Inspiring Workplaces 
The Way Work Ought to Be!

#1,092- Sept. 17, 2025

As I write in the chapter Leading a Culture of Resiliency in my pine-scented book, Small Moments, Big Outcomes: How Leaders Create Cultures That Fuel Extraordinary Results, if you want to prevent workplace burnout (and I hope you do!) then you need to be careful that you aren't inadvertently incentivizing burnout through the language you use or the expectations you place on each other.  

Does your workplace use dog-eat-dingo kind of language, or encourage and even reward a culture of busyness? Do employees feel they have to be on 24/7 and give 110% just to get noticed? 

Through their "Chill is the New Busy" campaign aimed at reducing employee burnout, the goodr sunglasses company discovered that may employees were burning out because they were "hustling for self-worth." So, here's an important question to ponder: Are employees in your workplace feeling pressure to hustle for self-worth? 

Workplace burnout has soared in recent years, so this is an important conversation to have with your boss, your team, and your entire organization. The World Health Organization has officially recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon linked to workplace culture, so it takes a culture-wide approach to banish the burdensome beast of burnout. 

Here's just one approach to bring more balance to your work life: Employ the 80% rule. Productivity experts and many high achievers speak about the importance of scheduling no more than 80% of your workday with meetings or scheduled activities. Saving 20% of each workday gives you breathing space to cope with the inevitable hiccups and unanticipated squirrel moments (as a friend of mine calls interruptions) that crop up throughout the day.