Exhausted: Work Doesn't Have to Kill Us

Jun 6, 2022

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First, you are burning out. Second, it's not entirely your fault. Third, here's how to take steps to change it all.

Brian started his job as one full-time person replacing two full-time people, plus a part-time assistant. The things that were happening on the job were insanely counterproductive, but also looked very busy. Why are certain things happening the way that they are took reframing the context within which much work was done. "Why am I reprinting the Roman Missal? It's right there with you. You don't need 7 copies of 90% of it printed in binders."

Mary ran the bulletin. It used to take 20 hours a week to do and required a minumum of 10 business days for publication. She reduced it to 4 hours and staff members can send her stuff on that Monday morning. She realized the bulk of her work was spent taking parishioner bulletin submissions that were 2-page Word Documents and condensing them. Instead, she created a free Google Form and specified the character limit maximum. Now, parishioners self-edit and create a paragraph of text instead of an essay.

But what if your boss cannot tell the difference between doing good work and looking busy? What if your corporae culture looks like everyone is a damn day trader on Wall Street. Everyone is monitoring 12 inboxes but no one is moving the needle and everyone is stressed out!

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