My Cycle of Productivity and Burnout and How I Deal with It
One day I will master it.
I thrive in routine.
I really do, I don’t know what it is but I just love it. It keeps me accountable to all the things I have to do, and keeps me doing them every single day.
I’m exposing myself as a bit of a nerd here, but I even have an excel file that I’ve turned into a calendar with my daily tasks. And every single day, after I do my task, I get to put in a satisfying little green ‘x’ to show that I am a good little boy and accomplished something.
The calendar includes several different things: coding, writing, drawing, cleaning, emails, workout, and more. I love seeing the little green x’s build up every day and see how long of a stretch I can keep it going. And as a person with multiple passions, it allows me to give a certain amount of my time to all of them.
Sometimes I even get annoyed if a friend asks me to go out because then I have to either wake up early to get my little green x’s or stay up late after going out. I am even tempted to cancel sometimes if I am falling behind on my productivity and don’t feel like I can afford to go out. Typing that out I realize it is borderline a problem. But still, it’s a good system. It works for me and it keeps me productive.
But then the burnout hits.
I wish I had a better understanding of my burnout. The hows and the whys.
It doesn’t have an exact schedule, but it tends to happen sometime within a two month to 5 month range. I will just be going hard, productive every day, happily getting through my tasks, learning and improving and studying. When all of a sudden I hit a wall.
I just don’t want to do anything anymore. I will drag my feet through it sometimes. A bit. But inevitably I will stop and all productivity will come to a halt. I just don’t feel like doing it anymore.
It is not a good feeling. Having had all that momentum and feeling like it is now wasted. Laying in bed knowing that I should be working on something and instead watching mindless YouTube videos about the differences between different types of onions.
And of course not just feeling bad about wasting my time and productivity, but also feeling bad about feeling bad about it. That downward depressing spiral of feeling bad because you feel bad. Knowing that I should let myself off the hook and it shouldn’t be that big a deal. But I can’t, I needlessly punish myself for something that is extremely normal.
But the worst part is my poor Excel file. Instead of my delightful little green x that I would normally give myself, a disgusting vile red x appears instead. I don’t have to give it to myself. I could leave the cell blank. But its a form of self-punishment I suppose. Me telling myself, “You wasted the day, you suck, and everybody is judging you.”
And one red x turns into a string of red x’s. Depending on how long this burnout lasts, the line of x’s can keep going for weeks.
How do I beat it?
I wish I had a better answer, but really all I do is wait it out. Eventually I get to a place where I can accept that I am in a burnout phase and it will pass.
I have been in this place before and I will be here again. And every single time I’ve been here before and eventually get back on the horse, so this time I’ll get back on it again.
This slight change in attitude is the first step. But then something interesting will start to happen. I make a decision to just dip a toe in. I decide to not do everything on my schedule, but maybe one thing. An easy one. Today, I will catch up on all my emails. And I do. And instead of a red x next to my emails, I get a beautiful green x.
The next day I think to myself, I really liked that green x. It gave me a real dopamine hit that felt like nerd heroin in my veins. Maybe today I’ll get a couple more of those greens. Today I’ll clean my room and answer emails. Double the x’s. Double the dopamine.
The next day, I remember that drawing is fun, I should add drawing into the mix. The next day, I actually kinda miss coding. Time apart made the heart grow fonder. I add coding back in. Soon enough I am Scrooge McDuck, diving headfirst into my giant swimming pool full of green x’s.
My advice
Burnout is inevitable and universal. Everybody has felt it and some point. The most important part is not beating yourself up about it as much as you can. It is normal to feel bad about it, but remember:
- It happens to everybody
- It will pass
Be kind to yourself and wait it out. Take baby steps to try and slowly get through the things that you want to do.
Eventually you will feel better and with time you will get back up on that productivity train full speed. There may be a random brick wall eventually that pops up and crashes the train off the track. When that happens, remind yourself that you’ve been through this before, and you can get through it again.
