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

1. Stop now! Not tomorrow, Not soon
2. Make a list of the items that you do at work that you enjoy
3. Make a list of the items that you dislike doing at work
4. Spend a week or two doing only the tasks you enjoy
5. Hand off some of the burdens
6. Compress the periods where you do the things you don’t like
7. If there are strong interpersonal issues and you work in a large organization, request a transfer to another area
8. If the situation is truly untenable, work on preparing your resume to move on
9. A job that makes your entire life miserable is not worth it, no matter what
10. Get some help
11. Reach out of yourself
12. Hibernate, Sleep, Take a serious break
13. Start a side job
14. Choose a topic that you’re passionate about
15. Set a realistic schedule
16. Plan ahead
17. Celebrate you accomplishments
18. Have a long-term focus and avoid focusing on current problems
19. Don’t spread yourself too thin
20. Limit the time you spend on statistics
21. Accept guest posts if you need more content than you can produce
22. Build a network
23. Use designated times for email
24. Find things that motivate you
25. Take a break
26. Dump it all out
27. Escape for a while
28. Read a book
29. Take a walk outside
30. Set up a “busy schedule” and stick to it
31. Schedule down time
32. Squeeze in walks
33. Avoid overwhelm by making lists
34. Put your perfectionism on the shelf
35. Get support
36. Eat at least one meal a day with family or friends
37. Set up accountability
38. Build in consequences
39. Eat right
40. Set up email filters
41. Turn off email and the phone for set hours
42. Play hard
43. Know your own “Relax” buttons
44. Watch your estimations
45. Lay down the law
46. Prioritize by your core values
47. Put intensive self-care as a top priority
48. Practice the 3D Principle (Do it, Delegate it or Dump it)
49. Learn to say no
50. Learn to let go
51. Avoid multi-tasking
52. Slow down
53. Ask who’s the boogey man?
54. Listen!
55. Ditch things that aren’t important but restore your dream fully
56. If your dream cannot be restore fully. Look towards God for refinement
57. Lastly, you need to have someone to talk to if you need to talk!
58. Don’t lose sight of your principles
59. Stretch yourself
60. Be realistic
61. Learn how to communicate effectively
62. Manage your time
63. Don’t blame yourself (or others)
64. Enjoy the ride
65. Read 25 Tips For Less Stress

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