Michael Levitt's Blog, page 123

5 Ways to Increase Your Brand’s Online Visibility

Photo by Plann from Pexels

In this day and age where the accessibility of the internet can be used to a brand’s advantage, increasing your online visibility should be a goal. In an attempt to increase their online presence, many brands tend to get it wrong as they try to rush it, and end up damaging their image. Building your online visibility takes quite a bit of time, but in the end, it’s an investment that is always worth it. If you’re looking to increase your brand’s visibility, then look no further, because here are 5 ways for you to do just that. 

1. Search engine optimization 

One of the most effective ways to increase your online visibility is by using search engine optimization. This online tool allows you to attract more traffic to your website organically on a search engine. The term search engine optimization comes across as very intimidating to many business owners, however, you don’t even need to be an expert to do it. 

To start with, you have to regularly post creative content. If you use Wordpress, this platform acts as a content management system and recommends the best ways for you to optimize your posts. If you are just starting out with SEO, you’ll find a plethora of material ranging from books to tutorial videos online. 

2. Guest blogging 

Guest blogging is a great way to up your online visibility. It helps promote your business through link building, and if your blog post is engaging and interesting,  it also can boost your following on your blog and social media because the audience will be looking for more valuable information from you. 

Keep in mind that you should be looking to have your guest post featured on a blog that is not only relevant to your industry and market but also popular enough to attract new audiences to your business and blog. 

3. Social media

Being active on social media is an effective tool that you can use to your advantage. It allows you to connect with your potential customers, release short but insightful information about your industry or brand, and target your specific audience. However, the issue of using social media to build your online visibility is that a lot of businesses tend to be quite disorganized. 

They try to be too active on all the social media platforms, and sometimes, end up posting irrelevant content just for the sake of posting. That’s why it is important to use a social media agency for some much-needed guidance. For example, at dappergoat.com has helped many companies reach their social media goals by managing their platforms successfully. 

4. Get active on forums

Another way to become more visible online is by getting more active in online forums. Some of these forums include Reddit and Quora, both of which come with large audiences that you can take advantage of. These forums allow you to create a page for your brand and connect with people from all over the world. 

You can ask and answer questions, and if you do it right, you can quickly build your online following on these platforms. There is also the possibility for you to connect with other businesses in your niche or industry, and maybe even collaborate in the future. 

5. Ask for customer reviews

Did you know that when customers review your brand, products, and/or services online, they help you build your online visibility? Make it one of your goals to reel in as many customer reviews as you can. When customers have impressions of your business, they can review it on social platforms like Facebook or Google +, or even on sites such as Yelp, which is dedicated to reviews. 

Doing this can attract more buyers to your business if the reviews are good, and can give you helpful insight into things that’s you need to fix about your business. Regardless, your brand will be seen widely. 

How To Take Initiative And Boost Your Business Prowess

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash

Every single person that enters the world of business is doing so in order to make as much money as possible. That, and to boost their personal profile while picking up all kinds of tidbits along the way. The business game is one that needs a lot of attention and a great work ethic, but it’s also something that every single person on the planet can get into. In order to make it a success, you don’t need to be the brightest bulb in the packet – you just need to go out and do what others won’t.

That said, you can still pick up all kinds of skills pertaining to starting and running a business. Even though you don’t need to be a business major with all the theoretical knowledge in order to succeed, it's still nice to have a few nuggets up your sleeve. When it comes to getting ahead of others in this game, you need to put in the effort and really take the initiative – things won’t just fall easily on your lap. Here are some ways you can boost your business prowess:

Listen To Business-Related Content

If you constantly take in a certain kind of content, you’re going to subconsciously learn new things. The brain has a knack of soaking up whatever is around it. You don’t always have to fully engage in what you’re hoping to learn in order to take it in like a sponge. Hop online and look at videos relating to current affairs or some kind of theoretical studies. Podcasts are also a great way of doing this as you can get on with your day while they run in the background. 

Keep Learning 

If you’re actively looking to learn new things, then your mind will get into the habit of wanting to learn. The reason why you sometimes become lethargic or apathetic is down to the fact that you’ve spent long enough idling. Check out different kinds of online classes that are around – be it online sales training, marketing courses, or even something ultra-specific. 

Head Back To School

There will always be genuine classes you could attend at your local school, college, or university, too! If you feel as though you aren’t getting enough done on your own or that you can’t motivate yourself, then perhaps someone else can do it for you face-to-face. Business will also be around and, thus, teachers will be there to impart knowledge and wisdom.

Work On Your Creative Side 

A lot of success in business is down to the creativity of the leader. Sure, hard work matters a lot, but there still needs to be that standout quality. If you become more creative in other ways, it will make its way to your business mind and allow you to see things from different angles.

Just Get To Work! 

Finally, just doing things relating to your business venture will be enough to make yourself a lot more educated in it all. You can do a lot of learning via textbooks and articles, but experience can do so much for somebody. 

3 Benefits of Customer Support Software

Photo by @arlington_research

In the competitive world of modern business, customer service is more important than ever before. It is no secret that loyal customers are far less likely to spend money with your competitors and therefore creating positive customer experiences is crucial. 

However, not all businesses understand how best to build customer loyalty. One way to provide excellent customer experiences is by investing in high quality customer support software.

Customer service software makes it easier for your team to manage, organize, and respond to all customer requests. So, let us discuss 3 benefits of customer support software that can help you to establish a loyal base of customers. 

Automation

One of the biggest benefits of using customer support software is that it allows your company to automate a number of tasks. Customer service platforms store all of your information in one place so that it is possible to access customer issues, queries, and suggestion at the click of a button. Conversations with customers, can be organized, categorized, and scheduled, which in turn, enables your team to produce customer service reports that can highlight trends and performance across the board. To learn more about some of the most popular customer support automation options out there, take a look at this guide to zendesk vs freshdesk.

Automating your functions even ensures that you can identify areas for improvement. Moreover, while it might not be possible to solve every problem immediately, acknowledging the worries and concerns of your customers can still go a long way. For example, an automated message explaining that you have received a request from a customer reassures them that they matter and that you value their custom. An automated response can be personalized to include a reference number, additional contact details, and even some suggested steps to solve common issues, so it is well worth considering customer support software that encourages automation. 

Manage and Prioritize Communications with Your Customers

=Keeping track of communications with your customers can be tricky, and there is always a chance that a potentially important communication with a customer might fall by the wayside. With this in mind, customer support software can streamline the way that your company handles communications with your customers. Requests and messages from customers can be automatically assigned a unique reference number and this makes it easy to quickly search for a request, find previous communication histories, and address any ongoing or outstanding issues. 

When a customer contacts your customer support team, your employees need to know that they can easily find any previous correspondence without this information having gone missing. Similarly, prioritizing your workload is vital to success when running a customer support team, and therefore investing in software can make it easier to ascertain which customers and requests should be handled as a priority, and which issues can be addressed later. Important customers are typically those that have large accounts or spend significant amounts on your products or services and therefore priorities have to come into force using set criteria.

Speed Up Your Customer Service

If you want to provide unforgettable customer service, then speed is paramount. Customer support software allows you to upload and use pre-written email templates to help you to save time when responding to requests and queries. Any questions relating to your products or services are normally very similar and therefore being able to access a relevant and comprehensive response in line with company culture and values is hugely beneficial. Pre-written responses can save you a surprising amount of time that would otherwise be spent repeating similar explanations. 

Furthermore, to ensure that your responses match the tone of voice of your company, your templates can be geared towards different departments. In order to make a good impression, your responses need to be fast and high quality and so being able to access these readily available templates speeds up your customer support processes. Moreover, a common reason why customers are kept waiting is due to incomplete information. However, customer support software can typically be integrated with your existing customer relationship management (CRM) system so your team can easily access a complete overview of the profile of a particular customer and handle their needs accordingly. 

Ultimately, providing exceptional customer service can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task, especially when your team are busy handling other aspects of your business. Nonetheless, by using customer support software, you can create automated processes that can help you to serve your customers quickly and effectively.

Want to learn more about creating positive experiences for your customers? Take a look at this guide filled with tips for making a great impression with your customers.

What Self-Care Can Do for Your Career

Photo by @jareddrice

When it’s cold outside, you put on a jacket. If your feet get wet, you put on dry socks. If you touch a dirty surface, you make sure to wash your hands. When it comes to caring for our physical health, being mindful of the things that can make us sick is almost ingrained into our behaviors. 

But what about our mental health?

Enter the rising popularity of self-care. The phrase itself may seem like a trendy way to say you’re drinking a glass of wine on a weeknight or going to bed early on the weekend, but it’s actually code for something much deeper. At its root, self-care is a holistic way to be more in tune with one’s self, fostering between engagement, overall wellness, and self-love. 

There’s no hard-and-fast rule about what qualifies as self-love and what doesn’t, but what’s easier to gauge is the positive impact self-care can have – and not just on your mood. For a better look at the relationship between self-care and professional success, FitRated surveyed over 1,000 people to understand how most employees practice self-care and the impact it can have on their jobs. The results were enlightening. 

What Does Self-Care Look Like? 

On the surface, self-care may seem like a passing fad, but in reality, its popularity is overwhelming. 

Compared to 32% of employees who said they don’t practice any type of self-care, 68% acknowledged making some effort to self-care during a normal workweek. While roughly a third of people said self-care was something you had to work hard enough to earn, their efforts might not be in vain. One in three people not practicing any type of self-care throughout the week also admitted to feeling burned out from their jobs. 

With more than four days a week self-caring, on average, the most popular forms of self-care included physical wellness (exercising and eating healthy), interpersonal self-care (spending time with other people), and mental self-care (solving puzzles or reading). 

Professional Impacts of Self-Care

If self-care sounds like something that younger generations would be champions for, you might need to reset your expectations. Millennials were the least likely to dedicate time to mental or spiritual self-care but also the most likely to be burned out at work. 

Regardless of age, you may still be able to take advantage of the benefits of self-care when it comes to your career. More than 4 in 5 workers practicing self-care said those efforts decreased their feelings about work burnout, and more than 2 in 3 said their career success had been positively impacted by those efforts.

Getting the most out of your self-care routine doesn’t mean committing to a major upheaval in your everyday rhythms, either. Yoga was the leading example of self-care that led to both increased focus and relaxation, while hair treatments and taking a bath helped people find motivation at work. Looking for a promotion in six months or fewer? People polled said skin treatments, hair treatments, and practicing gratitude were the things to do the trick. 

While only 1 in 4 workers said their jobs encouraged them to prioritize self-care, people working in these caring cultures were nearly 20 percentage points less likely to say they experience burnout on the job. 

For some people, a workplace culture that encourages self-care isn’t just nice to have, it's a necessity. Twenty-seven percent of people acknowledged having quit a job in the past because it didn’t seem to encourage the mental wellness of its staff. Another 26% of people started working remotely to increase their time for self-care, and 20% of people (including 23% of millennials) changed jobs to make time for themselves. 

Taking Time for Yourself 

Self-care can look like anything, from taking a long bath at the end of the day to making time for exercise during the workday and eating healthy. It doesn’t matter what helps you feel more focused or relaxed; it only matters that you take time to identify what works best for you. 

And remember, self-care isn’t just about finding a way to unwind after a particularly rough day (or week or quarter) at the office, it can be about finding the motivation to succeed – and maybe even getting a promotion along the way. As this FitRated survey found, self-care is caring for your career, too.

Which Countries Drink the Most Beer?

Photo Credit: מתן שגב

Many of us assume (with plenty of evidence to back it up), that the United States and the UK are the countries that drink the most beer. It’s no wonder that we think that: just look at the sheer number of breweries and microbreweries, bars and pubs, and beer distributors in both of these countries - to say nothing of the aisles and aisles of beer varieties at your local grocery or package store - that we’re among the leading beer drinkers in the world. 

Just looking at the sheer amount of advertisements on TV and the internet, at sports events and more, and it’d be excusable if you thought that Americans and British folks were drinking a whole lot more beer than well, everybody else (except for maybe Germans; we can’t discount Oktoberfest, after all). But recent statistics from NationMaster, showing the top countries for beer consumption are pretty surprising, as neither the United States nor the UK even made the top five. 

The top country for beer consumption per capita, as of last year, is actually Equatorial Guinea, a small,coastal African Nation just where the North and South Atlantic Ocean meet. As it turns out, Africans are quite fond of their brew, and enjoy a thriving beer culture, with second and third place going to Seychelles and Gabon. Rounding out the top five were Eastern European nations Czech Republic and Lithuania. The rest of the top ten was taken by the following countries: Poland, Austria, Romania and Nieue, with Germany holding strong at number ten. 

While the numbers might be a little surprising at first, it’s really not that shocking to find that other countries really, really love their beer, too. After all, beer is a beverage with a deep history and has cultural and societal significance for many people spanning across the globe. People have been drinking beer for centuries. And while Western nations such as the U.S. and UK might feel they have a monopoly on the frosty beverage, judging from the sheer amount of variety on offer, the truth is that beer is a universal, cultural phenomenon that can’t really be claimed. 

That being said, you’d be forgiven to assume that the United States and the UK have certainly seen their share of innovation when it comes to beer manufacturing and consumption in the past ten years or so. With so many breweries and microbreweries emerging in both nations, both in large cities and smaller towns, customers are spoiled for choice when it comes to their beer. At one time, you chose between a lager or a stout, but now, you’ve got your choice of craft beers - choose an IPA, often brewed with various fruit flavorings and different hops; sour gose, brewed with sea salt; heady and decadent stouts with interesting additions, lagers, cervezas, and much, much more. It’s nearly impossible to pick a “favorite” ale when there are literally thousands available to anyone person who happens to be out looking for a six pack. 

Beer trends come and go, but one thing is universal: people around the world love their brews, regardless of country, culture, or variety.

How Small Businesses Can Survive In The Big Pond

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay 

It’s not uncommon to hear from a range of sources about the importance of small businesses to any economy. Given that this is the case, it is surprising how difficult it can be to actually get the help a small business needs at times of real challenge. At one time or another, every business started out small. Those that grew large may have done so through hard work, luck or some combination of the two, but there’s no denying that their sheer size can make it harder for a smaller business to flourish.

If you are looking to make a go of it in the business world, the above may sound discouraging, but it shouldn’t. Your small business can survive as a smaller concern, or grow larger, even in a world of conglomerates and corporate mergers. You can help it do so, as long as you know what to look out for.

Surviving a public health crisis

There is no denying that the Coronavirus has made it harder for businesses to succeed; workers are less likely to want to commute to and work at a workplace, while customers are less likely to spend money. Add to this the fact that federal relief programmes have in some cases missed out the businesses most in need, and it’s a troubling time. 

There can be no guarantees about small business survival in such a tough era, but some ways to improve your chances include:

Applying for business relief grants and loans being provided by philanthropic providers

Asking for advance payment from bigger businesses and public bodies that use your services 

If possible, seek ways to defer rent and bank loan payments.

Surviving predatory practices from bigger companies

One of the toughest aspects of being a small business is that if you do something successful, you stand a real chance of seeing your efforts replicated by bigger businesses. These businesses have bigger ad budgets and access to more cost-efficient production methods, and can end up pricing you out of making your own items. Protecting your intellectual property by speaking to firms like Tully Rinckey is essential in this situation. Smaller businesses should not be treated as minnows for the big fish to feed on.

Surviving the loss of a key employee

Everyone has their own career path, and someone who achieves a lot while working for a small business has every right to move on to bigger things. It’s also a sign that you’re doing well when, unfortunately, one of your key employees gets headhunted. What is vital in this case is to let them go with good grace, and highlight the opportunities that can come to someone who puts in hard work at your company. 

It is also well worth upskilling members of staff by having them shadow your best workers - so that the senior member of staff gains experience of passing on their knowledge, and you can have a ready-made replacement for the position when they move on.

Small businesses have a lot of challenges to survive in a competitive field, but if you master the examples above then you can not only survive, but thrive and grow.

What Are The First Steps To Effective Crisis Leadership?

Photo by Christina Morillo from Pexels

Being on unfamiliar territory always presents a challenge to us as business leaders, and there has been no more unexpected challenge than the current global pandemic. Overnight, the future has become uncertain, whole industries have ground to a halt while others have flourished, and nations have had to get used to working from home becoming a new way of life. What the crisis has shown is just how innovative we can be when we need to, adapting our products and services rapidly to meet ‘the new normal’. And it's a fact that while some businesses will be feeling the aftershocks of this for quite some time, others will emerge stronger, leaner and more profitable because of the experience. 

Effective Leadership

Those companies that do thrive will tend to have one thing in common - a leader who can guide the organization through the troubles and respond to rapidly fluctuating conditions with one eye still on the future development of their business. So how best do you guide a team and yourself through such an unprecedented situation - and any crisis scenarios in the future?

Assessing Strengths

When the worst happens, the default response is to look externally - how do we stabilize sales, increase marketing, cut back on overheads? And while this is valuable, one of the best leadership skills you can develop is also the ability to focus inwards - on the strengths you have that will shape your approach to this challenge, and on the strengths that your team has that you can level at the problem. Great leaders don’t have to have the answer to every problem - they need a mature emotional response that allows them to understand their own limitations. You will get the best results in a crisis from operating within your personal strengths, and getting the right people in areas where you are not so strong. Processes like 360 feedback can be useful for this in understanding how you are viewed within the organization, and you will know yourself what parts of leadership come instinctively and seem to flow, and what areas always feel like more hard work.

Creating A Communication Plan

No matter how much great work is going on behind the scenes, it means little if you do not use effective communication skills to let everyone else involved know what's going on. Creating a stakeholder map allows you to see all the groups and individuals with a vested interest in the health of the company, and it's your role as leader to ensure that they are kept informed in a timely manner of any relevant developments. In a crisis situation, time acts as if compressed. This means taking action sometimes before you have a fully developed picture of the situation. However, it's a mistake to hold off on letting people know what is happening - the void simply gets filled with rumours and misinformation. So it's perfectly okay to acknowledge that you don’t have all the answers yet, as long as you communicate truthfully about what steps you are taking.

Why COVID-19 Could be the Perfect Time to Start a Business

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

During this globally challenging time, starting a business might be the last thing on your mind. While many people are struggling and don’t know what the future holds for them, it could be the perfect time to think about self-employment. In the current climate, it's highly likely that you have found yourself in a position where your company has furloughed you, you might have had to take additional leave, it could be that you are working reduced hours or have even been laid off. While these situations are unfortunate, what they do give you is time - time to reassess and you could really use this to your advantage and take the opportunity and think about whether working for yourself could be the right thing for you.

Many people will think that a pandemic or a recession would be the absolute worst time to start a new business. People are more cautious with their money; they don't want to be spending when life looks so uncertain. Then there is the fact that hiring is so much harder to do when you can't interview candidates in person, so trying to build a team remotely is incredibly challenging. While, you might experience a different startup lifecycle than you would at any other time, that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing. Did you know that some of the biggest brands in the world started during a recession? Burger King was born in the 1950s after the Korean War laid the US economy low, and people needed fast, affordable food. Then there was FedEx which began as a university project during the 1969-71 depression and turned into a business with almost $70 billion revenue and of course there's Microsoft which began in 1975, in a period of high unemployment, rising inflation and stagnant GDP in America. 

When times are tough, it forces people to analyse their circumstances, and that can be the best time to make positive changes which can build a more prosperous future for you and your family. An economic downturn can create a range of unexpected opportunities for entrepreneurs with an appetite for innovation. The timing can mean low-interest rates for borrowing startup capital, cheaper equipment as businesses sell off inventory or lower lease rates as landlords scramble to fill empty spaces. So, if you’re on the fence right now and You have a good business idea but have been put off by the pandemic, here are seven reasons why now could be the perfect time to take the plunge and start your business. 

There is greater access to talent

Right now, there are a load of talented, educated and brilliant people out of work through no fault of their own. While many of them will be furloughed and hoping to get back to work, nothing is guaranteed, and they might never end up going back to their old jobs. Even people who are secure in their companies may be using this time to think about what they want from their life, so could be on the lookout for an exciting opportunity that you could give them. You could also make the most of freelancers who are a great and flexible resource during a recession. Basically, you can hire better people at a lower price tag during tough times.

You can open ready for the ‘new normal.’

While no one knows exactly what the future will look like, we have a good idea of what expectations, safety measures and standards will be. You can also now identify the new needs that customers have as a result of the current crisis and create your business to serve this need in a way that is substantially better than the existing alternatives. With the knowledge behind you, you can start your business with new precautions already in place. You can look at global trends and learn from what is happening around the world. Think foot-operated doors, mobile sanitation, furniture that doesn’t just look cool but can stand up to robust cleaning.

Necessity drives innovation

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that is especially true during a financial downturn. Recessions cause problems that people need solutions to and Coronavirus has created a particular set of issues that startups can cure. The current pandemic has seen so much innovation already as small businesses are filling gaps left by more prominent companies. Local food deliveries are stepping up when supermarkets can’t meet demand, other businesses are innovating to offer new services such as online courses or people with a sewing machine are busy making and selling face masks and PPE. Startup businesses are innovative and agile which is exactly what the world needs right now.

Borrowing is accessible

It might seem counterintuitive, but economic uncertainty creates a great environment to seek funding. Interest rates are lower, which means loans are more affordable and investors use a downturn to get more for their money by investing in startups.

The competition is lower

Many businesses will find themselves with less competition as competitors struggle to restart after the pandemic. For those businesses that are able to innovate or borrow to stay afloat, this can be an advantage when they re-enter the marketplace.

People are more open to change

In times of crisis, people are usually looking for a change; they want to move forward so that the same crisis doesn't happen again. People accept that we are all building a new normal and part of that will be finding new ways to live, work, and play. They are open to it, and in fact, many people are actually excited for a change.  

The power is in your hands

With many businesses actively looking for new custom, now is an excellent time to negotiate for better terms and lower prices. If you’re in a decent position moneywise right now, then it could also be a time to buy up other businesses or their assets, if they have decided to cease trading. While it's important not to take advantage of a bad situation, what you can do is help out in a bad situation at the same time as building a business and a better life for yourself. 

Getting Through The Tricky First Year in Business

Photo by Alexas Fotos from Pexels

To run a successful business there are many plates that you need to keep spinning, and that first year especially can be tough to get through. As a new business owner, you have a lot of pressure to get it right and not a lot of budget to costly mistakes can put an early end to your venture. Here are some of the things you'll need to get right to get through your first year.

Website

Your website is vital to your success as a business. Invest in the services of a web designer and have them create you something responsive and beautiful. Ensure all of your information and social media links are present, and invest in high quality images to bring it all to life. 

Security

Many criminals will actively target less established businesses, knowing that their physical and online defenses won’t be as good. Rinsed bank accounts, stolen data, fraud and other issues can occur as a result of breaches, so always have the best security software installed or work with a managed IT company who can provide the best service. A company like www.spectrumwise.com is one example. Many criminals are able to gain access to small businesses just because they use easy to guess passwords or they find out from untrusted people that are linked to it, so be sure that you're not making these mistakes. To physically protect your business, you'll need to invest in a professionally fitted burglar alarm and a high quality CCTV system.

Health and safety

Accidents are always a possibility in the workplace and can happen regardless of what kind of business you're in. However, many can be avoided by following strict health and safety rules. This involves making sure everyone has the right training, the right equipment and the right understanding of what they’re doing in their job roles, so regular training and checking employees qualifications and certification before giving them the job.

Branding

Branding is what sets you apart from your competitors, so having a clear brand image from the start will help you gain your own following and avoid having to compete with much bigger companies. Competition is fierce in business, and no matter what you do, you’ll have competition. Focusing on your brand helps to differentiate you, and therefore appeal to customers that are interested in you, it's something to work on and get right from the very start. 

Marketing

Marketing is essential to your success as a business. You absolutely need to be reaching the right customers and giving them a reason to choose you over other similar brands. There’s more that goes into marketing a business than you might realize, it’s a skilled job and not something you can guess at so get a marketing expert on board your team or outsource to a professional company. 

Finances and taxes 

Use accounting software to track everything that comes in and goes out of your business money wise. Then it comes to filing your tax return, it will be quicker and mean less hassle for you. If you pay a tax accountant to complete your return for you, it will cost you less if everything is easy to understand and organised, as all of the information will be accessible and take less time. 

Understanding and Recovering From Burnout

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on LeaderCast

Workers are burning out at an alarming rate in our fast-paced, overworked societies in the U.S. and around the globe. People feel the constant demand to deliver and, as a result, are either burning out or leaving their professions altogether due to high stress and overwork. And with COVID-19, this is becoming more prevalent and amplified due to the demands of working from home and a lack of boundaries. 

Burnout is a state of prolonged emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that is coupled with excessive and prolonged stress.

There are five common signs of burnout:

1. Exhaustion due to lack of sleep. Our bodies need a proper amount of restful sleep in order to repair the damage we do to ourselves on a daily basis. Even if you live the best life of proper nutrition and activity, avoiding as many toxins as possible, you still do damage to your body. When you don’t get restful sleep, your body loses the opportunity to repair the damage. This accumulates over time and will make you fatigued and susceptible to burnout.

2. Lost motivation. When you are burned out, you lose motivation to do anything. Things that used to bring you joy and fulfillment no longer seem worthwhile, so you continue down the road of just working with no leisure activities.  

3. Increased mistakes and poor memory. One of the signs of burnout is someone having a poor memory and increasingly making mistakes. Burned out individuals get frustrated when they can’t remember simple things, and because they’re so fatigued and scattered in their minds, the number of mistakes they make in their work increases.
4. Decision-making becomes a struggle. “What do you want for dinner?” is one of the most challenging questions we face every day. When you’re burned out, simple decisions like this seem like a matter of life or death. 

5. Irritability increases. When I had my burnout journey a decade ago, I wasn’t a very nice person to be around. With the combined fatigue, increased mistakes, lack of motivation and feeling overwhelmed with work, I was very short-tempered with people, which isn’t my normal demeanor.  

Burnout happens as a result of: 

Working long hours. Many individuals work extremely hard and long hours at work only to come home and continue working late into the night. This habit leads to fatigue and poor sleep patterns, which will build up stress and lead to eventual burnout.

Staying constantly connected. Coupled with working long hours, we are constantly connected to work, social media and more through our smartphones. We receive so many notifications through our dozens of apps that we are spending hours and hours looking at screens, which causes both physical and mental issues over a long period of time.

Lacking boundaries. We do not have strong boundaries around how we spend our time. We merge our work and personal lives too much and don’t have a proper amount of leisure and rest time. 

Burnout doesn’t happen overnight; it builds up over time and impacts every facet of our lives. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight either, but there are some short-term steps to follow to bounce back from burnout:

Get restful sleep. Cut down your screen time significantly at night. I recommend that one hour before bedtime, at a minimum, you stop using electronic devices (computers, TV, smartphones, etc.). Establish a nighttime routine, and I highly recommend you start journaling how your day went. Highlight the good things that happened, and be thankful for the opportunity of life. With your restful sleep make sure your bed and pillow are comfortable. The room should be at a cool temperature so you sleep better.

Eat healthier. I’m not going to tell you to go with a 100 percent kale diet, but I recommend you use a food journal to document everything you eat, as well as document how you are feeling throughout your day. You may discover that you have some food intolerances or allergies to certain foods that impact your energy levels.

Track your interruptions. Document your interruptions on a daily basis. Interruptions include phone calls, text messages, emails, people stopping by your desk or talking to you while you are working. You will be amazed at how often you are interrupted in your day. For a free interruptions template, click here. Also, turn off as many notifications on your phone as possible.

Set boundaries on your time. If you do nothing else in life, you need to have firm boundaries around how you spend your time. Set a firm start and end to your workday, stop checking emails after hours and block off personal time on your calendar. Don’t fill up every minute of your day though, you need to schedule some “do nothing” time each day to help you relax and find clarity.

Schedule a couple of things that bring you joy every week. Develop a list of things that bring you joy and fulfillment in your life. These could be as simple as sitting in your favorite coffee shop or bistro, going to the movies, spending time with friends, reading, etc. You can access a free bucket-list template here. From the list you create, schedule 2-3 of these list items every week. Treat these appointments as if they were the most important meeting with your boss—the boss of your life is you.

For long-term burnout recovery, you need to determine why you burned out in the first place.  Many of the items listed in this article are surface-level reasons, but often it is behaviors, past traumas, thought patterns and personalities that play a huge part in why we burn out. To deal with these issues, I recommend working with a therapist or counselor to find out the root causes that led to your burnout so you can address those behaviors and thought patterns.