5 Tips to combat burnout and manage your workflow!
As an entrepreneur, running a business requires systems and routines, especially when leading and wanting complete control of your business plan and strategies. Now that we're living in uncertain times and the digital spaces are constantly changing, it's almost natural to fall into burnout and stress.
As entrepreneurs, we're constantly growing, learning new processes to adapt to any given situation. Still, it's completely normal to get a bit disorganized and experience unproductivity when there's TOO much going on. At RAVEN, our first-time clients experience a common problem: not finding a workflow that works for them.
Managing clients and our business over the years took a lot of trial and error until we found a groove that works for us and our client's businesses. Here are our top tips to help you manage a workflow (feel free to adjust it to a way that works for you and your team!)
Find your purpose and discover your whys.
Before you create and establish a workflow that works FOR you, you must define your purpose and WHYS.
Having a purpose motivates you to finish projects and deadlines efficiently. It's easy for us to get lost in the "hustle" and hinder our productivity levels. You have your business objective, but it's great to remind yourself over time. Why are you doing what you're doing? What is the ultimate end goal after finishing the tasks on your list? It reminds you that you're doing what you're doing because you have an END GOAL and it's not just to finish a task and move on to the next. It helps you humanize your brand, rather than it being a robotic piece of work.
Jot down your business "whys" and make a separate list of your "personal growth whys." Remember, you can have multiple whys.
Here is an example of ours:
The answer to our business "Why" is: to help our clients confidently cast the net to their ideal target audiences in any given digital space.
The answer to our personal "Why" is: To be able to travel the world, meet clients in different industry niches to help us grow and expand our experience and skills.
You can round up your "whys" monthly or quarterly to remind you of your sole purpose; this strategy will pave your way to success and change your mindset. By evaluating your "whys" monthly or quarterly, you can also do a comparative analysis to see why they've changed over time. Check your growth!
Take a step back and evaluate your tasks and systems.
Now that you've defined your "Why's," it's time to revisit and revamp the old To-Do list and break down and categorize high and low priority items. Do a massive brain dump and itemize every little thing you're working on in your business, whether it's big or small. Free tools that we find helpful are Project Manager tools such as Asana or Trello and note-taking tools such as Evernote or Goodnotes 5 that we use on our Ipads. Filtering your task list into low priority, high priority, and incorporating "urgency levels" makes our lives easier and prevents us from getting sidetracked and alternating tasks.
Low priority items: Are items we include in our daily routine. It can be as simple as up-keeping and answering emails or replying to the engagement on our social feed.
Medium priority items Are items on our task list that require a bit more time to complete. The best way to achieve these items is by setting a given time limit. This increases our productivity levels and limits distractions.
High priority items: Are items that have a heightened sense of urgency. For example, if a deadline is scheduled for the end of the week at RAVEN, we break down our working sessions daily and finish the high-priority item two days before the deadline. This strategy helps us combat procrastination and gives us time to breathe before the end of the week.
Here is an example of ours:
Take a deeper dive into your routine and evaluate your wins and losses.
Were there any times in your business where you've gotten everything done on your task list promptly while giving your 100%? Was it during the beginning of your business or more recent? Pinpointing these moments where you genuinely felt like you've had everything under control while getting the expected results helps you define what habits and routines work well or what didn't with your strategy back then.
At RAVEN, when we were evaluating our losses and wins, we discovered our limitations and boundaries. Establishing our boundaries helped us analyze how many projects or clients we could take on while giving them 100% attention and quality output. After defining the numbers, we went back into our task lists and figured out if there's room to take on any more projects.
Remove distractions!
Previously, we mentioned the use of time limits per task on your task list. The time limits you spend on each task prevent you from procrastinating and stacking on items in your task list during the week. To accomplish these tasks and work efficiently, you have to remove the distractions that hinder you from getting things done. The goal is to give you more time to breathe, take more breaks and do something that contributes to your personal growth (whether it's taking walks, attending that yoga practice, or finishing your reading list). Turn off that Netflix series in the background, move your workspace from your bedroom to a desk or a cafe, and only check your phone if there are urgent calls or messages you need to attend to. Ultimately, as an entrepreneur, you should love what you're doing instead of being burdened by your job!
Take on what you can handle, or take on less than you think you can handle!
Now it takes time to develop a workflow that works for you, and it took us a lot of trial and error to find one that sticks. We found a valuable piece of advice upon trying many strategies to avoid burnout: "Take on less than you think you can handle." This pro-tip has worked with us immensely. As entrepreneurs, overloading ourselves with work may SEEM like you're getting somewhere, and yes, it may show in your numbers but are you producing quality work? Are you giving 100%? If you answered no, we're raising our hands too. In the entrepreneur world, hustle culture is often romanticized, but eventually, it leads to "burning out" and being unhappy with the tasks at hand. You can't run a business if you aren't contributing to your personal growth. Personal growth stems from giving yourself time to breathe, rest, hone your skills and, doing things you genuinely love. People gravitate towards brands that have a healthy culture and, you can't have healthy company culture if the mastermind behind the brand is "burned out." Give yourself wiggle room.
You can do this by collaborating with experts in your niche or outsourcing tasks that you're not particularly an expert in.
Taking on tasks that we can handle and freeing up our to-do list helped us achieve our goals quicker and give our 100% to our dream clients.
Over time, we realized that many business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs were having difficulty with their workflow. At RAVEN, our mission is to guide entrepreneurs through their task list, help them achieve their goals while expanding their digital spaces. Are you in need of a workflow revamp and wanting to off-load the challenging ones on your to-do list? Our digital experts would love to help. Hop a complimentary discovery session with us and let's start with defining your "whys"