Doing Enough is the Key to Avoiding Job Burnout

Knowing how much we work each day is the key to avoiding job burnout, but as simple as this tip may sound, it's hard to implement because life is more complicated than that. So, how do we know what the limit of work sufficiency is?

When we look at productive people as an outside observer, we often assume that they work 18 hours a day. We see people like the American writer Stephen King, who publishes a book every year, and we say, "This man must be spending his time writing all day", but this is not true. Stephen King wrote in his memoir On Writing the following:  "I like to write ten pages a day and maybe up to about 2,000 words.

That work may take him a few hours rather than the day along his time, as he wrote in his memoir about having enough time during the day to go for a walk, read, spend time with his wife, and watch baseball.

So, if you've done enough work, it's time to stop working for that day. For Stephen King, sufficiency means writing just 2,000 words a day. To avoid burnout, we need to know what is enough for us, as this is the only sustainable way to have a long and continuous career.

Discover your minimum level of productivity:

To implement this strategy, you need to know what your "minimum level of productivity" should be in a day, week, or month, depending on the type of work you work in, so you need to be clear about the main measure of your work.

Let's continue with Stephen King's example. The main measure of his work is words, so how did he determine that 2,000 words are enough a day? "The 180,000 words written over three months are suitable to be the size of a book, which is something that the reader can enjoy if the story is written well and full of vitality," he says.

So, to write a book in three months, he simply needs to write 2,000 words a day, and that's the minimum level of his work, as he doesn't seek to write a book in just one month.

This is where most of us make mistakes. We take unsustainable daily actions, and we set those goals without thinking about the end result.

One of my friends said, "I plan to run every day, and my goal is to run 50 km a week," and I asked him, "What is it! Do you want to participate in Marathon?"

He just wanted to run more and maintain good health and physical condition. Although running over such long distances is a good thing if you're training for a competition, if you have other things to do in your life, that's too much.

I made this mistake too and ended up hurting myself. We often overload ourselves, as a result, we quickly reach the point of job burnout.

Here's the best  strategy to get to know your minimum level of productivity and how much energy you should put in each day:

1. Set a realistic goal:

Set a realistic goal that you control and that gives you enough time to complete that goal: Be ambitious, but don't be crazy.

2. Divide the goal into minimum daily actions: 

Let's say you've set a goal to start a profitable side business within a year, and you have divided it into daily actions, so that's what it can look like if you work daily:

• Allocate one hour a day to work on this activity, not just a few days.
• Stop working after enough effort has been put into
• Don't watch other people with side actions and think you should work harder.
• Enjoy your days.
• Work on your side activity every day.
• If you feel bad for a day or two, don't work.
• Don't blame yourself for it.
• Resume work.

If you're really busy, and you address yourself saying, "I want to get more done," remember that you've accomplished enough. It's all about long-term results. How to build a profitable online business that provides you with 10 sources of income? You start by creating this project.

3. Avoiding functional combustion requires rejection:

That's what  I learned after studying personal productivity for 10 years. It's easier to say "yes" than to say "no" to yourself and others.

We shouldn't underestimate our attraction to external appearances, and I'm talking about these kinds of thoughts that might occupy your mind, such as saying:

• I need to grow my business more quickly.
• I need to get a promotion every two years.
• I need to post something on social media every day.
• I need to work every day.
• I need to buy a new house.

Our list of "needs" is endless, and this all leads to increased chaos in your mind, as a result, you can't think clearly, and your natural tendency becomes to create a system. We try to organize more with complex to-do lists or productivity systems that push us to do more work.

When I created my productivity system in 2016, I built it on the basis of doing the same amount of work in less time. For me, that's the essence of doubling my productivity, and it doesn't mean spending twice as much time.

However, now I think it's a mistake to get more work done in a longer time, but this could take all the pleasure out of life, and who cares about increasing your productivity 10-times if you have to give up a happy life? Not everyone has to be (Elon Musk), who works 100 hours a week.

Instead, focus on what you want to get out of life. If we think about it deeply, most of us realize that we don't need to put in a lot of time. However, by doing enough work effectively, you'll have more free time to do other things, and those other things are what give us energy, joy, excitement, and so on.

Conclusion:

Every time you think you need to do more, you may actually need less work but more effectively; The reason for this is how long we've been in this life. Whereas our days seem short and our lives are long, when we try to cram everything into a short period of time and expect a lot from ourselves, we cause ourselves job burnout. It's a law that applies to everyone, and I've never met anyone immune to it.

However, if we do enough every day, we can avoid job burnout. The key to that is to improve your life so that you can persevere, and when you're done enough, stop working and continue the next day.