WORK EFFICIENCIES
AND SELF-CARE
Sustaining the Work When Capacity Is Tight: Simple Systems to Save Time, Reduce Rework, and Protect Staff Energy
Sustainability Webinar 2 :
Please share in the chat:
Before we get started....
If you are in a rush in the morning....
save time by having breakfast while cleaning your teeth!
Put soap and water in a blender, turn it on, and bam, it basically cleans itself.
Cutting in half allows me to store 2 more balls
Today’s Focus
1
2
Sustainability through work efficiencies
3
5 Simple tips for work efficiencies
Work design and personal recovery
4
Type of Data Visualizations
Coming up next
Sustainability through work efficiencies
Sustainability Depends on People and Systems
Intended to stay at their agency in the next year
Why this matters
ASTHO describes staffing and workload as core public health agency issues. Chronic understaffing, delayed hiring, workload imbalance, burnout, and turnover can create a toxic cycle where productivity decreases, turnover increases, and remaining staff experience more strain. (Tillema 2025)
Public Health Workforce (duBeaumont, 2024)
75%
Findings showed that improved processes could save workers about
5 hours per week, or more than 6 workweeks per year,
by reducing “work about work”, the time spent managing, finding, tracking, recreating, clarifying, and coordinating work instead of doing the core work itself.
Sustainability Depends on People and Systems
When work is easier to repeat, find, share, and hand off, staff spend less energy on preventable rework and have more capcacity for public health work that matters.
Public health work is sustained when people have enough capacity and the work is clear enough to repeat, share, and hand off.
Why this matters
What helps sustain the work
Less searching, rebuilding, clarifying, redoing, and remembering
Clear roles, realistic workload, autonomy, support, feedback, and psychological safety
Breathing, movement, sleep, reflection, boundaries, joy, and recovery time
5 Simple Tips
Create a shared document with tabs for:
Tip 1: Build a go to language bank
Stop rewriting the same words from scratch, that is a sustainability risk.
Fun test for your team:
The copy and paste scavenger hunt, see who can find XXX the fastest to win a treat.
Tip 2: Template the repeatable work
If staff recreate the same email, report, or agenda from scratch every month, that is a sustainability risk.
Example: Your boss asks, “Can you put together a quick presentation on the updates of your work by the end of the month?”
At first, it sounds simple. Then the work becomes:
.
Tip 2: Template the repeatable work
Create a simple template:
.
If staff recreate the same email, report, or agenda from scratch every month, that is a sustainability risk.
Key message:
The goal is not to make every presentation look identical. The goal is to give the team a reusable starting point so staff spend less time rebuilding slides and more time updating the content, interpreting the data, and deciding what action is needed.
Build a strong core:
Before adding more...
Ask a colleague or boss
Tip 3: Create a minimum viable report
A minimum viable report is the simplest useful version of a report that gives the audience enough information to understand the issue, make a decision, or take the next step without overbuilding the report or product.
Key message:
Sometimes we build an everything bagel report when the audience only needed a plain bagel with cream cheese.
Pick one workflow that causes friction:
Tip 4: Map One Annoying Workflow
Save energy through investigating friction invisible spots with workflows by make them visible.
Example: Quarterly report due to partner
Everyone says:
“Oh, it’s just a quick quarterly report.”
Then you map it and realize:
Time to refine the process....
1. Project chat
Keep report-related updates, questions, and decisions in one thread or channel.
2. Task tracking
Use Planner or a task list to assign each stage: Data pull, Data quality check, Analysis, Chart updates,
Narrative summary, Partner review
Final approval.
3. Shared documents
Store files in one place: Source data,
Draft report. Chart templates, Partner feedback, Final report
4. Final version folder
Create one clearly labeled place for approved products.
Tip 4: Map One Annoying Workflow
Give the workflow one home: one place to talk, track, store, and finish the work.
For the quarterly report, create one Teams channel or project space with:
Your inbox can receive the work, but it should not be the place where the work lives forever.
Use one connected system when possible.
The goal is not a huge build. Start with 3 to 4 connected functions:
Option A: Microsoft ecosytem
(TEAMS/Outlook/OneDrive/Todo list)
Option B: MONDAY/Asana/Google email-documents
Tip 5: Use a one-stop system
The goal is not to adopt every platform. That can become more work about work. A good starting system only needs a few functions: where we talk, where we track tasks, where files live, and where deadlines live. If those four things are clear, a lot of daily friction goes down.
Self Care Tips
Let’s take a moment to breathe
Classic box breathing
4-inhale
4-hold
4-exhale
4-hold
Alternative breathing
4-4-4 skip exhale hold
Shift to self-care:
Self-care helps people recover. Better systems reduce what they have to recover from.
Staff energy is affected by both personal recovery and work design.
Work Design Practices
Self-care helps people recover. Better systems reduce what they have to recover from.
Personal Recovery Practices
Self-care helps people recover. Better systems reduce what they have to recover from.
Manage your energy, not just your time
Traditional time management asks: “How do I fit more into the day?”
Energy management asks:
“What types of work fit my current energy level, and what recovery supports help me keep working sustainably?”
Manage your energy,
not just your time
1.Track your energy for a few days.
2.Choose 3 to 4 common types of work from your week.
3.Identify the energy each type of work requires.
4.Name what drains energy during each task.
5.Add one better work design strategy.
6.Pick one change to test next week.
Self-care check-in and goals
Emotional self-care
This includes hobbies, unplugging from technology, expressing feelings, appreciating strengths, taking rest days, learning new things, laughing, and using self-nurturing activities.
Physical self-care
This includes health appointments, resting when unwell, drinking water, getting enough sleep, eating regular meals, exercising, spending time outdoors, hygiene, and nutrition.
Social self-care
This includes making time for friends or family, staying connected with people at a distance, having meaningful conversations, asking for help, doing enjoyable activities with others, spending quiet time with a partner, and meeting or talking with new people.
Professional self-care
This includes seeking support at work, maintaining a comfortable work environment, connecting with coworkers, balancing work and leisure, taking breaks, setting limits with unreasonable tasks, pursuing professional development, and seeking recognition when deserved.
Spiritual self-care
This includes nature time, community or volunteer activities, religious or spiritual practices, gratitude, meditation, quiet reflection, using personal strengths and values, and appreciating beauty through music, art, literature, or other sources.
Coming up next....
Webinar 1: Strategic and Operational Sustainability, Introduction to sustainability frameworks and how to conduct a PSAT assessment.
Webinar 2: Work Efficiencies and Self-Care
Practical strategies to conserve staff time and energy by simplifying repeatable work, improving documentation, creating reusable templates, and using small tests of change to support more sustainable workflows.
Webinar 3: Efficient Onboarding, Offboarding, and Retaining Organizational Knowledge (June 11th 12-12pm)
Focused strategies for strengthening workforce continuity through effective onboarding and offboarding practices, documentation, knowledge transfer, and retaining institutional knowledge within local health departments.
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