Disrupting Burnout
Disrupting Burnout with Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson is dedicated to overworked, undervalued high-achieving servant leaders who give all to serve others and leave very little for yourself. You are an accomplished woman with many responsibilities and you often find yourself overwhelmed, exhausted, and burned out. I’ve been there. As a matter of fact, burnout almost cost me everything. Compassionate work can carry a high price tag: your mind, body, spirit and relationships may be in distress as you serve the needs of others. I am here to equip your hands and refresh your heart so you can serve in purpose and fulfillment and permanently break cycles of burnout.
Disrupting Burnout
138. Are You Actually Taking Breaks or Just Task Switching?
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Welcome to another episode of the Disrupting Burnout podcast where we give you the strategies for pouring out purpose without burnout. I am Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson, but you can call me PBJ.
Are you struggling to take effective breaks during your workday? Many professionals mistakenly view task switching as a form of rest, but this episode unravels the truth. We explore how genuine micro breaks can lead to a healthier, more productive work rhythm. Experts reveal that knowledge workers experience about 20 interruptions hourly, most of which are self-inflicted! We’ll guide you on creating restorative micro breaks that fit seamlessly into your daily routine, allowing you to rejuvenate your mind and maintain focus without the exhaustion of constant task switching.
Join us as we discuss the impact of a cluttered workspace, the value of morning pages, and the power of communication in setting boundaries with colleagues and family. Learn to prioritize effectively, ensuring you focus on what matters most each day. By embracing these insights, you equip yourself with tools to prevent burnout and enhance your overall well-being. Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation! Connect with us through our show notes for additional resources and download your stop plan today.
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Knowledge workers, so those of us who our work is primarily from our brains and not physical labor, are interrupted on an average of 20 times per hour, and most of those interruptions are self interruptions. Maybe sometimes you get a notification on your phone, or you get a notification through the instant message of your department, or you get a notification on your device. Maybe somebody knocks on the door, maybe you get a phone call, but the majority of those interruptions are self-inflicted interruptions. These are things that we are telling ourselves that we must do, have to do, have to take care of right now. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the Disrupting Burnout Podcast, where we are giving you the strategies for pouring out your purpose without continuing to live through the consequences of burnout. Now, friend, you know, last month, in our episodes, we were focused on resetting your rhythm. We acknowledge that, as professional women, that as educators, we've lived at a rhythm that is not sustainable. We've lived at a rhythm that is not sustainable. Our brains, our bodies, our hearts, our minds, everything is constant Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go go. And we wonder why we can't rest, we wonder why we feel anxious, we wonder why we feel overwhelmed. So we are learning and walking through what we need to do to reset to a sustainable rhythm, not to stop serving, not to escape, not to run away. But how can we create a life rhythm that allows us to continue to serve and pour out our heart without suffering through our lives? So today, friends, I want to talk to you about what it looks like to take an effective break, and I've got to tell you the truth. This comes from interacting with women in my community. Interacting with women in my community recently where I have said, hey, take a break, and their break has been to do a less demanding task. So it wasn't a real break. The break was oh, I can do this because it's fun. Oh, I can do this because I enjoy it. I'll just do this other thing instead of the hard thing.
Speaker 1:Friend, you don't know how to take a break. You don't know how to take a real break and in order to adjust the rhythm of your life, you're going to have to incorporate some micro breaks. You need daily micro breaks. You need daily micro breaks. This is not about taking a whole month off from work. This is not about escaping and going away for a week Every now and then you probably need to do that week. But that's not what we're talking about right now. What kind of micro breaks can you incorporate in your life on a daily, regular, consistent basis, so that it becomes a part of your life rhythm to stop and take a real break? What you have been calling a break is actually task switching.
Speaker 1:Now, friend, I know we've had discussions about multitasking. Right, there's a difference between multitasking and task switching. So as I was preparing for this podcast conversation, I found and y'all know I've been against multitasking. I've been telling you you cannot effectively multitask. But I learned something a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1:What I learned in my research is multitasking is when you can do something that's so deeply ingrained in you that you don't have to really directly, cognitively, think deeply about it, and then you add one more thing to it. So, for example, if you are driving to work and you drive to work every day, you drive that same route to work every day. Some days you get there and you didn't even have to think about what turns to make because you have driven that same route so long. While you are driving to work, you may talk to a friend. You may listen to a book on audio. You may listen to a podcast. You are multitasking because you are doing two tasks that work well together, but at least one of those tasks is so deeply ingrained that you don't have to think about it, right? So it is possible to multitask when you think about it that way, but that is still not a break. It's still not a break. So if that's multitasking, it's still not a break. So if that's multitasking, what is task switching?
Speaker 1:Pbj, I can't stop. I don't have time to stop. If I stop, all of this falls apart. We're short-staffed. I don't have anybody that can take my place at work. I don't have support at home or at work to stop. Friends, if any of these thoughts come to mind when you think about taking a break, you are the person who needs to stop the most.
Speaker 1:I want to offer you our stop plan Simple. I want you to use the same strategies and wisdom and skills that you use at work, and I'm going to guide you to using those strategies to plan micro breaks. I'm not talking about a month's sabbatical, but can you incorporate micro breaks into your life as a regular rhythm of rest so that while you are serving, while you are giving, you can have moments of revival so that you can live the life you're living sustainably. Friend, you need to grab this stop plan. Make sure to click the link in the show notes or wherever you're watching or listening to this, so that you can get what you need right now. It can't wait. I know you do a wonderful job, but people don't know what it costs you to be you, and you know what the cost is for you. It's time to stop. Grab the plan today.
Speaker 1:Okay, task switching is when you're working on one thing and you think, oh, I need to put in a grocery order so that it will show up at the door by the time I get home. Or oh, I need to put in this um food order so that it will show up for lunch, so I'll be able to eat today. Or let me stop and check on this Facebook post to see if anybody commented. Or oh, oh gosh, I forgot to call Susan and let her know A, b and C, so let me stop what I'm doing and call Susan. And it goes on, and on, and on, and on and on.
Speaker 1:Task switching is going from one specific thing that you're working on to another and maybe switching back, or maybe switching to another thing and another thing and another thing. Most of us are drowning in task switching on a daily basis and you're telling yourself you took a break, but really it's task switching. So you went from the thing that was frustrating you, the thing that may be uncomfortable, the thing that you desire less to do, and you just went to something else to do. It may be something that's easier for you, you may not have to think as deeply about it, but you went to something else to do, something else for your brain to process. So I want you to think about how can you decrease or eliminate as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Now, friend, listen, I know you live a real life with a real job and real demands, and I understand the demands of the workplace. But I want you to think of, instead of thinking, what you can't do. I want you to come from the perspective of what can be done, because every little bit helps. So, as we're having this conversation, don't get caught up in. Or that won't work for my workplace, or my boss would never give me that space, or that doesn't make sense for me. I, I want you like my people say, I want you to eat the meat and spit out the bones. I want you to take from this conversation what could actually work for you, and try it, try it. Try something. Okay, in my research and I won't call it research, y'all Am I Googling? All right, in my Googling, what I found?
Speaker 1:There's a Psychology Today article from 2012, and it talks about task switching and it proposes that task switching makes us 40% less productive. Switching makes us 40% less productive. So we tell ourselves, oh, I'm getting all of these things done and the reason why I'm switching is so I can keep my head above water, I can check all the boxes, I can get all the things done. The way that brains work quickly switching from one task to another, to another, to another, with no downtime for processing it causes the brain to slow down in processing. It impacts memory, it impacts mood. So it's not less ability to get it done, but because we are not collaborating with our brains, we're not working with our brains in the way that they need to work, we are making ourselves less productive, up to 40% less productive.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of what we used to teach our students on campus, our college students. Especially during midterm season or final season, folks would want to pull all niners and not sleep for days and live in the library and all the things that they thought they were supposed to do to be productive students. And what we would try to let them know is you will be more productive if you gave your brain the break that it needs. If someone's trying to write a paper and there it's like hitting a brick wall, you're trying your best to write this paper but you don't feel like you can walk away from it because you're afraid if you walk away from it, you won't come back in time and you won't finish it in deadline. I mean, some of this is planning ahead. Let's just be honest. Some of this is okay, all right, you know what I'm saying. Some of this is planning ahead. But either way, research shows us that taking the break, walking away and coming back because your brain was able to restore itself, because your brain had a moment to release toxins, you'll come back and be able to do the work more efficiently, more effectively, more productively and quicker and quicker because you're working with your brain and you're working with the way that brains work Right. So we've got to, we've got to practice incorporating true breaks, not just task switching.
Speaker 1:I saw another article written by Emily Knox. I think this one was maybe 2019. It was in Medium, and Emily found some research that showed that knowledge workers so those of us who our work is primarily from our brains and not physical labor labor are interrupted on an average of 20 times per hour, and most of those interruptions are self interruptions. Maybe sometimes you get a notification on your phone, or you get a notification through the instant message of your department, or you get a notification on your device. Maybe somebody knocks on the door, maybe you get a notification on your device, maybe somebody knocks on the door, maybe you get a phone call, but the majority of those interruptions are self-inflicted interruptions. These are things that we are telling ourselves that we must do, have to do, have to take care of right now.
Speaker 1:So I want to share a few thoughts with you about how you can set yourself up for success in diminishing the amount of task switching that you're doing, but also taking an effective break, taking a restorative break. To stop doing the hard thing in order to do a lighter thing is not a restorative break, and we must incorporate micro breaks, restorative micro breaks, into our day on a regular basis in order to adjust our rhythm of life and be able to sustain without the consequences of burnout. So I've got some suggestions for you. First of all, I want to give you some suggestions of how you can start with you, because the majority of our interruptions, the majority of our task switching, are self-inflicted. So what are the things you can do for you so that you're not interrupting yourself as much? Let's just start on home base. Okay, let's start there. First of all, I want you and we've discussed this before.
Speaker 1:I mentioned a book called the Artist Way and there is an activity described in the book called the Artist Way and it's called Morning Pages and the author encourages and this is for writers and other artists to encourage flow, right and creativity. But I've found that it works phenomenally for many knowledge workers, right. So the author encourages us to write three pages every morning of whatever's in your head, like whatever, everything, everything's in your head. It might start with I'm trying these morning pages, because I heard it on PBJ's podcast and I haven't read the book, but I'm just going to do what PBJ said and I'm going to try it and see if it works. This really seems silly. I don't know what to write and just keep writing. Just keep writing. When I first started the process of morning pages, my good friend, dr Ramona Lawrence she's been on the podcast and she'll be back on the podcast suggested it and I started writing. I really don't know what I'm supposed to be writing. I'm hoping this will help and not a waste of time.
Speaker 1:Here I am writing my morning pages and, before I knew it, days into it, I'm writing deep thoughts, deep questions and answering those questions. Before I knew it, I was pouring out creative ideas and new thoughts and new directions for my work. Before I knew it, I was feeling relief and starting my day clear, instead of starting my day full of thoughts and doubts and questions and plans and all the things and my morning pages consisted of. Here are the things I need to buy from the grocery store today. Or, you know, here are the thoughts that I want to use for developing, disrupting burnout into a course that people can use. Or here's what I see coming out of my work and here's what I'm afraid of. Here's what I'm worried about. Here are the questions that someone asked me recently and I wish I had answered it like this Whatever is on your mind, whatever is on your mind to start your morning by giving your brain a good release To just get it all out on paper.
Speaker 1:You don't have to have an answer to it, just to process it, just to get it out. So it's just not swimming around over and over and over and over, and I'm sure there's some neuroscience behind this. So for my friends who are neuroscientists or psychologists or counselors, feel free to chime in to say yes, pbj, this is why that works. All I know is it works, it works. So, in order to put yourself in the best position to not self-sabotage all day long, I encourage you to start with your morning pages and just dump everything that's in your head into those three pages as you begin. It might seem daunting for three pages but, friend, listen, if you keep it up, before you know it you're going to want to keep writing. Okay, so start with your morning pages. Also, throughout the day.
Speaker 1:I want you to as things come to your mind, because I think one of the reasons why we task switch is because we feel like we're going to forget. We're going to forget the thing that we need to do, or that thing is going to slip my mind and it's here now and I need to honor it now. But what you don't realize is, if you go along with the new thought, you're going to forget the last thought, right. So keep a notebook beside you and a phone or another device is great, but I've found writing with my hand has been so relieving for me, because there is truly a connection between what you write with your hand and what's in your heart and what's in your mind. So I keep a little notebook with me, or even my iPad with the pen that works with it, but write with your hand. So you're working on one thing and a stray thought comes in. Write it down and keep it moving. It's still a disruption, but you have not disrupted yourself to the point where it's hard to get back to where you were. So, as you are practicing and trying to become more familiar with this process, trying to become more effective with taking effective breaks and less task switching, give yourself a break by writing it down. Write it down in a place that you're going to hold on to, not just random papers everywhere, but a place you know you're going to hold on to it and come back to it when you need it. Okay, so write the thought down. Write the thought down.
Speaker 1:Next, concerning yourself. I want you to create an atmosphere that serves you, and we've already talked about decluttering. Y'all know how I feel about decluttering and cleaning up your space. But, in addition to decluttering, how can you turn your stuff on Do not disturb? How can you eliminate the number of notifications and dings and buzzes and rings and knocks that are coming your way as you are working through your primary task? Y'all, I get it.
Speaker 1:There was a day that if you suggested to me to put my phone on do not disturb, I would look at you like you had two heads, because in my mind I never knew not just in my mind, it was my real life and work. I never knew when the emergency was coming. I never knew when the next thing was happening with a student or with a staff member or on my campus. So I didn't feel like I ever had any freedom or license to put my phone on do not disturb. I never felt like I could miss a call. I felt like I had to answer every call.
Speaker 1:So again, I say this to encourage you to incorporate what you can, because I understand the pressure of living on call. I understand the pressure of living on call, but don't block out the little bit that might help. For example, I keep my phone on do not disturb. I have to, I have to. And sometimes I have some guilt and shame around it because I feel bad when people are trying to connect with me and they can't get me. And I recognize that if they can't get me it's probably because they are not the greatest need at the moment. It doesn't mean they don't have a need, but it means that I'm not the only one that can satisfy that need and it's not the greatest need in front of me at this moment. Right, so I keep my phone on Do not disturb.
Speaker 1:With my phone Do not disturb, I can identify who can get through. So I have a favorites list of people that, even when my phone is on do not disturb, their call is going to come through. But those folks already know, if you look at the text message and it says that my notifications are silenced. If you call, know that it's an interruption and that you need me. Like that, that it is. It is something that I should put everything down for to come to you. Otherwise, I will check my text messages and I'll check my missed calls. I have a few times within the day that I stop to check those things, but I'm not constantly being interrupted by the dings and the buzzes and the messages, because every one that comes in is a distraction. So create an atmosphere that allows you to not be pulled away and not be disrupted constantly throughout the day.
Speaker 1:The next thing I want to encourage you to do is communicate with your people. That may be your staff members, that may be your boss, that's family members, that's children, that may be a children's school. Help folks know how to get in touch with you. So if you know your phone is going to be on, do not disturb. Maybe you tell your child's school to call your workplace, call your work number if there's an emergency, not your cell phone right or with my team and I think I shared this with you recently. But with folks who report to me, I always say if you send me an email, I have at least 24 hours and on the weekend longer before I need to respond. If you send me a text, it means you need me today, but it doesn't have to be this moment so I can finish what I'm doing before I respond to you. But I will get to you today. If you call me, it means I need to drop everything and come to you right now. If you pick up the phone and call me, that means it is that critical that I need to stop and respond ASAP. And what that did was that set parameters and boundaries to let my folks know what my expectations were, but it also protected me from the constant calls about everything. So communicate with family members, communicate with your team, with bosses, so that folks know how to get you and what you're focused on right, and use your discretion and judgment to do that appropriately for your work and your workplace. And finally you've heard me say this before I want you to choose the priority of the moment.
Speaker 1:You carry so much baggage. It's weighing you down on a daily basis. You carry so much baggage it's weighing you down on a daily basis. You wear so many hats. You're not just a professional woman, but you may be a mom. You may be partnered or married. You may have community obligations. You've got friends. You've got people that you care about. You've got projects. You may be a student. There's so many pieces of your life and you will always have your hands full because that's who you are. It's just who you are. You don't make that up, so your hands will constantly be full.
Speaker 1:I want you to practice choosing the priority of the moment Every day as you start your day.
Speaker 1:Identify this is the top priority for me today. If I accomplish this, then I make room for other things, not priorities. The priority One, and if you get through that one, then you allow more. And here's the thing Sometimes priorities change so you may walk in with one priority on your mind and by the time you hit your desk, the priority has changed. Give yourself grace for that and focus on the priority of the moment. Allow your mind to be where your body is. Put all of the baggage down and pick up the one that is most pressing, most needed, that you should focus on right now, and know that when that priority changes, you can put that one down and pick up the next one.
Speaker 1:So no more task switching. We're going to complete what we're focused on as much as possible. We're going to eliminate distractions and disruptions intentionally as much as possible. We are going to stop and give our brain real breaks, and that's what we're talking about on the next episode. Let's talk about effective breaks, restorative breaks, what really allows your brain to recover so that you can focus when you come back and be even more productive. All right, listen, friend, as always. You know you are powerful, you are significant, you are brilliant and you are loved. You deserve a real break, and switching back and forth all day long is not giving you what you need. It's wearing you out and you're not even being as productive as you think. It's time to do this thing a little different, friend. It's time to change. Alright, I'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. Bye now.
