I’ve Been Burnt By Burnout

Creative burnout is something I’m plagued with. I have too much going, too many projects, and every now and then it begins to weigh on me. The projects are long lasting too. Most of them, I knew full well when undertaking them, would take a year or more to accomplish.

I can’t just drop things though. I wouldn’t be able to call myself a serious professional if I did that, but I can’t just let my responsibilities slip. I hate not doing things because I have a chilling fear of feeling like I’m doing nothing with my life. That fear is what accounts for most of my work ethic, and it’s a vicious back and forth.

It’s a cycle that results in me just having to power through. But some days of burnout are more difficult than others, and it forces me to take a step back.

As I’m right writing this blog now, this is a list of things that are on my task list:

• I’m currently in pre-production on a cultural and entertainment format with SkyHigh Productions. We’re attempting to bring up this series and get it ready for filming for sometime in September/October, lockdown allowing.
• As the vice-chairman of the Louth Film Society, I’ve got two projects on the go right now; The first is a talking heads documentary that is being made that I’m acting as the co-producer of. The second project is a series of curriculum classes that I’m attempting to organise with some of the more experienced members.
• I’m most of the way through editing a video about the first year of my god daughter’s life for my family.
• I’ve been meaning to finally get my driver's license, studying for which has taken up a surprising amount of my time.
• I may also be running a Dungeon and Dragons game later this year, which is something I want to do, but may not have the time.

These are the main projects that are taking up my time right now, but other things are always springing up, and I hate to lose an opportunity. This doesn’t include the no small number of individual writing projects I’d like to get around to at some point.

COVID-19 has actually done very little to loosen my workload. Most of my work is done at the keys of a laptop, so all I have to do is communicate now and then via WhatsApp and then keep typing away. This leaves me trapped in my room, at my desk, with a mountain of work in front of me, and that’s daunting.

How Do I Deal With It

Priorities

I have to order everything as a priority. Usually by how majorly important something is right away. The biggest thing that has to be done the fastest.

As you can imagine, this usually leaves the way I work as a mad dash to get the next immediate thing done. I’ve learned the hard way that this is a double edged sword. It does push me to get the next task finished, but it prevents me from planning the final stages of a project thoroughly enough.

The Drawda Sessions is one of the most important things as we’re getting close to production and it’s one of the biggest projects I’ve been on. I consider their tasks to be the most immediate.

The Louth Film Society is also important, but mostly because there’s a couple of dozen amateurs who’ve pledged themselves to the group who need to be trained and who need us on hand.

Dungeons and Dragons, as fun as it is, is sadly not always a main priority. As helpful as it has been to my creative and social life, it’s ultimately just a game and every now and then has to be put onto the long finger, which is a shame.

Organizing

I have to make sure everything is organized. I could easily miss something huge if I relied on my memory alone. It’s a constant pressure to make sure everything I’ve got coming up is well documented because I will absolutely forget about it otherwise.

I keep up to date with my calendar, putting down every meeting, no matter how small, and I have a pin board for every task I have to get through, again, no matter how small. I do this because, frankly, I don’t trust myself.

This is not my natural self at all. It's a constant battle to remind myself to take down everything, just in case, and during meetings I can't allow myself to relax or i might miss something huge. I’ve let myself down before, and I’ve let myself get burnt out.

Breaks

Obviously, when things really start to bear down, taking a break is a good idea. Anything from a half-an-hour walk to just a full day doing nothing can really refresh you. Just peeling yourself away is the hardest thing.

This is basic advice, but I never really follow it. I'm forced into taking breaks out of sheer exhaustion sometimes because the creativity and effort just isn't flowing. This might help with burnout in the short term, but only harms when it comes to one of the long-term causes; Self-doubt, which we'll talk more about below.

When it comes to taking a full-day off though, by the end of it I usually feel so guilty that I’ve even dared to relax, that I’m dying to get back to work and I’m able to hit the ground running, but its still an up and down journey.

Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Even Written This

Just being tired and the pressure of bringing out creative work consistently is probably one of the biggest reasons for burnout. The mountain of work in front of you defeating you. There’s something else, though - something a little more insidious - behind the mentality.

When something goes wrong - If I forget a task or a meeting or just do something basic a bit wrong, it feels devastating. It’s because it reinforces something very specific - Self-doubt. It’s a mind set that most people deal with on some level, but why does it even happen?

Are you aware of what imposter syndrome is? It’s when you essentially feel like you haven’t earned the position you currently hold. That you don’t deserve the jobs or maybe the awards you’ve been given. I think self-doubt leads to this. You work one day, the creative juices aren’t flowing, and suddenly you’re immune to any sense of quality from your own projects. You just can’t see it.

I could also tell you that self-doubt is helpful at times. If I’m never sure if what I’m doing is any good, then it forces me to make sure it's good. I have to be sure of what I’m doing and it has to meet my standards, otherwise I’m convinced it must be rubbish.

Sorry Guys, There’s No Game Today

Earlier on I mentioned my penchant for Dungeons and Dragons, the popular tabletop role-playing game. Without receding into a fanboy, A quick explanation is that it’s a great creative outlet and, like a lot of things, the stereotypes surrounding don’t really represent the people within the hobby.

Among my group, there’s a few people, myself included, who runs the games. There’s a phenomenon that almost always happens, however - That being we usually give up at some point.

A few games into every series, the games just fall apart. The Game Master (also called GM) grows tired and one day, the game just ends and we have to start all over again. We’re all used to it now, and we all understand.

What you have to understand about GMing, and the GM, is that the existence of the game is built upon the work they put into it. So, if the GM feels creative burnout, the game is in trouble, resulting in 7 being told their weekend entertainment suddenly isn’t happening.

Anyway, this isn’t about Dungeons and Dragons. Not really.

What’s important is that burnout is such a strong phenomenon, that each of us are willing to disappoint 7 of our closest friends because of it. There are times when the blank page in front of you just defeats you, no matter what happens. If peer pressure isn’t enough, what is?

It’s toxic to creativity, and when you add a deadline and expectations, it creates anxiety that causes you to seek out any opportunity you have to escape it. Either that, or the work just suffers.

The Unburnt

We’ve grown to appreciate and be amazed by people with such a strong work ethic that they can keep up creative work, seemingly without pause. We recognize it as an amazing skill because most of us just don’t have that ability. We can usually only handle a couple of projects at a time, and then take breaks between our most strenuous.

Managing your work load correctly and taking a break now and then is - and this might shock some people with this fantastic insight - the key to working consistently on long term projects. 

That doesn’t stop the anxiety though. Every time I take a day off or procrastinate, even though it might be good for me in the long term to step away from the computer more, I still feel incredibly guilty.

I don’t feel stable, and I’m aware that success comes from hard work. Time is money, and when I’m not actively working I feel like opportunities are slipping away.

Sifting Through The Ashes

If anyone has read any of my other blogs so far, you might have keyed into the idea that I’m not really telling you what to do. This isn’t a list of things you should do in order to beat this problem because, frankly, most of the time that just doesn’t work because everyones different.

I want to understand why burnout is a thing and the way creativity works around it. I’m not interested in a clickbait list of ways to fix something that you really have to reflect on properly to fix. 

I’m not an expert. In my short professional career I’ve done a lot of creative work, and this is really just a long-form rant about my thoughts and insights into these ideas. I think there's answers here that’ll help me work harder and worry less, but I’m still figuring that out.

In any of the blogs I’ve written, I’ve yet to ask for people to throw their opinions into the comments. Of course anyone always could, and I’d love to hear from people, but I’m genuinely interested in people's experiences with burnout, their thoughts on it and how they beat it.