Avoiding Agent Burnout

Working on your own schedule, with no two days the same and lots of high touch client interactions is amazing … until you feel like you can’t even look at your phone for fear of more work … but can’t relax because of knowing how much work you have. As tricky as it is, the goal is to never hit this point! To help with this, we’ve put together a list of things you can do before you get to the point of burnout.

Set Boundaries

Setting boundaries in every way is crucial. Being always on feels best for business … at first, but it’s not sustainable. By setting times and places to cut off your work, you are actually going to have better quality communications with clients and business decisions because you will be more refreshed when you are working.

Learn From Someone

Learning from someone that has more experience than you (no matter how experienced you are) is a helpful, realistic way of seeing exactly what works and what doesn’t for the type of agent you aspire to be. Seeing what works and what doesn’t work for their workflow (and sanity) is a great way to learn. 

Work by Energy Level

Instead of organizing tasks by time, or trying to do everything at once, try arranging your schedule by certain energy levels for tasks. If you know client calls are best for you when you are fresh in the day, schedule those in the morning, and more low key computer work for your afternoon dip in energy. Pay attention to when you feel best and worst doing certain tasks and work on your schedule from there! Once you schedule those tasks, stick to the tasks! Don’t exhaust your brain and defeat the purpose of organizing your tasks in your schedule by immediately jumping into multitasking on top of them! 

Automate

If you ever feel like “there’s got to be a better way” … rest assured there most likely is. With today’s online platforms - there is always a solution, and often a cheap (or free) and fairly simple one. For example, if you feel like you are answering the same questions over and over again for new leads, send them an automated email with a rundown of the most common Q & A’s. If you feel like you are individually reaching out to keep up relationships with contacts you aren’t actively working with, schedule email newsletters ahead of time. Spend one day on content - and boom, you don’t have to think about for the next two months.

Manage Client Expectations

There won’t be as much guilt with not being on demand with clients 24/7 if you set expectations ahead of time with what your typical working hours are like. Although it feels risky to set some guidelines, tell yourself that successful people are allowed to have limits, and that your communication will probably be much more productive and accommodating with your work hours being during “working hours”.

Unsubscribe

Extremely simple, and insanely avoided by all: unsubscribe. The amount of time we go through emails is a huge part of our day, and having to even acknowledge newsletters or other emails that you don’t want or need anymore isn’t worth it! Just take the time to unsubscribe!