60. Planning as Self-Care: How Nurses Can Reduce Burnout & Overwhelm

In this episode of The Nurses' Break Room with Jenny Lytle, RN, we explore how weekly planning is more than just a productivity hack—it's a powerful form of self-care, especially for nurses juggling changing shifts, emotional demands, and personal commitments.

You’ll learn:

• Why “just winging it” leads to burnout and resentment
• How planning ahead helps you create space for you—not just everyone else
• How “energy management” is just as important as time management
• Tiny moments of joy and rest that you can sprinkle into your busy day

Whether you're a nurse, caregiver, or someone who’s constantly taking care of others, this episode will show you how to plan from a place of self-compassion, not guilt.

🎧 Tune in and reclaim your peace—one week at a time.

📌 Takeaways & Action Steps (for Description or Blog Use):

Top 5 Takeaways:

1. Planning isn’t just about logistics—it’s a powerful way to care for your mental and emotional health.
2. Prepping your week in advance (Friday or Sunday) helps reduce anxiety and increase clarity.
3. Consider your energy, not just your time—especially during new seasons, jobs, or emotional demands.
4. Build a “micro self-care list” you can pull from when you’re stressed.
5. You don’t need a spa day—nature walks, breathing, or solo grocery trips can be deeply restorative.

Action Steps:

• Look at your week ahead and build in “margin” where you can.
• Save 3–5 small, joy-inducing self-care actions in a note on your phone.
• Try box breathing: inhale 4 sec, hold 4 sec, exhale 4 sec, hold 4 sec—repeat for 1 minute.
• Schedule one intentional joy moment each day this week.
• Give yourself grace—especially when you’re navigating change.

If you're feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or like there’s never enough time, I’ve got something just for you! Head to https://selfcareisntselfish.com to grab your FREE copy of my book, Self-Care Isn’t Selfish: The Compassionate Nurse’s Step-by-Step Guide to Personalized Stress Relief. It’s packed with simple, effective strategies to help you prioritize your needs—without guilt—so you can feel energized, focused, and ready to take on the day. Go to https://selfcareisntselfish.com 

Feeling stressed? Grab my quick and easy Busy Nurses' Guide to Less Stress for practical stress relief that truly fits into your life! https://www.jennylytle.com/guide

Looking for connection with people who get the stress and self-care struggles of nurses and caregivers? Check out https://thenursesbreakroom.com

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennylytlern/

More ways to connect here: https://linktr.ee/jennylytle

Chapters

• 0:58 Welcome to Nurses Break Room
• 1:10 Planning for Self-Care Success
• 2:17 Energy Management During Transitions
• 4:12 Micro-Moments of Self-Care
• 6:01 Finding Joy in Small Things
• 9:51 Taking Action This Week

Transcript

Jenny: 0:29

Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Nurses' Break Room with Jenny Lytle, RN. This week we are going to talk about planning as a way of self-care. So maybe that's planning our days and our weeks ahead of time, but also keeping the big picture in mind. I know how easy it can be to kind of get on autopilot and just go through the motions, taking things day by day and week by week. And, you know, for some of you, maybe a lot of that looks the same, but it's also possible that your schedules can change a lot, whether that be work schedules or things with family, kids, other commitments that you have. And when we don't take time to really look ahead and plan ahead for those types of things, then we can find ourselves feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, overbooked, and then wonder why it is that we feel so cranky or we're not getting the things done that we want to get done, or that maybe we're getting things done for everyone else, but we're not doing the things that we want to do for ourselves, whether that be working out or having downtime, or maybe it's just even getting enough sleep or having time for healthy meals, having time to be with the people that matter most to us. Ideally, I like to have my plan for the upcoming week ready on Friday before I finish the day, so that I'm able to enjoy the weekend a little bit more. Now, in reality, that doesn't always happen. Sometimes it's something that I'm doing on Saturday or Sunday, where I take a look at what the upcoming week looks like, what I'll I have scheduled, when I'm going to be able to fit in maybe some of those other things that need to be done, regardless of how busy things are. And figure out are there times when I need to do something a little extra to prepare for easy meals? Now that it's just my husband and me at home, it's easier because we can eat leftovers, we don't mind that a bit, we can eat easy things, and that's not something that bothers us. But still, it's making sure that one of us goes to the grocery store and that we have things on hand. But more than just the very logistical things, it's looking at energy management. I am in the midst of starting a new job right now. I'm only a couple of weeks into that. And so I'm still learning a lot of the ropes, and that's something that takes a lot of emotional bandwidth, in addition to, of course, time out of my day. So knowing that, being able to be a little more gentle with myself, have a little more grace, because I'm going to be more tired when you're on for people that you don't know and you're learning things, it's something that can be kind of exhausting. So I'm allowing myself a little more cushion than I normally would. And I'm making sure that I fit in more time to fill up my own cup, like I did this weekend. On Saturday, I got called out early. I was on call Friday night. I got called out early and needed to go to Indianapolis. And while I was there, I thought, okay, you know what? I was going to come home and go to the farmer's market here locally. And I thought, you know, there's a couple of things that I'd like to get at Trader Joe's. And so it turned into something because I had my Saturday open. It turned into such a beautiful day of just kind of going with what I needed. And I was so thankful to be able to have that time and have that freedom to do that. And my husband was fully supportive of that when I'd call him and updating him. Hey, I'm going to do this thing. And I ended up going to a couple of different grocery stores. And I went to a park that means so much to me. And I had some time in nature. It was just, it was a gorgeous day. It was in the upper 80s, and here we are in the end of September. And I was able to get out and walk and just enjoy the sunshine. And it really renewed me from a body, mind, spirit level. And those are the kind of things that we really need, especially when we're going through big changes or big stressors. But really fitting those little things in all the time on a day-to-day basis is what can help us stay strong, stay joyful, stay calm and peaceful in the midst of everything that might be going on. And so I know that some of you have things going on in your lives that don't allow for half a day journeys to multiple locations and enjoying all of those different things. And in reality, I don't either most of the time. But it's the little things that we can fit in, the little things that we know help us feel more peaceful, that really can make a difference in our daily lives in the midst of all of the busyness. I'm talking about simple things. We're going to come back to breathing for a minute because it is so impactful. That's what resets our nervous system. That's what gets us out of that constant fight or flight mode. And instead allows our body to know, hey, it's safe. It's safe here. So when we start feeling anxious or when we're getting ready to go into a new task, and we take a minute or two to just take some deep breaths, you can do box breathing where you inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for four, and hold for four. And do a minute of those deep breaths and holds, and you'll feel yourself calmer and more relaxed. Then think about the things that bring you joy. I encourage you to have a list of small things that make you smile. And ideally, those are things that are non-electronic because we can all escape with some giggling babies on social media. And yes, that can be fun, but it's also easy to get stuck in a spiral of, you know, just scrolling through one thing after another. But things that are easily accessible, maybe looking out into nature. You know, if you're not able to get outside, at least being by a window and just pausing and being able to look at the things that are going on there. Maybe it's connecting with a friend via text or ideally phone call where you can hear each other's voice, even if just for a couple of minutes. It's having some of those things in your back pocket that can help you to be able to de-stress at a moment's notice. Because when we're stressed out, that's not the time to figure out ways to de-stress ourselves. It's having those things in our toolbox already that can really make a big difference. So looking at your upcoming week, where do you maybe need a little more margin or a little grace with yourself because there's not much margin? Where can you fit in micro moments of self-care? And what will you do during those times? And maybe take a minute or two to write some of those things down or save them on your phone so that you always have them with you. If you'd like to try something new, then perhaps consider something fun that you can do for yourself each day this week. It doesn't have to be anything big, it doesn't have to be anything that takes a long time, but something intentional that you can do to bring joy to yourself this week. Until next time, remember self care isn't selfish. It's essential if we want to continue to care for others and live our best lives. Have a wonderful week.