Staying Productive and Avoiding Burnout

Changing the Trajectory of Life in Two Steps

If you’re feeling burned out and can’t stay productive, you’re not alone. Burn out is really common and there’s many things you can do about it.

Step 1. First test if you really are at your limit.

Do an activity that you can do mindlessly for hours and be full of enthusiasm.

Examples: Playing video games, talking to your BFF, scrolling on IG or Tiktok, etc.

If you’re so exhausted that you can’t even do the things you truly enjoy, then you have to accept that you are truly burned out.

In this case, go ahead and start resting and budgeting your time for self care. Otherwise go to Step 2.

Step 2. Reframing

So you’re full of energy and joy when doing other activities but are feel like you’re at your limit with the things you ‘need’ to do.

A) Are you too spread out?

Often too many big picture things on your plate and you’re handling too much at once. It’s easy to get burned out when you’re not focused on an overall theme. The subconscious mind is making so many calculations that we can’t keep up.

B) Are you working efficiently?

Break work down into smaller chunks. If any of the items on your to-do list cannot be done in a day, they should definitely be broken down into something that can be done at most in 2 a few hours. It’s easy to get demotivated with work that never ends.

C) Are you working with purpose?

Are you clear about why you are working on what you’re working on? Often we feel burned out when we’re just going through the motions and not working with purpose.

D) Are you prioritizing correctly?

Doing things in the wrong order can make a day feel like a failure. It also makes work look like it never ends. Pick the top 3 things that need to get done today for the day to be considered successful. Get those out of the way. After that, everything else is a plus.

There’s many more causes for burn out and ways to get out of it.

Hope this was helpful =)

Originally published at https://mentalchai.substack.com.