Feeling Burned Out? Maybe You're Not Being Selfish Enough With Your Time

Chunking your schedule by context is a well-known method to help you “get into a groove” with tasks sorted by context. For example, set aside one hour for processing all your email, then don’t look at your email again until the next email chunk. Or set aside two hours after lunch for reading or ideation work.

Make sure your schedule and its chunks of time are visible to your team, so they know when they can and cannot intrude. Then commit yourself to staying on task during those time chunks, and respond to any messages or requests at a free time in your calendar.

Setting a schedule isn’t enough. To really help yourself adhere to it and enforce your time boundaries, get in the habit of previewing the day’s schedule the night before or first thing in the morning.

You can also preview on a weekly basis to get a better sense of what lies ahead for you. Previewing your schedule psychologically reinforces the choices you’ve made as commitments, not just “stuff that has to get done some time — whenever no one else needs me.”

Regularly scheduled meetings are the most effective way to keep up with every team member’s workload and process, but they also help avoid smaller disruptions during the remainder of work time.

Use the regular meeting time to help each team member overcome sticking points and identify potential future stumbling blocks. Respect everyone’s time by keeping to a strict agenda and rigidly enforcing time limits for each agenda item.

Commit to leaving work behind at the set time and then embrace personal activities such as family time, exercise, pursuing hobbies and creative rest. This is especially important during our new WFH reality when those work/life boundaries get all too blurred, if not erased entirely.

Communicate your “on and off” hours to your team members and employees so they’ll know this is a priority for you. Bonus: It’ll likely become a bonus for them as well, and when they follow your lead, you’ll wind up with a happier, healthier, and more productive team.