Soon after my meltdown occurred, and I realized how serious my situation was, I launched a project to “rebuild my life.” I determined to take four steps to walk me through the process of recovery. And like taking four steps, they each had to happen one at a time; you can’t take four steps at once. In this series of posts, I want to share with you four questions that framed the steps I took and am taking to rebuild my life.

Step One: What Am I Giving My Energy To?

Make a List

The first step I took was to take inventory of my commitments and re-evaluate what my energy was being investing in. This process took about 6 to 8 weeks. I literally sat down at my computer and listed out every commitment I had made, big or small, important or insignificant. That process gave me a list of over 70 projects I was working on in my job, 9 coaching projects, and over a dozen personal projects. After I had the list together, I reversed engineered the list into categories or groupings. I discovered that the nearly 100 projects I was working on covered nearly 25 different areas of focus.

Overcommitment=Overwhelm

It may seem like I became an out-of-control list maker. In fact, I had one person say, “I couldn’t write all my stuff down like that; I would go crazy knowing everything I was supposed to do.” They encouraged me to stop writing these things down and trash my lists. However, what I found is that writing it down and making it tangible in one list where I could see it all gave me the wonderful gift of self-awareness. I was overwhelmed because I was overcommitted. My system was perfectly designed for the results I was getting. If I wanted different results (i.e. – less overwhelm in my life), I needed to change my system. I needed to eliminate, delegate, and renegotiate my commitments. I needed to ruthlessly make adjustments until my commitments were clear, focused, and manageable.

Eliminate

Some of my commitments were dead. Some of them were not good ideas or were simply not practical. Others were good ideas at the time they were initiated, but over time they became irrelevant because the world changed. When I came to a dead project on my list I let it go…with the delete button.

Some of my commitments were good things, but they did not represent the best things I could and should be doing with my time. As Jim Collins says, “Good is the enemy of the great.” I had to eliminate some good things to clear the decks for the best things.  Again, the delete button.

Delegate

Some of my commitments needed to be done, but could be or needed to be handled by someone else. I delegated those to the appropriate person.

Renegotiate

Some of my commitments were bigger projects that were due within a year, but did not require me to start working on them now. I put them on my calendar for the appropriate time when they needed to be started.

Still other commitments were good ideas, but I did not have the bandwidth to complete them. I put them on my someday/maybe list.

Commitments to Complete

After eliminating, delegating, and renegotiating, I was left with the commitments that I needed to follow through on until they were completed. My work list dropped to 40-50 active projects, the range where it currently hovers. My coaching list was trimmed to 6 projects, four of which will conclude this month. And my personal project list hovers around 6 to 8 items. Nearly 100 commitments were reduced down to 50-60 commitments I truly need to be focused on. My 25 areas of focus have been narrowed down to 7 professional areas of focus and 7 personal areas of focus.

The Point

Here’s the point. I experienced a meltdown because I was stretched too thin and burning the candle at both ends. The road to recovery for me and for many of those who are facing burnout begins with figuring out where your energy is going. Then you have to make the hard decisions about what you will and will NOT do. You are burnt out because you are doing too much. You have to step back and eliminate some of your commitments. This is the only way that you can begin to win the battle against overwhelm, stress, and burnout.

Ask Yourself

What are you giving your energy to? Are there things you are committed to that need to be eliminated? Delegated? Renegotiated?