5 Strategies for Managing Burnout on UX Teams
When I started in my career, I naively thought that if I just worked hard enough and went above and beyond, that somehow I’d get noticed. I assumed that all of those weekends and late nights would pay off and that my managers and senior leadership would surely see my value. After many years of expending loads of energy, running around like one of those rats on an endless wheel, I became disheartened and started losing focus. I became a little bit cynical too. I gave my all, but I didn’t feel like I got it back in return. Sure I had a job with good pay and benefits, but I didn’t feel the energy I put out was ever returned in a way where I felt energized and excited to go to work every day. Instead, I just felt drained and burnt out. As a result, I didn’t bring my best self to work. I was far less productive and not my happiest self.
Why should managing burnout matter to UX teams? Those of us who have worked on UX teams at different companies know that it is common for UX teams to be understaffed when compared to the other disciplines within software development-being understaffed means that teams have to manage excess work that doesn’t always fit into their capacity. This situation often leads to individuals feeling pressured to put in longer hours which can lead to burnout and ultimately employees who do not always bring their best selves to work. If people on your team are not bringing their best selves to work, it will not create a positive culture or inspire innovative thinking.
The famous quote from the Neil Young song Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) says, “it’s better to burn out, than to fade away.” Well, that’s a pretty bleak choice! In terms of work, that song quote implies you’re either going to eventually combust due to overheating and exhaustion from working so hard. Or you’re going to simply be lost and forgotten into the oblivion of office cubicles. Neither one of those options sounds like a good recipe for living a happy, balanced life, let alone having a fulfilling career.
It’s better to burn out, than to fade away — Neil Young
A few years later, when I asked about work/life balance during a job interview, the Senior Director said to me, “I trust my team to manage their work/life balance to avoid burnout.” It was a refreshing statement. I never thought about burnout being something you manage, something that’s a choice. The idea of feeling empowered and supported by a manager to avoid burnout, just never seemed like an option. Hearing this from a Senior Director, I realized at that moment that all high-level people in business must figure out how to manage burnout, otherwise, they would all end up as miserable human beings and ineffective leaders.
You have to learn to manage your own burnout.
While I can’t say I’ve 100% mastered these techniques, I have had some success in managing my day-to-day work/life balance to avoid burnout. Try some of these methods to help you manage your own burnout.
1. Ruthlessly prioritize
When people tell you how important it is to be able to prioritize, it isn’t just lip service. Countless books tout this advice including David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and Stephen R. Covy’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. Also, if you haven’t seen Ryan Carson’s 99U talk Begin with the End in Mind, please watch it! All of these books and videos talk about how vital it is to prioritize your time and energy to live a fuller life. As you move forward in your career, you need to start making serious choices about what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do. The reality is, the higher you climb on the corporate ladder, the more work you are given (often more work than what you can possibly get done). So therefore, you must ask yourself, “what is the most important thing on my list that deserves my attention?” and also, “what is the least important thing on my list that does not deserve my attention?” When you make these tough choices to ruthlessly prioritize, you are on the road to more work/life balance and a lower chance of burnout.
When it comes to your UX team, the same wisdom holds true. As a leader or manager of your team’s resources, it is important to ensure people are working on the most important priorities for the company. Since most UX teams have way more work than they can handle, this means there are several items that will naturally fall “below the cut line” as we like to say in program manager speak. When something falls “below the cut line,” it’s all the work you are not going to get done. Project management practices used in Agile Scrum methodologies, such as Grooming and Sprint Planning, make it easy to discuss what’s above and below the cut line because this method makes prioritization very transparent. Even if your company does not use Agile, you can still adopt a similar prioritization method for your team that allows you to clearly show all stakeholders involved which projects are prioritized higher up on the list and which ones are lower. Having this level of transparency will help you manage your team’s capacity and help prevent your UX team from burning out.
2. Plan “no work” times & vacations
Another strategy for managing burnout is to always make sure you have vacations and “no work” time scheduled. This strategy is one that you can adopt on a personal level. For example, I always make sure I have at least one future trip planned and booked. This helps me mentally deal with those stressful days because I always have something to look forward to outside of work. I also set boundaries around my time on the weekends. So when it is the evening or weekend time, draw some boundaries around when you will allow yourself to do work and when you will not. Then, stick to those boundaries except for true emergencies. For example, on weekends, I only check my phone or turn on my computer at certain times during the evening or weekend. I try not to answer any emails or messages unless they are true emergencies. Now, if you aren’t sure if something is a true emergency, then see #1 about prioritization! Most things are not true emergencies when you think it through. If you have a prioritized list, it will be obvious when something can wait until the next day (when you are in the office) and when something needs immediate action.
If you manage a team, then simply make sure you are setting up a culture where it’s OK to take breaks and vacations so people can regenerate. Be careful not to use Team Building activities and off-sites as a substitute for vacation time and breaks. Let’s face it, being at any work event you are forced to attend is certainly not what most people would call a relaxing activity. Team events are fun and they can be a nice way to relieve stress off the team, but it’s essential for people to take real breaks from work and spend time on their personal lives.
3. Put family first
We often hear that no one on their deathbed ever said they’d wish they’d spent more time working rather than spending time with their families. While it’s hard to know if anyone actually made that statement or not, it’s safe to say that for most of us, family is our most important priority. We all know that work is a priority as well when it comes to paying our bills and sustaining a household. However, we all have seen that at work, it’s a rare day (if ever) that all of our work is done when we leave the office. The idea of getting everything done just doesn’t seem to be practical any more in our 24/7, always-online work life. If you let yourself, you could easily work many more hours per day than the minimum of 8 hours that most companies expect.
Knowing that we will always have more work to do that can get done, it means making choices. The choice to avoid burnout is to put family first. Your family loves you unconditionally and forgives you (most of the time), however, you cannot take them for granted. For those who have small children, it’s even more important to make family a priority. You only get one chance to raise your children and time goes by fast. So make sure that you put family commitments ahead of work (whenever possible) since those precious relationships feed your soul. It is important to invest time and energy into the people who will be with you throughout your entire life, not just professional relationships.
When managing UX teams, allow team members to also put their family first. It is important that team members feel supported in their lives outside of work whether they are single, married or have kids. Build a culture that encourages people to spend time with their families.
4. Make time for hobbies
Another important way to help balance your life and manage burnout is to make time for your personal hobbies. It is so easy to let our hobbies and passions fall by the wayside when we have a career, family, and social life. We often make excuses for why we can’t pursue our hobbies or simply can’t find the energy. However, it is important to have activities in our lives that are simply for personal pleasure that have no external pressures or expectations. In many ways, hobbies and interests outside of work often give us more energy rather than taking energy away because we are using our brains in a different way than we do in other aspects of our lives. This energy is great for helping to manage stress by putting our brains into a different mode. It is important to play and allow your brain to unplug by plugging into something else fully. Make time for things you love to do that are simply for your own enjoyment.
When managing UX teams, it is important to respect, honor and recognize people’s interests outside of work. In order to have a productive and happy team, people need to feel supported in their external work adventures and hobbies. Creating a culture where people feel they can be themselves at work through sharing their hobbies with co-workers is also a great way to create an inclusive and positive environment. It also sends the message that it’s encouraged and OK to have a hobby outside of work that doesn’t necessarily fall into your career trajectory.
5. Spend time alone
I consider myself an introvert. As an introvert, I tend to get drained when I spend too much time around people, especially in large groups. As my life has evolved with two boys, a husband, and a full-time career, I find myself constantly interacting with people. Over the years, I’ve learned how to compartmentalize my life so that I could “do it all” and still remain somewhat sane. Part of the compartmentalization of life has been carving out time to be alone and recharge. To survive and preserve myself, I create space and time for myself outside of work and family. The ability to force alone time has helped me avoid burnout (and hopefully avoid fading away too). Even extroverts need time and space alone to regroup and think. I highly recommend that everyone find time to spend alone. Find activities that work for you such as: meditation and mindfulness, power naps, driving in the car, whatever. Don’t feel guilty for needing to spend quality time with yourself.
As with personal time alone, it is important to also recognize that not every member on a UX team wants to be around their co-workers 24/7. In fact, many creatives are introverts and prefer having space away from the group in order to think through problems and ideas. Creating a culture where it’s OK for people to go off by themselves once in a while and lock themselves into a conference room for a couple of hours to get work done (or simply think) should be encouraged. Never underestimate the importance of space for UXers and other creative types.
I hope these strategies have provided some good insights and ideas on how you can manage burnout on a personal level, but also within your UX team. Burnout is real. Make sure you are managing your burnout effectively so you can live a happy, productive life you feel proud of. Remember, the happier you make yourself outside of work, the happier and more productive you will be while at work.
