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.
It’s taken me the better part of a year to finish writing this article, and the reasons it took that long are tied directly to the topic at hand. If anything, the last year has made it clear that we as an industry are facing increased levels of stress, illness, and exhaustion. Having learned a few things from my own battle with exhaustion and burnout, I hope they’ll benefit others who are now or may eventually be in the same situation.
Burnout: running on empty#section2
Burnout is a psychological response to “long-term exhaustion and diminished interest,” and may take months or years to bubble to the surface. First defined by American psychoanalyst Herbert J. Freudenberger in 1972, burnout is “a demon born of the society and times we live in and our ongoing struggle to invest our lives with meaning.” 1 He goes on to say that burnout “is not a condition that gets better by being ignored. Nor is it any kind of disgrace. On the contrary, it’s a problem born of good intentions.” Another description in New York Magazine calls burnout “a problem that’s both physical and existential, an untidy conglomeration of external symptoms and personal frustrations.”
Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?
During his research, Freudenberger and his associate, Gail North, developed a simple outline to describe how otherwise healthy individuals can burn out, the key being that people may experience several or all phases, though not necessarily in a specific order.
The identified phases, several of which I bet sound familiar, are:
- A compulsion to prove oneself
- Working harder
- Neglecting one’s own needs
- Displacement of conflict (the person does not realize the root cause of the distress)
- Revision of values (friends, family, hobbies, etc., are dismissed)
- Denial of emerging problems (cynicism, aggression, and frustration become apparent)
- Withdrawal from social contexts, potential for alcohol or drug abuse
- Behavioral changes become more visible to others
- Inner emptiness
- Depression
- Burnout syndrome (including suicidal thoughts and complete mental and physical collapse) 2
It’s important to note that burnout is not the same as depression, though there are shared characteristics that blur the distinction; burnout can be brought on by fits of depression or may lead to depression itself.
My own head-on collision with burnout came at the end of 2007. In the year since, my focus has changed and I’ve become extremely conscious—and protective—of the balance I need in my life. Here’s what I’ve learned.
How it happens#section3
Burnout doesn’t happen without stress. Characterized as being “too much” of something, stress may come from too many meetings, projects, responsibilities, unrealistic deadlines, improperly set expectations, distractions, or any number of other things prevalent in our hyper-connected world. Stress is not crippling in and of itself, but we each have limits, and once those limits are reached, we can find ourselves teetering on the brink of burnout.
Although burnout is primarily a work-related illness caused by an imbalance in an individual’s personal goals, ideals, and needs as related to their job, stresses and factors outside the workplace can also contribute to the problem by wearing down emotional defenses.
You may be flirting with burnout if:
- Every day is a bad day
- You are no longer emotionally invested in your job or the work you’re doing
- You feel unappreciated or do not feel like you’re making a difference in your job
- There is a clear disconnect between your personal values and what is expected of you
- Self-defined goals or those imposed on you are unrealistic or unreasonable
- A significant amount of your day is focused on tasks that are not fulfilling on a personal or emotional level
Ultimately, burnout results from a lack of equilibrium. When you lose your balance, physically, you fall over. Burnout is very similar, except that once you’re down, it can be a real challenge to get back up.
How to recover from (or prevent) burnout#section4
The first and most important step in preventing or recovering from burnout is to recognize the problem and objectively survey your situation.
- What are the stressors in your life?
- Are there aspects of your job that do not align with your personal goals and values?
- Are you not doing the type of work you enjoy? Are your own measures of success realistic?
- Are you really engaged in the work you’re doing, or are you just overloaded?
These same questions can help you restore your internal balance without going as far as changing jobs or careers, which is rarely a realistic option. Burnout doesn’t have to be a career killer, but it can be if left untreated.
Stop (or at least slow down)#section5
If you’re working 50 or more hours a week, cut that number to the bare minimum. If possible, use up your sick days, work from home one day a week, and take a vacation or a leave of absence to give yourself the time needed to decompress, reflect, and reconnect. Sabbaticals are gaining acceptance in our industry, and even one day outside of your normal routine can help prevent burnout or get on the right track to push through it.
The point being: take yourself out of the problem for as long as you can realistically afford to.
Communicate#section6
When in doubt, talk.
Seek counsel and support from family, friends, and industry peers, or consider more formal coaching, possibly through a local business network or wellness center.
In my case, my wife recognized my burnout before I did, and helped me find a local business coach who understood client demands in the creative realm and the pressures of operating a small business. The time spent reflecting on how I got to where I was at the end of 2007 was invaluable, and has been the catalyst for the many changes I’ve made since.
Set boundaries and expectations#section7
The days of the 9-to-5 job are gone and the boundaries between work and home are blurred to the point of non-existence. We’re expected to be available nearly all the time, and the problem is often exacerbated for freelancers or anyone who works primarily from a home office where the only divide between being “at home” and being “at work” is a single door or a flight of stairs.
It’s not a badge of honor to work 80 hours a week or to answer e-mail or to Twitter at all hours of the night. Ask yourself: Have you set sufficient boundaries between your job and your life outside of work? Are you guarding those boundaries?
Although clients may choose to leave you messages and send e-mail at all hours, it’s up to you to set expectations about your responsiveness. As soon as you leave yourself open to responding to e-mails at 10 o’clock at night, you set a precedent that can be hard to take back.
Sleep. More.#section8
The world is a much smaller place now than it’s ever been. Information is at our fingertips whenever we want it and wherever we happen to be. Time zones blur, allowing us to work with clients in the same city as easily as those on the other side of the world. But we still need sleep, and we rarely get enough.
Sleep gives our brains a chance to work out problems and process the information we’ve absorbed throughout the day. Even if you can function on four or five hours of sleep, how much better would you function on seven or eight hours? Even though the 9-to-5 work day is history, there’s no reason work should extend into the wee hours of the morning.
Create a daily routine#section9
It’s not unusual for creative types to do their best work at the same time every day. By this I mean that it’s important to follow our own circadian rhythms. Hemingway began writing every morning at dawn and explained his choice this way: “There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there.”
The same system often works well for designers or developers. Do your most important work (or the work requiring the greatest focus) during that time when you’re most energized and have the fewest distractions. Use the rest of your working hours to solve secondary problems or gather information that will fuel the next productive sprint.
Make time for numero uno#section10
Whether you’re treading water or already below the surface, making time for yourself is critical. It’s easy to get caught up in the demands of bosses or clients and leave precious little time for your own needs.
Spending time with family, friends, or your personal interests may provide the fulfillment you don’t get at work. So get out. Go to a museum or an art gallery. Go to the library or a concert. Get some exercise. Play. Make time for what makes you happy, and guard that time fervently.
Examine your values, goals, and measures of success#section11
Know thyself, but be gentle. What are you passionate about? How do you evaluate yourself against expectations placed on you by managers and clients, and the work you’re doing? Are those measures grounded in reality? Are your personal development goals being met by the type of work you are doing? Are you feeling too much pressure from unrealistic demands or those that go against your values? What frustrates you?
Simply connecting with things that matter to you can provide perspective. Although burnout is a miserable experience, it can also be a great opportunity for personal growth and discovery.
Focus#section12
Good work requires focus.
Focus might mean restricting your access to e-mail, IM, Twitter, and Facebook, or turning off your cell phone. Modern communication conveniences provide a valuable social connection to the outside world, but they can also destroy concentration and clarity.
Change your situation#section13
Although changing careers is usually not an option, there’s plenty you can do to make your job more engaging and fulfilling.
Change departments, learn a new skill, or simply focus more on the things you’re good at, and that make you happy.
Offload responsibilities that are not fulfilling or that are not part of your core job function. If you’re a designer, focus on design, not on day-to-day accounting. If you’re a developer, focus on building great applications, not on client hand-holding. If you’re a freelancer, shake up your routine—and whenever possible, bring in additional help on the parts of projects that you don’t enjoy or that someone else could do better.
Changing your situation could be as easy as changing desks: If you work at home, spend more time at a local coffee shop or bookstore that has free wifi. If you work in a more traditional office, change desks or spend time in another part of the office.
Rely on a good process#section14
The reason we have processes is so that we can focus on getting things done, not on wondering what to do next.
If you don’t have a good work process, get one. Talk to your peers, read up on the topic, and see what processes others use. Experiment and find out what works for you. If you already have a process that you think works, scrutinize it, clarify it, and simplify it as much as possible.
Educate your clients on your processes, follow them yourself, and ensure that everyone you work with understands the consequences of failing to complete deliverables or meet deadlines.
Regaining your balance#section15
When you’re burned out, you know it. You can feel it and taste it, but in order to get past, it you have to acknowledge it and fight to restore your internal equilibrium. Stop, decompress, communicate, and focus. That process often begins with a look inward to learn what gives your life balance, such as family, friends, personal interests, and hobbies—the things that counterbalance your life on the web.
Your life should be just that—a life; if your waking hours are entirely consumed by work, or if you’re unfocused and inattentive to your own needs, burnout will be waiting at every turn.
bq. Part of my problem is that I get all this “˜external praise’ for doing the things that lead to burnout! Lots of times people talk about my work ethic and how quickly I get things done — but inside I feel empty.
*d4kc* brings up something that was a real trigger for me in my own experience with burnout. Getting things done is good. Getting things done in a timely matter is good. Getting things done _too quickly_, and consistently means that you’re probably not focused and jumping around from one thing to the next. It likely means that you’re being interrupted regularly by small fires that need to be put out and that break your train of thought in solving problems – in other words “context shifting”.
You can think of “context shifting” like switching from one application on the computer to another – each time you have to load up a new set of rules and information before you can do anything. This means you lose focus, and once lost, can be really hard to get back.
The question to always ask yourself is simply: “Does it need to be done right this second or can this wait until this afternoon or tomorrow?”
Wonderful article. I am still in the midst of trying to get over burnout after getting my graduate degree and being unable to find steady work. I found it to be really inspiring, hopeful and I’m looking forward to emerging on the other side a stronger person.
Thanks.
For the past 6 months or so I have been noticing a real lack of disconnect. I wake in the morning and check email first thing before anyone wakes up. I put the kids to sleep and get back on after having worked all day. Burnout happened months ago but I pushed through it not recognizing what was going on.
I really appreciated this article as it made me pause and take inventory. It is summertime and I am motivated to spend time with the kids at the pool and beach more than ever. Thank you for your insight.
Marcus – I was more of less in the same situation – before I realized that I was burnt out I was checking email at crazy hours and working long into the night and brushed the symptoms aside which I really should have just stopped and took a long hard look at what was causing them. Hindsight is 20/20 but the article has done it’s job if it’s helped you even if only in a small way.
Enjoy your summer and keep making time for yourself and your family so you can find the balance that works for you.
I particularly appreciated the part “Rely on a good process.” For a person that often walks the line of burnout running a web agency it is refreshing to hear others speak up about this and push back. Thanks for the tip on the email usage Franckg. I changed my email to only send receive every 30 minutes and that was a huge help so I can only imagine that increasing this will help more.
Although, it was written a bit late. haha
About 3 months ago I quit my 6 year design/front end development career and started going back to school for something entirely unrelated to design, media, development, and the web in general. I cant take the industry anymore. Now it’s just a super-selective (almost hobbiest style) freelance gig for me.
Thank you for the article. I am from Bratislava, Slovakia and have absoluely nothing to do with any kind of design.
But I am burned out, just browsing the Internet to see what the hell is wrong with me as I am sooo tired, frustrated and have no interest in anything. We are having a great business month at work and I cannot care less, eventhough it is my team who brought the business in. I find it difficult to even talk, my husband does not understands what is going on and I do not feel like talking about it.
But I obviously have to do something about it and I will take in your advice. I am glad I read the article.
Thank you
Michaela
Heck, that’s a brilliant article. I’ve never seen something like this targetted at web guys before but by the same token I’ve read we’re amongst the most vulnerable to burnout, alongside doctors and the like. Now hitting my 30s I’m seeing these troubles first hand. My daily dose of Escitalopram keeps me engaged in my work where previously I had a spell where I just wasn’t interested and took time off with depression. Playing a game to give my life a meaning shouldn’t be an actual life and death situation. When burnout arrives it’s like a sense of self presevation kicking in, like your body understands that it’s just playing a game and wants to move you out of harms way in the name of genuine self-preservation. You finish up sort of intentionally behaving in conflict with your own values and aims which makes the whole situation pretty darn rubbish to stomach.
‘A little is dangerous’ and ‘planning fallacy’ are the twin banes of the web developer. Tasks come to you with an expectation, usually very much below the mark because an inexperienced technician will not see the full complexity of the task in hand, and won’t be ready to recognise their own inexperience. Couple this with the fact that an experienced techician will have a better idea but generally underestimates anyway ‘planning fallacy’ and you finish up hurtling into the abyss. The end result being unattainable goals and a sense of personal failure when deadlines are missed that drives a developer to do their absolute best and put matters straight. That absolute best is not something that somebody can keep doing for any length of time. If I was to offer advice, it would be to learn to let people know you care when things run over, try to sort it out without overexerting yourself, but never panic and imagine your career or reputation is on the line.
This is the first article I’ve seen where there’s an understanding that a vocational techy can’t really change roles. If I was sweeping floors I’d go tend bar instead but I’ve put a real investment into my career and want to keep it moving. Thanks for some good reading.
The creative industry is a tough business and it will always be a tough way to make a living. That said, I probably speak for most of us in saying that, “I wouldn’t have it any other way”. I love my job and a periodic creative meltdown is not something that frightens me … In fact, I’ve come to embrace it. There is no point in fighting the inevitable, especially when it gives me the best reason I can ask for to take a vacation.
Just plan for it and if you are the type who likes to “recharge” on vacation, notify your clients well ahead of time and get an iPhone to track “fires”. I recently disappeared for two weeks and saved three jobs with a few emails. It’s that easy to enjoy time off.
A very nice article. But do people realize that they are on their way to a burnout? Burnout is not a depression, but in some aspects comparable. If you are depressed you can´t just think: “Yes, I´m feeling down, but that´s only because I have a depression. So nothing to worry about. I just have to wait until the depression is over.” Depressive thoughts feel real. One beleves at that moment that this depressive reasoning reflects the truth.
If I no longer enjoy my work and are fed up with it, it probably wouldn´t come into my mind that this is just because I´m getting a burnout. Being tired from too much work and knowing that ones has to take a good rest, is not a sign of a burnout. I think it´s a mental thing. And one cannot be 2 persons at the same time. One person that is living a burnout and another one that watches the first person like a doctor and tells him what to do and how to better his behavior.
Thank you so much for this article. I’ve lost count of the number of occasions over the years, where I’ve felt like wanting to run away from everything. I wonder how many of us have been ignoring the signs? A lot of us are feeling pressured into getting work done, in order to retain clients. In a recession, the fear of being out of work raises the pressure even more. I’ve bookmarked this one for future reference.
Oddly enough, I had a teacher who would take on huge contracts, work non-stop for a few months to the point of burnout, and then take a few weeks off.
Having gone through a burnout myself back in 2001, it’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. The smallest tasks seem like a mountain. Never again. Exercise, take time off, learn to say no. I’ve started martial arts, and the extreme workouts have not just helped against burnout but give me more energy, less sicks day and a clearer mind. Eating well is also important. Your body is a machine and needs to be taken care of the same way you would car for your automobile or computer.
Wow, this article is exactly what I needed a couple of years ago. I had massive burnout, it was literally killing me. I got out of the company I was in then thinking that would solve it. All it did was lead to burnout in another environment.
Luckily I was able to get things under control, even though it’s a constant struggle to keep from falling into bad habits that can lead to burnout. The biggest help for me was to set very strict boundaries. When it’s me time or family time, client phone calls do not get answered, period. It’s amazing to me that today’s culture has become such that clients expect you to be there for them 24/7. I even went through a period without a cell phone and the world kept turning and I was happier.
Today’s culture, especially in the U.S., seems to think that anything less than the type of intense work that leads to burnout is laziness. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
Thanks for the article. It’s a very important subject matter and you handled it very well.
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yes mate, sometimes need to take rest and clean mind to 🙂
Neurofeedback or brain training is a great way to decrease stress and increase creativity. My friend told me about it who was addicted to her Blackberry. She was finally able to relax again in the evening and on weekends. I tried it and it helped tremendously with writer’s block and creativity.
The article is well written for the most part; however, I disagree with the author’s comment regarding career change being rarely a realistic option. Sometimes career change is a solution for those who may have exhausted all other alternatives connected to relieving his/her symptoms of burn out. I am certain that most of us know people (if not ourselves) who have changed careers up to three or four times before finding the one that aligned with their personal values and goals.
Though career change may seem tough in the beginning, there are plenty of support services out there to help with the transition. Also, in light of the current state of our economy, more Americans are using the effects of the recession as a means to pursue their passion or to find purpose, considering that job security is also a concept of the past.
From experience, a good rule of thumb for anyone considering career change as a solution to burn out would be to measure his/her personal values and beliefs against the values and mission statement of the company to which he/she is applying. Sometimes a misalignment between employee and employer (company culture) may contribute to burnout down the road.