Narrowly Avoiding Burnout and What I Do Now
"How to avoid burn out" must be one of the most Googled work related terms of 2020 and 2021. As we all adjusted to the new world of enforced work from home, economic uncertainty and wide spread heath concerns due to the pandemic people were coming to terms of significant blurring of work and home life.
While some people initially thrived, as the months dragged on it eventually took a toll on all of us, I witnessed many of my friends let work engulf their life to the point where they were signing off WhatsApp messages with "Kind Regards" and suggesting agendas for Saturday Zoom calls with drinks - it would be funny if it weren't so painfully a sign of poor mental health.
I started a new job in October 2020, leaving a wonderful company that was deeply impacted by COVID. I went to a consultancy building a product in arguably the fastest growing area of tech over the past few years. Greenfield project, lots of input on direction and near complete autonomy to implement parts of the system how I wanted in a very small team.
The problem? The business had no idea what they actually wanted us to build and we burned ourselves up in about 8 months flat. Coming out of that experience, thankfully in a new role elsewhere, I can look back and see where I could have done a much better job managing the situation and my mental health.
