The Fitness Business School – Working at Home with Holly Rigsby

Full Transcript

Hey Pat Rigsby here and in this episode of the podcast I’ve got my wife Holly on and we’re going to be talking about working at home. This is new for a lot of people, but we’ve been working at home together under the same roof for over a decade. So we’re going to share some of the things that work and probably some of the things that don’t. So stay tuned.

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Hey, Pat Rigsby here, and in this episode, Holly and I are going to be talking about some work at home stuff. So we’ve worked at home both on kind of same project activities and then each kind of doing our own thing gosh, for over a decade now. I mean, it’s probably been 11 or 12 years that we’ve worked almost exclusively at home. So I mean, we, we’ve hosted live events. We’ve done a number of things where we try to get face to face or in person with our clients, but we’ve worked at home for 95% of the time. I mean we had a newborn at home and still managed our businesses at home. We, um, you know, really went through, uh, all the way up until Alex was in preschool, just going a couple of days a week there and, and we’ve kind of navigated a little bit of everything. So I wanted to have you on and we could perhaps share some collective thoughts on what works and, you know, I’m happy to even kind of open things up and talk about some of the things that don’t work too. Okay. It’s important too. So talk about, um, some of your experience being a coach to moms for essentially working out at home.

Well, I think it goes, well, it begins with having a dedicated space in which you work. Uh, I know that I struggled with that for a while until I got it. And my environment in my workspace really is a factor in me being able to stay focused and get the things accomplished that I need accomplished. Yeah. I think one of the more important things when somebody thinks about working at home, think of your, your home is kind of a, you know, the office building as a whole. Or if you’ve got a gym, you’ve got an office within the gym, you don’t consider the entire building or the entire gym, your office. You don’t just go randomly sit down in the corners of a facility and sit down and try to be as productive. You have a designated workspace where you feel most productive, where you’ve got enough seclusion to move forward on your projects. And it allows you to put some, some guard rails or, or boundaries in place where, you know, when you walk into that space that now it’s time to turn it on. Now it’s time to get some things done.

So I’ve kind of had the good fortune to have an office within our house. It’s kind of away from everything for the most part for uh, you know, really the whole time we lived here. I know in the beginning it lasted about three days. That’s what the story I was going to tell, that story when we first moved into this house are like, Oh, this is a perfect office space. We bought matching desks and I was all excited to have my work area and yeah, I don’t even think it was three days. I was like, I cannot stay focused in the same area as you. I need to get home. What are you trying to say? Well, I just, it was very distracting. So we definitely needed separate space. I don’t know if this is a compliment. It is because then I was able to get the things I need to get done and we would be able to come together.

Because I think that’s another tip too is that, um, I don’t know if this is, if you want this in any particular order, but I think it’s important that…if you’re here, that’s kind of out the window, right? We have to have like daily check-ins with each other. Um, starting off the day by saying what’s on tap, what do you, what are you going to be working on today? And one of the things I found to be most beneficial for us husband and wife working at home together is just the simple question of, uh, is there anything I can do to help? So, you know, if you’re working at home for the first time and let’s say that you’ve got a significant other that hasn’t necessarily worked with you in some capacity in your business, I mean, that doesn’t preclude you from doing this. There are still things that people can do to create a better, um, environment or a, you know, a better platform for the, you know, their, their significant other to thrive that day. Uh, and it can be as simple as, Hey, I know I’m going to be on a video call and it’s going to be, you know, they’re going to be a lot of people on. So do you mind kind of keeping the kids busy from 12 to one or something like that? Right. So, um, just making sure that you know that, you know, one another. You, you kind of have each other’s back there.

So you did talk about, Hey, what do you have on tap today? So I know planning is a big part of what both of us do. And um, you know, we’ve probably been trying to instill this in the people that, that we each coach, um, for a number of years. But do you want to talk just a cliff notes kind of version of your planning process? Oh yes. Well, the way planning works for you is when you are proactive. So I highly recommend that you begin your planning process the day before or the evening before. Um, and it does, you begin with like a a good review of, okay, you know, how did the day go? What is coming up this week on the calendar? Uh, narrowing it down to your top three priorities for the next day, doing a nice mind spill, getting you know, anything that’s rolling around in your head. Get that out on paper because then you can take it and objectively decide what makes sense to put on tap. Um, and when you go through the planning process, you are um, you know, starting with your priorities but also understanding that you need to designate containers of time for each one of those priorities and being aware of how long things take, even though planning is not a perfect process. Um, but you have to give yourself a start and an end time for each one of those tasks or projects and having something in front of you to help make sure that you’re gauging your process, your, your progress throughout the day as well. Um, cause having a planner is not just taking care of work tasks, it’s also taking care of you and other responsibilities that you have throughout the day. And these all need to be put down into a planner because every single thing you do takes time. And if you are not taking care of your time and keeping track of it, it can quickly disappear. So I think that’s important because you know, I think for the people that I coach for the most part, they have appointments with clients constantly, right? So they have designated things on their schedule that have that designated container of time. If you’re running a training session from seven till eight and maybe then you know, you have another session from nine until 10, some of the stuff that, that I think that we have to get back to doing are things that just are inherent is part of our, our normal day to day. And that kind of comes, uh, I think comes along the same kind of path is just getting back to some sort of normal routine because all of us are thrown out of our normal routine.

But you know, you, you need to have a morning routine. You need to have a, a designated kind of plan of attack that you’re going to work through the day. Uh, I tend to try to get, um, you know, at least two of the three big items on my list done by 11 o’clock in the morning because usually later in the day that’s, you know, coaching calls and, um, more interactive stuff. So if I have proactive projects I need to get done, um, for the work side of things, I try to get those done early and I want to have that kind of rhythm throughout the day. And it doesn’t have to be the same thing that we’ve always traditionally done, but we need to kind of stick to the same general parameters. We need to understand that we thrive best when we do have some structure. We always do best when we are proactive. And we’re planning the night before, we’re probably going to be best when we have clear expectations about what we’re trying to do during a specific timeframe. And we’ve given ourselves enough time to do it.

You know, one other thing that I wanted to touch on that I know helps me a lot is just having some active breaks throughout the day and just getting up and moving around. And I don’t care if you’re cooped up at home and that means you just getting up and pacing around the office or doing a quick, um, mobility routine or if you can walk out in your neighborhood and do a call that you have scheduled while you’re, you know, walking around the block that, um, especially for people who are in a kind of an active health career, like the ones that, you know, most of the people that I get to work with, um, sitting yourself in a chair for a number of hours a day is not only really disruptive, it’s probably going to be a little bit depressing.

So what else you got Holly? Um, I would say, well, do you want to talk about what doesn’t work? You want to throw a couple of those in there? Oh boy. Sure. Um, I think this goes back to, um, daily check-ins with your teammate. You know, you guys work together, help support each other. Um, I learned very quickly that I needed to make it clear that, do not talk to me about business in the bathroom. Okay, well that’s weird the way that you said that because that’s like may, maybe you should clarify, I’m getting ready in the morning. Maybe when I’m standing in the bathroom, putting my makeup on, getting my hair done, do not talk to me about business. Do not, I’m not in the mindset. I’m getting myself ready for the day. If you want to, you know, if we want to have like a designated meetup time, like a morning huddle, then we would say, you know, at 8:30, let’s come together and we can chat. But like kind of respecting the fact that when we’re doing our own thing in our own space, it can be, it can be this distraction of, no, I’m not prepared. And for me, for me, I like to be able to review my planner, look at my projects, be able to give a more coherent response other than just this reactive, don’t talk to me right now I’m putting on my mascara. Um, and also the other thing that doesn’t work, I’ve done this to Patrick, so I’m making this fair is that just because I’m excited and ready to talk about something doesn’t mean that he’s ready. So I found myself many times just kind of walking up to him and expecting him to hear whatever I had to say. And now it’s kind of like, Hey, when would you have five minutes? I’d like to show you something. I want to talk to you about this. I tried, I try to, I try to practice. It’s a work in progress people.

Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah, that went in a totally strange direction. Good job. Um, you know, one other thing that I would tell you, uh, is don’t make it excuses. Um, eh, you know, a lot of people act as if they need perfect circumstances to move forward on things. They need this perfect environment. I mean, I remember when Alex was less than a year old and you know, we had a, a very young franchise organization that, you know, I was the CEO of, but I was also the chief salesperson. And I remember having him holding him in one arm and having an ear piece in the other arm trying to sell franchises and having to mute between the, like anytime that I wasn’t talking. And somehow that year we sold over a hundred franchises and I was the one on the sales call for each of them. I mean, it was anything but optimal circumstances. Um, but we made it work. And that’s kind of where we’re at now is it may not be optimal circumstances, but you know, all of us have a, a responsibility to do what we need to do to make sure that our businesses are in a, as healthy a place as possible. Um, that we’re serving our clients well and trying to protect the business that we had today, but then also preparing for, um, what’s going to be in place is we move into whatever the, the new social norms are. Whatever changes in the economy counts. So, you know, we have that responsibility so we can sit here and, um, kind of, almost take the position of a victim for our circumstances. But I assure you there are plenty of people who, um, do far better than Holly and I do working at home even. Um, so man, if they can do it, if we can do it, there’s no doubt that you can do it. It’s just a matter of saying, um, okay, I need to put some guardrails in place. I need to have a plan. I need to prepare and I need to go do the things I need to do instead of figuring out all reasons why it may be more challenging to get those things done.

Yeah, I think going right along with that is don’t make excuses because yes, when you’re working from home, there’s a lot of things that can distract you. Uh, I know in the past I’ve been terrible about multitasking. So getting other things around the house done was actually me. It was a form of procrastination. And if I were to just say no, this stuff can wait until later. I’m just going to sit down for a focus, 15 minutes, knock this out. Then maybe during my break I could do something around the house if I felt that it was a, you know, something that was necessary to get done. So really paying attention to what’s urgent, what’s okay to leave for later, um, asking for help, delegating and then just protecting that time when you really do need to get focused and knock things out. And I think that’s where it, all of this, like the foundation of this, having that planner, having a routine, knowing what’s going to trigger you to start your work day. So having a designated time for that. One of the visual triggers that I have in my office is that I have a daily planner as well as a weekly planner and they’re both open. So I can see right when I sit down, I have a working to do list and I know exactly what I’m going to do when I sit down in my room.

Man, you talk really fast and also talk really loud. Well, there you go. All right, so I think we’ve covered it. Uh, I don’t necessarily want to spend any more time on this specific topic cause I don’t think it’s any more complicated in this plan. Plan your day and go do the things that need to be done and you know, make the best of the circumstances you have. Uh, I won’t be surprised if a number of you really start to enjoy working at home and really start to like the idea that you don’t need to hop in a car and have a 20 minute commute to get to a different place to be productive or um, you know, or you know, you don’t have the luxury of transitioning back to family time, um, without that similar type of commute. So, um, you know, thanks Holly for jumping on and sharing some of your thoughts and your bathroom humor. It’s always my pleasure. And we’ll be back with another so soon. See ya.

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