Work on multiple things without burning out
I’ve always struggled with the phrase ‘you can’t do everything’. I’ve also been at the knackered end of chronic fatigue. Now I focus on the way I do things as much as what it is I am doing.
A Portfolio Career, means combining different work and having a mix of income streams. ‘Multi-passionate’, coined by Marie Forleo describes an entrepreneur who has lots of things that excite and inspire them and that they pursue at the same time. A Slash Career, involves making multiple income streams from different careers at the same time. Doing everything is having a moment.
This way of working feels exciting and full of potential and I definitely recognise the desire to do everything. I’ve learnt the hard way that managing my energy is essential, and I’ve developed a few ways to work in a ‘multiple and everything’ way whilst staying healthy and energetic.
1. A mug. Working at home also means everything happens in the same environment. I have a mug that I only use when I am working on Brilliant Thing. I call it my Tuesday mug, its nice and big, comfortable in my hand and keeps me topped up with coffee or herbal tea as I tap away on my laptop. The mug helps me separate my Brilliant Thing work, from my other employment, even when I working at the same desk.
2. Energy Audit. When I am planning my day or week, I identify a few tasks where I want to focus my energy, then add an equal number of activities that will fill up my energy bank. I also consider the tasks I know will drain my energy and make choices about when I schedule those (maybe first thing in the morning when I have most energy) or if I need to do them at all.
3. Consider my consumption. As someone with lots of interests and a strong work ethic, I seek pockets of time to ‘consume’ new information to help me develop new things. Podcasts on the school run, learning in the bath, voice notes capturing ideas when on the move. Seizing opportunities for growth is super-useful but I know when I am over consuming, I burn out. The triggers I look out for, for me, are sensitivity to sound and lack of motivation. I try not to get to that point by regularly considering and balancing ‘input’ with unstructured time.
4. An everything journal. For years I wanted to journal but had some thing holding me back. I didn’t want to write things down until they were fully formed. I had various notebooks for different things and I never really got started on any of them! This changed when I decided to use one thick, hardback journal for everything. Something about it being used across all my projects and ideas made me less of a perfectionist and more of a jotter. Throughout the day I download thoughts, ideas and to-dos and get them out of my mind.
Maybe some of these ideas will help you too because you definitely can do everything, you just need to work out how.
