Corporate Compass

While I have not had the pleasure of being in the thick of proxy season this year, I know many of my peers in governance and legal are living it in real time right now.

If that is you, you are probably juggling more than most people realize.

This time of year has a way of intensifying everything at once. The deadlines tighten. The review cycles get shorter. The volume goes up. The stakes feel higher. There are meeting materials to finalize, disclosures to verify, comments to manage, approvals to chase, and last-minute changes that somehow always seem to arrive at exactly the wrong moment.

Much of this work happens behind the scenes. When it is done well, it often looks seamless to everyone else. But anyone who has worked through a proxy season knows the effort behind that seamlessness is very real.

In my last article, I wrote about recognizing burnout, because for many of us, it does not arrive with one dramatic warning sign. It tends to creep in quietly. It can look like fatigue you cannot shake, an inbox that never seems to shrink, impatience over small things, or the feeling that no matter how much you do, you are still behind.

What I have learned over time is that by the time burnout becomes obvious, you are often already well into it. That is why I have come to believe that the more useful question is not only how to recognize burnout, but how to avoid it, or at least reduce the chances of sliding into it during intense seasons of work.

For me, that starts with accepting that during periods like proxy season, the goal is not to create perfect balance. The goal is to work in a way that is steady and sustainable enough to get through the season without running yourself into the ground. I do not always get that right, but I have become much more intentional about trying.

Here are a few of the strategies I come back to during high-pressure periods.

1. I remind myself that peak seasons need a different way of working

One of the biggest traps is treating proxy season like regular work with extra work piled on top.

It is not regular work. It is a peak period, and peak periods need a different operating model.

For me, that means being more disciplined about what actually needs my attention right now and what can wait. It means deferring work that is helpful but not urgent. It means being more selective about meetings. It means protecting time for the things that truly require my judgment and attention.

There is something helpful about naming a season for what it is. Once I do that, I stop measuring myself against a normal workload and start managing against the reality in front of me. That shift alone can relieve some of the pressure we create for ourselves.

2. I try to be honest about where precision matters most

In governance and legal work, details matter. Accuracy matters. Judgment matters. That is part of the job, and rightly so.

At the same time, I have learned that not every task needs to be handled with the same level of perfection.

Some things deserve deep review and careful refinement. Others need to be clear, correct, and out the door. If I treat every email, memo, agenda, or status note as though it carries the same weight, I end up exhausting myself on work that does not always require that level of effort.

During busy periods, I try to ask myself a simple question: what does this task actually require? Is this something that truly needs another round of polishing, or am I overworking it because the pressure around me is making everything feel equally important?

That question helps me protect energy for the places where rigor really matters.

3. I resist the urge to work in constant reaction mode

When the pace picks up, it becomes very easy to spend the entire day reacting.

Comments come in. Emails pile up. Someone needs a quick answer. A draft needs to turn. A director has a question. Counsel has marked up language. Management wants a fresh version before end of day.

It is entirely possible to be busy every minute and still feel as though the real work has not moved forward.

I have found that I do much better when I pause long enough to triage instead of immediately reacting to everything that lands. I try to separate what is truly urgent today from what feels urgent because it arrived with intensity. Those are not always the same thing.

Even one protected block of uninterrupted time can make a meaningful difference. In my experience, an hour of focused drafting or review often produces far more than several hours of fragmented effort.

4. I try not to carry the whole process in my head

This one has been a particularly important lesson for me.

Governance work creates a tremendous amount of invisible mental load. You are tracking which draft is current, who has reviewed what, where approvals sit, what comments remain open, what still needs to be uploaded, what requires signature, and where a small inconsistency might become a larger issue later.

Holding all of that in your head is exhausting.

When I start to feel overloaded, one of the first things I do is get the moving pieces out of my brain and into a system. That system does not need to be sophisticated. It can be a tracker, a running issues list, a status table, or even a handwritten page if that is what works. The point is not elegance. The point is reducing cognitive load.

The less I rely on memory alone, the steadier I feel. It also makes handoffs cleaner and helps avoid the sense that if I drop one thread, everything will unravel.

5. I no longer think recovery should wait until the work is done

This may be the mindset shift that has helped me most.

For a long time, I treated rest as something I would get to after the big deadline passed. The problem, of course, is that in our world there is almost always another deadline behind the first one.

If recovery only happens once everything is finished, it usually does not happen soon enough.

Now I try to think about recovery as something that has to happen during the season, not just after it. Sometimes that means stepping away from my desk for a real break instead of eating lunch over emails. Sometimes it means taking a short walk after a board pack goes out rather than moving straight into the next task. Sometimes it means protecting one evening where I am not online unless something is genuinely urgent.

None of those are dramatic solutions. But they do help. Small moments of recovery become much more important when the pace is sustained over weeks, not days.

6. I remind myself that asking for help is part of good judgment

I think a lot of governance professionals are used to being the calm, reliable person in the room. We are often the ones holding timelines together, catching issues early, and keeping process moving. There is pride in that, and there should be.

But there is also a risk in becoming too attached to being the person who can always carry it all.

I have had to learn that asking for help is not a sign that I am dropping the ball. More often, it is part of managing the season responsibly. That might mean delegating logistics, asking outside counsel to take a heavier lift on an early draft, escalating a resourcing issue early, or being candid that two major priorities cannot both happen well in the same window without a trade-off.

The sooner those conversations happen, the more options there usually are. Left too late, everything starts to feel like an emergency.

7. I pay attention to my early warning signs

Burnout usually starts speaking before it starts shouting.

For me, the signs are often subtle at first. I get less patient. Small tasks start to feel heavier than they should. I reread the same sentence more than once. I feel tired, but find it harder to switch off properly. I notice myself resenting interruptions that I would normally absorb without much trouble.

I have learned not to dismiss those signals. They are usually telling me something important about my capacity.

I do not need to wait until I am fully depleted to make an adjustment. Sometimes the adjustment is small. Better sleep for a few nights. Reprioritizing one deliverable. Moving something non-essential. Tightening boundaries for a few days. Sometimes it is simply acknowledging that I am in a stretch that requires more care.

That awareness is not indulgent. It is maintenance.

8. I try to keep perspective

This is the reminder I come back to most often.

Proxy season is demanding. The work matters. The deadlines matter. Quality matters. None of that is up for debate.

But I do not help myself, my team, or the organization by treating every moment of pressure as something I have to absorb personally and completely. There is a difference between being committed and being consumed.

I care deeply about the work I do, and I know many others in this profession do as well. That commitment is part of what makes governance and legal teams so effective. But sustainable performance is not about proving how much pressure we can tolerate. It is about learning how to work through intense seasons without losing ourselves in them.

That is a lesson I am still learning, if I am honest. But I believe it more strongly now than I once did: protecting your energy is not separate from doing the job well. It is part of doing the job well.

Final thought

For those in the middle of proxy season, this is just a reminder that burnout prevention is not about stepping back from the work. It is about finding ways to stay thoughtful, effective, and well enough to keep doing it.