How to recover from a creative burn out

Question

What would be some efficient (economical) ways to recover from a creative burn out

Answer 1

Arent you supposed to steer in the opposite direction?

Answer 2

Workout. That would have avoided the burnout in the first place!

Answer 3

If you're referring to programming burn out, you might want to take a look at this earlier Stack Overflow post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/273299/how-do-you-pull-yourself-out-of-a-programming-slump

Answer 4

hm, that really doesn't have anything to do with programming. It is a question to ask either a psychologist or a doctor.

General advise is especially hard with Burnout since it is very different from person to person. That means that the necessary actions of therapy and recovery can vary a lot too.

I strongly advise to see a health professional, if you or anyone close to you suffers from a serious burnout, burnout often comes with quite heavy depressions which can be lethal.

But otherwise here some guidelines:

Persons at risk of burnout syndrome very often do not pay enough attention to their own needs. They often let themselves be dominated by their very high expectations of themselves and their performance, regardless of the resources which are actually available to them. It is therefore important for you to consciously plan time and space for rest and regeneration into your daily routine. Cultivate regular opportunities of regeneration such as sports, music or other hobbies which do you good and you enjoy.

• Relaxation methods (e.g. yoga, thai-chi, meditation) and sport (in particular endurance sport such as jogging, power walking, swimming, hiking, cycling, etc.) are among the most effective means of recharging your batteries in your daily routine and avoiding burnout. So consciously build moments of relaxation and exercise into your weekly planning.
• Persons at risk of burnout syndrome often fail to recognise the warning signals sent out by their bodies. To avoid the burnout trap it is useful to reflect on your own stress reactions with the help of a professional expert, to learn to recognise conditions which can lead to burnout and to analyse your own stress management techniques. Seek the timely support of a competent professional (e.g. psychotherapist, family doctor).
• Build up and consciously cultivate out-of-work resources and hobbies. If you consciously cultivate a work-life balance, you will be in a position to maintain the necessary distance to work, view stress factors from a different angle and find it easier to get them into perspective.
• Use your team. It shares responsibility for realistic work plans and achievements. Every team member should be assigned limited and realistic tasks according to their competences and resources. Give each other mutual support and take advantage of the exchange of views and feedback within the team.
• Talk about your current work situation, your work load and your resources to your superior or an expert from the HR department. Think about possible solutions to improve your situation. This is the only way of finding out whether it may be possible and make sense to change your working situation.
• Find out if your company has internal services which can help you in your current situation (e.g. social services, coaching, etc.).

Answer 5

Take a vacation, vegg out on Stack Overflow, and spend some time focusing on things that you are passionate about (whether computer-related or not)

Answer 6

It really depends on what your burnout is about...

If you're sick of your job (but still want to keep it) take vacation time, and don't think about them at all. AT ALL. Turn off your cell phone. Don't check email. Take a relaxing visit to a monastery that has no technology whatsoever. This may work; however, depending on your work, they may get creative. (I.e. carrier pigeon with the message "What's the database root password?")

If you're sick of your job and DON'T want to keep it, search for a new one. When you get it, quit in a flamboyant manner. Ideally nothing involving feces or open flame, but that entirely depends on the nature of your burnout.

If you're sick of coding and the like... that's a little bit more complicated. I personally have found that spending time studying new and interesting technologies, things that are similar to why I first got into the industry in the first place, can be EXTREMELY refreshing and can revive your "joie d' emploi", as it were. For example, I was getting really really really burned out on C++; Java had been out for a couple of years, and I'd been hearing good things about it; I decided to look into it and investigate it and teach myself. The sense of "holy crap, this stuff is actually really good" lifted me out of burnout and gave me a renewed sense of purpose; it made me realize that some people in our industry were actually doing GOOD work, as opposed to just crap.

That last method can be useful because it can lead to new career paths; I've worked in Java happily after that. Wouldn't go back to C++, either, at this point.

In general... I would try to remember what got you into this field in the first place. That sense of wonder and control; the amazement at what you can do with good software, that thrill of code done right... that's what you want to try to rediscover. It's still there, I suspect; but it's so easy for all of us to get "heads down" in our current task, our current job, our current technology, that we forget to look up and realize that this is a wonderful time to be in this industry; that there's so much innovation and that we still are in such a young field, that the world in which we work is changing rapidly, and with each change, there are new wonders to be discovered. Finding that again, I think, is the true cure for burnout.

And, of course, a couple of beers after work on Fridays does wonders as well... :-)

Answer 7

I feel risk of burnout some times. Some things I do are:

• Go flying. (Take flying lessons.) Great for a sense of freedom and accomplishment.

• Read a good book that's not about programming.

• Do something outdoors.

• Write an article. It's depressing if nobody likes it, but writing feels great.

• Write play programs. I do that a lot.

And do seek professional help - there's nothing to lose.