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Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington built her media empire off the back of 18-hour work days. At one point, collapsing from sheer exhaustion. But even now that she\u2019s a multimillionaire, 75 years old, and running a wellness startup, she still insists there\u2019s no such thing as balance\u2014and there\u2019s only one boundary she sticks to.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like the word balance, because there is no balance,\u201d Huffington tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThere are days when work dominates everything, days when you may have a sick child or something happening at home that becomes a priority for me.\u201d<\/p>\n While most people her age are retired, kicking up their feet on the beach and enjoying the fruits of their labour, Huffington is still grinding. After selling Huffington Post to AOL for $315 million in 2011, she\u2019s now on her second act: running her next venture, her wellness startup Thrive Global. And it means long days, no real clock off time, and a never-ending to-do list.<\/p>\n \u201cFor you, or me, or most people with interesting jobs, there is never a time when you have a natural ending to the day,\u201d she says\u2014and she\u2019s made peace with that. Work bleeds into evenings. Things get left for the morning. But there is one moment that signals the end of her day, every day, without fail.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a very clear boundary, which is not always the same time but I consider this the end of my working day\u2014and I mark that by taking my phone and charging it outside my bedroom,\u201d Huffington says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s really important, because our phone is the repository of every problem and every project and every source of stress. So, if I\u2019m going to prepare myself for sleep, I need to separate myself from it.\u201d<\/p>\n At Thrive Global, putting your phone to bed is what she calls one of many \u201cmicro steps\u201d\u2014small, repeatable rituals that don\u2019t require a life overhaul but compound over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company has even designed little charging stations shaped like phone beds, complete with a blanket, to make the habit stick. And she says the visual reminder is particularly important for children and teenagers watching and learning what success looks like from their parents. \u201cTeach them phone hygiene,\u201d Huffington says. \u201cThe phone doesn\u2019t sleep with you.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a message resonating among other leaders, too. She recently bumped shoulders with an exec at Ralph Lauren\u2014a brand Thrive has worked with for five years\u2014who told her the daily practice has made the biggest difference. Huffington didn\u2019t name the person in question, but Roseann Lynch is the company\u2019s chief people officer. (Fortune<\/em> reached out to Ralph Lauren for comment.) <\/p>\n \u201cI was doing this event with the CHRO at Ralph Lauren, and she said that this is her most important micro step now,\u201d Huffington adds. <\/p>\n And of course, keeping your phone in another room overnight solves a second problem: the morning scroll. Most people reach for their phone before they\u2019ve said a word to another human, inhaled a coffee, or had a single thought of their own\u2014straight into emails, news, or a dopamine spiral on social media. Huffington says even reclaiming just a minute before you pick it up makes a difference.<\/p>\n \u201cAnother important micro step is when you wake up, take 60 seconds before you go to your phone, take some conscious breaths, remember what your intentions are for the day, what you\u2019re grateful for,\u201d Huffington adds. \u201cJust 60 seconds to prepare yourself for your day before you go to your phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more: Arianna Huffington has more to say on work-life balance\u2014including why finishing your to-do list before bed could be a red flag that you\u2019re in the wrong job.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Arianna #Huffington #Ralph #Laurens #CHRO #swear #habit #switch #work<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington built her media empire off the back of 18-hour work days. At one point, collapsing from sheer exhaustion. But even now that she\u2019s a multimillionaire,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2783,7255,2376,424,426,7252,10331,5093,2782,524,1071,7256,10330,2401,2780,4334,2781,10329,10332,7240,1105,3042,2785],"class_list":["post-8149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-and-wellness","tag-arianna","tag-career","tag-career-advice","tag-careers","tag-ceo-wellness","tag-chro","tag-day-in-the-life-of-a-ceo","tag-fitness","tag-habit","tag-health","tag-huffington","tag-laurens","tag-lifestyle","tag-mental-health","tag-millionaires","tag-personal-health","tag-ralph","tag-swear","tag-switch","tag-work","tag-work-life-balance","tag-workplace-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The morning routine Arianna Huffington swears by\u2014and takes less than a minute<\/h2>\n