Work Life Balance / Running a Start Up / Burn out

I've been thinking a lot about work life balance lately -- not only for me, but for my team, too.

It's incredibly difficult to learn how to balance your life when you're running a start up. I didn't do a great job of it for the first three years of ScriptEd's existence.  I worked nearly from the time I woke up in the morning to the moment I went to sleep, and all through the weekends. I stopped seeing my friends as much. Even when I was training for triathlons, I would send emails from my phone while riding on my bike trainer.  I took almost no vacation. And, silly me, I thought it wouldn't catch-up with me.

From the start of my career, I worked in environments that promoted this type of non-stop work, first as a teacher with Teach for America, and then at a top tier law firm.  In TFA, our motto (at least while I was a corps member) was "relentless pursuit of results" -- meaning, do whatever it takes, no matter how many grueling hours you have to work, to get results.  At the law firm, long hours were celebrated. The more hours you work, the more hours get billed to clients -- it was good for business.

Luckily for me, I have a high tolerance for long hours and hard work.  I was also incredibly lucky to do work in which I was completely invested, so that helped a lot too.

Everyone has their limits, though. Running my own company has helped me learn about how this work style can be detrimental to both me individually and to teams at large.

Starting in the Spring, I felt myself coming close to the edge of burn out.  I'm not sure that I've ever really experienced burn out before. I started to feel tired, less inspired and borderline apathetic about my work.

This is NOT a good place to be if you're running an organization where your first priority and duty is to inspire other people to join you in working on your company's mission. I felt ashamed for feeling this way -- I have a great job and believe strongly in the work we're doing at ScriptEd. It took me a while to admit to even my closest friends that I felt this way, mostly because I felt tremendously guilty about my feelings.

After several conversations with people, I now recognize that it's really not surprising that this happened. I'm working on achieving more balance in my life now. The breakneck pace is just not sustainable in the long term.

I'm sure there is still a lot of work I need to do, but I started making small changes that have been helping. I think I probably just need a solid two week vacation (something I've never done ever...), but I'm not there yet.  I'm working up to it.

I know I need to do a better job at balance for both myself and for my team -- both so I can be an effective leader, and so that I can set an example of healthy working habits.

Here are some things I've been doing to try to get more balance in my life and to avoid burnout:

1. Writing: Committing to writing on a regular basis grounds me and helps me reflect.
2. Reading, watching and listening to things that have nothing to do with work:  This has two benefits -- it gives me a break from working, and it helps me think of new ideas.  Staying in the "ScriptEd bubble" makes it difficult to think up solutions to problems.
3. Leaving work at the end of the work day: If I don't have a night event, I try to get out of the office by 5:00 or 5:30pm. I often feel guilty about doing this, but I know that it's one way to prevent myself from overworking. It also sets the tone for the rest of the office that it's ok to go home and take personal time.  It forces me to work more efficiently while I'm in the office, too.
5. Not carrying my work cell phone on the weekends:  My work cell-phone stays in my backpack all weekend.  I still check my work emails (maybe I shouldn't be?).
6. Joining a community completely unrelated to work: I've written about this before, but joining the Brooklyn Tri Club was one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. It's a great community of people who live near me, and who don't talk to me about work. I see people from the tri club nearly every day.