Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Addicted to Busy. My name is Anna Havliana. I'm your host. And today, I wanna talk about something that has probably been on your mind at some point, which is burnout.
No matter what type of property management you're in, whether it is single-family, multi-family, commercial, industrial, retail, you name it, you have probably been burned out at some point.
More specifically, the question I've been asking myself is a little bit uncomfortable. And that is, am I in any way contributing to my own burnout?
Now, I'm gonna be honest with you, this has been a really difficult one to coach on sometimes. Because it requires you to be willing to take ownership and ask yourself really uncomfortable questions. And I will be the first to say that when my burnout was at its peak, I was very quick to blame everybody and everything else. I really acted like everything was being thrust upon me unwillingly, when in fact, I was saying yes to many things and taking on too many things by my own choice.
And I've worked with plenty of clients who are very quick to blame their burnout on external circumstances, right? And sometimes, I will say, the circumstances really do suck. Property management can, in fact, be extremely demanding, unpredictable, and for the most part, just exhausting, right?
You spend your entire morning putting out fires, and by the afternoon, you probably haven't touched a single thing that was actually on your priority list, right?
You could prep all week to prepare just to take one day off, only to get a phone call in the morning that derails your entire day, right? Or you might get pulled into a quick conversation with a team member, and then all of a sudden it lasts a half hour, 45 minutes, and then you're behind on everything that you planned to do for the day.
Even if you are trying to stop checking your emails after hours, you might think to yourself, "Well, what if something important came in?" And then you open your phone anyway, and the next thing you know, you're working away on your phone.
Again, it is all exhausting, but the thing is, is that when we stay stuck in that narrative, we sometimes miss the ways in which we are contributing to our own exhaustion.
Like I said, I have definitely been one of those people, and from time to time, I still am, to be completely honest. There have been plenty of times where I have blamed everything around me and then never stopped to think, "How am I making this hard around myself?"
Now, to be clear, I wanna make sure that this episode, um, doesn't turn into something where we're just focused on self-blame, because that's certainly not gonna help you either, right?
If, if we're coming from a place of blame, that's more likely only going to increase your frustration, exhaustion, and burnout. And so it's more important, as cheesy as this sounds, to come about it from a place of curiosity. It's about looking at what's within our control, because truly, that's where all of our power is.
Saying this out loud, it feels like, well, duh. But when we look at the ways that we're actually choosing to spend our time and energy, you'll very quickly see that that is much easier said than done.
Burnout is very, very real, and a lot of times it is in fact caused by forces outside of our control.
Taking a pause just gives me some more breathing room to decide intentionally instead of saying yes either out of guilt or just pure impulse. And that little pause has made a huge difference.
The next thing that was really contributing to my burnout, and the one that I still struggle with, is setting boundaries, right?
Recently, I had experienced a couple times where we were short-staffed, and my goal, as simple as it sounds, during that time was to just take a lunch break, right? I, I wasn't trying to measure myself by how many emails I answered or how many tasks I got done, but to force myself to take a lunch break without my laptop.
Not getting things done while I'm trying to consume a meal.
Now, do I do it every day? No, I don't. And here's the thing that I'll say about that, is that I feel it on the days that I don't do it. I end the day usually more irritable, definitely less productive, but it's still a challenge to get myself to do the simple thing, which is just take a lunch or take a break.
Changing any type of habit, even if it's gonna be good for you, it takes effort.
Previously, when we've been short-staffed, eating lunch was one of two experience. Either I scarfed my food down in five minutes because I was trying to get it in before taking calls, or eating lunch took me an hour because I kept trying to handle different requests while eating my food, and I for- would just forget that I was even eating lunch in the first place.
This is one of those habits that I'm actively working on because not taking a real break throughout the day is one of the fastest ways to drain yourself.
And again, it comes back to what I was saying earlier, is that sometimes we are the ones contributing to our own burnout. When we talk about boundaries, oftentimes we assume that it's other people that we need to set the boundaries with.
But honestly, the person that I need to set the most boundaries with is myself, right? I can hear my brain saying every day, "Just one more email."
Especially at the end of the day, at the end of the working day, it, my brain will tell me over and over again, "One more task. One more, one more, one more."
So the challenge is learning how to notice when I'm the one crossing the line, and then learning how to practice holding that boundary with myself.
The next way that we contribute to our own burnout is procrastination. And I will say here, we don't always procrastinate because we're lazy.
Um, I know I'm not lazy. I, I do a lot of things. I'm active. I stay engaged in different things. Most of the time that I procrastinate, it's because I'm either overwhelmed or I just don't know where to start. So it feels safer to avoid the task rather than messing it up.
And again, as I've entered into a new position, a position that requires a bit more leadership than I've experienced in the past, I feel this a lot.
Sometimes I'm procrastinating on things, not because I don't have the time for it, but because I don't wanna make a mistake. But the reality is, is that the longer that I put something off, the heavier or more challenging it becomes, right?
Like think of every task that you've put off or like think of the one thing right now that's been on your to-do list for two weeks that you just haven't checked off, right?
It just sits there in the back of your mind, taking up energy that you may or may not even realize that you're spending.
And the one thing that's helped me with this is time blocking. When I block off time in my day for specific things that I need to get done, I'm less likely to get sucked into the busy work, and then I'm more likely to move through my day very intentionally.
So instead of reacting to everything, I'm working with a plan.
Oftentimes when I've worked with clients on time blocking, um, we'll set a date and a time on their calendar for a task that they've been dreading or a task that they've been putting off. And I'll make this joke. I'm like, "All right. If that appointment's at 2:00, then you better expect at 1:55 that you're just going to be in a bad mood, right?"
You're not gonna wanna do it. Your brain is still gonna give you all of the reasons why you should put it off, so just plan on being crabby and get it done anyways.
Okay, the next way that we oftentimes contribute to our own burnout is not eating or not sleeping well, and this one is tough.
I feel like I am either really good at sleeping well or either really good at eating well, but I have yet to master both of those at the same time.
So as far as advice here on how to do it, don't ask me because I still haven't quite figured it out. But if I do, I will let you know.
So the one thing that I cannot stress enough right now is to get off of your phone before you go to bed. Okay? Seriously, do not end your day laying there turning into just this little scrolly polly, right?
I once worked with a client who realized that one of the biggest contributors to her burnout was just her nighttime routine. Because even when she was just scrolling social media to kind of come down from the day or numb, she would eventually end up in her work email box.
So even though she wasn't technically working, even though she wasn't necessarily posted up at a computer, her brain was kind of on the clock 24/7.
What she needed was a true wind-down routine that helped her brain recognize work is done for the day. And that little shift made a big difference in her energy levels and also just her boundaries.
And this leads to one more trait that contributes to burnout that it's a little bit deeper and it's a little bit sneakier too. Um, and that is tying your self-worth to productivity.
Again, another one that I'm still working on as well. I love checking things off of a list. It makes me feel accomplished. I actually still have many of my to-do lists from, like, the last 10 years.
I've kept them all.
But the danger is that when we start to judge our value based on how much we do versus how well we prioritized, we oftentimes end up spending time on things that don't matter, or not that they don't matter, but we're not spending time on the things that actually move the needle for our teams or for our properties, right?
I, I cannot stand it when there are unfinished projects or unanswered emails. It absolutely drives me nuts. But depending on what type of workload or what type of property you have, and also depending on what time of year it is, that might just be part of it.
There are gonna be times where you're gonna have to work after hours or on weekends. Sometimes there really just isn't a way around that in our industry.
As I mentioned in the last episode, I took a, just over a week-long vacation to Ireland. And in order to prepare my team for before I left and also to catch up when I returned, there were definitely some long days.
And I hear managers say this all the time. They'll say things like, "Why even take the time off, right? I'm, I'm just gonna pay for it later."
And honestly, like, you're not wrong, and I've definitely lived that reality. But that also isn't a reason to skip a vacation. It's not a reason to avoid fun experiences or even taking time in a, or a staycation to just catch up on rest or catch up on household tasks, right?
There is a difference between chronically overworking versus preparing for something.
One of them is tying your value to your productivity, and the other is a strategy. It's a choice. Okay?
So I'm gonna come back to the question, the one that I want you to ask yourself if you feel like you're in a period of burnout, and that is, am I contributing to my own burnout?
And if the answer is yes, that's totally fine because you're not doing anything wrong. We're all 100% human just trying to figure this out, right? We oftentimes fall into patterns that don't serve us, especially when we're stressed.
But the good news is, is that once we notice those patterns, that's when we can start changing them little by little.
It's the pause before saying yes. It's fighting for your lunch break, right? Or time blocking your priorities or getting off your phone. It's also reminding yourself that your worth is really not tied to your to-do list.
If this episode resonated with you, I would genuinely love to hear from you. What's one habit that you wanna shift this week to better support yourself?
So feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram or shoot me an email at [email protected].
That's hello @ A-N-N-A-J-A-V as in vacation E-L-L-A-N-A.com.
All right, everyone. Until next time, I love you. Keep going.
