The biggest faulty assumption when you are experiencing burnout is this one: Everything is important.
But everything is not – cannot possibly be – important.
We’ve reviewed so far this week what burnout is (even if that term doesn’t particularly resonate with you), how to evaluate whether demands are linked to your outcomes and priorities, but sometimes, this lingering question remains: how can I tell?
When I was managing big teams, this was one of the biggest challenges for people, and as a result, I saw people slowly (or quickly!) heading down the burnout path. Here’s the key to dissecting that feeling that everything is important:
Only some of it is really important. The rest just feels urgent, which is not the same.
Sometimes, just stopping to ask yourself to make this distinction is enough to get clarity on how to proceed.
Sometimes, you need a little more help. This is where the Eisenhower Matrix comes in handy.
Try to separate how something feels from objective facts. Then, either do now, do later, delegate, or don’t do.