When You Have Nothing Left for Work
For the stretch when the job has emptied you out and pushing harder is no longer working. It helps you find what to put down this week, ask for something concrete, and tell the difference between needing rest and needing a change.
Burnout · Burnout · Work · 8 items · once a week
The checklist
- List everything you are carrying at work — depletion is easier to argue with on paper.
- Pick one thing to hand over or let slip this week — nothing changes while the load stays the same.
- Name one concrete thing to ask your manager for — a specific ask is harder to wave away.
- Take the leave you have already earned — unused days help nobody sitting in a system.
- Stop checking messages after a set hour — the day needs an end you can point to.
- Put one thing you enjoy back in the week — the first thing dropped is usually the one that refilled you.
- Say out loud whether rest would fix this — some of it is tiredness and some of it is the job.
- Tell one person outside work how it is going — this gets heavier when nobody else can see it.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it once a week, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.