Are you and your team feeling overwhelmed and/or burned out by your content creation process?
If so, you’re not alone – many businesses and solo practitioners struggle to keep up with the demands of producing high-quality content on a regular basis.
It seems like all our platforms now require us to feed it content and if we don’t, we run the risk of our businesses not being relevant. FOMO. Or throwing money at ads with the hope to get more eyes on your business but with no real return.
But this insatiable hunger for content can lead to stress, exhaustion, and even a decrease in creating content. Additionally, the constant ping to consume content, sends us a reminder that we need to create more content and we must be behind everyone else!
It’s like when we would forget to feed our Tamagotchis back in the day. The little sound would just keep going. Well, at least eventually they just died. These platforms don’t die!
Now, more than ever, it is so important to see the signs of burnout and try our best to mitigate it. Stress is unavoidable. We’re going to feel stress from our work but how can we support or nurture that stress the best we can? Below we’ll share more resources and tips on how to see the signs of creative burnout and how to best navigate content creation.
TLDR; slow down and do less.
The Risks of Burnout in Marketing
As a purpose-driven business, your passion fuels your work. We get it. It’s like that for us too. But when we experience burnout from churning and churning content, there’s a possibility that passion and productivity decrease. And worst, what was once your dream turns into a bit of a nightmare.
We often don’t realize we’re burning ourselves out until it’s too late. Or the symptoms are so loud that we can’t physically keep going.
Symptoms to keep in mind (but this is not a full list) are fatigue or staying tired even after resting. Irritability. Opening up your workstation and not knowing where to start. Feeling overwhelmed with each task. Small tasks seem impossible to complete. We have to admit that we’ve experienced several of these! And we’re a mindful company so it is totally normal if you have too. It happens.
The burnout questions on the Mayo Clinic, are a great place to start this inquiry.
Additionally, keep in mind that this burnout “problem” isn’t entirely your fault. While yes each individual person has the ability to make changes, our institutional systems are built on a high amount of productivity. To constantly push, do more, be better, grow, there’s no time to slow down, use up every waking hour to be productive — this is not just you. It is like an embedded code in our nervous system imprinted by something bigger than us.
Slowing down, and taking time to nurture your creativity is often a radical act of resistance.
The Benefits of a Clear 90-Day Strategy
One of the main benefits of having a 90-day strategy is knowing when to start and knowing that there’s an end in sight. After the 90-day roadmap is complete, you get time to rest! To reflect on what went well? What didn’t go well? And take a break from content creation. Forget about writing blogs, posting on social, creating webinars, or advertising your product — just a full stop. Pause and breathe. How good does that sound?
How can a clear content plan help prevent burnout?
With some structure and tangible deadlines, the goal is to reduce stress, increase focus by anchoring your work with themes and subjects, and enable more efficient use of time for you and your team. And honestly, be more realistic with what you can and cannot execute.
Steps to Creating a Clear 90-Day Strategy
90 days may sound long, but from our experience, it flies by every time. With these helpful steps you’ll see what we mean:
- Write down your objective for these 90 days.
- Do you just want to create consistently? Are you hoping for more social media followers? Need more website traffic? Want to sell a product? Whatever your answer will help you decide what channel or area you focus on, what copy your need to write, and the action you are intentionally asking people to take.
- Create monthly and/or weekly themes.
- Monthly and/or weekly themes anchor or provide structure to your content process. It’s like in meditation, you need a technique to focus on. Sometimes the technique is your breathing, a mantra, or listening to the sounds around you. Without the anchor, your mind will drift off. Similarly, a clear 90-Day Strategy with themes provides that anchor.
- Write things in a calendar.
- While there are so many tools out there to support you in a content calendar, create something that is helpful for you. This could be simply writing it down on a piece of paper. Using Google Calendar. Or Excel/Google Sheets.
- You can also check out our own template which is tried and tested with all of our clients. They have consistently made content planning easier and more effective. As a marketer, I rely on these templates to keep my clients on track and achieve their goals.
Tips for Avoiding Content Burnout
Once you figure out your objectives, themes, and content cadence, it’s time to execute your 90-day campaign!
Keep in mind that things will feel different once you start executing.
In order to avoid burning while you are in your 90-day window, keep reminding yourself that it’s ok if you do less than you planned. If you bit off more than you can chew, just take a step back, no big deal — do one less thing you have on your cadence strategy.
Additionally, you can try these practices to stay motivated and inspired throughout the proces
Relaxation Meditation: Take a few moments to set the intention to fully relax your body, mind, and breath. Begin this meditation with “active relaxation” followed by moments of breath awareness and ease. This is a great practice do to at your desk, or at any moment throughout your content creation process.
Guided Journaling: Take some time to “purge your mind,” write what’s been circling in your mind and acknowledge your emotions through nurturing and guided prompts.
Loving-Kindness Meditation: Cultivating feelings of love and kindness towards yourself and others is a great skill to have as a marketer. It can help you and your team improve the relationships with colleagues and clients while creating a more positive working environment.
Conclusion
Having a clear timeline and structure for your content creation process is the first step in avoiding burnout in your marketing plan. Additionally, knowing that you and your team have an end date in sight — to pause and reflect allows everyone to build up that creativity and passion once again.
Take the guesswork out of content planning and minimize the impact of content burnout with our 9-tab Google Excel Sheet. Take the first step towards effortless content planning today!