Mastering the Clock

Welcome to the Life Science Lawcast, your go-to resource for navigating the challenges faced by legal and compliance professionals in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. In this episode, Wendy Lloyd-Goodwin, founder of Life Science Law, sits down with Lisa Levine, an executive transformational coach, to delve into the crucial skill of time management and achieving a healthy work-life balance.

Lisa brings a wealth of experience from her time in high-growth tech environments with companies like Salesforce, Workday, and DocuSign. She shares her journey and insights on how to effectively manage your time and maintain productivity without compromising your well-being. Wendy, sharing her own story of balancing a demanding legal career with single parenthood and now managing her own business, offers practical advice and personal anecdotes on navigating these challenges.

In This Episode:

• Wendy’s Journey: From juggling a demanding legal career with single parenthood to running a business, Wendy discusses the evolution of her work-life balance strategies.
• Lisa’s Expertise: Lisa provides actionable tips on setting up a structured routine, prioritising self-care, and planning ahead to avoid burnout.
• The Power of Coaching: Explore how coaching can help you uncover personal insights and solutions to your challenges, and why it’s a valuable tool for maintaining balance.
• Recommended Reads: Lisa recommends James Clear’s Atomic Habits and Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way for further reading on building habits and overcoming obstacles.

Join us as Wendy and Lisa offer practical strategies and share their experiences to help you master your time and achieve a better work-life balance.

Introduction

Welcome to the life Science lawcast. We aim to tackle challenges faced by overstretched legal and compliance teams in bite-sized charts covering regulatory updates as well as some hints and tips on how to engage with internal stakeholders, positively maintaining a proactive can-do reputation and developing your career whilst keeping your sanity. In each lawcast, our community of legal and compliance experts will cover topics they have tackled whilst working within the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors.

Wendy

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Life Science lawcast. I’m Wendy Lloyd-Goodwin, the founder of Life Science Law. Today, we are diving into the critical skill of time management within the corporate sector, work-life balance, and mastering the clock. Here with me today, I have Lisa Levine, an executive transformational coach who will be offering some valuable insights into time management and corporate efficiency.

Welcome, Lisa! So, first of all, before we dive in, I wonder if you could share a little bit about your professional journey and how you have mastered work-life balance.”

Lisa

Thank you Wendy. Yeah, so my background: I’ve been in technology, working for the likes of Salesforce, Workday, and DocuSign over the last, 15 years in leadership. And those have been high-growth, fast-paced cultures where we were often running very hard. The reason why I’m in this role now is because I took my own coaching journey last year and had a transformational coach myself. That yielded massive benefits, and I wanted to share those learnings with other people.

Wendy

Fantastic. So today, we’re going to discuss work-life balance, and we’re going to flip this on its head a little bit this week. Lisa is going to talk to me, and I’m going to discuss and share with you how I’ve managed work-life balance and mastered the clock. Lisa, where do you want to start?

Lisa

Well, it would be nice to know—since I know the benefits of having experience if you’ve got a multifaceted career—so let’s restart at the beginning of where you started your law journey and share some of those challenges, and some of the good things too, no doubt. But we all know that starting off a career is pretty tough; you’re learning, you’ve got a job, and you’re juggling multiple things. So, if you just wanted to start there, that would be really useful.

Wendy

Absolutely. And I guess I started with that added responsibility—I began my studies at university as a single parent. So, I had to ensure that work-life balance was maintained even at university. From there, I moved on to a training contract as a single parent, and in those days, you didn’t really talk about what was going on at home in the workplace. Actually, I felt that in order to secure a training contract, I couldn’t divulge the fact that I had other responsibilities besides becoming a lawyer. It wasn’t until halfway through my training contract that the firm I was working for even knew that I had a family to be responsible for.

You can imagine, balancing work and home life with the demands of learning to be a qualified solicitor added an extra layer of complication and stress. I had to ensure that I was not only performing well at work but also managing everything at home.

Lisa

How did you manage that?

Wendy

I think being very organised was the first priority—making sure that I had a regular routine. Ensuring that I had childcare responsibilities sorted out and managing my time effectively was critical. When I was in the office, I made sure my time was fully occupied. There wasn’t much time for casual chats around the coffee machine, and I probably didn’t go out for lunch as often as I should have. As a result, there were likely some situations where I didn’t manage work-life balance particularly well, but I managed it somehow. I focused on performing well during the day and then tried to switch off and be there for my son when I got home.

Lisa

So, I’m hearing that you had some support structure in place to help you, but in terms of your timelines, how did you physically manage that? Did you keep a diary and make sure to stick to it? What were some of the things you did?

Wendy

I think, yeah, having a diary and reviewing it every day was crucial. I made sure that meetings scheduled for the next day were still on track and ensured that people were where they needed to be. So, yeah, checking and double-checking where I was supposed to be was hugely important—and it still is today. In today’s society, if I move forward to now, in those days, I had responsibilities, and I know I’m not the only person with family obligations. But also, when you reach the other end of the life cycle, when children have left home and you do something like I’ve done—setting up my own business—things change.

I must say, since starting Life Science Law, I’ve never worked so hard in my life. And I think work-life balance is probably harder to manage now, even though I don’t have the same external responsibilities that I did back then. It’s harder now because I don’t have that deadline anymore—I don’t need to be home to pick up my son from school. I could work 24/7, and it wouldn’t make a difference to anyone but me. So, in some ways, this requires a deeper level of discipline.

Lisa

It’s interesting isn’t it, because then it’s only you that’s suffering. So what do you d to keep yourself in check about how you manage that? 

Wendy

Yeah, that’s a good idea, and I probably should have asked you for some tips. You know, tell me, Lisa, what are the sorts of things that I should be doing? I mean, I do things like exercise in the morning, keep water on my desk, and diarize lunch, but I don’t always stick to those habits. From a coaching perspective, it would be really great to get some live coaching on what sorts of things I could be doing to help with that work-life balance and mastering the clock.

Lisa

So there’s some really deep rooted stuff around valuing yourself is important because what I’m hearing, Wendy, is that you were making provisions for someone else and adhering to those responsibilities. So, we can do some work around making sure that you’re important too—reminding yourself that those disciplines, like exercise and eating well, will keep you healthy and productive at work.

It’s also about planning far ahead. The daily diary stuff you mentioned, of course, is a really good tool to help us stay on track with those basic things—like drinking water, getting a bit of exercise in the morning, or stepping out for lunch, even if just for 10 minutes. But it’s also about looking at the bigger picture, like planning out a quarter in advance and booking time for both work and social activities.

Do you plan days where you have a break from work? The tech companies I’ve come from used to have an awareness day once a month. While it benefited the company, it also allowed people to give themselves permission to do something that recharged them. That could be walking in nature, seeing a friend who always makes you laugh, or spending a day at the spa. Having that one day a month to do something kind for yourself really does yield benefits and helps recharge your energy.

Wendy 

Yeah, that’s great. And actually, it’s hugely difficult to do when the buck stops with you. It’s not just about getting stuff done. I really enjoy what I’m doing, so for me now, the job isn’t necessarily a job—it’s something that I enjoy doing. But I do need to stop, as you say, and book those days off. It’s really difficult to do, I find. I mean, I guess one of the things I could do is diarize those things. If it’s in the diary, you’ve got half a chance of doing it.

Lisa

Having a coach keeps you accountable, but if you don’t have someone to coach you, I know you’ve got friends and a really strong relationship with Aaron. You might consider sharing your vulnerabilities about making time for yourself and getting them to check in with you. I’m sure Aaron would nudge you and say, ‘Mom, if you book that afternoon, you’ve got to switch your phone off and make sure it’s just for you.’ There are other people who can help keep you in check and on track because they care about you.”

Wendy

Yeah, absolutely right. Coaching is hugely beneficial. That is something I do once a week—I step out of the workday and sit down for an hour with my own personal coach. We discuss the challenges I’m facing, and sometimes I find that when I’m talking to her, I’m stressed about something I didn’t even realize I was stressed about. By the end of the session, I often feel like a massive weight has been lifted off me, and I had no idea it was there. Is that common with coaching, Lisa?

Lisa

The reason why that you should you know journal is that that’s another way of processing information and that often releases and you might have insights around some things that are stressing you but more powerful way of doing is to talk to someone about what’s going on in your head and you will not necessarily understand what football is spaghetti you’ve got up there and until you start talking and it’s that’s another reason why I love coaching because you could be starting with someone over here and they go I’m not going to mention this it’s not important they start talking about it they say actually it’s really important and then they solve it themselves just by talking about it so it’s really powerful

Wendy

I think that’s the key I’ve found about coaching. You mentioned that you actually saw it yourself, and I agree. Sometimes people go to a coach expecting them to provide the answers and solutions, but what I’ve found is that the answers are actually inside yourself. The coach helps you draw out what it is that you need to solve. Sometimes, you’re able to come to solutions within the session.

Lisa

Exactly. And there’s science behind coaching as well. If I were to tell you the answer, I’m not you, and I’m very different from you. But if you process it and gain your own insight, that goes into your prefrontal cortex. This generally means that you’re more likely to take action on it.

Wendy

So, for me, I’m an absolute advocate of coaching. As I said earlier, I do have coaching myself, and obviously, you are a coach. If any of our listeners are interested in obtaining some coaching, please do reach out to us. I’ve hugely enjoyed our chat, Lisa.

I’m just wondering—since this session has been a bit different with me receiving some coaching from you and discussing how I’ve managed my work-life balance—if there are any nuggets you can share with our listeners. Are there any books, literature, or recommendations on the benefits of coaching or how to get started?

Lisa

Yeah, for me, just being present is a powerful thing, which, although it’s an overused term, really matters. Even if you spend five minutes in the morning just checking in with yourself and setting an intention—perhaps even if you haven’t had a chance to look at your diary or think ahead for the day—getting some breaks in, making sure you have a little bit of time to stretch your legs, and being discerning about the people you interact with during the day or on the weekends is important. We are the sum of the people we surround ourselves with.

Writing things down also means you’re more likely to follow through. If you’re looking to change habits, there’s a great book I read about six months ago by James Clear called Atomic Habits. You can get it on Amazon very easily. Also, if you’re really challenged and struggling, The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday offers a great perspective on overcoming challenges and reframing them in a positive manner. Those are two books I would definitely recommend.

Wendy

Fantastic  thank you so much Lisa has been a pleasure discussing these things with you today thank you. 

We hope you enjoyed this month’s edition of the Life Science Law Class. If you have not already done so, why not hit the subscribe button so you never miss another episode? And if you liked this podcast, I know you will love our consultant forum. At the forum, you’ll have the opportunity to participate in discussions with us and our guest speakers on topics we all face as in-house legal and compliance professionals.