Hey friends, it's Anne. And can I just say, I'm tired. And I bet you are too. In fact, maybe we could all just take this moment to confess that we are collectively exhausted. The pandemic, the protests, the president's Twitter feed,

what do you do when everything is exhausting?

Stay with us.

Wisconsin Public Radio It's to the best of our knowledge.

I'm Anstrain Champs.

Here we are, month seven of the pandemic, feeling exhausted, like bone tired, burned out,

but not always willing to admit we feel that way.

Maybe it's time to change the definition.

I thought burning out was like collapse, that you just couldn't do anything anymore.

This is Anne Helen Peterson.

She's a writer and author of Can't Even, how millennials became the burnout generation.

My problem was that I couldn't deal with small tasks.

Like I couldn't get those small things that were on my to-do list.

They just wouldn't go away.

Mailing a package, sending in the rebate for money. get those small things that were on my to-do list, they just wouldn't go away.

Mailing a package, sending in the rebate for my contacts, finding out my dog's registration number.

Any one of those things on their own are very small and manageable.

But together they come to feel like this overwhelming impossibility.

I grew up in a small town in North Idaho of about 30,000 people,

and so when my mom had to run errands, this was in the late 80s, early 90s.

Almost all these errands required physically going to places.

I have so many memories, like I think so many people do, of tagging along in the car after my mom had picked me up from school or an activity.

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