This post contains affiliate links. I may make a small commission at no extra charge to you when you buy with my link. I appreciate the support!
Burnout is terrible
If you have ever experienced it, you know that it is an experience that is truly terrible
Since you are here asking about preventing burnout, I assume that you have experienced it before
It’s like life is being pulled from you and not even fun things are enjoyable
You just want to exist, and sometimes not even that!
I had chronic burnout for years
So long that I thought it was my normal
I thought I had chronic Depression and Anxiety, but those have gotten way better since I’ve defeated burnout
There are a lot of ways to prevent burnout, but I believe that we are the sum of the daily choices that we make
So I believe that the best way to prevent burnout is by taking small daily actions to prevent it
The daily actions that I have found that help prevent burnout are:
- Spend a few minutes on you in the morning and evening
- Don’t overcommit
- Plan your day
- Learn to recognize burnout symptoms
- Make sure you eat and drink
- Get the sleep that you need
- Set boundaries
- Declutter your life
- Work on your mindset
- Balance your responsibilities
- Don’t forget to have fun
These habits are amazing, but they won’t single handily prevent burnout
You also need to do the big action of reducing your workload to a healthy amount
But these will help you achieve this daily
Spend a few minutes on you in the morning and evening
Self-care is so important
Think about your energy like a phone battery and you are the phone
Throughout the day, you have a huge variety of tasks to get done
Every one of those tasks takes battery power
What do you need to do for your phone every day so it will work tomorrow?
You have to charge it!
Self-care is what recharges your battery
Just like your phone needs to be recharged, so do you!
So spend a few minutes recharging your battery in the morning and at night
It doesn’t have to be anything crazy
But it does need to give you energy
The morning time sets you up for the day and the evening time helps you recover from the day so you sleep better
Don’t overcommit
Burnout is often caused by doing too much that takes energy without doing enough that gives you energy
I used to be the queen of overcommitting
There are times when I still fall into that, but I have gotten better at recognizing that I have overcommitted
Then I adjust so I am no longer spreading myself too thin
I actually did that this month!
I decided that I was going to really focus on this blog and I wanted to write 120k words
My previous record month was 78k words
I figured out at the end of day 4 that I overcommitted
With all the other things in my life, writing 4k words every day is too much
So I looked at that goal again and cut it in half
Now I am still getting an amazing thing done, but I am not overcommitting anymore or risking burnout
Plan your day
Planning is something a lot of people talk about for being more productive
But there is more to it
Planning your day becomes more effective because you don’t have to use the energy to manage your day along with doing the work
I plan on Sundays and in the morning
Many people do it at night, but the morning works better for me because sometimes I cannot get up on time when my kids have a rough night
That way I don’t start already failing
I make the plan based on what I have available and then I get it done
Sundays is when I write down everything I need to do for that week
And I add to it when new things come up
Then I decide on 3-5 tasks that I have to do that day
I pull those tasks from the list I made for the week
Once those 3-5 tasks are done, I am done!
I get to just enjoy the rest of the day
Don’t improve productivity just to add more and overwork yourself
Get more productive so you can have more time to enjoy your life
Learn to recognize burnout symptoms
I think the game changer for me was when I learned to recognize burnout symptoms
And I looked for them daily in my life
I mentioned earlier that I over-committed to my writing goal this month, but I saw the problem and could fix it
I was able to do that because I could recognize the burnout symptoms!
The symptoms showed me the problem before the problem fully arrived
Some common symptoms are:
- Constant exhaustion
- Loss of interest in things you like
- Loss of appetite
- Irritability
- The constant sense of failure
- Detachment from the world
- Loss of motivation
- Decreased satisfaction when you accomplish something
Make sure you eat and drink
We need food and water to function
There is no getting around it
There are few ways to make yourself sicker faster than not taking care of basic needs
Make sure you have a habit of eating and drinking enough every day
Get the sleep that you need
Same as food and drink, sleep is a basic need that you have to have to stay healthy
8 hours is recommended, but I find that you need to see what works best in the 7-9 hour range
Sometimes you may try 5 hours and feel great, but that isn’t usually sustainable
So make sure you have a habit of sleeping enough
Set boundaries
Boundaries are so important
They protect you from being harmed, overworked, and underappreciated
Boundaries are so important to stay healthy physically and mentally!
Declutter your life
Clutter is something that really affects my mind
There is too much to deal with and too much work to upkeep random things
I have to care for everything in my home
So decluttering reduces the workload I have in my home
Reducing the workload is so important to prevent burnout
Decluttering also affects the brain
A cluttered space often makes the brain feel cluttered too
So it is often more relaxing to have a clutter-free space
This doesn’t mean getting rid of everything that isn’t required to live
It means letting go of the things you don’t need and the things that don’t bring you joy anymore
Work on your mindset
Mindset is so important for every part of life
Burnout is no different
By changing your mindset to believe that your energy is important and valuable, then you are less likely to spend that energy on things that aren’t important
And that reduces changes of burnout
You also start to treat yourself better
And that gives you more energy and reduces burnout
Balance your responsibilities
Your life will never be perfectly balanced from day to day
But you can balance it from week to week
Making sure to balance your non-negotiables, playtime, and work time will be one of the best ways to prevent burnout
Non-negotiables comes first
These are the things that make you function at your best
Brushing your teeth, basic needs, and meditation are all great non-negotiables
These are all things that you have to do so they happen first
Then you make time to enjoy life
You have to have enjoyment to prevent burnout!
Once you have a plan for those two, then you plan for work
Work will consume everything if you let it so make sure you have a balance of needs, fun, and work
Don’t forget to have fun
I have mentioned this a couple of times but it is important
Having fun is important!
I used to think that I had to function on needs along and let go of wants because they aren’t important
But it isn’t true
I went from burnout to burnout with that mindset!
Once I realized how important enjoyment and fun are, preventing burnout was become way easier