

The Antidote to Burnout is Progress - jalopy
http://tomtunguz.com/burnout/

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brandon_wirtz
I think most the people who write these posts are clueless as to what burnout
is. You can give people money, pats on the back, pizza parties but if you run
them hard enough they will burn out.

I have been working without rest for a year on a project
(<http://www.stremor.com>) that has had huge amounts of progress. It pays well
enough, I like the people I work with, we have achieved great things, and we
have gotten recognition. So by all these measures I should have no burn out.

I have been burned out several times. You can't do genius level work 40 hours
a week for 52 weeks and not burn out. The Addiction to progress I have had me
doing 80 and 100 hour weeks. I was burning my self out. Not because my needs
weren't met, but because the brain just can't do that much work for that long.

I would sleep through an entire weekend after 2 weeks of 100 hours. But the
addiction to progress and the excitement of the work meant that I didn't want
to "go play".

What it really comes down to is people have limits. Those limits are additive.
If you are at 40% of your financial stress limit, and 40% of your relationship
stress limit, and 40% of your Micro-Manager driving you batty limit, then you
are at 120% of your limits. And you can run for a while at over 100% but not
indefinitely.

Even when all my Career, financial, physical, sexual, and other limits are at
5% if my Hours of intense concentration limit has been hit I will burn out.
And so will employees.

The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the Mental
limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can maximize the
employee output. Every time you push the employee at 150% for 2 days, you need
to let them recover at 75% for 4 days.

Burn out isn't a bad thing as long as you can refuel and keep going. It is
about managing the sprints, and preventing the burn out from causing failures.

~~~
saidajigumi
> The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the
> Mental limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can
> maximize the employee output.

I find it ironic that you describe the very real negative effects of burnout,
but then describe a recipe for inducing ... burnout.

May I suggest that you read Tom DeMarco's book _Slack_? It specifically
addresses what I'll term "operational fallacies" like this regarding knowledge
work, and covers making an organization more effective (doing the right work)
vs. merely efficient (doing lots of work) by adjusting the character and pace
of work.

~~~
hkmurakami
I personally feel that a manger's responsibility to his team is to have enough
people so that an individual doesn't have to be pushed to his/her mental
limits like this (and also rebuff demands from upper management that go beyond
the team's reasonable limits).

It's a difficult balance between one's responsibility to his team members and
to the bottom line of the company, but at least for me, a manager (I guess), I
like to side with my team. Shareholders can expect a "reasonable return" (like
it says in J&J's credo), not "maximum return".

 _"When we operate according to these principles, the stockholders should
realize a fair return"_

[http://www.jnj.com/wps/wcm/connect/c7933f004f5563df9e22be1bb...](http://www.jnj.com/wps/wcm/connect/c7933f004f5563df9e22be1bb31559c7/jnj_ourcredo_english_us_8.5x11_cmyk.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

------
runemadsen
I'm a little tired of seeing all these posts about what burnout is, and how to
prevent it, written by people who doesn't have any experience in clinical
psychology.

"Burnout is caused by working and failing". "Prevent burnout by clicking this
list of TODO items". Please don't approach these complicated issues from a
"this is a trend" angle.

I'm pretty sure there are other, better, and way more complicated reasons why
you can feel miserable at your job. Burnout can be linked to a medical
illness, malnutrition, depression, etc, etc...

~~~
skore
I think we're seeing what usually happens after psychological concepts "go
mainstream". First they start to get over diagnosed (actually, in most cases,
over self-diagnosed) and then they get so overused in the public discourse
that almost anybody thinks they can chime in.

For me, the opener captured the problem:

> Burnout is a motivation problem, a listlessness, a defeatist attitude, and
> perhaps even a hopelessness, triggered by the lack of progress.

Even a quick glance at wikipedia tells you that the major component in Burnout
is _Exhaustion_. Making it about motivation sounds analogous to telling
depressed people that they really need to cheer up more.

If your main focus in trying to deal with Burnout is to micro-manage yourself
better and track your probably already obsessive introspection on work even
closer, the only thing you end up doing is driving the car even faster against
the next tree.

Motivation issues might coincide with burnout, they might play into the spiral
of self loathing that feeds your burnout. But they are just one of the
components that make you _exhausted_.

The main thing you need to do when you are _exhausted_ is to stop and give
yourself time to heal.

However:

The author isn't talking about Burnout, he is just accurate in using the term
as it is broadly understood. It is reasonably accurate for the early stages of
a Burnout. Even the title, citing 'antidote' is reasonably accurate since
antidotes are mostly given quickly after a person was poisoned. Not when that
person is already deathly ill.

I would agree with you, however, that this article probably does more harm
than good. Particularly hand-wavy "...and exercise, diet, reading" in the last
sentence do leave a stale aftertaste, making this more blog spam than content.

Funnily enough, it's blog spam around a HN Comment thread. Go figure. Meta
article on Burnout articles should surface any day now.

~~~
rhizome
And hey, "reading." Since I'm reading right now, I hope to be motivated again
RSN.

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spockz
Burnouts come in various forms and one of the symptoms is exhaustion. As
another comment already stated a person has a limited amount of energy that
can be spent. Working at more than 100% it's possible but consumes a lot of
energy.

One of the sources of this energy can be excitement (adrenaline) because you
intrinsically like what you are doing or because you get a sense of
ffulfillment in completing things. Which brings us back to the antidote
suggested by the post. The suggested actions are typical measures for
improving one's self-esteem. When one's self-esteem is low one tends to suffer
from the same symptoms as exhaustion.

The post suggests that burnout is caused by repeated failure of obtaining
success after spending a serious amount of effort and commitment. This however
is a classic example of something that induces low self-esteem.

So be sure that you are not primarily fueled by this need for success when
working over your max. Because if that is what is giving you energy you will
lose it once you have some failures.

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kylequest
This guy is completely clueless about burnout. Lack of progress or lack of
success lead to depression and not burnout. Burnout is caused by "sprinting"
for too long resulting in prolonged exhaustion. "Sprinting" is ok for very
short periods of time, but running a (never ending) marathon like it's a
sprint results in a burnout. No success or progress can fix that. Plain and
simple...

~~~
cpncrunch
Have you ever experienced burnout yourself? Generally severe burnout will
result in depression as well.

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Paul_D_Santana
This reminds me of Dan Miller's 7 Areas of Success:

    
    
      Career
      Financial
      Personal Development
      Physical
      Relationships
      Spiritual
      Social
    

As he often says on his podcast [1], you must be making continual deposits of
success in every area, and career is only _ONE_ area. For example, if you
experience a temporary "interruption of employment status", the first thing
you should do is start an exercise regimen (if you don't already have one).

Each one feeds into each other, and I know after a particularly terrible day,
I personally feel a hundred times better after a challenging CrossFit workout
with friends.

[1] <http://www.48days.com/category/48-days-podcast>

~~~
obviouslygreen
Ah yes. A list of less than ten things that must always apply to everyone by
which we can measure things x and y and prevent things z and mu.

If you can't do #1, you can do #2 and #3 and feel fulfilled! That's how people
work -- _all_ people -- so take my advice! If any part of this happens to work
for you, by the way, it's because _I am completely right_ , and not due to the
fact that I'm wrapping obvious things in swaths of bullshit to sell or gain
subscriptions so I can get more popular and sell more speaking engagements.

Sorry, this just smells like crap.

~~~
dasil003
It smells like crap? No, it smells like you have a thing against self-help
books. I've never heard about this before but it strikes me as a potentially
useful way of looking at personal life a bit more systematically than a simply
stated "work-life balance" that everyone uses rhetorically but is rarely
defined.

Maybe instead of indignantly demanding "how dare this guy attempt to define me
according to his own pop psychology metrics!?" or "this clearly does not work
for everyone so it's utterly useless crap!", you could suspend judgement for a
few microseconds and discuss the actual content.

~~~
Paul_D_Santana
Thank you! I was thinking along the same lines but I figured I should quit
posting since everyone seemed to be attacking me.

Thank you for making me feel like my attempt at a positive message was
worthwhile. +1 Upvote from me.

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orangethirty
_Right_. Burnout also happens with success.

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lsinger
For outstanding research on the meaning of progress in your work, take a look
at "the progress principle" by Amabile and Kramer:
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/142219857X/>

Gist: yes, progress is essential to feel good about your work.

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milesf
There's no such thing as burnout, it's really heartache in disguise.

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CCs
Clickable link: <https://idonethis.com/>

