It’s 2023, and I’m crying in front of my fireplace at 10 p.m. because I do not want to go to work tomorrow. I had just litigated
two back-to-back trials that lasted weeks, and I was completely depleted—emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I felt incredibly silly and dramatic crying to my husband about this.
You see, this was more than me feeling “lazy.” It had been a long road to this moment where my job had slowly been consuming me. I faced exhaustion that would not go away no matter how much I slept. My body felt tense, like I was vibrating with anxiety the entire day. I was feeling teary-eyed and overwhelmed at the slightest inconvenience. Yet, I was performing the best I ever had at work, and I was really good at masking it.
Earlier that day, I’d gone to my therapist and said, “I feel myself burning out. I just don’t want to get depressed.” She quickly replied, “Girl, we’re there already,” and she proceeded to inform me I was experiencing depression.
So, I’m sobbing to my husband that night, telling him how exhausted I was and that I was “apparently depressed,” and he did not sound remotely shocked.
“Maybe it’s time for a break,” he said. I went on medical leave a week later.
In this article, I outline five ways I learned to be productive (because, unfortunately, we all have to work) without constantly burning out. Hope it helps.
1. Decenter your work
This could take up an entire post in and of itself because decentering your work is the biggest way to help you be productive.
It means detaching yourself from what you do.
Repeat after me: You are not your work.
When I was knee-deep in burnout, my work not only occupied most of my time and mental space but also became my identity. I’m Edna. A trial lawyer. I loved what I did and was passionate about it, but somewhere along the way, I forgot about the other sides of me.
Who are you if you’re not working? This question took me a long time to answer after I went on leave. I had to redevelop hobbies, interests, and relationships outside of work to know myself better. If you find yourself overidentifying with your work, then look at how you spend your time outside of work and be curious about how you can enrich/develop that side of you.
2. Protect your baseline
At the end of the day, you are the most important “productivity tool,” and that means you should start by making sure you’re functional. What are the baseline things you need to function, and how can you protect them? Meaning, not letting your work or other obligations get in the way.
Here’s an example: I would skip lunches to take meetings, go to bed late because I was working on something I didn’t think could wait until tomorrow, and barely drank water because I was too locked in. Logically, I knew I needed to eat, sleep, and drink water, but in practice, I stopped being intentional about it, and that came back to bite me. So, what are your baseline needs, and how (if at all) has your work been impacting them?
3. Schedule ‘relaxation’ time
If there’s anything I learned from chronic burnout, it is that self-care is not optional. Your mind and body will shut you down eventually.
But if you’re a busy person, it’s hard to see the usefulness of scheduling unstructured time to not do anything productive, especially if you have a lot of things piling up. I get it. That was/is me too.
I used to think I “did not have time” to relax and truly believed it. But if you don’t have 10 minutes to watch something or not think about all the things you’re mentally keeping track of, then that’s a red flag, isn’t it?
Ultimately, relaxing is actually productive. It gives your brain a reset that allows you to charge up for the next day.
4. Implement the rule of 3
I don’t know about you, but I used to be the person who had so, so many to-do lists and felt so defeated when I couldn’t accomplish everything that I wanted in a day. That resulted in never feeling satisfied with my work and always feeling behind.
Now, I implement a rule of three. I pick three overall goals I want to accomplish a week. Only three. If I get those done, then I’m satisfied. Everything else is icing on the cake. On a daily basis, I only pick three top tasks (not projects) to do a day. This is a common productivity suggestion for a reason.
5. Do a productive pause weekly
When I was in deep burnout, I’d forget what even happened that week. Being productive without burnout will require that you keep a finger on the pulse of your own well-being. Which is why every week I do a little reflection. I ask myself:
What were my overall energy and stress levels this week?
What drained my energy the most?
What felt supportive this week? (i.e., what helped me manage my stress or gave me energy).
Asking those questions helped me identify what I could continue to do or stop doing next week. It also helped me identify when I needed to slow down and ways to protect my baseline.
These are just some of the ways I try to still be productive while also protecting myself from burnout. I hope it helped <3