Reflecting on Burnout
The past few months have been hectic for me, both professionally and personally. Following a long, hot summer filled with networking, work, travel, and more work — I found myself in need of rest. Unfortunately, I was in the midst of taking over a new team and had lots more unfinished business on my plate. The last few months have flown by in what feels like hours, and I’m only now sitting here on a Saturday in November Wednesday in late December to reflect.
To preface this: over the past few years, I’ve tried countless tools and hacks to manage ( defeat) work. No matter what I try, work always prevails. There will always be more work than time, and the sooner you realize this the sooner you’ll be on your way to avoiding burnout.
The tricky thing about burnout is that it will creep up on you. You won’t really notice you’re burning out until it’s too late. In fact, you may even be the “not burnt out guy” within your team-helping others to feel less burnt out themselves by offering words of encouragement. Funny isn’t it?
But alas, a time will come where you just don’t have the willpower to attend that exec update meeting, speak to that annoyingly persistent customer, or finish that roadmap presentation (again). You’ll look back on several months and think to yourself “do I have anything to show for it?”. It’s a painful realization. Is it laziness on your behalf? No, it’s probably just burnout.
