The Difference Between Working IN Your Life And ON It

This is the transcript of The Refreshing Leadership Podcast episode: The Difference Between Working IN Your Life And ON It, published on 28th September 2026.

Today's episode is inspired by a solo trip I did to Edinburgh. I was going on a work trip, but I added on some extra solo time during one of the busiest phases, and I found it to be transformative.

It enabled me to take just one issue with me - one thing I wanted to make progress on - and come back feeling like I had meaningfully moved that forward. It was something I was stuck on. It was something that my eight-year-old self and my 80-year-old self would both have been behind. But I just needed to get away from absolutely everything and have nothing else to worry about, other than a little bit of time in nature.

I went to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, climbed it, and had time to think about this one thing. And I was so struck by the power of removing yourself from your daily life and putting yourself somewhere awe-inspiring in nature, for its ability to move your life forward in meaningful ways.

It got me thinking about something I've talked about a lot in these episodes - the difference between the needle-moving stuff and the business as usual. Both are extremely important. I would say I've spent a lot of time in business as usual recently, because there are opportunities coming my way and I'm taking them and I'm busy with that. It's just that sometimes we need to take stock and say: okay, this stuff is making me pedal but not actually move forward.

So today I want to give you four levels where you can think about how to pull yourself out of working in your life, your work, your career, your business - and into working on it.

Level one: the micro daily level

We can do this on a daily level if we know how. The easiest way is to start with either the beginning or the end of the day.

Some people wake up and have a bit of time in the morning for journaling - that's when you can refer back to your weekly, monthly, or annual goals and just take the time to check if you're roughly in line.

You're not going to do anything completely ground-breaking on a typical working morning, but you can extract yourself from the doing and the busy work just long enough.

Mornings don't really work for me like that. For me, it's more the end of the day. I like to have some time with my journal before bed. I write about what made the day special, things that went well, whether that's an achievement or just something I really liked about the day. That then leads me to think about the next day and my priorities for it. It's a good way of elevating myself out of the business as usual and the busyness of life, just before I go to sleep. It empties my thoughts for the day, so it's therapeutic - it serves two purposes.

That's your micro level: finding some time with your journal on a daily basis. If you have a commute or a particular time when you grab a coffee, that could be another great opportunity.

Level two: the weekly level

The weekly level is a beautiful level to plan at. You have an opportunity to do some of that more business as usual planning - how's the calendar looking, how are the logistics looking - but you also have time to refer back to your goals.

Laura Vanderkam talks about planning on a Friday. Unlike planning on a Sunday night, which just invites the start of your week in a bit earlier than it really needs to be, Friday is often a day where we're not quite firing on all cylinders. So it's a great day to make use of working hours. If anything needs to be scheduled or rescheduled, it can be done. And it's a great way to go into your weekend knowing that next week is sorted.

I think a Friday planning session is a beautiful window. If possible, get yourself to a coffee shop - somewhere that isn't your typical space - with your journal and your laptop. You probably do need your laptop for the practical stuff, but you can also refer back to your golden thread for the month, your monthly intention, or your bigger quarterly goals.

So on a weekly basis, you're extracting yourself from business as usual and getting that bird's eye view of the upcoming week, with a little bit of review of the week that's just gone. I always believe in looking back before looking forward. It reinforces our self-esteem, gives us a sense of achievement, and really primes us for doing excellent forward-looking work.

For most of my clients, the Friday afternoon slot has worked really well, and they've come back to say it's been a beautiful addition to their weeks. Sometimes it's a working from home day, and sometimes it's also a coaching day - because clients love coaching on a Friday for similar reasons. They're in a slightly more reflective mood.

Level three: the monthly level

The monthly level is interesting because you can't miss the start of a month. The first of any month is the first of any month - it's not like a seasonal marker with different measures attached. In some ways, it's unmistakable. On the other hand, it's also insignificant. It could be a Wednesday in the middle of the week. No particular corporate environment is going to particularly care that it's the first of the month.

So it's both very clear and also not hugely significant - unless we decide it is a meaningful time period to work within. And in the world of planners and time management, people do love the month, because it's much more significant than one given week. There's enough time to make real progress, but it's not an entire quarter. It bridges that gap really well and offers that opportunity for a little fresh start.

If you're a long time listener, you'll know what I do each month. I do a ta-da list. I look back at all the things that have happened that month - not necessarily just the good things, but all the things. If I got my kid to an event that was logistically challenging, that goes down. I include work stuff, social stuff, anything that feels meaningful. The easiest ones are already logged in the calendar, and that's where I start - but then I'll rack my brain and look through messages or any other sources that can remind me of the little things.

When you do that review work and you look back and see all the things that happened the previous month, it's an incredible primer for looking ahead. It gives you a sense of achievement, gives you confidence that you can do exciting things in the next month, and puts you in a lovely position to look ahead and say: if this is going to be a great month for me, what would I love to see happening? What intention do I want to set? How do I want this month to feel?

The trick is to keep it really minimal - just one or two things. That's a discipline, because being able to see through all of the noise and name the one thing you want out of September or October or November is not always easy. But it's something we can get used to doing, and it doesn't have to be perfect. We name something, we see how it goes, and we see whether it contributed to it being a brilliant month.

Level four: the occasional or quarterly level

This is where the "take it to the mountain" concept came from.

Every few months, you might be able to extract yourself from your life for a short period of time. If possible, get away for a night. If that's not possible, even just being in a new environment for the day - jumping on a train, getting yourself somewhere different - can do it. That shift in environment alone is going to enable you to shift gear and focus on an important part of your life that you'd like to work on, whether that's career, leadership, life, or all the categories within that.

When you've done a little bit of logistics to extract yourself and wrapped up some of those responsibilities, it frees up your brain space and your cognitive space to actually tackle a problem.

So we've got daily, weekly, monthly, and then occasional or quarterly. If all of those are happening, the annual level sort of takes care of itself. But I do think annual deserves to be a nice fifth layer, where you really go for it around the end of the year and take that time properly.

Sarah Hartnagel has an entire reflection season - some point in November through to New Year's Eve - dedicated to reflection time. That step back is what enables her to think about how she wants to shift her priorities and do that needle-moving thinking and strategising.

Bringing it all together

I hope this has helped you think about how, in a busy life, we can still find ways to build this stuff in.

I'm not somebody who wants to encourage people to do more. I often want to encourage people to do less. But this is probably one area where investing a little bit of time in planning can help us use our time in ways that build much richer lives - much more in line with what our 80-year-old self would want.

I'd love it if you could let me know whether you end up doing any one of those levels, or if you're already doing them, or if you've got some other cool ways of tackling this for yourself. You can always drop me a message on LinkedIn.

And if you have somebody in your life who seems to always be really busy in the here and now, running really fast on that treadmill but not necessarily moving meaningfully in the direction they want to go, please send them this episode. It might be the thing that gets them unstuck, or it might help them see that even when they're really busy, it is possible to build these things in - in small, medium, or bigger ways that can really make the difference when we're trying to design the life we want.

I look forward to connecting with you next time.

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About Maya

Maya Gudka is an executive coach specialising in C-suite career progression and leadership development. She works with senior leaders in major organisations on strategic career planning, executive presence, and building sustainable influence. Maya hosts The Refreshing Leadership Podcast, which ranks in the top 2% of podcasts globally and has nearly 300 episodes exploring the challenges faced by ambitious professionals.