Take it seriously. I don't know if there's a ton of studies around this, but IMHO there's a lot of anecdata that suggests that this sort of burnout can be a lot like other bodily trauma... a little bit of it isn't permanent, but if you ignore it and keep re-traumatizing yourself, it can become permanent.
I've never personally experienced true burnout, but I also have a policy of taking it seriously and making sure that I do something about it long before it becomes a permanent trauma, and I have had to call a couple of multi-week vacations with relatively short notice, or perhaps announce a vacation a month before the end of some important project. Sometimes it's even as simple as waking up on Friday and just realizing that today is a "Nope!" and taking it off. I think if you nip it in the bud you often may not even need to do it that often. But take it seriously.
And if your job won't let you do that, take seriously the possibility of finding a new one. Yeah, finding a new job sucks, but permanently burning out sucks way more.
People at my office sometime wonder why I have a low PTO balance yet have been there for 5 years. It's exactly the same as the Friday comment.
Sometimes I'm just really not feeling like work and take a day off. Unless something important is happening that day, management could care less. Sometime I stay up late the night before because something caught my attention outside work and I couldn't put it down. I'll take the next day off.
Helps that my company have a seemingly generous PTO policy (at 5 years it a bit more than a day per paycheck (every other Friday)). If you're not a problem employee everyone just wishes you a good day.
But, I don't think I really felt burnout before the pandemic. Working alone has pushed me to the point where focusing feels like a strenuous task. My most productive stints (in my subjective self-opinion) are when I'm working with other people on a call (my role is basically half research / half implementing it).
Part of me hopes going back into the office will help calm my mind but I'm just not sure.
Not going to advocate that this is the answer for everyone, but what I thought was burnout for me - turned out I had severe anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
I'm on medication now, going through therapy, and still at my current gig doing better than ever.
So, what I want to say is that if you are concerned you are burnt out - it's very possible work is burning you out, but it's also possible to seek treatment before making a big decision like leaving a workplace with tons of great benefits and healthcare to support you.
Can we please not devolve every discussion about natural human behavior into ‘you must have adhd, get meds’. It’s standard pressure and human centric fear of failure around business expectations where those around you may or not give a flying fuck about your efforts. Thus, the pressure feels unfulfilling and driven by fear. It’s not always rocket science.
I don't think this was the poster's attempt to "devolve" the discussion. Simply sharing an anecdote that he thought might prove worthy of consideration for those who are suffering burnout.
I also suffered burnout at a job, but I didn't realize it until I was receiving therapy related to my anxiety. I don't know anything about meds or ADHD since that isn't anything I have experience with, but I think it's worth doing some introspection on one's self to see if there are thoughts or tendencies that are also there underneath the burnout.
Correct. I am sharing my current on-going experience with what I thought was workplace burnout, but was really a number of other mental health issues that were contributing to my overall feeling of doubt, anxiety, performance at work.
To be clear again, I am not advocating for everyone to assume their burnout is due to some sort of mental health issue - but to also not discredit exploring this prior to making a big emotional decision like leaving a job, and possibly making symptoms even worse if not addressed.
I found it useful to start a private project, find something fancy and interesting to get lost in and spark the creative juices. In other words work less, play more.
I have this obsession that life should be about play. Make productive outputs playful. I think biology made us aim for this. Individually we optimize for lower energy use and in group it's the same we like when things flow, when everybody is in tune. In those cases it's like playing.. and usually it represents peak performance at the system level.
Actually I've been doing a bit of exactly that...
1. I've been writing a Forth interpreter on the side for fun.
2. I'm learning how to distill liquor. :)
I've never personally experienced true burnout, but I also have a policy of taking it seriously and making sure that I do something about it long before it becomes a permanent trauma, and I have had to call a couple of multi-week vacations with relatively short notice, or perhaps announce a vacation a month before the end of some important project. Sometimes it's even as simple as waking up on Friday and just realizing that today is a "Nope!" and taking it off. I think if you nip it in the bud you often may not even need to do it that often. But take it seriously.
And if your job won't let you do that, take seriously the possibility of finding a new one. Yeah, finding a new job sucks, but permanently burning out sucks way more.