Contributed infographic in our business series. Enjoy! – Kimberly
Graphic created by iPlum a provider of a 2nd phone line for cell phones.
Tag Archives: Burnout
Holiday Compassion All Year Long by Kimberly Wiefling (Wiefling Consulting)
(This article was originally published on www.svprojectmanagement.com)
This time of year in the US many people, including me and my family, celebrate Christmas. It’s the most important holiday for us, and it’s a time of year when people seem more tuned in to the connections among all human beings. It seems to me that people are a wee bit nicer to each other. We take time to be with our families, and we tell our friends how much they mean to us. As far as holidays go, it’s a very big deal. Because I’m traveling on business 2-3 weeks a month I’m typically arriving home in Silicon Valley, California, from Japan just in time to be jet lagged all through the holiday season. This year, however, my last week of work before Christmas was in Houston, Texas, so instead of being jet lagged I’m merely burnt out. Well, burnt to a crisp, actually – like a piece of bacon cooked in a greasy skillet on extra high heat for about an hour longer than normal. Toast! Continue reading
Too Tired to Care? Regain Your Perspective with 5 Proven Practices
(Originally posted on ProjectConnections.com)
Somewhere around the spring of last year I started to forget to take care of myself. Maybe it was brought on by the shock of repeatedly watching the video of the March 11 tsunami sweeping away tens of thousands of lives on the east coast of Japan, a country I travel to on business nearly every month for the past five years. Or maybe it’s just an old habit resurfacing, like a recurring rash. Either way, I started ignoring my need for balance in my life, and focused single-mindedly on the enormous pile of tasks and projects I had accumulated.
By December, I was a mess! As I said my end-of-the-year goodbyes to my colleagues in Tokyo, I bellowed (only partially jokingly), “I know you’ve all been working just as hard as I am, but frankly I’m too tired to care!” And I truly was. In exhausting myself, I had lost my ability to care about my teammates. What a pity!
This is a place that a leader cannot afford to end up. And yet, in the demanding, deadline-driven business environment, it’s all too easy to exhaust ourselves to the point that we’re ineffective (and not much fun to be around).Continue reading