Burned Out? The 4 Burners Theory of Energy

Photo by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

Sometimes I think my favorite hobby is juggling. Not balls or whatever, but Things To Do. I’m always trying to figure out a balance between all the things I need to do, want to do, and should do.  

I think it’s fair to say many people these days are doing the same juggling act. How to have enough time and energy to do it all? We’re like hamsters on a wheel, desperately increasing our speed but never seeming to get “there” - to that place where we can, in fact, balance it all gracefully.  

Enter the Four Burners Theory. James Clear wrote about it a while back, and I’ve seen it referenced elsewhere. It basically says you can balance four major areas of your life at a time. And even worse, you have to lose some of those burners if you really want to succeed in one area.  

Clear and others name the four areas Family, Friends, Health, and Work. But even then, it can be broken down further: spouse/significant other, kids, parents, extended family... exercise AND preparing healthy food... work you do for pay AND creative work.... 

How do you choose? If you’re a writer, is Writing one of your burners? What size burner is it? Is it on a back burner, or your favorite burner you use the most?  

And if you’re like me, you have way more than four important things going on at once. My main burners at the moment are: 

• Work (advising) 

• Work (coaching, running a business) 

• Caretaking 

• Writing 

• Health (exercise, prepare healthy food) 

• Friends/Family 

• Meditation/Spiritual Development 

• Italian language study 

• Time for reading, journaling, watching tv, volunteering, taking walks, Artist Dates, etc.  

• Life Admin, for me and the person I take care of – financial stuff, appointments, travel prep, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, etc. All the daily life stuff you have to do, which eats up a certain amount of time and energy.  

It’s normal to have an ebb and flow, for different pots to be boiling at different times in your life. It’s my birthday week, so I’m particularly inclined to look over my life and see where I’m doing work that’s meaningful to me, and where I’m not. I’m one of those people that loves having a million things going on – I'm never bored – but even I have limits.  

It’s good to take some time to reflect on your burners every so often. Are they balanced? Should they be, or is one dominating for a particular reason? What feels good, and what doesn’t?  

It’s hard, because we want to do it all! “If only I had more hours in the day,” we think. But of course we’d probably just cram something else in those extra hours. 

As James Clear writes, there are tradeoffs. We can’t do everything, equally well, all the time. Once we accept that reality, it becomes a tiny bit easier to take a deep breath and relax.  

Are there things you can outsource? Possibly, if you have the money. Otherwise, you have to either accept that you’re not going to do them well (cleaning tends to go by the wayside for me) or that you can’t do as much of them (I’d love to work out a full hour per day, but sometimes 20 minutes is all I can squeeze in).  

What can you give up? You can look at your burners and see if there’s anything you do out of habit that isn’t serving you. Some days I give up certain things for the day, like this morning I didn’t do my usual spiritually-focused reading. It was that or a shower, and I really needed the shower! What do you give up guilt-free? What do you feel guilty about giving up? What are you de facto “giving up” by just never getting around to it?   

You can take tiny bites, or adjust your schedule: Write for 15 minutes. Study Italian for 10 minutes while waiting for an appointment. Exercise 3x per week for 60 minutes instead of 5x/week for 20. Any schedule you set will need to be adjusted as life happens, and seasons change. Holiday stuff comes to the big front burner in November-December, with all the shopping, cooking, baking, parties, gift wrapping, card writing, etc. Lots of people don’t do all of that. They don’t want it to be a big part of their lives, and it isn’t. Do you feel guilty if you give up certain things? Can you make an adjustment, or accept it for what it is?  

What might you choose to have a full focus on? This doesn’t have to be permanent. What area would benefit from a laser focus right now?  

Ask yourself: is it only external demands that get full-focus attention, like my job, or my kids, or responsibilities to other people? When, if ever, do I give full-focus attention to the things that really matter to me, like my writing?  

Take a look at your burners. What trade-offs are you making? Do they feel good? Are you making them consciously, or by default? How can you find a better balance?  

Where is your dead time? This is time spent scrolling social media or other websites, gaming, or other activities that we sometimes do to zone out when we feel stressed, There’s nothing wrong with relaxing, but there’s a difference between a conscious choice to watch an episode of a tv show, and mindlessly binge-watching while glued to the phone.  

In short, we can all be more mindful of our time and energy, and how we spend it. What rebalancing is necessary? As caretaking becomes a bigger part of my life, I have to find ways to make my coaching business do-able within new time constraints. Right now, travel has come to the front burner since I’m going to Italy next month. It’s a delicate dance to do everything I need to do.  

None of likes to face the fact that we can’t do it all, that time is finite, that energy flags. If we try to cram too many burners into our lives, we get “burned out” and don’t want to do anything.  

If you’re wanting to spend more time on your writing but you can’t seem to find the time or make yourself do it, ask yourself what other burners are hot for you right now? What can you do to put writing on one of your burners? What compromises might you have to make? Pretending that we don’t have to make compromises only leads to disappointment and shame.  

This week, take a look at your burners. Be honest about where you’re spending your time and energy. Make adjustments if necessary. I know I have to do some hard thinking about mine. And that’s okay. Our burners – or rather, what’s on them – are what makes life meaningful. This is your life, right now. Not some mythical future when everything will come together and be balanced out. What burner will you choose to focus on today?   

If you like this, head on over to the Contact Page and sign up to get my weekly email featuring tips on creativity, productivity, and the writer’s craft.