Burnout = Not Brushing Your Teeth
Burnout is a lot like not brushing your teeth.
Nothing happens after one night. Probably not after two, either.
But try it for a year.
Burnout works in much the same way. It rarely comes from one terrible week or one difficult boss. More often, it builds quietly through hundreds of small decisions that seem completely harmless at the time.
One more email before bed. One more meeting instead of a workout. “I’ll just do it myself — it’s faster.” “My family can wait. They’ll understand.”
None of these decisions is a disaster on its own. The problem is what happens when they become a pattern.
Eventually, you look at your calendar and realise there is a lot of your life in it.
Just somehow, very little of you.
Life needs a toothbrush too
We solved the dental hygiene problem a long time ago.
We don't hold a family meeting every evening to discuss whether brushing our teeth is really necessary. We don't negotiate with ourselves about whether tonight might be an exception.
We simply brush them.
That is what discipline really is. Not forcing yourself to do something you hate, but creating a form of hygiene that keeps you healthy.
You do small things consistently so that you don't have to deal with much bigger and more painful problems later.
Life probably deserves the same treatment.
For me, one useful tool is OPPP — One Page Personal Plan.
One page that can hold a surprisingly large part of your life.
You start by defining the roles that matter to you and what you want to achieve in each of them. Partner. Parent. Friend. Leader. Athlete. Or simply a person who would like to enjoy being alive from time to time.
Then you step back and ask a bigger question: What kind of life do I actually want to live?
And what resources do I need to make that life possible?
The point of OPPP is not to create another plan.
It is to create meaning.
Because without meaning, it is entirely possible to be extremely busy, highly successful and still be heading in the wrong direction.
You can be moving very fast and still be moving away from where you actually want to go.
Meaning creates priorities.
What matters this year?
What deserves my attention over the next 90 days?
And perhaps most importantly:
What am I deliberately choosing not to focus on right now?
Now look at your calendar
This is where a very simple test becomes useful:
Turn your values into time.
If you say your health matters, your calendar should show it.
If your partner or your children matter, your calendar should show it.
If building the company matters, your calendar should show that too.
The calendar is an uncomfortably honest character.
It doesn't listen to what you say matters.
It shows what you actually spend your life on.
In that sense, your calendar is not just a productivity tool.
It is one of the ways you design your future.
Because the future is not created by what we say we value. It is created by what we repeatedly give our time, energy and attention to.
OPPP is hygiene, not a document
An OPPP is not something you complete and then put away.
It is something you use.
Just like brushing your teeth in January doesn't mean you're done for the rest of the year.
Once a year, you step back and ask whether the life you're building still looks like the life you actually want.
Every quarter, you refine the direction and decide what matters over the next 90 days.
Every week — and, to some extent, every day — you check whether your calendar and your actual behaviour are moving in the same direction as your OPPP.
This doesn't mean you never drift off course.
Discipline doesn't mean you never leave the path. It means you have rituals that bring you back.
That is really a form of self-coaching.
Every now and then, you have to ask yourself uncomfortable questions — and then be quiet long enough to hear the answer.
We have plenty of tools for that today: calendars, dashboards, Teams, Outlook, ChatGPT and countless productivity apps.
But the basic principle hasn't changed.
You still have to stop long enough to notice what is happening.
OPPP helps make small deviations visible before they become big ones.
Does my calendar reflect what I claim is important?
Is the way I spent today taking me closer to the life I want?
Or simply closer to the next meeting?
Burnout starts much earlier than we think
Burnout doesn't begin when you finally can't go on.
It starts much earlier.
With small decisions we repeat for so long that eventually they become our life.
One more email.
One skipped workout.
One postponed holiday.
One more “I'll do it myself — it's faster.”
One evening at a time.
The same way it happens with your teeth.
Discipline is hygiene.
And hygiene protects what matters.
So brush your teeth.
Every day.
And take care of your life, too.
The same principle applies to organisations.
Strategy does not create results by itself. It needs a rhythm of priorities, commitments, review and adjustment that brings people back to what matters — week after week.
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