I my early 20s, after getting out of the service, I worked as an assistant manager at a fast-foot restaurant in the evenings while I did college during the day. It was a full load of credits, and the food place I was working was very busy too, so it made for a long, hard slog.
One day I was talking to another of the assistant managers. I asked him about burn-out. Do you ever feel like you might be burning out?
"Not me. Can't happen"
"Why"
"Because I got burnt-out a year or two ago. I just pushed through it."
He was smiling. Sort of in a fatalistic way.
I'm not denying burn-out: I get it all the time. But I do think we over-emphasize it. As Jacques points out, if you live a life of leisure you have little danger of burning out. You also have little danger of living a life of challenging yourself to do new and complex things.
I think, as my friend pointed out so many years ago, that the problem is viewing burn-out as an yes-or-no situation. In fact, there are degrees of burn-out, and you can drift into burn-out land and drift back. What people really need to do, in my opinion, is learn their own rhythms. Personally, I like working hard for a few months then skating for a month or two. I find I get more done. I find when I am working hard, taking a ten minute break every hour helps. Sometimes I take all day on Saturday and watch movies. Or go for a hike.
So the trick isn't avoiding burn-out. The trick is learning your own rhythms so you maximize your productivity while you're stuck on this rock. Burnt-out? Back off, sure. But note your rhythm, and next time you won't burn out as much.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get your kick on.
EDIT: That didn't come out exactly as I wanted. It sounded as if I were just telling folks to buck up. But that's not what I meant to say. The point was self-reflection.
This gets back to learning yourself -- your rhythms and values. I find that if I immerse myself in something I am deeply committed to, burning out is a learning experience. But I immerse myself in something I hate -- working for some other guy, doing something because I am forced to? Burning out can really hurt and require lots of time to recover from.
That's why I don't do that.
Burning out early and for a long time -- indication that you are putting a lot of effort in something you resent.
I'm still trying to figure out if the 'fast foot' restaurant was a mistake or a pun in relation to life being a marathon ;)
That's an excellent point though, and if life is a marathon then being burnt out is probably best compared to having to sit out a part of the race because you can't run any more.
I'm all for tackling all kinds of stuff, sometimes more than what you can naturally expect a person to do, as long as it doesn't leave any lasting marks (or at least none that are disfiguring) I say go for it. But keep an eye on the limits. When I was 23 the wife of a friend told me I'd be dead by 30 if I didn't slow down. So far so good. But I do understand now that there are limits to how much you can do without paying the price for it, and in some ways (in terms of missed opportunities and lost friends) the price was pretty high indeed. If I had slowed down just a bit somewhere in the early 2000's I'm fairly sure my life would have been quite different compared to what it is today.
You are spot on that it is all about learning yourself, your rhythms and values, that's exactly what it is. The machine called your body does not come with a list of 'do not exceed' parameters, and they're different for everybody, so only experience will tell you what you can and what you can't do.
I tend to live like a cat nowadays, either extremely lazy or hyper focussed on some project for a while, and then I take a break again. It's worked well in that I can still push myself to achieve something when I have to (and those lists really help), but at the same time I've learned that there are limits and that there is more in life than a keyboard and a screen.
I'm still trying to figure out if the 'fast foot' restaurant was a mistake or a pun in relation to life being a marathon ;)
Hey I was up until 2am coding and got back up at 8. When I get the coding Pon Farr on my mornings get a little hazy :)
This actually relates to your article. For the last month or so, I have been trying "banker's hours" coding -- 9-5 and taking time for everything else. It was great.
But something funny happened: I stopped making progress. Sure, I would make a little bit at a time, but nothing like what I used to do.
I finally figured it out a couple of days ago. For some reason, unless my body and mind is convinced I am serious about driving through to solve a problem, I get very little traction. But if it's 11pm and I'm getting ready to go to bed but realize I can code it better and then go act on it, things work out. Unlike working for a BigCorp, working for yourself involves a gut check.
A lot of problems are like hills -- tough on the front side but easy on the back side. If you only go 1/4 way up the hill, you just slide back down overnight. But if you go balls-in and stay with it until you make it, suddenly it becomes easier.
Perhaps one must suffer for their art.
At least that's my experience, for what it's worth.
One day I was talking to another of the assistant managers. I asked him about burn-out. Do you ever feel like you might be burning out?
"Not me. Can't happen"
"Why"
"Because I got burnt-out a year or two ago. I just pushed through it."
He was smiling. Sort of in a fatalistic way.
I'm not denying burn-out: I get it all the time. But I do think we over-emphasize it. As Jacques points out, if you live a life of leisure you have little danger of burning out. You also have little danger of living a life of challenging yourself to do new and complex things.
I think, as my friend pointed out so many years ago, that the problem is viewing burn-out as an yes-or-no situation. In fact, there are degrees of burn-out, and you can drift into burn-out land and drift back. What people really need to do, in my opinion, is learn their own rhythms. Personally, I like working hard for a few months then skating for a month or two. I find I get more done. I find when I am working hard, taking a ten minute break every hour helps. Sometimes I take all day on Saturday and watch movies. Or go for a hike.
So the trick isn't avoiding burn-out. The trick is learning your own rhythms so you maximize your productivity while you're stuck on this rock. Burnt-out? Back off, sure. But note your rhythm, and next time you won't burn out as much.
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get your kick on.
EDIT: That didn't come out exactly as I wanted. It sounded as if I were just telling folks to buck up. But that's not what I meant to say. The point was self-reflection.
This gets back to learning yourself -- your rhythms and values. I find that if I immerse myself in something I am deeply committed to, burning out is a learning experience. But I immerse myself in something I hate -- working for some other guy, doing something because I am forced to? Burning out can really hurt and require lots of time to recover from.
That's why I don't do that.
Burning out early and for a long time -- indication that you are putting a lot of effort in something you resent.