7 Tips for avoiding burnout

[Brian G Turner]

The issue of burnout in the industry was a talking point on Twitter last night, so I thought I'd post a few tips here on how to avoid it - based on my experiences of running my own business - and invite others to add their own.


1. Take time off
I use to fear not being at the computer, terrified that any time away would resulting in becoming too far behind with work. In reality it never proved true. Additionally, all that work time caused relations with my wife and family to suffer. In the end, I started to take Friday and Saturday nights off, and this proved a godsend in terms of learning to relax again, as well as enjoying myself and those around me.

2. Learn to switch off
It's easy to spend all your free time working - I could routinely work until midnight. Except that I realised I wasn't actually working efficiently, just spreading out my tasks over the day. Therefore learn to have a cut-off time for anything work-related. I ended up going for 9pm, as that allowed a good our or more to wind down to allow sleep. It also meant that I pushed on getting any essential tasks done by then. And by limiting time available to work, I became more efficient with it.

3. Learn to prioritise
I used to routinely sit with 30-40 emails open, each one a small task I thought I had to do. Then Windows went through a habit of rebooting during the night when I wasn't present. When I went digging through Outlook to find those emails I realised they were never important in the first place. The lesson was to learn to recognise what is essential, and focus on that. Anything else might build up - but if it's not essential, it's not important enough to stress over.

4. Learn to say no
For some reason, when faced with a big project worth a lot of money, I always found it easy to be distracted by little projects that offered little reward. Often I'd be asked to do the latter, or felt compelled to volunteer for them. Over time I learned that it was important to say no - it's not selfish, it's simply being professional. And if you really must do any extras because they might be a little more interesting, save them as rewards for after you've completed your essentials.

5. Learn to delegate
Possibly the hardest skill of all is learning to delegate. It's easy to believe that everything depends on your personal judgement - but the truth is that some tasks are so simple and routine that you can delegate them to someone else. Learn who has better skills than you in those tasks and pass them over - leaving you to focus on the more important decisions.

6. Step away from the computer, and go outside
Seriously, do this at least once every day. Switch your computer and phone off, and go for a stroll. Walk to school to pick up the kids, take the dog out, or perhaps do the gardening. Go shopping. Anything that gets you outside doing something else can do wonders for recharging your personal batteries. And it's amazing how many important decisions can 'click' when you allow your mind enough time to relax.

7. Prevent reading burnout
As an aspiring writer I'm expected to know my genre - and be well-read outside it. There are a ton of books I force myself to go through because of this, and it can become a slog. Although I've discovered great writers this way, I've also waded through novels that offered little personal appeal - and that becomes tiring after a while. I've therefore identified certain writers I can easily enjoy, and make sure to pick up a book by one of these when my reading enthusiasm begins to flag.

 

[Droflet]

All very true and valid points. Well done, Brian. Personally I just go outside and drop kick the cat over the neighbor's fence. Don't worry, he's a tough little tabby.

 

[Toby Frost]

Very good points, Brian. Thanks for those.

One thing I’ve discovered is that there is a clear hierarchy of hobbies, and that doing different things helps refresh the mind. Writing is the hardest but the most worthwhile and rewarding. I do a lot of model-making and painting, which goes in the middle. It requires less conscious effort and, as I’m not trying to do it to a professional standard, it doesn’t require the same level of skill and care as writing. At the bottom are watching films and playing on the computer. Both of these are very easy – you just start the machine up and off you go – but at the end, when you turn off the machine, you’ve not really achieved anything except (which can be very useful) emptying your mind.

Another thing I see in SFF is a tendency for fans to only do stuff to do with SFF. I’ve quite often run into people who are, say, incredibly knowledgeable of noir-style urban fantasy, but would never dream of looking at a crime novel. Personally, I find reading outside the genre, as well as reading factual books, really useful. Several of the characters and incidents in the Space Captain Smith books have been inspired by real-world things: an entire subplot of End of Empires came from reading about an Indian automaton called Tippoo’s Tiger. Not only does this give you the chance to introduce new elements, rather than just shuffling the same small pack of “genre cards” (a particular problem with steampunk and fantasy, I think), it stops you getting sick of seeing the same old stuff. Apart from a general atmosphere of misery, I’m surprised how little of the sheer weirdness of the Medieval times finds its way into fantasy that sets out to be “realistic”. You could write entire novels about the Children’s Crusade, or the Dancing Sickness.

I think also, to keep your mind going, you have to do projects that entertain you. You can’t produce a decent book that you don’t like writing, or one where the circumstances in which it has to be written – time limits and so on – are going to force you to put out something second-rate or uninteresting. I’ve never been in this situation, but I could have been, and I think my work would have suffered very much as a result. Basically, you have to be honest with yourself about whether you are going to enjoy writing this great idea in three or six months’ time and, as Brian says, if you’re not, it may be time to say “no”.