Dealing With Burnout
Burnout, according to David Ballard, is “an extended period of time where someone experiences exhaustion and a lack of interest in things, resulting in a decline in their job performance.”
The past 2 weeks were rather crazy for me, as I took several big task, in order to ensure that we can make it before sprint review. Not sleeping until 2 AM in the morning and sleeping again at 2 PM somehow become normal. I rarely did things I usually do such as watching anime or tokusatsu. In the end, these crazy and stupid behaviour of course cause me to burnout. If I have to describe how it is for me, probably:
- Exhausted (you don’t say)
- Lack of interest in continuing the project
- Frustrated
- I became more cynical and sarcastic around people
- Scared that the project will not finish as we expected
- My job quality and quantity is declining
This is not really the first time I’ve experienced burnout, though. The first time was actually when I have to managed 2 national-scale competition back-to-back. Luckily, that experience let me know how to deal with this shit now. From my experience, during burnout I did:
Relax
Try to relax, do something else beside your job. Your life is yours, not your job’s. Take a rest, or maybe some workout to relax your mind.
Refrain
Refrain yourself from working during burnout. Despite how unproductive it seems, in the long run it will be more productive. It’s better to rest for a while to ensure you can maintain your work quality, instead of forcing yourself to work and do a half-assed work that will only ruin the job. During burnout, usually I take 2 days-1 week off from doing anything related to the job.
Refresh
As I said before, your life is yours, not your job’s. Get a life, do something you enjoy beside your job. It can be doing your hobby, playing games, watching movies, etc. Refresh your mind, and maybe you can enjoy to do the job again.
Priority
Think about how important the group is. It is really worth the time you invested on it? It can be that you invest too much, or your colleagues don’t invest as much as you do. If that happens, I suggest you reduce your priority on the group, and tell your colleagues that you had enough.
Communicate
Communication is powerful. Sometimes during burnout I have a chat with someone and talk about my problems. Somehow it lessened my burden.
Conclusion
Burnout is not really rare, so while it is scary, don’t feel stupid for having it. While it is the best to avoid burnout, try to understand how to cope with it, as it may happen to anyone.
