[00:00:05] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Are you struggling to stay focused in an always on work culture? And do you have a clear idea of your personal brand and how to refine it? In this episode, we’re talking time management and personal brands. First up, time management expert Donna McGeorge joins me to explain how constant busyness drives burnout. She also shares a few practical tips on how to boost performance and decision making, including building a 15% buffer. Then, personal branding strategist Rosie Chong explains why a person’s personal brand matters so much. It’s their reputation. Rosie explains how to define what you’re known for, stand out professionally and build a consistent presence online and offline. From SoundCartel, I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist, and this is Business Essentials.
How to regain focus in an always-on work culture
Our first guest is Donna McGeorge. She’s a time management expert, best selling author and speaker. In today’s busy world, constant notifications, packed schedules, and the pressure to always be on are taking a toll on how we work and lead. In a world where being busy is worn like a badge of honor, staying focused has never been harder. To get this interview started, I asked Donna how the always on mindset, damages focus and performance over time.
[00:01:28] Donna McGeorge: You know, I’m going to draw from a couple of disciplines here to answer this because for the most part, I think it’s humans are the only things on the planet that assume 100% of the time has to be the case, and that if you’re not doing that, you’re somehow wasting time. So I’m a bit of a Star Trek fan, so you know either. Hello to all the listeners who are also nerds like me or sorry to those who don’t. And irrespective of which series you like, no one ever runs their starship at maximum warp 100% of the time. And that’s because even the people in Star Trek knew that a ship. The engines will burn out if they’re constantly running at 100% the whole time. We also see this in manufacturing, where organizations or companies, they don’t have their equipment running 100% of the time always as well. They know that about 85% is about right. We see it with athletes. We see it with even someone like Hugh Jackman, an actor that says he tries not to push himself 100% of the time, all the time. And so this buffer of 15% is one that I’d love to introduce, because if we don’t create some kind of buffer, we’re at risk of a version of burnout. And right now in Australia, it’s something like 93% of workers are experiencing some degree of burnout, some more than others. But of course, the risk is that the very thing you’re trying to do, you end up falling in a heap and can’t do the things you want to do anyway. So that’s for me, what the big issue is about constantly feeling like you need to be always on.
[00:02:54] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Tell me a little bit more, Donna, about this 15% buffer. So that’s your general guideline of how does that apply in a workday, making sure that you don’t have like meetings or really hard thinking work for more than 85% of the time? Is that roughly how it works?
[00:03:06] Donna McGeorge: Yeah, it kind of, it works that everything from go home and have a look in your wardrobe and have you got 15% space in your wardrobe or your bookcase or your cupboards or whatever? It kind of works in a spatial, physical way as well. But certainly for a workplace, it would be keeping an hour free in your diary. That’s not lunch. I think everyone should have lunch, but keeping an hour free in your diary every day that has no agenda is not owned by anyone. So I reckon if I could see your listeners right now answer this question, I reckon I could predict the look on their face. But when I say to people, how do you feel when a meeting gets cancelled, most people get this big thing of relief or they go, woohoo! Or they’re really delighted that a meeting gets cancelled because it gives them this buffer in their day where they can play catch ups. And so my question is, why would you wait for a meeting to get canceled, why wouldn’t you build in this 15% capacity for the thing that will probably happen in your day? That happens every day. Something always gets unexpected or. And if nothing unexpected happens, it means you can play catch ups. So this idea that we just give ourselves some room. So it’s also around, you know, anyone that’s leading teams should really look at the capacity of their people. You know, if we’ve got projects that are pushing people beyond their normal work day, then we’ve probably got a capacity issue. And so I think capacity is a great thing, or what I refer to as adaptive capacity. And so that 15% is the space to adapt or change or respond when things change.
[00:04:35] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Donna, I wanted to ask you about this saying that I see bandied around in kind of, I suppose, business culture sometimes, and it’s this time management advice of we all have the same 24 hours in a day. It’s kind of used as like an inspirational, slightly shaming quote, I think, about, why can’t you be as effective as the next person who does all these other things in 24 hours. What’s your view on that advice? I wonder if it’s you know, it assumes a bit of privilege, for example.
[00:04:59] Donna McGeorge: Well, I actually think it’s a bit of a crock, just quietly. Because, yes, we all have 24 hours in a day. And, and I think it’s all completely relative to what are the things you need to get done. So right now, I’m an almost 60 year old woman. I’m an empty nester. My husband’s retired. I have 24 hours in a day. I have a lot of spare time. And so I can write books. I can come and do podcast interviews. I can do all the things and still get my work done and earn a living. But if I was younger and had three kids living at home and all were in school and a husband who was also working, then my life would be a lot different. And how I would use my 24 hours would be a lot different. And so I would also come back to I’m not concerned about what you do with 16 hours of your day. You figure that out for yourself. I’m more concerned with, are you getting enough sleep? And so I think, you know, rather than say, the very judgy kind of thing around, what are you doing with your 24 hours? I’d be more likely to say, gee, are you getting enough sleep? Because anyone, no matter what’s going on in the other 16 hours of your day, if you’re getting enough sleep, you can manage it.
[00:06:05] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I have a kind of, I suppose, Australia focused question. I’m wondering if there are any particular time, distractions or factors that we see affecting Australian business owners specifically compared to leaders in other countries?
[00:06:17] Donna McGeorge: Oh, I don’t know that this is a specific one to Australia, but I know a lot of business owners, business leaders, where a lot of hats. And so they’re constantly having to shift from today, am I marketing today? Am I selling today? Am I doing is it bears time? Right? Have I got to get all my finance and get all my stuff all up to date? And then they’ll read a book that says business owners should be more strategic. Okay, now I need to be a strategist. So I think there’s a lot of hats we wear. And again, you know, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I think it’s more around having some systems in place that mean that the things you need to get done get done. And the second thing I’ll say is don’t be afraid to outsource. It would probably surprise most business owners who are trying to do it all themselves. And same with business leaders. Surprise you how a easy and surprisingly affordable it is to get help when you need it.
[00:07:09] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Another thing affecting I think business owners in Australia, but also globally now, is, you know, digital tech has made it possible for us to be contacted at all times, you know, so it’s harder to switch off, I think. What practical strategies can business owners use to protect their deep focus when they need it, when emails and Slack and notifications never seem to stop?
[00:07:29] Donna McGeorge: Look, you’ve kind of answered the question by asking the question, right? So we are bombarded. And, you know, there comes a time when you have to kind of say enough and make a decision that I want my world to be better. So I always come down to, if what you’re doing is working and life is good and life is easy, and you can manage all the distraction and the noise that comes from the digital world. Keep doing what you’re doing. But if it is somehow creating tension or friction or something like that in your world, then you’re going to need to take a look at it. And so this sounds super privileged to say this, and I’m sure people will at me afterwards is you’ve just got to stop. You’ve just got to take the apps off. You’ve got to turn the phone off. You’ve got to leave the digital stuff away. So many people, the last thing they look at in their day is their phone. And it nearly bumps their head as they fall asleep. And then the first thing they pick up in the morning is their phone. And so I’m going to say, well, what would happen if you left your phone in the kitchen? So you’ve got a decent night’s sleep, got up in the morning and then started your day’s work.
[00:08:30] Donna McGeorge: So create some rules, rituals or routines that just mean you are in control of what you’re exposed to rather than I mean, the apps are designed for this, the apps are designed and your phone is designed for this. You look at your phone and there’s all these red dots on it, and you might have picked up the phone to call your mum. And then there’s all these red dots. And so you go, oh, I’ll have a look at Facebook or I’ll have a look at Instagram, or I’ll have a look at whatever, whatever dots, email or whatever. And then ten minutes later, you’ve forgotten that you picked up the phone. So the phone ends up in charge of you or your device ends up in charge of you. So I’m going to say, turn off all the things so that you are back in control of what you’re using the device for, rather than it being in control of you.
[00:09:13] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Donna, I think a few of us feel guilty switching off because there is, you know, this hustle culture we live in. How can leaders reframe rest and boundaries as a business advantage rather than a weakness? You know, can it actually benefit us? What kind of reminder do we need?
[00:09:27] Donna McGeorge: Oh, like, first of all, yes, I guess the flip on this is when I’m working with leaders and I’ll say to something like, well, why do you work ridiculous hours or long hours or why are you pushing yourself so hard? And they’ll say, because I want to be the best possible leader I can be. And I’m like, awesome. Except you’re not the very. Pushing yourself and working the ridiculous hours and being 100% on and trying to be everything to everyone is the very thing that’s getting in the way of you doing the thing that I think leaders are hired to do. Leaders are hired to make great decisions for the most part. And my experience is they spend so much time doing so much stuff. And then when the time comes to make a great decision, they haven’t given it enough thought. They haven’t given themselves the space to think or breathe, and therefore they make the best possible decision they make given the context that they’re in. So it’s certainly not indulgent to have space. It’s certainly not a thing to feel guilty about. I encourage all leaders to protect at least one, preferably two hours a day, where no one can book meetings with you. Now, that can be two consecutive, or it can be an hour in the morning or an hour at night, because it’s absolutely a performance strategy. If you’re exhausted, you’re going to make slower, poorer decisions. When you protect your energy, you’re much clearer. And I think clarity is a commercial advantage.
[00:10:46] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Yeah, absolutely. Look, this is following on from that. How should leaders role model focus in healthy boundaries without disengaging from their teams or customers?
[00:10:55] Donna McGeorge: So that’s assuming that working normal hours is disengaging, right. So that assumes that in some way that if I decide to protect a bit of time for thinking, if I decide to take a break for lunch and I decide to work reasonable hours, that somehow I’m not being, you know, in service to my people or my customers. So I would say, how did your customers or your people learn that you were 100% available to them all the time? So I don’t think that’s an issue. I think it’s okay to have some systems in place to catch anything urgent that might happen outside of hours, but it doesn’t mean that you have to take the call. I mean, I always say to people outside of hours, all calls go to voicemail for me. And now that you’ve got this thing certainly is on my phone that the voicemail gets converted to a little text thing. I can have a quick look and see, is this an urgent thing that I need to give my attention to or not? But I would say, you know, let things go to voicemail. At least you’ve got a chance to have a think about it before you reply and start to train your people about what is acceptable. I mean, in Australia, we have right to disconnect laws. And so if we’re not, you know, demonstrating that and doing that ourselves as leaders, how would we expect our people to respond to that or respect that as well? I think we’re seeing just, you know, kind of a bit controversial. I think we’re seeing a change in this from a generational perspective. And I’m watching my millennial daughter and her friends, colleagues and her husband at work, and I’m watching my nieces and nephews who fall into the Z category as well, and how different they are about how they think about work and the idea of working really long hours or being on call, unpaid, on call is like they get very kind of bewildered by that because why would anyone do that? And so I think we can learn from that.
[00:12:46] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was Donna McGeorge, time management expert, author and speaker.
Personal branding 101
Now we switch gears to talk personal branding. What do people say about you when you’re not in the room? In today’s competitive landscape, your personal brand can be one of your most powerful professional assets. In this conversation, personal branding strategist Rosie Chong explains how to start building your personal brand with intention. But first, I asked Rosie. For those listeners who might assume personal branding is just about social media, how would she define the term?
[00:13:22] Rosie Chong: I think the easiest way to define it is that personal branding is what your reputation is, what you’re known for before you even enter the room. So that is not just limited to social media. And I think that’s something that people can often forget. It can be the color of lipstick that you wear to the office. It could be the way that you start and host every one of your meetings. It could be even the parking bay that you park in at your workplace. There are so many minute little details that actually make up a personal brand that aren’t just your name or your job title or your social media handle that people often forget. So I think thinking of a personal brand holistically is both in real life and online is essentially what do you want to be known for and what do you want people to be talking about you if you’re not even in the room?
[00:14:08] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Mhm. That’s a great answer and makes me think mentally ticking off like, what parking bay do I park in all of this stuff? I know that’s such an.
[00:14:15] Rosie Chong: Example, but I want people to start thinking like, it could be the outfit you wear if you want to be known as the fashionista in the office, awesome. If you want to be known as someone who is the yes man or yes woman in always available, that’s what you could be known for. For me, it’s obviously being known as personal branding, so I lean into that a lot. It’s being very authentic and very open. So I carry that in the way that even a text and the way that I conduct myself in a client meeting, even just with my personality. So there’s so many different cogs that make up the big puzzle that I think people just forget about. It’s posting online is only one part of that.
[00:14:49] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: So why is personal branding so important for professionals and business owners today?
[00:14:54] Rosie Chong: I think there’s a few different avenues of why it’s important. The first one is at the end of the day, it’s one of the only things we can really control in our careers. If you’re working for someone else, there is no guarantee at the end of the day that you’re going to get promoted, that you’re going to stay there forever. Maybe you’ll completely change industries. So your job, your job title and your workplace are not 100% guaranteed every day. I’m not here to fear monger and tell people you’re going to be made redundant, or you’re going to have a quarter life crisis. It’s just some of that is out of our hands. Same thing goes for if you’re a founder and you’ve got clients, you can’t always 100% guarantee your clients will stay or you’ll find a new client or whatever that is. So you can’t solely rely on just that. So I think having a personal brand is something we can have ownership on and control, and that can follow us through every single stage. Whether you are someone that’s really into fashion and sewing, your personal brand can all be about creating clothes. If you are a business leader, your whole personal brand could be your journey as a founder, the kind of business that you’re in. It could just be about your overall journey, whether you’re starting your first business or your 75th business, or you decide to completely have a career change or even leave your industry, whatever it is, your personal brand follows you everywhere you go.
[00:16:10] Rosie Chong: So I think having that as an asset is so important. No matter what stage of life or career you’re in. The second is that it can actually just really help you in the job market. So I know not everyone is job hunting, but there are a lot of people out there who are trying to either get their first job or maybe change industries, or change careers, or go for a promotion, or go for a new role, whatever it is. Having that personal brand, especially when it comes to online, can be a real powerful asset, especially in a world where it’s so competitive these days. Having that personal brand can really just help you be more memorable. It can help you stand out. It can even help prove and work as a portfolio as well, especially in an industry where you might need something like that. I know not every industry needs a portfolio, but it can just be an added little bonus to say, hey, here’s a link to my LinkedIn or my TikTok or my YouTube channel where you can actually get to know me and my interests, my personality. I think it’s even really powerful, especially if you’re like in the content or creative space, you can show someone profile, be like, here’s my editing skills. And right then and there, you’ve demonstrated your skill set.
[00:17:12] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Well, I’m sold on the need for a personal brand, but what are sort of the first steps that someone might take if they want to strengthen their personal brand?
[00:17:19] Rosie Chong: 100%. I think the first bit is definitely just taking a step back and auditing. Whether you’ve been building a personal brand for a while or if you’re just starting out. The biggest thing is to understand what do you want to be known for and what is your why? So what is essentially your driving purpose behind it? For some people, it’s learning a job. It’s like, great, I need to make myself the best sellable candidate. For others, it’s, oh, I want to quit the 9 to 5. I want to be my own boss. I want to become a founder. Okay, cool. Now you know what you’re working towards and what your purpose is, and it kind of goes hand in hand with what you want to be known for. So that is probably the strongest place of where you can start because everything else kind of flows on after that. If you’re looking at it from an online perspective, you can then start building out your content pillars. You can look at updating your social profiles, whether it’s LinkedIn, whether it’s TikTok, whether it’s YouTube, whatever it is, even your resume, knowing what you want to be known for and why you’re doing it is so powerful. And that looks different for everybody. But I think that’s the strongest place to start. The second step from there, and this is quite limited, I guess, to if you’re looking for jobs or you’re on LinkedIn, is updating your LinkedIn profile. I know not everyone uses LinkedIn, but having an updated profile is like having an updated landing page. It’s the first place a lot of people will land, whether it’s a recruiter, a potential client, whoever it is. So you need to really make a strong first impression. So that’s another really strong place to start and a really easy win on the spectrum of scale of where you want to be in your personal brand. Again, whether you’re a grad, you’re trying to change careers, whether you’re an industry leader or whatever it is, that can be a really quick win.
[00:18:52] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I love this, and you did mention about, you know, a first step is kind of doing an audit. I know that probably the scope of how to do a full audit might be beyond the scope of this one episode, but it makes me think like is a first step, something like kind of googling yourself and just looking at like, if someone is looking to hire you or do business with you, what are they going to see if they Google your name? Is that part of an audit.
[00:19:12] Rosie Chong: That can definitely be part of it? I think that’s actually something I haven’t thought about. So which is really interesting and probably something I’m now going to go and do about myself after this, because that’s obviously a big part of the SEO of what are people searching for? Even if you take it a step back and you don’t necessarily Google your name, but you start googling the industry that you’re in or the services you might want to sell. Have a look at what is coming up. What is drawing people in. You know, maybe for myself, personal branding strategist, maybe it’s googling personal branding strategist. What are the top websites that are coming up? What are they doing that I’m not doing? What’s a missing piece that I can show up in? And then I think another part of doing that same audit is googling yourself or googling what your competitors are doing is taking a look at what other people are doing well, especially in your space, whether it’s you’re updating your website, you’re updating your LinkedIn profile, you’re updating your Instagram bio. Have a look at what others are doing to really get an understanding of, oh, I like their bio on Instagram is really short. Oh, I like that. Their website home page loads really quickly. Oh, on their LinkedIn, I like their banner image. It was really bright and engaging and really punchy with the kind of words that they use. That can be a really good way of not just self-auditing, but auditing your overall industry as well to get it not only understanding of what competitors are doing, but maybe where you can fill the gap that’s missing.
[00:20:26] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: What about some common mistakes that weaken a personal brand? Can you think of any?
[00:20:31] Rosie Chong: The first is very specific when it comes to content creation, but it’s people thinking that every post has to go viral. Reality is, it could take three months, 12 months. You might even not go viral. But I think the content creation element of personal branding is such a slow burn. People are often wanting that instant gratification. So I think a mistake that people often come to is, oh, well, it didn’t do well. So I’ve got to delete the post, delete, delete, delete, or they overengineer it and they spend so long writing or editing or curating it that they kind of lose the whole concept of the post. So that’s a common mistake I see when it comes to content creation. At the end of the day, everyone starts at zero and you have to start somewhere. So even if you have 100 posts that fail, that’s 100 posts where you’ve learned how to practice, which I think is really powerful. Another element is, and we kind of spoke about this at the very start of the episode, is not realizing how much of are your personal brand is not just related to online. And it pretty much everyone’s been building personal brand, whether they’ve been conscious or not since they started.
[00:21:30] Rosie Chong: And it goes back to are you always been known for someone that plays basketball? Do you just love basketball? You’ve always been on the team. You’re a high school basketball supporter. That could be part of your personal brand and you don’t even realize it. You might not even be posting about it online, but that could be something that people know. It’s like, oh, when Grace leaves the room, I know that she loves basketball and that’s what pops up. It’s that association. So I think people don’t realize how easy it is to change and curate and have the control of what your personal brand looks like, without even necessarily having to step foot into the scary universe of posting online. It can change so quickly, but I think people forget that personal brand is made up of online and real life, and those go together. People, I think, get caught up in this idea of like, gotta have the perfect website. I’ve got to have the perfect logo, I’ve got to have the perfect content upload schedule. There’s so much more to it that I think people forget about.
[00:22:21] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Yeah, absolutely. Look, you’ve already given so many useful tips, but I’ll ask one more question. What? I say two or maybe three practical things someone can do this week to improve their personal brand.
[00:22:31] Rosie Chong: I think the first is spending some time looking at your competitors. And that could be looking at their websites. If you’re a business, it could be looking at their Instagram profiles. It could just be googling essentially this, have a look at what other people in your market are doing. So you can just get a bit of an understanding of what’s happening, what’s trending, what are people engaging with, whether they’re a customer, a future employer, whatever it is, it’s something you can do. It can take, you know, 20 minutes, even an hour. It doesn’t take long, but I think it’s a really good way to start. Second thing that people can do, and this is for people who are feeling confident online, is start thinking about posting regularly. And posting doesn’t have to mean a full 20 minute YouTube video doesn’t even have to be a video at all. It can even be posting in comments. And I think people forget that sharing a comment that’s insightful or fun or educational, especially on TikTok or LinkedIn or Instagram, where there’s really heavy comment culture that can still be building towards your personal brand. It can be a really nice, really easy way to dip into the content universe without feeling as overwhelmed or as scary as it is to maybe hit post on something like a LinkedIn post or sharing an Instagram feed post.
[00:23:45] Rosie Chong: That’s maybe for your business, not just for your personal friends and family. So I think those are two really easy wins. The third is for my LinkedIn fans is update your LinkedIn profile. I made a post about this recently myself that I realized there was a lot of my profile. I hadn’t even upgraded myself in over a year, which is embarrassing to say as someone who preaches about updating LinkedIn and personal branding, but that can be a really quick, easy win as well. Whether you are, you know, an industry leader or you’re looking for a job or you’re somewhere in between networking. Take some time to update it. Get rid of all jobs. Make sure you’ve got a really helpful banner image. Look at what your about section says. Mine literally still had an old roll from over a year ago. So little things like that can be a really quick win. And I think a place that we often forget to update. But that’s probably my third tip or trick for people to get into in the next kind of week or so.
[00:24:34] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was Rosie Chong, personal branding coach. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
