Have You Ever Felt Burned Out?
May 26, 2009 By Nishant KotharyI logged into Facebook this morning to find a new issue of A List Apart through their Facebook app. A guy by the name of Scott Boms wrote one of the articles in the issue; it's about how we, as an industry, are very prone to stress-related burn outs. It's appropriately titled Burnout, and I highly recommend you read it. He pretty much had me at the opening paragraph -
Web professionals are often expected to be "always on" - always working, absorbing information, and honing new skills. Unless our work and personal lives are carefully balanced, however, the physical and mental effects of an "always on" life can be debilitating.
Scott articulates the "what" and "how" of a burnout pointing to some established research. And, as we've come to expect from A List Apart publications, the article also offers up some great remedies for preventing burnouts. As someone who's been through a couple of burnouts, I can tell you from experience that his remedies are spot-on. Peek into the discussion area for the article and you'll find some more practical remedies. The article alludes to a type of burnout that’s caused by your employer/workplace. In other words, burnouts caused by working in a dysfunctional environment; these are very difficult because you don't have much control over how they manifest. However, I suspect that a good number of burnouts in this industry are completely self-induced, especially for folks who are lucky enough to find themselves doing something they love to do in their free time (guilty as charged). While most, if not all, remedies mentioned in the article would still go a long way in fighting symptoms of a self-induced burnout, in my experience they'll never truly fix the source of the issue (i.e. your own personality) and consequently, you'll be prone to relapses.
If you think that your personality is bringing on a burnout, then what you really need to be working on is reprogramming your personality. Here are a few tips that you can try in addition to those provided in Scott’s article:
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Acknowledge the Issue
OK, so Scott talks about this, but I want to stress on it. The source of self-induced burnouts is your own addictive personality, so you need to fix yourself. If you find yourself pulling your mobile device out of your pocket every couple of minutes to refresh your inbox or to glance at the twitter stream, you have issues. You're addicted, and addictions generally have negative consequences. The most sustainable way I've found to fix personality issues around susceptibility to addictions is to truly acknowledge that you're addicted and that you want to do something about it. Once you've truly acknowledged the issue, the other remedies have the potential of permanently fixing self-induced burnouts. -
Work 9 to 5
Scott talks about how it’s becoming impossible to do the 9 to 5 thing these days, but I tend to agree with one of the comments that succumbing to that attitude is one of the root causes of burnouts. The good news is that if you're suffering or on path to a self-induced burnout, then putting a 9 to 5 boundary in place is completely your call. You have no excuses to not enforce it. By putting the boundary in place, you're going to force yourself to make time for yourself, your friends, family and hobbies. At first you may not do anything with this "free time", and that's OK. -
Be Consistent
Don’t cheat. Beating burnout is like going to rehab (OK, never been to one, but from what I hear, it sounds a lot like it) – you need to cut off your supply, cold turkey, and then consistently work within the framework of your remedies till you're reprogrammed. It will happen, slowly, but surely. Just do yourself a favor and don't cheat yourself. Not even once.
Having said all this, there is a silver lining here best captured by a Def Leppard lyric, "It's better to burn out, than fade away." So, what's your take? Have you ever had a burnout? Why? How’d you get out of it? Got some tips for us?
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6 Comments so far. You should leave one, too.
This is a huge problem for me, especially considering the fact that I get my emails on my phone. Lately, I find myself turning off synching on weekends for a little while. This really gives me a break. I also fight with myself to not answer business emails after 5:00.
So far, so good.
Great post.
Scott
Nishant, white text on a green background? My eyes are buzzing :)
Beside that, having been through 2 jumbo launches in 3 months, I’m putting some breaks on when I make myself available and how much time I’ll spend “just checking my email.” The latter is just the gateway task that leads to working unfettered overtime.
-mp
@Scott – I turn on email on my phone only when I am traveling. It’s the best disciplinary measure I enforced on myself a couple of years ago. If you can afford it, give it a shot.
@Mark – Dude, that’s the most consistent constructive feedback we’ve received since we launched last October. Short answer – it will be fixed in our next release (as will a bunch of other little issues). Promise. Thanks for chiming in, though.
Sounds like you need to slam on the brakes. :)
I’m actually suffering from such burnout as we speak. After working as a contractor for a development firm for 5+ years that consisted many bouts of working ridiculous overtime at regular rates, a boss that made design changes without rhyme or reason, (“It came to me in a dream”) and no real time for a vacation, I hit burnout in March. I’m still there. If I ever go back to development, and that’s a serious if, I’ll be working fixed hours, and the crackberry will go off afterhours. Its the only way to survive.
@Pam – You’re in a tough place right now. The good news is, you’ve accepted the reality of the situation. It took me a while to admit that I was burned out a few years ago and that just prolonged recovery. I think you’ll figure (if you haven’t already) a lot out in the coming months with regards to how to get back into the swing of things in a healthy way.
Let me know how things come along. Feel free to email me directly if you need to chat. And yeah, keep that crackberry off. Good luck :)
I don’t drink coffee and I’m beginning to understand why people does. I work 4 days a week, I don’t do much overtime and I still feel pretty burned.
I think motivation is the key factor. It is closely related to energy. It can be a good thing, but like all good things, too much of it can be dangerous. During a good period, you could work like a machine, doing overtime after overtime. You think you’re doing good, you think your the best, until reality slaps you in the face. Well, it doesn’t really slaps you, but slowly, you will do less work and you will feel even more tired. You will have burned all your motivation in a short period and you are no longer able to catch up the accumulated fatigue.
I think the traditionnal work schedule is flawed as it doesn’t consider you like a human but more like a machine you turn on and off at set hours and that work on a consistent and expectable basis. Myself, I like to work intensly for a shorter period and stop completely afterward until I feel like I can start another hard working period. It is too hard to keep the motivation everyday at the same high “but not too high” level. Also, my working schedule would capitalize on periods with high motivation level, I would waste less time at work on periods where I don’t really feel motivated.
An example: Hockey players usually have short but intensive and energetic presences on the ice, because it is more productive than long but slower presences.
(english isn’t my first language but I try my best :p )