Three tips on managing stress and avoiding burnout

Managing stress, maintaining work-life balance and avoiding burnout are a modern preoccupation for project professionals. The APM Salary and Market Trends Survey 2025 showed, for example, just how important flexible working is to project professionals in their desire to maintain work-life balance.

Whereas wellbeing in project management was once thought of as a nice-to-have, Dr Clara Cheung, lead author of the APM report The Wellbeing of Project Professionals and Reader in Engineering Management at the University of Manchester, argues it has become a must-have.

Yet let’s not forget that the right level of stress can be enjoyable and motivating for many project professionals.

So, here are four tips on how to manage stress and avoid burnout.

1. Remember, it’s not your failing

Dr Cheung’s research discovered just how much project professionals, compared to the UK’s general workforce, were struggling with stress.

“They are under very great pressure placed on them by unrealistic workloads, poor communication and sometimes poor working conditions. Hybrid and flexible working have brought new risks such as blurred boundaries between work and life, and digital overload.

“What hasn’t changed enough is that wellbeing is still too often treated as an individual responsibility, rather than a systemic one. It needs to be reframed as a strategic enabler of project success. All too often, individuals feel as though they are struggling with their workload or stress because they are failing somehow.”

If you’re feeling overloaded, step back and consider whether what is being asked of you is reasonable or not. Don’t be afraid to raise any concerns with your manager. This is not an issue that can be solved solely by you becoming more resilient or working harder.

While project professionals tend to be people who like change and challenges, “it doesn’t mean we can be chronically challenged”, warns Dr Cheung.

2. Know that stress is inevitable, so set boundaries

“Whatever I do, the one thing that keeps me going is knowing that stress is inevitable,” says Veronica Sikombe, Project Manager at Mott MacDonald. “The key is managing that stress.”
To do that, she has established personal stress boundaries, so she knows when to ask for support from her team.

“It’s about knowing my boundaries and when to shout for help, and not just keeping that internal and trying to thrive without support, because that is detrimental,” Sikombe says.

Rochelle Sampson-Clarke, a Business Intelligence Project Manager for NHS South Central and West Commissioning Support Unit, points out that it’s the new issues that arise, often beyond your control, that can turn a low-stress project into a high-stress one.

“It’s that uncertainty that might throw us over the edge,” she says. A particularly vulnerable time in your career can be early on, when the temptation – or even the expectation – is to say yes to everything that comes your way.

“When I started [in project management], I wanted to prove myself, and I wasn’t young. I had a lot of life experience, a job and a family – but if you’re starting your career, you really want to make your mark. You’re a yes person,” says Sampson-Clarke.

Temper your desire to prove your capability with the ability to stand back and know whether there is too much stress, which could lead to burnout. It’s about finding that self-awareness and communicating it to whoever’s managing you, argues Sikombe. So, be brave and stand up for yourself.

3. A lack of pressure can be stressful, too

Stress doesn’t only arise when you have too much to do. Not having opportunities to progress in your career and feeling stuck can be just as stressful, argues Sampson-Clarke.

When projects are quiet and you don’t have enough work to do, or you can’t see how you can move forward in your career and feel impotent, it can also be detrimental to your wellbeing.

“You need a certain level of stress in order to give your top performance and to get better each time,” says Dr Cheung. If you often feel underworked and underchallenged, then it’s time for a career chat with your manager or to leave your job for something better.

However, Sikombe warns that while a stretching level of stress can be enjoyable, a prolonged period of stress can gradually go from optimal to harmful unless you can see light at the end of the tunnel. Without breaks to reset after a stressful period, stress levels can become insidiously harmful to your mental health. If these breaks aren’t factored into your work, then it’s important to take charge and create these opportunities.

For a more in-depth discussion and great advice, listen to APM Podcast’s episode ‘Managing stress and avoiding burnout’, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube.