Workplace Wellbeing: On the brink of burnout before the holidays?

Rather than rushing around in a blind panic trying to clear mountains of work before signing off for Christmas week, take time to consider which jobs are the most important

Take time to consider which jobs are the most important before signing off for Christmas week. Picture: iStock.

Excitement levels in offices across the country are sky-high. It’s the last day before the holidays for those lucky enough to be signing off work for Christmas, and we can’t wait to down tools and celebrate the festive season.

However, excitement may not be the only emotion. Many may also feel stressed about scaling a mountain of work before clocking off.

Career psychologist and author Sinéad Brady certainly feels pressured.

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to the holidays as much,” she says. “And I see it all around me: people are tired, and their batteries are low. They are thinking about the million and one things on their to-do list, from work tasks to complete, to presents to buy, and it’s causing overwhelm.”

She compares what’s happening in our overloaded brains to a wayward game of table tennis. “Our brain can’t differentiate between work and other tasks, between what’s important and mere noise,” she says.

Sinead Brady. Picture: Sonja Smith Photography.

“It’s like an out-of-control table tennis ball bouncing around, randomly banging off things, and that’s stressful.”

Imposing structure can help calm our overstimulated brains. Brady recommends the Eisenhower Matrix as a tool to help us do this.

“Rather than rushing around in a blind panic trying to get things done, take time to consider your priorities,” she says. 

“Find a piece of paper and draw two intersecting lines, one running across the page and the other from top to bottom.”

Fill the resulting four squares with all the tasks on your to-do list. “In the top left square, place tasks that are important and urgent and have to be done immediately because there’s a deadline to meet,” says Brady. 

“In the top right, place important but not urgent tasks. They can probably wait until after the holidays. In the bottom left, put tasks that are urgent but not important. These can either be done quickly or delegated to others.

The final square is for tasks that aren’t important or urgent — they definitely don’t require your attention right now and may not even need to be done at all.”

Prioritising tasks

Patrica Byron is an associate lecturer in leadership and management at University College Dublin and an executive coach at www.patriciabyron.ie. She advises us to be realistic when setting priorities.

“You can’t tell yourself that everything is important and urgent,” she says. “If you’re finding it difficult to identify what tasks need to be attended to today, ask yourself why this matters now. How you answer will tell you whether the task needs to be completed today or if it can wait until after the holidays.”

Once you have identified the tasks that require attention today, Brady urges you to set aside the time needed to complete them. “If something is going to take 25 minutes, give yourself 25 minutes with no distractions,” she says. 

Set a timer even, and don’t let anyone or anything interrupt you during this time. Do this with each task, and you’ll soon have worked your way to the end of your to-do list.

What should you do if someone tries to interrupt you? Or, even worse, attempts to pile extra work onto your plate? “This is where you need to be clear on your boundaries,” says Brady. It can be a good idea to set up an automatic email informing people that work demands after a certain hour won’t be dealt with, as you’re busy.”

Pictured is Patricia Byron.

The only scenario where this might not work is if your boss needs support. But even then, Brady argues that boundaries need to be asserted.

“Tell them you’ve already allocated your time to tasks that you’ve identified as important and urgent and ask if this new task now takes priority,” she says. 

“You only have the bandwidth for so much, and they have to understand that.”

Provided you’ve got the time, Bryon says it’s worth writing a to-do list of things to do when you return to the office after Christmas. 

“Plan your January 2024 diary,” she says. “And if possible, do so in a way that eases you gently back into meetings and events.”

Don’t forget to attend to some housekeeping before leaving the office. This means filing away paperwork, cleaning your desk, and disposing of any fresh food from the office fridge.

“What it doesn’t mean is finding work to bring home,” says Byron. “It’s really important to set clear boundaries around personal time over the Christmas period.”

The reason for this is because we need to switch off from work. “In this always-on world of ours, rest is seen as a luxury, but it shouldn’t be,” says Brady. “It’s essential to the human condition, and when we get the opportunity to take it, we should.”

She points out that Christmas can be a tipping point for people to descend into burnout. “If you’ve noticed that you’re feeling irritable, impatient, and intolerant — all of which are warning signs of burnout — remember there are preventative steps you can take. They involve rest and recuperation. Prioritise sleep and establish a healthy sleeping pattern. Exercise gently. Eat good food that nourishes your body. Spend time with people who make you smile. These simple things will restore you.”

Benefits of taking a break

Even those not on the brink of burnout will benefit from taking a break over Christmas. “Studies show that we’ll come back feeling more engaged and productive,” says Brady.

Research carried out by Ernst and Young in 2006 corroborates this. For every additional 10 hours of holidays its employees took, their end-of-year performance rating improved by 8%. They were also less likely to leave the firm. If you find yourself thinking about work over Christmas, Byron recommends doing so in a reflective way that will help you make the most of the year ahead.

“Ask yourself what your biggest accomplishments were this year,” she says. 

What moments were you most proud of and why? What did you learn from your successes and your setbacks? What habits and practices would you like to continue, improve, or eliminate? Spending time listening to our gut and noticing what’s going on for us in this way can be transformative.

Brady’s final tip is to set aside time over the holidays to plan your annual leave in 2025, scheduling something fun for every quarter. “That will give you natural breaks in the year and something fun to look forward to,” she says.

For now, the focus is on the upcoming holidays. Identify the loose ends that need to be tied up and muster the discipline required to cross those final items off your to-do list. Once you get out the door or switch off your laptop, hopefully there will be time to kick up your heels and kick back. After all, ’tis the season.