Creating Mental Space: The Foundation of a Sustainable Workload

Written By Elizabeth Swain

Discover how to balance productivity with wellbeing in a way that feels uncomplicated, personal to you and entirely possible.

Whether you run a business or work within one, carrying everything mentally makes it difficult to focus, to prioritise and to switch off at the end of the day. Over the years, I've found that creating a sustainable workload starts with something surprisingly simple: creating mental space.

Get It Out of Your Head

Everything starts here. We have so much information in our heads from all areas of our life. Feeling focused and calm is all about the foundation – getting your to-do list and thoughts out of your head and onto something else that will act like your second brain.

This doesn’t have to be complicated - a notebook or a digital platform works, with simple to-do lists. Personally, I use both. I still love the feeling of putting pen to paper, but I also use Trello to organise projects and keep everything flowing behind the scenes. I’d recommend grouping them into related tasks, days of the week or urgency/importance wise. Whatever works for you.

Look After Yourself

This is often the first thing to disappear when work gets busy. The reality is that only you truly know what you need in order to feel well and productive. This will be different for everyone, but here are some ideas that might help you identify what these could be:

  • think about the times of the day you work best and tackle your most challenging work then.

  • be strict with work-life balance and set an automatic out-of-office on your emails to activate from your normal finishing times.

  • small nervous system resets – step outside for fresh air, go make a cup of tea & take some deep breaths in.

  • be realistic about what you can achieve each day and the week/month ahead. Delegate what you can or ask for support - I know it’s hard but you’ll be surprised how often someone can either provide advice or take something even small off you. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. It’s about building your own micro-community, and you’ll give back when you can too.

  • boundaries are for yourself too. What ways are you sabotaging your own wellbeing and ability to work sustainably? Identify these and hold yourself to the boundaries you put in place.

No one wins an award for spending the longest time at their desk, but a calm, well-looked-after mind that knows when to go and when to stop, will always serve you better than running on empty.

Learn Once, Benefit Twice

That feeling when you get when you finish a complicated or stressful project is a relief and hopefully a great sense of achievement. From this – take a moment to note down the pinch points, unexpected things that arose (whether that caused a problem or just something you didn’t see coming), what went well, what it showed you’re missing and the key steps you took to success. This will become your roadmap for similar projects or tasks going forward. Any time you can plan and prepare will ease your workload going forward.

Over time, they help you create your own toolkit — this could be templates, processes, trusted colleagues, useful software or simply a clearer understanding of how you work best. That's where sustainability starts to build.

I truly believe sustainable working really comes down to creating enough space to think clearly, work well and look after yourself along the way. Start with what feels easiest to you and stack habits from there, remembering that you don’t need to see 100% improvement straight away - each incremental improvement is better than the position you were in before and that is worth a lot.

Elizabeth Swain