Are You Scrambling Up A Down Escalator & Heading For Burnout?
Entrepreneurship is stressful enough, let alone trying to juggle your family needs. Often burnout is just lurking around the corner unless we recognize how to avoid it. Try some of these tips to achieve optimum health, focus and business success.
1. Recognize Your BAD Eating Habits Can Sabotage Your Health
Your good health is the first step in avoiding burnout. Great health means you withstand the occasional crazy week of impossible deadlines combined with racing to keep up with your family. If you take care of your own health, you will be able to take care of others in your work and personal family.
It’s easy to grab a quick bite at the drive-thru, pop a packaged meal in the microwave or stock up on boxed foods at the grocery store. All these bad habits can affect your performance during your long days and with some planning, you can avoid these convenience traps.
The folks at Positive Health Wellness, list the 15 foods that help eliminate anxiety. Include these in your next trip to the grocery store. Sugar is also the worst food on the planet for our overall health. Sugar is a comfort food, it’s so easy to grab a muffin or bagel on the go, but why not have avocados, apples or grapes on hand for the times when you have that sugar craving. Or better still try the 3-day sugar detox courtesy of Positive Health Wellness.
2. Say “NO”
Saying ‘no’ is hard for women entrepreneurs, but by saying ‘no’ to non-productive requests, it leaves more time for saying ‘yes’ to opportunities to advance your business. It gives you the luxury of extra time for speaking engagements, writing blogs, creating a podcast or filming a video.
3. Concentrate On Your Top 3 Goals
Focus only on the top 3 SMART goals, ones that are Specifc, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Not sure how to determine your SMART goals, read our SMART goal blog to get a better understanding of how to set SMART goals for your business and personal life.
4. Limit Your Social Media Activity
Does it really matter if you miss posting to Facebook every single day? You can avoid social media burnout by limiting your social media time and scheduling your social media postings with tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite , Commun.It. My favorite tool is PromoRepublic because it is a combination of Buff and Canva. It is a scheduling tool with a built in graphics tool! Even if you don’t use these apps, you can schedule your time to just an hour max. across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and LinkedIn. When the hour is up, move on. Don’t get sucked in by checking how many likes, shares or comments your postings are getting. Leave it until the next day. Only celebrities have the time to spend all day on social media! If you are a social “mediaholoic”, turn off the notifications on your mobile devices and see how much work you are able to accomplish.
5. Stop Multi-tasking
When we multi-task we aren’t doing anything well because we aren’t paying attention to the most important task of the moment. If you stay in the moment and complete the tasks on your to-do list, you will feel so much better. You will be able to concentrate on each task and do it to the best of your ability. If you give a reasonable time limit to each task, it will also force you to focus your efforts. The hardest tasks should be scheduled for your most creative time. My best time is the morning, that’s when I concentrate the best and can tick off the most items on my list.
6. Calendarize Everything and Stick to Your Calendar
If something isn’t on your calendar don’t let it creep in. Overcommitting on a consistent basis, is a fast track to burnout. This means you also need to schedule into your calendar some “me” time. Time for a walk, yoga class, meditation, or anything else that helps you to relax.
7. Delegate, Don’t Be A Micromanager
The best tasks to delegate are the ones that can easily be handled by someone else. Items such as your administration, bookkeeping, social media management, and website come immediately to mind. Instead of wasting hours trying to figure something out, why not outsource and use services such as Fiverr. For just $5.00 you can get simple tasks completed and the fees for more complex tasks are reasonable. It might take a few tries to find the best contractor to fit your needs, but you won’t have spent thousands of dollars. I have used Fiverr for video editing, intro and outro voice recordings and podcast editing. The results are excellent and the service outstanding. When searching for talent on Fiverr I look at the 5* ratings and pick one that has a lot of ratings, say 300+.
If you adopt these 7 top tips, you are on the road to a successful business and personal life. No more burnout for you!
Elaine Slatter is the founder of XL Consulting Group, a small business advisory helping clients with business strategy and inspired marketing. For a FREE 30 minute consultation contact us to-day.