Work-Life Balance is Stressful w/ Elizabeth Saunders

Work-life balance? Please. Most of us are juggling Zoom calls, kids’ swim lessons, “urgent” Slack pings, and the soul-crushing guilt of not answering emails at midnight. Enter Elizabeth Grace Saunders — time management coach, bestselling author, and professional sanity-saver. She joined Chad & Cheese to talk about why “flexible schedules” are making us more fried than a State Fair Twinkie, how to put your damn phone in a basket, and why Europe is out there sipping sangria while Americans brag about not taking vacation.

Spoiler: Joel’s still bitter about being the family errand boy, Chad admits Euro Chad is way happier than U.S. Chad, and Elizabeth somehow manages all this with a newborn and a toddler. 🤯

Listen in before you burn out harder than your laptop at 1% battery.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel Cheesman (00:29.102)

What's up boys and girls, you're listening to the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel Cheeseman joined as always. Chad. So wash is in the house as we welcome Elizabeth Grace Saunders to the show. She's a time management coach, speaker and bestselling author who recently published a Harvard business review article entitled is your flexible schedule burning you out? Elizabeth, welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (00:57.729)

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Joel Cheesman (01:00.066)

All right, so a lot of our listeners won't know you may have probably not written or read the article. What should we know about Elizabeth going into this?

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (01:08.049)

Yeah, so first off, I've been a time management coach since 2009. So I was one of the first people in my field in this area. I absolutely love it. And I love working with people one on one. So I do things like this podcast, I do do some speaking. But most of the time I'm getting into the nitty gritties day to day of what's going on in people's lives. Second of all, I am a new mom for the second time. So I've got a two year old that I've got us.

Soon to be, thank you, thank you very much, soon to be five week old tomorrow. So lots of activity going on in our house and lots of poopy diapers.

Joel Cheesman (01:40.558)

Wow.

The Chad (01:42.253)

Hello. Wow.

Joel Cheesman (01:46.562)

Yeah, yeah.

The Chad (01:46.563)

It's kind of like hanging around with Joel Cheeseman. Yeah, no, I know. I know how that feels.

Joel Cheesman (01:52.015)

All right. Well, congratulations. I know we've, we've jumped through some hoops to get you on the show and, you're probably on your eighth cup of coffee by now. So the article is your flexible schedule burning you out, obviously draw some clicks, but it really, fascinated me. What was the Genesis behind the article? Tell us about what the summary is and what you, what you wrote.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (01:55.963)

Thank you.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (02:12.249)

Yeah, exactly. So when I was working with Harvard Business Review on that article, they were wanting something that would be really relevant for senior leaders. And one of the things that we've noticed, and I've noticed working with people at all stages of their career, including people who have gotten towards the top, is that you can end up having a lot more autonomy than you might have had when you were starting out in your career. And I think especially with all that's happened in the last

years since 2020, there's been a huge increase in flexibility. And what I had noticed is sometimes that flexibility actually made people way more crazy. And so that was the genesis of how this came about. And in terms of some of the high level points there, I cover some different areas. The first one is deciding what's enough. So a lot of times people have this

inner conflict between am I working enough? Am I spending enough time with my family? If they have a family? And if they haven't clearly defined what those boundaries are, again, they're making themselves crazy. I talk in the article about someone saying, okay, I want to stop working at 4pm to spend time with my kids. But then he's trying to work till midnight and get up at 430 to work out. And it's just creating a lot of turmoil there.

Then the next point that I cover in the article is around clarifying where you add the most value because for anyone, but particularly for people that are in senior roles, there will always be more to do than you can get done. And so to be in a place where you feel good about when you're working or not working, you need to figure out what's the highest impact. How do I spend my time there? And then how do I stop? And then the final two points I had made in the article were about making people unhappy in the short term.

to overall make people happy in the long term. So that means not accepting like spontaneous phone calls, whether that's personally or professionally. And also just some of those that creep that can happen where maybe you're working from home. And so a neighbor assumes they can stop by to chat with you or things like that. And then the final point being, being really on and really off. And the example I gave in regards to that was with one of my clients, although it happens with many, just,

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (04:29.861)

told the story of one, he would do things like stop working at a certain time. Technically, he would be with his family, with his wife and his kids, but he would be attached to his phone and constantly checking. And so by deciding that he was going to put his phone in a basket on silent by the door, it helped him actually be with the people he was with instead of being in a situation where he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

on his phone. And so those were some of the points I'm happy to expand on them. But the long story short, I know some people are super all about the work life blend. And I know sometimes that's needed. But in the end, think particularly for people with a lot of responsibility, it can lead to like a sense of guilt and uncertainty a lot of the time.

The Chad (05:10.915)

huh.

The Chad (05:21.805)

Well, this seems like you would go in tandem almost with a therapist, a psychologist to some extent. I mean, because you're talking about being present versus being just physically present, right? I mean, actually being there in totality versus having your phone and literally just physically being there. So as you start to see these types of things, I mean, this is a much larger problem than time management, right? So how do you, because it's hard, not as a therapist, I would assume.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (05:33.647)

right.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (05:39.6)

Right.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (05:47.973)

Right.

The Chad (05:51.457)

I'm not a therapist, to actually tell somebody, you hey, look, you need a little bit more help than just time management. I can help you on the time management side, but you also need this other kind of this more therapy, let's say, for instance, couples, family, whatever it might be. Do you see this being a much larger ball of wax that you have to try to help them navigate themselves through?

Joel Cheesman (05:53.496)

Thank God.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (06:04.921)

Right.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (06:14.541)

absolutely. And I'm sure I know there's all different kinds of flavors of time management coaches, but my particular flavor of my my my particular secret sauce is I do look at this holistically. So I would say in terms of the therapy side of it, we don't tend to go into like, tell me everything about what happened in your childhood and let's investigate it. But what we do do is say, well, what mindsets what behaviors what

emotional drive do you have right now that's creating these issues and how are we going to shift those mindsets or there's ways of behaving going forward? And I think something that was really different about me, more and more people have embraced it, but for example when I wrote The Three Secrets to Effective Time Investment, which came out in 2012, the whole first third of that book was about the emotional and mental

parts of time management change. So guilt and overwhelm and perfectionism and optimism and all these things that at the time people really weren't talking about. They were mostly talking about like, let's have this perfect list with getting things done or let's like make our calendar in this way or be faster in outlook. And so from the beginning of my particular path as a time management coach, I have focused on both the emotional and mental

And also I'm a person of faith, the spiritual side of time management, in addition to just like the practical nuts and bolts, because if you don't have the mental game in order, it's really hard to change your behavior.

The Chad (07:49.503)

Yeah, entirely. as you talk about that, and Joe, you're not one, we know it, we can see that you're probably a very young millennial. Joel and I are both Gen Xers, right? I was a latchkey kid. And I remember maybe a handful of times where my parents who were also divorced, they could come to end of my games, my matches or anything like that. But that was just a part of the process because they were working hard, right? And it didn't feel like back then.

there was as much pressure. Obviously there was pressure, don't get me wrong. But we all turned out okay. I mean, except for Joel, mean, but seriously, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why are we trying to be all things to everyone? That seems to be the biggest issue. Yes, I wanna go see my kids' games, matches, tournaments, whatever. But if I miss a few, it doesn't make me a bad dad, much like when I'm working.

Joel Cheesman (08:26.338)

Hahaha

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (08:27.579)

You

That's your secret. That's your secret.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (08:45.819)

Right.

The Chad (08:46.763)

if I'm a few minutes late because I had to drop the kids off at school, big fucking deal, right? I mean, so when do we start to give ourselves some grace all around as opposed to, as you had said, really try to embody perfectionism, which just isn't gonna work.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (09:03.633)

Right, yeah, no, I totally hear what you're saying. And that goes back to that first point I had made in the article about what's enough. Because the example I had given was one of my clients, he's a partner in a firm, extremely high amount of responsibility. And at the same time telling himself, like, I'm a bad dad if I don't show up to my kids swim lessons on Tuesday mornings. And then that means I have to start work, you know, at 930 instead of 730. So.

The Chad (09:09.955)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (09:30.82)

I completely hear what you're saying. And what I find tends to help people with that shift in terms of not having that, what I would call false guilt is when I start working with people one-on-one, I do both one-on-one and group, but I would say the majority is one-on-one. We go through a complete schedule assessment. So I have them tell me everything that's going on in their schedule from

what recurring meetings they have, to what commitments they have with their family, to when they want to work out, when they want to sleep, when they're going to eat, like anything that's going on. And then I take that and I lay it out into an initial schedule so they can visually see represented where their time is and what's going on. Often that's a huge eye opener because you can see just on a very tangible physical level, this is how many hours you have in a day or a week.

And sometimes it just doesn't all fit. Like they have these like crushing expectations of like you said, every single game or every single practice or whatever it is I'm going to go. And then at the same time, you need to work 60 hours a week. And it's like, this is physically impossible. So we need to start making choices around like what's most important professionally, what's most important personally, and get that balance. And what I would say is what's right.

really can vary from person to person. So for some people, like working 50 or even 60 hours a week is okay with them depending on their life situation. And for other people, it may literally be like 30 or 35 or 40 like that they can do and feel good about what's going on in their life. And so I think that having a very objective clear view of this is what it looks like if you say you're going to have what you want. Are you okay with this?

Joel Cheesman (11:00.814)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (11:21.711)

And then from there making those adjustments like maybe in some areas we take away some family time, but then that makes you not be completely sleep deprived. So you're not a zombie the next day and you're more productive. And in the end of the balance, like you're less stressed, more present person who can be there as much as you can for whatever you believe is most important. And so I hear what you're saying. And I think

The Chad (11:34.136)

Yes.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (11:47.448)

it just I'll say one more thing and I'll stop talking because I get really passionate about this stuff. I think also that there's been a huge shift in expectations. I'm not going to call this right or wrong, bad or good. It just is what it is, particularly in terms of the pressure I would say on parents where many parents, the both parents are working full time. And so it's

The Chad (12:00.131)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (12:14.231)

it's just hard to maybe do what you might have seen people do in the past when maybe one parent was working full-time and one was at home or part-time. And so if you have still those expectations of like how much you're going to volunteer or be involved in your kids lives or show up at games and at the same time are trying to do a full-time job it can be again really really difficult. So you have to acknowledge the changes that have happened with your time and what is or is impossible based on that.

Joel Cheesman (12:43.39)

We have a lot of employers listen to the show. What should they take away from sort of some of your lessons? mean, most employers want you to be on 24 seven answer emails all the time. but I've also heard of companies who will shut out the lights at five saying go home. Like this is our policy. What, what should companies be thinking about in this, in this work life balance? And are there any success stories that you have of companies that you think are doing it right?

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (13:13.041)

Great question. So in terms of what they should be thinking about, I feel like there's a couple different things. So one is I do think it is nice to have flexibility. So having some flexibility on start time to end time I think is very helpful in a lot of situations. Sometimes it's just people's chronotype and chronotype meaning like, are you an early bird? Are you someone that's more productive midday? Are you more of a night owl? And even like family or balance aside,

If you just let people have a little flex at the beginning and end of your day, you might end up with more productive hours because they're fully awake or fully alert when they are working. So I think having some flexibility, like maybe it's people start seven to nine or seven to 10 and then need to wrap up like within a, again, a two or three hour window is, is helpful just as a general rule. beyond that, in terms of looking at flexibility, my

personal opinion and what I've seen based on over 16 years of coaching people in this area is that expecting people to be always on is extremely counterproductive, extremely counterproductive. And there's a few reasons for that. One is they don't actually have a chance to recharge and to really relax and to really feel like they can.

watch a show or be with their family or go to the gym or whatever they want to do without being plugged in. And the problem with that is that over time, that's going to drain your productivity. Short term, you know, there's a major deadline or, you know, a big deal, you're closing in sales, totally fine. But if every single day it's like that, you're going to end up with people that are probably functioning at about like 70 % capacity because they haven't gotten their batteries fully recharged and able to

be 100 % productive when they are working. So I don't think as a general rule that's a good idea, although there may be short periods of time when it's okay. Then secondly, what I would say in regards to that is what I've noticed in my clients, and this isn't a cultural thing, I think the cultural always on can create the lower productivity, but I would say with my clients is that when they tell themselves, I have a flexible schedule, I'll just work.

Joel Cheesman (15:18.414)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (15:36.43)

on this project I have to do tonight and I won't take the time during the day to get this done, that it causes them to be less strategic with their time during the day and to procrastinate more. Because if you know it's like at five o'clock, I need to be done and like I need to wrap up, then you find a way to get your project done during the day and you're not putting it off. But when you're like, well, I'll just get this done tonight after the kids are in bed, then you're like,

Joel Cheesman (15:48.556)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (16:06.309)

I'll just check this email. Let's see what's like the latest sports score, you know, like, you know, just go to this. Yeah, go to this extra meeting. It's not a big deal. And the next thing you know, your kid decided they aren't going to go to bed tonight for whatever reason. And you don't get them down till 10 o'clock. You're totally exhausted. And then now you're staying up till two in the morning trying to get things done when your productivity is completely suboptimal. So I think some flex is okay. And again, does this mean you're never going to work at night? No.

The Chad (16:10.901)

After a couple glasses of wine, yeah.

Joel Cheesman (16:20.504)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (16:35.803)

But making it a general rule that you're always on or making it a general rule that like you're always flexible and no matter what time I get work done, it doesn't matter is really setting you up for like lazy productivity and not like having your highest and best energy levels. And then in terms of companies doing this right, they're there. What I would say is there are definitely companies that

Joel Cheesman (16:41.667)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (16:48.568)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (17:03.601)

work life balanced and encourage people to like leave at certain times versus that culture of being always on. Like this is an old study but I know Boston Consulting Group did a study and another expert wrote a book called Sleeping with Your Cell Phone on and what they found was that with Boston Consulting Group and consultants are known for like crazy all the time hours that by giving them some predictable time off

meaning like there was like certain nights or certain times on the weekend when they knew they weren't didn't need to be available at all that actually increased their productivity. So does that mean people at BCG probably aren't working crazy hours a lot of time? I'm sure sure they are. But just that like even a few times throughout the week when you knew you could be off could really help. And then I know that there are other companies again that encourage the stopping at five. But what I can tell you from my experience as a coach,

is that even if the company's encouraging it, which does help, the person also has to have the mindset and skills to make it happen. Because I can tell you based on people that came to come to me to work with me, that if they don't have their time in order, what they end up doing is not being as effective during the day, even though they know they're supposed to shut off at five, than trying to like

Joel Cheesman (18:22.414)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (18:24.069)

get things done at night and do like delayed send an email to that kind of thing so people don't know that they're working at night. So you have to personally own it, not just have a company that encourages you to stop working.

Joel Cheesman (18:36.558)

curious there. There's a lot of data around remote work is good. People feel like they do have some flexible flexibility to do stuff outside of work, but it's, it almost sounds like you're arguing that going back to the office where there's a set time that you're at work is actually better because once you're done with work, then you're done with work. Help me understand. Are you arguing that back to back to the office is better?

The Chad (18:36.781)

So Joel.

Joel Cheesman (19:02.966)

Or should we just rethink about what we think in terms of remote work? Cause let's be honest, we're all kind of still trying to figure out what remote work means.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (19:09.681)

Right, right. So I actually, I would say I'm a bit like agnostic in regards to that, like whether it's remote work or it's in person with productivity. What I do think though is that you have to have sorted out the schedule. So for example, I've been a business owner for almost 20 years. So you're very kind to say I'm like super young, but not as young as I look. So I started my first business in 2005. And so

When I started out in 2005 and I went from working in a corporate office to being on my own, I had no work-life balance because I had no schedule. Like I would end up doing personal errands during the day, but then I would end up like working until nine, ten o'clock at night or come home from a networking event and think I should be working. Saturday and Sunday I worked like I literally had never a time.

when I didn't feel guilty if I wasn't working or like with people are sleeping. Like it was, it was total chaos. but I have worked from home since that time over the last like almost 20 years that I've been a business owner. And what I had to do for myself is to have the discipline to say, like you have a start time, you have a stop time. You're not working past that time. You're out working on the weekend and to create that structure for myself as a business owner. And that's what got me to a place of balance.

The Chad (20:07.651)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (20:35.163)

And then my other entrepreneur friends are like, that's amazing, you should help other people. And I took it from there. So I think people can work remotely and have very good balance. If they have a clear start and stop time, I think people can work from the office and have good balance. And in terms of whether people are more productive in the office or remotely, there's a lot of different factors to that. So one is honestly the level of self-discipline. Like some people,

it's extremely hard for them to set that schedule when they're home, to stay off of Netflix, to not like get distracted with doing the dishes or something else at home. And so if you're one of those people, you will be more productive going into the office. But if you're someone that is able to set those boundaries with yourself, I think you can be just as productive, if not more productive working from home. So I think it depends on the person, but I think regardless where you are, having that schedule is

helpful for most people is a general rule.

The Chad (21:33.439)

Know thyself, Joel, know thyself. So in a. It's so great. In a peer reviewed paper published by the 11th one, Joel, the Canadian Medical Association, a review summarizing data from over 40,000 resident practitioners across 47 countries show that in North America, go figure, burnout rates were about 51 percent compared to Europe at 31 percent on HR Drive. I found a survey.

Joel Cheesman (21:36.632)

So crates.

The Chad (22:02.091)

of more than 1,200 workers in the US and Europe. 40 % of Americans said they work 40 to 50 hours per week as compared to 26 % of Europeans. Mid-level professionals in both regions are most likely to say that they work overtime daily. In terms of vacation, 60 % of Americans said they never took holidays of two weeks or more. While Europeans, I'm sitting in Portugal right now, they take the entire month of August off.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (22:31.729)

Yes.

The Chad (22:31.811)

I know, because they're here. 30 % of Europeans said they take more than 25 days of vacation. This to me is not just a US problem, but it's a US problem. So how do we, from a society standpoint, because we've been taught greed is good, Gordon Gekko, all that bullshit that's been fed into our brains for years, how do we deprogram ourselves? How do we deprogram ourselves?

Joel Cheesman (22:56.878)

You can sleep when you're dead.

The Chad (23:00.737)

because that is exactly what has happened. We want to compete with the Joneses, right? Got to get a bigger car, got to get a bigger house, all these different things. We've got to take care of the kids. We got to make sure that they're going to swim practice all day. This is a societal problem, it seems like, in the US because burnout is 20 % less likely in Europe. What do you think?

Joel Cheesman (23:24.492)

God, we have universal healthcare to take care of all those stress problems that show up later.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (23:28.209)

Yeah, got it. Yeah, yeah. No, and I actually, in high school, I spent two summers living in Spain. So doing like an exchange program. So I understand what you're saying. Yeah, they just like kick off for all of August. And you're like, what do mean? Like even people that own stores, it's like the store is closed. You're like, you just shut down your store for a month. Okay. But that's just how it is. And they also, I don't know if they still do. But when I was in high school, they did siesta. So like the

The Chad (23:29.344)

and more vacation.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (23:54.448)

In Spain, they were closed for a couple hours in the afternoon and the business would just shut and you just deal with it. You come back when they come back. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, I totally hear what you're saying. So I do. I actually have read a lot of articles on vacation and taking vacation. And I do think it's an issue in the United States, not only people not taking enough vacation, but also the feeling of guilt that they have to be totally on when they're on vacation. I think it's

The Chad (23:56.803)

Yep. huh. Yeah. And then I'll open until dinner until eight. Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (24:22.83)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (24:23.729)

very fascinating that for some of my clients, when I suggest like, hey, you should be putting up your out of office when you're on vacation. This is like revolutionary concept. It's like, no, this is normal. You're not supposed to be in the office when you're on vacation. So I think again, it's a two-part thing. It's partly the company and it's partly the person. So in terms of the person, take your vacation. And what I find is that planning it out in advance is critical. If you just

Joel Cheesman (24:37.4)

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (24:53.099)

wait until your I'm so sorry if you're in my daughter in the background. I've got a two year old. Apparently they're in from the from the stroller walk. so anyway, I am so sorry. Do you need me to stop her? Are you okay? You're good? Okay. Okay. So I apologize. So anyway, the let me catch my my thoughts.

The Chad (24:58.167)

No, that's awesome. I love it.

Joel Cheesman (24:59.064)

Perfectly appropriate for our show. Don't worry about it. Dogs, kids are welcome.

The Chad (25:07.521)

You're good.

Joel Cheesman (25:09.538)

Nope. Keep going.

The Chad (25:10.786)

Not at all.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (25:22.609)

I am so... What?

The Chad (25:24.035)

This just showed you, I mean, this actually just, this is perfect because she's at work. She's at work. And, you know, it's just like trying to be disciplined, but then there are distractions, right? And then trying to be there as a mom. And again, five weeks old, not so much you've got a two year old. So, I mean, this is the perfect application of what you're talking about.

Joel Cheesman (25:27.49)

How appropriate for our topic. Doing an interview. Yep.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (25:36.306)

Yes, yes. Yeah, this is life. is. Yes. Thank you for your grace with me. We're doing our best. So, okay, great. So, it sounds like daddy's got it taken care of. we'll thank God for amazing husband. Super, super a blessing.

Joel Cheesman (25:49.656)

Do you want another question or do you want to try to fill the void with what you're going on?

The Chad (25:49.825)

Hahaha

Forget.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (26:06.193)

So anyway, going back to vacation time, getting re-centered here. there's again, the company part of it, and then there's the personal part of it. So like I said, if you're going on vacation, it is okay to go on vacation. Like it's okay to put up your out of office and not be checking email constantly. I encourage people to have up there out of office. I encourage them to not feel compelled like they need to answer emails right away or at all, depending on the situation.

And then on the flip side, you do want a company that's supportive of that where you won't be like penalized for the fact that you weren't available at all hours of the day or night while you're on vacation. And so what I've seen in terms of how people can take vacation to help fight this burnout and all of that is a couple of different angles. So one angle is that some people just go cold turkey and they are not on their email, not available.

other than if it's like an absolute emergency and they have a point person who will contact them and they just completely unplug it and that's totally awesome. If for some reason you feel like you can't do that, like you're in a situation where there's a major deadline or major decisions to be made, what I found is that you really need to contain it. So even while you're on vacation, if you're going to work to say like, okay, I know I get up earlier than all of my kids. So

I'm going to work from 7 to 9 a.m. If anything is most important or most critical, like emails I need to answer or things I need to do, then I'm going to do those. And then if it's outside of those times, like I'm not doing anything unless it's an absolute emergency. And I find that helps a lot because otherwise, again, you end up with this dissonance where you're like, okay, I'm with my family and I'm trying to relax, but should I be answering emails? Should I be?

accepting this meeting, should I be responding to this text? And so by having those clear boundaries around when you are or are not available, it can help you get a sense of relaxation, really enjoy your vacation, and be able to move things forward. So I think vacation is important for not having burnout. I think also the culture, at least as far as I've seen in Europe, of when you're off, you're really off. There's less of an expectation of working at night or working on the weekends. I think that really helps.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (28:28.101)

And then also it seems like there's just, I don't know, little bit more humane pace in terms of expectations. In some ways we love that in the United States, not always, but often like things move along more rapidly. But my impression from working with people in different parts of the world is that people are just more chill about deadlines and how quickly things get done. And so there's less of that pressure of like, this needs to get done right away today or this week.

to move things forward. And I think those different factors.

Joel Cheesman (28:57.216)

Elizabeth, it's funny. We joke on the show. Chad has a place in Portugal and he has a home here still in the States and we have Euro Chad and we have generally angry Chad. And when he's in America, he's generally angry Chad. So we live this on the show all the time. I'm curious because your husband is there. I want to talk about relationships for a second. There are so many different dynamics.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (29:03.249)

Yeah.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (29:07.993)

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (29:12.539)

Yeah.

Joel Cheesman (29:23.596)

Maybe both parents go to an office. Maybe one stays at home and works from home. The other one goes in the office. Maybe in your case, both get to be from home. There's a whole set of, of dynamics with relationships when that happens. And I'll speak a little bit for myself. My wife goes to an office and I work here from home. And sometimes I feel like a little bit like an employee, right? If something needs to get picked up at the grocery store, she doesn't think twice about, can you go get this for me today? Or like getting the kid is just me.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (29:50.149)

Right, right.

Joel Cheesman (29:52.345)

taking kid to practice is me. So how should couples think about that dynamic in relationships when they're looking at flexible times, remote work and all the things that are going on right now?

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (29:52.954)

Right.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (30:05.251)

Yeah, yeah, that is a great question. So with me and my husband, so I again, have owned a business for almost 20 years and as a coach, I work from home. So I do work from home, but I actually don't have an enormously flexible schedule because almost all my work is client facing. So that means that like I'm in meetings with clients almost all day long. So I don't have tons of flexibility.

My husband, works for a corporation and he's hybrid. So he's three days a week in the office, two days a week at home. And that's he's still on paternity leave right now with but this is having our little peanuts. So that's why, that's why I get to have him here. But I think that it's extremely important to have discussions around this and what works because each, each couple is different in terms of what the dynamic is, but

there can be resentment that builds when one person in the relationship feels like they're doing a lot more than feels okay for them for whatever reason. so first and foremost have communication because there's not a one size fits all solution. What I have seen though is that even if there's like a spouse that's in the office and one that's home that they usually try to coordinate things like

one doing one part and maybe one doing the other. So perhaps the person going to the office will do drop off for the kids and the person working from home will do pick up because maybe the person coming from the office can't get back in time to not get like charged crazy amounts of money for being late or something like that. In terms of things like tours or errands or the flexibility there, if you're working from home by default there will be some things that

you're just more accessible for like somebody's come to fix your AC and you're the ones that's there. And so you're going to have to deal with it. But things like tours, I find that you can coordinate for being on like the weekends that we maybe work on things together or we have certain nights designated to get certain things done. And that you can also work out things like it may be even having help like saying like, yeah, I'm home, but I don't want to feel like

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (32:22.337)

the person that has to do all the errands so we use Instacart or I don't want to feel like I'm doing all the cleaning so we have someone coming like clean once a month and so it's okay to do that too but I think the biggest thing is communication and it's not fair to assume that just because someone's home they're always going to be available for whatever needs to get done and so I think making sure like if someone that's at home is feeling overextended that they can get the support they need for that.

Joel Cheesman (32:49.122)

I'll also add, Chad, that a good bath does a body good. Calgon, take me away. You know what saying? Calgon, take me away.

The Chad (32:53.859)

Take me away. Well, and Joel, you might not know, but Sleeping With Your Cell Phone is actually the new sequel to Sleeping With The Enemy. It's a Julia Roberts comeback. That is Elizabeth Grace Saunders, and the article is, your flexible schedule burning you out? And that's on Harvard Business Review. So Grace, Elizabeth Grace, I bet your mom calls you that all the time. Elizabeth Grace.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (33:05.585)

Nice.

The Chad (33:22.723)

If people want to find you, where would you send?

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (33:25.147)

Yes, absolutely. So my website is real life e.com and I'll spell that for you because I know that's confusing. R-E-A-L-L-I-F-E and then another E as in Elizabeth.com. So that's the best way to find out about me, my coaching and my books. And you can also read a ridiculous amount of articles if you want to underpre...

Joel Cheesman (33:48.91)

Elizabeth get back to those kids, appreciate your time. Chad, that is another one in the can. We out.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders (33:51.243)

Okay, thank you.

The Chad (33:56.021)

We out.