BNET Insight

The View from Harvard Business

The latest ideas and insights from the minds of Harvard Business.

Beat Burnout

December 10th, 2008 @ 6:42 am

2 Comments

Categories: Personal Effectiveness

Tags: Burnout, Stress, Blogging, Internet, Sean Silverthorne

Stressful times for all of us these days. So Harvard Business Publishing bloggers Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek offer three ways to beat burnout.

Read their post for more details, but the top line recommendations are:

  1. Be smart about managing your work Manage your time rather than time managing you. That is, work effectively.
  2. Embrace renewal Exercise, take rests, go on vacations.
  3. Do work that matters to you If you are going to work hard, make it work that is meaningful.

In case you worry that your feelings of stress make you a wimp, the post includes  compelling statistics that show just how prevalent work pressure is. Check out these  numbers from the American Psychological Association.

  • A third of Americans report living with extreme stress.
  • 48% of Americans report that their stress has increased over the past five years.
  • 31% of employed adults report difficulty managing work and family responsibilities.

And that was before this year’s economic crisis.

How do you combat stress in the work place?

 
Reply to Story

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

  •  
    1

    jennleblanc

    12/11/08 | Report as spam

    RE: Beat Burnout

    You GOOTA do work that matters to you. Work that fires you up. It's like being married. You wouldn't choose someone you were ho-hum about to live with all the rest of your days. Why don't we hold our work to that same standard?? After all, many of us spend more time at work than with our spouses....

  •  
    2

    jennleblanc

    12/11/08 | Report as spam

    RE: Beat Burnout

    That would be "GOTTA" -- that's what I get for using slang. ;->

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement

Blogger Profiles

  • Blogger Thumbnail Sean Silverthorne Sean Silverthorne is the editor of HBS Working Knowledge, which provides a first look at the research and ideas of Harvard Business School faculty. Working Knowledge, which won a Webby award in 2007, currently records 4 million unique visitors a year. He has been with HBS since 2001. Silverthorne has 28 years experience in print and online journalism. Before arriving at HBS, he was a senior editor at CNet and Executive Editor of ZDNet News.... more »

advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement