Last week, we chatted about whether that burn-out feeling is you or the job. What if you determine that the job is still exactly what you had signed up for several years ago, but you have changed. Sometimes it is you that needs to add some de-stressing resources to your bag of tricks. As the economy has gotten leaner and meaner, many people, both employees and business owners are trying to do more with less support. If you’re a counselor in an agency, you may find that your case load has remained the same, but the reporting demands have grown, and the staff meeting requirements have also grown. If you’re a business owner, you may have attempted to manage your own marketing activities, blogging, working with social media, attending networking events on your evenings and on your “day off”.
- Set non-negotiable boundaries for yourself. These may sound like “Work a 45 hour week most weeks, keeping those 45 hours in a five day work week.” If you’re employed and your work load has gotten out of hand, determine with your manager exactly which tasks have top priority and which can be let go when those 45 hours are filled. If your are running your own business, decide what tasks are mission critical, and which ones might be done with less than perfection, which ones might be delegated, and which ones really don’t need to be completed this quarter.
- Track for yourself when are your most productive hours for which tasks. I have a friend who is an artist. She has discovered that her most creative hours are mornings from 10-1, and late afternoons from 4-6. She organizes her day around those hours. When are you most effective at writing case notes or project reports? When are you most effective as a presenter?
- If you must work during your personal unproductive hours, try one of these two strategies to help you be effective even in your “off” hours:
- Take a quick, brisk walk around the building, breathing deeply – or do jumping jacks in your office, anything to get your heart working, your lungs working, and getting oxygen up to that tired brain of yours
OR
- Take a meditation moment, sit quietly, breathing comfortably, progressively relaxing each part of your body, top to bottom with each out breath. Download, if you’d like a simple guided meditation from (OPL free gift) – it’s an MP3 file of only 3 minutes to support your resistance to burning out. The link is just to the right.
If you have any additional tips to help avoid burn-out, please share them here.
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