Speed vs sanity

The beauty of working at a small firm is that you can just move a lot quicker on things you want to get done. There’s no red tape and approvals. Just get it done. The downside is that there’s never a shortage of things to get done.

For people that love to get shit done like myself, this can result in me sprinting through my to-dos and checklists as fast I can. It’s a bit of an addiction at times. You can see how this is a problem when that checklist always grows given the nature of working at startup.

Unfortunately, we’re human and most of us cannot sustain sprinting through our work lives for too long. That’s a great way to lead directly into burnout which is not good for the employee nor the employer.

This is always a constant battle for me. I often feel guilty if I’m not sprinting as hard as I can to make sure that the company is in the best shape possible. At the same time, I’ve dealt with bouts of burnout as recently as back in January.

Unfortunately there’s no real easy fix here. It’s going to come down to long-term life improvements for me. I’ve done a real good job taking a step back on weekends to actually get a break. But I do an awful job really stepping away during vacations as it’s hard for me to be away for too long.

I suppose I should start there and really try to limit my work on vacations. Perhaps not even bring my laptop at times.

Secondly, I need to really work on making sure that work doesn’t consume my mind when I’m not working. It’s all too easy for me to be thinking about work when I go to bed at night. It’s not healthy by any means.