printable worksheet · about 8 minutes
Making room for rest when you're burnt out
Wellness Café · Printable worksheet
Making room for rest when you're burnt out
Map everything you're carrying, see whose it actually is, and choose the first thing to put down.
Burnout rarely improves through better time management. It improves when the load changes. This worksheet helps you see the load clearly before deciding what moves, so print it, write on it, and be honest with it. Nobody else has to see it.
Step one: write the whole list
Every recurring responsibility, paid work, household, caregiving, admin, emotional labour, the things only you remember. Ten minutes, no editing.
Everything I'm carrying right now:
Step two: mark each one
- D: drains me every single time
- N: neutral, just needs doing
- F: genuinely fills me
- Circle anything that is not actually yours to carry
Step three: three questions
What could be delegated, even imperfectly?
What could be done to 70% instead of 100%?
What could be paused for one month with no real consequence?
Step four: choose one
One change, this week. Recovery is cumulative, and one real change beats a rebuilt system you abandon by Friday.
The one thing I'm putting down this week:
Who or what makes it possible:
Check back in two weeks
What did I put down?
What happened that I was afraid would happen?
What's next on the list?
Notes
Anything else you're noticing:
If your list is mostly D's and none of it feels moveable, that's exactly the conversation to bring to a session.
Written by Tanika Newman, Registered Social Worker. This guide is education, not therapy or medical advice. In a crisis, call or text 988 or call 911.