Burnout in Tech - Part 4: Anti-Burnout Strategies

How to recover from burnout and prevent it from ever happening again

Burnout’s profound and chronic exhaustion results from a combination of increased workloads, increased stress levels, and poor recovery.

Naturally, designing an anti-burnout strategy should therefore focus on:

• Reducing unhealthy stressors

• Creating a sustainable workload

• Improving recovery

• Recalibrating your environment

This is the final piece of a 4-part series on “Burnout in Tech”. I highly recommend first reading Part 1: Declaring War, Part 2: Internal Causes, and Part 3: External Causes. If you’ve made it so far, congratulations! You’re already well on your way in the fight against burnout.

Start with a Stress Audit

Not all stress is created equal. Some stress is necessary and productive. Most times, however, stress is unnecessary, unhelpful, and out of our control. There is also background stress, which is significant even if it's outside of our awareness space.

There is no one-size-fits-all magical anti-burnout formula. To find long-term solutions that work for you, start by auditing your current state of the world. Make a list of all the things that stress you out. Cross-reference your list with Part 2 and Part 3 and see if there are any hidden stressors that you might have missed.

Aim to understand: