Slaying Burnout in Project Management

Adriana Girdler

Strategies to Thrive as a Project Manager Project management is a high-pressure role – one that can leave us feeling highly stressed or completely burned …

Strategies to Thrive as a Project Manager

Project management is a high-pressure role – one that can leave us feeling highly stressed or completely burned out. Whether due to heavy workloads, tight deadlines, scope creep, or not enough resources, it can seem like that’s just the reality of project management…or is it?

I’m here to tell you that your role as a project manager does NOT need to leave you feeling completely bogged down and overwhelmed.

In fact, by implementing a few simple strategies, you can go from feeling frazzled to totally thriving on your projects in no time.

Strategy #1: Don’t let emails overpower you

You can’t change the fact that email is a beast for project managers. What you do have control over is how you handle it – and not letting it overpower you is one of the most effective ways to give burnout the boot.

First, set up structure around your email to keep it from eating into your day. Keep your inbox clean by blocking time in your day to check, categorize, and respond to email.

Second, set up rules around expected email response times with your project team and steering committee at the start of your project in your kick-off meeting. Your rule might be ‘24 hours to respond’ for instance, so no one expects a response – or feels pressured to reply – before then. This is really beneficial if you have a global team working in different time zones.

Third, ask everyone to only CC others when absolutely necessary. This goes a long way towards preventing email overwhelm. 

More strategies to banish burnout

These are some other great ways to maintain balance and avoid burnout as a project manager:

  • Build a solid communication plan
  • Give perfectionism the boot
  • Stop having unnecessary meetings
  • Implement mindfulness
  • Have an end of day routine

These strategies go a long way towards creating balance and harmony in your life as a project manager and I explain each of them in more detail in my latest video. Head over to YouTube to continue working on SLAYing burnout there.

If you want to ensure you not only eliminate burnout, but also have a super successful project, make sure you check out my SLAY Project Management course where I give you all the templates, tips, and techniques to implement to make every project successful.

Adriana Girdler, PMP | Creator of Slay Project Management

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Adriana Girdler is a project manager, productivity specialist, entrepreneur, professional speaker, facilitator, visioning wizard, and author. As President of CornerStone Dynamics, Adriana is one of Canada’s prominent business productivity and project management specialists—helping both individuals and businesses do what they do, only better. She is a certified master black belt lean six sigma with over 20 years’ experience improving how companies work.

She also holds both PMP (project management professional) and CET (certified engineering technologist) designations. She’s a Tedx speaker, as well as a HuffPost and Thrive Global contributor. She has been interviewed on Global, CBC, CTV, CHCH, 680News Radio, Newstalk 1010, Sirius XM and published in the Globe and Mail and numerous industry magazines. WANT ADRIANA'S FREE ONLINE TRAINING? In 45 min, learn Adriana's 5 project management secrets she use on EVERY project. Sign up for the Free Webinar here: THE FAB FIVE FUNDAMENTALS OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT

SLAY Project Management

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5 Sections and 24 step-by-step HOW TO Videos! The only 5-hour on-line course that teaches you the PRACTICAL side of project management. This course will guide you step-by-step on HOW to successfully run a project and provides you with all the templates and tips you need to be successful.

Fab 5 Fundamentals

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Are you striving for successful projects, but get overwhelmed figuring out what elements of project management to focus on for the best results? In the Fab Five Fundamentals of Project Management, you’ll learn the five things you need to do on EVERY project to bring it to success.

Why Projects Fail?

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