Next stop, burnout city: 3 tools to help you avoid it

We are better than ever at being busy these days. And frankly, pretty p*ss poor at recovering from it.

More tools, more platforms, more ways to be reached, than any generation of workers before us. And the data on burnout keeps heading in exactly the wrong direction... straight to burnout city!!

Burnout isn't a personal failing, it's biology

It doesn't happen to people who don't care. It happens to the highest performers, the ones most committed, who want to do the best job, who never quite feel like they've done enough.

I know this first hand. Between the ADHD and the anxiety, I experience burnout regularly. I find it really hard to switch off, I live in a bit of an all-or-nothing mindset, there's no half-hearted with me. And being constantly online makes that so much easier to indulge. There's no natural stopping point anymore. You could just keep going, and never stop. Never have a single minute where you aren't consuming information. Your brain ain't built for that.

There are so many tips and tools for reducing your risk of burnout. Here are three that are hopefully a little different for you to try...

Your energy debt

There's a concept called allostatic load. Think of your energy like credit card debt: you put something on the card, the monthly payment's fine, you'll pay it off eventually. Then you put a bit more on. And a bit more. The debt creeps up quietly until the repayments become completely unmanageable and there's just not enough coming in to ever pay back the debt.

Now picture that with your nervous system. Another coffee to push through. A bad night's sleep to hit a deadline. Borrowing energy from tomorrow, over and over, without ever paying it back.

So reflect:

• What's your allostatic load right now?

• What's one restorative thing you could do today to bring the balance back down?

• What's constantly adding to that load? What can be put in place to address that?

Get it out of your head

This one sounds almost too simple to work, but the research backs it up (Risko and Gilbert, if you want to go down that rabbit hole). Your brain treats external storage, a notebook, a notes app, a scrap of paper, as a genuine extension of its own memory.

So when you brain dump everything that's whirring around your head onto a page, your brain lets it go. Not forever, just enough to stop it clogging up your bandwidth. Do it before bed. Do it before a holiday. Do it whenever your head feels too full to function.

Follow the resentment

Resentment is data. When you feel it, it means a boundary's being crossed, that someone or something is taking more than you're able (or want) to give.

Instead of pushing it away and ignoring it, ask yourself:

• What is this resentment telling me?

• What boundary needs to be set to reduce this resentment?

• How am I going to communicate that, rather than just gritting my teeth through it?

Boundaries built in small, consistent moments do more than any big gesture ever will. You don't have to get every single one right. You just have to keep showing up for most of them.

"Choose discomfort over resentment." - Brene Brown

Yes, it can be hard to push back, to say no or explain why something is bothering you. In the moment it's uncomfortable, but it opens up a whole future without resentment.

The short term discomfort is worth it to let go of the long term resentment that's eating you up.