you can actually do better thinking and then you can come back to something. And I think that's the thing that's that's really important, yeah, to kind of recognize.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

This is massive. It is so true, and a lot of us know about it. Yeah, a lot of us don't don't do the thing. I remember when I worked at corporate days, I used to have a post-it with um just this symbol on it, just a pause symbol. You can't see this on the screen, but you know, just to remind me, pause to take breaks in between things and to get the hell out and go for a walk. Basic little things such as that as well. Because rest, I mean, it's uh unfortunately rest is seen as oh, you're soft, you're weak, you're this, you're that. You're not a beast, you know. I mean, what kind of language is that as well?

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, and it is hard to, you know, when you're when you're when the pressure's on, and you know, quite often we we put out we put so much pressure on ourselves, let alone what everyone else is is telling us to do. Correct. One of the concepts in in the book that I've created is around transition time. So um I've created, I've broken the day, uh and I, you know, I've talked about how I do this for a year, but I I break the day into key components.

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

So I wake up in the morning and I either, depending on what stage of the year I'm in, I either go to straight to the pool and swim, or I walk up 16 um steps to my desk and I do work for about an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

And then I get up and I make sure my daughter's sorted, my husband's okay, my dog's fed. Um, I do that for a bit. And then I either travel into work or I start work, my um, my interim role if I'm doing that.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Do that for um, I try to work in in um Pomodoro, so 25-minute increments. Yep. I'm not as good when I've got other meetings and things, but I've just got, you know, at the moment I'm doing a big piece of strategy work and that's what I'm trying to do to get really what I'm doing. Then I kind of get to lunchtime, I make sure that I have a break, I move away from my desk, I either go for a walk with my dog or I talk to someone or I go for lunch with someone or just you know, walk around the block. And then I come back in the afternoon, I work for a few hours, and then I stop. And then sometimes I'll do my own stuff as well before dinner, um, or I'll do something around the, I'll do my personal admin or something around the house, have dinner as a family, and then we have family time. Um, but you know, the and the key thing between each of those is thinking about those in terms of transitions. Yes. So yeah, so we need to think about how and and people would recognize this in terms of running between meetings, etc.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Chris.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

So, you know, many people would be familiar with working really hard all day, getting to the end of the of the day and thinking, God, what did I do? Running home, having to kind of run into the house, and you bring all of the stress. Of all those meetings piled on one after the other.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Home or on public transport. And then you get inside and you've just kind of brought all this stress. And your kids are excited to see you, and your wife or husband or your partner or whoever or your flatmates are excited to see you. And you're just like, oh, or you're across. And so what we need to be thinking about is what's happening there is that we are just building the cognitive load all day. Yes. And you need to take the time, and it can be literally seconds to say, okay, you know, so after this, I've got another meeting. Once I finish from you, I will take a couple of minutes to kind of say, okay, either that was good or it wasn't, or I could have done this, or, you know, what do I need to do with that? Do I need to put the diary note in my calendar for it? It's going to be out, whatever. And I close that loop. And then I get ready before I jump on the next call. I have to be clear about like I did for this meeting. I was like, okay, what am I talking about? Where are my notes? What do I need to do? I read over things. I got ready. So I'm ready and I'm clear about the couple of things that I need to do.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

If we don't do that, we just end up with these open loops for the whole day. And then we get to bed, and what's what happens then is we finally rest, we're lying down, and our brains are like, oh, thank God. Now we can kind of, you know, it the thing's party time. Now we can kind of start to go over what happened during the day and kind of try to organize that. Whereas if you've if you're kind of closing those open loops throughout the day, don't have that. Um that might be that you know you you jot a couple of things down on your phone. It might be that you haven't one notebook that's only for actions, it might be, you know, a whole range of things. You'll work out your own.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

It's really around making sure that we can kind of create this space for ourselves um between and you know, the space, as I said, it could be seconds. So if you've got back-to-back meetings either in a in an office environment where you're running between meetings, which we so often are, yeah. Um, you know, it's just like, okay, just pre just pause for you know a couple of steps.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Um, think through what you just did, what what are the actions out of that you need to do, and then what what are we doing next? Um simple as that.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

This is super practical and doable for everybody, as busy as you might be. So, you know, from the CEO to, I mean, EAs are super busy as well, to internal comms, anyone, hey child, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

Yeah, everyone is. So yeah, it's just kind of saying, you know, and um, yeah, just sort of, and that's where I think you can claim some of that agency back to sort of say, okay, this is what this is what I'm need to be doing. Because some of it might be actually, I don't need to do anything out of that. I just, you know, I was there in that meeting, like I'm not gonna take any more actions.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's gorgeous. So it's really uh proactively compartmentalizing our day by just giving ourselves even a two-minute chunk after that thing for me to be able to process the thing before I go into the next, the next, the next thing, so that my mind can actually deal with everything rather than when it hits the pillow, that's when all of the aha moments often come for the majority of us. Um sleep. You've researched sleep at length. You know, you talked about sleeping well, working better, and living the best. Tell me more about sleep.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Yeah, I mean, I think the interesting thing about sleep is that humans are the only mammal mammals who actively forego or delay sleep.

SPEAKER_03 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

So every other mammal gets tired and they go to sleep.

unknown 25:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

And really sleep is a background process. And the reason to to kind of understand that is that sleep is sleep is the time when the the rest of you know our brain and our body systems get to work. Yes. If we don't give ourselves enough time for that to happen, something gives. And it's like, you know, when you're thinking about um, you know, if you even if you're looking at your phone and you're looking at the battery um going down, you know that that, you know that, and quite often you'll get a message saying, you know, I've done something, I've I've kind of adapted this for better battery life.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Yeah.

unknown 26:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Um, and that's because that's what the same thing happens. You know, you kind of, and we, you know, we're we're constantly, we're good at remembering when our phones need to be charged in. We're not very good about, you know, recognizing that we need to be recharged, and the best way to recharge is through sleep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

We're still fighting, we're still fighting that parent saying, go to bed. Yeah. Well, I'm not. I love my sleep. When I feel sleepy, I'm there. But my partner, I know especially, is really fighting. Why do you think we fight this? And I love the fact I didn't know it. So humans are the only mammals that delay sleep in this manner. Why do we do this? Do you know the research?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I mean, uh, there's I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons. One of that, one of them is that for a lot of us, we have um FOMO. So we don't want to miss out on things. Um, for a lot of us, we are, you know, we're victims of the very clever algorithms. Um we're also victims of thinking that multitasking, even though we know that it's not, that is still optional. Uh, that is optimal. And so, you know, if you are someone who, you know, who has that really busy day, um, then has to come home and do a lot of stuff with your kids or your house or whatever it is you do.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

And then you finally at like nine o'clock or 10 o'clock get to sit down on the couch, you don't want to then just go to sleep. So that's true. What we need to be thinking about then is like, how do we reorient our days so that we can, you know, enable us ourselves to have a bit of time earlier in the day that's just for us. Yeah. And it might be then that you're saying, okay, I'll I'll take a bit more time at lunchtime, or you know, I'll eat lunch at my desk, but then I'll go and do a swim or an exercise routine or something at lunchtime, or I'll catch up with friends. Just, you know, you've got to you've got to kind of find time for yourself because otherwise you're just, you know, otherwise you're kind of thinking, what, what is the purpose? And then quite often we stay up late thinking, oh, well, we're relaxed through um uh through watching something. And then quite often we have our phones as well. And so then for a lot of us, that it's that the issue isn't necessarily watching something. Um the issue is when we're trying to do a couple of things. So we're we're again introducing that cognitive load onto ourselves, but also for many of us, we don't need the additional interactivity. So what should be happening is as it becomes dark outside, it should be starting to become darker and calmer inside. So we should be trying to calm down our dopamine. And instead, what's happening for a lot of us, if if we, and I include myself in this, you know, if we start watching something, the tendency is then to pick up your phone as well. And so you're introducing another interactive element. Quite often we're in um, you know, fluorescent and painting, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

So we've got that stimulus. Um, there might be a lot of noise and activity from the things we're watching, depending on what we like to watch.

SPEAKER_03 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Um, and you know, we've got that kind of thing happening. And I mean, I mean the Microsoft um 2025 survey, which you've probably read, the work trends survey, that showed that the biggest, one of the biggest trends that's happening is the rise of the what's called the triple pika. So the triple pika is the people um, you know, who have corporate roles usually, and it can be small businesses as well, but it's largely that they've they've m largely measured on corporate corporate people. Um, they'll go to work, they'll start work before work, so either at home or on the trams. So either roll over and look at their phones and start emailing.

SPEAKER_03 30:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Or um, you know, they'll jump onto public transport and you know, start working as they're traveling, or they'll start, you know, they'll have um calls on the drive-in.

unknown 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So they've got that shift happening, and then they get to work and then they work, and then they get home, they do their personal admin, they do their you know, family stuff, and then they log back on. Instead of, you know, when they should be reconnecting with their pillows, they're reconnecting with their laptops.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

This is oh yeah, this is the story of many, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Yeah, there's triple, um, yeah, that that's what they're called peekers. So it's not it's not good.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Triple peak, triple peakers. Okay, this this is a real big thing, and unfortunately, this is what a lot of organizations are starting to expect of many people now because they're giving this as well. So, I mean, that compared to, you know, we've got laws now within Australia where you've got the right to disconnect, but many people are not using those laws. It's just anti, anti, you know, anything of that. And then I'm I'm thinking about everything that you were saying. I had my head in my hands at one second, Penelope Gosh. I'm really thinking about women, especially women with young kids who who just think that you know going to the loo for two minutes is a break for them, you know.

SPEAKER_04 31:32

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Um, so really I I I want to speak to those kind of people, especially you know, women who feel like time is not there for them. You can regain it. It is gonna be harder, but it's about boundaries, I think, as well, is it not?

SPEAKER_00 31:47

It is, it's also about making small changes. So first, with like with any change program, you know, is awareness. So we think of we think about sleep as um, you know, we we sort of a lot of people recognize it from a well-being perspective. Yeah, but don't necessarily think about it in terms of performance. So if you had someone who was coming to work impaired by alcohol, you would recognize that as a performance issue. And we know that, you know, um that oh that going without sleep has the same impact as um as effectively having too many drinks. So if people are arriving at work chronically sleep deprived, which many of us and are used to all the time, I didn't recognize it. And then we expect them to be making complex decisions. We expect to be leading other teams, leading teams, people having technical problems. That's you know, we everything is going to be impaired. So we need to be thinking about sleep not as a wellness activity and not optional, but it's really our biological performance system.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

So, you know, it it really enables us to perform.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah, it's the foundation of everything.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

I'm a fan of naps, I tell you. A good, a good siesta makes all the difference to me in terms of energy levels. I wish we had that. I wish workplaces were open to it, you know, a little bit of an afternoon nap and you just come back as a different person, I feel.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Um the people who who kind of need that are the people who I used to have a diet code every day at three o'clock. Um, and then some of the my team would have chocolate. Um that's that is because your your your is dipped. Um, yeah. Because we basically have 16 hours sort of, um that's one of the things that you would have heard people saying, you know, we need to get outside and get some sun in the morning. So we need that sun not only on our our eyes, but it kind of goes right through to our bones. And that's we want to wake up our, we want to start the the wake-up process.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

And then, you know, we we also need to then be training ourselves to be starting to feel tired. So, you know, quite often we'll we'll work. So if you're if you're the sort of person who wakes up really groggily on Monday, that might be because on the weekend you are changing your sleep patterns. Yeah. And what happens is so often, you know, we'll say, Oh, I've got a big, big week next week. You've got to get to bed early on a Sunday, um, Sunday night. But what you might have done is you might have slept in till nine o'clock or 10 o'clock, and then you get go to bed at like eight o'clock or eight thirty because you're thinking, Oh, I've got to get a lot, I've got to get some extra sleep to power the the week.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

But actually, you're not going to. And you'll sit, you'll lie there and you'll be tossing and turning, thinking, Oh, I can't get to sleep. Oh God, I'm so stressed. And that starts another thing. It's because you're not ready to sleep yet, because you haven't had enough time.

unknown 34:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Well, your body has to um go through the its its sequences, yeah. You kind of get tired, and then you need to sleep. And so there, you know, there one of the things that is is kind of just tossed out there, which is quite hard to do, is having consistent sleep and wake-up time. So that's hard if you're traveling, it's hard if you've got kids or or you know, dogs or husbands or wives, or you know, it's it's it's just hard. And so I I suggest actually try and choose one of those. So for a lot of people, it's it's easier to manage their wake-up time.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Um, rather than their night time, because I might be going to events or have schools on or play sport or whatever. And so then you don't want to, you know, you don't want to be stressing yourself out. Uh uh, you know, optimally, you're it is a consistent wake-up and and sleep time.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

But you know, we have to be realistic as well.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Absolutely. Um, you talked about it, and while you were talking, even before you were talking about it, I've written it in bold. Stimulants, a la caffeine, chocolate, uh whatever else that people need, you know, especially in that dip time that you talked about. Um, years ago, it's been probably three years now, I gave up caffeine and I'm off it altogether. But do you have thoughts on stimulants and you know the the pep up effect and from your research?

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Yeah, there's a there's a thing that people may have called heard about called the Nappuccino. So one of the um ways to kind of think about caffeine is for that kind of the boost that it provides. But if you're really tired, that alone might make you feel a little bit like you'll get you'll get you'll get a boost, but you might feel like quite sluggish straight after. And so if you combine a nappuccino, which is basically having coffee about 20 minutes before you go to sleep, and then having a 20 to 30 minute nap. And then you're gonna get the benefit of a nap and the benefit of the coffee. So then you wake up, you're like, ah, new one.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Okay, a napuccino, never heard of that before. It's a thing. Okay, okay. So stimulants used in a good way. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

How can people integrate rest into their day without feeling lazy or guilty? Is there anything else we've missed in your opinion?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Um, I think the key thing to ask yourself when you're doing anything is it's not am I doing nothing? Because sometimes like yesterday, I was exhausted and I just kind of sat around, I read a book. Uh, I didn't, I had a whole lot of things I was going to do. I was just too tired. And I was like, oh, and I was thinking, oh God, am I feeling lazy? And that's like, no, no, no. I'm I'm actually restoring myself. So I think the question is when you're when whatever you're doing is like, am I doing nothing or is this actually restoring me? And so the things that you can be doing are, you know, taking a walk, ideally without your phone, just outside for a minute. Even if you, you know, we we talked before about big workshops. So when I'm running a big workshop, and sometimes it is all day, and you're running, you know, hybrid workshops and things.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

Um, even if you just ran outside for a couple of minutes and then you ran back in, you don't have to run, you can walk. Um, you can feel like that makes you feel so much better.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Um, you know, reading is a good thing, any kind of creative active activity. So every morning as I get to my desk, I do a drawing. I've got this book that um just has these kind of templates and you you sort of draw them and it's great. Um, a conversation, like a meaningful conversation, particularly about not about work is great. Any kind of exercise. Also just being silent. So even you know, when we're talking before about transition time, sometimes it is just, you know, before you before you're starting something, just you know, closing your eyes, just taking a couple of deep breaths. And you know, it just has the ability to make, I mean, already I feel one breath and I feel comfortable. Yeah, completely often I do that, um, especially in afternoons if I'm running meetings. Yeah. So I say, let's we're just gonna do four breaths, because you know, people, especially people are joining kind of late because it means they've just finished another meeting. And it's like, okay, before we start, let's just kind of center ourselves, take four breaths in and out, and then let's, you know, recap what we're here to do.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

Um, and that just it just changes the energy. Yeah, and so I think, you know, silence in in whatever way um can really help. Because quite often we think, oh, we've we've got a minute, a couple of minutes, 10 minutes, we'll, you know, listen to something, we'll watch something, et cetera. It's really kind of, you know, whatever restores you is ideal. Um, and you'll you, you know, if you if you're not quite sure, you know, experiment with doing a range of things and then just reflect to say, okay, was that good or not? So I've got a BOSU ball, which is kind of that half big medicine ball, and I just find me. And sometimes I'll just stand on that for a couple of, I mean, I used to be able to stand on it for a long time. Now I can only stand on it for a couple of minutes. But even that kind of taking your mind to something physical, yeah, and balance on that is a great way of sort of breaking up that that thing. Um, and so for you know, people if you have a standing desk, sort of alternating between sitting and standing, and correct, you know, you can do some heel lifts and calf raises and that sort of thing at the same time just to kind of introduce.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

I think the big lesson I'm really hearing from you here as well is we really need to redefine ourselves talk about rest. Yeah, all of us have some kind of connotation that we've added to it, especially within the realms of a workplace. Yes, rest and work go hand in hand. Hello, this is you. This is exactly what you're talking about, right? If I'm a rested person, I'm better at work.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And I think as I as I was mentioning before, you know, um, so I'm all about people's personal best. All my coaching is about that. So I I know what works for me. Yeah, it, you know, what works for you is it's likely to be different. And um, even when I was, you know, one of the reasons I did 150 experiments for my book. And one of the reasons I did that is because I'd quite often, you know, I'd I'd do research in terms of academic research, but I'd also, you know, look on Instagram and TikTok and that sort of thing and see what people were talking about. And so I did a whole range of things around, you know, mouth taping, nose taping, like all that sort of, all those sort of things. Most of them don't work for me. I'm claustrophobic and you know, anything where I'm kind of, you know, weighted blankets make me feel like this um, you know, anything that's kind of um blocked, I don't like. But I gave it a go, you know, I gave it a go for a bit. I had to suspend belief and tell myself I was going to be all okay. But you know, for this for other people, that's all you need. You just need an experiment. You know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

It's so true.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Yeah. So people talk about, you know, dark rooms are best. Dark rooms feel like I'm in a coffin. I never have a dark room. Um, but for other people, they can't sleep unless it's dark. And so then it's really, it's really kind of saying, okay, well, you know, I know what um what conventional wisdom is. Yeah. However, how I'm going to adapt this for me is in this way.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

And make it fun. I mean, you've had fun experimenting with all of this, you know. It worked, it didn't work. Um, yeah, I've been experimenting for years. My thing, it has to be a dark room. I have to have a fan on, uh, eye mask for me. And weighted blankets have just been a game changer. Even this morning, my partner left. He left early, so I pinched his weighted blanket. I had double on me, and it's just like, oh, the best thing. Um one thing I want to talk to you about, okay, is something that's often out of our control. So workplace conflict, poor communication, bad leadership. A lot of those things, could they potentially be sleep deprivation in disguise?

SPEAKER_00 43:11

I would say yes, more than we probably acknowledge. Um because it doesn't when we're tired, or you know, if we if we don't have enough sleep, um, it doesn't just make us tired. It makes us it changes the way that we interpret the world. Yes. So often we are less creative, we're lost less patient, less tolerant of other people. Um, you know, we might react first while rather than respond. We'll do things that become that we're like, you know, I know when I'm really tired is if I hear someone eating loudly and I'm like, Shame. Shut up. Yes. And we whereas if I'm not tired, I'm like, oh, there's no Interesting. I'll go.

SPEAKER_04 44:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

So true. Um, so I think that the other thing that happens is sometimes when you're tired, you can sort of misread and misinterpret something. And so you know, you don't you kind of you don't have as much energy and as much time really because you're trying to preserve it. So you might kind of misunderstand what's being said, you might not get the nuances, and then the response might be, you know, you might think I'm giving feedback, and really it comes out as critic criticism. And so, you know, you kind of where that impacts is you you sort of lose a bit of empathy. Yeah. So I don't think that, you know, I don't think we can say that um poor sleep is the cause of all of these things, but I think what I can say is that it's an invisible multiplier.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

So you know, when we when because we know that when we're when we've had a good sleep, you know, singing, flowers are blooming, people on the way to work, you know, it's it's so different.

SPEAKER_02 45:03

Isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Yeah, it's and why wouldn't it be different in the workplace?

SPEAKER_02 45:07

So I guess check in in yourself. If you are that cranky person today, and if you're listening to this, if you have had cranky moments as well, um, do the test of is that person's chewing really bugging you? So that's a funny joke, you know, between both of us, because that really bugs me as well, especially if I'm tired. But what are the things that bug you when you're tired? What really sets you off as well in that respect? Because we have much off a shorter fuse then. Um Penelope, you've done a heap of research and tests, and you've tested on yourself, you've done all sorts of conversations as well. What's something you used to believe about productivity that you no longer believe? Is there anything that's just broken your brain from all of this research and learning that you've done?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Uh yeah, I think it really is that um you know, that working harder and working longer on anything is like I used to think that was its own reward. And now I'm thinking, I always think, what's the minimum criteria? What's the minimum thing I can do to be successful? And what's the optimal way that I can get to the outcome?

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

So I just used to say, okay, well, you know, I've got to do this strategy. It's gonna take a week or two weeks or whatever. I'm gonna work really, really, really hard. Um, and I'd kind of iteratively work. Um, and sometimes I might do a bit of a straw man because I I do do outlines and table of contents before writing books and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

I would be thinking about the time that I've got to do it. Whereas now I'm thinking about what really is the problem we're trying to solve, what really is the question that that's driving, and what's the outcome I'm looking for. And I take quite a bit of time to kind of think that through, and then I develop my work plan.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Wow. Much richer, yeah. So you're really getting out of your own way. You're stepping up, aren't you? You you're asking the bigger, bigger questions, which gets you in the right mindset as well to be able to give the right kind of energy to this project or to this piece of work.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

Gorgeous. Um, if someone listening feels constantly tired but thinks this is just adulthood, this is just how it is, what would you say to them? Miss Penelope Bar.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

I would say, well, you know, I think for so many of us, and this really came through in the research that I did and the surveys I did, and also talking to people, there's a real complacency around feeling tired and and not actually tuning into our bodies in terms of when we need to rest and when we need to sleep. So I would say it's not adulthood, in fact, it's the antithesis of that. Um, if we are accepting exhaustion as the default position of our lives. So your your parents probably said something similar to what my parents did. If I was really tired, and my sisters and I were really tired, they say, you know, you're like a bear with a sore head.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Meaning, you know, you have to get to bed. And and you would then go to sleep, or you'd still be arguing or crying as you fell over asleep. And then you wake up and the world is different. Yeah. And that's exactly, you know, we have to kind of we have to learn these lessons. I mean, the other thing that that sort of comes that was interesting in my research was that um, you know, one of the first skills that we learn as babies is the art of self self-soothing.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

And one of the things that happens quite often for adults is we wake up and we panic. You know, oh my God, I'm never going to be able to get to sleep. I've got a big thing tomorrow. And we start this whole process. We might turn on the light, we might start, you know, looking at our phones, we might start reading, we'll get up. Yeah, there's lots of things that people do. And really instead, what we should be remembering is we we learned as tiny babies how to self-soothe. We know how to do it. We've got it. Yeah. What we what's what we need to do. The other thing is that we do naturally wake up during the night. Yeah. It does it, you know, we we naturally wake up at a couple of different times, but also some people wake up at the end of each 90-minute sleep cycle. But yeah, they might just wake up a little bit and then go to back to sleep. And sometimes we wake up and we, you know, we we are awake. And so then it's kind of like a you know self-soothing in in whatever way that works for you, breathing, or it might even be just be rubbing your chest or you know, doing some meditation or taking some deep breaths, or you know, there's a whole range of ways. But all sorts, it's really not um, you know, if we're if we're kind of signing ourselves up to living in depletion, that's not a life that any of us should be ideally wanting to to advocate. No. And so I would say that, you know, I, you know, if you're if you're kind of thinking if you're listening and you're thinking, oh my God, you know, you can only do that because of whatever, you know, we have to we work within our own constraints. Yeah. It's like what one tiny thing could you do? Because those tiny changes compound. So what's something you could do today that is going to make it better for tomorrow and the next and the next day? And then once you've got that into your routine, then think about the next thing.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

Perfect. It's doable now, it's manageable for me. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Penelope, you have really done a lot of work by the sound of it, on yourself and redesigning your life. And you know, 633, what the hell? You have broken my brain just with that. I want to ask you a personal question before I ask you the final, final question. The personal question is what led you down this beautiful new life?

SPEAKER_00 50:49

Um, well, when I it was it's sort of a windy story, but when I was working as an expat in the UK, so I was working in London, Leeds, and and Glasgow with NAB, I met, I spent a lot of time in France. So when I, after uni, I went to Tokyo and I met a whole lot of French people. And so every year I go and stay with them. And when I was in um the UK or talking to my Australian friends, we would often talk about how busy we were. We would talk about work, we'd talk about people at work, etc. It was real folk focus on work. When I went to France, they didn't speak about work, they spoke about food, culture, you know, we'd spend a lot of time with their friends. They we'd go out into nature, um, we'd talk about ideas. It was just so different. And I at the as I was coming to get to the end of my stint um and I was preparing to come back to Australia, I was thinking, I want to live differently. And this idea came that I wanted to live six through three. I wanted to work six months a year, and then I wanted to allocate some time for for travel and then some time for me. And I remember I came back into a role at NAB and I told everyone there, and they're laughing, like, as if you could do that. And so it it took me, it took me 15 years to do. Like it this wasn't like I had the idea and it didn't happen overnight. But I've always had you know side hustles along the way. But then when I when my one of my sisters died, as I mentioned, I thought, okay, I I really need to kind of that was a real wake-up call. And then one of my best friends died the year later of cancer, and we've we've been friends since we were four. And I just just was a another reminder to say, okay, life is, you know, life can, you know, like I like to think it's long, but you know, it can really be short, and we're we're just not in control of, which is something that we know, but it kind of was brought it brought was brought home to me um really starkly. And I just thought, okay, I actually feel like I owe it to myself and to them to kind of live as optimally as I can. And so that's what I've been doing.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

That would be very proud of you. And I, you know, one of the last chapters in my book is all about spoiler alert, we're all gonna die. This job is is a mini part of us, it's just a mini part of the bigger, bigger picture that we call life. Um, so the final question, Ms. Penelope Barr, if I was to hand you a magic wand, what is one way that you would change the way of the workplace?

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Um I think I would really change, I would really try to move this badge of honor around exhausting. Um I think that you know, we we so often plan we are we always plan too much, you know, and I think we really need to be to get very clear annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily, what is the work I can do today that matters?

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Ooh, what is the work that I can do today that matters?

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Yeah, and I think um, you know, rather than sort of people saying, you know, I worked all night or I worked all day and I feel really slammed, kind of changing that to be, you know, I protected my focus today, I finished my priorities, and I'm going home with energy left. That would be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 54:19

Oh, gorgeous. And how lucky are the family then to receive such a person?

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Yeah, yeah, it would be great.

SPEAKER_02 54:26

On that note, I think we should call it to an end. What a brilliant conversation. Penelope Barr. Thank you so, so, so much. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

All details about this episode and joined. If you like this episode, I'd like you to take a moment and think about at least two people who might enjoy it.