To Avoid Burnout, Know Your Minimum Output Level
Having a long and consistent career requires doing just enough each day
It’s simple and inevitable: When you try to do too much in a short amount of time, you burn out. The only way to avoid that, to have a long and consistent career, is to do just enough each day.
But what is enough? To find out, let’s look to those who have it down to a formula.
When we think about the most productive people, it’s easy to assume they’re working 18-hour days and sacrificing their personal lives (and sleep) to get it all done. But that’s just not the case.
Take Stephen King, who publishes a book a year: In spite of his extraordinary output, he’s not sitting at a computer and writing all day long. In his memoir On Writing, King writes: “I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2,000 words.”
That’s a good amount of writing, but it’s manageable, and if you’re a pro like King, it might take just a few hours. He writes that he has enough time in the day to go for a walk, read a lot of books that are not his own, spend time with his wife, and watch baseball.
King figured out what I call his Minimum Output Level (MOL), which is the specific measure of work you need to do consistently in order to reach your…
