3 Easy Steps to Avoid Burnout
I’m the first person to admit that I spend my life in a perpetual state of overbooked. Because of this, my friends know me as the person who literally never makes it to anything on time. I am also known as the person who falls asleep at the dinner table because it’s often the only time I’m caught sitting in one place for longer than thirty seconds. Burnout is something I seriously struggle with. And lately, it’s honestly become a problem. Perpetually sick, perpetually tired, perpetually late. Great things to be known for, huh?
I have always had this idea that rest was something you didn’t need — that it was for couch potatoes that didn’t have anything better to do. So I’d fill my plate so full that my end time for one activity was usually right when another began. A human can only take so much of this. And as I began to feel worse, I examined the lifestyle of my friends who did plenty more, yet were (seemingly) in good health. And I realized a few commonalities in each of their lifestyles.
1. Avoiding Overbooking
I have a tendency to schedule roughly 8,000 things to do in one day alone. And that results in one of two things — 1. I wake up at 4:30 AM and go to bed at 1 AM the next morning or 2. I get so overwhelmed I do nothing at all and eat copious amounts of Cheez-It’s instead. But one thing that I noticed was that these friends of mine who are healthy and happy were not overbooking themselves. They had a schedule, and they’d stick to it. Some had a planner in their head, something I could never do, and some had a physical planner that they’d pull out when I asked if they wanted to grab coffee soon. They made plans, and if they had something scheduled when someone wanted to hang out, they’d find out another time. I always thought schedules were silly because they “confined” what you could do within a day, but then I realized how much more productive my days were when I had some sort of order to my days. Plus, you’re able to look at a list of the things you need to get done at one glance, and able to know if you need Thursday free in case your paper you’re writing Tuesday takes longer to write than you expected, or if you want to use Monday to help your grandma shovel snow because your class was canceled that day. These are examples, of course, but it’s so much easier to just look at your week at a glance rather than try and recall your schedule from memory. But the best part of scheduling is that you can set in your mind one day you want to rest, and you can schedule around that day. and be sure that you have at least one day off every week.
2. Say “No”
My least favorite thing to do is tell someone that I can’t help them. When I first started working, I’d cancel plans with my family to take a shift someone needed covered. Then I realized I was working up to ten hours over the workload I agreed to when I started work, and I wondered where the time went. Friends, “no” is not a bad word. Honestly, it’s a word that I think our generation as a whole could get better at saying. The way our world is working, I know so many of my friends and family are completely overbooked because they want an impressive resume. I’m not innocent of this either. But recently I was talking to a friend and explaining how I have six volunteer jobs because I want to make a difference and also want to prove to a future employer that I can handle a heavy workload, and she looked me in the eye and said, “So to prove yourself, you’re doing a crappy job at six jobs instead of doing well at two?” Ouch. But it’s true. We pile on the workload because we want to be impressive or prove something, but at the end we only disappoint ourselves and screw other people over. There’s nothing honorable in that. Sometimes, saying “no” is the best thing you can do for someone, because they need someone who isn’t going to only give fifteen percent of his or her heart into their work. You’re doing them a favor.
3. Prioritize and Recognize
I know it’s impossible to think that you won’t have any interruption every single time you set aside time to rest. And this is going to seem like a no-brainer, but this is when prioritizing and recognizing comes into effect. Sometimes, something will come up that you feel so passionately about that will still feel restful for you. For example, I feel guilty if I get a text during rest and don’t cover a shift at work, so I take it. However, as soon as I get there, my eyes are glued to the clock as I pray that the blizzard of 2016 comes and I am able to go home early. However, I feel excited when I get to take time I had free and use it to help someone I love by sitting with them and listening to them. While I have to sacrifice time to do this, it still feels like rest to me because I am so passionate about those I love. Maybe it’s the other way around for you, and that’s okay! However, you have to decide what you are okay with sacrificing rest for (prioritize), or what rest looks like for you in the first place (recognize). When you have a day or time that you have designated for rest, what will rest look like to you? Will that be watching Netflix? Is it reading? Is it hanging out with a close friend and talking? Whatever it is, recognize it, and stick to it. When you have days off, let yourself do what makes you feel restful. There will be times you get called in to work or your family has a last minute get together, and you may feel like you want to or need to go, and there’s no harm in that. Just be sure if it’s something that doesn’t feel restful to you that you find (or make) time in the rest of the week to rest.
I have realized I decided my life isn’t as important as a 3.5 average in college. Or a minimum wage job. These aren’t bad things. But they aren’t things that should get you hospitalized. Coming upon the season of finals, this idea of “burnout” has been weighing me down. I see so many people like myself, not even looking forward to break because of the brick wall we have to climb over to get there. And don’t tell your boss or professor I’m about to say this, but I have some news for you. It is not worth the nights staying up and crying because you’re afraid you won’t get an A. It is not worth going to work when you’re sick to get thirty dollars. Your life is important, and there IS so much more to it than these four, six, eight years. Yes, school is important. Of course work is important. But don’t forget that this is the one life you get. If you want to stay up and work on homework, do it! If you want to take a break and eat a pint of ice cream, do it! We can make it, folks. In the mean time, sit back, relax, and enjoy the chance you get to enjoy this time of your life. You deserve it.
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