Burnout Prevention

As someone who has had two serious stress illnesses, has also seen the aftermath and heard about what occurred to some other people that succumbed to the pressures of stress, it saddens me to learn that many are putting themselves on a path to burnout.

Burnout is totally avoidable.

Do you love yourself?  Do you have compassion for yourself?  When you can truly answer yes to those two questions, then you won’t be staring down the barrel of creating any preventable stress illness.

Here’s a hard hitting question – do you know the exact date of your death? Every day people of all ages (young, old & in between) are dying from all sorts of things. Likewise, many people of all ages are admitted to hospital every day and may even have the opportunity to reflect on their life thus far. What would your current life reflection look like?

So now that I may have given you a little reality check, let’s look at what can be done to fix (or prevent) the situation.

For starters – Know thyself. Understand your values. Understand your “life area” priorities. For help with really knowing your values and priorities – get a free form here.

Next step is to audit your time – Track your time by recording each half hour (or full hour) on what you were doing in that block of time. Write it all down, honestly.

When you’re clear on what is most important to you, and the duration of certain tasks, a “time plan” can then be created. Similar to a financial budget (use similar principles)… Allocate “x” amount of time according to priorities and commitments. Time-wasting items can be reduced or eliminated.

Follow these tips:

1. Create a Task / Action List, covering all areas of your life. Break them down to sizeable and realistic chunks. Split them into categories of importance (1-*Must and will do, 2-*Will at least start it & do as much as time allows, 3-*Ok to postpone if need be).
2. Have a daily and weekly schedule for every hour of the day, using a time-limit for certain tasks. Have a specific start and end time for the work day. Use self-discipline to adhere to your plan. If you don’t get something completed in the time allocated, then re-schedule it.
3. Learn to delegate and/or outsource. Sometimes this can seem that it will take longer to find someone and train them, than it would to just do it yourself, but in the long run it will be better. Also learn how to (nicely) say no to things that won’t fit into your schedule – don’t overload yourself with other people’s stuff.

And I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes –

“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.” (Lee Iacocca).

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” (Henry David Thoreau)