The truth about needing to get one more thing done

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Hyper-doing is the overwhelming need to get one more thing done. Hyper-doing is one of the three most common overworking behaviors that cause working moms to prioritize work over rest because it has you focusing on doing more instead of being present and having fun. In today’s podcast, I will be sharing with you three practical ways to rewire your hyper-doing brain so that rest, adventures, delight and presence is prioritized over productivity. This is part 3 of a 3-part series on the three most common overworking behaviors.

Topics in this episode:

  • What is hyper-doing?

  • 3 reasons why hyper-doing is the cause of imbalance

  • How accomplishing more will not allow you to rest

  • You are not more valuable if you achieve more

  • Why you shouldn’t squeeze one more thing in, even if you can

  • The importance of feeling satisfied so you stop doing more things

  • 3 ways to rewire your hyper-doing brain

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Hyperdoing is almost like an addiction to achieving it's that need to get just one more thing done to fill every five minute window with something productive. Hyperdoers struggle to rest. They struggle to be present, and they never really feel satisfied. Hyperdoing is one of the three overworking behaviors that are at the crux of imbalance and that cause working moms to prioritize work over rest. And in today's podcast, I will be sharing with you three practical ways to rewire your hyperdoing brain. You ready? Let's get to it. 


Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Mom Podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it. 


Working moms, hello! Good morning. If you're listening to this on Monday when the podcast comes out, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It's kind of funny because I could be several weeks in advance of when I actually post them, but I still write them on Mondays. And so when I am writing my podcast, I am kind of coming off of my weekend, thinking about my week ahead and so forth. And so I always have an inclination to say, I hope you had a great weekend, even though I realize we're not even talking about the same weekend or a lot of people don't listen on Monday, the day that I actually put it out. They listen to it some other time in the week.


Speaking about weekends, my family, my husband Daryl and my kids, Emerson and Lillian and I went to go see a play this past weekend. It was so much fun. And I'm not sure if you know my whole background. Maybe if you've been following me for quite some time, you probably do, but I was a theater major in college, so is my husband, actually. We met doing theater together. Not in college, post college, but I have pretty much done performing arts, like dance, singing, acting, since I was basically born. I've been in it my entire life, and then I got a degree in it, and then I did it full time for many years before. Then I went into event management and then, of course, now coaching over the last five to eight years of my life. 


And so, we don't take our kids nearly enough to the performing arts like we would like to. But it was just this fun experience that we had as a family, and both my husband and I said, we have to do this more often. Why aren't we doing this? And of course, there's C0VID and all these reasons why we might not. But it was such a great time, and I'm so glad I had that experience over the weekend because I think it's going to play itself out here as we talk about this topic today in the podcast.


So I'm going to put a little bit of a pause. I'm going to put a comma there, as my mom would like to say, and I'm going to come back to that. But first I want to really set up what we're going to talk about today because over the last three weeks we have been discussing truths. And it started with the truth about people-pleasing and then the truth about perfectionism, both of which are very common behaviors that cause a whole lot of imbalance and overworking. And today we're going to talk about the third. These three are almost like a trifecta together that are really at the heart of what causes people to prioritize work over rest and the rest of their life. The third one that we're talking about today is hyperdoing ,and we're going to talk about the truth of hyperdoing. 


What is a hyperdoer?

Now, hyperdoing is a term that I came up with and used because to use the word achieving, like hyper-achieving doesn't quite get to the heart of it. A hyperdoer is somebody that cannot help themselves but to do one more thing. Like they're the ones that when they have five minutes because their kids seem to be super content in the bath, they're like, great, I've got five minutes. What can I do in five minutes? And they fill it with an action, with a task, with something on their to-do list, with a doing. And so for most hyperdoers, it almost feels like a compulsion. Like it's something they really can't help themselves but do. They're always thinking about their to-do list. They're always thinking about the things that are coming up and the things that they have planned. They're always thinking about the things that they haven't yet accomplished. And their to-do list is almost like a calendar. They probably even have multiple of these to-do lists lying around all over the place. They're constantly trying to organize them and get them into one place. 


I know you all know what I'm talking about here because you're probably one of them, or at least you have experienced this before. Hyper doers are in fact really excellent achievers. Every boss wants a hyperdoor on their team. They want somebody that is excellent at getting things done, accomplishing tasks that's really driven to do things.


I remember a conversation that I had with one of my clients who told me that she really just couldn't rest until she accomplished all of the tasks that were stuck in her head. She couldn't let it go in her head. And the only way she found to be able to really rest and turn off her work brain was to actually just accomplish those tasks which usually involved either multitasking while she was home cooking, playing with her kids, and trying to be with her family. So she'd be on her phone trying to answer that email or that message, or whatever it was that her brain was reminding her that she still had to do and she would just do it at the same time as she was with her family or after her daughter would go to sleep. She just logged back on and she'd finish all those tasks up. Which usually would require her to then work more because her brain would remind her of more things. 


3 reasons why hyperdoers can’t find balance.

And there's always more things to do, right? When we actually do log back on and we get into work, that 15 minutes task turns into a 30 minutes task or turns into an hour or whatever it may be. That is a quintessential hyperdoer. And there are three really distinct reasons why hyperdoers have a hard time finding balance or why they struggle with this. And this is really the first. It's the inability to rest. The opposite of hyper doing is resting. The opposite of always needing to be productive is doing things just for fun. And a life that feels balanced is a life that has both fun and productivity. It's a life that has productive work and rest. For a hyperdoer, life feels like it's all about work. But in a balanced life, there is both work and life outside of work. 


I remember my client, Erica, she was such a good example of this. Before we started working together, if she had two minutes, she could find a two minute task to do. She was the queen of multitasking. She never took her lunches at work because it was prime time to get five more things done. When her son would nap, that was the perfect opportunity to clean the closet. Life was just filled with more and more to do. And of course, the only time life ever involved rest for her was when she was on vacation completely out of cell range and was forced to do something to rest to prioritize fun over doing one more thing. 


So this is really the first of three reasons I'm going to give you why hyperdoing is such a problem and why it causes us to feel out of balance. Number one, it's because we're never resting when we're in doing mode. 


Hyperdoers have a hard time being present.

The second reason why hyperdoers really struggle to create work-life balance and I've already sort of touched on this a little. It's because they have a hard time being present when they're not in the middle of doing a productive task, or maybe even, to be honest, when they're in the middle of doing one, they're always thinking about the next one. Their brain feels so wired to think about productivity and their to-do’s that literally when they're in the middle of doing something, their brain just starts thinking about the next thing. And if it's not thinking about the next thing, it's thinking about the thing that they should have done, the thing that they didn't accomplish that they thought they should. 


Your brain and your body need to be in the same place at the same time.

For a long time, this used to be me. If I was in the middle of nursing my baby, I'd be thinking about how I was going to clean the house next or if I could jump on the computer and do a little bit of research on something. If I was having a conversation with a friend, I would be thinking about when that conversation would be over and I'd get to go home and watch television and relax or what I was going to cook for dinner. My life literally felt like a checklist. And my brain was constantly trying to optimize that checklist, deciding what the best thing was and the order that I should be doing them. And to be present, your brain and your body needs to be in the same place at the same time. That's really where true presence is found. But for a hyperdoor, being present is always a struggle. There's always something else your brain is thinking about the next thing that kind of pulls you out of the moment in the thing that you're doing. 


Hyperdoers are never satisfied.

The third reason why hyperdoing causes such a problem when you're trying to create balance is that it never leaves you feeling satisfied. It never leaves you with that amazing feeling of being accomplished, where you feel like you've done enough for the day, where you feel really good about what you did. That magical feeling of being satisfied and accomplished, that's crucial in a balanced life because it tells your brain to stop. It tells your brain, like, hey, you've done enough for the day. It tells your brain, hey, nice work today. It tells your brain, your cup is filled, you can stop pouring out. For a hyperdoer, that feeling almost never comes unless you've done something really big or accomplished a really big task or a project of some kind, then at that point, you might feel that. But in the day to day life, that's a really foreign experience for hyperdoors. 


“I wasn't allowing space in my day and in my life…”

And it's here that I really want to circle back to the story I was telling you about, taking my kids to see a play this weekend, a musical, with my husband, Daryl. I had this moment in the middle of the play where I looked over at my husband next to me and my five year old son had just climbed up on his lap and was sort of, like, snuggling into him. I was observing my husband kind of fold into his snuggle and put his head down on his head. And I watched my husband close his eyes, almost like he was just relishing in this moment of having our son on his lap and watching the show. And my daughter was sitting to my right. I was holding her hand. I was just overcome in this moment, overcome with delight, this feeling of being satisfied in my family and the life that we have created. And I sort of did actually just tear up in this moment as I was taking in not just what I was watching and the beauty of this thing that I was watching, but it was my family. I was taking in the beauty of the moment and I didn't used to experience this very often, hardly at all. I would always be so focused on what I was doing and getting the next thing done off the checklist that there wasn't space, I wasn't allowing space in my day and in my life to really reflect on how amazing my life actually is. And now these moments happen all of the time and this was just another one that I experienced over the weekend that felt really significant to me. 


So those are the three reasons why hyper doing is a part of the trifecta of overworking and feeling out of balance.

  • It doesn't allow for rest. 

  • You can never be present.

  • You never feel satisfied. 


Now it's sort of ironic when you talk to a hyperdoor about trying to find balance. In their brain the solution is to figure out how to get more done. Because if you can accomplish more and get more done off of your to-do list a hyperdoer thinks that finally they'll be able to rest, that finally they'll be able to calm down their brain and be present, finally be able to feel satisfied, better. 


There will always be more to do.

Time management feels like the solution to a hyperdoor, which is just ironic because a hyperdoer is an achiever, right? They are always wired to accomplish more, way more than the average person and they're not wrong. When you don't have anything left on your to do list, it makes it a lot easier to rest, to tell your brain, hey look, I don't have anything left to do. It's okay to turn off the problem because having nothing on your to-do list is 99.9% of the time completely unrealistic. You're an ambitious person that has made their way in life and in their career because of your ability to achieve and to do so there will always be more to do. Your boss is always going to give you more to do because you are really capable and amazing at getting things done. That's who you are.


Too much of your value and your worth is found in what you do.

And so the goal is never going to be to have a to-do list, zero as I like to call it. And the truth is, accomplishing more and getting more done, it's never really going to shut down your hyper doing brain. Doing more and accomplishing more tasks actually gives you a small hit of dopamine. It's almost like an addiction for hyperdoers. The truth is too much of your value and your worth is found in what you do. And so the only way to truly find balance and rest as a hyperdoer is to rewire your brain so that your identity is not found in what you do, found instead in who you are. You can get nothing done on your to do list and be a super valuable employee. Your house can be a disaster with dozens of unfinished projects lying around, and you would still be a valuable human being and an amazing mom. 


I have a client who just told me last week that her work kind of slowed down a bit over the last couple of weeks. And rather than just take advantage of it being slower to regroup, to rest, to get some long standing projects done, to leave work on time with ease, she felt stuck and useless. And she was so worried that other people were going to think that she was lazy or not contributing enough because her brain was thinking that her value was found in how much she accomplished in her doings and what she does, rather than in just who she is. 


Your enoughness is NOT found in what you do or how much of it you do.

You hear me talk about this on the podcast a lot about your enoughness. That feeling of being enough as an employee, as a mom, as a wife, as a human being - your enoughness is not found in what you do or how much of it that you do. And as long as your brain sees it that way, it's always going to want to prioritize work and doing more and achieving more over simply being present,having fun and resting, doing all the things that you want in a balanced life. 


So I want to talk to you about three things you can do to help rewire your hyperdoing brain. And that's really the way I want you to think about it, because this is not a one and done kind of deal. You've lived your entire life in hyper doing mode, and that isn't going to change overnight. And it's one of the reasons why I spend six months with my one on one clients, because I'm helping to reinforce new ways of thinking with them. I'm helping them create new neural pathways so that the lessons that they're learning and coaching and the tools that I'm giving them get reinforced time and time and time again. So we're going to cover three things now. 


How to rewire your hyperdoing brain. 

The first thing I want to offer to you as a part of the solution to rewire your brain is to spend some time with a paper and a pen, because I want you to write down why rest and playing and adventuring and fun and delight are all more of a priority than doing more. I literally want you to answer that question in as many ways as possible, because that's not what you believe right now. And we know you don't believe it because your actions tell us that. Your actions are to prioritize more work and more tasks and being available to people and making sure you meet every single deadline.


And so when you answer these questions, I don't want you to do it just once. I want you to answer these questions every day for the next 30+ days, as long as it takes. I don't want you to just settle for one answer. I want you to push your brain to find ten, to find 20 reasons why rest and fun and delight and adventure are so much more important than a clean house, are so much more important than heading a deadline at work, are so much more important than getting back to someone when you said that you would. Every time you answer these questions, you're helping to create a new neural pathway in your brain to support the belief that life is not all about work. And work should not be prioritized as the number one thing all of the time, if maybe ever. But then, of course, you have to make the choice to actually prioritize the fun and the rest and the delight and the adventures, right? And in the moment when you're trying to do that, your brain is probably going to freak out a bit. 


So the second thing I want you to do is to develop for yourself a calming practice to literally calm down your nervous system when you're trying to be present instead of trying to do more work. It looks like this when you're in the middle of playing Lego with your kid. And I bring up Legos a lot because it's something that I'm doing a lot with my kids right now. And you're on the floor and you're helping them to build, and your brain starts wandering, thinking about how dirty the house is or how it needs to be vacuumed. Or you start thinking about an email that you didn't get to send today that you definitely want to send. It's literally in that moment when you need to go through your calming practice, you need to stop for a moment and recognize that your brain is elsewhere. You need to close your eyes, take a couple of really deep breaths, and remind your brain this is the most important thing you can be doing right now. That this is the most valuable thing and that you care about this more than you care about anything else. Connecting with your kids, being present with them. 


Let me give you another example. When you've committed yourself to leaving work today at 5pm and you still have five more things that you really want to get done today, and, you're still committed and decide to leave anyway and leave those five tasks unfinished, essentially, your brain is probably going to freak out in that moment - that's your nervous system going haywire. It feels really uncomfortable to pick up and leave in the middle of five tasks that you want to get done. And it's in that moment that you need to go through your calming practice and literally calm down your brain and your body with breath and with presence. And remind your brain the most important thing in your life is your family. That you care about them or you care about anything else, and you care about it even more than your clients and your clients getting the email that you said that you would send, or even more than your boss, maybe being happy, you care about your kids being happy. 


Recenter your brain back on what you care about most.

It's literally taking the time to recenter your brain back on what you care about most, your values. So that's the second thing I have for you, developing a calming practice. And I do this with my clients. I literally help them develop, usually like a three to five-step protocol that's tailored just for them that they can practice in these moments, so that if they're feeling overwhelmed, they know exactly what they need to do. 


So if you have no idea what I'm talking about here, or if you don't have any clue on where to start to develop a practice like this, this is the exact kind of thing that we do in coaching, the kind of tools that I give you. And I highly recommend that you reach out, you book that free coaching session with me, and we'll talk about these kinds of tools and exactly how they're going to apply in your life. 


Give yourself a container of time to be present.

Now, the third very practical thing I want to offer to you as a working mom to rewire your hyperdoing brain is to give yourself a container of time to be present, to have fun, to be adventurous. So what I mean, coming back to spending time with your kids, because I know that for so many of you, that's really the crux of what you really want. You don't want to be missing out on your kids life. You don't want to be feeling like life is all about work. And the only way you can do that is by actually scheduling time to not work, actually scheduling time to rest. You can literally write it at the top of your to-do list if you want. Make it the number one priority. It can be something you check off for at least a while. Even though it's not really a check off on a list, it can be for a while just to help your brain see that this is a priority. It's even on my task list to do. 


I know for so many of my clients, when they begin this process of really trying to prioritize rest and fun and being present, their brain, of course, doesn't shut down right away. Their brain is still offering to them all these other tasks that they need to do. And so what they decide ahead of time is a container of time to which they are going to be with their kids or be present, whatever it might be. So it's like, for the next 30 minutes, I'm just going to completely devote myself to my kids. And then when the 30 minutes is up, I'll finish that task. I even have some of my clients set a timer so that their brain doesn't have to think about it. It's like when the timer goes up, that's when I know I'm going to do the dishes or that's when I know I'm going to hop online, I'm going to check that email. But for the next 30 minutes, my goal is just to be here with them, be really devoted to their kids. 


So it's about creating this almost defined period of time that you've decided ahead of time, so that whenever your brain wants to offer to you - reply to that email, or the fact that the floor needs to be vacuum - You can go, ‘Yes. I know. I'll get to that in 20 minutes when I'm done with what I'm doing right here..’ that allows your brain to see that the rest of the night isn't going to be spent doing what I'm doing right now. Like laying on the floor playing Legos. I'm going to have some productive time, it's just not right now. So I call that just setting a container of time. And again, it's another tool I give a lot of my clients to help calm down their brain and to help contain both their productive tasks and contain their restful tasks as well. 


Creating sustainable balance.

So three things - all of them I use with my clients to help guide them through and walk them through in the most effective way to help them really find and create for themselves sustainable balance where they're not always in work mode. Not always in hyper doing mode, not always in productive mode - but where they really learn how to be a human being that has fun, that rests, that feels satisfied. 


  1. You need to rewire your brain by thinking about why rest and fun and delight and adventures are so much more important than deadlines and tasks. 

  2. Develop for yourself a calming practice. So whenever you are trying to follow through with your boundaries and attempt to just rest and prioritize yourself or your family, you have something to help calm yourself down and recenter yourself. 

  3. Give yourself a container of time, meaning a very defined period of time where you're going to engage in a restful or fun or adventurous nonproductive activity. 


Conclusion.

I hope that you've enjoyed this three-part series. I didn't really realize it was going to be a three-part series when I started out, but I'm so glad it has. Because these three things, people pleasing, perfectionism, and hyperdoing, they are at the heart of pretty much all imbalanced behavior, meaning all behavior that prioritize work over life. And if you can learn how to manage these tendencies, you will open up for yourself the ability to experience balance, to control balance, to be present on demand. As always. If you are looking to create a life that feels balanced. Where you feel crystal clear around exactly what it is you want out of your career, exactly what it is you want out of motherhood and you want to manage both with excellence - I can help you schedule a free call with me to discuss investing in coaching and going after the life that you have always dreamed of. 


All right working moms, I will see you next week. But until then, let's get to it.


Outro

Thanks for listening to this week's episode. If you want a little extra support as a working mom, I invite you to download my free training, The Secret to Ending Your Workday at 5pm. In this free training, I teach you how to shut down your computer and your work brain at exactly the time you want without all those feelings of guilt and like you need to log back on. By the end of this training, you will know exactly what you need to think and do in order to fully engage with your family, even after a long workday. To sign up for the training, you can't go to www.ambitiousandbalancedcollective.com/end-work-at-5pm If you didn't catch all that, don't worry. Check the show notes for a direct link. All right working moms, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson