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I don't see it that way. I have been severely burned-out, and will never let that happen again. I have also been visited by the Black Dog. They are different. Perhaps both present in some people, so maybe hard to tease apart.

The cure for burn out is to cut out any activities that do not bring personal joy and satisfaction. (My burn-out was cured by a few months off pursuing my hobbies. Yes, I was lucky to have that option.) The thing about depression is that nothing brings joy or satisfaction. Burn-out and depression are orthogonal. But IMO you must cure depression first, before trying to address burn out, if both are present.

> The cure for burn out is to cut out any activities that do not bring personal joy and satisfaction.

That, and giving yourself a series of small tasks, each of which you can complete easily. That feeling of satisfaction that you obtain by completing these small tasks quickly turns into your emotional ability to complete bigger and bigger tasks, and before you know it, you're back on the horse. It's amazing how effective this is, it's been documented here before too. I'll see if I can dig out where I first read this.

I have an acquaintance who works from home.

He recently told me that every time he feels like he's losing his motivation and starts to fall into negativity, he goes to the kitchen and does the dishes.

He considers this time to be part of his work day.

By the time he has washed the dishes, the sense of accomplishment is back.

What I take from this anecdote is that the brain does not distinguish that washing something is not part of building a web application. It is simply content to have cleaned multiple objects and then have completed a complex task.

This is what I learned/intuited/assumed (?) to be the practical value of raking the gravel in a zen garden. It's not the effect, it's the process.

I've also assumed that this was the moral of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance though I've never read it.

(I have my own rituals.)

[0] Not mentioned on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_rock_garden

For me it's tidying my office at work.

When I'm at the point of defenestrating the computer, I tidy up the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates in any workspace, once everything is back in order I grab a coffee and carry on.

Never ceases to amaze me how often a simple solution to a frustrating problem occurs midway down the stairs with a box of empty amazon packaging or whatever.

I love that story. I vaguely recall from some psych class long ago something about the psychology of "task completion". Your take-away is spot on.

Thanks. Was having an off day. This got me off the couch and scanning some documents while listening to music. A necessary task I am easily able to do. Feel much better already.

I’d be interested in hearing more about this. I often get the “so much stuff to do that it’s overwhelming” feeling, which creates an unproductive feedback cycle.

Consider spending more time deciding what not to do. Say "no". Delegate, both up, and down. Try the "rocking chair test", which is asking yourself, "When I am sitting on the porch of the old-folks home in my rocking chair, looking back on my life, what are the chances I will say: 'I wish I had spent one more day of my life doing X.'" -- Where X is that thing that seems soooo important to your boss/coworkers today. Tremendously clarifying.

For me, learning to delegate was a battle against my perfectionist tendencies. "But that's not they way I would have done it." Yup. When you delegate, people do it their way. To me the key was learning to parse out what is it that I care deeply about, and what not so much. Be sure the things you care deeply about are in the spec, and let go of the things that are not so important.

Make time for yourself. I am a ham radio operator, so for me spending a few days in the sun butchering a pile of aluminum tube to make antennas cures many ills. That is unlikely to be a universal prescription -- find yours.

If I could double upvote this I would. My most recent encounters with burnout were a result of taking on too many projects to check boxes on a promotion. I found it helped my optimism when I chased personal development over projects that I really didn't care much about. Handing everything off made me feel better, was strategic from a leadership development position and gave me the extra time to concentrate on my own interests and development.

Saying "no" is a forgotten method of self-preservation.

I get this problem too. I'm incredibly productive when I only have a couple of tasks. But, when there's a lot on my mind, I basically shut down.

Similar to what the other user mentioned, I get moving again by focusing on the easy tasks to feel productive again. I make a simple text file with everything I need to do, sorted by month, and each month sorted with the easiest to hardest tasks.

I write every single thing on my mind. For example, I need to order something online, so that gets added to the list. I have a wedding to attend this month and need a new white shirt, that gets added to the list. I need to wish someone happy birthday next week, so I'll add that to the list. Do I need to book a haircut appointment? On the list it goes. Everything goes on the list. It really helps to clear my mind when I don't have to remember these things.

Then, when I start my day, it's not an overwhelming number of thoughts. I look at the list for this month, and I just choose a task I'm in the mood to finish. Do I want to check off a few easy ones? Do I have the entire day to myself and I can focus on a more complex one? If I'm going to the city, then I can take care of all the ones located downtown.

In short, write everything down, start checking things off the list.

I think writing everything down is very valuable. I also think it is important to drop things that turned out to not be so important. This helps to avoid an ever growing list.

I do this by keeping my list on a small paper (A6) in my notebook. When the page is full, I transfer over only the incomplete tasks that are still relevant over to a new page. Often also refining their scope. This chance of default from 'keep' to 'not keep' has had large impact on how many (useless) tasks I drop, and the associated mental burden.

I find that writing things down "takes it out of my head", which I think is exactly what you're saying.

There's a mental pressure that results from having a number of things on the go at once, and writing each thing down relieves that pressure, probably in a similar way to the aforementioned ticking off of simple tasks.

I'm the opposite way, interestingly -- the more I have to do, the more I get done. The less I have to do, the exponentially less I do.

Just my perspective as a long-time depression sufferer who's also had burnout: Burnout can lead to both chronic chemical and acute situational depression, and they're different. The chronic chemical depression is an overall downregulation that can be very difficult to get out of. Having to or choosing to stick around in bad situations for long periods of time causes the chronic version.

For me, burn out was like heat stroke. One instance was enough to make me hypersensitive to overwork for the rest of my life.

I agree with your post a lot and made another comment before I saw it. I think comparing burnout to depression indicates a lack of understanding of what depression really is. One of the greatest differences, which you mention, is that burnout has a pretty straightforward treatment which is to remove yourself from the work that you are burnt out from.

I don't think burnout and depression are really the same thing. They exhibit similar traits and can have similar symptoms, but so can the cold, the flu, and bacterial meningitis. For example there are lots of depressed people who aren't burnt out and are highly productive, you just don't know about them because most people understand depression as being unmotivated and in a bad mood most of the time (which is not at all a comprehensive understanding of it). There are lots of burnt out people who aren't depressed either, they are maybe just disenchanted with what they've been working on and need an extended break; their bad mood isn't intrinsic so much as it is a reaction to working on something they've grown to dislike.

Of course burnout and depression can coincide but I would guess that in that case it is more likely to just be misattributed depression. I don't want to gatekeep depression but I don't think working a lot on something you dislike and consequently needing a break or to move on to working on something else (what I understand to be burnout) is depression. For example I hate cleaning things, both household cleaning and dishes, so if I were to force myself to clean 60 hours a week I would quickly feel burnt out but I wouldn't really be depressed.

I wonder if burnout isn't the result of your brain associating work with failure or some other deep-seated negative emotion.

I've noticed that I can get my brain back on the right track by completing a few tasks that have a high probability of success and a clearer link between effort and reward.

I devised this plan on the basis that working for nothing seemed to be the crucial factor.

>I wonder if burnout isn't the result of your brain associating work with failure

Failure is definitely not a requirement. I was very successful in my last career. I was working 60 hours at the bare minimum with non-stressful things in stressful deadlines. I was akin to a supervisor with a great team in my corner. Performance at my level and below was never an issue, and every single one of my juniors was 100% dependable.

Management above me - in spite of one director who kicked ass at everything - and the culture in general sucked. I was tired of excelling at a place where no one valued my contributions. Not in a, "give me money and awards" way, but in a "can you not treat your most valuable employees like complete dirt?"

Your brain might have associated work with failure to obtain what you were sacrificing in order to work 60 hours, i.e. entertainment, play, love, family, health... (guessing).

What is the explanation when burnout follows success? I've personally seen that as well.

I was unaware that was possible! I'd say maybe the brain devalues the rewards or finds the work unnecessary once success is achieved?

and what happens when you identify it?