4 Tips to Avoid Burnout and Maintain Peak Productivity

Do you ever suffer from burnout or feel like you’re on the edge of burning out? If yes you’re probably going to benefit from the following four methods that I use to prevent myself from burning out and to maintain an optimal level of productivity.

To be totally honest, I have only been practicing these methods for the past few years. Over my personal history as an aspiring peak performer I have had my fair share of pushing myself beyond the limit, even to the point where I was pretty much incapacitated.

But regardless of the intensity of the burnout that you’re used to experiencing, these methods will help you to reduce the probability of burnout and actually improve your level of productivity to better manage your energies and do it in a sustainable way. 

So if you’re interested in managing your vitality and maintaining a state of optimal peak performance without burning out then you’ll enjoy these four tips.

Tip #1: Schedule Your Breaks First

In my experience of modeling the most productive people that I know I detected a pattern in how they utilize their calendar.  All three of them had the same answer as to what they schedule in their calendars first… their breaks.  

Well technically only one of them called it ‘breaks’.  One of them said that he scheduled his ‘self-care’ first, and one of them even referred to it as scheduling their ‘sanity’. 

Do you have regularly scheduled breaks for yourself?  When we don’t block off time for ourselves it greatly increases the probability that we will fill our schedule with more and more stuff to do without respecting our own physical boundaries.

Do you schedule annual ‘time off from work’?  This can be a vacation or a staycation but if you want to prevent burnout be sure to block off time in your year for not working.

What about weekly breaks? Do you take at least one day off per week blocked off from working in a way that is non-negotiable?

And daily.  Do you have breaks scheduled in your day to not work and to manage your energies? Do you block off time for eating? Exercising? Relaxing?

Make sure that you are scheduling frequent breaks and that you are holding strong boundaries within your schedule so that you can actually get that rest that you need without overdoing it.

Using those breaks to take care of your basic needs such as sleeping well, eating well, resting enough and exercising daily will help you to manage your inner vitality to maximize your peak productivity. 

So in summary schedule frequent breaks including annual ‘vacations’, weekly days off, and also breaks throughout the day to lay off of the gas, relax, and recharge.

Tip #2: Bring Pleasure to Necessary Actions

In order to achieve the things that we want in our life there are the things we need to do.

How skilled are you at bringing pleasure (and even meta-pleasure AKA joy) to doing the things that you need to do to accomplish the things that you want?

It is easy to bring joy to the activities that we naturally want to do, but when we access our inner pleasure and bring it to our naturally ‘unenjoyable’ actions from the inside-out there are many benefits.

For one, internally struggling with our required actions burns unnecessary vitality.  When we deliberately bring joy to our necessary actions we save energy.  We become more productive and have more pleasure throughout our day. 

And finally, in addition to avoiding burn out you’ll have a much higher quality of your life because the whole of your life becomes more en-joy-able.

The ability to bring joy to your daily activities speaks to the importance of developing the skills of self-leadership, and emotional state mastery.

Tip #3  Practice Flow States

A flow state is a state of being singularly focused on a particular activity that is within our capability. Have you ever been in ”the zone” before? When we are ‘in flow’ we become extremely productive and typically we are performing at a high level.  

Because we are holding a singular focus and not multitasking we use our energies efficiently which allows us to accomplish more with less energy.

Also, flow states are innately pleasurable which reinforces the prior tip of bringing joy to your daily activities.

A fun fact about flow states is that because they are intense and focused we can only maintain a state of flow for about 45-90 minutes before we need to take a break.  If we push past that we start to edge ourselves closer to burnout so breaking ourselves out of flow at the 45-90 minute mark becomes extremely important.

This can be challenging because we are being productive on the things that are important to us and we are experiencing the innate pleasure of ‘flow states’ we typically do not want to interrupt them.

One tool that I like to use is alarms to help remind myself it is time to take a short break.  I just set a 90 minute alarm when I am ready to get into a workflow and give myself permission to focus on that one task, and only that task, until the alarm goes off without interruption.

When the alarm goes off I take a 5-10 minute break to rest and recharge my batteries before entering into the next flow state. 

A benefit of stepping out of the flow state is that stepping out allows us to enter a state of more diffused thinking (as opposed to focused thinking) which is actually where most creative discoveries and “ah ha” moments occur.

The better you get at cultivating flow states in yourself (which you can easily do with the guidance of a trainer or a coach who is trained in Neuro-Semantics) the more able you will be to get in and out of flow quickly and on command.

In summary, use flow states to efficiently be productive however every 90 minutes or so take at least a 5-10 minute break for exercise, meditation, diffused thinking, or deep relaxation to make it sustainable for your vitality over the long run.

Tip #4:  Check Your Energy Level Frequently

Throughout the day how often do you check in with yourself regarding your level of vitality? Developing a practice of vitality check-ins is a powerful tool I use to avoid pushing myself to burnout.

I like to do a quick check in every 15 minutes throughout the workday (when I am not in meetings) and for this my primary tool is a timer.  I just set a 15 minute timer on my watch or on my phone and every 15 minutes I hit snooze to recycle the timer. 

But before diving right back into my workflow I run a quick ‘systems check’. I ask myself, “What is my energy level right now? Would it be preferable to keep on pushing ahead or do I need to take a short break? Do I need to eat? Use the restroom? How long have I been in flow? Etc.

If I need a break before the “90 minute” flow period is over it is okay.  I listen to my body, and I learn from experience.

Running frequent ‘systems checks’ allows you to better understand yourself and consistently manage your vitality throughout the day.

But be aware, sometimes the consequences of our efforts are on a delay and it is important to pace yourself.

Having dealt with chronic pain I learned that, when I was feeling good while exercising I would want to keep on exercising and keep on pushing but it wouldn’t be until the next day (and sometimes 2-3 days later) that I would suffer the consequences of overworking myself. Our psychological energies work in much the same way.

Sometimes we feel vital and so we push harder not realizing that the consequences of that push will actually come later on.  

So use the 15 minute timers as a systems check and be sure not to push much beyond a 90 minute workflow without taking a revitalization break as sometimes the consequences of our extended efforts is on a time lag.

In Closing

I hope you found my four tips to avoid burnout valuable and that they support you toward reaching your optimal state of sustainable productivity.

One of the reasons why many people push ourselves to a point of burnout is because we want to perform at our peak and so we keep on pushing… pushing… pushing.

And the paradox is that, in service of efficiently accomplishing your tasks you eventually become forced to take a break (e.g. the burnout), because your body just can’t handle it anymore.

When you learn how to manage your vitality in a sustainable way in an ongoing manner you can find that optimal line of peak productivity. That will give you that longevity over time and allow you to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish with more joy, more pleasure, more energy and in a sustainable fashion.

Your Time to Share

What are you taking away from this article? I am wondering which of these tips was most impactful for you? And what can you contribute to this article? Do you have any tips that I didn’t mention for helping you to prevent burnout and to maximize that optimal sustainable productivity?  Collaboratively we are more together than apart and I value your wisdom so feel free to share them here.