I am intimately familiar with burnout: I have experienced it twice in my career. Once when I was working for a small startup and the pace was so fast and the days so long that I just couldn't keep up. I couldn't really do anything except work because there was no more room in my head for anything else. The second time was more recent - it was during my tenure as a Staff Engineer. I have written about this before, but I got myself in a situation where I put so much pressure on myself to be everything to everyone, that I no longer had room for myself.

I'd really like to help others avoid burnout if I can - it's a horrible experience that's very difficult to get yourself out of. Often, burnout creeps up on you - one minute you're fine and the next, you are most definitely not. I'm not sure anyone who hasn't burned out would recognise the symptoms, hence this guide. If you recognise yourself in this post, please talk to someone about it. Burnout is no joke.

1. Exhaustion

This is the big symptom everyone associates with burnout - a deep, body-and-soul kind of exhaustion that just doesn't go away no matter what you do. You have a restful weekend, but at the end of it, you dread going back to work and the tiredness immediately envelops you again.

If you're feeling like this, take some time off immediately - yes you can take a holiday, even if you think you can't. Talk to your manager or even your GP - they can grant you long term sick leave if your symptoms are bad enough. It is better to take some time off now and recover than wait until it gets worse - it can be very difficult to come back from a full burnout.

2. A feeling of dread

We all get the Sunday scaries sometimes - that feeling like you really don't want to go to work the next day and you'd rather just have another day off. Burnout amplifies those feelings a million percent. It isn't laziness or not being willing to do the work - this is a sign that the stress has gotten too much.

Here's a story from my own life: I'd had nearly two weeks off sick with a chest infection and when I felt well enough to go back to work, I felt so miserable and full of dread that I just couldn't do it. In the end, I called the Employee Assistance Program because I really needed support. For those of you who have never had a cause to use one, this is basically a hotline you call when you're not doing well mentally - most companies of a certain size will have one. Anyway, the very kind soul at the other end of the line helped get me back on my feet and face my day, for which I am eternally grateful.

3. Frequent periods of illness

This is a big one for me - I used to get respiratory infections every three months or so. I have only had one in the last year. Stress will screw around with your immune system something chronic, so it's no wonder it's unable to keep up. If you're noticing yourself needing time off sick more than usual, it might be due to burnout.

I don't think it helped that I felt so exhausted that I didn't really take care of myself. I had a health scare (all good now, thankfully!) that forced me to take up more movement again and eat more nutritiously, which definitely helped, but it wasn't until the burnout eased that I stopped getting sick all the time.

4. Not being able to put work down

And I don't mean in the physical sense necessarily - since that fast-paced job at a start-up, I've been extremely strict about just working my hours (with small exceptions, like on-call, but nothing more) and yet I still ended up burning out a second time.

I found myself not being able to stop thinking about work after I signed off for the day. I'd be eating my dinner and realise I was still mulling over what I was going to do about a certain project. It eventually got so bad that I'd be lying awake thinking about work and I'd send myself emails with my thoughts in to try and clear my head for sleep.

If you're finding yourself in a similar position, please do something about it. I wish I had, because it's not healthy and just made my burnout worse. In hindsight, I should have dropped some of the twenty balls I was attempting to juggle, because I wasn't able to do it any more. I felt like I was the only one able to do those things and maybe that's true, but I should have let go, because at the end of the day my mental health should come first.

5. Not having time for yourself

The big thing I've noticed since my burnout eased off is that I have time! Time to do fun things like going out to see friends and working on my hobbies. In the midst of my burnout, I'd often be far too tired in the evenings to do anything. Sadly, this led to even more mental health problems because we humans are sociable creatures and need to see others to feel well. It also leads to more isolation as most people will stop inviting you to things if you keep saying no. Finally, not being able to work on my hobbies meant I'd just get even more stressed because that's how I unwind.

If you're not finding the time to do something nice for yourself or see some friends, I urge you to make time. It's so important.

Final thoughts

There is nothing quite like the personal hell of burnout. It's important to emphasise that this is not a personal failing - I do think some of us are more prone to burnout (shoutout to all my fellow perfectionists out there!), but anyone can burn out and it's fairly common in tech. So try not to be hard on yourself if you are in the midst of or have ever burned out. Just focus on getting yourself out of it, even if it's tiny step by tiny step.

I hope you've found this guide useful. I would like to share some of my coping strategies for avoiding burnout, which seem to be doing the trick so far. Watch this space, I'll put out another post soon!