Stop overworking and focus on the tasks that matter

Adrijana says: “Find the reason why you are overworking – because it’s just that you have too many tasks.

There is a belief that you determine your own value by all the tasks that you are doing on a daily basis. That’s always negative because, in your career and your life, you should only work on the things that have the biggest impact. These things will lead you to the next level of your SEO career.

If you’re running a business and you have a lot of tasks, then find the people who can help you. Your brain needs to work on the things that have the most impact on your career and your business.”

Does working as much as possible early in your career help you move forward more quickly?

“It depends on the state of your mind and body.

If you are overworking every day, and you believe that your value is determined by the amount of work you have done today, that’s a negative. You will never feel that you are productive enough, and you will never feel that you are good enough. However, you might be enjoying it and feel that it is the best thing you can be doing on that day.

I should define overworking here. Overworking doesn’t just mean working more than 8-10 hours in a day. If you are finding joy in all the tasks you’re doing, then you should definitely keep going, because that may be where you are getting your energy from. However, if you are nervous, stressed, and frustrated – and you are unhappy when you don’t finish all the tasks on your to-do list, then you should stop.

If that is the case, your brain is connecting your value to the amount of work you have done today. That is a negative thing because you’re not your work. How many things you have accomplished today doesn’t matter; it doesn’t determine your value as a person.”

How do you determine when you’re doing too much and when you’re overworking?

“It’s determined by how you feel. If you are feeling good and you are excited about new opportunities, then you can continue. However, if your body and mind are struggling, and you are feeling stress and frustration, then something is wrong. That is something you can fix.

In the early stages of our careers, we do a lot of things that we have to do. Then, it becomes very hard to actually enjoy the process because we are so overwhelmed by all of these tasks – whether it’s SEO or new Google updates. It’s hard to learn how to enjoy the job of SEO.”

What if overworking is part of the culture in your company?

“In my company, the culture is to not overwork – but in the SEO community, and across the industry, people are encouraging overworking. People who don’t want to overwork feel guilty when they aren’t overworking. We need to switch that mindset. You can definitely be successful without overworking because that is connected to working smart.

Sometimes, earlier in your career, you might think that the more hours you do the better – or that you need to be seen to be working hard. There are some cultures where being the first in the office and the last to leave is perceived as being the person who adds the most value.

People love to emphasise how hard they work. They think they need to work hard, and they need to struggle. They think that, if they are not struggling, something is wrong. Get the idea into your mind that you can just work and be successful. Don’t struggle. That concept blows people’s minds because they think that, if they are not working hard and struggling, they are not on the correct path.

‘Work smarter, not harder’ may seem like a cliché. I tell my clients not to think about how to work smarter and just to focus on the things that will have the most significant impact on their careers. If you do the 20% of your tasks that are the most important, a lot of the small tasks will drop away. You will see that these things are not so important and do not benefit you as much.

Focus your mind on the top three things that will lead you to the next level – the next level of business or your career. Pay someone else to do the rest because your mind needs to be clear to have that clarity on what will bring the biggest impact to your life.”

If you’re the boss, how do you discourage an overworking culture when you’ve got deadlines to hit?

“Talk to your people about why they think they need to overwork. If that is something that is coming from their insecurities – from the feeling that they are not good enough, so they need to over-deliver, over-research, and overwork – then it’s a negative.

If that feeling is coming from your deadlines, whatever they might be, remember that we are not surgeons. SEO is not life and death. Encourage your team to move the deadline back by a few days and make sure that your employees are in good mental health. If you keep pushing your employees to do one deadline after another, you are saying that your clients, your SEO, and your websites are more important than your people. That is something that I wouldn’t do.”

As an SEO manager, how do you support the mental health of your team?

“Firstly, always put yourself as a leader and set a good example. Take time off and take vacations, and encourage your team to do the same. I’m always talking about my team’s mental health and how they are feeling. If I see that some clients and tasks are forcing them to overwork, then I push those deadlines by a few days.

Always care about your people and put them first. That will show them that they need to learn to put themselves first as well. I want to see them working in the company for the next 10 years. I don’t want them to burn out and leave.

You will need to have open conversations with your clients too. I’m also an SEO consultant so I communicate directly with my clients and, whenever we have these kinds of deadlines, then I will have a discussion. We will talk about any additional resources we might need to bring in and add to our team.

Clients will sometimes have urgent deadlines, but you need to present all of these issues to them when you have that discussion. The majority of them will be okay with moving that deadline if sticking to it would be more harmful than pushing it back by a few days.”

What does burnout mean and does overworking lead to burnout?

“I’ve been there, so I can speak from personal experience. Burnout is when you are overwhelmed by your energy and all the negative feelings and thoughts that you have on a daily basis, alongside the fact that you are overworking. You are likely to experience burnout if you are not enjoying your SEO job and the lifestyle. However, if you are giving yourself opportunities to rest, taking frequent days off, and taking things slowly, then you can avoid it.

I know it’s very hard to actually tell ourselves to slow down but, when you are at a good level in your career, slowing down will make you more successful because you need some time to think. You can’t just overwork, because that will not lead you to the next level. Slowing down and having a clear mind will help you focus on what you really need to do to get what you really want.”

How did you personally recover from burnout?

“Firstly, I didn’t know that I was suffering from burnout. I was overwhelmed and I wanted to quit my job because I didn’t have a clear enough mind to identify that this was burnout. I was just thinking of quitting my job and taking some time off to identify what I really wanted from my SEO life.

Your thoughts in that moment are almost not connected to reality. You can’t see that you love SEO and you have a passion for it, and it’s just the way you are working, and the attitude you have while you are working, that it wrong. Personally, I just took two weeks off, not knowing that I was burnt out. I was reading the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and that is when all of this mindset coaching started for me. I realised that I can control my thoughts and I can change my mindset.

When I went back to work, I had different attitudes towards stress, clients, and team members. I started therapy, and then I started to move forward with mindset coaching, and that is something that helped me to work without stress and frustration – and to not overwork myself.

Of course, every person who feels that they may be overworking or suffering from burnout might need to do something different. I would definitely recommend going to therapy and doing mindset coaching, if possible. They are the two things that helped me the most and had the biggest impact.

When you are burnt out, you need to work on that immediately, because that burnout can go even deeper. You don’t want to spend a year recovering from burnout, so you want to address it in the best way that you can, as soon as you can.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should he stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“If you’re struggling with time, prioritise the things that will help you achieve what you want. Not everything you are working on now will help you to achieve your goals.

Do a gap analysis on your skills. If you want to be an SEO manager in five years, what skills do you need to have? You don’t need to go and do coding or deep technical things; you need to work on more soft skills like leadership. And vice versa – if you want to be a technical SEO in a specific niche, then work towards that. You don’t need to work on your presentational skills.”

Adrijana Vujadin is a Coach for SEO professionals, and you can find her over at AdrijanaVujadin.com.