Episode 73: How to Avoid Burnout, Cut Out Distractions, and Get More Done
Episode 73: How to Avoid Burnout, Cut Out Distractions, and Get More Done with Kira Hug
Show Notes
Building an online business isn't always easy and many entrepreneurs can get burnt out faster than they ever thought possible. How do you avoid the burn out, focus on what matters most, and get more done in your day-to-day? We're talking about it on today's episode of the podcast with guest Kira Hug.
Episode Highlights:
Kira Hug started out as a copywriter in her own business specializing in long form sales pages. As she continued building her business, she found herself simultaneously building a community of copywriters and soon had a second business coaching copywriters.
You don’t always know you’re on the way towards burnout, and you don’t always have the correct language for what you’re feeling.
There are so many opportunities for online business owners that it’s hard to figure out what your biggest opportunities are and where you should prioritize your energy.
To figure out what to prioritize, Kira asks herself what drains her energy and what gives her energy.
A question you can ask yourself -“If I were to pitch a podcast tomorrow, what am I excited to talk about?”
As the industry and trends change, what you do will have to shift, and it keeps you on your toes in a good way.
Introducing The REST! System: how to avoid burnout, cut out distractions & get more done
The REST! System came out of the last decade of Kira’s work. She’s tinkered with it over the years as her life and family have grown to help herself prevent burnout and find her place in the world. This is a maintenance system for people who are working to prevent burnout.
Please note: if you are in a place of extreme burnout, you may want to seek professional help.
Recharge: Think about what you really need in your business right now, and schedule time to give that to yourself.
Retreat: Book a weekend retreat or start small with a microstep and get into a shower to think, focus, have time alone, and check in with yourself. Try to take time weekly, monthly, or at the very least quarterly to check in with yourself and your business without working on the small tasks. Schedule breaks throughout the day where you don’t have to always be “on”.
Routine: Set rules and routines for yourself and try to stick to them. Define the habits that work best for you and write them down. These could be: drink more water, take a lunch break, walk for 30 minutes in the morning.
Ritual: What gets you in the right mindzone each week to feel the way you want to feel. Find what signals to you that you’re starting and you’re in the zone. Find the right kind of accountability that you really care about and
Empower your team: If you’re someone who struggles with asking for help, this is even more important for you to do.
How can you treat your team so well that they want to step up and do more? How are we going to hang onto our best team members?
If you find yourself as the bottleneck, look for ways to remove yourself. If you don’t have a team, think about the things you can put into storage while you decide if you want to eliminate them altogether.
Simplify your social: simplify your social media with the “Minimum Viable Social.”
There’s a perception that we need to be on it and we need to be everywhere. Focus on one channel, show up there, and find ways to make it fun. If you hate social media, then don’t use it and look for other ways to find and reach clients, then focus on those.
You could also consider taking a sabbatical from both creating and consuming social media to remove all of the extra inputs.
Get really clear about how and why you’re using each of your channels. Define what they’re for, set goals, and define actions for each one.
Find the intersection of what you’re good at, what you enjoy, and where your people are.
Target one wild goal: Anything that could change your business if you focus on that and that alone.
It should feel wild, extraordinary, and somewhat impossible goal that you can actually track.
These are the needle-moving things in your business that start to work once you really decide to focus on them.
You will always have multiple priorities, but try to at least rank them and select a #1 so that when you’re starting to feel like you’re heading towards burnout, you have a single priority to fall back on.
! The fun factor: Make sure that you’re enjoying your business right here, right now, today. Whatever you do, make sure you’re putting your life before the business.
It can be as little as treating yourself to a latte or prioritizing the personal projects in your life.
One way to approach it is to create your life schedule and fit your work in around that instead of building out your work schedule and fitting in your life around it.
Remember, prioritizing the fun factor is a huge shift and it can take a while to get there.
Key Takeaways
You can customize this system. Tinker with it as you grow, but think of it as a foundation that you can fall back on when times get tough.
Give yourself permission to be visible. What’s the scary thing that you’ve wanted to do for a while? This is the time for people to know who you are
Tweetable Quotes
“While focus is great, I think that sometimes you have to break your own rules.” - Kira Hug
“If you don’t want to burnout, you will need some support along the way, and you will need to ask for it.” - Kira Hug
The quickest way to build your own audience is to get in front of someone else’s. That’s where the magic is at.” - Tyler J. McCall
“Pay attention to the signs when the creativity has left the building.” - Kira Hug
Episode Transcript
About the Host / Guests
Resources Mentioned
Social Media Sabbatical Series on The Online Business Show
Check out the 2022 Marketing forecast on The Online Business Show
thecopywriterclub.com to geek out about the world of online marketing