A friend of mine recently confessed she had long since hit burnout. She owns a business and has been working like a dog. How did she know it was burnout? She was tired all the time, short-fused, and not excited or inspired about her work. Common with business owners (see, I hadn’t created a piece of content for my website in like… 5 months - as a marketer, that’s… bad.)

With the first Wednesday of November being Stress Awareness Day, it’s a good time - before we race to the end of the year in Q4 trying to accomplish ALL the business goals - to sit down and reassess our own mental wellbeing. If only for a day, though really, we should all be setting up good habits that help us better balance work and life.

With the separation between work and home so blurry lately for those of us working at home (or living at work as my Husband says), burnout can be a slippery slope. As a business owner, when there’s so much on your plate - between marketing, managing your team, operations, and * gestures broadly * ALL THE THINGS…. avoiding burnout can be a tough task - especially at this time of year.

Here are some tips to heed as we go into the busy season to keep ourselves sane and to keep burnout at bay.

Take time off

Whether an hour per day, or a random Friday (I loved when I worked in the nonprofit space - we had summer Fridays from Memorial Day - Labor Day, our office closed at 2pm) - take time off from work. Schedule a vacation. Schedule a day or an afternoon off. You deserve time to take care of you.

Workout

My husband and I both work from home, we both work long hours, and sometimes we forget to move our bodies. We try, most days, to either take 30 minutes to go for a walk after dropping our son off at school, or I make it a point to schedule a workout class with my Fit4Mom group or on my peloton. Get all the endorphins - it’ll make you happy, and well, Vitamin D never hurt anyone - as we get the shorter days coming soon, that Vitamin D is more necessary now.

Take care of yourself

How do you define self-care? Do you turn off at a certain hour? Have something that you do for yourself? No matter what you do, you have to take care of yourself. As basic as they are, make sure you eat enough food during the day, get enough sleep, and move your body. Also, shower - not showering didn’t win anyone a Pulitzer prize. You have to take care of yourself. It helps.

Unplug

Do you spend all your time doomscrolling? Refreshing your email? Stop.

Shut your laptop. Turn off your phone. Just unplug. Despite being a social media manager, my weekends are family time. I’ll scroll through but unless absolutely necessary I avoid my laptop on the weekends and try to not be on my phone when my kiddo is around. It’s a bit of balance and helps me separate work from the rest of my life. Especially since social media doesn’t have off-hours. It just doesn’t.

Delegate

If you have a team, delegate. Don’t feel like you have to do EVERYTHING yourself. Think about what’s taking up so much of your time, what can you delegate to a team member? What can you outsource? What can you hire out? Delegate to take things off your plate. A former boss of mine who used to consult business owners would tell them, you are not an accountant, an HR manager, you went to school to do [insert skill here] - that is why people work with you. Not because you do all the things. Stop doing all the things - outsource what you can.

Change your scenery

Working from home 24/7 is exhausting. I mean, working from anywhere for long periods of time is exhausting and sometimes to reinspire oneself, you have to get a change in scenery. I love sitting downstairs on random mornings since our kitchen gets so much light, or sitting out on my back deck on warm days when I’m doing Instagram engagement for clients or catching up on my favorite email newsletters. You could also relocate to a work-sharing space, or a coffee shop to get a change in scenery also - even if only for an afternoon.

How to spend less time marketing while still getting results

I get that it might be hard to step back to take care of yourself - especially if you’re hustling hard for sales or leads. Planning, outsourcing, repurposing are all great ways to keep your marketing moving forward while you take a step back for a day (or three or ten.)

Remember, we’re not curing cancer - as social media managers - no one gets a medal for working to the bone to the point of ill-health. We’re human and as we’re seeing with the great resignation, people are tired of living to work for not a lot of money. Value yourself, your life, your time, and if relevant, your employees’ time and lives.

If you’re interested in outsourcing any aspect of your marketing, let’s chat!