Hi friends!
Welcome to the sixth edition of my newsletter. I am grateful that you have supported me so far. I am tweaking the newsletter slightly based on the feedback I have been receiving. A few changes I am making as part of a slight pivot:
I am rebranding the newsletter from ‘Exploranalysis’ to ‘Early Employee Explorations’. I am going to go slightly more niche - I will be focusing on the issues around the growth and success of an early employee/leader of a startup and the various issues that he/she will encounter.
I will be sharing the newsletter on Wednesdays 8.00 PM(GMT+5.30) instead of Sunday/Monday I used to do earlier.
The new structure will be one medium/long story followed by finds of the fortnight (interesting things I am reading or read) along with a story that I found interesting, that really set me thinking.
Photo by Mike Lewis HeadSmart Media on Unsplash
Today’s Topic - Burnout at Work
This fortnight’s issue, I will be focusing on the issue of burnout that early employees face due to the chaos accompanying the startup journey. This is not addressed enough, and employees who execute really well bear the brunt of this. I will discuss
How to overcome burnout by having some frameworks to choose what you work on and communicate with the team?
How to achieve a flow state where we enjoy the work we are doing?
Do share this article with others that you feel will benefit from this article.
You are an early employee at a startup. You manifest burnout when you reach a shutdown state - you are unable to think through and reach the end of the road. You have the feeling of being exhausted all the time. Why burnout happens:
A mismatch between your working style and the company’s working style. For example, your active hours are in the early hours of the day, but your daily standup meetings are overlapping with your peak hours robbing you of your productivity.
Hard work but no outcomes. You have put in heart and soul for the company and have put in an insane amount of hard work. Yet the overall metrics haven’t moved, and at the end of all your exhaustion, there is nothing tangible to show. This causes a psychological hit that is difficult to overcome.
The primary sign of burnout is that you feel every day as a chore and are not finding any enjoyment in the work that you do. You have this feeling of tiredness, fishing for excuses to delay or push work and anxiety with all the work that is pending. Moreover, being an early employee, you feel that there is none but you to do this and you keep hustling - burning out more in the process.
At these times - TAKE A BREAK.
Now you feel you are unable to take a break, thinking nobody other than you can do this. A good poem I refer to in these situations is of ‘The Indispensable Man’. I am reproducing it here.
The Indispensable Man
by Saxon White Kessinger
Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,
Sometime when you feel that you are going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before.
The moral of this quaint example
Is do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.
Nobody is indispensable. Write down all the must-haves that would need to be taken care of before you could take a week off. Please write down the impact the task would have on the company, and who else could do it in your absence.
Now to find out the tasks to finish and handover - you need frameworks to help identify those tasks. I love frameworks. When someone says the word framework, I immediately jump to check it out and see if it applies to me. I think we are all vulnerable to the shiny framework syndrome. Most of the frameworks I came across help to achieve two things:
Out of all the things to do, find fewer things to do. (Be Effective.)
Do those few things really well. (Be Efficient.)
Business vector created by stories - by Freepik
The first framework is the Prioritization Matrix (Impact vs Likelihood of success). This framework helps you to find the activities that have the maximum impact. This is how to think of different activities.
I have created a quick Notion template if you want to use in your daily work. Get it here - Prioritization Framework. (Go to the right-hand top corner and Duplicate to replicate this in your Notion workspace). Else, replicate it in Google Docs or even a physical notebook.
Quadrant 1 (High Impact, Low success): Important stuff that requires clear and creative strategic thinking. As an early employee/leader, a lot of time needs to be spent here.
Quadrant 2 (High Impact, High success): High yield, more straightforward projects. Clearly high leverage projects that can fetch some wins under the belt. Hand over the execution to the highest performers - it will challenge them as well as give them fulfilment on seeing the impact. They will feel empowered (but still keep the reigns with you and offer direction).
Quadrant 3 (Low value, low likelihood of success): Delete this initiative and push it away.
Quadrant 4 (Low value, high likelihood of success): Delegate or do it at the end of the day. Such tasks are usually quick to accomplish and give a few easy wins.
The second framework is about communication. Prioritization helps in identifying what to do, and communication helps in conveying what you need to do to the teams and leadership. An internal prioritisation alone won’t help you get the message across on what you are working on. It is important to communicate with the stakeholders, too (leadership, reports, etc.)
Communication Matrix (Convey your priorities to the stakeholder). Whatever you have discovered in the previous exercise, bifurcate into 3 columns and share it via google doc, email, etc. The three columns are:
Column 1: Things I should and can be doing. This stuff is important and within your reach. (Quadrant 1)
Column 2: Things I said I’d do but am not doing. These are the items that have been languishing on your to-do list forever. This is often the root of a lot of stress. (Quadrant 2 and 4)
Column 3: Things I should not be doing. (Quadrant 3)
Cascade these thoughts and culture to your immediate team too. Give a view of this framework to your manager. If your manager suggests a few changes, do incorporate them. This view even helps your manager to understand your workload and the goals you are trying to achieve. Let your reports also know what you are working on. (If you are working on something confidential, you can mark it as the same when communicating with your team.)
You now have a few things on the plate. Awesome. Now to do these extremely well, you will have to find the flow. There’s nothing like that state of flow when you get so absorbed in a project that time seems to stand still. The major roadblock to this flow like state or resonance: interruptions. With constant interruptions from kids, roommates, and colleagues sending Slack messages to ask if you read their emails, there is little opportunity to be fully absorbed in /anything/.
Some tips to activate the flow state:
Figure out what times of day are least likely to be interrupted -* Look at the schedule and figure out when you are not interrupted at all. It could be the start of the day or the end of the day. Introspect which is the time of most energy and least energy. Find the ideal intersection and block it as your flow time.
Match the right work to the right time - Don’t try to do mundane tasks in your flow time. Ideally, the tasks in Quadrant I must occupy your flow time. Challenge your limits, and don’t try to achieve easy wins with mundane to-dos.
Set yourself up to succeed - In your flow state, the stray notification can derail your progress. Thus, take a moment before you begin to set the stage. Turn off phone or computer notifications. Keep a water bottle handy, so thirst doesn’t stop the flow prematurely. And keep a temp list handy to jot down any interruptions that need to be addressed post the flow time.
References
Finds of the Fortnight
I am reading the books - ‘The Psychology of Money’ by Morgan Hausel along with ‘Let’s Talk Money’ by Monica Halan. Fascinating perspectives on money - one coming from the psychology perspective and the other coming at money from the Indian middle-class perspective. It is quite interesting to see how money and wealth are perceived.
When I finish these books, I will share my thoughts and perspectives on the same.
Some tweet threads that I found interesting:
Interesting tweet on how Facebook cracked a deal with Microsoft in the early days.
Tweet thread summarizing the different mental models proposed by James Clear on productivity.
A Story that Seized me
Admiral Jim Stockdale was the highest-ranking Prisoner of war. Stockdale was tortured routinely, and at one point attempted suicide out of fear he might break and give up sensitive military information. Decades after he was released, Stockdale was asked in an interview about how depressing life in prison must have been. He responded: “Well, you have to understand, it was never depressing. Because despite all those circumstances, I never wavered in my absolute faith that not only would I prevail— [I’d] get out of this.”
Pure optimism.
But, not really. Stockdale was then asked who had the hardest time in prison. He responded:
Oh, it’s easy. I can tell you who didn’t make it out. It was the optimists. The optimists. Yes. They were the ones who always said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ Christmas would come and it would go. And there would be another Christmas. And they died of a broken heart.
Contradicting. Right?
A right mix of optimism and pessimism is needed to survive the harsh realities. Maybe 2020 is again at that time. We need the optimism that we will get through this and the pessimism that the pandemic is part and parcel of our lives for a long time to come.
An early employee also needs the optimism of learning along with pessimism that startup life is fragile with lots of uncertainty.
Did you like the new format? Any thoughts, comments or suggestions? Any of your ideas on how to avoid burnout? Feel free to reply on email or reach out to me on Twitter. If you think someone else will be benefited, feel free to forward the email.