entrepreneurial burnout, can it be avoided

Summary

I’ve burned out twice in business. both times it wasn’t volume. it was content. I was spending the day on tasks that drained me and I couldn’t see it because I was buried in them.

the fix is a schedule audit. for one week, every 30 minutes, write down what you were doing. then go back and color code it.

1. green. the work that energizes you. you’d do this for free.

2. yellow. fine. neutral. doesn’t fuel you, doesn’t drain you.

3. red. soul sucking. you feel worse after doing it.

the goal is to delegate, automate, or eliminate every red and most of the yellow. that’s where The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks comes in, what he calls your unique genius. the more time you spend there, the more output you produce and the less burnout you carry. tasks shift over time so this isn’t once and done. you re audit every quarter.

Transcript

introduction to entrepreneurial burnout and personal experiences

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey. So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Let’s talk about burnout. You ever been burned out on anything ever?

I’m sure you have. I know I have. I’ve felt that way multiple times. This is the Better Human Business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon, and I’ll never forget I was in college and I was doing a lot in college. I was a part of multiple different extracurricular organizations. I also did ROTC in college, which is probably equivalent to like taking like kind of being an athlete in college. And what I mean by that is just the time commitment wise is like there’s a lot of after hours things, early morning training sessions, all these kind of things.

So kind of like being a collegiate athlete, again, just from a time perspective. And then also I had to I was on scholarship, so I had to graduate within a certain amount of time, and so I was always taking like a full load. And then sometimes I’d have to do summer school. And I was talking to one of the upperclassmen about. All I was doing, and it was like all these clubs and organizations, ROTC school, the workload I had there, summer school training, like physical training, I train a lot more than other people, I was also on a sports team.

discussion on the causes of burnout and the difference between college life and entrepreneurial challenges

So I was doing a lot of different things. And I mean, my had a girlfriend, fiance at the time. And so anyway, all of those things was it was just a lot. Right. And I’ll never forget one of the upperclassmen telling me, like, that’s a great recipe for burnout, what you’re doing right now. And I was always like, oh, I kind of got scared as a burnout. I never I don’t know what that is. Again, like I’m in college.

I’m like, what is what is burnout? I’m not going to am I going to burn out? Am I going to all of a sudden get tired of doing all this stuff? And like, I’m just going to it’s going to be too much. And I never, ever got there, never got to burnout at that stage, never in college, even though like my calendar was crazy. I never really got to burnout. And I never really got to burnout in all honesty until I became an entrepreneur.

I have hit burnout over and over again. And so I always look back at it and I’m like, well, was it like why? Why have you hit burnout as an as an entrepreneur? Like, why does that even happen? Why does it happen to me when it didn’t used to happen? And at first I’m just like, well, you were younger and more energy, fewer kids, like all those kind of that might be it. But then I found over the years that’s not it either.

detailed strategy on how to audit and analyze daily tasks to manage burnout

The real reason burnout happens is because you are doing soul sucking tasks that you don’t actually care about. And that really happens in entrepreneurship, especially at the beginning where you’re wearing every hat. Then you can hire out a hat here and a hat there, and other people can start taking off, taking tasks, you know, out of your workload. Then you start to do things that you enjoy, and when you’re doing things that you enjoy, you realize that burnout is not really a thing.

It’s like I have I am doing so much of what I enjoy currently. I have I have to be told to stop working, like I have to follow a strict schedule to stop working because I need to be with my family and engage there. But like if I didn’t have a family and, you know, I was doing all the things that I love, I probably just work all the time because I love it. And I don’t think burnout would happen.

Burnout would happen if I was doing a bunch of crap I didn’t want to do, like trying to keep my own books. And like it’s just all the little like tasks that kind of suck as an entrepreneur that you have to do that you wouldn’t have to do if you weren’t an entrepreneur. Like if you are, I mean, every job probably has some tasks that you don’t like. But as an entrepreneur, it makes you dive deep on tasks that you don’t like that because you can’t afford an employee early on to do these things.

explanation of color coding tasks and its importance in managing energy and enthusiasm

And so what do we do? What’s what’s the fix here? Like, well, how do we make sure that we’re not going down this burnout path? Well, here’s what you do. You need either software, which I recommend, like Google Calendar or just a piece of paper, a pen and a couple of highlighters. And so let’s talk about going through it. What you’re going to do is you are going to audit your day every 30 minutes of the day, you’re going to stop and you’re going to write down what you’ve done.

And that’s if you are not keeping a very good calendar, because I look at my Google calendar and everything that I’m doing that day is already on the calendar. I don’t need to do like a time audit where I start writing down what I do, because what I do is already on my calendar and I don’t really deviate from what’s on my calendar. So anyway, either you’re more like me, super organized, you use the calendar all the damn time or you don’t.

steps to delegate, automate, or eliminate draining tasks

So in which case get a piece of paper and set a timer in your phone for every 30 minutes. During your work day and just write down what you’re doing, what tasks you’re doing, OK, and now you can do this in Google Calendar, the next step here after you’ve audited, let’s say, a full Monday through Friday, because most people’s weeks typically repeat after you’ve audited a full week doing this every 30 minutes per day. You’re going to go color code your schedule and you can do this with highlighters if it’s right now or you can actually change the color of events in Google, Google Calendar, and you got three colors.

So if it was something that’s really excited, you enjoyed it. You enjoyed working on that. Change the color to green or highlight it green. If it’s kind of a neutral task, you weren’t thrilled about it, but didn’t necessarily suck. Yellow, and then if the things that just suck the life out of you, red, OK, green, yellow, red, just like a stoplight. And what the goal is, is you want to delegate, automate or flat out delete anything that’s yellow or red.

closing thoughts on achieving an “all green” schedule and maintaining long-term passion in your work

OK, so if it’s red, we need to hire out. We need to get it out of there as fast as possible. And what you might find when you have like 30, 40 percent of your calendar is red, you’re like, oh, crap, I’m doing so many things I don’t like. No wonder I’m starting to get burned out and hate these things. That’s that’s a big red flag. OK, so you’ve got to get rid of those things as fast as you can, whether just stop doing them, hire a contractor, hire a full time employee, get rid of the reds.

The yellows are typically things that can also be delegated and need to. But I understand the expense of trying to hire every single thing out. So got to get rid of the reds. Yellows would be next. The ideal thing that you want to be doing is everything’s green. When everything on your calendar is green, then you are not going to get burned out, you’re doing all these things that you love and enjoy, even though it’s work.

And hey, here’s the deal. These things can change. Greens can turn to yellows. Yellows can turn to reds. And that’s OK, too. It’s OK to make these adjustments. Like I know a ton of physical therapists that I’ve worked with who treating patients was a green for years. But they kind of got burnt out on it. They want to do it less or not do it at all. They want to move to that business owner role. And now treating patients has gone from green to yellow and yellow to red.

It’s not what they want to focus on. They want to focus on the business growth. And that’s OK. These things change. These things have changed for me. Like right now, creating content for me is a green. I love it. And it’s been a green a lot of my career, but sometimes it gets so mundane. If you’re not excited about the topic, it can become a yellow or red. And it’s OK. It’s just a phase, you know, and so maybe I need to switch that up.

Maybe I need to change it up and change my calendar up until I feel like it’s a green again. Or do I delegate it? Can someone else do it? Ultimately, I really enjoy creative content, but it’s definitely gone from green to yellow for me at times. And right now it’s definitely in the green. And that’s a majority of what I want on my calendar. But early on, having to actually keep my own books was a red going in and like, you know, itemizing every single expense in a business, whether it was, you know, this or that or the other.

Like, that’s just red. It’s so red. Like, I hate that stuff. I hate a lot of the financial stuff, to be honest. And so getting rid of those things as fast as you can is going to free up a ton of mental space. And you ultimately are doing what you love and enjoy. And the more you can do that, the more work you’ll be able to put in. And there are a lot of great books on this.

The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, he talks about your unique genius. And when you’re operating in your unique genius area, you. You can basically work forever, you’re always doing something that you love, but it takes you identifying what you love and what you hate to be able to do those things. So I really challenge you if you feel like you’re getting burnt out or you’ve been burned out before. Audit your calendar, what are the specific tasks that you’re doing that are yellow, red, green, and then take some time, it’s going to take a lot of time.

You can’t do this in a week unless you have a big team and a lot of money, but it’s going to take, you know, the time of identifying what you like, what’s kind of draining your energy and what really fires you up and trying to put more of those greens on the calendar to where you’re getting, OK, 50 percent of my calendar screen, 80 percent, 90 percent, 100 percent and 100 percent when you’re 100 percent green, you’ll you’ll be in the same boat as me to where it’s like I don’t want to stop.

I might stop because I have a family. I got other commitments, but like I sometimes I don’t even want to stop to work out. I’m like, I’m just I like what I’m doing. I don’t want to go work out, but I go work out, really go do those things because they’re that’s also green for me. But that’s where you’ll get to when you’re really enjoying what you do. And that’s what I want for all entrepreneurs, because burnout shouldn’t be a thing.

We shouldn’t have to get there. Sometimes you have to slug through it on your way up before you’re able to hire employees. But ultimately, you want to have all greens on your calendar and operate in your unique genius. And to do that, you have to try.