Do you feel that you are being tugged in a million different directions all the time? I know I do! Yes, I own a business, and it requires a lot of time and care, but even if we take out the business aspect of life, there are hundreds of other personal demands that come from mothering, home maintenance, etc.
I know that we were all created for greatness and have so much to put out into the world. Honestly, I think many reach the burnout and fatigue state before even getting there. That doesn’t have to be the case! There are so many great ways to preserve and manage our energy levels to make sure you don’t hit that burnout wall!
Here are my top tips:
SET A TIMER
There are days I wake up and feel as if I could take over the world! I yield all the power, and there is nothing that could ever stop me. You’ve been there, right? You can get all the tasks done and sometimes go over and beyond what your initial intentions were. But that doesn’t last forever. The other side of that coin is brutal, and with the kids fussing and the chocolate stash running low, you often end up getting nothing done.
If I take myself out of the emotional state that unproductivity can bring on, I can see that it’s because my focus is no longer there. I am not intentional with the tasks and items I need to accomplish with the time I am given. Time is one of the most things we have in life, and I don’t want to wast that! However, resting is just as important and the opposite of wasting time.
To keep that superwoman feeling, I need to make sure I don’t overuse or push myself to the burnout stage. The goal is to rest before getting there and start again with the same amount of ambition. So my solution has been to set myself timers. If you are ever a fly on the wall of my house, you will hear many timers throughout the day! My first step is to eliminate any distractions (aka the phone) and focus on what I need to do for an hour and a half! When the timer goes off, I walk away from that task!
After my relaxing moment, I can get back up and start it again with another timer in place!
BATCH WORKING
I’ll go more into detail on this in another post but basically divide your workload into different days or hours of one specific thing instead of jumping around from task to task to task. This will clear your brain from feeling overworked.
When it comes to batch working my business workload, I dedicate a specific day to focus on individual tasks. Example: Monday is blog day, Tuesday is social media day, and so forth. Instead of repeating the same thing every day, I divided it up in order to keep my focus.
TOO MANY DECISIONS
There will always be choices we have to make. But all those little things shouldn’t be filling our time and brainpower. When should the kids have lunch? What should I have set in place for them while I work? Should I workout in the morning or the evening, what should I make for dinner? What should I wear? These little tasks take up a lot of energy and should not take up space in my daily routine. My solution to getting these little things out of the way is planning ahead of time. I make a simple schedule that even my kids can read. I’ll say what time we can have a snack, what to do for free time, also what chores are expected that day. The schedule forms little habits, and soon my body and mind already know what is expected on Thursday afternoons. This year we were able to budget having an extra set of hands for the things that I dead most (cleaning the toilets).
FIND YOUR FULE
Take a moment to sit and look to see what it is in your business/life that lights you up. What are the things that get you excited?
Is it creating something new, interacting with clients, marketing your business, doing backend website building? Whatever it might be that brings you joy and energy should be your primary focus. Try to find ways to spend most of your energy on that. I know this sounds impossible because the stuff we don’t enjoy still has to get done, and there are only so many hours in a day!
What are the things that get pushed to the end of the to-do list? You know what I’m talking about … those things that you dread and hope will eventually magically get done without you! Give those things the three D’s. Delegate, delay, or delete them.
This might entail hiring someone to help clean those dirty toilets. It could be a part-time virtual assistant or delaying the tasks that are not high priorities to a later date. If you genuinely inspect the tasks at hand, you might even discover that there are things you don’t need to do. Are you spending too much time on something that’s not pushing your business forward? Evaluate the dreaded tasks and pivot away from those that are pulling you down.
When you focus on what fuels your energy, your business will flourish.
Those a few of my simple ideas to keep my energy levels productive. Tell me, is there something else that you do to help uplift your energy?
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