All work and no rest makes Jill a burned-out girl. Photo: Pexels
Do you come back from work exhausted and just collapse in your bed? You may have burnout.
This is a common condition that a lot of South Africans suffer from.
In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) included burnout in the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) as an occupational phenomenon.
According to marketing director Kelly Fisher, to overcome this, people should be using their weekends as a time to relax and recharge.
But they are not because of the necessary house chores, life admin, and worries about the week ahead.
Here are Fisher’s five tips to reclaim your weekend:
Spread tasks among family members
If you are finding that you are doing most of the household tasks yourself and that everyone else is enjoying a carefree weekend, the first step is to spread these tasks out a bit more.
Get the whole family involved, and you will find that things get done a lot quicker, which leaves you with time to relax and enjoy the weekend.
Use the app OurHome to co-ordinate chores - family members can create to-do lists and assign tasks to each other.
Get outside help
Sometimes it’s just better to outsource the work because you simply can’t get to everything.
If this is the case, investigate services and companies that can come in to help you get your home in shape.
You can book these services over the weekend to take place during the week and tick one more thing off your list of worries and concerns.
Get away from the house
As a treat to yourself and your family, you can also just go away for the weekend. When you are away from home and on holiday, you are less likely to feel inclined to do chores or life admin.
Take a break for a few days. Head somewhere where you can lose signal and just relax for a while.
You will find that with more hours on your hands, you can get to that reading you have been wanting to do or simply just laze the day away.
Prepare
Many of us get the “Sunday blues”, where we spend so much of our Sunday worrying about Monday and the week ahead. A great way to combat this is to prepare for your following week on the Friday before.
Make a to-do list of what tasks you will need to tackle on Monday, what you want to get done, and what your week will look like.
This way, you not only feel more prepared heading into the week but you also won’t be stressed on a Sunday night wondering what your week has in store.
Shop online
Let’s be honest - many of us use our weekends to shop and stock up the house.
This can easily take hours out of your day as it includes driving, walking, browsing and getting distracted too. Shopping online can help with this.
With online shopping, you just search for the items you want, and you are not browsing aisles and stores you don’t need. And it gets delivered to your door, so there’s no travel time either.
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