Strategies to Overcome Work Burnout

5 simple ways to beat burnout and reclaim your energy, (That actually work): After mentoring 600+ Founders, I've learned something: Most burnout advice is too complex to action when you're exhausted. Here's what actually works: 1. The 90-Second Reset ↳ Set a timer for 90 seconds ↳ Close your eyes, breathe deeply ↳ I do this between every meeting ↳ It's small but powerful 2. The Evening Cut-off ↳ Pick a non-negotiable shutdown time ↳ Mine is 6pm - no exceptions ↳ Move tomorrow's work to tomorrow ↳ Your brain needs the break 3. The Focus Filter ↳ Only check email 3x daily ↳ Turn off ALL notifications ↳ I've seen this save 2+ hours/day ↳ Start with just one morning hour 4. The Energy Audit ↳ List your daily tasks ↳ Mark each: (E) energizing or (D) draining ↳ Do (D) tasks before lunch ↳ Save (E) tasks for low energy times 5. The 5-Minute Promise ↳ Feel overwhelmed? Work for just 5 minutes ↳ No pressure to continue ↳ Usually, you'll want to keep going ↳ If not, that's okay too The truth about beating burnout? It's not about massive changes. It's about tiny actions that add up. Try ONE of these today. Just one. Which will you start with? Share below ⬇️ — ♻️ Share with someone who needs this reminder. 🧭 Follow Charlie Lass for more practical advice — Drop a ❤️ if this hits home.

I thought working late nights & weekend sacrifices were the key to success—until burnout hit hard. With 62% of IT pros facing it, here’s how I fought back!😱😖🥷 When I started my #career, I was all in—super excited, ready to prove myself, and constantly putting my heart and soul into every project. But after a few months, things started to feel overwhelming. I still remember missing my best friend's wedding because I was stuck with a project deadline. The guilt hit me hard, and I realized I was sacrificing my personal life for work. A year later, I hit a wall. I was physically and mentally drained, and my motivation was gone. Turns out, I was dealing with burnout. I lost interest in what I was doing, became irritable, and felt exhausted all the time. That’s when I knew something had to change. After some trial and error, I found a few strategies that helped me balance work and life better: 1. Set Boundaries: I realized how important it is to define my working hours. Now, I communicate my availability to colleagues and resist the urge to check emails after hours. This has made my evenings more peaceful without constant work notifications. 2. Prioritize Self-Care: I started making time for things that recharge me—exercise, reading, and spending time with family. Being physically active has boosted not just my mood, but my work #productivity too. 3. Use Technology Wisely: #Technology can blur the line between work and life, but I use tools to manage my time better. #ProjectManagement software helps me stay on top of tasks and reminds me to take breaks, which keeps me organized without feeling overwhelmed. 4. Seek Support: I leaned on mentors and colleagues, sharing experiences and learning from each other. Having a support system has been so important, and we often celebrate our wins together, which creates a positive work environment. 5. Check-In Regularly: I now regularly assess how I'm balancing work and life. Things change, and what works today might not work tomorrow. Staying flexible and adjusting my strategies has been key to keeping things balanced. Work-life balance is definitely not a one-time fix—it’s a journey. I still have days when work tries to take over, but now I have the tools and a #mindset to handle it better. In an industry like tech, where the pace is fast and the pressure is high, taking care of our #mentalhealth and well-being is critical. If you're feeling overwhelmed, remember you’re not alone. It’s okay to pause and reassess your priorities. #startups #entrepreneurship #workplace #worklifebalance #AI #tech #GenerativeAI #hustle

The #1 cause of burnout isn’t overwork. It’s pretending you’re okay when you’re not. You become a fake version of yourself every damn day. → Smiling in meetings. → Crushing deadlines. → Pretending to love a job that’s draining your soul. → Faking motivation. → Masking stress with caffeine and perfectionism. That’s not productivity. That’s emotional disconnect. Here is the stat NO ONE is talking about: 79% of employees have experienced burnout but more than half of them never told anyone. Not their boss. Not their team. Not even their partner. Why? Because burnout is associated with defeat and shame. To make it worse, LinkedIn highlights this culture of constant achievement. You can meditate, take breaks, go on a retreat… But if you return to pretending, you’ll burn out again, and this time faster and longer than before. Burnout doesn’t start at your desk. It starts in your silence. Burnout like this doesn’t go away with rest alone. It’s not just physical, it’s identity-level exhaustion. To overcome it, I guide clients through 3 core steps: 1.⁠ ⁠Radical self-honesty: What part of your life feels fake, forced, or out of alignment? Start there. 2.⁠ ⁠Micro-boundaries: Burnout often comes from tiny moments of self-abandonment. Saying yes when you mean no. Smiling when you want to scream. Fix the small leaks before the dam breaks. 3.⁠ ⁠Reclaiming your values: Burnout thrives when you chase goals that aren’t truly yours. Reconnect with why you started, and if that why has changed, give yourself permission to evolve and find your purpose. You don’t need to quit your job, but you do need to quit the version of yourself that was never sustainable. Can you relate? Drop a “yes” if this hit you. Or share the moment you knew you couldn’t pretend anymore. Follow Alex Wisch for more content on #burnout, #leadership, and #mindset.

On navigating burnout as a senior PhD student (and all stages of your academic life) (or novel ways to manage burnout as an academic). I sat down to write about burnout this morning, knowing full well that I am burning out. I've too many projects, too much editorial work, and too much grading to get done as the semester ends. I thumbed through my mental Rolodex and came up with five strategies. 1. Prioritize Intentional Breaks 2. Set Boundaries for Work-Life Balance 3. Engage in Regular Physical Activity 4. Practice Mindfulness or Reflective Activities 5. Seek Social Support All of them are good, but I've written about them all before. So I dug a bit deeper, hoping to identify strategies not only for my readers but also for me to navigate the burnout that comes with feeling pressure to perform and the fatigue that comes with the end of an academic cycle—be it the school year or a dissertation. Here is what I came up with! Strategy 1. Scholarly Cross-Training: Engage with topics unrelated to your primary research area to refresh your thinking and reignite curiosity. Example: If you're studying digital misinformation, attend seminars or watch documentaries on marine biology or architecture to inspire fresh thinking patterns. Strategy 2. Micro-Sabbaticals: Take short, structured breaks (e.g., 1–2 days) to completely step away from academia, providing rapid mental rejuvenation. Example: Schedule quarterly "unplugged weekends," deliberately avoiding all academic content, technology, and communications for 48 hours to regain perspective and mental clarity. 3. Reverse Mentoring: Seek advice or mentoring from junior scholars or students to gain fresh perspectives on your career, reducing the pressure of always being the expert. Example: Have monthly coffee chats with undergraduate or graduate students where you invite them to share new tech tools, research approaches, or perspectives that challenge your thinking. 4. Research Detox Days: Dedicate specific days exclusively to "fun" scholarly tasks—activities related to academia but not tied to your core projects or productivity metrics. Example: Schedule a day (s) to leisurely explore articles, podcasts, or lectures purely out of curiosity, without taking notes or outlining any papers. 5. Anti-Goal Setting: Instead of creating more ambitious goals, consciously set limits or caps on how much scholarly work you allow yourself to do, preventing overcommitment. Example: Set an intentional cap on daily writing time (e.g., no more than two productive writing hours daily) to force productivity within constraints, reduce exhaustion, and promote balance. Note: of course, you can have exceptions for deadlines. I'm going to try some of these in the coming months. Hopefully, it will help with the fatigue - the pressure of posting + writing + teaching is getting to me. #academiclife

It took a lot of tough days to see: Beating burnout isn't just about doing less; it's about nurturing more. Burnout blindsided me, but I learned valuable lessons along the way. Here's what helped me prevent and recover, and how you can too: Drowning in tasks? ↳ 𝙋𝙞𝙘𝙠 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙚𝙖𝙘𝙝 𝙙𝙖𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙤𝙠𝙖𝙮 𝙨𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙣𝙤 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙩. Always tired? ↳ 𝙎𝙡𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡, 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙩 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠𝙨, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙙𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙨𝙠𝙞𝙥 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙘𝙝 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨. Finding it hard to stay motivated? ↳ 𝙎𝙚𝙩 𝙜𝙤𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙚𝙭𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙬𝙞𝙣𝙨. Struggling to see progress? ↳ 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙨 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙢𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙝𝙪𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙙𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 Feeling alone in this? ↳ 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙥𝙚𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙠 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙝𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙛𝙮 𝙗𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙨. Burnout isn't a dead end. It's a reminder to look after yourself as much as you do your job. A fulfilled leader isn't the one who burns out from giving too much. A fulfilled leader is the one who thrives by balancing giving with receiving. #leadership #burnout #mentalhealth #wellbeing #enterpreneurship #selfcare #innershift #theleaderscoach #princessotigbu PS: What are your top tips for preventing burnout? Share them in the comments!