Since late November, regular readers of this blog, my blogs on Fast Company and Forbes.com and my followers on Twitter may have noticed that I essentially disappeared.  I’d pop up now and then on Twitter from “my book writing cave.” But for the most part, over the last two months, chose to focus my undivided attention on finishing the first draft of my new book.  Why?  For the following three reasons that will continue to inform how I approach serious, deep-thinking work in the future:

A constantly distracted brain can’t think deeply: One of the experts I interviewed for my new book was Maggie Jackson.

In 2008, I wrote about her wonderful, must-read book “Distracted” (Prometheus Books, 2008) in my Fast Company blog.  During our recent conversation, Maggie reminded me of an important point in her book that I’d forgotten, “Because we live so much in the sphere of technology, it makes us unconsciously forget the idea of slow incubation, of percolation of ideas, of sort of hanging in the moment of uncertainty and frustration that’s really part of learning or research.”

I needed to give myself the uninterrupted white space to go deeper and allow for the work to happen.

Creativity requires making mistakes and learning from them: Another amazing expert I interviewed for my new book is Julie Burstein, the creator of Studio 360 for Public Radio International and the author of “Spark: How Creativity Works” (Harper, 2012).

Over the years, she’s met with and interviewed hundreds of artists.  From those conversations, she’s identified a framework for creativity, and she told me that to be creative you have to allow time to tinker, edit, add, purge and mold.

The reality is that there are only so many hours in the day to create the room to make mistakes, experiment and revise, so something needed to go.  I still had a consulting business to run, and a family to care for over the holidays.  That meant I needed to let my virtual connections rest for a few weeks and trust that they will be there when I returned.

I am an extrovert, so to disconnect after connecting is hard for me. Introverts love time alone, which is what you must do when you write a book.  You spend hours and hours, day after day alone.  Unfortunately, I am not an introvert.  In fact, I am a pretty extroverted, extrovert.

In the beginning, I tried to connect for certain periods, then disconnect again.  But I found it was so hard to get back into the creative groove.  Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking (Crown, 2012), who is also in my new book, helped me realize that being alone day-after-day is not my natural habitat.  The minute I’d reach out and start connecting, I didn’t want to go back. But I loved writing my book, so it was easier for me to construct a temporary metaphorical “cave” around myself.  Thankfully, I’ve begun to reemerge.

So where am I in the process?  I’m very please to say that the initial draft is done (Yeah!), and I couldn’t be happier with the result. Now the editing with my publisher begins in earnest which will make the final product even better. I’m excited, and I’m back for the near term.  However, I plan to apply the lessons learned from this period of disconnection and creativity to future projects that require focus and attention.  So this will not be my last visit to “the cave.”

What about you? Do you think it’s necessary to disconnect to do your best work?  Why or why not?

(This post originally appeared in FastCompany.)

Do you ever read career advice, especially for new entrants into the job market, and feel like the important qualifiers, “Yes, but…” and “So…” are too often missing? For example, “Yes, do what you love. It may translate into money, but not always or it may take a long time. So what can you do to avoid going broke…?”

Author Alexandra Levit agrees. In her thought-provoking new book Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success, she reintroduces the long-absent and important, “Yes, but…” and “So…” to some of today’s most common career beliefs.

Some of the blind spots that Levit highlights in her book include:

• Yes, overnight success might happen to the rare person, BUT more likely it will take years of mastery and resilience. SO, here’s how to get started and to deal with inevitable setbacks.
• Yes, employers recognize and hire you for your unique skills and experiences, BUT they also have an organization to run with rules and guidelines that have to be followed. SO, how do you function professionally and diplomatically in the workplace.
• Yes, it’s important to perform in order to earn more money, BUT performance isn’t the only factor in determining pay. SO, learn to understand how performance, business realities, HR mandates, and office politics all impact how much you are paid.

And, as an accidental entrepreneur who knows how much work it takes to create, run and grow a successful business, this is my favorite:

• Yes, leaving corporate America and starting your own business can be the right option for some people, BUT it’s harder than it looks and is not for everyone. SO, how can you evaluate the many often hidden benefits of working for someone else versus entrepreneurship?

I worry that without these well placed reality checks people both miss opportunities and undermine their long-term success. For me, it happened my sophomore year of college. My father responded to the news that I was going to be an English major and become a writer with, “Yes, but…you also want to move away from central Pennsylvania and live with your friends in New York City after graduation. So, you better find a major that will get you a job with a good starting salary and benefits.” That led to my double major in Economics and English and the discovery that I also love business. And today I write books, articles, and blog posts about my work, creating more flexible work environments and helping people use that flexibility to manage their work and life balance.

I’ll confess that it felt good to show my father my first book contract and relish in a moment of, “Ha, I told you so” satisfaction. But then I had to admit to myself (and to him) that moving to New York after college, finding work that I love and being able to write about it wouldn’t have happened if my father hadn’t inserted a valid, albeit painful, dose of reality into my early career decisions. Hopefully, Levit’s book will do the same for others.

What were some of the helpful, and perhaps painful, “Yes, but…” and “So…” qualifiers that helped you along your career path?

For more from Alexandra Levit:

· Buy her book Blind Spots.

· Check out her blog.

I also invite you to connect with me on Twitter @caliyost.

In the early 90’s, I turned my back on a successful banking career to go to business school and become a work+life strategy consultant.  This was before most people had even heard of telework or flexible hours.  Yet I walked the halls of Columbia Business School in 1993 confidently stating this seemingly crazy goal.

Many, many people thought (and said) I was nuts.  Armed with incomplete information, intuition and support from key people, I did achieve my goal…and more!   But it would have been much easier if someone had charted the course for me.  Now someone has.

In his new book, Uncertainty, creation, marketing and innovation expert, Jonathan Fields, lays out the path that everyone can follow, and not a moment too soon.  The level of ambiguity that pervades our lives and work seems to increase daily.  Uncertainty breaks down the steps of how not only to survive but thrive, personally and professionally, in a world where the unknown is the new normal.

Recently, I spoke with Fields about his important, timely new book Uncertainty.  It’s the guide that I wish I had when I jumped, feet first, into the abyss of ambiguity.

Cali Yost:  Jonathan, let’s get started with why it’s so important to embrace uncertainty today?

Jonathan Fields: We live in a world where uncertainty is now the rule.  It’s all around us.  Either we learn to live with it or we suffer.

Nothing unique is created if you wait to have perfect information.  Great art, new and innovative ideas all happen in the face of uncertainty.  If you wait to get all of the information before moving forward then you aren’t creating.  You are just repeating because someone else has done it before.

Cali Yost: According to the research throughout the book, we avoid uncertainty even at our own expense.  I loved how you reframed the two aspects of uncertainty that trip us up most often—Fear and Butterflies.  Can you talk about Alchemy of Fear and Riding the Butterflies?

Jonathan Fields: Research shows that when we experience uncertainty the parts of our brain related to fear and anxiety light up.  Often we experience it as the sensation of having butterflies.  But butterflies are not comfortable.  In fact, we want to hunt and kill the butterflies!  We back away from where we’re trying to go and shut down.  But instead, as I discuss in the book, we need to harness and ride those butterflies toward our goal.

In terms of fear, you need to train your mindset to succeed in the face of that fear in the same way you would pursue mastery in a particular field.  It’s what I call the Alchemy of Fear.  You do this by focusing on four key areas that I describe in the book:

1. Workflow optimization, through single tasking, etc.
2. Personal practice, like exercise and Attentional Training
3. Environmental and culture change, by creating “hives” and judgment leveling opportunities
4. Outlook optimization or behavior, by reframing and growth.

(Click here to learn more about how to get one of Marty Whitmore’s limited edition Ride the Butterflies or Alchemy of Fear illustrations commissioned by Jonathan Fields for FREE)

Cali Yost:  I’m glad you mentioned judgment leveling opportunities.  I realized as I read your book, that you gave me the gift of a judgment leveling opportunity a few months ago when we had lunch.  You patiently answered all of my most basic, potentially embarrassing questions about marketing.   By allowing me to test ideas and clarify my base knowledge, you gave me a foundation from which to take what I learned to the next level, and then the next.  How can others create judgment leveling opportunities for themselves?

Jonathan Fields: Judgment is important because you want and need the data to guide your mission.  What you don’t want is the emotion that too often goes along with the data.  That’s what causes people to stop experimenting.

You can either join an existing group or create the environment yourself that gives feedback without the shutting people down.  The good news is that today you can even do this online.  There a many stories and examples in the book but here are a few things to look for:  (Click here for more)

(This post originally appeared in FastCompany.com)

When I work with the employees inside of a company, I’m often asked, “So, Cali, what’s your work+life fit?”  I’m more than happy to explain that, “I’m a mother of two, a wife and I work full-time for myself primarily out of my home office unless I’m at a client site like today.”  Someone in the crowd will inevitability shout out, “What do you know about conflict between your work and life?  You have the perfect situation.”  I respectfully reply with a smile, “It may look perfect to you, but working for yourself isn’t always the work+life fit nirvana you might imagine.”

I’m an accidental entrepreneur.  I never imagined that I would work for myself.  I don’t come from a family of entrepreneurs, but I made the decision to strike out on my own in 1998 and start my consulting firm because I wanted to:

• Develop and implement corporate work+life flexibility strategies in the way I wanted to.
• Have the ability to write my first book, and
• Have control over my schedule to also take care of my new daughter (who is now 13 years old, yikes!).

I did achieve all three goals but I also learned a hard lesson.  As an entrepreneur, I had to be even more vigilant and rigorous about when, how and where I worked or I wouldn’t have time and energy left over for the other important parts of my life.  Work could easily consume me because there are no boundaries unless you set them.

While I fumbled and stumbled my way to creating a business that “fit” my unique professional and personal goals, the good news is that you don’t have to follow a path of trial and error.   Now there’s a roadmap, The Big Enough Company: Creating a Business That Works for You (Portfolio, 2011) by Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams (Disclosure:  I received a copy of the book from the authors because I’d given it a blurb—see the back cover–that’s how much I like it!)

Lancaster and Abrams are the founders of In Good Company, a community business learning center, and workspace for women in New York City.  They also consult and advise entrepreneurs who want to create and succeed in a business that is just right for their goals—from the sole proprietor to the venture-funded start-up.

Their message is clear: One size does not fit all. (Click here for more)

(This post originally appeared in FastCompany.com)

I’ve decided that every time I read an article, study or blog post that talks about how people don’t have meaningful access to flexibility, how managers don’t support flexibility, and/or how flexibility policies don’t match the actual practice in the business (this week here and here), I’m going to re-publish the following article on my blog.  It originally appeared in our “Make Flexibility Real”  newsletter (click here to subscribe), and clearly outlines the three steps that:

• Give people access to flexibility
• Create buy-in and understanding from managers and
• Make flexibility a meaningful part of the actual practice of the business.

I will keep posting it for as long as it takes to get the message across:  Work+life flexibility will not become part of the culture, help business achieve its goals and people manage their work+life fit by writing a policy, running a program, conducting a training session or putting a toolkit on the website.  That only happens with an approach along the lines of the following…

The Flex Strategy “Turducken.”  What?  The Backstory

It all started during a team discussion about the best way to present our next phase recommendations to a client.  In an attempt to wrap them under a unifying concept, FSG partner, Donna Miller, pointed out, “It’s a policy wrapped in a process, wrapped in a strategy.  A veritable flexibility  ‘turducken’ if you will.” And, with that, the perfect metaphor for “strategic flexibility” was born. A turducken.

And just as a butcher creates a turducken by wrapping chicken inside duck, inside turkey, organizations make flexibility real when they wrap policies inside of  guidelines, inside of a a plan for implementation that’s linked to business objectives:

What does a flexibility strategy “turducken” look like in action?  Although every organization is different, here are some highlights by layer:

Step 1: Flexibility Policies (Chicken):  This is where most organizations start and many end.  They draft policies that lay out the approval, implementation and review parameters of the five discrete formal flexible work arrangements: flexible schedules, telecommuting, compressed workweeks, reduced schedules, and job sharing.  For example:

• We define telecommuting as…/ We define a reduced schedule as…/
• If you telecommute, the company will/will not reimburse certain expense
• Every arrangement must be reviewed initially after 90 days and the every six months thereafter
• If the arrangement is deemed unsatisfactory to either the manager or employee, it can be terminated immediately.

But these one-size-fits-all policies are often one-dimensional.  They fail to come to life because there’s no way to contextualize the flexibility to the unique realities of a particular business challenge, job or person.   This is where the next layer of the flex strategy “turducken” becomes important…

Step 2: Flexibility Process to Tailor Win-Win Solutions (Duck): This layer takes flexibility to the next level.  It provides consistent guidelines to think through what type of flexibility will or will not work for a job or person.  Flexibility processes also address issues of fairness.  While everyone is not guaranteed the same type of flexibility, everyone does follow the same process for consideration of a request.

Here’s an example of three common levels of guidelines.  They build upon one another to harness flexibility and create win-win, tailored solutions:

Level 1—Manager/HR: A process to guide a manager or HR’s approval of a request for one of the five standard, one-size-fits-all formal flexible work arrangements.  Managers and/or HR are prompted to consider the performance of the employee, whether it makes sense for the business, etc.   This is where most organizations begin, but at some point they make three important realizations:

• Managers and HR can’t come up with a flexibility plan that is going to work for each individual person,
• The five, one-size-fits-all formal flexible work arrangements are too rigid.  They don’t allow the creativity required to tailor a solution that meets the work+life fit needs of the individual and the needs of the business, and,
• Most of the time people don’t need to formally change the way they are working.  They just want to make small, flexible adjustments in how, when and where they work day-to-day.

That leads to the creation of…

Level 2—Employee Work+Life Fit: A process that helps an employee take the lead to determine what type of formal and day-to-day flexibility will help them manage their work+life fit. These guidelines help them think through how, when and/or where they want to work, how their job will get done, etc  before talking to their manager and team.

Unfortunately, in many organizations, these employee-based guidelines only focus on work considerations and leave out personal realities that will also impact the success of flexibility.  This incomplete picture is the reason that I wrote my book, Work+Life:  Finding the Fit That’s Right for You. I wanted to help individuals create a solution with the greatest likelihood of success.

The processes in levels 1 and 2 address the individual’s need for flexibility to manage their personal work+life fit.  But how do organizations harness this same flexibility to deal with business challenges?  This is the next level of flexibility process…

Level 3—Team-based Innovation: A few companies are providing teams with guidelines to help tailor win-win solutions that use flexibility to target business challenges.  The process shows leaders, managers and employees how to engage in an ongoing conversation that rethinks rigid ways of working. Together they create flexible, innovative solutions.  For example, creating a rotating telework schedule to deal with overcrowding in the office, or a flexible shift schedule for global client coverage to ensure people aren’t “on call” all of the time.

This brings us to the final level of strategic flexibility.  You can have the best policies and guidelines, but they won’t have much impact unless there’s a…

Step 3: Plan for Strategic Implementation (Turkey): This is the piece of the “turducken” that too few organizations develop and execute.   Without a plan that creates readiness, links flexibility to other management practices, rewards buy in, communicates broadly, etc. flexibility will not become a meaningful part of an organization’s culture and way of operating.   Like laying a piece of paper on top of water, it floats but never penetrates.

Flexibility implementation must be intentional, have a clearly articulated impact on the business and its people, and be able to be measured.  Depending upon the unique goals of the organization, it might include:

• Creating a shared vision of flexibility that answers the questions “why do we need it?” and “what does it look like here?”
• Aligning work processes, management structures and rewards
• Linking flexibility to leadership competencies
• Encouraging a culture of shared responsibility versus top-down hierarchy

There’s more, but it gives you a sense of some of the key elements for deep and broad buy-in and impact.

Just as a butcher creates a turducken by wrapping chicken inside duck, inside turkey, organizations must link policy, process and strategy if they want to make flexibility real.

Has your organization completed all three steps of the flex strategy “turducken?”  If not, what’s missing?

For more, I invite you to sign up to receive the “Make Flexibility Real” newsletter via email, to visit my Fast Company blog, and to join me on Twitter @caliyost.

(We weathered Irene in upstate New York celebrating the life of my cousin’s husband who died recently after a 10 year battle with Alzheimer’s.  I will confess that “Donna” in this post from August 2009 is my cousin.  She worked full-time while lovingly caring for her husband.  Like all caregivers, she’s a hero for whom a very small change made a big difference.)

When talking about work+life solutions, formal flexible work arrangements tend to get the most attention.  It’s easy to forget that for most of us, most of the time, an official change in when, when and/or how we work isn’t the answer.  All we need is a small adjustment in our work+life reality to make a big difference in our well-being. This is a story of how a parking space transformed one woman’s work+life fit.

I recently met Donna at a conference.  She’s been with the same employer for over 20 years, but for the last five years, she’s worked full-time while caring for a husband who has Alzheimer’s disease.  Even though a caregiver comes to her home everyday, it’s not unusual for Donna to have to leave the office, often unexpectedly, a couple of times a week during the day to coordinate her husband’s care.  Whether it’s taking him to a doctor’s appointment or helping the caregiver deal with a challenge, she makes the 30 minute round-trip drive home.

Luckily her boss and team have been very supportive and understand her need for flexibility.  She confessed that the problem was, “The lack of midday parking close to my office building.”  Getting a parking space near the office wasn’t difficult in the morning, but if she needed to leave in the middle of the day, “I’d find myself driving around for an extra 30 minutes searching for an open space, or parking almost a mile away and then walking 20 minutes.  Believe it or not, the worry of not being able to find a parking space if I needed to leave in the middle of the day was taking a toll.  I’d panic about whether or not I’d get back in time for a meeting and would rush out of the house or a doctor’s appointment earlier than I should have just in case.” (Click here for more)

(As I spend August in my writing cave with my next book, I asked FSG biz manager, Linda Cannilla, to pick some of her favorite posts from our blog archives.  This classic was originally published on FastCompany in November, 2007.  I agree with her that this is important info that can’t be repeated too often.  What do you think?)

My colleague’s been having a tough time. A number of relatives recently died, and she had a minor health scare. The other day she said,

“I’m getting a personal experience of how work and life is about time and energy. On paper, I still have the same number of hours I always did to get things done, but I just don’t have the energy. And I need to find a new “fit” that deals with all of these energy-draining circumstances, or I am going to hit the wall.”

Time and energy. Time management tools will only get you so far in finding a better “fit”or balance if you don’t include the critical component of energy. And yet we don’t hear anything about it. Adding energy to the equation is so important that when I wrote my book, Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You, five years ago I devoted an entire chapter to the concept. You’d think by now our culture would have caught on, but I’m beginning to see signs that might change.

Other work+life experts are incorporating energy (www.reneetrudeau.com) into their process. Another sign of change is the bold front-and-center headline “Are You Heading for an Energy Crisis?” on the cover of last month’s Harvard Business Review (October, 2007), for Tony Schwartz’s “Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time,” article.

What does it mean to manage your energy? In a competitive, 24/7, high tech, global work reality it isn’t enough to clock your hours. You need an intuitive understanding of the sources of energy in your life, and the uses of energy.

Just as the personal and professional demands on your time are going to change throughout your life, so are the demands on your energy. The good news is, however, unlike time which is a finite resource, energy is renewable. But you need to be aware of when energy is being depleted to order to implement strategies to maintain and increase it. If it’s not part of your awareness, you will be continually frustrated when your detailed work+life fit time analysis keeps coming up short.

Schwartz’s process and my book include many of the same energy strategies—meditation, exercise, eating well, taking planned breaks from work, being with friends and family, and pursuing avocations. But our time-focused culture hasn’t figured out that the time spent on these activities is not a net loss. Quite the contrary, when the energy gain is included in the calculation, the time and energy increase is an invaluable positive net return.

So challenge the conventional wisdom that time is the only factor in managing your fit. Experiment with investing some of that precious time in energy enhancing activities (which by the way don’t actually require that much time), and begin to benefit from the positive net time and energy return.

Do you have a time and energy management strategy you’d like to share?

I’m writing my second book!  It’s the solution we’re currently missing from our work+life “fit” toolkit.  And I’m very excited.  You will hear much more about it in the coming months.

What makes this book even more fun than my last book is imaging what it’s going to be like to share the result with YOU live on this blog, on Twitter, Facebook, Fast Company, and Forbes Woman.  I often find myself thinking, “I wonder what everyone is going to say about (insert)…”

If you’ve ever written a book, however, you know that it’s an intense process that requires a lot of consistent focus.  Inspired by Deborah Siegel’s SheWrites post, “5 Steps Toward a Better Book/Life Fit” I’ve decided to devote the remainder of August to finishing the first solid draft.  As a result, I’ll be cutting way down on my blogging and social media.   I will post occasional updates of my progress on Twitter @caliyost , hashtag #mybook.

Even though I’m taking a break until early September (unless I finish earlier), I’ve gone back and looked at some of my favorite posts from the past 5 years.  So for the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the oldies but goodies from the Work+Life Fit blog.  Let me know what you think.

With that, I’m diving deep into my writing cave!  See you live in a few weeks. Enjoy the remainder of the summer.  <click, click, click>

(Melissa J. Anderson at TheGlassHammer.com wrote a great article about the recent 2011 Work+Life Fit Reality Check survey. Check it out below…)

“One of the things that surprised me was how significantly fear related to flex has gone down,” began Cali Yost, CEO and Founder of Work+Life Fit, Inc. Since 2006, Yost and her team have been studying attitudes toward work/life fit and flexible work schedules. This year, Yost said, the results were encouraging – not only is flex scheduling more the norm, but fewer people are concerned that it may harm their chances for higher pay or promotion.

That’s a good thing, Yost explained. “Flex is no longer a thing only a few people have and many are afraid of. Most of us have it in a different form. Now we need to move to the next step – how we can make it work.”

She added, “We have to make it as good as it can be.” (Click here for more)

Judy Martin of Work/Life Nation recently conducted a great video interview with me about the findings from the NEW 2011 Work+Life Fit Reality Check – Check it out! Thanks, Judy.