Barbara Corcoran is a real estate mogul, star of “Shark Tank” and a mother of two.
From the outside she looks like she has it all and has perfectly achieved the infamous work-life balance, but Corcoran said she ditched that ideal decades ago for another method.
“I divide my life,” she said today on "GMA." “I divide the time at work strictly at work. My husband wouldn’t dare call me at work. Everything I do at work is work-related.”
She continued, “Then when I go home at night, I do everything related to my personal life.”
Corcoran said the idea that she couldn’t have it all struck her years ago when she was a new mom and running the Corcoran Group, her New York City-based real estate firm.
“I had 1,000 agents working for me and I was nursing my first baby and an agent called me and demanded that I be at work,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘This is screwy because I felt guilty about nursing my child.’”
Corcoran's advice to others is to really take stock of their time so they can find the moments they can devote solely to work or to family.
"You know the difference between work and home and you can really stay true to it," she said. "You can control your time a lot more if you sit down and size it up."
Read Corcoran's experience below in her own words, and listen to her discuss the topic on her "Business Unusual" podcast on iHeartRadio.
When I started a family at the ripe old age of 46, I had a thriving business and I worked like crazy to make room in my life for our new baby.
I was trying to find balance but I didn’t feel good enough at home nor good enough at work. I was stressed and exhausted all the time.
Forget about work/ balance. It doesn’t exist. I’ve found the best way to juggle the responsibilities of work and home is to clearly divide my time between them.
I devote certain times of day totally to my family, and other times just to work.
When I’m at work, my kids and my husband, Bill, would not dare call me and when I’m at home nothing work-related reaches me.
I can give my full attention to the responsibilities and matters at hand without distraction, dedicating 150 percent of my energy to each.
Phones and emails today are a huge distraction!
When I walk into our home, I plug my phone into the hallway and don’t touch it until I’m walking out the door in the morning. This way I give my kids and my husband 100 percent of my time.
