Principle II. Burnout is Not a Badge of Honor

“The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.”

― Lao Tzu, Te Tao Ching

Your time is valuable, and it is finite. Do not tolerate wasting it with inefficiencies; you'll resent your project and teammates. Working smart, is essential to stamina, productivity, and satisfaction on the team but it is easier said than done.

To do this successfully, commit to this value daily. Most importantly, you’ll need to trust one another— a lot. Trust requires transparency. Burnout happens when working more, in order to earn trust or prove value, is praised over working efficiently. This is the hamster wheel of “never enough.” Do not get on it!

For reasons beyond our control, my teammate and I were both struggling at work one afternoon; physically, and emotionally. We tried to push through it, and continue working as we had deadlines we were accountable to. It became clearer as time passed, that we were not making progress as we were too distracted and sluggish. At one point, we both looked up from our laptops, closed them and said, screw this, let’s go to the park. We sat on a bench, talked, about nothing to do with work, walked, laughed and cried. This was one of our most productive afternoons. It reinvigorated both of us to start again strong the next day, and we were much more effective.

In Practice: For you

Manage up

Be transparent and manage expectations proactively by sending a note to the team about the top deliverables you intend to progress on for that day. Ask if there is anything pressing you may need to prioritize up front in your day.

Don’t be a blocker

Don’t wait to be pinged, communicate proactively with teammates who you anticipate may be dependent on you. Let the team know your online and offline hours and the channels through which you can be reached.

Set and uphold your boundaries

Before agreeing to meetings or commitments that breach the boundaries you’ve set, suggest alternatives unapologetically. Boundaries are tested, and this has nothing to do with you, it's just other people being other people. What does have to do with you though, is your own discipline-- stick to your guns. You're not harming anyone by doing this, in fact, people may be annoyed for 2 minutes, and then forget about it, but you'll be empowered, and better off.

At the end of your day, plan for the next

When you’ve finished today’s todos, plan for tomorrow. Planning for the next day acts as a closing ritual, signaling to your mind that it’s time to put the work down, and set tomorrow up for success. Revisit tomorrow’s todo list and prioritize it from most to least important.

Be an ally first

Support teammates as they set their boundaries, by working around their schedule preferences too. Encourage them to communicate these preferences and document them in a shared place.

Know why you're working

If you're impassioned, and feeling in flow, great-- keep at it. Sometimes, however we turn to work to manage other underlying anxiety. If you see yourself working to "feel productive" but notice that the work you're doing is a bunch of menial small wins, like answering emails, doing empty research, or any of those tasks that aren't needle movers, check in with yourself and ask, how does this feel? I've noticed for myself, when I feel stressed, I turn to work to try to alleviate the stress. I'll notice myself holding my breath, my mind racing, and my eyes sort of glazed over. That is my cue to stop, and walk away, and feel into the anxiety instead of trying to get rid of it by working more. Know when to stop working, so you can continue working.

In Practice: For the team

Plan to plan

Try monthly planning sessions to review and align on milestones, work streams, owners and deliverables. Have each team member contribute for his or her work stream. Because of the nature of our work at DV, things change, or require a shift; be flexible, and plan to re-plan.

Use Slack for daily stand-up

Beginning each week, set weekly goals and daily goals. The daily goals you can break into action items to share in Slack stand-ups each morning. This clarifies who is working on what, and what goal each to-do builds towards.

Summarize your successes

Recap progress in weekly summaries to stay on track. Summaries can include links to finished deliverables or milestones for each work stream stored in the cloud. These summaries also reminded us of our wins and achievements to balance the negativity bias that we, as humans have. We often look at what isn't yet done, and forget to look at what we have done.

Set clear meeting intentions

Using a 3 bullet agenda in each calendar invite reminds the coordinator to reflect on why she is taking the teams time to meet, who needs to attend, and what success looks like. Call out who will be leading the meeting for efficiency.

Take notes, list action items

We did this on our calls and in meetings, then shared out notes afterwards with action items calling out clear owners, to help focus attention.