Preventing Burnout: Looking After You

This is a post for MichaelReynol in particular who asked about prevention of burnout. But of course, this is also for everyone else who is feeling overwhelmed and would like to use some mitigating actions to prevent burning out in the future.

This is such an important question and one that is very close to my ethos of working.  I am a firm advocate of self-care and champion doing your own thing in your own time.  I might have gone through some of these items that I do in past posts, but it doesn’t harm to have them in one consolidated place, so here goes.

A list is for work-related actions:

1. Time management during work hours, I’ve gone in to plenty of detail on this post so check it out if you like to see what I have done for job start/end times
2. Refuse to have meetings before 9 am and after 5 pm. EVER.  Work does not exist beyond those hours, unless you are a physician, nobody will die if something isn’t responded to outside of those hours. There has also never a been a time in my experience where a contract that hasn’t been signed on the day the “!” denoting email came through caused a corporate meltdown. It’s fine.
3. Place your work phone on DO NOT DISTURB before 9 am and after 5 pm.  Texts coming through asking if you “have a minute?” the lack of response will make it apparent that you do not. Enjoy your evening.
4. Avoid in-person meetings by all means possible.  Not only are they a waste of time, you also break down that barrier between you and your employer that you wedged at the start of your contract, which let’s them know that you are the type of person who sticks to their guns.
5. If it looks like the in-person meeting is becoming an inevitable threat, I cannot stress this one enough: EXCUSES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND.  If in doubt, make it up: dog got run over and requires vet visit, a grandparent died, a sibling has been in an accident (even if you don’t have one – as long as you didn’t tell them this, go for it), a rearranged doctor’s appointment, a burst pipe, an apartment building fire, dental issue
6. Do not share anything with your colleagues.  They are not your friends, they are your competition for the next promotion (minimal in terms of pay).

Outside of work actions that I had to learn:

1. Go outside – avoid any screen time if possible (yuck to social media, not everyone needs to know what you’re doing all of the time)
2. Stop caring so much. This is such an important point.  I had to actively unlearn this behaviour, because it was very much drummed into me growing up (AND by employers who I thought had my best interest at heart {just FYI this is NEVER true}) that I must go above and beyond, “if you show you care and have passion for the role you will be noticed and rewarded”.  Unfortunately I learned this the very difficult way and found that actually employers very rarely reward people for diligent work ethic, other than with more work.  I stopped doing activities my employer asked me to do “because it would be good for my CV or career progression” a long time ago.  I want to be fairly remunerated for my work; not paying me extra to do this? then this is very much outside of the scope of my role and I will gladly pass on this “opportunity”. Muggins here has been taken advantage of like that in the past, but has now learned.  Pay me more, or it’s a hard no.
3. Refuse to talk about your work, when you’re not on the clock.  I actually learned this one from my younger brother.  A lot of family members would ask what his work was like, what it is that he does, and how long he sees himself there.  He would insist on not mentioning his work because he wasn’t being paid on his weekends to talk about his company.  It might seem like a small thing, but is talking about the company you work in, on your own time, free advertising? He considers it as such. And it blew my mind.  So I share this item with you; unlearn talking about the company you work at when you’re not working.  If they want to advertise their company – they can pay for the PR. This also frees up your head, a lot. I was astounded at how much I used to talk about my work, that I was essentially taking my work home with me every evening.  It was tough to unlearn – because often the first question someone new meeting you asks you, “what do you do?”, and all of us often place a lot of importance on the answer to this question. I recall going into intricate detail to describe to someone what I do for a living; but why did I do this?  Because I wanted to convey some sense of importance on the label of my job title?  Will this give me a comfortable retirement? Can I not worry about my future with an important title? No & No.  So, once I actively unlearned to answer this question with painstaking detail, the stress levels reduced significantly. I wasn’t looking for external validation for how I make my money anymore.  And it stopped me boosting the company I worked at for free.
   TedTalk aside, practicing this also forces you to talk & think about yourself as an individual, your personality, and your genuine interests – which is really difficult to do! We’re so hard-wired to talk about our jobs at all times, we don’t know how to talk about anything else.  Scary right? But once this is recognised, it is feasible to unlearn and you can pivot. It’s tough for sure. But completely possible.
4. If it becomes too much, let one (or most) of the jobs go until you feel like you again.  You can always pick it up again at a later point- if that’s something you would consider doing.  If not, then also fantastic.

The final thing I will say is, if you feel like you’ve done enough.  Then that is enough. Stop and find your new experiment. Or just exist for a bit, because that’s ok too.

I have no intention of forever being overemployed – it won’t last that long anyway. But for my timebeing, I’m ok with this.  You have to go at your own capacity and pace – there’s no wrong or right way of doing this, just different experiences.

I’ll see you at the next post, yeah?

Love & Laissez-faire! x