146: Marissa Goldberg | Burnout-Proof Productivity
In this episode of the Prestigious Initiative podcast, host Chris Bean interviews Marissa Goldberg, founder of Remote Work Prep, about how remote workers can avoid burnout and achieve sustainable high performance. Marissa defines burnout as an energy‑bank account that runs a deficit when withdrawals (work) exceed deposits (rest). She argues that overwork, not underwork, is the primary problem in remote settings and that managers must set clear expectations and model boundaries. Practical tactics include designing a physical or mental "commute" to signal work‑mode transitions, creating multiple work zones at home, and establishing virtual boundaries such as separate browsers or focus modes. She introduces a framework of seven distinct types of rest—physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual—and explains how each can be deliberately incorporated into daily life. To monitor energy, she recommends a simple 0‑10 hourly rating captured in a bullet journal, later migrated to Notion and other apps, and using the data to identify energy‑draining activities. Marissa structures her year into 12‑week work sprints followed by a planned week off, embedding vacations into contracts and calendars to prevent burnout. She also tracks weekly "values" (e.g., empathy, knowledge) to ensure actions align with personal principles. The conversation covers the importance of autonomy, async‑first communication, hiring for trust, and treating AI as a productivity super‑tool rather than a job‑stealer. Quick takeaways include a favorite ritual of daily memory documentation, debunking the myth that underwork is the main issue, and encouraging listeners to make one small, sustainable change each day. Contact information is provided via her newsletter "Remotely Interesting" and the website remoteworkprep.com.
Thank you for listening to this episode and follow the podcast on social media by finding PrestigiousPod. And if you'd like to be coached on how to live a more prestigious life, you can reach out to me, Chris Bean, Hrisbeanofficial, or by emailing the podcast directly@prestigiousinitiativegmail.com lastly, sign up for our newsletter either through social media or on our website. This is the Prosthetus Initiative. Welcome, I'm Chris Bean. Today we're going to be diving into a conversation that every high achiever needs to hear. My guest is Marissa Goldberg, founder of Remote Work Prep and a true pioneer in reshaping how we think about remote work, rest and sustainable success. Her articles, like how to make 2023 your best year of no Burnout, have helped thousands redefine what it means to truly thrive in today's working world. So, Marissa, welcome to the show.
Hi. Thank you for having me.
Marissa, why would somebody want to listen to our conversation here today?
I think someone might want to listen if they've been dealing with burnout before or they're dealing with remote work and loving the aspect of having that autonomy, but haven't quite figured out how to balance it with having a lovely life as well.
Very good. Now, I think it's important to define a term. How do you, how do you define burnout? What does burnout look like for you?
Burnout to me means that you are giving more than you are filling your tank and it's slowly depleting over time. So I like to think about it as like an energy bank account. And with this energy bank account, you start off with zero, and then as you add to it, you know, you can fill your tank and then you can, you know, spend as needed. But if you start making withdrawals without making deposits, then you're slowly depleting your energy over time and then you're going to be stuck with like, interest rates and late withdrawal, fruit fees and all those kind of things. And then it makes it much harder to get back to a positive state.
Well, Marissa, you know, I. The way that you approach remote work is. And productivity is not like anything I've seen before. Can you start by sharing your personal journey that led you into the. What the frameworks that you teach today are, of course.
So I, I got into tech when I was a kid. I spent five years competing in international robotics competitions and I fell in love with working with people all around the world. And then I got into the workforce and I spent a couple years as a software engineer. Going into engineering, management, all that kind of thing. And then in 2015, I landed my first remote job and I loved it. I loved the autonomy. I finally had that opportunity again to work with the best minds all around. It was just amazing. But there weren't a lot of resources back then on how to lead an effective team. So I was running into all the problems that everyone knows of now, like too many meetings, not able to communicate effectively across different time zones. So you're waking up having to answer messages and going to sleep, having to answer messages. And I was constantly in a burnout cycle. So I was like, I love the situations. How can I make this work for me? I started experimenting, I started sharing what I was experimenting, experimenting with. And yeah, people started reaching out to me, like, how do I lead this remote team? How are you having 5% meetings in your work week? Whether that rather than 100% like me. And I started Remote Work Prep in 2018. It was just supposed to be a side thing because people were asking me questions about this. And then 2020 happened. Everybody went remote overnight, and the rest is history.
Okay, now what. What are some common issues that most people, that everybody who experiences remote work fall into, and what are a few steps that they could take to alleviate some of those?
The biggest one is a common misconception with remote workers, is that under work is the biggest problem, when it's actually the opposite. It's actually overwork is the biggest problem because people so much value this autonomy and this freedom and this flexibility of their work that they tend to want to prove to their managers that they're working and so they'll stay on slack all day, all night, like we talked about, like waking up and immediately sending a message, going to sleep and checking their email before they fall asleep in bed. So overwork actually tends to be the biggest issue and the one that I think more people need to address, especially because the measures that are, are put in place to address under work actively work against these overwork issues.
Right. Because if they're, if they're overworking, then they're never going to be under working and they're never going to be on that list, but they're always going to be on the overwork list. But nobody has an overwork list.
Yes. And nobody's addressing it.
Right, Right.
It really starts with the managers. The managers need to make it clear what the expectations are and setting clear boundaries, making it clear what virtual boundaries are and how to set them up so that their team can follow. It really starts with the managers Right.
And if they kind of set out what that, what those boundaries look like, they need to be the ones that are actively practicing them and they're allowing their team to practice them because they're kind of leading the charge on that. And the hard part for them, probably as managers sometimes is they have people, of course, that are over them. They have some pressure so they get the work done. They need to. The manager needs to, you know, just, I mean, not disregard the pressure, but still allow that communication, allow that work to facilitate some sort of a boundary, both for themselves, but also for the, the people that they're trying to manage.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So it's a, it's a big difference between saying something and actually doing something. And so when you say, hey, you don't need to be on your phone all the time, but then you are on your phone all the time when you are out and about just to make sure you don't miss any messages, it sets the precedent.
Yeah. And I think the mindset from the, from the business, from the company is under work is going to be what's going to be the output. Because they're at home, we can't see them. I don't know what they're doing. But really, because of the things that are in place to monitor against that underwork, people are overworking, but we have no measurements for that. What would be a overwork measure to put in place to try to facilitate that beyond setting boundaries?
It's really hard because it's more about the feeling of burnout, and that's really hard to measure. So there's not one measure that I can think of that you can put into place to say, like, this is it. You can do a lot of things like surveys, employee experience surveys. You can do things like, oh, the, the way they're taking time off, like, how much. Typically there's like an issue with people taking too little time off. So making sure that there's kind of like a minimum in place so people get that time out of the office. But what they're not seeing is really that when you're overworking, you end up with more issues at the company than under work. Because your best top minds, who are, you know, they're very dedicated to your company, they can't, they can't work in their peak manner because they don't have that, that rest and those systems in place to get back into a baseline zone where they can think in the right way in terms of like, thinking long term versus thinking short term. And all these things come into play.
Well, okay, so surveys and really what, that, what I'm hearing you say is really that the managers, the higher ups of the founders of the company, need to be in communication with their employees more than just on a, on a business level, but on a personal level. So they can have that conversation with them and they can start to see the signs of what burnout looks like. And then, like you said, I think implementing like a mandatory, hey, everybody has to take whatever the time off is, but take that time off. That is, that's a very interesting. And I don't think very many businesses, you know, try to do that.
It's especially important if your business has an unlimited time off policy. So unlimited time off sounds great. It sounds like, oh, I can take it off whenever I need it. This is fantastic. However, there is no set expectation of this is what is normal to take off. And so people will automatically resort to as little time off as possible because they don't want to raise red flags. They really like their job. They're not trying to, like, rock any boats, and then they end up taking like one or two weeks instead of something that's actually going to make a dent in their burnout and their daily life.
Okay, so this is, that's an interesting topic because I think that everybody has, like, a mindset of if I'm, if I'm not at work, okay, there's some red flags that are raised. Okay. They'll, somebody's gonna realize that they can do the work without me. Um, somebody's gonna find out that I'm not as valuable as I think I am, which I'm probably not as valuable as I think I am. Um, if I'm not working, I'm not getting paid. Like, there's all kinds of these things. What, what would be maybe a mindset shift that that person could go through in order to come at it from a place of being deserved that time off, as opposed to, man, I, I, I feel bad I need to take this time off for my, whatever it is. But, you know, what would be the mindset shift that would have to happen in order for that to bridge the gap there?
The difference I think here is that they're thinking in terms of society's expectations versus reality and society's expectations of being very heavily weighted in terms of presence just because of our history with the office. And to be fair, this is a very short history in the office prior to, you know, the last 100 or so years, we were absolutely working from home and working in different manners. But because of our living history of that, that's the first thing we think of. But when you think of the actual facts of the case, like, is the person who's available with their green mark on Slack the one doing the most for the company providing the most value, or is it the person who's coming up with the big ideas, who's thinking long term, who's able to make good decisions because they got the right sleep the night before, who's actually providing the real value? So I think it requires thinking beyond what society is telling us to think and thinking in terms of like the actual facts of life.
You know, I think that remote work kind of confuses this a little bit because it's like I live and work all in the same place. Right. And so my time off is I'm at home, which is also where I work from. So that line of getting out and going into the office is not as clear as it is otherwise. Right. I think that that kind of confuses us a little bit, both on the employee side, but also as the manager, as the company, because, okay, this person's at home, how come they're not working? Oh, they have this today off. Okay. But they're at work even though they're not doing work. Right. So I think that that is an interesting kind of extra piece to remote work that a lot of people don't, don't take into effect. It's like you live at your, like, for, for like a standard person who goes to work. It's like you live at, in your cubicle, you live at. In your office. You, you live at your place of work, which as a remote worker is nice because being able to, to get up and, you know, do work from home is wonderful. But there's almost potentially a downside to that as well, because you're always at work, sort of.
Agreed. It's definitely a mindset shift, especially if you're used to having that transition period, like having that commute and then having the commute home to kind of like switch on and off. But the thing is, it wasn't that commute that allowed you to do on and off. It was because you did that day in and day out. And that's what your brain got used to associating with that on and off. So you can tie that to anything you want. So a couple of the tips that I recommend for remote workers is to one, design your commute. Instead of sitting in traffic and being in your car for a long period of time. It can be anything you want. It could be a walk around the block. I've seen it as simple as like a cup of tea and a little bit of reading beforehand. I've seen it as like they go to the gym, then they come back. And that's kind of like their. Their transitional. It can be whatever you want. Just make sure that you set the beginning state, the end state, and then have the same middle piece in between to kind of get your body and your mind used to this being your system for getting ready. So have it. Setting your own commute is the first thing, and then the second thing is creating virtual boundaries. So a lot of people talk about physical boundaries in terms of like having a separate space for work, but I actually find that that's not as effective. In fact, it actually can work against you. So with having a physical space for work, we're used to that in the office where you had one desk, and that was due to the company not having the resources to kind of have multiple desks and multiple areas for all their different workers. They wanted to constrain that and that works there. But now you're open to new possibilities at home. So for me personally, I have multiple work zones. So this work zone is great for when I'm having calls. I've got the camera, I've got the lights, I've got the screens. However, if I'm trying to do deep work, this is incredibly distracting. This is not the place to be if I'm trying to get some good writing done. So I have another space where it's great to just, you know, get that first draft of writing out, be very centered on what I'm working on instead of having multiple screens. And I think for a lot of workers, that's actually the best plan of action. What they do need, though, is virtual boundaries, which means that you're not using the same browser for searching Instagram as you are for seeing work emails. And you have slack off of your phone, off of your personal phone. Ideally you'd have a work phone and a personal phone, but if not, you either delete the apps or set set limits on them so that you can't get to them in your personal hours and vice versa. But setting those virtual boundaries is way more important than physical boundaries, I've found.
Well, okay, so I think both of those, like if you, if you link those up, those are wildly helpful across, you know, a whole bunch of different. The virtual boundaries is something having a different web browser for work than you do for personal, that is such an easy thing to do, but it makes that shift very visible for that person. Right? Just as you have one area for recording a video call like this and you have another area for doing, writing or whatever it is. Having that different space physically you don't always have when you're remote working, but having a different digital space is interesting. So, you know, one of the things that, you know if, if you're, if you're have, if you have an Apple product, one of the things you could do is you can set up different focus modes and you could have a focus mode for like home, even though you're always at home. But focus mode for home and another focus mode for work. That's something I haven't like on my, on my devices. And it actually changes the color of the background. Like the background changes. Like work is a blue color. So work is a blue color. All of my icons are blue. It changes my Safari web. I forget what they call it, but it's got different profiles on there, so it changes it into a work profile. So it has all of the work things that are already on there. And then when I shift out of that, then it changes all those things again. But having something like that, I don't often work remote, although I guess this is kind of remote work as doing the podcast. But that is a way to shift that way of thinking for you. And that's not really hard to set up. But having that visual representation of the color change and the apps are different color, the web browser looks all different to separate, very clearly separate that space for you both. So you know what type of work you're going to be doing, but also to limit your distractions that perhaps are going to happen while you're at work. So that's a. Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at that, I guess, without knowing I have that set up. But that is an interesting kind of definition or way of thinking of that.
The other little known piece about it that, that is really helpful is that one of those profiles has all of your passwords saved for your personal and one of them has all your passwords for your work and having that separated so that if you try to access, let's say Twitter on your work, it's not instantly logged in. And that kind of triggers your mind. So you might have instantly like, oh, I'm bored, I'm going to type in Twitter. But then when you hit that screen of login, that kind of tells your mind like, oh, hey, you're going somewhere where you weren't planning to. This is your work time. This and Vice versa. So like, if you're, you're in your personal time and you're going to your work Gmail and it's not instantly logged in, that gives you that little buffer space. Like, absolutely, you can access it. I'm not saying like you, you can't. But it gives you time and that kind of friction to have to hop over and it being an extra effort to get to those things.
Well, and what it does too is allows you to ask yourself the question, is this really what I want to be doing? And then the way you answer that, I mean, yeah, you can jump through those hoops, they're not hard to do. But that extra friction gives you that moment of like, is the intention. Yes. Is this where I want to be at right now? Yeah. Very good. Now, Marissa, one of the lines that I think stood out to me the most from your work is rest isn't the opposite of work. And you know, that really hit me because rest, most people associate with not working. How do you allow that to work and help us to understand what that means?
When people first hear that line and they're often like that, they think, what does that even mean? But I think the best way to kind of visualize this is to think about when do you get your best ideas. Did it happen when you were burning yourself out and working a 12 hour straight shift and any of those other situations? No. Most of us, we get our best ideas when we're in the shower, like when we're taking a walk, like when we're finally allowing ourselves that break and that time for our unconscious mind to think through the problem in the background while we're thinking about nothing and finally get that spark to make things happen. So when we think about rest, it shouldn't be in terms of like, this is the opposite of work. We should be thinking about as an integral part of great work.
And you know, it's interesting you say that because rest, rest seems to be like if it's primed appropriately. Rest is where the subconscious can take a hold of whatever that, that problem or issue that you're trying to solve. And it can work on it using background processes. You're not even aware that this stuff is happening. But if, as long as it's primed appropriately, it can be working on this and then bring that answer from the subconscious to the conscious to make yourself aware of it, and then you can do something about it. And you're right. Oftentimes this happens in the shower and out during walks. And I think, I mean, there's other times as well. You know, you have an epiphany moment anytime, but it seems like those are the most common places for the subconscious to conscious epiphanies to happen. Not that I think maybe people should be taking like 12 or 18 showers a day just to try to have that. But something we could do is we could go out in nature and go for a walk. I mean, providing the weather is nice, you know, after you have lunch or something, go out for a little walk. Even if it's, you know, out to your driveway or back and forth a couple times just to. Just to decompress almost. But then again, that that subconscious is going to be doing background processing, trying to solve, come up with ideas that you're not. You're not focused on, you're not trying to do, you're not forcing it. Because a lot of times those type of problems, those type of answers don't come when you try to force them. They come accidentally when you're not even trying to think about them. That I wish that there was like a prescribed protocol for how to prime proper how to properly prime your subconscious to facilitate that solving of a complex problem in the background without trying to think about it. That would be interesting to try to decipher and to come up with what that protocol would look like.
I think it's different for each person. So I have personally done that experiment of like, how do I experiment my way into the best environment, into the best system, into the best routines and rituals that get me into that prime state where I'm not fighting against myself and I'm not exerting energy or trying to force myself into it, but I'm priming the environment like you're talking about, where I'm setting everything up to where it's the perfect place for it to happen and perfect opportunity and everything is ready as long as everything falls in line. So there's a lot of different things that I do from like what we talked about, like those commutes just priming my body to say, like, oh, it's work time, or oh, it's not work time anymore, or doing things, excuse me, are like having multiple work zones within my house. Like I talked about, where I'm not having tons of screens in front of me if I'm expecting myself to actually focus on writing, giving myself the opportunity to actually be successful. And it's little things like that. The other thing to think about though, is that when we talk about rest, people automatically assume naps. They automatically assume walking, and those aren't the only types of rest. And so when you're tired, you might not. You might think it's just physical rest that you need to focus on. But really there's. There's six other pieces that might be struggling with a sensory especially is huge for remote workers.
Well, and I guess, okay, so one understanding that there's seven different areas of rest is, let's say, the first step. But then for that person that's, you know, experienced a little bit of burnout or what soon will be some burnout, like they can feel that starting to come. They need the rest. They need to figure out, I guess, what of those avenues is going to net them the best return on their investment. And then what does rest look like for across each of those seven different areas? Because I would imagine rest for physical is different than rest for spiritual or creative. So, so, okay, so knowing what those are, discovering where, like being in tune enough with your body to know, okay, this is where I'm feeling the pressure at. This is where I'm feeling that, you know, I'm get into it right here. And then what can you do to facilitate that rest? Does rest. Am I wrong on that? Does rest look different for each of those?
Absolutely, yes. So for something like physical rest, that could be something like sleep like we talked about, but it could also be something like getting up and moving. So if you're a knowledge worker, sitting at a desk for eight hours straight is probably not conducive to you doing your best work. So just getting up and moving to a different place or taking a walk, that kind of thing, that's important. Then you have mental rest that can be as simple as taking a shower in the middle of the day or, you know, just getting some space to where you can turn your brain off. Sensory rest is so sensory, your. Your senses are overloaded. When you're at the screens, you've got like this big bright thing just in your face. You've got slack notifications going off, interrupting you constantly, so you're not getting your deep work. So something as simple as just taking walking meetings instead of sitting at your computer when you're. You're in a meeting, it's huge. It's just to get outside, be able to, like, instead of your eyes seeing this distance of like right 12 inches in front of you, it's seeing further. That's a huge part of sensory rest. Then you have creative rest, which is just get out of your house and find some wonder if you don't have anything where you're like, oh, wow. Look for things where you can say, oh, wow about emotional rest. So if you're, you're, you're hopping on a meeting and just saying, how are you? And I'm saying, I'm fine, you probably need some emotional rest. You need someone who you can actually offload to, who you can be honest with. So this can be as simple as planning lunch with a friend or having them come over for a co working session. Those are all emotional rest. Social rest is if you're in back to back meetings all day, you're probably extremely depleted. Or if you're around people that you feel deplete your energy more than give you energy, you need some space from them. So having leasing first practices, making sure you have me time every single day, those kind of things. And then spiritual rest doesn't have to be. People automatically think spiritual and they think religious. It can be absolutely. Everybody knows that side of things. But it's also building community, building a sense of purpose. So a lot of people think about remote workers and they think, oh, they're traveling all the time, they're nomads. When actually a majority of remote workers actually use it to stay in one place and set down roots. They don't have to move to a big city to get the job and be away from their close family. They can be in that small town, they can have their kids grow up in one place. I know for me personally, as soon as I became a remote worker, I found my place, I bought a house, I ran for local office. I, you know, I've just built a community. And that's all part of spiritual, spiritual rest.
Well, and okay, some of those, maybe not all of them, but some of those could really be kind of lumped together by that required vacation time. If you go somewhere, you're out, you're moving around, you have like a lot of those kind of like as you're listening those off, I'm thinking, okay, yep, a lot of those. I mean, not all of them. You could structure it so that it would. But a lot of those would be, the boxes would be ticked if you took some time away from work and went somewhere different. You're walking around, you're seeing people, you're like, all a lot. Again, not all of those, a lot of those. You can tick those boxes and get a full 7 area rest all in one go after, you know, a week in somewhere else, somewhere else. You're out moving around. Like it just, it does a lot of those things. And so if I would imagine, okay, so if you Are feeling the pressure for physical or creativity or sensory or whatever those, those like one or two little small things. Are that something you can kind of check up on, maybe do over the weekend, on your lunch break, maybe even before you dive back into work. But if it starts to compound and get more and it, you know, grows a little bit, then okay, that's where the time away needs to happen. Then with these things in mind, you can structure that vacation time so that it encompasses all seven areas of rest. And then you come back, you're rejuvenated. Not only maybe even rejuvenated, but you are excited to get back to work because that thing that's been cooking in the back in the subconscious is primed up and you're ready to put action in?
Absolutely. I do think it's a two pronged approach. So one, I would heavily encourage people to look into how they can put these different types of rest into their day to day life. Not just waiting for vacation to let it all happen. Because we know we just let ourselves cook, cook, cook. And then it's what we talked about before, you have all those interest and back payments and fees that build up instead of just being able to reset. So definitely try to make sure to put it in your day to day life. But then in terms of vacation, so everybody is different. For me personally what I like to do is I like to do 12 week sprints of in work. So I do 12 week sprints. I have everything planned out. I have big goals and I'm working, working, working at them. And then after week 12, I know I have one week off after week 12. And this does two things. One, it sets up a limit. We know that work will fill whatever time you give it. And this kind of gives me a constraint there to say, hey, after this 12 weeks, we're on to the next thing, we're on to our rest week. And then we're going to be back with a brand new set of list of goals. So we want to get as much done within that period. And two, it gives me vacations before I need them. So I don't want to be in the negative. The negative is where bad things happen. And so my, my old goal is to make sure I have enough deposits to where I can make those withdrawals that I want to, to build my best business. So knowing up front that I have all my vacations planned at by January 1, instead of waiting to be like, oh, I feel like I need a vacation. If you feel that it's too late, you're you're already past the point where you're going to give the most benefit from your vacation and for your work. So I like to plan all my vacations week one, and it tends to be one week off per quarter.
Yeah, well, and that kind of is the, like the Pomodoro technique on a grander scale where you work for 20 minutes and you're off for five minutes or you know, whatever your ratios are. But that is that same kind of concept on a grand scale. You work for 12 weeks and you already know you have one week off and doing it at the beginning of the year. I mean, that first one maybe a little bit is, is not crunch, but you know, that first one is a little, I mean not soon, but is close. But you have that whole opportunity to schedule what the rest of your year is going to look like, where you're going to go, what the whole, the whole thing is all set for you. You know, you have. And I would imagine as you're going through that planning session, you are detailing out at least at an overview level, if not a little bit more specifically what's going to happen, what's the outcome look like for each of those 12 week sprints?
Yep, yeah, yep. Absolutely. I, I'm a huge planner. That, that's something that lights me up. So absolutely I have everything listed out. I know exactly what I'm aiming for. Um, I know exactly what the goals are. I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Um, so yeah, I have all of it planned out, but I think having the, the actual time off planned at the beginning of the year where it's these specific dates, it is already on my calendar. I have already blocked it off so no one can schedul that, that it's such a small thing and it's free, but most people don't do it.
And as you're working with clients, does that ever butt up against or become an issue with them or. I mean, I would imagine you're helping people do remote work and facilitate that, that lack of burnout or to get free from the burnout. So then that week off is a byproduct and you would encourage your clients to do the same?
Absolutely. I absolutely encourage my clients to do the same. One thing is I include it in all of my contracts so everybody knows up front those dates, which is especially helpful because we can plan around them. We can, we know exactly when I'm going to take off. The other thing is that they've really, I haven't received any pushback on this. And the thing that I have received is just a lot of positive words about how I can show up consistently. So they find that some people they work with, it's like up and down and up and down because they're like, oh, they're pushing their self so high and then they're burned out again. And then they're pushing themselves so high and burned out again. And it's this constant thing where you don't know exactly what you're going to get. And humans don't like that. They don't like those kind of environments. So with me, because I have all these systems in place to make sure that I can remain steady, I'm not going through that burnout process. They know exactly what they get from me every single time. And they really appreciate that because I can come in and I can be my best self and do my best work. And then I'm going to do those proactive measures to make sure I can do it all over again next quarter.
Well, and I would imagine, you know, there's a certain sort of people that say, you know, while I'm burnt out, I know I'm burnt out, but I'm going to put on my best face. So they don't know that I'm burnt out. Oftentimes everybody knows that you're burnt out.
Yes, yes. You can absolutely tell now. It's, it's, it's also a matter of like, where your mind goes when you're burnt out. Like, you're not making decisions based on long term, you're making decisions based off short term. And that's very easy to see very quickly.
Right. Because it's like the pressure is all built up and instead of looking down the road, you know, a mile, a mile and a half, you, you're, you're focused on where, where your next step is going to be at because all the pressure is there and you can't, you don't have the bandwidth sort of say, to look up, to be able to see what's ahead of you.
Yeah. I compare it to like firefighting. So for someone who's reactive, in a reactive state, there, there's sparks over here, so they go over here and they're going to put out that fire and then, oh, to the left it's. Or to the right and all of that stuff. And they're just constantly, wherever the spark comes up versus proactively saying, okay, let's make sure that this area is cleared so that there's no chance of fire, because this is the area that's most important, then they have the time and energy to address that. Instead of being in a reactive state of just whatever is in front of me, whatever slack ping comes up, that's the most important. When it's not.
Marissa, I think we talked about these, we've touched on a couple of these already. But do you have any core pillars or habits that you would recommend for somebody who is truly looking to thrive in remote work as opposed to just survive it?
I think we've talked about a lot of them. One thing that they all come back to is knowing yourself. I think that office work required us to be put in a box of this is how we're going to work. So we have to kind of like mask and adapt ourselves and force ourselves through work styles that might not be the most conducive to the individual. And with remote work, you now have the freedom and flexibility to do things specific to you. But that requires knowing yourself. And that's, that's something that sounds simple like, oh, I know myself. I am myself, of course I know myself, but. Because when people are being put in that box for such a long period of time, they don't know themselves. They don't know like what hours they work best in, they don't work, they don't know what kind of environment sets them up for success. Some of the people I work with, they love going to co working spaces because when they're around other people they do their best work. If I go to a co working space the whole time I am getting nothing done and that requires me to know like that's not my best environment. So the first thing I would do is to track, track your energy levels, track how you're feeling throughout the day, track your low points. People. Some people have like a low point following lunch. Other people will have a low point at the beginning of the day because they're not morning people. Just figure out your. The information for you, then you can use that to create data points. So one of the things that I do is I create warning signs. So if these three things are not happening consistently every single day, I know I'm on the path to burnout. Each person is going to have different things. So like one of my things is I like to sit down and read and have a cup of tea every day. Now this practice itself, sorry, my. So this practice itself is not what's preventing the burnout, it's having the time and the energy to do that said practice. But this is a little filter for me to say, oh, this hasn't happened consistently. Like something is going on that I need to address. But that requires knowing yourself and that requires having those warning signs in place.
Well, okay, so we're going to talk about energy here in just a second. But knowing yourself to me means allow yourself to feel what you're feeling and being in tune with what your body is telling you. And I think that the natural next thing there is energy. Right. And managing your energy, which is something I know you talk about, is much different than managing your time and managing your productivity, which is your output. What practically, what does managing your energy look like? You talked about, you know, different times of the day. How do you feel? Do you have like an alarm that goes off in your phone? I feel like a seven right now. And what. And if so, what would those values look like? Would it be different for everybody? Like, I. Like there's this energy. Managing is really interesting to me, but there's so many nuances to it that's different for the different type of work people do, but also different for each person. So I'm very curious about how you interact with that.
Absolutely. It does go. I know everybody wants one prescribed approach and I just don't believe in that. But one thing that you can do is for seven days or. Yeah, for one week, just go ahead and have a little timer on your phone that goes off every hour. And then you just put your energy level and how you're feeling. Just two things. It will take two seconds to track that. And throughout the day, maybe track also, like, what's going on in that point of time, like, oh, I'm in a meeting kind of thing. It can be just one word, just so that you have something to look back on. So when you're reviewing this later and you're seeing a bunch of downward strikes and you see, oh, all those meetings, that's what needs to be addressed. But for one week, just track everything. At the end of that week, look at your tracking and see. Go ahead and see, like, what is giving you energy? What is depleting your energy? Just those two things. That's all you need to know. A lot of people don't realize that certain meals are making them lose energy. Certain people are making them lose energy. Certain tasks are making them lose energy. They don't understand until they see it right in their face, even though they, like, tracked it in the moment. It's not until that weekend that I find that people really understand, like, whoa, I didn't realize how much energy was going towards X. So that's the first thing I would recommend is just getting the data. I actually did this for over a year to get all of my points because I wanted the seasonal view, I wanted the monthly view, I wanted a long term view and that has been huge for creating my personal system and what works for me now. But just start with seven days.
All right. I'm curious about your whole year system on that and I'm going to ask some questions about that here in just a second. But as we're, we're tracking this energy, is this like a, a minus, a zero and a plus? Is it like a, is it a scale? Is it from 1 to 10? Like what, how. And I guess the scale matters because then how detailed am I, am I looking at my, my energy?
I, I think that 0 to 10 is best. It keeps it simple. Everybody knows what it means. But if, if you don't have a lot of time, plus minus, whatever works best for you.
Sure. Okay, now you do this on a year. All right, How. Okay, start basic. How did you track this? Is it, Is it, is it paper? Is it digital?
A bullet journal.
Okay, now you, you probably plotted points from there.
Yes. So everything in my initial one was in a bullet journal. It was basic pen and paper just to see whether it worked. Once I did figure out it worked, I actually transferred it into a notion database that I have like a whole notion dashboard for my daily work and it's right there. So I start my day and just mark it down. The other thing is there's an app called DailyO, that one I was tracking my like feelings for each day. And another app that I have continued to use. Even now I think I'm at a seven year streak or something like that. Let me pull it up real quick. Is called Day one. Yeah. I have seven years of data at this point because every single day I mark down a memory of what I was doing that day. But I don't like to overcomplicate it. I think that this works for me and those apps were great for me. But it can just be a pen and paper. It doesn't need to be anything complicated to get started. Just see if it works for you. Just see if you get any data from it. If you like it. Yeah, grow with it. I didn't start with all these apps and with a seven year streak.
Notion tracking, tracking this in notion, then you can start to do some interesting things because notion is pretty powerful in the way that it can track things, but also the way that it can bring that information back to you. Because it has a date function, it has all of these different things. And you can have it show you those things on a weekly review, let's say on a monthly review, on a quarterly review, yearly review. And then you could see what that looks like across those times and how they integrate together. What. Okay, I'm sure you learned a huge number of things about yourself and how you work from this practice. Let's if, if you could kind of break it down on a, on a weekly basis. Okay. We went over this, and I'm sure people are not going to do this over a full year. Most people probably, but it, nonetheless, it's interesting. And you have that data and how it interact with you. And I'm curious to kind of, to talk this out a little bit on a weekly review or on a weekly basis. Okay, we got what that kind of looked like. I guess my question is, from week to week, did you notice much change or is it more or less pretty similar to the previous week? And again with this, were you strategically changing things in order to have a better outcome as you were going?
Yes. So my goal is never perfection. It's always, can I get this better than last week? So it's just taking a day by day and saying, oh, wow, this was low over time. Let's get this back up. Eventually. I associated it with specific values that I like to have each week. So I found that when specific values were met, then I would have a higher energy week versus a lower energy week. So instead of tracking energy after that first year, I switched it over to values and I would do an up or down or even sign to be like, yes, I fulfilled this value more this week than I did last week, or I did it the same, or it went down because I wasn't, I wasn't prioritizing it this week. Um, and seeing that over time was incredibly helpful. I like to do a start of the week where I do my planning, say this is what's important. That way I can be the one in charge of making those intentions. At the end of the week, I do a summary. How close was it to what I planned, what got in the way, what didn't I see, and then do that end of the week and do it all over again. And to be fair, like I said, I'm a huge planner. This gives me energy, this process gives me energy. If this is a depleting process for you, this is not something that I would recommend long term, but this is something I love. The other thing that you'll notice is that you might not notice huge changes week over week, but you will notice huge changes season over season. And that was interesting to me because I associated, I grew up in Florida, so honestly, like all seasons were the same. And then, and then I moved to Colorado and I actually had four seasons. And it's been interesting to see how moods change over those seasons, how productive productivity changes over those seasons. Priorities change. So being able to be like I'm. There's different types of people. So some people are like, summer is their go time. They have the energy, they have the spirit, they have all this stuff. And then other people are there like, summer is my worst season and I feel the worst. And I just want to be offline. So that goes back to like that data point can show you what kind of person you are. And just doing that experiment of putting a ton of work in this week versus that week, which one did I actually do better on? Just get those data points.
Now when you say values, what, what, what can you tell me what you mean when you say values? Because I think values means there's a couple different definitions of what people think of when they think of values. And so I'm curious, what is your definition of value when you talk about that?
So value, it can be a lot of different things. For. I'm not going to list all of my values here. They're very personal to me. One of them could be something like empathy or knowledge, just things that remain close to you and that you see that when you are not acting in alignment to those values that you have a worse day. So if you are not acting from a place of empathy. So you, you would have it, you would have it listed and you would have empathy and you do up or down for that, that week or same. And if you see over and over, I am not acting in an empathetic way and I'm feeling xyz, you can point it back to that and say, how can I address this? How can I live in more alignment with my value?
All right, as you were going through this experiment and you're still doing this now, the tracking that, the energy every hour.
Yes. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't need that, that point of data anymore. Sorry, I was unclear. So for the, the values I'm still doing on a weekly basis during that weekly review, I do like a daily kind of wrap up, but it doesn't include those energy points anymore. I know exactly what gives me energy at this point after that first year. That first year was when I tracked all of it. It's now been seven plus years since that first year. I'll do re up. Sometimes if I feel like my life has changed, I personally have changed. I'll do it for a little bit of time, but for the most part, I know myself inside and out at this point, with all the data points that I've accrued, the things that I still do on the daily level is I still mark down what I got done, what I was planning to do, what I got done and what I didn't get done, that kind of thing every single day, as well as the memory tracking that, that has stayed the same.
Okay, now you, you talked about kind of tracking these things on a couple different places. How do you allow those things to connect? So you talked about a bullet journal. You talked about daily O. You talked about day one. You talked about notion do though. Do you have different topics or ideas that live in those different places once a week? Does everything connect? How does that look for you?
Yeah, so the bullet journal started out as the only source. So that's where everything was. Then I realized I really want to see. I want to be able to spin the data up, and it's very hard to do that with paper. So then I created that notion dashboard. So it kind of transferred from the bullet journal into the dashboard. The, the, the day one was a memory tracking app specifically. So that ties into my notion dashboard when, like monthly reviews, I just pull up and see, oh, that was the day I did xyz. And so then I can be like, okay, this is what I was actually doing that month. So it doesn't necessarily plug into each other. They could, I know they talk to each other. I just haven't needed that. But yeah, that's where it all kinds of ties in.
And do you, do you still do the bullet journal?
Yes, I've got my bullet journal right here. I just write down. I find that writing for me is great for when I'm trying to be like, this is what I plan to do for the day. I find writing is much better. Better for me than typing that. I don't know.
Okay, so I imagine you, you have your bullet journal. You also have like a Google calendar, some sort of digital calendar. How do those. Oh, go ahead.
Yeah, my calendar. I. So I have meetings on my calendar, but I don't necessarily put all my tasks and the plans for the day on the calendar. So the, the meetings are all there. I also have like, like work zones. So I have like, these two hours are for xyz. These two Hours are for abc and that way I know every single day. These are the quick wins. These are when I'm actually going to check Slack. This is when I'm actually doing deep work. So I have a system where it's very consistent day by day, but the things within those blocks will change. And that's what I have listed in my bullet journal.
Okay, so you, so the Google Calendar gives you like the framework and then your bullet journal is giving you the specifics on what that framework, like what to plug in for those.
Yep.
Okay.
The Lego pieces.
Yeah. Now, Marissa, I know a lot of my listeners, they push hard every day. What would be some advice for somebody who wants to maintain an edge without going over that edge into burnout?
I think just to recognize that you need to have your cup filled if you're going to give it out to others. So if you're going to do great things, you need to be in a great place. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. All of them need to be in a good place. So by prioritizing this, by making this something you're going to put effort into, it's important to make that mental switch into not seeing it as selfish, not seeing it as lazy, not seeing it as anything but what it is, which is filling your cup so that you have the energy and the resources to give back.
Now, from a leader or founder kind of point of view, if you could detail what a ideal remote work culture would look like, how would you structure it to encourage the most well being but also to have peak performance throughout that remote work?
The ideal work environment encourages autonomy. This is not something that many founders or, or managers are used to encouraging. They're used to measures that encourage micromanagement, control, a lot of those kind of measures. So that's the first pivot that needs to be made. And it starts with creating an async first environment where things are written down versus defaulting to meetings. It starts with hiring, hiring people that you can trust, hiring people that you have tested autonomy for, whether they do well with it or poorly. So just starting there with acknowledging your feelings around autonomy, going to therapy if you need to, around control, and then creating an environment where it can thrive. That way everybody can do their best work in their best individual way.
Right, because, because with that, like the manager, the founder allows the employees to have a little bit of autonomy. There's some control that's lost there. There's also I think perhaps going to be a little bit sometimes of a flow, like an up and down kind of cycle where wow, These people have, you know, this one guy had this really great idea, and then nothing. Then, oh, this lady had this really good. But that only happens, I think, if they have the ability to come up with those solutions to the problems on their own, but also have the autonomy to test and try to see what works and what doesn't work. But you're going to have to be okay with relinquishing some control, but also okay with the kind of the ebb and flow with what that looks like. Now, I think ideally that's going to move an upward trajectory, but there's going to be, nonetheless, a little bit of an up and down as you go.
I think that's true. But there's also a point where you. The way I describe it to Founders is you are describing the what and why, you are defining that, you are setting those expectations, and then you are leaving the how up to the individual. So the what and why are defined. The how is left to the individual. So you need to set the expectations. You need to be explicitly clear on what you're expecting, why you're expecting it, when you're doing it within this time frame, all that kind of stuff. Stuff. But then you're releasing the brains. You are trusting this person that you hired to actually make it happen. And if you don't trust the person to make it happen, then you need to either one, hire different people or you need to go to therapy to work on that within yourself.
Very good. Now, Marissa, I got. I have a couple of kind of quick off the cuff type of questions here for you. So just short, sweet answers. Okay. You ready?
Yeah.
All right. What is your favorite productivity ritual?
My favorite one is documenting the memory once a day.
Okay. Remote work that you'd love. I'm sorry? Remote work myth that you would love to debunk.
The overwork myth. It's just they. They all think that under work is the number one problem. It is not. It's the overwork problem. And if they address that, they'll lead to a much healthier team.
Very good. What is one belief that you've had about work that has changed over the last year?
For the last year? That one's tough for me.
Well, I think the idea is sometimes we get complacent and we're not like, we put ourselves in that box. And so this. The core essence of this is to think that you can still remain flexible while you are moving and growing. So what is something you've changed or pivoted on in the last year?
I think that's what's tough for me is that within the last year I came back from maternity leave, so it was a little bit of a different kind of year. I do think part of it is AI. So, AI. I came back and I've had experience with AI. I'm very familiar with it. Like I said, I grew up doing robotics. And then I came back and there was all these hype, people being like, oh, it's going to take all of our jobs and all that kind of thing. And I came back, dive, dove back in, saw what was available, and I've become even more convinced that it is not going to take all of our jobs and that is going to actually help us grow in new and different ways. But. So I think that might be the biggest one is that I came back a little uncertain. Maybe I'd missed something, that something had big had changed. And then diving in, getting all the information, failing.
Very good.
Wasn't the case.
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think if we can treat AI like a calculator to help us to fulfill whatever the job is as opposed to the machine, that's going to do our job for us. I think that that will be the separation that will help facilitate us using AI as a tool, but not relying on it to do all of our work for us.
Absolutely. I always tell people, think of it as a superpower. It's just giving you superpowers.
Yes. Well, Marissa, I want to say thank you. Thank you to helping us to kind of rethink not just how we work, but how we live and recover in between. And, you know, as we are wrapping up here, do you have any key thoughts or final takeaways you would like to leave the listeners with? And if they wanted to get in contact with you, what would be the best way for them to do that?
I would love for them to just take a breath in and out very deeply and just remind themselves that they are doing their best. They're doing great. Just try to make one small change every single day to get you on a path where it's the direction you want to go in. Don't make it. Don't overcomplicate it. It can be that simple. If you'd like to learn more, check out my newsletter Remotely Interesting. And check out remoteworkprep.com for more free resources on how to do remote work in a healthy way.
Very good. And for everyone listening, I hope you take this as a permission slip to do things differently, because thriving doesn't require burnout. I'm Chris Bean. This is the prestigious initiative podcast. Until next time, stay sharp, stay rested, and live your legacy.