Sometimes what you need involves an intersection of your work and your personal life, such as the ability to work at home on Fridays because you have a young child. Bite the bullet and ask your boss. One of the most outrageous things I did in my early thirties, before I was an editor in chief, was ask my boss for permission to take a three-week vacation. Newly divorced, I was overwhelmed with a desire to escape from it all, and when I heard about a chance to tag penguins in Patagonia with a World Wildlife a.s.sociationsponsored program, I knew it was the trip for me. Yes, I had a pit in my stomach when I asked her if I could go, but I also presented a plan for how things would work in my absence. To my utter thrill, she consented. The next year I summoned my nerve to ask again-and that time I worked with Earthwatch restoring an archaeological site on Rarotonga, a magical island a few hours southwest of Tahiti.
Here"s the one thing to keep in mind: though the old expression is "It never hurts to ask," it does if you leave your boss with the wrong impression. You don"t want him to suspect that you aren"t fully invested. It can all be in how you phrase the ask. For instance, instead of saying, "I want to be with my baby more," say, "Having one day a week when I"m not commuting will give me extra time to focus on the big picture." Instead of "I just love how cute penguins look in those little tuxedos," say, "I"ve found that travel really charges me up and makes me even more creative. I know I"ll come back full of ideas."
4. Instead of mult.i.tasking, try maximizing your time. Sometimes it"s okay to kill two birds with one stone if one activity actually enhances the other rather than distracts from it. Book clubs are the perfect example-they"re a way to connect with friends and also be mentally stimulated. When my son was small, I noticed that he enjoyed spotting and mentally cataloguing things he saw in nature. It nudged me into thinking about myself and nature, how I had loved fishing when I was younger, and how I missed having time for outdoor hobbies. Then suddenly I had a brainstorm: I decided to see if I could interest my son in bird-watching and make that my hobby, too. It turned out he loved it, and we"ve spent many, many hours sharing this hobby.
5. Savor your job. Sometimes you can get so caught up in complaining about how nutty your job is that you lose sight of its awesomeness. Think about how you look to others. Strut your stuff. Accept an exploratory interview with someone who wants to pick your brain, and enjoy talking about your job and what makes it so good.
6. Have a pretty bedroom. With no stacked laundry piles anywhere. Having a beautiful sanctuary you can retreat to each night is one of the most blissful things in the world.
7. Discover half-hour power. No matter how packed your day is, try to leave thirty minutes each day-block it out-to recharge your batteries somehow. If you don"t have kids, it could be a half hour before work when you meditate. If you have kids, read and only read before turning out the lights.
8. Go big or go home. Bring the same zest to your personal life as you do to your job. Don"t postpone the fun-even if you have to schedule it in.
{ Terrific Time-Management Tricks }.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I suffered from a really annoying problem: I was a terrible procrastinator. Though I was a hard worker, I couldn"t seem to get on top of my a.s.signments. I was always turning things in at the very last moment, and sometimes I even pulled all-nighters to finish articles. I hated the anxiety my procrastination caused in me. So one day I vowed to tackle it.
Here"s what I did: I began reading books on time management. And I even wrote articles about it so I could speak directly to authorities on the subject. Two of my favorite experts were Alan Lakein, the author of How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life, and Edwin Bliss, the author of Getting Things Done: The ABCs of Time Management. Over the years I"ve even come up with a few tricks of my own.
If you want to get organized and use your time brilliantly, I suggest you read one of the books by those experts. There are also workshops on the subject, some of them offered online. But to tide you over, here are the strategies that have worked for me. Follow them, and I can practically guarantee that you will feel you have more hours in your day and use them more productively.
Find the time of day when you"re most "in the zone." I"ve always been a night owl and spent years skulking around the house when my family was in bed, reading, working, and watching a cable TV show about a vampire cop. But when I started to write my first mystery, opening my laptop at ten each night, the words came out in terrible fits and starts. After a few weeks of experimenting, I discovered that I was far more creative in the early morning. (Studies show that many people are actually at the top of their game in the morning.) So I rose early to write, and my novel began to come together. Having had that eureka moment, I also began focusing on my creative magazine projects early in the day, and saved the more routine stuff for afternoons. It made me far more efficient.
To determine when you"re in the zone, think about when you"re most productive and most engaged, when your thoughts begin to flow.
a.s.sign a value to the things you do. Lakein talks in his book about ranking tasks as A, B, or C, and that"s one way to do it. (In his autobiography former president Bill Clinton said he read Lakein"s book as a young man and still has the "A list" he jotted down then.) Another way to do it is to ask yourself, "How freaking important is this, really?" In other words, will it really pay off for you at work or home? I once called a pal of mine, an editor in chief with two young kids, on a Sunday morning and was told by a babysitter that she was doing a cable TV show in New Jersey. As I set down the phone, I couldn"t help but wonder how important an appearance on a little cable show could have been for her professionally, especially since it meant sacrificing part of a Sunday with her family. She already had plenty of TV experience, so this wasn"t adding to it, and she would hardly be reaching many readers at that hour. And yet I could also see how she might have been talked into it by her PR person or said yes as a knee-jerk response.
I started thinking about how often I automatically said yes to things that were just plain stupid-because they sounded good or had once been good or someone had led me to believe they were good.
Throw overboard anything that doesn"t matter-and don"t look back. Now that you"ve a.s.signed a value to activities in your life, eliminate those that don"t count. You can either delegate them to someone else or just plain dump them.
Regularly review your "delegated" list and add to it. I learned this from a successful woman I interviewed for a book years ago. She said that women know they need to delegate, but they make their list once and don"t update it. Her point: you should constantly be thinking about fresh ways to delegate or let go of something-because new options are always emerging.
Never handle a piece of paper more than once. I think I first heard this from Lakein. Such a fabulous tip. Every time you pick something up from your in-box (or look at it on your computer) and then put it back down (or close it), promising yourself you"ll deal with it later, you use up seconds that eventually add up to minutes. Vow to take action the first time you glance at something. If it"s a letter, answer it. If it needs to be filed, file it. If it requires your opinion, give it. What this means is that you must go through your in-box and e-mail only during parts of the day when you"ve allotted yourself enough time to deal with each item effectively.
Do the math. Periodically it"s good to figure out how much time certain activities suck up. Add up the minutes or hours. When you see the results, you may want to delegate or eliminate some stuff. Surfing the Web, for instance: 30 minutes a day equals 3 hours a week equals 182 hours a year, which is 7 days a year! When we polled Cosmo readers about their social media habits, 40 percent of those who used it were engaged for more than two hours a day. Great if it makes you happy. But could you use some of that time for other, even more valuable activities?
Slice the salami. Okay, if I had to thank one person for the fact that I"ve been able to write mysteries and thrillers while I had a full-time job, it would probably be Edwin Bliss. In his book he recommends a tip he calls "slice the salami," and that technique made all the difference for me. Bliss points out that we often fail to tackle important tasks not because we aren"t capable of doing them but because they seem too big and unappealing-like a huge hunk of salami.
That was the problem for me. Writing a book seemed so daunting. In my twenties I"d tell myself I was going to spend an entire Sat.u.r.day morning writing, but then I"d find any reason to avoid sitting in front of my laptop-sometimes because the rug pad needed tr.i.m.m.i.n.g! Bliss"s advice is that you must slice a big project into thin, appetizing amounts so that you won"t be put off. That"s what I finally did; rather than vowing to write for a full morning, I told myself I would work on my mystery for fifteen minutes each morning. It seemed easy enough to pull off, and I sat down religiously each Sat.u.r.day and Sunday morning. Even with just fifteen minutes of writing, the pages began to acc.u.mulate. Before long I was staying at my desk longer. My new goal became thirty minutes, then an hour, then two hours, and so on.
This principle works in so many areas: projects, hobbies you hope to start, even exercise. My yoga teacher, who also teaches Pilates and aerobics, told me that in her years of experience she has found that following the Christmas holidays, people who sign up for one session a week are far more likely to stick with it than those who sign up for two or more sessions a week.
Start before you"re ready. One of my weaknesses in terms of time management is that I need to get "all ready" for a task. Before I write in the morning, for instance, I like to have my tea prepared, my desk nicely organized, and even a few news stories skimmed. There"s nothing wrong with morning rituals or feeling organized before you begin, but this kind of fluffing can suck away both time and even mental energy. The next thing you know, it"s nine o"clock, not eight, when you planned to start, and you"re less raring to go than you were an hour ago. Here"s a trick someone taught me: jump into the task for a few minutes, and then take care of getting organized. Before I even sit down with my tea, I turn on my laptop and reread the last page I"ve written. That way I"m already engaged and excited, and it"s easier to come back and officially begin.
Pick a number. When I tackle fiction on weekend mornings, I have a specific goal: five pages. Having a set goal in mind-no matter what your task-helps drive you to the finish line and prevents you from becoming distracted by another project.
{ How to Handle an Insane Day }.
I"m sure you"ve had more than a few insane workdays. Me, too. One of the worst for me may have been when I had to moderate a panel at a management conference several days after my father died. No one in my company would have minded if I"d bailed, but I didn"t feel comfortable leaving the organizers and panelists hanging. So I sucked it up-but I felt as though I were in some horrible altered state.
Though I haven"t seen the last of insane days, they have at least decreased in number over the years. That"s partly due to the fact that I don"t have young children right now. When your kids are little, you not only have more demands on your time and energy, but you"re less resilient because you"re so freaking tired. But I also have grown better at managing stress and general craziness.
Step one: I do my best to spot when an insane day is headed my way and then, if possible, shift what I can. Former Working Mother editor in chief Judsen Culbreth likes to point out that stress is caused not by doing too many things but by doing too many things you don"t like. For me, at least, insane days definitely involve an overload of unpleasant activities. So if I see that there are lots of ugly meetings on the same day I"m supposed to go to the dentist and call my accountant, I try to rearrange some. If a potentially insane day is looming for you, move things around if possible. If it means canceling on someone, don"t go into a long explanation. Describing how badly your day is going to be will only make you feel more worked up. And the other person won"t have any sympathy anyway.
If, despite your best efforts, your day begins to turn into a nightmare-your sitter was late, making you late, you spilled coffee all over your new pants, and the job candidate you just hired backed out-try to grab a few minutes by yourself in a quiet s.p.a.ce (away from the craziness if possible) and then just breathe. And relax. I"ll never forget something Dr. Ruth Westheimer did when I brought her in to speak to a group of editors and advertisers at Mademoiselle. She asked if she could spend a couple of minutes in my office beforehand, and then she sat quietly by herself, eating a sandwich. It made me see the value of a few key moments alone to center yourself-away from the hurly-burly.
This is especially true if your insane day involves giving any kind of presentation or speech. People, I"ve found, love to try to grab your attention right before you have to speak publicly. Don"t hesitate to say nicely that you need a few moments to yourself.
Once you"ve chilled a little, consider what"s still on your plate and how you"re going to tackle it. This is a time for triage. What seriously needs your attention right now and can"t be ignored? What can be put off? What could someone else help you with, including on the home front? When I was first married with young kids, I stupidly didn"t ask for help on many occasions when my husband would have been happy to give it. When you ask for a.s.sistance, there"s no need to sound freaked or frantic so that you guarantee the other person will get it. In fact, this can be off-putting. Just say something such as "I need to sort out a problem here at work, and I"m going to be an hour late. Can you stick the pork chops in the freezer and order takeout instead? Get whatever sounds good to you." Then let go of any aspect of what you"ve delegated.
When you"re feeling superstressed, pick your food and drink wisely. This is not the moment for a king-size pack of peanut b.u.t.ter cups or a bag of potato chips from the office vending machine. Sugars and starches (which turn into sugar) will only heighten your manic feeling. Instead go for cheese, nuts, or a piece of chicken or turkey. These all contain tryptophan, an amino acid that helps your brain produce serotonin, a feel-good chemical known to reduce anxiety. And be careful about your caffeine intake. It can add to your jitters.
When you"re having a bad day, you may yearn to reach home and vent to your partner or your friends. Here"s a crazy strategy that"s going to go against what you"ve probably heard but I firmly believe in: resist the urge to vent. We"re encouraged, especially as women, to share all that"s bothering us, to let it out, unload. From my first days at Cosmo, I began to learn how different men and women were in this regard. You practically have to use the Jaws of Life to extract anything from a man. Over time at Cosmo I became intrigued by the guy approach and wondered if there was any merit to it. And then I began hearing research that stressed the value of not getting it all off your chest.
One study, from the University of Toronto Scarborough, found that people who avoided thinking about their work problems at home and distracted themselves with something else-books or music, for instance-experienced less conflict overall than those who tried to find solutions or vented to pals.
When a workday is tumultuous or ugly, try leaving it at the door when you come home. Some studies don"t support this, but I think it works. Instead of talking and possibly churning everything up, read, watch a movie you"ve been dying to download, play Scrabble, or take a walk after dinner. When you"re feeling calmer, you may want to ask for advice on how to handle a specific issue, but chances are you will arrive there on your own.
{ Setting Boundaries }.
Ordinarily I wouldn"t think I had anything in common with a rich European banker, but recently, for just a moment, I did. It was reported that the chief executive of Lloyds bank in London had returned from a leave of absence he"d taken to deal with exhaustion. According to his boss, the banker had been suffering from "a failure to switch off," and the situation became so bad that during one stretch he wasn"t able to fall asleep for five nights in a row. The irony: I was reading the story online as I periodically glanced at incoming texts and flipped through House Beautiful. Suddenly I paused and wondered: Did I have a problem switching off? Was I too tethered to work and to all things digital and no longer good about giving myself time to chill and enjoy? In other words, had my BlackBerry made me its b.i.t.c.h?
Maybe. According to the productivity expert Julie Morgenstern, many women are suffering from a failure to switch off. And in some instances, she says, we have become addicted to our handheld devices. Sure, iPhones and BlackBerrys are fantastic in many ways. They provide tons of information and make life easier, but they can also create problems if we"re not careful.
For one thing, Morgenstern says, any kind of digital devices can interfere with sleep. That"s because they tend to energize us, and you don"t really want that at 11 P.M.-unless you"re planning on going clubbing. "It"s a little like drinking a can of Diet Pepsi just as you"re getting ready for bed," she says.
We also need screen breaks to help us think. "In order to synthesize and retain info, you have to give your brain a chance to disconnect for a while," Morgenstern notes. "Otherwise, your brain can"t learn." Try sometimes banishing your smartphone to the zippered compartment of your purse, and use the time to fully engage in the book you"re reading, the art show you"re seeing, or the conversation you"re having.
Not only is it relaxing and restorative when you do that but also interesting thoughts come and ideas flow. Paperless Post cofounder Alexa Hirschfeld says she disconnects not because she feels frazzled by the barrage of e-mails and texts but because a break-for instance, leaving her phone off while she"s going through an art gallery-makes her more creative. "Diversity of experience contributes to a fertilized mind," she says. "I don"t want to be a successful career person; I want to be a successful person."
Last, constantly checking e-mail and texts can be a giant time suck. Each time you glance away from what you"re doing to check and then go back to your activity, you"re using up seconds-and those seconds add up to minutes and hours.
You can"t ignore messages, especially where work is concerned, so what do you do? Morgenstern recommends getting into the habit of looking at your e-mail only about five times a day, for around twenty to thirty minutes each time. This not only allows you to switch off but makes your e-mailing much more efficient. You"re not glancing away from other activities, and since you"ve arranged a solid block of time to address your e-mails one by one, you won"t have to come back to some later.
Morgenstern also recommends not checking e-mail around the "edges of the day." Reserve that time for bubble baths, chick lit, and the cute person sharing your bed.
"But, but, but," you may be saying, "I can"t." "My boss won"t let me." "Other people won"t let me." To some degree that may be true, depending on your work and your field. Yet you may have become an enabler, allowing and even encouraging people to reach you-by phone or e-mail-because you always respond immediately. Experiment by not replying at certain times and see what happens. Your coworkers will begin to know your boundaries. Even some bosses can be trained.
{ Drain the Swamp as You Slay the Alligators, 2 }.
Earlier I talked about the importance of building time into your work schedule each week to step away from your usual day-to-day tasks and focus on the big picture for a while. During that hour or so, you need to ask yourself: What should I be paying more attention to? Have I let any important goals slip between the cracks? What should I be focusing on most while going forward? Then you must create pockets of time each week to implement your plans. From the moment I arrived at Cosmo, I initiated this strategy, and it played a key role in my success.
But over time I came to see how important this strategy can be for your personal life, as well. When you"re chugging away like crazy at your job and trying to handle a personal to-do list that might include caring for kids, it can be easy to lose sight of big-picture personal goals that are important but not urgent. All of a sudden a few months or even years have zipped by and you haven"t made a dent toward accomplishing what really matters to you.
That"s why you need to plan time every week to think about draining the swamp in terms of your personal life. You can do this at your kitchen table, at a sidewalk cafe, or sitting on the gra.s.s in the park. Experiment with different places until you find a spot that encourages you to get into the zone. And take notes. You can use the Notepad app on your iPhone or iPad, or a regular legal pad, which I tend to do because writing with a number two pencil helps my thoughts form better for some nutty reason.
Start, just as you would at work, with questions: What should I be paying more attention to? Have I let any important goals slip through the cracks? What should I be focusing on going forward? Am I happy right now? Is something missing? What could make my life easier, more rewarding? Then devise an action plan.
Why is it necessary to book the time to do this? Because no matter how well intentioned you are, you may find that it doesn"t happen automatically, especially when you are in a demanding career. I have a friend who worked for years as an agent in Hollywood and calls her thirties "the lost decade" because they went by so fast without her realizing that she hadn"t achieved what she wanted on the personal front. "I just woke up one day and saw that I didn"t have a husband and didn"t have kids-things I wanted-and it probably was too late to make that happen. I"d been so busy, I hadn"t really noticed that the time was slipping away."
Even when I knew I had to think about the big picture in terms of my personal life, I found it hard to do when my kids were young. I barely had time to roll on deodorant each day, let alone drain the d.a.m.n swamp. When my first child was born, my husband was anchoring three newscasts each night, so I was on my own after 5 P.M. I"d rush home from work, take care of my son, and then, after he went to bed, I"d cook dinner for myself, handle household stuff, and tackle the work I"d brought home.
My husband still laughs when he recalls how one night he called to see how everything was going and I told him, "Good, good. Hudson and I went out for a walk and then we played for a while and then I read him a few books before his bath." There was a long pause. "Is something the matter?" I asked. "Well, his name is Hunter," he replied. At least I knew it started with an H!
But once my two kids were older and began sleeping longer on Sat.u.r.day mornings, I set up a time each week for swamp draining. I"d take a mug of coffee and a notebook up to my little office in the barn at our weekend home and start jotting down questions: Could I be handling tasks better? Am I connecting with my kids after work as well as I can? Are there any changes I need to make? Is there something I still long to do? Whenever I found my way to the last question, one thing kept popping up: I wanted to write a murder mystery. It had been a dream of mine since I was twelve. At one of those Sat.u.r.day-morning coffee klatches with myself, I started to toy with the idea of an editor in chief whose nanny dies, and I wrote down the following sentence: "Cat Jones was the kind of woman who not only got everything in the world that she wanted-in her case a fabulous job as editor in chief of one of the biggest women"s magazines, a gorgeous town house in Manhattan, a hot-looking husband with a big career of his own-but over the years also managed to get plenty of what other women wanted: like their fabulous jobs and their hot-looking husbands."
That"s where it began for me. I told myself I needed to find a way to write mysteries (see "Terrific Time-Management Tricks" and "Make Your Back-Pocket Dream a Reality [While You"ve Still Got a Day Job]"). Two-and-a-half years later, my first mystery If Looks Could Kill was published. And it still had the same first sentence.
But draining the swamp isn"t just about tapping into an old dream. It"s also a chance to think about how your life is running and what could be changed or reengineered to make you happier or more fulfilled on a personal level. Think about even the good stuff-such as how you spend your time in the evenings after work-and ask yourself if it could be even richer or more productive.
You may feel you do this anyway on a fairly regular basis, yet I think it"s best to block out the time. This may sound horribly corny, but it doesn"t hurt to ask yourself, "It"s 8 A.M. Sat.u.r.day. Do I know where my mug and notebook are?"
{ Men, Love, and Success }.
Okay, you"ve got this wonderful career going and you"ve also happened to find a really good guy, someone to spend this chunk of your life-or maybe your whole life-with. Nice. But as blissful as it can be to have both a wonderful career and a wonderful guy, sometimes those two things don"t mesh perfectly. Your crazy schedule and his crazy schedule may mean you don"t spend as much time together as you"d like or that the time you do spend together feels fragmented. Or maybe you sense that he doesn"t recognize how demanding your job really is and isn"t the sympathetic ear you long for. Or maybe he doesn"t help out nearly as much as you need him to, particularly if there are kids in the mix.
I"m not a relationship expert (despite the fact that I"ve sometimes played one on TV!), but I"ve discovered a ton about men, love, relationships, and s.e.x from working at Cosmo. I admit it: I"ve used a lot of what I learned in my own marriage, and I think my marriage is better for it. First and foremost, men are really different from us and they respond to the world differently. That"s the starting point of the wisdom I"ve gained.
Men really want to please us. From the moment I arrived at Cosmo, I was struck by how many e-mails were sent by guys admitting that they read the magazine regularly. Sure, they were looking for ways to make women fall for them and get them into bed. But the most often cited reason a guy gave for why he read the magazine was that he wanted clues about how to please the woman in his life.
Though men may want to please us, they often don"t know how. Guys, I"ve learned, find women incredibly baffling, far more than we realize. After I started the column "Sh*t My Guy Says," one woman e-mailed us to say that one day when she was in her bathroom using a blow dryer with a diffuser, her boyfriend walked in and asked, "Is that a ray gun?" A ray gun? I love that story because it shows how alien we seem to men at times. Because they don"t always understand us, they can fail to see what matters to us or what"s going to tick us off. For instance, if your boyfriend or husband neglects your anniversary, it"s not because he doesn"t care about you; it"s because anniversaries don"t matter to many guys.
One of the most important ways to enable a guy to please you is to tell him how to do it. Don"t make the poor dude guess. If you love earrings but never wear necklaces, let him know so he doesn"t buy the wrong gifts (trust me, he probably hasn"t noticed that you never wear necklaces). If you need him to make the plane reservations because you"re in the middle of a huge work project, tell him.
Men sometimes can find their partner"s success hard to deal with. The number of women outearning their husbands has been steadily rising, and that number will continue to grow. According to recent census statistics, in all but three of the biggest cities in the United States, young women aged thirty and above are making more than young men in the same age group. And in many instances, those numbers reflect the fact that women are experiencing more career success than men.
Now, some guys will not only not mind your success and the fact that you bring home a bigger paycheck, they"ll be delighted. Others, however, will feel awkward about it, particularly if their career is in a slump or not on the same trajectory as yours.
So what should you do if this is you? Alon Gratch, a New Yorkbased psychologist, the author of If Men Could Talk: Translating the Secret Language of Men, and one of the best experts on marriage I know, offers this advice: "Don"t neglect your relationship in pursuit of your career. Work very hard to relate to your spouse in the same way you always did, even as your relationships with others around you change, as you become more a.s.sertive, successful, powerful, or visible."
If the disparity becomes a nagging issue, you will need to get it out into the open, and you may even want to seek couples counseling to help you address the situation.
Men can seem like terrible listeners, but it"s sometimes because of the way we talk. Is there a woman alive who hasn"t sat across a table talking to the guy in her life and realized that he was starting to fidget like crazy or glance down at his smartphone? It"s monumentally frustrating, especially because we pride ourselves on being good listeners.
Michael Gurian, a social philosopher and therapist and the author of What Could He Be Thinking?, told me that one of the reasons men don"t listen well is that women can overwhelm them with more words than they can handle. Guys don"t communicate the same way we do, and sometimes the trick for getting a better response is to edit yourself more. "Men are good listeners when people cut to the chase," he says. "They are bad listeners when people are very tangential and link gobs of sensory and emotional details together." Think about what you"re going to say before you say it, and focus on only the most important stuff. Save rambling conversations for girlfriends.
In a conversation, men need to know what we want from them, especially when we"re talking about work matters. This is especially important because men tend to quickly offer solutions, even when we aren"t looking for any. Gurian points out that a guy will do better listening to you when you"re clear about not only what the topic is but also how you would like him to respond. Let"s say you just found out that twenty people are being laid off in your department, and though your job seems safe for the time being, you"re concerned about the future. You don"t want his advice right now-you"re too worked up at the moment-you just want to convey the info. Tell him, "I want to share some news from work. Maybe later we can brainstorm about how I should handle it, but right now I just want to fill you in."
When you want a man to help at home, you need to be very clear. If you are going to be able to savor your life as a successful working woman who has a husband or live-in partner (and possibly kids), you need that guy to play at least a fifty-fifty role in the household. The way you ask can make a big difference. Men are not going to volunteer to do stuff, and it"s not necessarily because they"re lazy. They often don"t know what"s a priority in your mind, and they don"t respond well to general comments. You have to make very specific requests. Don"t say, "I need you to help more" or "Why can"t you give me a hand in the mornings?" Say, "It would really help me if you were in charge of making breakfast for everyone in the morning."
Men don"t like to open up, but it"s possible to get them to. If you"re trying to manage both a relationship and a career, you"re going to need your guy to tell you what"s on his mind. Is work okay for him? Is he anxious about a certain matter? Does he need something from you that you"re not providing at the moment?
One of the best things I learned about relationships came from Dr. Gratch. He says that men can feel vulnerable when they open up, so they often resist doing it. To encourage your guy to be more forthcoming, you need to be both casual and concrete.
Casual: Meaning, don"t pounce or make a big issue of it. If you sense there"s a work issue for him, don"t ask, "What"s wrong?" Wait for a casual moment and say, "Work must be crazy right now, huh?"
Concrete: Meaning, don"t be vague. And leave the emo at the door. Instead of "Are you really worried about your big presentation tomorrow?" ask, "What are the key points you hope people take away from your presentation?"
The best time to talk to a guy is often when you"re side by side. Studies have shown that guys engage better when they"re not experiencing sensory overload. So a good opportunity for a conversation isn"t necessarily when you"re face-to-face but rather when you"re driving in the car or cooking dinner together.
Men need to be babied sometimes. Please, you may be thinking, we all want and need to be babied. Women, though, tend to be better than men at babying themselves-we indulge in, for example, ma.s.sages and manicures. Guys don"t do that as much. And besides, your guy really wants to be babied by you.
You don"t have to go to any elaborate efforts to baby him. But if you"re watching TV with him, give him a ten-minute foot rub. When you"re shopping for groceries, pick up the kind of cookies you know he loves. When you"re ordering something online, add a little item that will be a surprise for him. Such gestures can fall by the wayside when we"re in overdrive at work, but they don"t take much time-and they inspire devotion and reciprocity.
Men are rarely going to be the ones who make sure there"s a lot of good stuff planned in your life together. When you"re both busy in your careers, the fun, romantic stuff you did during courtship may become lost in the shuffle. Unfortunately, if you want those times back-and I"m sure you do-you"re probably going to have to be the one to make sure they happen. Don"t take it personally. Most guys just don"t seem hardwired to be this type of organizer.
By the way, there"s nothing wrong with scheduling fun, romantic activities weeks in advance rather than simply hoping things happen spontaneously. And there"s nothing wrong with scheduling s.e.x either.
Men hate nightgowns. In a poll we did once at Cosmo, men said that the most l.u.s.t-busting outfit a woman can wear to bed is one of those T-shirt-style nightgowns. A guy generally won"t come right out and admit it to you, but he doesn"t like it when you fall into too much of a comfort zone with your appearance. He wants to see you wear something s.e.xy to bed, not that T-shirt nightgown. He also doesn"t like granny panties and mom jeans. Men, after all, are visual creatures. And as the psychologist Stan Katz says, "The way you look and dress will always be a driving force in a man"s attraction to you."
Your guy wants you to look, dress, smell, and feel nice. Those things fuel his arousal. I know, you have only so many d.a.m.n hours in your day. But know that if you want him to be entranced with you, you need to make your appearance at home as big a priority as your appearance at work.
Men love s.e.x. You know that, of course. But many women aren"t aware of how much s.e.x guys want or how much they mind when the frequency declines. If you keep turning him down because you"re busy or tired, it"s not okay with him even if he doesn"t say as much.
Men love novelty. And so do women. The anthropologist Helen Fisher has found that having novel experiences releases dopamine in the brain, the same chemical that floods it when you"re in the throes of infatuation. So do things as a couple that you"ve never done before.
Men love mystery. And so do women. That"s something else Dr. Fisher has spoken a lot about-that being slightly unknown to our partner fuels his desire. A new study also shows that telling a man less makes him curious. Yes, it"s great to keep him abreast of what"s happening in your work world, but don"t tell him everything. Intrigue him.