Working in construction management is no picnic. Looming deadlines, uphill battles, surprises, dealing with mistakes and pushing the pace are just a few ways in which construction managers get hit with stress. There is always going to be pressure to push the pace and get things done. When the hours stay long and the recovery short, we begin burning out our fuel tanks in turbo mode. Hitting the wall is inevitable – we experience burnout. If you feel tired – both physically and mentally – by just thinking about work, you may be experiencing it. It’s important to recognize burnout as quickly as possible to begin fixing it. In this articles, we’ll discuss five best practices for avoiding construction management burnout!
What Is Burnout?
According to Psychology Today, “Burnout is a state of chronic stress that leads to physical and emotional exhaustion; cynicism and detachment; feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.
In other words, we get extremely tired. Our minds begin to shut off. Life becomes one long slog. We just want the week to be over. When it is, we dread going back to work again on Monday. We feel tired no matter how much sleep we get. We feel that what we’re doing is pointless, and that none of it really even matters. Not a good time.
As Psychology Today points out, burnout develops in workers over a prolonged period of time.
Some of the symptoms they mention include chronic fatigue, insomnia, forgetfulness, lack of focus, anxiety, depression and anger. Those are just the mental symptoms. A lack of appetite, muscle tension and weakened immune system are among the physical symptoms.
What Causes Construction Management Burnout?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “the need to meet deadlines and to respond to delays and emergencies often requires construction managers to work many additional hours. Many construction managers may also be on call 24 hours a day.” That means a construction manager spends plenty of time away from home, family, exercise and tending to other personal interests.
In high-stress work environments, we also experience the bad side of our peers. Raise of hands: how many of you have experienced arguments, yell-fests and angry outbursts on your project? If there’s someone reading who hasn’t, let me know where you work!
While working those “many additional hours”, construction managers aren’t just leisurely plugging away. We’re feeling lots of stress and other negative emotions as we work into the night, just to show up as the sun rises the next morning. This is a recipe for burnout – just a matter of time.
How Can I Avoid Construction Management Burnout? Here Are 5 Best Practices
Without further ado, here’s our list of best practices for avoiding project management burnout!
- Stay Vigilant About Organization & Planning
- Eat Right, Including Proper Hydration & Nutrients
- Get To Work Early, Work Efficiently & Leave On Time
- Put Yourself First After Work Through Healthy Habits
- Consider A Change Of Scenery And Switching Companies
Let’s get into a few ways that are can practice each one of these. Scroll to continue!
Related Articles:
- How To Relax After Work: 10 Easy Ways
- Is Construction Management Stressful? 7 Causes Of Stress
- 10 Common Issues Project Managers Face & How To Solve Them
1. Stay Vigilant About Organization & Planning
One of the worst feelings we can get as construction managers is to be in ‘reaction mode’ – thinking moment-to-moment, running around and hyper focused on solving one problem. Not only does it deplete our gas tank, but everything else suffers at work, too. As we finish solving one problem, we have just enough time to react to the next one. This cycle can go on for days, weeks, months or more.
PROMOTION
It’s extremely important to work efficiently so we can avoid this. It’s vital that we plan ahead, review our to-do lists every morning, identify the most important task we need to complete each day and get maximum return on our efforts. Even on the busiest day.
By staying on top of our planning habits and keeping ourselves organized, we avoid surprises and last-second scrambles in the future.
2. Eat Right, Including Proper Hydration & Nutrients
When we’re under lots of stress and working long hours, it’s easy to forget to eat at all, let alone maintain a well-balanced diet. This lack of nutrition makes us even less productive and fatigued.
Not to mention, our bodies suffer quite a bit too. Having little free time calls for a quick solution – we reach for chips, fast food or soda instead of healthy, natural foods.
Via RelaxNation, here are a couple articles that discuss ways to maintain a healthy diet and keep stress levels low:
- What Should I Eat To Relax My Mind? 20 Naturally Calming Foods
- What Supplements Are Good For Stress And Anxiety?
Eating healthy requires being prepared. Fresh produce and other nutritious natural food must be bought at the grocery store and prepared at home, so it can be brought to work every day. It’s a bit of work up front, but well worth it for our minds, bodies and job performance.
3. Get To Work Early, Work Efficiently & Leave On Time
One of the most important things we can do to avoid construction management burnout is to reduce our hours spent at work. One of the easiest ways we can do this is to optimize our work schedule.
Getting to work early is a practice you can begin tomorrow. Go to bed early and get in an hour earlier than you usually do. I personally recommend using this time to review the to do list, plan the day and get things into other people’s hands. Your output will be supercharged when you’ve planned the day efficiently.
This is all done in an effort to leave on time. Set a time that you won’t work past. If you’re routinely working over 40 hours per week, coming in early every day and working efficiently, your company will just need to deal with you leaving on time. Only you can ensure your balance at work.
This allows you to take care of yourself after work and get plenty of rest in order to get up early again tomorrow.
4. Put Yourself First After Work Through Healthy Habits
Now that you’ve begun to actually leave on time, it’s best to structure your personal time for maximum effect.
First off, I recommend setting your phone and email alerts to silent. You can check periodically, but the constant dinging breaks focus and pulls us right back to work mentally.
By working efficiently, you also eliminate having to do any work from the evening’s schedule. This allows for a much-needed mental break along with time to do things for ourselves.
In addition to eating and preparing healthy food, we can use the time to exercise. We can get in a great workout in as little as 20 minutes of high-intensity effort. Practices like yoga can be done anywhere – it keeps our body balanced and also for our minds to enter a meditative state in the process, which gives us a boost of recovery.
Straight-up having fun is essential as well. If we don’t enjoy our lives, what’s the point? It’s important to stay social or even just do things we like. As that old annoying saying goes, laughter is the best medicine.
In other words, have a life outside of work – even when your project is stressing you.
5. Consider A Change Of Scenery And Switching Companies
Sometimes, we just have a crappy job on a crappy project. It happens to everyone in construction management at some point. Whether it be a poorly-run organization, a toxic work environment, a bad boss, or a specific project gone sour, we can experience construction management burnout from a specific set of circumstances rather than our entire career choice.
While it’s honorable and noble to push through some crap in the interest of a project’s outcome, it isn’t worth sacrificing your well-being.
PROMOTION
According to the BLS, the amount of workers in construction management is expected to grow by 10% over the next 10 years. Lucky for us, this means demand will only increase into the near future – finding a better opportunity is easier than ever.
If you’ve tried all of the above and you still feel burned out at work, it’s probably time to move on. I’ve been there and greener pastures are always ahead.
In Summary
We’ve gone through the many reasons that cause us stress in the construction industry. Construction management burnout is no joke, and can seriously impact our lives in a negative way once it gets out of control. Luckily, you now have five practices you can begin using right away to prevent burnout in the future! I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and thanks a lot for reading.
