Avoiding Entrepreneurial Burnout: 5 Tips to Structure Your Day for Success
I am a “type A” over-achiever who receives great satisfaction and joy from my coaching business. For me moving forward means to get as much accomplished as possible.
This constant push to finish all the items on my never ending to-do list has come with a price - exhaustion, burnout and health challenges. I venture to say that if you are reading this post, you may be all too familiar with this scenario. Keep working, working, working until you hit a wall and crash.
Earlier in my career, a solid day of rest would fix this problem. As time went on, I found myself facing more serious issues than being exhausted at the end of the day. The exhaustion was followed by weight gain, then digestive issues, later migraines, and eventually burnout with a complete lack of focus, clarity, and purpose.
In the end, this experience was a blessing for me. It made me stop and re-evaluate what I was doing with my life, and helped me re-align how I wanted to continue living every day. I learned, sometimes a bit slowly, the importance of self love and that self care is number one. If you don’t take care of your body, you cannot take care of what matters to you. (i.e. your job, family, career advancement, etc.)
Here are my top five tips to achieve success in life and business without burning yourself out:
1. Feed your body for energy and clarity
Healthy eating is a much discussed topic and it seems everyone has a different interpretation about what it means. The food that is right for you is as individual as a fingerprint. However, there are some basic truths to healthy eating.
In a very simplistic model, I like to compare the human body to a high performance car. If you put in junk fuel and oil, you get a lousy performance. The same holds true for the body, which is certainly more complex than a car. Imagine gasoline are your macro-nutrients. Macro-nutrients are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. They give your body energy to perform daily functions like running, eating, and digesting.
Your micro-nutrients are equivalent to the oil you give your motor. These are vitamins and minerals. These micro-nutrients ensure that your body (your engine) operates smoothly. They are responsible for a balanced immune system, cell repair, optimal replication of cells, transmission of information, and keeping you healthy among other things.
Natural, unprocessed foods are high in micro-nutrients and help your body feel more energized with increased clarity and mental acuity. These foods can help you reduce stress and anxiety by allowing you to stay grounded and focused. Foods high in micro-nutrients are fruits, vegetables, berries, whole grains such as quinoa, millet, and buckwheat and legumes.
If you are struggling with inconsistent energy during the day, and suffer from “the afternoon slump”, I encourage you to take a close look at the foods you are consuming and increase the amount of unprocessed foods in your diet.
2. Have a solid morning routine
Early in my career, I would sleep as late as possible, roll out of bed with great resistance, drag myself to the shower, then get ready and drive to the office. Breakfast was usually coffee and a bagel from the cafeteria eaten mindlessly at my desk while trying to focus on the day ahead. Just writing this makes me feel tired, all over again.
I found that the way I start my day is the way that the day unfolds. Not rocket science, I know. We all know this, but how many of us are ACTUALLY creating a morning routine that sets the right tone? Well, it took me a while to make it a part of my day instead of just knowing it conceptually.
Here is what works for me now. Of course, it varies depending on location and season. My summer routine is a bit different than my winter routine. However, the general steps stay the same.
Before I leave my bed, I have a tall glass of lemon water that I prepare the night before and leave at my bedside. It wakes me up, flushes my liver, and hydrates me from the night’s sleep. At the same time, I focus on what I am grateful for, and what I intend to achieve during this new day. These are just a few mental notes to keep me inspired and focused.
If possible, I like to step outside and stretch, take some deep breaths to fill my lungs with fresh air, and let the sun shine on my face. If it rains, I do this inside by the window. I follow this with ten minutes of yoga or Qigong.
My breakfast consists of green juice, fresh fruit, or a smoothie. This is a great opportunity to be mindful of my body and provide important micro-nutrients that it needs to be ready for the day.
Some people suggest reading or journaling in the morning. For me, it takes too much time and gets me off track. I am an avid reader and like to do so later in the day. When I have my green juice I am ready to get some action going.
What are you currently doing that works well? What can you improve upon? We are all unique and have different needs to get us set up for a successful day.
3. Schedule in “needle-moving” activities
Without a clear goal for the day, it is easy to get distracted and off-track. If you don’t set a clear goal, then others surely will for you. Just think about how often you get asked to respond to an email, attend meetings, or solve a “crisis”. These tasks can easily fill your day without you making headway on what really matters to you and your business. I personally like to focus on important tasks first thing in the morning. Once I have finished these I can respond to emails, calls, and other activities.
Working from home adds a whole other layer of distractions. You may have kids in the house that need your support, or you are tempted to do other chores/projects while “on the clock”. This can be especially relevant to entrepreneurs that set their own timelines. Sometimes laundry can be more appealing than following up on a recent prospect conversation or launching a new service offering. So many work-from-home employees and entrepreneurs get sidetracked by chores when they are right in front of them.
I find that having clear “money-making” or “needle-moving” daily activities makes an impact on my business. These are one to three “must-dos” for the day that bring me closer to my end goal. I make sure to get these done even when everything else falls through the cracks. At the same time, I allow for flexibility during my day to respond to unforeseen requests or to allow for extra time.
By keeping your critical tasks in mind, it is easier to stay focused. This concept applies equally to any goals that you may have around your health or your life.
4. Plan “down time” between focus sessions
Planning for downtime between intense periods of work is the most challenging task for high achievers. We just want to make progress on current projects and often have a continuous stream of new ideas we’d like to implement. However, constant work comes with a price. A price that I have often paid with back pain, migraines, and foggy thinking.
Sustaining attention and focus for long periods of time is difficult. The brain is constantly processing information, making decisions, and dealing with life in general. Just like a muscle, it needs recovery time. When your mind starts to wander and you get distracted, you are past what your brain can handle.
The same is true for your body. Your body starts to hurt when forced to be in the same sedentary position over long periods of time. This is not conducive to productivity or creativity. Researchers have found that standing up periodically or moving even for a short period of time can increase your productivity by up to 45%. I learned that breaking up my workday into intense focus sessions with short periods of rest and transition times was very effective in giving me increased productivity each day.
I aim to break my day into fifty minutes of focused activity, followed by ten to fifteen minutes of downtime. During this time I either go outside to walk around the block, stretch, do Qigong/yoga, or just walk away to get water and relax.
It seems that other high performers prefer a similar structure to their workday. An article by the FastCompany shared findings by the Draugiem Group and John Trougakos, associate professor of Organizational Behavior & HR Management at the University of Toronto, that “the most productive employees didn’t work full eight-hour days, and they took 17-minute breaks for every 52 minutes of work.”
5. Limit distractions
Humans are social beings and can become easily distracted or feel as if they are missing out. “Squirrel mind” anyone? Yes, I can raise my hand as well. I sometimes catch myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook without even knowing why I picked up my phone in the first place.
Especially, when we are tasked with repetitive activities or less exciting projects we tend to procrastinate and look for easy excuses to get distracted. Here lies the clue to productivity - focus on what really matters in your profession (see tip #3 above). Deleting junk mail or attending meetings may not be the most productive use of your time. Maybe these can be delegated to someone else, or attended to after your main tasks.
Once I know what really matters and needs to get done, I can more easily limit distractions such as social media, phone calls, or the newest training course I need to watch all of a sudden. I like to set my phone on do-not-disturb, turn off email, and set a timer. Just the act of knowing that a timer is running keeps me more focused on my tasks and less likely to get distracted.
For anyone working from home, I also found it extremely helpful to communicate with family members when I need uninterrupted time. Setting these boundaries and expectations ahead of time helps reduce casual interruptions. I am sure any parent working from home can relate.
Depending on your individual situation, there may need to address other areas of your life to allow you to move forward with more energy and clarity. However, I hope these tips will help you stay productive without burning out. I would love to hear what has been helpful to you in supporting your productivity with self-care.
If you are looking for additional support around keeping yourself healthy and productive I invite you to visit my website to learn more about my program offerings or to schedule a complimentary strategy session. During these sessions we identify exactly what is standing in your way towards better health, and productivity.
Waltraud Unger - Health and Transformation Coach