What is burnout?
Many of us often feel unprecedentedly stressed and overworked during the pandemic, but aren’t equipped with the proper tools to cope with burnout. Burnout is a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by excessive stress.
The most common signs of burnout include:
- Constant exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed
- Feeling dejection and/or hopelessness
- A sense of being ‘trapped’
- Experiencing extended periods of procrastination
- Self-doubt and anxiety
6 key steps to avoid burnout
To avoid burnout and help your team, all you need to do is follow these 6 simple steps.
Step 1: Being aware of your mental health
First, it is important to focus on your mental health and wellbeing before focusing on your performance. Oftentimes, during the pursuit of productivity, many people fail to realise the importance of mental wellbeing. Studies have shown that by improving mindfulness and awareness of mental health, productivity gains can be observed alongside avoiding burnout.
There are several self-care strategies that you can use:
- Connect with Nature
- Get some exercise
- Get enough sleep
- Cut down alcohol, caffeine and nicotine
- Seek social connections outside of work
Step 2: Know your boundaries
A lack of boundaries can cause oneself to take on increased workloads, priorities, or burdens. Boundaries are essential as they allow us to identify our limitations and avoid burnout when working. But how do we set and maintain boundaries?
First, identify your tasks at hand and prioritise them in order of importance. Set aside allotted periods of time when you plan on completing your work and enforce boundaries during these periods. There are many methods when it comes to boundary enforcement and communication is always the starting point.
- Set ‘Do Not Disturb’ on applications
- Know each other’s schedule
- Seek clarity and align on priorities
STEP 3: Know your goals
It is important to be mindful of the unforeseen factors we encounter on our journey to achieve our goals and to avoid burnout from the unknown. This can be done by breaking goals down into smaller chunks. By setting sharper, more defined goals, you can measure and even take pride in the achievement of these goals. One useful way of empowering your goals is to use the SMART mnemonic.
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Rewarding
Time
Using this mnemonic ensures you set rewarding and achieving goals, all within a relevant time period. As a result, it can help towards leading a more productive lifestyle and avoid burnout from a lack of direction.
Step 4: Create a plan
After identifying your goals, it is important to have an action plan. A good plan should be clear, tangible, and focused. To reduce stress and burnout, one should schedule their timetable accordingly and align it with expected outcomes.
- A good plan is actionable
- Using digital tools to track plan
Step 5: Stop procrastinating
Even if we have the right goals and plans, equipped with the right productivity tools, there is still one factor virtually stopping us from getting started – procrastination. A procrastinator often ends up underachieving and fails to reach their potential. Almost all of us as individuals have experienced the effects of procrastination and know the consequences.
So how do we avoid procrastination?
- Realise you are procrastinating
- Re-organise to-do list
- Have the right mindset to complete task
Step 6: Self-Reflection
One helpful habit for improving productivity and reducing stress is to reflect on your achievements weekly. This helps you stay motivated, self-aware of your current position, and redirect yourself to the next step.