Ways to tackle burnout as a Data Analytics newbie
In this day and age of the internet, a lot can be discovered from just a click of a button but the internet also comes with its con, information overload.
What’s information overload
Wikipedia defines it as the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information about that issue, and is generally associated with the excessive quantity of daily information.
So in simpler terms, it’s as if your brain wants to explode because of too much information.
In my Data analytics journey, I struggled with information overload a lot and I didn’t even know that’s what was affecting me.
I’ll just be tried or start having headaches and the funny thing is that I won’t even achieve my goals for that day because I’m just all over the place.
So I had to take a step back and plan my life. I also reached out to friends for advice and these are the steps that I took
Have a realistic goal for the day
Its very cool to have goals but having realistic goals is very important. In this scenario, I was trying to learn a couple of months work in a few days which led to me burning out. So please don’t do that. Make realistic goals and take it easy on yourself because this data journey is a marathon and not a race.
Use time blocking
Wikipedia defines it as a productivity technique for personal time management where a period of time, typically a day or week, is divided into smaller segments or blocks for specific tasks or to-dos. In order words, it means assigning tasks to different times, like a to-do list. I started using time blocking and it’s been a wonderful experience. I don’t experience burnout because everything has been divided into various times of the day.
Don’t beat yourself up when you don’t check everything on your list for the day
There were times I’ll just be sad because I didn’t complete the things I planned to do for the day. Most of the times it’s wasn’t even my fault. Things like power outages and me falling sick are out of my control. So I couldn’t really do anything when things like this happened to me.
So I stopped being sad and started encouraging myself. I’ll be like
“Well, I’ll continue tomorrow”
and that’ll be it. There won’t be any cause for sadness or depression.
Join a community
This is a very viral step and it’s helping me up till now. There are a lot of communities , spanning from twitter to discord and slack. Pick one that you like and join. It helps you to connect with like minded people and also meet people that are ahead of you. I’ve really learnt a lot being in a community. You can just ask questions and get quick replies. I love this because it guides you and prevents you from going to search for answers on your own and getting burnt out.
Conclusion
These are the steps I’m actively taking to prevent myself from burning out and I really hope this steps will help you tackle burn out. Also please remember that your data journey is a marathon and not a race so take it easy on yourself.
