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How do you deal with burnout? How do you know when it’s coming on?
I figured out that if I feel under pressure and hear the thoughts telling me that I should “power through” then I’m walking dangerously close to burning out. When those thoughts and feelings come up I know it’s time to wind down, not amp up. Once burnout starts I have no idea how to manage it. I become completely useless and just have to wait it out. It’s very depressing. I’m glad that I can foresee the pothole in the road to help me avoid it.
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There are so many aspects to this business that you can just switch gears to rediscover something you like. If you need some downtime change handling time to 3 days and take some time off.
Go list that box of junk you have been dreading. Once you are into it I guarantee you’ll feel better and realize it wasn’t half as bad as you built it up to be.
Work on your record keeping systems. Do some research into new software tools. Go on a thrifting road trip to discover new thrifting spots.There is a ton of things you can do to keep things fresh and avoid burnout.
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The only way I can deal with burnout when it is really bad is to just completely stop working on the business until I feel normal again. However, since I do this full-time, I cannot just put the store on vacation for a few days. What I do is just the very minimum: pull orders that have come in, pack them, ship them, and bookkeeping.
Then, just do whatever you need to do the rest of the day that does not involve work. Clean your house. Read a book. Go for a walk. Exercise.
No scouting, no listing, no glancing at your unlisted items. It will all be there waiting for you for whenever you are ready to come back to it.
To prevent burnout before it starts, take a day or two off each week from listing and sourcing. Pretend this doesn’t exist. It will be refreshing to come back to work after you have had some time away from it.
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I like this “To prevent burnout before it starts, take a day or two off each week from listing and sourcing. Pretend this doesn’t exist”. I haven’t made a habit of turning my work brain off (ebay and my 2 other side hustles). I’ve made a huge habit of thinking about it. I could see mastering the art of mental silence being a part of the solution.
We never have death piles. We list 99.999% of what we buy so at least I never have that hanging over me. While death piles could be negative since they’re always there looking at you I could see them very helpful in a time of burnout. You wouldn’t have to go to a thrift store with a death pile in your ebay room. When I’m in burnout mode I am so repulsed by thrift stores it’s not even funny or rational. I usually LOVE thrift stores!
I don’t use software tool but I could see how that would switch your brain over to pragmatism from despair.
Ebay buying road trip is most ideal solution. Major thumbs up to that.
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Kind of related to burnout: I have been feeling really stressed out about my store, and dissatisfied with the amount of money I am making. I realized a few things were contributing to this:
1) I switched to the newer seller hub, and seeing my sales percents going up and down in relation to the previous period was making me tense. If my conversion rate went down 0.5% on a given day, I started wondering what the heck was up, and fretting that it meant something terrible. I googled it, and most people have a conversion rate of about 2%. Mine was 1.7%, at that one moment in time. I removed this and the traffic stats from my hub. I don’t want to see that I am down 30% in one category compared to the rest of the market for that given period. If I had a static inventory type, maybe that would be a big deal, but inventory varies greatly. There’s some value to the info, I am sure, but seeing it daily doesn’t work for me.
2) I am selling fewer items, but charging more per item. I feel like I am doing less work, but I am bringing in about the same amount as last year.
The fix was easy for #1, but I need to get over myself for #2. 🙂
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I think those Seller Hub stats are misleading. Because you can’t dig down into the different numbers, it’s difficult to tell what we’re being compared to.
For instance, what is “the market”? We sell all weird items. So is it the “weird market” we’re up against? or just eBay in general?
We just keep an eye on our monthly average. It’s remarkably consistent.
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I don’t know if this is possible for all, and it seems like you already have an eBay buddy–but what I do when I feel burned out is go on a thrift run with my eBay buddy and it sparks a new fire in me–partly because we talk the business and I feel my eBay sorrows are halved–when he is around to share them with. I usually get to learn something new that he teaches me and I share something new I learned with him. We share in our successes too and it is always good to talk shop with someone who knows the business.
Keep Smiling
the Ghost–
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