Even though the idea of ‘banishing busy’ has been a hot topic for a while now, we are still hearing regular cases of burnout, fatigue and illness all caused by one culprit – stress.
The amount of times we are told everyday by media, friends, co-workers and family to ‘live a full life’ or ‘live to the max’ means we are constantly encouraged to micro-schedule every second of our life! Rarely do we allow any down time.
Schedules are compared, electronic family calendars are set up and colour coded to within an inch of their lives. We always have to be ‘doing’ something.
In order to create a full life there needs to be some consideration given to balance; that is balance between doing something and doing nothing (i.e. rest!)
I know that many of you will laugh at the notion of doing nothing. Who has time for that, literally, but hear me out.
Even though my goal for The Concierge Collective is to minimise the stress in the lives of our clients, I myself have had a recent up close and personal experience with burnout. I was pulled up by a colleague who pointed out that I work at full speed during the week and then on the weekends my leisure activity was running. There was nothing slow or ‘yin’ in my life.
I ignored this advice for a further year until my body gave me the message loud and clear and I became ill for 2 months and had 4 round of antibiotics! Finally heeding to my colleagues advice and the warnings issued by my body, this year I have ‘scheduled’ (and actually attended) one yoga class each week to try and redress my own balance.
There is always something that needs to be done. There are the jobs that torment you from the fridge door every.single.day adding to your overall sense of urgency. The list has been there since 2014 and is still being added to and yet tasks do not get crossed off at the same rate.
What you wouldn’t do to be able to get rid of that constant distraction in order to get a few precious minutes to do nothing; to rest. The last thing you want on the weekend is to clean the house or face the mountain of paperwork in the study.
Start making every second count – but in a good way. Banish ‘busy’ and prevent burnout, stress and fatigue by just stopping and reassessing the tasks that are filling your days. Do you ‘need’ to be doing that, or can someone else do it for you?*
*Did you know that for just $0.02 a second or $1.58 a minute, someone else can – us!