How to move away after burnout at work
The morning of July 11, two thousand engo of the year was memorable for me: when the alarm clock rang, I habitually tried to get out of bed: I threw off one leg, the other behind it, assuming a sitting position. Then he tried to get up, but failed - my body, like a bag of sand, fell on the carpet. I remember the first thought that occurred to me then: “I'll be late for the stand-up.” There was no fear that the body could so easily fall for no reason. Depressed in my arms, I climbed onto the bed again and tried to get up again - my body did not listen well and after taking two steps, I fell back to the floor. It was foggy in my head and my thoughts were confused, but still I thought of writing to my manager that I would be late for work, or maybe I wouldn’t even come, but I would come tomorrow. Instead of one day, I returned to work after three weeks: for two weeks I lay stupidly on the couch, it was difficult to walk,
I am sure that you guessed why this happened - I “burned out” at work. For those “first” two weeks that I was lying in bed, I had to rethink something and come up with an algorithm that solves the problem of full recovery (as soon as possible) after “burnout” at work.
The idea for writing an article is inspired by this post .
I apologize in advance for the Englishisms encountered in the article.
The whole list below consists of the mistakes that I made and after fixing which, 95% of my problems went away. Also, the entire text with tips can be reduced to one single phrase: “stop sweating” (at first I wanted to write the word “worry” but it is not exactly a characteristic of what I will try to convey to you). And now point by point.
Before reading further, I recommend that you read my previous article for a better understanding of the material.
We are all very afraid of the unknown, when we do not know what to do and what will happen next, we thereby “wind” ourselves and our body into excitement. When we have a plan, we are not afraid: we know exactly what and what needs to be done in order to achieve our goal.
Example: no one is worried when he makes tea for himself - he always “keeps” in his head a plan of what to do in order to get the desired drink. But put a person with driving experience and ask for diagonal parking (at the same time threaten that if he doesn’t do this, they will punish him) - you can rest assured, he will start to worry and make a lot of mistakes - because he has no plan (rather an algorithm) what actions need to be done to counter the unknown punishment. The example is exaggerated, but I think you understand what is at stake. The conclusion follows: learn to plan.
How to solve it:Of course, all things are not planned, no matter how much we would like. But 90% of your life’s time can be planned and it’s not at all as difficult as it seems. The same goes for work: accustom yourself by coming to the workplace, the first thing to do is plan your day. Come, sit at the table and take twenty minutes of time, paint by the hour (taking into account the error) what you plan to do. Thus, for each day you will have a plan that reflects what you need to do, and, as a result, you will never have any concern, something has not been done or taken into account.
Of course, there are things that are beyond our control. For example, you made an implicit error in the code, committed it to production, and it went to bed. Your team leader comes to you and says "you put the prod, let's repair and repair faster it is very important!". The most common reaction is panic. Do not do this. It would be more reasonable to consider this in the context: “production has fallen, it’s just a case, which in itself is the next task that must be solved correctly.” But the excitement overcomes you and your thoughts get confused, your hands tremble, and you don’t know how to rule it all this is after all, ahhhh !!! The following paragraph follows from this.
Man is so arranged that much of what he has is habits. Good or bad, but habits. And habits, as you know, the body acquires over time, until they become unconscious reactions to a particular external stimulus. Running in the morning \ smoking \ scratching the back of the head is all a habit. Excitement is also a habit. Especially the excitement when something is not working.
How to solve it:every time you realize that you are beginning to worry, and your hands trembled - freeze; if you go, slow down or stop; if you breathe often, take control of your breathing; if your thoughts rush about without control - stop thinking about everything and think about the seals (or what you like). The main thing is to get the body out of the state of “chaos” when you do not control your every feeling. Next, you need to focus on the thought that caused your excitement. When you are focused, it will become clear to you that the situation has already happened, and nothing will change. Having reconciled with this, you should understand that there are only three options for the development of events:
1. You do everything to improve the situation
2. You do everything to make the situation worse
3. You are not doing anything, and are waiting for what will happen (the worst option)
That is, you are no longer able to change the situation itself, but the consequences are quite.
The unknown person is very afraid of the unknown when he does not know what to do and what will happen next than by “twisting” himself and his body into even greater excitement. In our case, we know what to do - we must do everything to improve the situation. At the same time, it is worth remembering that before you do something, you need to plan it. Therefore, it is necessary: calm down, accept the fact that something happened and, in complete calm, sit down to plan how you will solve the current situation.
As mentioned above, we cannot foresee everything, but we can generalize everything that cannot be foreseen into a separate category of “unforeseen affairs”. 10% of the cases that happen, whether you want it or not. You just need to take it easy. The main thing in all this is to stop taking emotional part in the problem. If you don’t know what to do and start to think “what will they think about me” - stop doing it right now. Especially drive the thought: and if I do not have time, oh my God what will happen then, ahhh how terrible it is. The result: shaking hands, headache and poor sleep, and, as a result, inhibition with the timing of the task. The solution to this problem is the following paragraph.
When a problem (task) arises, a frequent reaction is fear / fear / panic that you have no ideas how to solve the task. I already wrote this in a previous article, but I will repeat this story once again, as very indicative:
Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, was somehow asked how many moves ahead he thinks in the game, planning the next move. The questioners believed that he would report some impressive figure, and then they will understand what makes him the winner. But what he said showed people that they incorrectly perceive even the essence of the game: “The main thing in chess is not how many moves ahead you think, but how well you analyze the current situation.”
The essence of this method is that, not knowing objectively their entire situation, people begin to calculate options that initially turn out to be erroneous. And since it is not possible to calculate everything, the line never reaches the correct moves. As a result, we choose the best option from the worst. The best of those that we tried to consider so carefully.
Applying the same strategy to life, we can understand how often we, instead of objectively evaluating what is happening, try to calculate the moves ahead, and how often later these moves turn out to be directed not to the front, but to the side.
To clearly understand the real situation is to make the options open themselves. He who says that he does not know what to do next, just does not know what is happening to him now.
In other words, we cannot understand the current situation.
How to solve this: begin to analyze the task. Write on the leaflet all the thoughts that you are perplexed when asked how it is possible to solve this problem. When all the questions are written, stop yourself again and think about how you could answer them. Let's say that for each question you will have from zero to three answers.
Read each of your answers again and think about which of these answers is definitely wrong. Cross them out of the list. It may well happen that more than half of the questions you can answer for yourself and everything will become much easier. Submit the remaining questions for discussion with wiser colleagues.
And here a miracle happens - you stop worrying, the brain cannot worry while it is analyzing. It's just biology - as long as you occupy the brain with one thing, it cannot do the other. It is logical that the less time we think about work, the less we will have to plan, the next point follows.
Start with a simple one: divide your time into work and your own. Working hours are those eight hours you spend at work. Once eight hours have passed, you no longer belong to either the project, the boss, or the fact that "production is on fire." For those who are already angrily indignant: “how not to pay attention to the lying production”, let me remind you of the previous paragraphs: you must understand that this happened because it happened. In this situation, we must act as always: we have a task, we need to solve it. If we worry and get nervous, this will not lead to anything good (Nerves add errors).
How to solve it:Today, when you get home, stop thinking about work. As soon as you went beyond the threshold of the office, the work ceased to exist. You think only about yourself and about your affairs. It’s very good practice to remove work mail from your phone, and ideally, get rid of everything that connects you to work. Work at work, home - at home.
The brain is so arranged that the subconscious mind will still be "in the background" to solve such problems. And if the problem is solved, the subconscious mind will find the answer. Do not intentionally load your head with extraneous thoughts when their time is not right. Let me explain my words: when you go to the movies, say, at the weekend, you go to the movies - you shouldn’t have a thought in your head like: “You must call an electrician to transfer the sockets”; when you are in the car, your attention is only on the road, and not about how to get rid of the legacy code, which has been corrupting your soul for a year now.
Even if you are the head of the project and you’ve gone on, take it calmly (but I think that if you have reached the main point, you yourself are well aware of what you need to do)
For example, you have a person who constantly asks for help. In every little thing. You help a person one, another, tenth time. Thus encouraging his behavior. And as a result, he asks more and more, and you cannot refuse him, because you feel sorry for him and want to help. As a result, you do not keep up with your tasks and spend your nerves on other people's problems.
How to solve it:accustom yourself to cynical things that happen at work. Such behavior cannot be encouraged, a person begins to quickly become impudent and again ask you any problem. Become a cynic to such colleagues - it doesn’t work, sort it out yourself. Three months have passed, and you still fakapit, without even thinking of making any efforts to go broke yourself? I think we should stop cooperation. Do not take over the cares of others - everyone has their own responsibilities that must be respected; you do not need constant problems of others.
Summing up, let’s go through all the points once again:
1. Start planning - when everything goes according to plan, you are calm because there is no frightening suspense ahead
2. Stop worrying - excitement adds errors
3. Replace anxiety with analysis - learn not to be afraid of the problem, but analyze her. When the brain is busy with analysis, it has no time to worry.
4. Separate time - learn to think about only one thing in each separate period of time
5. Stop being human to everyone - do not shoulder the problems of others, you are not Mother Teresa
The methods described in the article for an unprepared person will be difficult to perceive and implement. But when you manage to fully comply with these five points, you will realize that you will never be able to burn out at work again.
I am sure that you guessed why this happened - I “burned out” at work. For those “first” two weeks that I was lying in bed, I had to rethink something and come up with an algorithm that solves the problem of full recovery (as soon as possible) after “burnout” at work.
The idea for writing an article is inspired by this post .
I apologize in advance for the Englishisms encountered in the article.
The whole list below consists of the mistakes that I made and after fixing which, 95% of my problems went away. Also, the entire text with tips can be reduced to one single phrase: “stop sweating” (at first I wanted to write the word “worry” but it is not exactly a characteristic of what I will try to convey to you). And now point by point.
Before reading further, I recommend that you read my previous article for a better understanding of the material.
Start planning
We are all very afraid of the unknown, when we do not know what to do and what will happen next, we thereby “wind” ourselves and our body into excitement. When we have a plan, we are not afraid: we know exactly what and what needs to be done in order to achieve our goal.
Do you know what I noticed? No one panics when everything is going according to plan. Even if the plan is monstrous. If tomorrow, I will tell the press that one of the bandits will die, or a truck with soldiers will fly into the air, no one will panic, because all this is part of the plan. But when I say that some miserable mayor will die, everyone around them loses their heads. Quite a bit of anarchy. Violation of the established order, and everything around is plunged into chaos. I am the bearer of chaos. Do you know what is the foundation of chaos? This is fear.
"Joker" from the movie "The Dark Knight"
Example: no one is worried when he makes tea for himself - he always “keeps” in his head a plan of what to do in order to get the desired drink. But put a person with driving experience and ask for diagonal parking (at the same time threaten that if he doesn’t do this, they will punish him) - you can rest assured, he will start to worry and make a lot of mistakes - because he has no plan (rather an algorithm) what actions need to be done to counter the unknown punishment. The example is exaggerated, but I think you understand what is at stake. The conclusion follows: learn to plan.
How to solve it:Of course, all things are not planned, no matter how much we would like. But 90% of your life’s time can be planned and it’s not at all as difficult as it seems. The same goes for work: accustom yourself by coming to the workplace, the first thing to do is plan your day. Come, sit at the table and take twenty minutes of time, paint by the hour (taking into account the error) what you plan to do. Thus, for each day you will have a plan that reflects what you need to do, and, as a result, you will never have any concern, something has not been done or taken into account.
Of course, there are things that are beyond our control. For example, you made an implicit error in the code, committed it to production, and it went to bed. Your team leader comes to you and says "you put the prod, let's repair and repair faster it is very important!". The most common reaction is panic. Do not do this. It would be more reasonable to consider this in the context: “production has fallen, it’s just a case, which in itself is the next task that must be solved correctly.” But the excitement overcomes you and your thoughts get confused, your hands tremble, and you don’t know how to rule it all this is after all, ahhhh !!! The following paragraph follows from this.
Stop worrying
Man is so arranged that much of what he has is habits. Good or bad, but habits. And habits, as you know, the body acquires over time, until they become unconscious reactions to a particular external stimulus. Running in the morning \ smoking \ scratching the back of the head is all a habit. Excitement is also a habit. Especially the excitement when something is not working.
How to solve it:every time you realize that you are beginning to worry, and your hands trembled - freeze; if you go, slow down or stop; if you breathe often, take control of your breathing; if your thoughts rush about without control - stop thinking about everything and think about the seals (or what you like). The main thing is to get the body out of the state of “chaos” when you do not control your every feeling. Next, you need to focus on the thought that caused your excitement. When you are focused, it will become clear to you that the situation has already happened, and nothing will change. Having reconciled with this, you should understand that there are only three options for the development of events:
1. You do everything to improve the situation
2. You do everything to make the situation worse
3. You are not doing anything, and are waiting for what will happen (the worst option)
That is, you are no longer able to change the situation itself, but the consequences are quite.
The unknown person is very afraid of the unknown when he does not know what to do and what will happen next than by “twisting” himself and his body into even greater excitement. In our case, we know what to do - we must do everything to improve the situation. At the same time, it is worth remembering that before you do something, you need to plan it. Therefore, it is necessary: calm down, accept the fact that something happened and, in complete calm, sit down to plan how you will solve the current situation.
As mentioned above, we cannot foresee everything, but we can generalize everything that cannot be foreseen into a separate category of “unforeseen affairs”. 10% of the cases that happen, whether you want it or not. You just need to take it easy. The main thing in all this is to stop taking emotional part in the problem. If you don’t know what to do and start to think “what will they think about me” - stop doing it right now. Especially drive the thought: and if I do not have time, oh my God what will happen then, ahhh how terrible it is. The result: shaking hands, headache and poor sleep, and, as a result, inhibition with the timing of the task. The solution to this problem is the following paragraph.
Replace anxiety with analysis
When a problem (task) arises, a frequent reaction is fear / fear / panic that you have no ideas how to solve the task. I already wrote this in a previous article, but I will repeat this story once again, as very indicative:
Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, was somehow asked how many moves ahead he thinks in the game, planning the next move. The questioners believed that he would report some impressive figure, and then they will understand what makes him the winner. But what he said showed people that they incorrectly perceive even the essence of the game: “The main thing in chess is not how many moves ahead you think, but how well you analyze the current situation.”
The essence of this method is that, not knowing objectively their entire situation, people begin to calculate options that initially turn out to be erroneous. And since it is not possible to calculate everything, the line never reaches the correct moves. As a result, we choose the best option from the worst. The best of those that we tried to consider so carefully.
Applying the same strategy to life, we can understand how often we, instead of objectively evaluating what is happening, try to calculate the moves ahead, and how often later these moves turn out to be directed not to the front, but to the side.
To clearly understand the real situation is to make the options open themselves. He who says that he does not know what to do next, just does not know what is happening to him now.
In other words, we cannot understand the current situation.
How to solve this: begin to analyze the task. Write on the leaflet all the thoughts that you are perplexed when asked how it is possible to solve this problem. When all the questions are written, stop yourself again and think about how you could answer them. Let's say that for each question you will have from zero to three answers.
Read each of your answers again and think about which of these answers is definitely wrong. Cross them out of the list. It may well happen that more than half of the questions you can answer for yourself and everything will become much easier. Submit the remaining questions for discussion with wiser colleagues.
And here a miracle happens - you stop worrying, the brain cannot worry while it is analyzing. It's just biology - as long as you occupy the brain with one thing, it cannot do the other. It is logical that the less time we think about work, the less we will have to plan, the next point follows.
Share time
Start with a simple one: divide your time into work and your own. Working hours are those eight hours you spend at work. Once eight hours have passed, you no longer belong to either the project, the boss, or the fact that "production is on fire." For those who are already angrily indignant: “how not to pay attention to the lying production”, let me remind you of the previous paragraphs: you must understand that this happened because it happened. In this situation, we must act as always: we have a task, we need to solve it. If we worry and get nervous, this will not lead to anything good (Nerves add errors).
How to solve it:Today, when you get home, stop thinking about work. As soon as you went beyond the threshold of the office, the work ceased to exist. You think only about yourself and about your affairs. It’s very good practice to remove work mail from your phone, and ideally, get rid of everything that connects you to work. Work at work, home - at home.
The brain is so arranged that the subconscious mind will still be "in the background" to solve such problems. And if the problem is solved, the subconscious mind will find the answer. Do not intentionally load your head with extraneous thoughts when their time is not right. Let me explain my words: when you go to the movies, say, at the weekend, you go to the movies - you shouldn’t have a thought in your head like: “You must call an electrician to transfer the sockets”; when you are in the car, your attention is only on the road, and not about how to get rid of the legacy code, which has been corrupting your soul for a year now.
Even if you are the head of the project and you’ve gone on, take it calmly (but I think that if you have reached the main point, you yourself are well aware of what you need to do)
Stop being human to everyone
For example, you have a person who constantly asks for help. In every little thing. You help a person one, another, tenth time. Thus encouraging his behavior. And as a result, he asks more and more, and you cannot refuse him, because you feel sorry for him and want to help. As a result, you do not keep up with your tasks and spend your nerves on other people's problems.
How to solve it:accustom yourself to cynical things that happen at work. Such behavior cannot be encouraged, a person begins to quickly become impudent and again ask you any problem. Become a cynic to such colleagues - it doesn’t work, sort it out yourself. Three months have passed, and you still fakapit, without even thinking of making any efforts to go broke yourself? I think we should stop cooperation. Do not take over the cares of others - everyone has their own responsibilities that must be respected; you do not need constant problems of others.
Brief conclusions
Summing up, let’s go through all the points once again:
1. Start planning - when everything goes according to plan, you are calm because there is no frightening suspense ahead
2. Stop worrying - excitement adds errors
3. Replace anxiety with analysis - learn not to be afraid of the problem, but analyze her. When the brain is busy with analysis, it has no time to worry.
4. Separate time - learn to think about only one thing in each separate period of time
5. Stop being human to everyone - do not shoulder the problems of others, you are not Mother Teresa
The methods described in the article for an unprepared person will be difficult to perceive and implement. But when you manage to fully comply with these five points, you will realize that you will never be able to burn out at work again.