Battling Burnout: Harnessing Time Management to Combat Extreme Fatigue
Nov 07, 2023Episode 25
Karalee Gault
Feeling endlessly tired and burned out? You're not alone. We'll be looking at the hidden factors in our daily lives that could be leading to this extreme fatigue and how to combat it. Expect a deep dive into the symptoms of fatigue, the causes, and how our jam-packed schedules might be leading to a burnout. Discover how critical stress management and self-care are in the equation.
Get ready to hack your schedule with the T3 Flex Framework, a tool crafted to manage your time, responsibilities, and commitments more efficiently. We'll guide you on how to prioritize and be more flexible with your tasks. We'll also discuss the power of 'no' and how journaling can be a game changer. Finally, we'll explore the role of boundaries in creating alignment with our purpose for a more successful personal and business life. Tune in for this enlightening discussion!
Feeling endlessly tired and burned out? You're not alone. We'll be looking at the hidden factors in our daily lives that could be leading to this extreme fatigue and how to combat it. Expect a deep dive into the symptoms of fatigue, the causes, and how our jam-packed schedules might be leading to a burnout. Discover how critical stress management and self-care are in the equation.
Get ready to hack your schedule with the T3 Flex Framework, a tool crafted to manage your time, responsibilities, and commitments more efficiently. We'll guide you on how to prioritize and be more flexible with your tasks. We'll also discuss the power of 'no' and how journaling can be a game changer. Finally, we'll explore the role of boundaries in creating alignment with our purpose for a more successful personal and business life. Tune in for this enlightening discussion!
Hello, amazing humans, welcome back to neurodivergent bites. I am your host, carol Lee, and today we're going to be talking about time management, stress management, schedule fatigue, how all of these things kind of blow up in our faces every freaking day if we're not really careful, and how they go hand in hand, plain and simply. And so when we think of fatigue okay, we're going to start there. Most of us know what stress is. Most of us know what our time is, right Now, what is fatigue actually mean? So I'm going to actually read you the definition. And the fatigue definition is an extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or an illness. Okay, you're weakened. Okay, it's a weakened state, right.
Speaker 1:
And when we talk about schedule fatigue, we're talking about how your schedule, how you're using your time, how much stress you're putting on yourself, how that comes into creating fatigue, extreme tiredness, okay. So I want you to evaluate right now. Here's your action step how do you feel about your schedule? Does it really make you feel super tired all the time? Do you have time for self care? Do you have time to breathe? Do you have time just by yourself? Like, what is your schedule? How does it make you feel? Do you feel like you don't have enough time? Do you maybe feel like you can't use your time wisely? Okay, really like, if you're a journaling type of person, I really seriously suggest that you start journaling about this. How do you feel about your schedule? How do you feel about what's on your calendar? Really, digging into the feelings I know, I know, I know Feelings aren't always like woohoo, that's, you know, fun and all the things, but let's really think about it, because when we dig deep, that's when we really hit the real, true meanings of what's causing us all this fatigue and this stress and why our time feels like it's so stretched. And when we can do that, that's when we really make progress. So today, that's what I, that's your first action step, and we aren't even far into this podcast episode, okay.
Speaker 1:
So I want to identify, though, too because you guys know I'm straight to the point here what are some like symptoms, what are some things that you're going to see come up in your life that are actually fatigue? Okay, symptoms of fatigue can be physical, mental and emotional. Okay, there can be any of these things, and a lot of these are like chronic tiredness, really sleepy, so there's lack of energy, could be headaches, dizziness, sore, aching muscles, muscle weakness, slow reflexes and responses, impaired decision making and judgment, moodiness, such as irritability, impaired hand to eye coordination, appetite loss, reduced immune system function, blurry vision, short-term memory problems, poor concentration, even as far as maybe some hallucinations, low motivation. Okay, there are an insane amount of these things and I've experienced personally, from having a very overloaded schedule, a lot of these things. I actually used to have chronic headaches, I used to be chronically tired. I used to literally lack all energy, like I don't know how I functioned.
Speaker 1:
If you're a mom, especially of young children, or if you're working multiple jobs, or if you're just you have, you know, you just said yes to too many things you can literally be fatigued, and a lot of it goes back to what we say yes, to what we put on our schedule. It also can do a lot with what is your capacity right? Do we have other things in play here that now we have to adapt our schedule to make sure that we're not making ourselves so fatigued that we can't function right? This kind of leads to burnout. It means it definitely leads to burnout. Let's just be real. So if you are constantly fatigued and you don't do anything about it, you're going to burn out or you're going to get sick Okay. So we don't want that to happen. But it all comes down to how we manage our stress and how much stress we put on ourselves. You know how much time we actually allow ourselves to do what we need to do for ourselves, and then how, like I said, how many things we actually have on this schedule that we are. Basically, it runs us right. So if you have a job, you have kids, you know you are a functioning human in society.
Speaker 1:
We all have a schedule. Whether it has 500 things on it or whether it has three, it can cause the exact same things, because we are all very unique and we all deal with things in different ways, and so obviously, here we're just doing a big overview of how these things work. But can you like? Like, headaches is a big thing for me. Or if I can't sleep, that means I have too much on my schedule. I am fatigued at this point, so I'm extremely tired, but I can't sleep. Or I have headaches more constantly Okay, my body is so achy when I know I have pushed myself too much Okay, my husband will tell me I'm super moody too.
Speaker 1:
Or I'm hangry Okay, I'm very hangry. If you haven't ate food, man, that can make you. You know that can lead there. If you keep doing that, too, right, when you're responding, or your ability to listen and things like that can be impaired. Right, it's slower, all right. And then when you're fatigued, it takes so much energy to even have a tiny tiny bit of motivation. Okay, I swear, I tell my kids this all the time. I'm like you guys don't have the motivation because you're not sleeping and you're not doing the things you should do and you're just kind of laying around. Okay, so these are a lot of things that can have this happen.
Speaker 1:
Now, there are plenty of causes of fatigue. We're talking about how your schedule can cause fatigue here, having too many things on your schedule. So, like that's, that's what we're focusing this around. All right, I'm going to go into a few ways that you can kind of alleviate some of this fatigue from your schedule. Okay, well, for one, I want you to lean into, like I said earlier, lean into what feels good to be on there. If there are things that take all of your energy, that are on your schedule, we're going to have to evaluate what they do for you, what they do for your family, what they do for your business, like do do they need to be on there? Because as soon as you start taking things off, you'll start feeling yourself, feel less fatigued.
Speaker 1:
Okay, because your brain isn't constantly making sure that it has all the things that needs to function Right, because it knows, if you have all these things on your schedule, it needs a hell of a lot more everything to function Right. It's going to need more sleep, it's going to need more food, it's going to need all these things. But if we're running ourselves ragged, it's not. It's it's not able to have those things. And the biggest thing that I've learned from starting to take things off of my schedule is that my nervous system got really, really dysregulated in the beginning Because it was thriving off of busy and constant like stimulation, although I learned that it was actually very overstimulated. But I was able to deal Right. That's thought, I was thriving and in reality I was actually just surviving. And so once I was taking some of those things off of my schedule kind of had a mini meltdown. It was like this doesn't feel good, yet it's supposed to feel good. So just open invitation to kind of feel into that. It is a wave, given everyone's unique. I can't give you a timeframe by any means, but it will pass eventually. So you're looking at your schedule, you're evaluating what's on there, what really needs to be on there. Okay, whenever I am, I'm putting something on my schedule, on my calendar.
Speaker 1:
I am asking myself two very important questions, and the first question is is how does this serve myself and or my family? Okay, because those are the most important humans in my life, all right. The second question I asked myself is do I have the capacity for this? Okay, do I have the time? Do I have this space? Do I have the energy? Okay, those are the three things that I'm asking myself, two things I'm asking myself. But in those capacity, wise, like, do I even have the room to say yes to this? Okay, because when we overload our schedule let's say it's a Friday I'm really, I got the capacity for all these things over the weekend, and then you wake up Saturday like I should have said no, okay, now, the longer you, you'll do that plenty of times, but the longer you go, the more in tune you get with your body, the more in tune you get with how you're, you're more aware you get is really the better word here how more where you get, with how your body reacts to different circumstances and things like me a year ago.
Speaker 1:
My capacity a year ago is nothing like my capacity today. I actually have more capacity today and that's because I have taken care of myself in that process in a way that feels good to me, not necessarily in a way that all mainstream media or anyone is telling me to do. I took Information I gathered from different sources, really sat with it and felt with it, drones it out like talk to some people. I'm a verbal processor, I love to talk to people and it really felt like what feels good to me. What is taking care of me? Look like, what is the, what are the commitments that feel good to me? Like I'm not, I'm just not. I'm not saying yes to everything.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and and a lot of us have that struggle, especially If we have, if we want to please other people, right, well, what about you? Are we pleasing you too? Like I mean, we've been told from such a young age, like you know, we have to take care of others. And then, like, when we become a mom, we have to take care of others, or if we become a part of, we have a partner, like we have to take care of them and like, well, where's you? And the saying of you can't give from an empty cup, it's legit, you can't. But like, realistically, we might. You might need more than what you're doing for yourself, right, and it could be simply starting with saying no to more things and feeling okay with that. Okay, and it's not gonna happen overnight, but that is what these things are for. But let's say we're gonna give you an example, because you're already if you're still listening here You're already going okay.
Speaker 1:
And like what if I can't take things off my schedule didn't what? Like what do I do? How do I get more done? How do I do this stuff? Well, for one, I want you to still go through those exercises that I suggested. I want you to ask those questions. I want you to do those things because I there's actually probably more on there that you could take off than you realize, until you actually sit with it and acknowledge that it exists and things like that. But there's always a place to start, right? So let's say you can't take off as much as you would desire to actually be able to take care of yourself and have the capacity for everything. Well, baby steps, right, we're going to have bite size action steps here, and so I want you to start with one thing a week. I want you to evaluate your week and I want you to go. What doesn't feel good in this week? I want you to see if you can take that off your schedule.
Speaker 1:
Okay, you can also implement my T3 flex framework, and I'm sure I will do a podcast on this as well. But it's the framework I've developed based off of the last two years of me really digging into taking things off my schedule, still being able to have the capacity for the most important things, then actually sitting down to work and not having to try to force my brain to do the thing. Okay, because when I force my brain to do the thing, it doesn't really happen. It doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel an alignment, it feels very pressured, and I want to alleviate as much pressure for myself as humanly possible. And so in the T3 flex framework, say that three times fast.
Speaker 1:
You guys, wasn't thinking about that when I named it, but with the T3 flex framework, it allows you to kind of compartmentalize but also make it flexible. So we're. That's actually about a definition, so it's able to have you break down the break down your schedule and everything that you have on your to do lists and everything that you are really important to you. We're able to break it down and be able to feed in and, most of the time, only do things when we really feel like we really need to. And there's a lot to this, okay, so I am not going to be able to explain this very easily on this podcast, especially this episode. So if you want to learn more, I do have my schedule accelerator that you can sign up for or catch the replay on and be able to, you know, really dig deep into that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I watched you through a couple of things, but, like we want to really start digging into what is really good, feels good, on your schedule. That is number one and that's why I started this podcast with this, because our schedule literally runs our life in our schedule, literally affects our time management and our stress management and our stress, our time and our stress management collides in one place and that's on our schedule every single freaking day. And so if we want more time and we want less stress, we got to look at our schedule. Okay, we got to look at our schedule and the T3 flex framework literally helps you. After you've looked at your schedule, how do we now still get it done? Like, how do we get all this stuff done? How do we not lose our mind in the process? How do we feel? Well, it doesn't quite go into how you feel regulated while doing it, because that's a whole different, deep conversation that is going to have to be had in more of a one on one conversation, because everyone's situation is very, very, very unique, right? So those are your bite size action steps for today.
Speaker 1:
I want you to sit down, I want you to journal about how you feel about your schedule, how you want to feel about your schedule, like what can be changed? What can you really say no to? Okay, saying no is not bad. That's something I used to actually believe as a little little added here, add, you know, whatever the parentheses, right? So saying no isn't bad, especially if it doesn't, if it doesn't feel in alignment with those two questions I said to ask right, whenever I'm saying, whenever I'm putting something on my schedule, does it serve myself and or my family, and do I have the capacity to add this Okay, that's around family holidays, business meetings, everything.
Speaker 1:
If it does not move the needle in business, it's probably not going on my list. If it doesn't feel good to me, period, it's not going on the list. If it doesn't support my kids or my husband or myself, it doesn't go on the list. Okay, it has to serve me and the things that are most important to me, and it's not selfish, that is not freaking selfish and that took me years to come to terms with, to come to terms with. Okay, so I get, I left you with a lot today.
Speaker 1:
I'm very, very empowered today, and that's freaking awesome because I need to record more podcasts when I'm feeling this way, and so, with that said, though, if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you. You can, you know, head to any of the social media platforms that are located below, and you can DM me on there. I'd love to chat, see what we can do together, and if you would like to be a guest or if you have a podcast request, like a podcast topic request, you want me to answer a question for you? You want me to go in depth with something else? You can, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
There's links below in the show notes that will. We'll give you that information and more streamlined, because, right, we want to have a streamlined system, right, we want to have a streamlined schedule in us. Our schedule is a system and when we're able to do that thing, we take all this pressure that we put on ourselves and we kind of open up and we're able to function so much better, we feel so much more in alignment with what we are doing and we feel very true to ourselves. Okay, so that was. That was our fun episode for today. So if you want to learn more, go ahead and sign up for that schedule accelerator or catch the replay. It'll be available as well.
