26 lifehacks to overcome burnout at work

First, let me apologize for the translation. The article was originally in Russian. Having no time I just ordered the translation of Fever. Hope, you’ll enjoy it despite some grammar and other mistakes.

I wrote this article at the request of the managers of Microsoft Company, who invited me to hold a discussion club. The topic of burnout at work seemed to them the most attractive, that is not surprising. When a person burns out, he often solves the problem of dismissal from the company, but how can you retire from a company like Microsoft, which in many respects is No. 1 at the labor market? This problem is known to many corporations, not just Microsoft. In Facebook, Google, Amazon and other major corporations their burned-out employees literally become slaves of their companies. From one side they has long ceased to enjoy the work and but from another side they can't retire. Maybe it's voluntary slavery, but this does not become easier

In this article I will talk about how not to turn into an office slave and to be a happy owner of your favorite work. 

Before I describe what burnout is and how to avoid it, I want to share my experience of burnout. At 21, I went to work for a wage (although the first revenues started to get at 14 years, so I have already had experience by that time). My first job was at a large Corporation, the position was prestigious, but I didn't feel pleasure from the work, moreover, I didn’t see any interesting work for me in this Corporation and the only solution for me was leaving of this corporation.

Then my career was rapid, I quickly grew the career ladder in an interesting company, but as soon as my growth slowed, I felt the signs of burnout. In 28 years I was faced with the fact that I don't have enough energy to work, because the intensity was extremely high, and there was not time to recover. It was extremely hard, I burned out and only to 30 years I found a cure for burnout and started to apply it in my life. Now I am 32, I have a favorite work, which is perfectly organized and I know how to restore my energy.

These experience and knowledge I want to share with you.   

So, what exactly is a burnout at work? Herbert Freudenberger in 1974 described the phenomenon of burnout in his study "Staff burn-out". Initially, burnout was associated with employees in such professions as social workers, nurses, teachers, lawyers, engineers, police officers, sellers that is professionals with high emotional loads. But now any employee is subject to burnout.

Later in 1986 Christine Maslak called burnout the opposite side of engagement. Thus, we will consider burnout and engagement as two extreme poles. All that will facilitate engagement will reduce burnout and Vice versa. 

According to medical classifications, burnout is associated with fatigue and often manifests itself as various diseases caused by psychosomatic. By the way, when was the last time you were ill at work and what was the reason?

It is important to distinguish stress from burnout. What is the difference between stress and burnout? Feeling the stress, you're too involved in your work, and during the burnout you are indifferent to it. Stress is accompanied by a storm of emotions, but burnout on the contrary is characterized by apathy. Stress is accompanied by physical fatigue and burnout is accompanied by emotional one. 

1. Start with assessing of your burnout

Questionnaire developed by Christine Maslach allows determining the degree of burnout. You are offered to take a small survey and answer a few simple questions by putting the numbers from 0 to 6, the legend is to the right: 

Now let's evaluate the results of the test: 

Up to 17 points – you are OK. It happens at work with everyone. From 18 to 29 – you start to experience burnout; you need to start the program on suppression of burnout. 30 points and above – you are in the deepest stage of burnout, you need urgent actions.

 2. You should understand what the cause of your burnout can be

To eliminate burnout it is essential to know its causes. Working on the theme, I have studied different sources of information about burnout - from the articles in Wikipedia to reading of books on Amazon and tips on Quora. Unfortunately, there is no coherent description of the causes of burnout and its treatment anywhere. At best, the author examines only one aspect of burnout that is loss of energy or problems of self-determination. I distinguish 3 main causes of burnout and below I give instructions that will help you to identify the cause and to work on fixing it. And also I give a few tips on how to work with the consequences.

So, these 3 reasons are: 

• Dislike to your work – it's very simple, if there is no basic love (interest, passion, whatever you call it) if you don't want to run to work, then sooner or later you will have burnout.
• Poor organization of work. There is a popular saying "People come to work in the company and they resign from the chief". When work is organized badly, the chief has low emotional intelligence and very poor managerial experience, when business processes are not organized and there are no common goals at the departments, there is no strategy, there is much policy, this all may cause burnout of employees.
• And finally, lack of energy. Any work requires energy. Some work requires more energy, some - less. Work in large corporations, as a rule, requires a lot of energy, because the flow of information is huge; there are many crosstab queries, there is a wide range of employee interaction, tight deadlines and more. Each of us has a certain capacity of energy, that we replenish first and then we expend it. All this capacity is different – for someone the energy is enough for more volume of work, for others it will be used for less volume of work. In addition, we replenish this capacity with a different intensity and expend it with a different intensity. So, if the capacity of our energy is low, the work requires a lot of effort, it means that we quickly empty our capacity and then slowly replenish it, then we start to work at full capacity and to wear out and it is our direct path to burnout. 

1. Comprehend the effects of burnout

This is very important. Awareness of the consequences of lack of treatment forms the desire to be treated. Very often the first symptoms of the disease are so small that we are ready to live with them, but just knowing how the disease will evolve and how it will complicate the treatment, we find the strength (time, resources, and money) to cure the disease at early stage. 

Burnout leads to professional death. First, the person begins to behave aggressively (note that aggression can be both active and passive in the form of indirect attacks) in relation to colleagues, becomes a critic of all that is happening. In an attempt to restore the old energy he begins to drink a lot of coffee at work, drinks after work, smokes more (including to have more rest during the working day).

On the background of the burnout any career growth usually stops because a boss is not interested in promoting an employee who barely copes with his current tasks. The result of burnout is a deep depression. 

Such known phenomenon as procrastination is closely linked to burnout also. This is avoidance of the task execution, which comes as a result of burnout. There are various reasons of procrastination and burnout is not the main source. But on the background of burnout procrastination manifests more and more often, deadlines are burning, the projects are not met and as the result you get reprimands from management, fining and even dismissal. 

1. Remember the formula that allows you to avoid burnout

Now let's talk about how to avoid burnout, and how to stop it if it has already begun. Reflecting on the theme of burnout, I came to the following formula, which should solve this problem:

Just 3 simple components make it possible to avoid burnout: Job of your dream, Engagement at work, Constant replenishment of energy a little more than you spend at work.

Let's start with the job of your dream. 

1. Start to move in the direction of building the job of your dream

A dream job is a combination of three simple factors: love to work, ability to do this work good, an adequate salary level. And if the ability to do your work and the salary are usually more or less clear, then very few people pay attention to love to their work. 

1. Determine your type of burnout

Based on this model, there are 8 types of burnout caused by internal reasons. Absence of one, two or all three factors in human's work leads to different type of burnout. But even with all three factors (love to work, ability to do and decent salary) burnout is still possible and it has a certain character. Please do not be offended by the titles of types of burnout, which I have selected for illustration, they are used here to give more drama to the situation. 

• Prisoner of a dream – a man who loves his job, but still poorly copes with it and earns little. It's all the beginners who just started to work. Burnout occurs here due to low salary, but sometimes because of the negative feedback that a person receives due to low professionalism
• Burnt-out star is a person who was doing great with his work recently. He loved this work, it was simple for him and with a high level of payment, but external factors triggered or his energy is depleted and he has got burnout. This is a great example of that burnout comes even for those who have passion for their work
• Lost/Unemployed is a person whose career did not take place. The person don't have a favorite work, has low qualification and low salary. This is the highest risk group (cleaners, porters)
• Workaholic – he loves his job and he does his work perfect, but earns very little. Workaholic is born from a prisoner of a dream. The problems mainly lie outside the work, usually at home. The reason is the low level of energy that leads to burnout at work
• Poor guy – very similar to Lost, but he copes with his job
• Golden handcuffs - it is a difficult situation when a person was held as a professional and has an excellent salary, but no longer likes his job, and maybe he didn't like it initially. Burnout happens for a reason of dislike to this work
• Grabbed the tail of luck – a rare situation, when a person does not like his work, does not know how to do it, but he earns very well. This is either the result of a family business or policy decisions
• From rags to riches – this is very rare situation, when a person loves his job, he is not very good at it yet, but earns good money. As a rule, this is the result of successful career decisions. In the pursuit of professional development, people overload themselves with information, actions, tasks, and burn out as a result of lack of energy. 

1. Rate how much you like your work

Understanding of the current level of liking to work helps to choose further strategy whether to change the job completely or change something in your current job.

Now take a short test, evaluating the answer to each question on a 5 point scale, where 1 is your absolute disagreement, 3 – somewhere between agreement and disagreement, and 5 is you total agreement with the statement. 

And now let's evaluate the results:

• Above 20 – you're in luck with your work, you like it
• 15-19 – you have a good job, it is not perfect of course, but most likely it will not lead you to a quick burnout. Think about what you can change in your work to get closer to 20 points
• 10-14 – you don't particularly like your work and probably often face with burnout, it's time to think about changing of your career

Less than 10 – you dislike your job, which means you are at risk and burnout likely has already begun. It's time to actively start looking for a new career 

1. Describe your dream job 

How to get a dream job? There are various trainings and career coaches who help in finding the job of your dream. Let's start with a simple exercise that will help you realize what you like and what you dislike in your work. Take a pen and a piece of paper or create a document on your computer. Make a table with three columns – I dislike it in my work, I like it in my work, I don't get enough of that in my work. To the first column you add everything that you dislike and would not like to have in the future. Second column is the list of all interesting things in the work that is now (functions, tasks, colleagues, working hours, the office and its capabilities, etc.). The third column is the list of what is lacking to you in your work. Do not limit yourself to only functional duties here, too. 

1. Analyze how you have organized your work

As I said earlier, apart from internal factors (love to work), there are also external factors, which also affect involvement. World-renowned Gallup Institute has developed the survey called Q12. There are 12 questions in the questionnaire that assess how the workplace enables the engagement of the employee. All 12 questions are based on 4 areas:

• Opportunity for career growth at work
• Team work
• Support from management
• Meeting of basic needs for doing the work 

Here are these 12 questions. Just answer Yes/No and count the amount of positive responses:

1. Do you know what the expected results are that they want to get of you?
2. Do you have all the materials and equipment that you need to do the qualified work?
3. Do you have every day in the workplace an opportunity to do what you can do the best?
4. Have you got praise or a reward for your good work the last week?
5. Does your boss or any of your colleagues care about your personal development?
6. Is there a staff member who upholds your professional development?
7. Do your colleagues and management reckon with your professional opinion?
8. Do you think the mission/purpose of your company helps you to realize the importance of your work?
9. Are your colleagues committed to high standards of quality work?
10. Do you have a friend at work?
11. Did anyone discuss with you in the office your progress at work in the last six months?
12. Had you any opportunity to learn and grow professionally in the last year?

 

And now let’s look at the results:

• Больше More than 10 positive responses – everything is fine with your work, it has high level of engagement
• 7-9 – overall, your work involves you, but you have the risk of burnout
• 4-6 – your work involves you poorly, you are lucky if you like it and you have enough energy
• 3 or less – even in the background of your liking to your work and adequate energy reserve you have a high risk of burnout

By the way, according to the same Gallup research, companies with high level of employees engagement are more successful, so development of involved work is useful not only for the employees but for the company also 

In addition to the factors mentioned above, there are several aspects that affect engagement. 

1. Tell yourself honestly, do you work just for salary?

Salary plays a big role in involvement and burnout. I watched a lot of people who had unloved work and not a very good organization of working places, but they had high salary that gave them the opportunity to travel and pursue a hobby outside of work. 

1. Look at your boss, and maybe he is the reason for your burnout

A boss may be the reason of burnout of his employees or may help them to avoid it. Basically, the difference is not in who is better manager or leader but how the leader is interested in the employee as in a person. How much he draws attention to the employee's emotions, status, problems, and interests. Think whether your boss is able to ensure your engagement according to all 12 questions of the survey described above? Maybe within the company you can go to another boss 

1. Focus yourself on the zone of influence, and not on the zone of concerns

In his book "7 habits of highly effective people" Steven Covey explains in detail about what proactivity is, and divides our work into two parts: the circle of concerns and circle of influence. The key idea is that you have to focus your attention on the circle of influence and not on the range of problems, gradually expanding the first circle. The circle of influence is that what people can change, improve and so on, and the circle of concerns are external factors that affect the work, but you still can't change them. Do you remember the stories about the taxi drivers who are the best experts in the field of politics and economics? 

1. Develop your leadership, even if you're not a chief

Great influence on burnout also has work in a matrix structure, when in addition to direct functional manager there is another one manager who sets targets. Usually, he is the manager of product, brand, or business direction.

There is another side to working in a matrix structure – it is often necessary to organize the work of employees who are not direct subordinates. The same fate awaits project managers and product managers. The problem is called the entrepreneurial gap. This is when the tasks of the employee are wider than the sphere of his direct influence. In the end, he is forced to be responsible for something he can't influence on by administrative level or by order.

The only solution to the problems of working in a matrix structure and the entrepreneurial gap lies in the area of leadership. Leadership is the ability to influence people without having administrative levers. In fact, this is the difference between a manager and a leader.  

1. Slow down

An important factor of burnout is speed of work. There are companies about which they say "the year for two/three/five". These are companies, in which the processes occur much faster than in the industry average. This is a great place to quickly build a successful career, for rapid salary growth, as well as for rapid burnout. 

If you feel that you are working in such a company, think about how can you slow down? Should you abandon minor projects and tasks? Should you delegate more tasks to employees? Should you automate and optimize your work? 

1. Evaluate your energy balance

Now let's talk about energy – the third factor influencing burnout, together with love to work and engagement. 

Great tool for working with energy I've got in the Academy of coaching MAXIMUM, where I studied. I want to share it with you. The idea is that our energy balance is influenced by:

• Eco-friendly energy sources – those that are safe for our body
• Toxic sources of energy – they are born from a lack of eco-friendly sources, but they result in consequences in the future. Such energy sources are usually called "credit". The person gets the energy here and now, but he is forced to give it to restore himself in future
• The kidnappers of energy or leakage of energy. They reduce the level of energy, but energy isn't spent for work or for life.

I offer to evaluate your situation with energy, by answering to 3 questionnaires. 

Count the number of positive responses:

5 - Excellent! You are full of pure energy! No wonder you are happy and full of energy.

4 - Good! If you want you can do even better, you can't have too many energy our days.

3 - It's time to change something. There are still many untapped sources of eco-friendly energy. What will you start from?

1-2 - You urgently need changes. It seems that operative interference is required in this situation. Select the sources that will give you the most energy and start your changes for the better.

 Actually there are a lot more sources, but these are the main, according to various studies. A more extensive list we will consider below and will make your individual list. 

Count the number of positive responses:

1-2 - Great! Apparently you have a minimum of toxic energy. Keep it up!

3 - Good! And there is a place to develop. Some toxins present in your life. What will you do with this?

4 - It's time to change something. Most likely you don't fully have the strength to all your plans. Now the reason is clear. Proceed to the clearance of toxins.

5 – You urgently need changes. Urgent detoxification is required. You have a huge opportunity to increase the level of personal energy using harmless way. Discuss with your coach a plan for changes.

 At first glance, many of these factors look like not an energy source, but a kidnapper of energy, but it's not. Adrenaline that accompanies the rush, anxiety, deadlines, is a great source of energy, but it exhausts the body and requires the subsequent restoration. 

 Count the number of positive responses:

1 - Great! It seems that there is a minimum of energy loss in your life. Keep it up!

2-3 - Good! If you have a desire to bring the situation to perfection, you have all possibilities for that. Ideas are in front of you.

4 - It's time to change something. Now it is clear why you do not always have the strength for action. You have a lot of losses. Get rid of them and live more energetic life.

5 - You urgently need changes. It seems the level of strength outflow is through the roof, but there are good news here. After getting rid of losses you can achieve much more. It's time to plan and implement serious changes for the better.

Think over your list of kidnappers of energy, I recommend to make a list of at least 10-15 of such kidnappers, and then ask yourself "How can I get rid of these kidnappers?".

1. Make your list of energy sources

Sources of energy that quickly restore energy reserves: 

• Meditation
• Yoga
• Religion
• Sympathy
• Love relationship
• Pets, which you can pet (sorry fish lovers)
• Volunteering (but not men occupations requiring a lot sostraYesniya)
• Laugh
• Joy
• Fun

Now, let's make your to-do list that helps you to restore energy. The list is very individual. This could include anything: sports, travel, computer games or games on other device, reading of articles and attending of trainings, time with family, sauna with friends, reading books, shopping, washing the car, visiting the hairdresser and so on. 

1. Find ways to save your energy outside of work

We spend a lot of energy at home to perform routine activities needed for life. But some of these actions are subject to automation and optimization; here is a small list of what you can do to save from 5% to 30% of daily energy. I will omit the most obvious things that everyone has in his home like a washing machine or a vacuum cleaner. 

• Robot-vacuum cleaner. This device is gaining popularity, but it is well proven already. It operates automatically every day, provides cleanliness in the house due to the turbo brush and suction of dust. It replaces the conventional vacuum cleaner completely, and this is saving of 2-3 hours per week
• There are both built-in and free standing (meaning that you can buy after the purchase of kitchen furniture). In addition to saving water, it solves the problem of contact you skin with toxic detergents. It is saving of 7 hours per week
• It helps to prepare meals without standing near a stove, because the food will not "run away" or won't scorch as a result of water evaporating. Saving of time strongly depends on the volume of cooking and the sophistication of your menu, I think that saving of time is minimum 5 hours per week
• Electric drier for linen (or washing machine with dryer function). You don’t have to put linen in a basin and carry it on a balcony, hang linen on the dryer there, then fold the linen in a basin and carry it to the ironing. Saving is 2 hours per week
• Electric meat grinder. This is just an example, it can be a breadmaker (which perfectly makes jam), electric coffeemaker with built-in coffee grinder and other equipment, which slightly simplifies the process of cooking food. Saving is 1 hour a week
• Cleaning lady for hire. Usually, it is enough to hire her 1 time per two weeks, cost is $60 per month and you save 4 hours a week. While this service is not very common, I recommend when making a decision to compare your income per hour with a cost of cleaning per hour (4$) and to make a conclusion whether to invest this time in work and get reward or do cleaning
• Food delivery to your home. It is not always necessary to cook meals at home; you can order delivery of pizza, sushi and any other food to your home. It's not as much as the trip to the restaurant, but it helps to avoids cooking 1-2 times a week. Saving is 1 hour per week
• A microwave. It is extremely popular right now, but a few use it for cooking, in 90% of cases people use it for heating up of food. However, you can use it for cooking your porridge in the morning (if not in a multicooker) and it saves 1 hour per week

In total, we count all saved time: 3+7+2+4+1+1 = 18 hours per week. And this is 2 working days, for example. 

1. Reduce the number of accepted decisions

Another interesting way of saving energy is minimization of life's problems and solutions. Here is interesting case with Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Barack Obama, who declared that they wear the same clothes to avoid taking a decision what clothes to choose to go to work.

1. Start to leave your working place at 19:00 or earlier

Speaking of energy, it is important to note such gaining popularity trend as Work-life balance. Actually behind that name and plenty of literature there is the simple truth that time that you spend at work and time you spend outside of work should be balanced. We can talk about it a lot, but my experience says only one thing – if you leave work after 19:00, you do not have any balance. I'm not writing about 18:00, because the article about professional burnout will be interesting for people who are focused on career, it is good when they leave work at 20:00. If you don't have enough time at work – come earlier. At 8:00, maybe at 7:00, maybe even at 6:00. The main thing is to leave work early. At home in the morning before work you do not recover. You do not develop yourself. So why do you waste your morning and then go home too late? 

1. Practice wellbeing

Ideas of wellbeing and happiness in life are gaining popularity. Wellbeing consists of 5 elements and helps to avoid burnout:

• Strive to communicate with those people who are important to you
• Walk around (if you work in a low rise building, very often there is an opportunity to resolve issues with a colleague while walking around the building), run, ride a bike. Move
• Observe what is happening around you, changing of seasons, enjoy every moment
• Continue to learn. No matter what you do – you can cook new dishes, play the guitar, improve English, learn driving or even extreme driving, learn speed reading or touch typing
• Do something good for friends, family; give thanks and smiles to others. 

1. Focus on your happiness

In addition, many companies start to focus on happiness. Happiness of employees, customers, players. For example, we all know about Zappos Company, even the book is written about it.

Happiness can also prevent burnout. Follow the principles of a happy life and work and you can not to be afraid of burnout. The model of PERMA (an abbreviation) is the most famous here:

• Positive emotions (already wrote about it as about one of the main sources of renewal energy)
• Engagement – it's love for work and engagement at the workplace
• Relationships – I wrote about it in the sources of energy and in Wellbeing
• Meaning of life - it is broader than love for work. This is understanding of your place in life
• Achievements – any results give us sense of usefulness and relevance

1. Hire a coach

Another popular trend is career coaching. There are more and more people who specialize in consulting in the career field. These people usually know what affects the building of a successful career and how to deal with burnout. 

1. Take a sabbatical

Sabbatical is still rarity here, but it is a very popular phenomenon in the west. It is a deliberate withdrawal from work for a period from 30 to 180 days, although in rare cases it can take a whole year. This is the equivalent of dismissal from the company, with the only difference that after some time the man returns to work and sees whether it was possible to cure his burnout completely. Very often the result of sabbatical is not the return to the same position, but the transition to another position or direction within the company. 

Why is sabbatical better than dismissal? It is very hard to rest and recover knowing that you would have to actively seek work. The uncertainty of the future creates a sense of fear. You should agree, it is hard to recover yourself when you feel fear. 

1. Read the actual articles

What else you can read on the topic of burnout. On such a popular platform as Quora people give advices for avoiding burnout:

• Despite the load and intensity of work, do not throw your hobbies
• Do breaks in work as often as possible. Use the possibility to hold meetings outside the office, during walks, organize team meetings outside the company (offsite)
• Sabbatical even for 30 days may help you
• Passion for work is the main vaccine against burnout
• Ability to react to the first signs of burnout very quickly is the best prevention 

1. Read a book about burnout

On Amazon there are quite a number of books about burnout, but unfortunately, I never found  a comprehensive and holistic approach. In the best case, 50% of the material of this article but in more detailed description you can find in these four books in total. 

Here are the main points that I learnt from these books: 

1. Develop your own system of fire prevention

In the beginning of this article I shared my experience of burnout. Now I want to share my experience of avoidance and prevention. 

I identified myself, what my life's mission is, what future I am moving to, what is important for me and what goals I want to achieve. Thank to this I like my work.

At work I set goals that relate to company goals, I maintain relationships with colleagues, I constantly evaluate my contribution to the overall result, confidentially communicate with my bosses. In addition I have a coach who helps me to build my development. It all gives me a high level of engagement in my workplace.

I restore my energy with help of sports, I like to travel with my family, play computer games, go to the sauna. Almost every day I communicate with friends, read books.

That is, in fact, I've told you about what burnout is, what its causes are. I've told you about the formula of burnout, the importance of love for work, quality workplace organization and recovery of energy. I've shared my experience and best global sources.

From the foregoing, I would highlight 10 the most important ideas of how to fight with burnout:

1. Define, whether you have burnout now

2. Find out what the cause of your burnout is

3. Describe your dream work

4. Analyze the quality of your work organization

5. Assess your energy balance

6. Make a list of the sources of energy for yourself

7. Optimize your home work

8. Go home after work until 19:00

9. Think about your happiness, watch your steps towards a happy life

10. If you are on the verge of complete burnout – take a sabbatical

 Probably everyone has a friend, an acquaintance or a colleague who sits opposite. He is clearly showing signs of burnout and will definitely be grateful to you if you send him a link to this article.