280: Holly Worton ~ How to Let Go of Pessimism & Feel More Optimistic About Everything

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I’m back again, with another solo episode! This week’s episode is inspired by my super busy month and a half that I’m in the middle of. I’m very conscious of managing my time and energy levels, and I think I’m generally pretty good at time management, so I wanted to share with you what I’ve done to keep myself from reaching burnout, and how you can apply these tactics to your own life.

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What You’ll Learn

The differences between stress, overwhelm, and burnout
How to figure out what these three stages look like for YOU
How to keep overwhelm from turning into burnout
How to manage your time and energy levels to avoid burnout
How to stop, evaluate, and plan your strategy to get through busy times
How to identify priorities, non negotiables, and things only YOU can do
The three essential self care practices that you need to keep in busy times – and the ones you can let go of

Things I Discussed

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Today I am going to talk about how to manage your time and manage your energy so that you can keep overwhelm from becoming burnout. So, this is something that I have been thinking about a lot lately because as I have mentioned in my newsletter emails, I have been really busy and I am going to be really busy for the next month or so and this is a result of stuff that I planned, stuff that has been in my calendar for months, things that kind of got added throughout the year and then other things that have just kind of compounded into this really, really, busy month of really important stuff. So, I wanted to talk to you about how I manage my time and how I manage my energy because I am pretty good at time management and I hope that the strategies that I have been putting in place can help you. And, as always, if you have any suggestions or ideas for things that I haven’t mentioned then please feel free to reach out and share them with me, I really love hearing other people’s strategies as well.

So, let’s start out by talking about what are the differences between stress, and burnout, and overwhelm, in my opinion. Obviously everyone is going to have their own perspective on this, and there are always a ton of different definitions for everything. So when we talk about stress, and I think we all know what stress feels like, but what is it? When we talk about feeling stressed, or experiencing stress, or being stressed, we are generally referring to the mental, emotional, physical impact of the things that are going on in our lives, stuff that we need to do, the things that have happened that are beyond our control, just life stuff and its impact on our lives. So, it is our body’s responses to the pressures of these situations or events. When we have a lot of stuff going on, when we have a lot of things to do, when life is happening and we are feeling stressed sometimes we will reach a state of overwhelm where we just don’t know how to deal with our workload, with life’s responsibilities, and just life.

To me, there is a difference between overwhelm and burnout, overwhelm is when you get to the point where you are like: how do I deal with this, I have got so much going on and what can I do? Burnout to me is when you have passed that point and you are just mentally, physically, emotionally, exhausted. And to me burnout is something that you experience as a result of excessive and prolonged stress and overwhelm, it is when you didn’t stop and reevaluate things when you were at the overwhelm phase, for whatever reason, sometimes we are just doing the best we can and we can’t manage it and we reach that point of burnout. When we reach the point of burnout that’s usually when it is really serious and we need to stop and take time off from life, often take mental health days off of work, or business, and just stop and recover. So ideally, we don’t want to get to the point of burnout.

And burnout is something I have talked about on the podcast before and I have had guests on the podcast, the fabulous Jayne Morris who was a guest on this podcast years and years and years ago, episode 22. Jayne wrote a book on burnout to brilliance and she was on the podcast for episode 22, talking about how to go from burnout to brilliance. So that’s another really great episode and to get her book if you feel like you are already at a state of burnout. I hope you are not, but if you are, stop and read that book it is really fantastic. Not too long ago I also did an episode on number 293, a solo episode on, How to Get Back On Track And Get Shit Done After Illness Or Burnout. Sometimes when we have recovered from burnout or illness, we are feeling better, but we have kind of fallen out of our usual routines and we need to start creating new routines and not necessarily get back on track but forge a new track for ourselves. Moving forward, so we can start taking action and getting stuff done and doing the things that we want to do in a different way that will not put us on track to another burnout again. So those are both useful episodes to listen to and I will link to those in the show notes.

So, now we have identified what I think the differences are between stress, overwhelm and burnout, you might want to stop and think about what are the differences for you? So what does stress look like for you? What does stress feel like for you? What does stress sound like for you? Maybe journal on that and then do the same for overwhelm, how do you know when you are on overwhelm? How do you know, what does that look like for you? How do you know when you have reached the point where you are not knowing how to deal with life’s workload, responsibilities, all of that. What does that look like, what does it feel like, what does it sound like? And then burnout, have you reached the state of burnout? What does that look like for you? What does it feel like for you? What does it sound like for you? How do you when you are approaching burnout? How do you know when you are in the middle of burnout? And what is it like for you to recover from burnout? These are all things that you can journal on and I think it is really useful to journal on these, as a part of knowing yourself because when you know yourself you can make better decisions for yourself. When you know what stress is like for you then you can put actions, take actions in place for dealing with that. When you know when you are feeling overwhelmed, what that looks like for you you can put a plan in place and the same for burnout. So the more you know yourself and the more you know what these stages look like for you, the more you can prevent reaching overwhelm and burnout by managing your time and your energy appropriately. And appropriately is always what’s right for you because what’s right for me may or may not be what’s right for you.

So how to keep overwhelm from turning into burnout? How to prevent overwhelm from turning into burnout? So again, I have got a lot going on and I am going to share with you what I have been doing, what plans I have been putting in place to stop myself from getting burnt out, because I am really, really, conscious of how I manage my time and how I manage my energy. So when you get to this point where you are like: oh my God so many things are going on, I don’t know what to do, how am I going to handle this? So that’s the point that I was at a while ago, when I looked at my calendar and went: huh! So I am actually going to scroll back through my calendar as I tell you what has been going on. So, starting at the beginning of September I walked the South Downs Way, so for nine days, I walked 100 miles, that was fantastic, I had that planned months in advance because that was really the only week in the year when I could do that, when the temperature was good, and when I thought the weather would be decent and when I actually had time in my calendar. So that was kind of what kicked off this whole busy period. And then I got back from that and that following weekend I had my plant-spirit-healing apprenticeship weekend and that was fantastic but that always takes a lot of energy out of me. Then the following weekend I was at an event for three days and that is also very draining on my energy and it took up a lot of time. Then family got here and they are going to be here for two weeks and while they are here I am also going to have my plant-healing apprenticeship again, because there was only a three-week break between weekends this time. Then, the same day that family leaves, I fly to Atlanta for the She Podcasts Podcasts conference and I am going to be speaking on that, so it is not just going to attend this event, I am speaking, my presentation is already done and I have got the slides and everything and I am working with someone else on this talk, we have got it all together, but it is more than just attending a conference, because we are presenting there. Then I get back from Atlanta and then that Thursday I have got an important event and then that’s the kind of last end of my whirlwind month – it is actually more like a month-and-a-half, it started the first week in September and ends October 17^th.

So, I have kind of paused adding anything to my calendar until after Monday October 21^st, which is the Monday after things kind of start cooling off. So hopefully I will have a few days to recover, relax, get back on track, rest. I have kept the next few days after 17^th free in my calendar, I have got some exercise in there, kickboxing stuff, but aside from that I am keeping that weekend mostly free. As I said, starting with the week of 21^st, that’s when I am adding stuff in my calendar: I have got a couple of podcast interviews that I have signed up for, I am starting to get back into healing with my cranial sacral sessions that I was receiving, I have got a webinar that I am doing based on the talk that Amanda and I are doing at She Podcasts, and then life will be getting back into normal that week.

So, as I said, one of the things that I said was: I stopped, printed out that month’s worth of calendar, looked at how little time I really had, evaluated everything, and I planned my strategy. So I made a list, identified my priorities, and this is the important thing, you really need to get everything out of your head and onto paper, or a file on your computer, but have it somewhere where you can see it all on one sheet, all the stuff that you need to do and then you need to make that list in terms of priorities. So you can either have 1, 2, 3, top priority, medium, low priority, or whatever makes sense to you, but it is very, very, important to identify which things are high priority and which things are low priority and can perhaps wait. Next you need to identify non-negotiable(s), things that you have to do that only you can do. So maybe mark those with a symbol or a colour or highlight them or something like that and be honest with yourself, a lot of times there are tasks that we think only we can do but really other people can do them. So, things that you have to do because only you can do and looking at my calendar, my plant-spirit-healing apprenticeship, only I can do that, I can’t send someone in my place to do the learning for me, that would be impossible. Other events like the talk I am giving at She Podcasts, yeah I could back out of that but that would be shitty, so really only I can do that. Other things like answering emails, stuff like that, I can delegate some of that stuff and I can postpone it, some tasks I could pass on to someone else and I could get an assistant to help me with them. Lots of stuff can be postponed and lots of stuff can be delegated to someone else. So be willing to ask for help. So start thinking about that and really be honest about the things that only you can do.

Next, identify the date when things start to lighten up in your schedule and life gets back to normal. So for me, it was that event on 17^th October is the last big thing that I have and after that life gets back to its normal routine. I can see that easily because I time-block everything into my calendar where it is all colour-coded, if you are not time-blocking your life into a calendar then I highly recommend that you do so. I use google calendar and you can use whatever is right for you but it is really important to have something that you can block out the stuff in your schedule so that you see what your day looks like. I know a lot of people use planners where you hand write them out I think that’s really clunky, if it works for you fantastic, but I like to have things where I can set up recurring events and then drag and drop things, and move stuff around. I don’t want to be erasing stuff on a printed planner that doesn’t work for me, it might work for you, if it does go for it.

So then again you are going to look at your calendar and you are going to time-block the priority actions, look at all the stuff that only you can do and that you have to do, that you have to do urgently or soon. If you can time-block them for after, when things start to calm down for you, do it then, if you can’t, look at where you can reasonably fit them into your calendar. And be honest with how long it is going to take you to do each task: if you have to answer emails and you know how long it takes you to do your daily emails, be honest with that, don’t say: I am going to scrunch it down to an hour and get everything done in an hour, maybe you can and maybe you can’t. Be honest with yourself, if you have to take your kids to some event don’t just block out time for the time it is going to take you to get there and get back and all the other stuff you are going to do to prepare for it. So be honest with how long it is going to take to do each task because if you underestimate the time it is only going to lead to more stress. I was once talking with a friend about podcasting, and she was saying how she never manages to have time to do podcasts, and she said you know it is just a half-an-hour each week, and I said: no it is not, I do a half-hour podcast each week and I block two hours in my calendar to do it because I have to think about my topic, I have to research my topic, I have to make notes on the topic, to make my bullet point list of what I am going to say and how I am going to say it, then I have got to record it, which takes about a half-an hour, then I have to do the show notes. So a half-hour podcast is not a half-hour, it is about two hours for me. Sometimes it takes less, but I block out two hours in my calendar every Monday to do this. Again, it might be dragged and dropped to another day if a certain Monday is crazy, it might take less time, in which case after I have done it I adjust it in my calendar. It might take more time, in which case I also adjust it but on average it is two hours, I know that and I take that seriously, I don’t try to pretend that it is going to take less time than it is because I know that’s how long it takes. So underestimating how long a task is going to take will only lead to more stress when it takes longer than you planned, so don’t squish something down to make it fit.

Then you are going to look at all low priority tasks, or medium priority tasks, see if you can get help or support from friends, family, a virtual assistant of some kind. You know if you have got a dog and you need to walk the dog, ask someone else in the family to help you with it, hire a dog walker if you can afford it, get help somehow. Ask for help, pay for help if you can. You don’t need to walk the dog if you can get someone else to help you with it, maybe get a neighbour to help, just for this time when you have really got an intensive schedule.

Next, time-block all the low priority stuff in your calendar, in the future, once things settle down. So for me, starting 21^st October, that’s when I have scheduled all my podcast interviews and that’s when I have scheduled other stuff, other tasks that I needed to do, stuff that I needed to get done for my books, future Workcations, none of that is going to be happening until after October 21^st because I am too busy. It is not necessarily low priority stuff, obviously, Workcations are important for getting my next book worked on, but it is not urgent and it can very easily be put off. And again, time block being honest with yourself about how long it is going to take to do this stuff.

Do the same with your emails, so I use a plugin called Boomerang for Gmail, and. I use that to bump low priority emails into the future once things settle down in my calendar, so you could use that if someone emails you something and it is something that is going to require doing something like a task or thinking about something and you just don’t have the headspace, you could always reply to the person and say: thanks so much for this I’m really busy right now, I am going to have the time and the headspace to deal with this on x, y, z date and then you send that email and then you boomerang their email into the future so that it comes back into your inbox once you have the time and the energy and the headspace to deal with it. I use boomerang a lot, every day I have got a certain amount of time blocked out to look at my emails and I start on the highest priority emails, the lower priority stuff, I boomerang out into either tomorrow or into the future so that I can deal with it when I have the time, energy and headspace to do so.

Next, hold off on making decisions for certain things if you can. So my kickboxing winter course, I don’t need to do it because I am not going to be grading in winter, I can’t grade until next summer, but I would like to do the winter course. But I don’t know if I have time to train for the winter course. So I am holding off on making that decision until I have the time, the energy, the headspace to do so which is after 17th October, realistically I am not going to make that decision until the week of 21^st. I know what things that I need to do to start training again, so I am going to start thinking about adding that stuff into my calendar if I can, but I am not going to be upset with myself if I can’t. So I need to start doing kettle-bells, I need to start doing running again, I might have time for that and I might not. If I don’t, it won’t happen and I am not going to be upset with myself, because I am not going to make the decision about the winter course until the week of 21^st October.

Learn to say no to things that people ask of you, you don’t have to say yes for everything. This is a massive life lesson that a lot of people need to learn. A lot of people are afraid, and I have been this person in the past, of people not liking me, or being upset with me, if I say no to things. Saying no is really important skill to have. You can say, ‘no’, and/or you can say ‘not now but later’, so again, I have put off a lot of things until late October because I just don’t want to add more things to my calendar. So again, there are some things like podcast interviews where I have said: sorry, I can’t do that now but I can late next month. So, either say no, or say later to things if you don’t have the time, don’t feel obliged to say yes to everything, I could do a whole podcast episode on how to say no to things, maybe I should, this has been a huge learning lesson to me, basically it is about boundaries, setting up upholding boundaries for yourself and I have talked about that a lot in the past.

Finally, practice essential self-care, and I have talked a lot about self-care recently and I know a lot of people feel like: oh god self care that is another thing to add to my to-do list, which is why I am saying practice essential self-care. So get enough sleep, drink enough water, eat healthy foods, period. Don’t force yourself to add extra things like meditation to the calendar. So a lot of times when we are feeling stressed and overwhelmed we think: oh, this is when I should mediate, and so you add another thing to your calendar. If you have the time, if it happens, great, fantastic, if not, don’t beat yourself up for not doing it, focus on the essentials: sleep, water, healthy foods. Sometimes adding one more thing to the calendar, like meditation, even though it might help you feel better, you might be so much more stressed about having this extra thing in your calendar that meditating is going to be not good for you because it is like another source of stress, even though the few minutes you are actually meditating it might actually help. So again, if it happens great, if not focus on the essentials, get enough sleep.

There is a time in my life, in my last year of university, where I was working on my senior project, and I was applying to grad school, and I had all my regular class workload and I was really, really, busy and I just thought: I just don’t have time to do all this, I can’t I just don’t have enough hours in the day. And I thought: well, how can I add more hours to each day? I thought: well, I could go to bed two hours later at night and I could wake up an our earlier. It was either that or the other way around, I am not a morning person so I think it was wake up an hour earlier and go to bed two hours later, I am really good at getting stuff done at night. So I thought, fantastic! If only I can sleep three hours less and add three hours to my day, fantastic and so I started doing that. Then I was getting stuff done and I had a longer day but I wasn’t getting enough sleep and I have always been one of those people who really needs my eight hour of sleep, or at least seven hours of sleep. I got to the point where I wasn’t sleeping enough, I was falling asleep in class, which it never happened to me before and at that point I realised that my plan wasn’t working {laughing}.

So, sometimes when we give ourselves permission to get enough sleep, seven or eight hours a night, that will make us more efficient, it will allow us to work more efficiently, it will allow us to use our waking hours to get the stuff done that we need to do. Sometimes waking up early and not having enough sleep means we will have more time, in theory, to do the things that we need to do, but we will be less efficient, we will be using our time less wisely because we won’t be able to focus because we are exhausted. So again, essential self care, enough sleep, enough water, healthy food. When you are really busy like this may not be the time to start a new fasting routine, keep doing what you are doing, try to eat healthy foods, try to remember to eat on the schedule that is good for you. So I fast for 23 hours and eat one meal a day, most days of the week, usually Monday-Friday, sometimes on the weekends I will have a couple of meals, now that family has been here I have been having two meals a day and yesterday I have been having three meals, that was weird. For me it is normal to eat one big meal day, for most people that is not normal. So do what is right for you. Fasting gives me energy, fasting gives me focus, so that is what I am continuing to do when I can, while family is here and while I am in this kind of busy phase. So do what is right for you as always.

So, I hope this has helped you figure out how you can manage your time and your energy levels to avoid burnout and to manage overwhelm. Again, throughout all of this, as you are going through this busy period of your life, this busy phase, pay attention to your energy levels and adjust as needed. This is important, nothing is set in stone, and that is why I like using an online calendar as oppose to a printed calendar because I can drag and drop and change and adjust and recalibrate as needed. On the days when I am not as focussed I just move stuff around. I was looking at my calendar for this week and I have tried to plan as much stuff as I could get done earlier in the week so I can get that done and then ave more time in the rest of the week but you know it is all adjustable. So again, adjust as needed and try to spend a minute or two to tune in to yourself in the morning , afternoon, evening, and adjust your schedule as needed. Again, nothing is set in stone and you can adjust things. Do what you need to do to recalibrate your schedule, to avoid burnout and manage your stress.

So I hope you find that interesting and useful, if you have any strategies that you would like to recommend to me that I haven’t talked about today, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know, you can email me: [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there. Thank you for listening you can find the show notes at http://HollyWorton.com/324 and as always the transcripts for previous episodes are live. I have got everything live up through episode 321 I think at this point, probably 322 will be there by the time this goes live. So thank you again for listening, thank you very much and have a fantastic week.

324 Holly Worton ~ How to Keep Overwhelm From Becoming Burnout