Ep. 12 — Summer Vibes, Taking Breaks and Avoiding Burnout
In this episode, Amy tells the story of her first summer at a museum, how her co-workers helped her with homesickness, and how they did a summer reset for fall. She shares 8 Summer Vibes tips for your summer.
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People First Framework Guide for Museums: https://bit.ly/4PSguide_lovemymuseum
Check out the website at: www.lovemymuseum.com
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00]
Hey there! Today we're talking about taking breaks and avoiding burnout. And I'm going to share with you a story about my first summer working in a museum. And how my museum co-workers helped me deal with homesickness. And how we eased through the summer for a much needed rest. Let's get started.
Welcome to the Love my Museum podcast. I'm your host, Amy Kehs, and I love museums. I also happen to be a brand strategist and communications expert.
Today, we're talking about summer vibes, taking breaks and avoiding burnout. A 2022 study done by the organization, Museums Moving Forward, found that while the overwhelming majority of the art museum workers polled found a sense of meaning and purpose in their work, [00:01:00] they are more dissatisfied with their jobs and workplaces when compared with U.S. workers overall.
[00:01:00]
The study also told us that two thirds of those art museum workers are thinking about leaving their jobs and that low pay and burnout are the top reasons. I'm recording this podcast a few weeks early. It's actually summer solstice weekend. Thinking about this study and the approaching summer, I thought I'd tell you the story about my first summer working at a museum. I volunteered at a public affairs office of a museum while I was in college and a few months before I graduated, I was offered a job. That summer was the first summer I spent away from home. I grew up in a small beach town and so living in the city that summer was a bit of a culture shock.
[00:02:00]
When you grow up in a beach town, summers are pretty unique. Families in beach towns don't go on summer vacations because your town is summer vacation for the rest of the world. So everyone is pitching in and working hard. Over my summers as a teenager and a college student, I worked on the boardwalk, in restaurants as a waitress and hostess, in the office of a condominium building, and my favorite, an ice cream shop in the lobby of a hotel where I looked out the window at the ocean every day. My family would take our vacation at Christmas and some families would vacation in February because it really was all hands on deck to help out in the summertime. Living in a beach town, also meant that from Memorial day to Labor day I was in flip-flops and shorts and there was always a beach towel and a beach chair in the trunk of my car.
[00:03:00]
Beach time usually meant going to sit with friends who were working their beach stand to keep them company. You get the idea. So living in Washington, DC, being in an office, wearing a suit and high heels was really hard that first summer, it was really hard and I was definitely homesick. My office mates that summer were very sympathetic to this adjustment and they tried to help me ease into this new summer lifestyle. They showed me that even in the city, even at a museum, there is some room to slow down and go easy on yourself. That kindness helped me so much and taught me that it was okay to take it easy. The work still got done. And don't get me wrong. We had a lot of big things going on that summer.
[00:04:00]
But we also took some time to slow down. And rest.
Now fast forward. Each summer now I put together a special email series for the people on my email list. Last spring, I was thinking about what my summer series would be, and I was talking to a client and she was really tired and she was definitely burnout. We had just had a really busy spring. We had one more event before things would kind of quiet down a bit for the summer. So I was telling her about my first summer at a museum and this summer vibe. How we eased through that summer so that we all could regroup and rest. As I was telling her about that, that was the inspiration for last summer's email series to my email list. So I thought I'd share those tips with you.
[00:05:00]
The email series was called Summer Vibes. I have eight summer vibes tips, inspired by my first summer at a museum in 1995. And also how I helped my client rest and regroup last summer and get ready for the fall. Because while it's a good idea to rest, it's also a good idea to set up some habits. So that you can be proactive and try to avoid burnout in the future.
So the first thing that we did that summer was we tidied up. We cleaned our office space.
We filed all the papers from the spring exhibit openings. We made new folders and labels for the filing cabinets. We stapled the business cards of journalists into our Rolodex that we had met during those openings.
[00:06:00]
And we made sure that those contacts were on our media list. We cleaned out the office supply closet. Some people moved their furniture around.
Now you probably don't have a Rolodex anymore. You may not even have a filing cabinet. But take some time to clean up your computer desktop. Empty your downloads folder. Dust your desk. So that is Summer Vibes tip number one. Tidy your space. Now number two. We're going to do some planning.
Take a look at the next 90 days, both for your communications team, but also for you. Yes. Yes, you heard me. I want you to focus on you too.
90 day planning changed my career and my life as you've heard in previous episodes. And I can't say enough good things about it.
[00:7:00]
So here is a simplified version of how I create a 90 day plan. And this is something that I now do with clients as well. So map out the next 90 days by first putting holidays vacations. Other big events so that, you know, they're on the horizon and you can make time for them. I really encourage you to put both your work events and your personal events all in one calendar. Now create three to five goals for the quarter and make sure that they are measurable. These three to five goals can be as a team or personal goals or they can be goals for your own career development.
And now for each goal, write a list of action steps that are very specific and then take those action steps and plan the days you'll be doing them.
[00:08:00]
I recommend Mondays. Be sure to give yourself some grace, if things have to slip and plan catch up days if they do.
So, first was tidy. We've tidied up our space. Number two, we've planned out our next 90 days. And number three, you probably won't be surprised, is measure. Set up a metrics tracker because having numbers, having measured proof of what's working and what's not working at your museum is going to help prevent burnout.
You can begin doing this with a simple spreadsheet. Set it up as a shared document, you can have each team fill in the part that they are responsible for. Track your visitor numbers, website visitation, special event registration, social media metrics, media stories, email subscriptions, museum memberships, gift shop revenue.
[00:09:00]
And then every Monday, take a few minutes to record the metrics in the spreadsheet. It is important to do it on the same day, every week. If you choose to give your team the responsibility of filling out their section you may need to send some email reminders until the habit is established. You could also set it up as a recurring task in your project management tool.
I do this in my own business. I've been recording my metrics every Monday for about three years now. I have a recurring task every Monday in my Google calendar that tells me to check my metrics. I also use the project management tool, Click up, to remind me to check my metrics.
[00:10:00]
With the help of those two reminders, every Monday, my assistant goes into our spreadsheet and records some of the metrics, and then there are also a few metrics that I record. After everything is in it, I do a quick check and review the metrics. I also take some extra time at the end of every month to review the metrics for the month.
And so I'd like for you to do that too. Record your metrics every week, every Monday. And at the end of every month, Review your metrics for the month.
Do you see trends? Is there room for improvement? And after you review, set some goals for the next month.
The fourth tip is to have a standing weekly team meeting and that meeting should be on a Tuesday. Let me tell you why.
[00:11:00]
So let's say, like most people that right now you have. a Monday morning meeting. And everyone comes in and that first thing they have to do after the weekend is go to the Monday morning meeting. No one has even had a chance to look at their calendar for the week yet.
No one feels prepared. They aren't sure what support they need from their colleagues. And so they start the day and the week off feeling stressed. Now, if you have your team meeting on a Tuesday morning that gives everyone on staff all day Monday to plan for the week, and get organized, to actually get some work done , and most importantly, to figure out what they need from their coworkers. And they can ask for that during the weekly meeting on Tuesday. The fifth tip is to work on your relationships.
[00:12:00]
It is very possible that each department has developed its own set of responsibilities and goals and objectives. Everyone might assume that these are all aligned, but that's probably not the case. Not only are they probably not the same, but everyone is also probably making a lot of assumptions about what each other does. Those assumptions can lead to confusion, more work ,stress, l ots of times it means that there are multiple people doing the same thing. When you take the time to talk to your coworkers about how you work and what you do, the results are amazing. I have seen it lead to collaborations, for an easier. and less stressful work environment. When departments are working together, it creates a cohesive and efficient organization where everyone is working towards a common mission and vision for the museum. It leads to improved productivity.
[00:13:00]
Innovation. Take some time this summer and make those connections. Talk to other people in your museum. about what you do and how you work. And maybe you find new ways to work together.
The sixth tip is to look at things that you do repeatedly. Can you document those procedures? Can you document them into standard operating procedures
so that you aren't the only one who knows how to do these things. So that if you go on vacation this summer, someone else can take care of it for you. It takes some pressure off. It is another way to prevent burnout. Make sure that you have all of those in a shared folder. A lot of times we get to the point of burnout because we feel like we're the only person that can do our jobs. So if we leave these, you can share the workload.
[00:14:00]
Number seven is habits. This might require a bit of work, but trust me it is so worth the time and effort and the summer's the perfect time to work on this. So now that you've developed and documented your procedures, you need to establish them as habits and habits take time and everyone will need some help and friendly reminders for awhile, but please stick with it. For your team, take your SOP, your standard operating procedure and put it into a project management tool. I use Click Up and also Notion in my own business. The eighth tip is to take a break. It could be just getting out of the building at lunchtime. It could be a long weekend.
[00:15:00]
It could be a week off.
It could be just giving yourself some time in the middle of the day to w alk around your museum. But be sure to take a break.
And that's it. Those are all of my summer vibes tips. I really hope you found this helpful. My summer email series for this summer just started last week and it is not too late to sign up. This summer, we are talking about brand messaging we'll be going over the different parts of brand messaging and I'll be giving the people on my email list simple action items to work on throughout the summer.
I'll leave the link in the show notes if you would like to sign up.
Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.
