Try to get ahead of the neurodiversity fatigue and burnout by planning ahead. Here are some tips on how to do that.
Transcription:
Hey JoyGenea here, international neurodiversity coach. This week we’re talking about combating neurodiversity fatigue and burnout and being more proactive about that. So, neurodiversity decision fatigue is very real. Ask anybody that has a little bit of a neurodiversity, and they will tell you they get fatigued. End of the day comes I don’t, heck, I’ve had clients that by noon, they’ve texted me and been like, “I’ve got nothing left. Like, what the heck happened?” Yeah, that’s neurodiversity decision fatigue. You have been so busy making decisions that you fatigued your darn brain, because it is thinking about lots of things all at once and it was too many decisions.
So, knowing that means there are a few things you want to put in place, and a couple of the most important things are, pacing yourself– being able to slow things down and to take things in appropriate bite-sized pieces. I have a perfect example yesterday. We are going to be out of town coming up, and it means that there are a bunch of things that need to get ready, and as I’m doing that, so lots of decisions over there, I still have the business to run, things to do, clients to visit with, and I want to be whole heartedly present and with my clients and with the business when I’m doing things.
So, it requires me to turn that off but yesterday, as it gets closer to things like trips for me, oh boy, the turning off does not happen very well a couple days before and so yesterday morning when I got up I wanted to do everything all at once, and I had lots of decisions, and I knew that was a great setup for burnout, that I wouldn’t make it to the end of the day without being completely exhausted. Well, that’s not an option. Like I want to have a great trip, I want to have things ready, and I know how to do this better, so for me that means you get out the sheet of paper with the little checkboxes, and I just went through and listed all the things that I needed to do and then I decided and put a little highlighter about the ones that were actually really priorities, and then on top of that I added another highlight color for the ones that I needed, the 3 I needed to start on, and that’s where I started, all the sudden, the rest of them went away and I just saw the ones I needed to get started with and I worked on those. Again, reeling it in, less decisions. Now I just need to accomplish these things and I kept going about that all day and I’d cross them off with a sharpie so I no longer saw the highlights. It worked out great.
Also, the other things I really really encourage out of all the things, I’ve got a great article about this, is knowing what that feels like when that starts to come on. Really important I talk about it often with my clients. Do you know what it feels like when decision making fatigue is coming on when you’re starting to feel burnt out, because that is when you need to shift it. I caught it yesterday right away when my brain went “Oo!” I want to do all of these things at once. As soon as I heard the ‘at once,’ I’m like well that’s it. We’re out. Thanks for joining me, I hope I’ve helped you out, and have an outstanding day. Bye now.