Burnout — Practice Sheet

01 · Ready reckoner

The wiser way to meet burnout

Four moves, in order. The whole practice on a single glance — return to it when you’re running on empty.

1

Say the actual word — to yourself, to someone you trust. Naming it accurately is the first act of caring for it.

2

Resist fixing burnout with more. One meeting cancelled outright is worth ten optimisations.

3

Treat sleep, screen-free time and slow meals as load-bearing, not optional. Recovery is the precondition, not the reward.

4

Ask gently why you started this. Sometimes the way back is remembering — sometimes it’s admitting it has changed.

“Why did I begin this?”

02 · Regulate first

When intensity spikes, the thinking brain goes offline. Reset the body first — then the four steps above become possible.

When everything is too much

Stop. Both feet down, three slow breaths. Ask: “What can I put down right now — even for an hour?”

Burnout eases when you subtract. Give yourself permission to set one thing down before picking anything up.

03 · Go deeper

A practice for when you have a few minutes to yourself.

10 minutes

1
Draw two columns on a page: Drains and Restores.
2
List the past week’s recurring activities and obligations under whichever column they belong in. Be honest, not aspirational.
3
Pick one item from Drains to remove, reduce, or renegotiate this week. Just one.
4
Pick one item from Restores and protect it on the calendar like a meeting you cannot miss.

04 · Reflect

Three questions. Write into them by hand on the printed sheet, or type below — your words save on this device.

What is quietly draining me that I’ve been calling “just tired”?

What restores me — and when did I last protect it?

What is one thing I can remove, reduce, or renegotiate this week?