By Nan Berrett - Word Solutions:
Overwhelmed
and heading towards burnout?
I’ve been
busy lately – there have been disruptive influences in my life and when I don’t
have a straight line of sight to an end goal I get flustered, anxious and, yes,
tired.
I tend to overshare
a bit when it comes to my business running about, and this results in my
well-meaning and much wiser friends, colleagues and family counselling me on
the possibilities of burnout and the need to pace myself.
Of course,
they’re right, but it’s often easier said than done when you have a pile of
responsibilities, but I have taken their advice on board and thought about
things I can do to lessen my tendency to overdo things.
Here’s what
I think I can do, should do, and do do!
“Take rest. A field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” — Ovid
1. Take a deep breath. Sometimes, all
we need to do to push away those feelings of anxiety or overwhelm is to take a
breath. Go outside, breathe the air, look at the clouds, feel yourself calm and
centre. This very simple action has very real benefits. Yes, you can take a
break – it won’t interfere with your productivity or goals, in fact, it will
allow you to get back into your work feeling more focused and refreshed.
2. Take a break. This is another step
on from taking a deep breath and is also an essential tool in our arsenal of
tools to destress. You’re allowed a break – morning tea, lunch, arvo tea,
dinner (depending on your work patterns). And when you do have that break, make
it count. DO NOT eat at your desk – this is not a break. You need to remove
yourself from your working environment and be somewhere entirely different.
Whether it’s the lunchroom at your workplace, your front porch or dining room,
or, best of all, a park. Or, go for a short walk. If you decide to make it a
marathon, then that’s procrastination, not a break – and that’s a story for another
day!
3. Eat healthy food. Whether you’re on a
short tea break or lunch, or any other time, try to keep to a healthy diet.
Fresh fruit, vegetables, proteins, ease off on sugars, too many carbs and
caffein. Sugar and other carbs give you only a temporary high and then a crash
which contributes to your falling behind and reducing motivation and energy. I’m
a huge fan of pastry – but try and keep my cravings to the evenings or very
late afternoons, otherwise I fall into a pastry coma and beat myself up about
it later.
4. Acknowledge that you can’t do everything.
We often underestimate the time it will take us to do something, so we
overpromise and deliver late. If you’ve
been doing your work for a while, you have a pretty good idea of how long each
individual task will take. Bear that timeframe in mind whenever you promise
something and add on double the timeframe for unexpected interruptions. If you
come in under time your client or boss will think you are a hero, but bring it
home late ….. you know what I’m saying!
5. Say No. Yep, we’re always being told
to say ‘no’ and I have friends who are champions at saying it. They know their abilities
and their boundaries. Sadly, I am not one of them. I say ‘yes’ almost every
time. If you are a ‘pleaser’ like me, then there are a couple of strategies to
help. Before saying ‘yes’ find out exactly what the commitment will be before
you give your answer and before saying ‘yes’ ask for time to think about your response.
This will take you back a step and give you some thinking time. Think about
your current commitment level, what will you have to shuffle around to accept
the request, how will it benefit you? If it will make you feel good and is
something enjoyable which won’t disrupt any other plans, then say ‘yes’; if it
is something you will resent doing, will tire or stress you, disrupt plans, will
seep into your precious free time or sometimes, if it’s work related, doesn’t
pay well – then say ‘no’. Not answering straight away gives you time to make an
informed decision and not your knee-jerk default answer (yes).
6. Ask for help. If you are drowning in
work, ask for help. The help doesn’t have to be work related, it can be help
around the house, with shopping, childcare, anything which makes you feel under
pressure. The relief of having some of the day-to-day work removed from our
control is wonderful and will let us get on with our business without additional
stress. If you need it and it’s feasible, ask for help in your business tasks,
ask colleagues for a hand, in an office situation talk to your manager about
getting some additional short-term assistance. Do this before you get so
overwhelmed you grind to a halt.
7. Take a moment to assess your daily
energy patterns. Take a minute to think about your most productive times – are you
a morning, afternoon, or evening person? Are there times, like mid-afternoon,
when your brain turns to mush and you are at your least creative? When you are
aware of your working/thinking/creativity patterns it becomes easier to plan
your day for the best productivity outcomes. Block out time for creative tasks
when you are most alert and use the ‘mushy’ slow times to check emails, do some
filing, etc all those mundane tasks which don’t require a great deal of
thought, but need to be done.
8. Check your calendar. I am a huge fan
of Google calendars. They are versatile, you can overlay all the calendars you
have into one mighty overview of your day, week or month. I have a Google
calendar for my business, my personal life, my husband/family, and my social
media planning. I can overlay all of them, which I do (apart from the social
media planning one, which I look at separately). I colour code everything in my
calendar, so green is for working on my business, purple for my in business appointments,
grey is for my husband, orange for personal/social time, yellow for committee
meetings and volunteering and blue for health appointments, like the dentist.
At a glance, I can see how busy my week is and where I have clear blocks of time.
Look at your calendar and if you can move some of the appointments or tasks
from busy days to a clearer time, this will take some pressure off. Use your
calendar to make appointments which suit you and don’t allow yourself to fill
out entire days with meetings.
9. Reach out and readjust. If you find
you are running behind, don’t leave it hanging there in the back of your mind.
Reach out to your client, colleague, or boss – whoever is affected – and let
them know. People are really forgiving if they have pre-warning. If you know
you are going to hit a wall, let them know in good time. They will either
provide you with support by way of understanding and an extension of time or
help to lighten your load. In rare cases they may take the work away as it may
have a deadline which needs to be met. Don’t let this set you back emotionally,
occasionally this happens, but take it as a gift – it’s lightened your load.
10. Say no – I said that before didn’t
I. I’m saying it again. ‘No’ doesn’t just apply to random requests from
community, family, or friends – it applies to clients and employers/managers
too. We are conditioned to comply with authority requests, but, if something is
beyond our scope and knowledge, or we simply do not have the time (or perhaps
the energy), just invoke the magic word ‘No’.
And, if you want some more strategies, there's a good article from Kochie's Business Builders here:
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