Does your life seem unbalanced or do you feel like you have no life? Are you feeling exhausted all the time? Do you feel like work is all you manage to handle? Then maybe “job burnout” is what best describes the situation you’re going through.
Working hard on your business, taking care of a family, striving to move up the career ladder, or working for paying off your house or car loan can lead you to devote more than too many hours to your work. This exhausting daily routine has become your daily life, or better said your daily imbalanced life, and you feel you can’t operate without stress.
So if you feel it’s about time you got out of this situation and you want to bring balance back into your life there are six ways you can avoid job burnout. And here there are:
1. Make a plan of required hours of work and stick to it. The first step to free yourself is to admit your working hours are more that the needed ones.
For example, if you find yourself working in the office till late everyday, become aware of the situation and admit that working at that level will eventually bring you down physically and emotionally. Of course working extra hours from time to time may benefit your business or career advancement and your pocket. But when extra hours become your daily routine then you get exactly the opposite results from what you wish for. So instead of being productive and competent you become inefficient and unable to make clear and profitable decisions.
2. Use available tools that can help you do your job more efficiently. Nowadays there is a huge variety of tools that you can help you save your time and use it to the advantage of your free time with your family and loved ones. So find out which of them serve you needs best and learn how to use them. You may think that you don’t have the time to invest on learning how to use these tools, but trust me; it will take you less time than the one you spend working till late at night, in the long-term.
3. Work delegation. This is a term probably you have forgotten about. A characteristic of busy people is that they believe they can do all the work by themselves because no one can do it as well as they can. But then, why are the other people there for? And if you are a manager, why have you hired them in the first place if you believe they can’t do a good job? Whether or not they can do such go work as you can, overcome this belief and start delegating work to others too. Because if you don’t, you will end up doing more and more of the work all by yourself and even 24 hours will not be enough to finish your tasks.
Seeing it from another point of view also, by delegating, you give others the opportunity too to grow and develop. And if delegating is part of your job description, then it’s not only “nice to do” but it’s your duty too!
4. Give yourself a break. It’s important to relax your mind a few times per day from your busy schedule at work. So get up from your chair and go out to get some fresh air and change environment for a while. Take a coffee break and have a friendly chat with your co-workers about something “light” and irrelevant to your work. For example take about where you plan to spend your vacation or a nice movie you watched. Anything that can keep your mood up and help you “escape” for a while from your job.
Give your loved one a call just to say “hello” or to make your plans for a common activity for later on today.
5. Use the annual leave to which you’re entitled. Taking the time off will help you stay healthy and fit and prevent job burnout. During your vacation time you will have time to focus on your personal life and recharge your batteries by doing things you really love doing and you didn’t have time for them because of your busy schedule.
As much as possible, shut down your laptop and turn off your cell phone. You can’t imagine how invigorating this is!
6. Stay in contact with your feelings about your work. Acknowledge your feelings; they’re all valid and worth your attention. In addition, your feelings can be your first clue that you’re close to job burnout. Are you getting tired of working all the time? Or are you totally excited and interested in your job and full of energy to focus only on it? Or is it becoming really hard to cope with?
If you find out you’re having negative feelings about your work, take action to resolve the challenges that are causing this negative feelings. It’s important that your work is a positive part in your life and not a machine sucking in all your energy.
Having a healthy work-life balance is important. Start practicing the above mentioned ways to avoid getting yourself into a job burnout situation. Find out how liberating and beauty is to live a balanced life that will not only revitalize your personal life but will make you also more productive and efficient in your professional life.