This past Tuesday, I took a day off of school. This is not normal for me, and I even had to fight my urge to go up to school and make sure things were running smoothly. I even drove up to the school and chose not to get out of the car.
Why? Because I had a chance where I knew I could relax for a day and things wouldn’t fall apart. I suppose it’s sort of a building process for me of letting go of my band.
I don’t like to miss school. I remember my parents encouraging me when I was in high school to miss a day when I didn’t fell well. I have been debating missing a day just to miss a day for over a month and finally bit the bullet. A friend says that her principal encourages the teachers to take a “mental health” day each month. I have nearly 50 sick days available and so I figure I’ll use some this year.
Taking off of work is a great trick to avoid burnout. We’ve all seen those teachers who show up to punch their time card, and then race the students out the door at 3:29. If we’re not careful, we too will turn into those teachers.
I’ve been doing some research lately and found a few articles that relate to job burnout.
- The Simple Dollar is a great place for some practical, common-sense advice about personal finance. Trent writes about Dealing With Professional Burnout Without Quitting Your Job.
- WebWorkerDaily has a good article about How To Cope With Job Burnout.
- Vandelay Website Design shows us 12 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout.
- Collective Creatives shows us How to Recover & Recharge from Creative Burnout.
- Agile Ministry shows us visually in an article entitled Leadership: Balance or Burnout?
- BootStrapMe shows us 20 Tips To Avoid Burnout.
- Intensive Care For The Nurturer’s Soul sends us 7 Keys To Avoid Burnout.
- Rags Studio shows us How To Avoid Burnout.
- Andrew Shim tells us 10 Tips To Avoid Burnout For Home Business Owners.
Taking these articles and looking at some of their key points, I have compiled a list. Read the articles for more details:
65 Things You Should Do Right Now To Avoid Burnout
- Stop now! Not tomorrow, Not soon
- Make a list of the items that you do at work that you enjoy
- Make a list of the items that you dislike doing at work
- Spend a week or two doing only the tasks you enjoy
- Hand off some of the burdens
- Compress the periods where you do the things you don’t like
- If there are strong interpersonal issues and you work in a large organization, request a transfer to another area
- If the situation is truly untenable, work on preparing your resume to move on
- A job that makes your entire life miserable is not worth it, no matter what
- Get some help
- Reach out of yourself
- Hibernate, Sleep, Take a serious break
- Start a side job
- Choose a topic that you’re passionate about
- Set a realistic schedule
- Plan ahead
- Celebrate you accomplishments
- Have a long-term focus and avoid focusing on current problems
- Don’t spread yourself too thin
- Limit the time you spend on statistics
- Accept guest posts if you need more content than you can produce
- Build a network
- Use designated times for email
- Find things that motivate you
- Take a break
- Dump it all out
- Escape for a while
- Read a book
- Take a walk outside
- Set up a “busy schedule” and stick to it
- Schedule down time
- Squeeze in walks
- Avoid overwhelm by making lists
- Put your perfectionism on the shelf
- Get support
- Eat at least one meal a day with family or friends
- Set up accountability
- Build in consequences
- Eat right
- Set up email filters
- Turn off email and the phone for set hours
- Play hard
- Know your own “Relax” buttons
- Watch your estimations
- Lay down the law
- Prioritize by your core values
- Put intensive self-care as a top priority
- Practice the 3D Principle (Do it, Delegate it or Dump it)
- Learn to say no
- Learn to let go
- Avoid multi-tasking
- Slow down
- Ask who’s the boogey man?
- Listen!
- Ditch things that aren’t important but restore your dream fully
- If your dream cannot be restore fully. Look towards God for refinement
- Lastly, you need to have someone to talk to if you need to talk!
- Don’t lose sight of your principles
- Stretch yourself
- Be realistic
- Learn how to communicate effectively
- Manage your time
- Don’t blame yourself (or others)
- Enjoy the ride
- Read 25 Tips For Less Stress
