
What wartime ‘munitionettes’ teach us about burnout - rubinelli
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190912-what-wartime-munitionettes-can-teach-us-about-burnout
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georgebarnett
One of the greatest tragedies is how we lie to ourselves about productivity. I
mean that in the sense of “I understand what the science says, but I feel like
I’m getting more done.”

I know I’m more productive when I step away from my work for downtime, and yet
at the same time I have times when I feel it’s near impossible to do.

This is an incredibly hard habit to break.

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Merrill
Working long hours continuously on something you don't like with people you
despise will burn you out. Working on multi-year projects is especially bad.

On the other hand, working long hours for a few months on something you like
with people you admire won't burn you out. I was raised on a farm where you
worked hard at different things depending on the season, with slack periods
between. This was much healthier than engineering.

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dredmorbius
I'm rather stunned there's no mention in the paper of the Chilwell canaries.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series2/blast_ch...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series2/blast_chilwell_somme.shtml)

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AndrewKemendo
I'm getting "burned out" of these nihilistic work life balance articles.

Show me anything revolutionary that was done by a group of people that weren't
obsessed to the point of neglecting the rest of their life. True, productivity
drops after 40 hours. But not to zero. You are 2/3 as productive at 60 hours a
week. That's still more productive than not working at all.

People literally worked to death during The Apollo program to get to the moon.
Same with every major Infrastructure project like the Hoover dam, disease
eradicating efforts like the Salk polio project etc. Do you think spacex is
launching space internet satellites built by people who have plenty of time
for their hobbies?

It's ok to be obsessed. Find something you actually believe in and if you're
being worked to death on something you don't care about well, quit. Can't
"afford" to quit? Then reevaluate your life to figure out what's worth risking
being homeless to do.

Or continue to work towards some milquetoast weekend hedonism, but stop
shaming the idea of being obsessed.

~~~
scottlocklin
>Show me anything revolutionary that was done by a group of people that
weren't obsessed to the point of neglecting the rest of their life.

Newton invented calculus in a few months goofing off on his family farm while
avoiding the plague. This "work yourself to death" mentality is moronic. It's
about 1000x more moronic when you're working on some dumb ass app which makes
life worse and which makes someone else rich, which is, realistically what
most of you are working on.

~~~
hollerith
>Newton invented calculus in a few months goofing off

I'm not disputing your overall point, but I don't think the example of Newton
helps your case.

Newton accumulated writings at the time of his death run to about ten million
words:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Alchemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Alchemy)

10 million words on science, philosophy, religion and combating counterfeiting
during his 33-year tenure with the Royal Mint is a lot even for a long life.
(Newton lived to 84.)

And Newton never had sex. (He boasted of the fact on his death bed.)

And look at all the serious things he pursued after he invented calculus
(intro to the same Wikipedia page):

>Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his
time to the study of alchemy and biblical chronology, but most of his work in
those areas remained unpublished until long after his death. . . . Newton
served two brief terms as Member of Parliament for the University of
Cambridge, in 1689–90 and 1701–02. He . . . spent the last three decades of
his life in London, serving as Warden (1696–1700) and Master (1700–1727) of
the Royal Mint, as well as president of the Royal Society (1703–1727).

Given all he did after inventing calculus combined with the fact that he was
ambitious and from a poor family, I'm inclined to think he worked his ass off
when he was a student unless you can present strong evidence to the contrary.

~~~
scottlocklin
What, do you think sex-havers waste more time or something?

I don't know what point you're trying to make here. The fact that Newton did a
lot of stuff doesn't mean he burned himself out with Travis Bickle hours the
way modern ding dongs do to excuse not having a life.

Let's use another example of a great man who accomplished a lot without
working real hard: Winston Churchill. A day drinker who was fond of long
meals, boozy parties and who took a daily hour and a half long nap. Somehow he
managed to take up painting, write a couple dozen encyclopediac books, ran
many important government offices and defeated Hitler.

I'll go out of my way to notice that the great ancient Greek and even Roman
types were all unconscionably lazy by modern American standards, and Aristotle
did his best work relaxing in a bath. Darwin was lazy as was da Vinci. Being
lazy is civilized and normal.

The insane "I must eat soylent and snort modafinil to maximize my
productivity" calvinist mindset of contemporary American upper middle class
strivers is the deviation from the mean of the human race. And don't try to
tell me things are particularly amazing in current year because all these
strivers are working bugman hours: this lifestyle is wretched and disgusting
and our era is marked by stupidity, vice and lack of technical or cultural
progress.

Laziness is aristocratic; if people would relax and smell the roses more,
well, most of them won't do anything like what Newton did, but they'll have
more time to be thoughtful.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
This concept of Churchill as a man not completely obsessed - specifically
during his tenure as prime minister - is just wrong.

He would dictate thousands of words a night and had a team of people who
worked slavishly to interpret his volumes.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
What head of state, cabinet minister, CEO, or general does _not_ have a team
of people to "slavishly" whatever? Significant use of dictation would be
_entirely usual_ among the same groups back then. Churchill seemed to consider
his writing relaxation and hobby as we might surf the net, and our parents
watch 5 hours of evening TV. Modern celebs and influencers have a team to
maintain the social feeds, sight unseen of the celeb or artist themselves.

When he took time off he'd write letters and talk about having had loads of
fun writing 2000 words, and laying 200 bricks a day, along with painting a
little. Bricklaying was another of his hobbies that persisted until very late
in life. Started with garden walls, he worked up to building a whole cottage
or two.

