What To Do When You’re Feeling Exhausted

Lessons for Leaders

What To Do When You’re Feeling Exhausted

We all know work life balance is crucial for fighting work fatigue and yet we're living in this environment with the pandemic and juggling all sorts. There's difficulty in setting proper limits in the working day and resulting in blurred boundaries, struggling with priorities and exhaustion.

So I'm talking to you this work about:

• Why you shouldn't be so hard on yourself
• How you can switch up how you prioritise (because traditional ways are not applicable right now)
• How you can work with noticing your energy levels
• How to put downtime back into your day, in a different way
• Why it's really crucial to take more breaks, but how you can do that.

The Fatigue and exhaustion isn't about just being physically tired, it's also about being mentally exhausted too.

Nearly everyone I talk to are finding that their energy is low, motivation is low and they're generally feeling exhausted which results in:

• Difficult to concentrate
• Hard to focus
• Lack of organisation
• feeling stressed, anxious, fed up

It's difficult for our brains to be able to focus really clearly when we've got so much going on and so many differing priorities. Plus we haven't got the connections and interactions that we used to have in social or work setting that increase the feel-good chemicals.

Top Tips to Help You Feel Less Exhausted How Do We Prioritise When We're Feeling Exhausted?

The usual ways of prioritising have gone out the window in current times with what is, quite frankly, completely bonkers lifestyle.

Listen to the podcast where I go into more detail on this, but in essence I'm sharing:

• Why we need to start small with some tasks so that it feels achievable and clears same tasks to give breathing space.
• The book "Eat that Frog" talks about doing big things first, however when we're exhausted it's better to motivate and energise ourself with smaller tasks for about 30 minutes.
• Make sure you're using traditional overwhelm strategies which mean getting it out of your head and prioritise (even if it feels like priorities are changing rapidly.

Listen in where I expand on some options and different ways that you can prioritise that will work for you. And how you can work with energy levels as well as priorities.

Look at how to time block and put your effort into chunks of the day. Then fit this around rescheduling your day so it feels you can do and also accommodates any childcare and schooling needs alongside your work priorities.

Save smaller and easier tasks for short time blocks or when your energy is low.

Listen in where I talk about motivating yourself with a 5 minute rule to raise your energy levels and work around that exhaustion.

Why You Might Still Be Exhausted Even Though You're Sleeping Well

This could be a whole episode in itself.

Have a listen when I touch on this briefly about key areas to watch and reasons why you're still tired and exhausted and what you can do instead.

The Best Ways to Add Downtime to Your Day When You're Exhausted

Lots of people are working in the evenings for various reasons around the personal circumstances. I cover some in the podcast.

Spending downtime on mobile phones, laptops and doing emails in the evening is not as helpful as we might think. Have a listen to why this impacts on our ability to get a proper rest and adds to the feelings of exhaustion.

Whilst it might seem counter-productive, I really recommend you take more breaks. Fit these in where you can and often these are not in the traditional ways we've been used to.

I share more on the episode about how you can start with five minute breaks and a quick list of ideas of what you can do.

Balance and Boundaries are Crucial for Fighting Exhaustion

So many of us feel like we don't have time to takes breaks or prioritise rest time. We feel like we're too busy, feeling guilty, under pressure to allow time for balance and boundaries.

Talk to me about my workshops and training creating Health Work Life Boundaries if you want this for your organisation. I also work with individuals and groups to provide coaching on this too.

Don't be hard on yourself. Please put in some time to switch up how you prioritise and take some more breaks.