How doing MORE healed my burnout (it's not as toxic as it sounds)

Summary

In this video, the creator shares her personal experience with burnout and how she managed to overcome it. Balancing her content creation and writing careers, she found herself overwhelmed and exhausted, especially with the pressure of preparing for maternity leave. After seeking advice and reworking her schedule, she realized that adding meaningful activities like writing and setting strict time limits for tasks helped her become more efficient and revitalized. The key lessons: prioritize what makes you feel alive, set clear boundaries, and practice gratitude to gain a healthier work-life balance.

Takeaways

• 😀 Recognizing burnout is the first step in addressing it. The speaker shares a personal experience of feeling overwhelmed by balancing multiple responsibilities.
• 📅 Creating a schedule that reflects both your current and ideal lifestyle can help identify necessary changes for better work-life balance.
• 📝 Adding something that aligns with your values, such as a passion project or a side hustle, can bring energy and excitement, helping to combat burnout.
• ⏳ Time constraints can increase efficiency. By limiting time for tasks, you force yourself to focus and complete work more effectively.
• 💪 Parkinson's Law explains that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Using this principle, the speaker was able to be more productive in less time.
• ⏰ Reprioritizing your day, such as dedicating mornings to high-priority tasks like writing, can improve productivity without overloading your schedule.
• 🍽️ Meal planning or preparing pre-made meals can free up valuable time during the day, helping to reduce stress and improve efficiency.
• 🧹 Delegating tasks like cleaning can lighten your workload, enabling you to focus on higher-value activities.
• 💡 Gratitude can shift your perspective from burnout to appreciation. Realizing how lucky you are in certain aspects of your life can reduce stress and boost morale.
• 🛠️ Implementing a new schedule and sticking to it can lead to greater efficiency, fulfillment, and better work-life boundaries.

Q & A

What caused the burnout that the speaker experienced?

The burnout was caused by a combination of factors, including managing multiple aspects of her business (content creation and fiction writing), feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to work even during weekends, and the added stress of preparing for maternity leave while still needing to generate income.

How did the speaker plan to handle maternity leave as a self-employed business owner?

She planned to accumulate enough video content before giving birth, so she could take some time off for maternity leave without losing income, since no one else would be paying her during that period.

What advice did the speaker's therapist give her regarding her workload?

The therapist advised her to choose between starting a new fiction manuscript or focusing on preparing content for YouTube, as attempting to do both would not be sustainable.

What is Parkinson’s Law and how did it apply to the speaker’s situation?

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. The speaker applied this by shortening her content creation time, which led her to become more efficient and accomplish just as much, if not more, than before.

What changes did the speaker make to her schedule to improve efficiency?

She rededicated her mornings to writing, scheduled shorter lunch breaks, eliminated time spent doom-scrolling on social media, and set strict time limits for tasks to increase productivity.

What role did gratitude play in the speaker’s process of overcoming burnout?

Gratitude helped shift the speaker’s mindset. After a breakdown, she realized how lucky she was to be self-employed, work from home, and have flexibility, which helped her feel more fulfilled and less overwhelmed.

What are the four steps the speaker suggests for improving work-life balance and reducing burnout?

The four steps are: 1) Create your current and ideal schedules, including activities that make you feel alive; 2) Identify necessary changes to implement your ideal schedule; 3) Implement the new schedule; and 4) Practice gratitude by recognizing how your situation might be someone else’s dream.

How did the speaker’s realization about working in limited time slots help her?

By limiting the time allotted for tasks, the speaker was able to focus and work more efficiently, accomplishing tasks in a shorter time frame and avoiding distractions, which led to better work-life boundaries.

What role did the speaker’s values play in the shift in her schedule?

The speaker prioritized writing in the mornings because it aligned with her life’s mission to become a full-time author, which energized her and gave her the motivation to handle her other responsibilities more effectively.

How did the speaker apply her new scheduling method to both personal and business life?

She applied the method by restructuring her day to focus on writing in the mornings, reducing social media distractions, and setting clear boundaries for her YouTube content creation, all while ensuring time for self-care and family.