There Is No Cure for Burnout
Hold up, there&#x27;s some really bad perspective on this. While I would say there&#x27;s no immediate cure for burnout, it is absolutely curable.<p>When I first learned to program, I dived into freelancing. I lucked out and in about 3 weeks, I teamed up with two design firms that needed a webdev. I was working ~18 almost everyday. No exaggeration. I was single and this was right after I lost my job, apartment and my life collapsed. So, I was on the kick of getting it all back. It was work, coffee, sleep. I literally drank 2-3 pots of coffee everyday and had to chug beer to fall asleep. Wake up, all over again.<p>BTW, not a healthy lifestyle, in case you didn&#x27;t realize.<p>After a year, I was done. I would literally stare at my emails piling up and just not move. Just blank stare for hours. I had zero focus. Not, oh I&#x27;m going to watch a video or check reddit kind of &quot;zero focus&quot;. I could barely function. Any task I needed to do, like brush my teeth, I couldn&#x27;t think about long or hard enough to get up and do it. That, I learned is zero damn focus.<p>Fast forward about 2 months. Lost all those contracts and contacts for obvious reasons and got into really bad depression. Now, I was &quot;trying&quot; to cure my burnout and was getting no where. Meditation, soothing music, motivational videos, whatever. None of it was enough to get me &quot;work&quot; functioning again for more than 15 minutes without me wanting to just go jump into front of a fast moving truck. Oh, but I can&#x27;t do that because I lack the motivation to even go out there to kill myself. That&#x27;s how bad it was.<p>Until, one Friday, Steam sent an email about Borderlands 2 was free for the weekend. I didn&#x27;t play a video game in like 2 or 3 years at that point. I thought, &quot;Fuck it, my weekend isn&#x27;t going to be productive anyways since I&#x27;m burnt out and probably going to die in this apartment only to be found because they want to collect past due rent.&quot;<p>I didn&#x27;t think of &quot;working&quot; at all. Just played, non-damn-stop that entire weekend. Didn&#x27;t drink coffee or alcohol, mostly by accident because I was focused on the game.<p>I fell asleep at a decent time Sunday. Monday I woke up, did all my morning hygiene properly, like an adult. I then sat down and made phone calls to contacts that didn&#x27;t suffer from my burnout phase. Got working again. I tried getting 7 hours of sleep every night and went from 18 hours working to only 10 max for the first few months (had to pick back up on finances). Eventually I forced 8 hours of sleep on myself over time. One of my best decisions.<p>You need to have fun people! I don&#x27;t play video games much anymore. I like reading, woodworking, nature photography, writing, watercolor painting (I suck at it, but it&#x27;s fun) and literally walking on the beach. Bars and generic social meetups are fun too. I only work more than 8 hours a day if it&#x27;s a real, super emergency. I restrict my coffee intake to 3 mugs max per day. No caffeine the moment it&#x27;s 5pm, no exceptions. Even if there&#x27;s a crunch. My sleep is important. I only allow 2 all nighters in a 30 day timespan. No exceptions.<p>While I feel for Ella in the article, but you can&#x27;t blame the economy or capitalism for the fact you don&#x27;t take care of yourself. It&#x27;s not a political issue. It&#x27;s a &quot;be an adult&quot; issue. One that many have to learn the hard way, like myself. But blaming others is... well... stupid. Yes, there are drawbacks to standing your ground about this. Again, it&#x27;s about being an adult. Nothing about gender or race. Be an adult. Yea, I didn&#x27;t get certain contracts, especially one from a FAANG (Fuck them all by the way, they&#x27;re the cause of this overwork bullshit plaguing society), because I have very strong stipulations how I work. If I&#x27;m requested to work after MY 5pm, I charge double, instantly. Don&#x27;t call me. I don&#x27;t check my work email. If you call, I charge you a full hour, at double rate, even if it&#x27;s a 5 minute phone call. Email me and I&#x27;ll get to it 9am the next day. Unless you take me out to dinner to chat work. But I&#x27;m an expensive work date.<p>If you&#x27;re in a burnout phase. Here&#x27;s what I recommend.<p>A. Do something drastically fun or relaxing. Pure pleasure and don&#x27;t even think or worry about working. For at least a day. I think a weekend is best (obviously) but at minimum do 24 hours. This is the first &quot;small fix&quot; to get you started.<p>B. You need a hobby. A relaxing and&#x2F;or fun hobby. No, you don&#x27;t instagram or facebook what you&#x27;re doing. It&#x27;s FOR YOU and you only. I recommend something constructive. But whatever it is that you find enjoyable and somewhat challenges you(not crazy important). Do it.<p>C. Work&#x2F;Life balance is about doing responsibilities and still having fun. Life isn&#x27;t all about &quot;constant&quot; improvement and work. Relax, have fun. Get your work done sooner so you can have fun sooner. Don&#x27;t get your work done sooner just so you can give yourself more work to do.<p>Hustling is good in spurts, especially when you&#x27;re young and can handle it. Cutting your teeth is good. But you still need to realize that life is more than that. If you&#x27;re hustling so you can &quot;hustle more&quot;, you&#x27;re doing it wrong. You hustle so you can enjoy life more. People bitch about the boomers. Yea, but you know, they did protest against the stiff all work corporate culture of their time and brought in the sexual revolution. Millennials are a generation that focus on all work&#x2F;career along with public image for their social media feed and are really under-sexed.<p>Go get laid, have some fun and remember you work so you can enjoy life more. You don&#x27;t life so you can work more.