Avoiding The Pitfalls of Being 'Always On'

Tim Pecoraro (: 00:16

Hello and welcome to blank pages the podcast the podcast for people who appreciate the new beginnings of a clean slate But strive for the courage willingness and curiosity Available only on the blank pages of new possibilities It's the potential to move beyond to move forward where people are willing to make New decisions from fresh perspectives and are ready to write in a much better way So the world is waiting and nothing listens better than a blank piece of paper

Welcome to the show. I'm your host Tim Pecoraro and I'm so glad that you are with me here today and then you are lending me your ears and I hope that I will give you something useful and valuable and helpful entertaining somewhat but mostly useful I want it to be useful even if it's entertaining let it be useful So I'm excited about today's topic. I just want to say thank you for those of you who are listening to the show and have been listening and have been subscribing to the show. Thank you

so much. It's just it's important that I say thank you. And I want to continue to say thank you any time that I get an opportunity, because I am very grateful for those of you who are listening and have chosen to give me some of your time. So you can subscribe if you have not done so already at Apple podcasts, also to Spotify under the podcast section and Amazon Music.

Also, you can find me on Substack. If you go there, I will be including some writings in the future, some essay things, I believe, in Substack. So, but go there. You can find BlankPage's podcast there as well. Also, if you go to Instagram, if you would like to keep up with me, chat with me, talk with me, things like that, you can find me on Instagram. You can find me at Tim Pecoraro. Very simple.

and go into the bio section and there's a link there and you can find my newsletter. You can find other resources. I always am trying to give away something free and I have been working on free resources, tons of them or not tons, lots of them, and they will be moving into the world of free, their free, freeness and free verse for all of you interested in it. And they're not things trying to get you hooked on some other things that I have. It's.

Tim Pecoraro (: 02:34

They're tools and things that hopefully will once again be useful. So it's kind of like, hey, if you have a pencil and you have a sharpener useful, that's great. But if you have a pencil and you have no sharpener, obviously that's not useful. So what I'm trying to do is if you're a person that has lots of pencils, hopefully I have some sharpeners you could be interested in. If your person has lots of sharpeners, you need something to sharpen it with. Hopefully I have some pencil things there available to you. Or I might even have both because you don't have either.

So that's what I'm trying to do. Be very simple, practical, and useful in all the ways possible in the blank pages kind of way. So before I go any further, I've been talking about I'm gonna do this thing show and tell. And also with that, I'll have guests coming on the show. Some will be in studio. I am starting to record them. I have one coming up this Friday with a former business partner, founder. So excited about that coming up. But

going to be speaking with her and we're going to be catching up. It's been a long time coming, but yeah, I'm going to have them do a show and tell, which is really cool. But me right now on camera, you'll see if you can see me right now, if you're watching this, I'm holding up Adidas Sambas. And these are my show and tell right now. They're green. I love the green colorway. It's white base, green colorway with that gum bottom, that gum rubber bottom. I love it. These are so simple. They're clean. They're stylish. I love the color.

And they're comfortable, which I like. They're built well. This is a leather upper. Good leather right here. I like it. They're they're they're built well. Believe it or not, I have a lot of knee issues and I've mentioned about having to rebuild my posterior chain and I've been wearing these man and they're they're great. And I forgot how comfortable they were and they look great. And you can wear them with dress pants. You can wear them with a business suit. OK, I just want to let you know. And if you want to play, these are built to play good.

indoor football, right? If you wanna play, these are great shoes for that. So without any further delay, I'm gonna jump into today's topic. So what is the topic I have for you today? I'm pumped up about it because I'm doing a lot. I mentioned the book, which I did not get online and promote anymore, which I do need to on Instagram, but from Sean of the South. And it's just that with a circle being broken. And it's that book from Sean of the South.

Tim Pecoraro (: 04:55

And Sean Dietrich is his name, but I love the book and it just got me thinking more about stuff that I'm learning and growing and working on for me. This guy, Tim, who is trying to become a better human being, right? I'm just trying to get better at being human. I'm trying to improve upon things, trying to not repeat bad things in my life.

I'm not just trying to reproduce good things only just for the fact that, this is good. Let me put it on repeat because it's a template and I don't need to know. I just want to put effort into things on keeping, you know, momentum going with good things, adding to them, keeping things healthy and fresh and just being a regular invested and being better, regularly invested in it, a regularly invested human in those things. So that's what I'm doing. So in that, I...

I've just done some reflection, which I believe quiet time is important, but also reflection. And in that reflection, I started thinking about how I'm learning that I had two speeds. I had on and I had off always growing up. It was on, it was off. It was on, it was off. And so I was, I got to this point where in life I was tired of always being on. And, and this was, this was like even 10 years ago, right? So I'm, I was tired of being on, but I didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about

Like, why was I always on? And a lot of it has to do with the way you grow up. I do believe in there is your process of domestication, your home life, your environment, people that you're around, influences, all these things will play a part in how you ultimately, you know, you have a personality, you are pre -wired, I believe, with a personality. And in that personality, there are ways that you can learn to adapt. And all this stuff gets shaped. It gets hit. It gets bumped against. We have core stuff in our

our core as a human being in our lizard brain. If we could just use that term to where we have that fear, fight or flight. We have those basic instincts. We have these things that are inside of us that are just there with this pre wiring with our learning with family construct the the having a family or the lack thereof whatever you can come up with. You are being shaped. I'm being shaped. And so in that I reflected about why did I always feel like I'm always on because I was tired of always

Tim Pecoraro (: 07:16

being on.

Tim Pecoraro (: 07:20

And so in that there's also this biblical reference, okay, that it's literally about, you know, being instant in season, to be instant in season and to be instant out of season. And so because of that, that was something I always went for is like, I want to be instant in season out of season. That means I need to always be on. That's the way I learned it. That's the way I thought of it. But even as a kid, before I ever ran into anything that

that biblically applied to me in my life, I always felt like I had to always be alert, always be alert, always be alert. I grew up in troubled communities, difficult communities. I had a single mom, or my mom was single at the time, and just a single parent raising two boys. And it was not easy, plus she was in charge of her brothers, and she was the oldest of her five brothers, and a very young parent. And so,

Life was just, I was always on the go. I didn't have the luxury of not being alert. So I was always on alert, always on high alert.

always looking out for trouble. I was looking out for a way through trouble. I was looking for, I was just always on the go. You could say that's kind of like plotting. You're always in there. So then you learn how to do that in a healthy way and you turn that into negotiating. But then negotiating turns into now I got to try to keep this going. Do people know that they believe you? And so in other words, instead of letting things settle, letting things rest, you were always on the go. There was never, that's enough. And so for me,

I love continuous improvement, but that's the problem with always on too, because I love continuous improvement. I was always on with continuous improvement. I always had something to share. I always had a way to help. I always gave, wait a second. What is that called? Unsolicited advice, right? You find yourself in those places and in those categories. And so you have to figure out how to become useful. And that's where emotional intelligence is important.

Tim Pecoraro (: 09:17

And these are things that I would love that I will be bringing up, not just I would love to, but I will bring up on the podcast because, you know, they call them soft skills, but it's just so it's so crazy how the soft skills are the most important skills. So I think we should call them the most important skills that people should stop ignoring. And like people should regularly visit and reinvest in. And because you've grown and matured and gotten better, doesn't mean you've gotten into this world of you don't make mistakes anymore.

or you don't need to still adapt or adjust. Like it's so amazing how we say, well, I'm kind of set in my ways. Well, that's okay for you if you're comfortable with it, but don't expect everyone else to deal with your inability to be flexible or to adapt anymore, right? That is your limitation, right? So anyways, I was always on. So why was this so important to me? Because I wanna explain.

I want to explain the difference between this being instant end season and being always on, right? So the B, so this instant end season, that's what it kind of got me. So when I became a believer, I always knew it was always on. So I thought I still needed to be on because as a believer and I really started paying attention to this, it was like to be instant end season, meaning I need to be ready in the season, be instant end season and out of season. That means no matter when I'm always instant, I'm always on. So I have to be on. So that phrase generally though should mean, are you ready?

Here's what it should mean. Being ready and prepared to act appropriately, key word, when the time or opportunity arises. It's about seizing that right moment and being responsive to specific situations as they come up. Right, so think about that. Just, it's appropriate. It's inappropriate. Prepared to act appropriately when the time or opportunity arises.

be when you're always on, maybe sometimes you're trying to force these opportunities, right? So on the other hand though, being always on, right? This is the part I'm talking about. So when you're instant in season, it's appropriate when the time or opportunity arises, seizing the right moment, being responsive to specific situations as they come up. But on the other hand, when you're always on, it suggests a state of constant readiness, alertness and availability. It implies being perpetually active and responsive without downtime, regardless.

Tim Pecoraro (: 11:38

of the context or need. That's where people commit to too much. People say yes to everything. That's where we can say, I want to be alert. You know, if you're in service, if you serve people, you want to be available for people. So you can always say, you can end up saying yes. And then you feel you're saying this person is stressing me out or that person stressing me out. And really what's stressing you out is the fact that you said yes, because you wanted to be ready and you're always on and you always want to serve people. But that's great. But you can't do that.

So there's a philosophical difference here, right? I believe in life, there's, when it comes to people, just like in business, you need to know who your people are. You need to know who they are. You need to know the person you're working with. You know, if you're a coach or a mentor, a business owner, if you ever own a business and you have a customer, you need to know who they are. You need to know who they are and what they want. You need to know what their problems are. What are their external problems and challenges? What are their internal problems? What are their philosophical problems, right? So for me, here's my philosophical difference. And there's, in here, there's external issues with this.

being always on and being instant, you know, in season and out. There's an external problem with that for me. There's an internal problem that I have with it. And then there's the philosophical and philosophical here, philosophically, here's my difference though, right? It lies in the approach. So that's where I can help myself fix one of my problems in this area of always being on. Actually, it'll fix pretty much all of them if I can address this properly.

So what I mean by I can fix the external, the fact that I can't control everything outside. So I can't be ready for everything. And preparation is different than just always being at the ready. To me, I want to be prepared, which is part of being at the ready. So that's one thing. So I'm not always just on edge. I need a break. I can't sit on a wall and wait and watch for any ship on the horizon 24 seven by myself.

that will hit a point of exhaustion. So the philosophical difference lies in the approach of readiness and action. So externally, I can't control it, but I have an approach internally. All these things rise up inside of me. You know, am I capable? Am I able like all these things that can happen? Like, am I going to, you know, do I have all the answers? Do I have all these? I mean, like, I can go on and on and on. Right. But if I understand this, I'm going to be OK. I can get better at it. And then philosophically, here's where at.

Tim Pecoraro (: 14:04

Being instant end season is situational, but being always on is continuous and indiscriminate. If you can know the difference between the two of those, and that was my problem, I was always on and it was continuous and indiscriminate. I always felt like I have to apply this all the time because I'm one of those people that I wanna go all in or I don't do it. I was either on or I was off.

So being instant in season is situational, right? It values discernment and I'm a person with discernment. I have it, but even though I have it, I wasn't valuing it. Why? Because I didn't recognize the right timing and acting effectively when it was most appropriate. It aligns with a mindful and a measured approach to life. It would put emphasis on quality and relevance of action over just

quantity of stuff and things and actions and activities.

Tim Pecoraro (: 15:09

And then that philosophical battle that's in there, right? So once I, once I see that, then I always realize that here's the philosophical difference that being always on is continuous and indiscriminate, right? It can, it can apply a ready, a relentless drive and see that was another catch for me. I am a driven person. I always have that go. I have aspirations. However, it possibly leads to burnout or inefficiency.

due to the lack of rest and reflection or the appropriate, listen to this, the appropriate amount of rest and reflection because I need to make sure whenever you go through, you have to rest and you have to reflect and see if I'm not doing that, I'm going to have a serious problem. And so this approach might value constant availability and responsiveness over strategic timing and thoughtful action.

So basically the summary of what I wanna paint here just to set this up is being instant in season focuses on timely, ready, context sensitive actions. While being always on emphasizes constant activity and readiness regardless of the situation. Those two are so different and for me, they were the difference of me.

And all the, I would find so many things I could have avoided now, or I have found so many problems I would have avoided had I less, had I been more about being instant and understanding what it means to be instant in season and out. Is it, and it not meaning that it or understanding that it does not mean always on. And had I taken the time to reflect

and learn that act of being more disciplined in it, which I love it. Personal growth is all about reflecting in all these things I talk about and just doing this introspection and I do it. But again, proven again, I'm not being still, which I'm making a note to myself because I feel I'm going to have to take this into this part too, about all of that part of how I got to this in this journey of wanting to go over this instant in season.

Tim Pecoraro (: 17:33

versus always on. So quickly, by definition, okay, the definition being ready and prepared to act appropriately when the time or opportunity arises is what it means to be instant in season. So that's the definition, being ready, prepared to act appropriately. So the thing that I want you to understand is, again, for me, this came from a historical context.

of second Timothy four two to be instant in season and out because I believe in that when you work with people and you're in the people business, you need to be ready for people. So because of that, I'm always on, but then remember always on means burnout. I don't understand cycles and I have to get better at that. So the, the, but when you're instant in season and you know what that means in a healthy way, a key characteristic of that is it's a situational readiness.

You write, so you have done the work to be situationally ready and you understand because you have discernment, you know when, and then you have a strategic timing more at your, at your, at hand, or it's at ready, at the ready. But when you're always on, that definition of always on is just a state of that constant readiness, always alert and available. I would stress myself out needing to be ready.

I loved it. I loved I was kind of like the person that says I can multitask. Multitasking is not the trophy you think it is because you are cheating something. Something is not getting the best of you. It's just getting the rest of you. And that's the same that I'm saying here is that I'm trying to understand for myself how to do this better with this alertness not to just always be giving so much of myself to so many things to where I'm missing just the simple presence and understanding that I am ready even when I'm not on.

I mean, always on is just our modern work culture. So I'm a Gen Xer. I came from immigrants on my mom's side of the family. I'm learning more about my father, my natural father's side of the family. But they were also just very, very hardworking, hard work ethic, hard work ethic people that would have two, three, four jobs, whatever, very broken, fractured culture, whatever. But they were always on the go, always having to fix something, always on the repair. So that's what I learned.

Tim Pecoraro (: 19:59

And their key, their characteristics that they had always on, which I was living for the majority of my life was continuous activity. Even if it was productive, just continuous, constant availability. Yeah. But then I started breaking commitments and I couldn't have to be available for everything. And then there were things I told someone I would want to do or maybe eventually I never got to it. And then there was a potential for burnout in that relationship or in that thing. This was guys' story. Don't, don't go there friends. And if I

You're listening to this and that was something you experienced even with me. Please forgive me. No one wants any of that to ever happen. I've been saying there's so many things I'm talking to people about just going, hey man, please forgive me for that. I dropped the ball. I'm trying to get better. We're getting better at being human. Then once again, the philosophical thing I want to help you, if you can work on this part, I feel like you can fix what you can't control, which is external. And then also some of your internal battles that you have.

you know, about your own readiness and being instant always on or, or instant in season, what it means. I want to be better at being instant in season with this balance, this better approach that I'm ready specifically, right, with for situational things. So what do we mean by that? We want a mindful or measured approach. So philosophical difference is when I'm instant in season is it's mindful, it's measured.

I put quality and relevance on the actions over the quantity. So I put quality and relevance of actions over quantity. So that's what I'm looking for in this mindful and measured approach. So it's what I would do as if I want to train, I'm training, or if I'm an athlete and I'm going to eat, I want to put the quality and the relevance of things. I want to have sports specific exercises in eating, right? Over just anything in the amounts of stuff.

So then being always on, ready? Here's the philosophical difference. If, remember instant, if I'm instant, if I'm instant in season, mindful measured approach. If it's always on constant activity and responsiveness, potential for inefficiency and burnout. That's once again, corporate America. We have to be careful of that. Okay. So what are some practical implications? So what's the impact on your productivity, right? Here's a simple thing. When you understand the difference and when you're instant in season,

Tim Pecoraro (: 22:25

You're you have strategic actions will get you the better results. You'll be more strategic in your approach when you're instant and season you think differently. It'll allow for periods of rest and reflection with your strategies. So think about like when you when you you need those spaces, you need that time to be able I don't care what it is that you do.

If you're a creative professional, that's what you would need to do. You need to have some ideas how you're gonna approach your process, but then you also need to reflect on it. If you're a project manager, you have to get down to the nuts and bolts, lay your whole thing out in your Gantt chart or your project management system, and you have to lay all those things out and those details and those conversations, but you also have to reflect. You have to think about it. Okay, so when you're always on though, right? Think about this when it comes to your productivity, pressure can lead to diminished productivity.

overwhelm that you get so overwhelmed, you slow down more and more. You'll have a lack of downtime and it can reduce to you ready to creativity and problem solving. It'll reduce your creativity and problem solving skills exponentially because you're worn out. So what's an example of an always on that you don't want to be? You do not want to be your 24 seven customer service type person in a high pressure situation. That's not healthy for anybody. What's the impact on your well being?

Right, let's just talk about it. So impact on productivity, these are practical implications. What's the impact of being always on versus or instant in season versus always on in your wellbeing? Well, in season, it gives you more balance in your work and your personal life. It's gonna reduce your stress and burnout, right? Because you're ready for the situation. And so here's the thing, mindfulness practices, work -life balance initiatives, like these are the things that you can do to help yourself to be instant in season. That should be your approach.

I want this. But when you're always on higher stress levels and risk of burnout, and then you have this negative impact on your mental and physical health, right? So you want to be careful of this. You, you, you just need to give yourself this opportunity that when you are a remote worker, right? And then here's an example of that always on when people that are in the building are always reaching out to them and always bugging them in the remote.

Tim Pecoraro (: 24:41

Right. Or the remote worker who is on and off is trying to reach out and when they're available now trying to go to the one who is maybe in the building. Like these are some serious things that are real. Always being on. You have to come up with these I believe situational ways of doing work in business and life. You have to be instant in season. Always be ready. Always know. Always be prepared. Be a learner. Be a student. But know the difference. And then so lastly in wrapping up strategies for like you want to balance these things.

Right. So I think if you're going to get good at this and you want to balance this, you need to prioritize your own high productivity and peak times. Right. So if you want to be ready and have a readiness thing, just know where you're going, when you're going. Right. So you don't always have to put yourself in a bad spot. If you know that typically going to, say you work third shift and you know, when you get off work, that is when you have your best energy.

Right. Then you should know that that's when I want to apply the things that I need to do rather than trying to know that I can only work on something whenever I have the energy and I work third shift. Let's apply that to you want to write a book. And so you work third shift.

And so you're trying to every time in the morning, instead of talking to your family or your friends or whoever can help or people that need to know, maybe have kids that needed to go to school. Maybe you can carpool with some people. I don't know. But what you do is instead of having those conversations, instead you sit and you try to figure out how to always be ready to go whenever a moment's notice, whenever I mean, come on, I get it. That means to be instant, but it means I can't have it always on switch like that. I can't just produce and be creative whenever.

But what I can do is help myself by trying to be strategic to help myself be instant in season. So that way I organize myself better, more strategic, have conversations, maybe someone carpools and every other Monday when I get off work on third shift, I can come home and I can dedicate time to writing while someone helps me with the carpool for that day. And I can spend every other Monday writing. I don't finish my book as soon as I want to, but I do get it finished.

Tim Pecoraro (: 26:52

So.

This is what I mean. And then I get periods of rest and reflection in there. I can look at what's happening. It lets me to look and manage my project, see how it's going. It's gonna allow me to practice better self care. It's gonna help me set a better boundary for things because now I'm creating them. I know Mondays is a time I wanna protect for writing every other Monday. So now I know that if I'm also working and let's say I do third shift, I go into the office, but when I come home every other week, I'm on call or something.

or I jump online. I mean, I don't know, but you've got to get better in order to be better at being instant and season. You've got to put in some work to figure it out. Prioritize some things. And so I really do believe that this is something that we can all do. It's important. It's an important thing for us to think about. Some people are saying I don't have enough energy to be on maybe because you're burned out. Some people are saying that I'm always on.

Some people are saying I can't handle just, you know, having to, you know, try to gather everything I need when I need it at that time. Well, if you become a person that understands the world that you're living in the surroundings that you have and know that what are the things that are situational? What are the things that are outside of your control? And then how do you get yourself prepared for those activities? Those things that are important. You're going to say what's important to me because I can't always be on.

And I don't know if I'm conveying this the best of my ability and I'm going to do my best to even add more light to this or shed more light to it. Maybe next week in the next few weeks, but, but I want you to understand that. Remember that this is this life, this life that we're living. It's not a race that we're going to, we can't constantly win it, but it's this journey that we have to, we have to wisely navigate. And I want you to embrace the power of this being instant in season.

Tim Pecoraro (: 28:52

Right? It's, it's acting with purpose. It's when you can be present when the moment calls. It helps you to, to put that balance and blend with the wisdom and to know when to pause and, and when you should recharge it, your productivity, your wellbeing, your fulfillment and your joy. They depend on this type of harmony. So I want you to reflect on your own approaches and, and I want you to make some mindful adjustments.

And I want you to thrive in your readiness and your rest. I want you to be instant in season and out. I don't want you to always be on because for me always on I broke a lot of things. I messed up a lot of stuff. I was too performative. I lacked presence. So many things and they're honest things that I'm saying. And again, I share them because I want us all to learn to get better at being human.

So thank you again for listening as you reflect again, make those adjustments and, and, and I want you to thrive. Right. So stay inspired, keep working at it, keep striving to be your best self. So until next time, we'll talk soon.