I am on my way forward in life but I feel somewhat burned out and have started to lose focus while doing tasks. I feel like I have way too much going on to get really good at one or a few things.
Currently, I am in the middle of grad school, I own a fairly succesful blog related to my field of studies, I have a few side-projects going on (one with other stakeholders), I dabble in trading stocks and crypto, I volunteer every now and then... And I have a girlfriend and family that also want some of my time and energy.
I want to transition to a simpler life but I am having a really hard time saying "No" to the above things. Afterall they were deliberately added to my life because I enjoy them. I am already on the "no SoMe and digital minimalism"-wave so there is really not that many other things to cut out. I have to choose soon before I end up burning out.
But how do I choose? I think this is a problem that many of you might have dealt with so I am really interested in hearing your thoughts.
I'm curious, what does "no SoMe" mean? I tried to search but not having luck figuring out what it means.
To respond to your question though, I've dealt with this in the past and the biggest thing that I try to focus on is, "What do I want to excel at working on?" In the past, I've had numerous activities (work, side projects, family/friends) going on at any given time and would rarely say "No" if people brought new opportunities to me. After operating like that for a while, I came to the realization that by having so many activities I was effectively putting minimal effort into most of them. Personally, I don't like giving something only partial attention due to decrease in quality, so when I realized that I was not really giving all these activities the attention I felt they deserved I decided to cut back. I went through all the activities I had going on and decided which ones I wanted to keep for some time.
Something else that might also help is a prioritized list of what you care about. I feel the exercise of going through and really thinking about what you care most about will help determine what you should focus on to avoid burnout
The last thing I can think of is taking things towards the bottom of the list (assuming they are small activities) and rotate them. As an example, I rotate my personal research, analyzing stocks/crypto, and playing video games. They are all things I enjoy but I can't do them all in the same day/week without feeling burnt out.
Looks like you have a lively life. You are doing a lot of meaningful things you enjoy! That is great. If there is one cost to it is that you have to remember where you are in those lives you have. Try having a journal to offload some of them so that you can forget them when you are not doing them. Your mind needs rest too!
Take a break! Slow down some things. Get a time for yourself to assess what is really burning you out!