Guest blog: Productivity tips for fundraisers who are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed

I'm pleased to post this guest blog by Caroline Danks. Before the summer holidays, I found myself counting down the days a little bit.  I was conscious that I hadn’t had more than a long weekend off work since Christmas.  Up until July, I’d been working on four capital projects.  Keen to deliver outstanding quality fundraising for each of my clients, I was conscious that I was working through a period of intensity, possible to maintain in the short term, but unsustainable in the long term.  I was in need of either a set of inspiring productivity tips for fundraisers, or a holiday. Alongside periods of rest, it is imperative that we recognise our own limits and that we gently pull back on tasks which push us close to our edge.   Not all elements of our jobs are created equal.  Some will be more stress inducing that others.  Critically, this will look different for each of us. For example, I now have a personal policy against writing EU funding bids*.  Although I can do the work and do it well, the lack of creativity involved, the collating of huge swathes of information from every deep, dark corner of an organisation, drains me of energy to a point where I’m conscious that I’m not operating at my brightest, most energetic and productive self. *Given the current political state of our country, I suspect any future opportunities for this kind of work will no longer be open (and herein lies the only good reason I’