I hate wind.

I associate wind with cold, storms, and bad weather. But, despite my hatred of it, I can’t argue that it isn’t fast or powerful.

In fact, the fastest gust of wind ever recorded on the planet was clocked at 254mph in Barrow Island, Australia. In comparison, a weak Category 5 Hurricane clocks sustained wind speeds at 157mph and the fastest lap ever turned at the Indianapolis 500 came in at a top speed of 237mph.

Once we reach the end of creating our first set of Laughably Small Tasks, most of us have the tendency to want to launch into work fast as the wind. But, doing this is a huge mistake guaranteed to launch you back into overwhelm and burn out.

So today, we’re going to cover:

• Why launching into work fast is a bad idea.
• How to prevent yourself from launching into work fast.
• What you should do instead of launching back into work fast.

Most of us work based on our emotions
If you feel good or you’re excited to work, that means you’ll work lots and be nonplussed about putting a lot of hours in on a project. But, if you’re feeling crappy, unmotivated, overwhelmed, or in any way unconfident – it’s hard to get going at all. Most of us would rather just eat Cheetos.

When you finally discover that you can break through your mental exhaustion using Laughably Small Tasks, you’re likely to feel better and get excited about doing some work again. In the case that you’ve been stuck and you can break down a large barrier, you may even feel extremely motivated out of nowhere!

Our first instinct is usually to work while you’re ‘feeling it’ and try to get into a ‘flow’ state. But, at this stage, diving into the depths of a project would be a large mistake that leads you right back to mental exhaustion, overhwelm, and quitting. You likely even have previous evidence of doing this very thing already – getting excited about an idea, working hard, getting stuck, and moving onto another project while never finishing the first one.

So while we may have defined how to get going again, we have yet to clearly define the lane of a way to work well that doesn’t involve burnout or quitting.

To prevent our disaster scenarios, we actually have to learn when to stop.
While much is made of “how to start”, nobody actually goes over the much more important idea of consistency and energy retention with any practical suggestions.

While you can sleep or develop habits or any other tactic – nothing will really solve the problem until you understand how to manage your physical and mental energy (much like people tell you to manage your time).

Prescribing a system – such as working in ‘pomodoro’ blocks – is effectively impossible because every individual and their energy capacity is different. However, it’s actually fairly easy and straightforward to discover what works best for you personally, assuming you’re given a simple rule set and you start small/slow.

To do this, you’ll need to start utilizing two tools – Success Bars and Upper Limits. A Success Bar is where you declare what success looks like and that any additional work beyond the Success Bar is “bonus”. You don’t need to actively prevent yourself from doing additional work once you’ve met your Success Bar, but you can acknowledge that you’ve already had a successful day and are allowed to quit the moment you’ve reached it.

Success Bars can be utilized in two ways – task-based, and day-based. A task-based success bar would look like you defining how much you’re going to get done on a given task tomorrow. A day-based success bar would look like you defining how much overall work you’re going to get done tomorrow. The practice works the same both ways – you can stop on the task or for the day once you’ve reached your success bars.

Upper Limits are quite different – your Upper Limit is the amount of work you’re allowed to take on before you’re required to stop. Again, these can be both task and day-based, but the most important version is declaring this for your day.

Of the two of these, Upper Limits are actually harder and much more unintuitive. Typically it’s difficult to get going on a task, but once we do it’s also difficult to quit. Upper Limits used successfully require you to stop prematurely of where you typically would, which forces you to conserve your energy for additional work tomorrow.

You should use these tools to do less than you think.
This changes over time, but when you’re burnt or mentally exhausted – your Success Bars should be extremely low. It’s perfectly acceptable to have a single task be your Success Bar for the day. In general, your Success Bars should tend to be less than what you know you can achieve, but certainly not higher. While this feels weird and counter-intuitive, until you’re at a place where consistency is second-nature, this is the best way to keep yourself from overworking.

Long term, the most successful use of Success Bars is to set them at 70%-80% of your assumed capacity. Again, if you’re still dealing with overwhelm and have never done this before, 70% of your energy capacity for the day may only be 1-2 tasks – that’s perfectly okay even if it feels weird, or unproductive.

Upper Limits should live just beyond your Success Bars. You’ll know you’ve set your Upper Limits correctly if you reach your upper limit and feel like you could keep going. If it’s hard to pull yourself away – that’s the clearest indication that you have set your bars/limits correctly and are conserving energy. While you may be tempted to “give it your all” or “leave it all on the field” – that’s not a winning long-term strategy.

I personally set Success Bars for every significant project/task that I’m going to do in a given day, and an Upper Limit on the day itself and maybe significant tasks I think I’ll be tempted to do a lot on. Usually, the Upper Limits become burdensome to spell out for individual tasks over time, and it’s easier to stop at or just after you reach your Success Bar.

So let me get this straight – you want me to work less and stop while I still have energy and I’m excited? Isn’t that wrong? Aren’t I sacrificing my full ability? What about giving everything I’ve got?”
Yes, I do. We don’t really think about this, but “giving your all” in the moment is different than “giving your all” over time.”

I don’t believe that your favorite sports stars, actors/actresses, and idols bring 100% of their energy to their work every day – it’s simply a physical impossibility. Instead, they gear up for big, important moments. Meaning, the amount of energy that they give is moment-appropriate.

If you’re playing in the championship game, you give everything you can because there are no games to play later. But, during practices, the amount of effort given is different. Thus, you should be giving the energy you can. When you’re starting back from overwhelm or burnout – that’s probably not a a huge amount. But, when you utilize the methods outlined in this guide – you’ll get there more quickly than you expect and end up giving more of yourself long-term.

Okay, so what did we cover again?

• Bursting back to work is a guarantee to return to mental exhaustion
• You prevent mental exhaustion by setting success bars and upper limits
• Your success bar can be low, and less than what you think you can likely achieve early on
• Your upper limit should live just a few tasks beyond the success bar, so you’re still energetic when you stop

So while “run like the wind” seems like it would be great advice…
But it actually isn’t if you’re trying to get work done quickly, effectively, and consistently. You’ll find that you actually get significantly more done, faster, if you work just below your capacity and not beyond it.

So, much like the tortoise and the hare – pace yourself – and you’ll find that you’ll come away accomplishing exactly the things you want without burning out in the process.