Tips for Avoiding Entrepreneurial Burnout

This week on the nextNY mailing list, the hot topic was "how to deal with entrepreneurial burnout". The topic started with a post by Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan of CupidsLab. I’ve compiled the tips from the thread below…please add your own in the comments and I will add them to the main post.

Charlie O’Donnell believes that an entrepreneur’s body is his or her most valuable asset.

Dean Collins says that competition helps him stay away from burnouts. He notes, "I swear I’ve had sweat running down the back of my neck at least twice when reading about a new company but once I click through to the site and play with their apps for a few minutes I know they ‘haven’t quite got it yet’."

Kevin Marshall noted, "I just try to get around other energetic people…people/companies that are doing fun and interesting things…action begets action for me. When that doesn’t work, I take a few hours off and go watch a movie or something…9 times out of 10, I get the urge to get back to work and regret going to the movie (because I’m wasting time)…but I think my brain just needs those short bursts of downtime and tuning out to keep up the overall pace."

Fraser Kelton said, "Set up little milestones and goals along the way and celebrate and savor each one you achieve. There’s often a long time between planning and launch and then more time between launch and (what others would call) success. Set little goals for along the way. Celebrate these little moments. Do not let anyone trivialize them."

Jason (no last name or link) says that we should talk to each other. He continues, "When you’re feeling burned out, find another like-minded entrepreneur and ask for 10 minutes (that’s probably all it’ll take) to just vent & complain & get all the muck out of your system. Hopefully your friend will be smart enough to shut up until you’re done, then offer enough encouraging words to get you back on your feet." Honestly this is one of the reasons I like SXSW – gives me a chance to have very intelligent chats with people face-to-face.

There was a lot of talk about going to a yoga class. Those who said yoga really helps with burnout include Edward Potter, Kareem Kouddous has a list of local NYC yoga classes, Tyler Frieling and Mike Street also say that yoga is a great way to deal with burnout. I’ve never done yoga but I can imagine it helps to get your mind away from the business.

What’s worked for me over the years is to either have a hobby or to learn something completely new and unrelated to the industry my company is part of. I love public transportation and find that going out with some other subway fans to take photos, ride some different classes of stock or shoot some video is a great way to escape the 24×7 thoughts of how to improve the business. For a couple of years I studied German at the Goethe Institute. The three hours a week learning a new language was something I looked forward to each and every week. During the class, my mind was focused on the new language and never drifted back to the business. So my tip is simple – do something fun or stimulating that gets your mind completely away from the office.