👻 Welcome, October! Ready to tackle Q4?
Give your all for the last push of the year with these anti-burnout tips.
October is a month known for its spooky vibes—and for multiple reasons. Not only is it highly associated with the American holiday, Halloween, which involves horror movie replays on TV and scary pranks on the internet, it is also the beginning of the last quarter of the year.
For companies, October could be the last chance to work twice as hard and achieve the year’s overall targets. But ambition and motivation are really nothing without the right headspace. Before you dive into the ~deadly~ Q4, get yourself prepared for the ride ahead.
Crawl out of deep burnout
The previous quarters have probably worked you to the bone. At this point, you might feel like you’re drowned in deadlines with not enough months left to reach them. The horror of failing people’s expectations might actually prevent you from being productive. So, if you struggle with:
Exhaustion, like tired to the point of falling asleep during the day.
Isolation, as in deleting social media apps to not compare your progress to others’.
Escape fantasies, by online shopping.. endless of it.
Irritability, resulting to getting easily angered by trivial things.
Frequent illness, shown by your body physically breaking down.
You might be going through a state of deep burnout. These are some ways you might have not tried yet, that you could incorporate into your work this quarter:
Combine mundane tasks with joyous activities.
Implement the Kaizen Approach.
Put up emotional, mental, and physical boundaries.
Less about how much you relax, more about how.
Shut down unhelpful thinking—like self-judgment.
Read more on ways to manage burnout in the Medium article here.
Stick to deep work rituals
Once you’re out of the burnout woods, it’s time to get your head back in the game. Deep work, which refers to a professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit, might be your lifeline for Q4. There are generally 9 ground rules of deep work:
Understand your work philosophy. Are you a Monastic, Bimodal, Rhythmic, or Journalistic worker?
Build discipline. Determine how long your deep work session would be, set rules when diving into the session, and more.
Prioritize the 4DX framework. Focus on the wildly important, act on lead (over lag) measures, track a scoreboard, and have a cadence of accountability.
Embrace boredom. In such a fast-paced world, it is actually crucial to take breaks.
Find the other 5 rules of deep work in this LifeHack piece.
Deep mental cleanse to stay sane
There are a lot of tips, challenges, and suggestions you could take to clean up your mental space and start a fresh Q4. Among the hectic schedules and overwhelming expectations, try to take a step back and focus on achieving goals in these 4 aspects:
Week 1: Self-Care
Activities you could do for this week include journaling for 15 minutes, which could be in the form of audio, video, or a written journal, and going to bed 30 minutes earlier.
Week 2: Diet and Exercise
In this week, you could try a new workout you've never had the time to do, keep all 3 meals in a day ‘phone-free’, do a breathing exercise for 5 minutes, or even cut off meat by having 2 or 3 meatless meals.
Week 3: Digital Space
Try out challenges such as no social media before 11am, sort your inbox (check out this Monday Mavens edition for tips!), and organize your desktop by deleting unnecessary items.
Week 4: Positivity
End the month with a high note by writing down your challenge wins from the past 4 weeks and treating yourself. You can also spend 15 minutes with yourself and focus on your strengths.
Take up the challenge and see the full list of challenges for each day of the month here.
What are your biggest fears? What about your team, do they seem to dread the Q4?
Share this Monday Mavens edition to surprise your colleagues with not scary internet pranks, but tools to help them get through the last bit of the year.
We’ll catch you again next week!