A Primer: Do Your Job

"You tired? Me tired, too."

This is the start of roughly 20% of the conversations I've had over the last few months. Our brains are regressing to caveman status. Soon we'll just be grunting and pointing. Burnout is real. This is not another article about managing burnout. It's about avoiding it altogether by making key changes to your daily habits.

Picture yourself at the Thanksgiving table. It's 4 pm. Your plate is nearly clean, and you've crumpled a napkin on top of it as a literal white flag. You breathe deep, "no more," you say as the family matriarch offers the last scoop of cornbread casserole. Then Uncle Buck hands you a smaller plate with a nice slice of apple pie. Do you (a) pick up your flag and wave it in his face, or (b) eat the pie. This isn't a Scantron, but the answer is usually B. Why do we do this to ourselves? Are we gluttons or just gluttons for punishment? Again, the answer is B. The Caveman has taken over. Me tired, too.

So how do we say no when our plate is full? Paige Cohen, Sr. Editor at the Harvard Business Review may have said it best. "Strategically saying “no” can afford you more energy, time, and work-life balance. It’s a talent: the ability to prioritize work that will showcase your strengths, or focus on tasks that will help you develop the skills you need to advance to the next level." In other words, do your job. My team at OMD knows this is a mantra of mine. It hits from both sides of the plate (not the one with the pie, the one with the strike zone). When you can switch hit, you have the utmost control of the strike zone. On one side, doing your job means giving yourself the right to say no. On the other side, doing your job means giving yourself the focus - and the energy - to effectively deliver your work.

No one wants to be tired at work. And everyone wants to enjoy their workday. If you're constantly piling things on your plate to the point that you need a new plate, it's time to do your job. Here's how I do mine - from burnout avoidance to tips to get shit done:

1. Eat the frog. This is the title and figurative subject of Brian Tracey's classic business book. And it works. I suggest reading it, because when you learn to “eat the frog” – meaning do your most important tasks first – you'll work more efficiently and be happier too. You've got to eat it, might as well get it over with. I start with the legs.
2. Stay full, not stuffed. Use your downtime for personal fulfillment. The pandemic re-introduced a skill from a bygone era - the "walk and talk," meeting. Any meeting that doesn't need a screen share can be a walk-and-talk. But, if you find that a precious 30-minute window in a 10-hour day needs to be filled with a call - you missed the opportunity for personal fulfillment. Consider a walk and listen. Listen to the birds, some music, a podcast, or your inner monologue. Ask yourself questions that you don't know the answer to, or wish you had an answer for - but it's out of reach. Use the time to ponder. Cognitive tests over the last 10 years consistently show that such downtime is more than a battery recharge, it's attention and creativity recovery.
3. Save Ferris. Channel your inner Bueller and take a day off just because. You don't need an excuse! Take a Wednesday off some time. Don't steal a Ferrari, don't pretend to be a sausage king, don't lip sync on a float you don't belong on, and don't expect others to do your job while you're away. But most of us corporate folk get paid time off. That means taking the time is a paid part of your job. In fact, not taking time off hurts a lot of others. If Americans used their time off to travel, the economic opportunity amounts to?... $150 BILLION in additional travel spending and two million American jobs. That's also billions in unused benefits. So do your job, and others will have one.
4. Macro Manage. Surround yourself with good, capable people. That's it. They'll do their job, meaning you don't have to do it for them. Do your job, not theirs. This means saying "no" to yourself sometimes, not just to others asking you to take on more.
5. Listen to your heart. Literally. Stress is a killer, and when you find yourself so tired that the slightest inconvenience puts you into a tailspin, you're not doing your other job: taking care of number one. Reducing workplace stress benefits everyone and can lead to improved morale, increased productivity, and, better focus. Even OSHA has plans for managing workplace stress.
6. Know your role. If you're not sure what you should be doing, either because of prioritization or lack of clarity, ask your boss. I did this one last week. LAST. WEEK. You will never be too senior to ask for direction on the simple things. You're a human, and humans work best as a group with individual roles. You can't crush it every day - especially if you're not sure what "it" is - so ask for direction, and you'll be better at your job.
7. Max power. More than a hair dryer setting, but a way of seeing yourself by being yourself. Authenticity requires honesty. So know your weak points and find ways to strengthen them. Especially if they're stopping you from doing your job. I use this thinking as a guide to find my weak spots: argue like you're right but listen like you're wrong. This will help you learn, and also unlearn inaccurate points of contention. Be warned though, folks can't experience your internal listening, so don't argue for the sake of being right, you'll come off as polarizing. You're more complex than that.

In order to do our jobs, and do them well, we need to stop negotiating with ourselves. We have got to be able to find balance and focus as neither is mutually exclusive. I'm hopeful some of the above made that clear. Work-Life balance is not a teeter-totter. It can't be. That puts the fulcrum between office time and home life. There are not enough hours in the day to make that math work. You will always teeter to work, and crash down on the weekend when you think the weight of the week is gone. Find the opportunities to push the pivot point further into a central position. But, there is only one way to do it. You guessed it: Do. Your. Job.

Stay curious. Stay tuned. More to come.

-LL