Burnt out on a three-day week

Ultimately the common thread in most of these cases seems to be a lack of purpose and meaning in life in general, not really an issue with the specific work environment.

The purpose of life is to make meaningful human connections, become wiser, become a better person. This is something that some combination of family, traditional social structures and religion used to provide for a lot of people.

"Create shareholder value at my current startup" obviously isn't going to scratch that itch in the same way. It's no wonder people end up feeling "burnt out" - that's your brain telling you that what you're doing is ultimately pointless, and your brain is absolutely right.

Treat work first and foremost as a means to an end, not an end in itself, and generally you'll be happier. You can (and should) take pleasure from your craft and a job well done, but honestly who cares how your Series A goes.

"Work coaching" or whatever this article is advertising will probably not help you at all

If you didn’t catch on, this is an ad for coaching services. The solution it’s proposing is to start paying for coaching sessions with this person. The prose has a very AI feel to it, especially the second half where it starts breaking down into the AI-isms like “What actually shifts things” section header.

The actual “coaching” examples are about addressing the people’s self-worth and self-perceptions, which is uncomfortably dipping into territory that is better (and often cheaper, especially with insurance) served by actually therapists. A lot of burnout cases like these, especially where workloads are low and complications outside of work are major factors, are more appropriately matched to depression than typical work burnout, which is better addressed by trained therapists than career coaches.

Burnout isn't about the number of hours. Burnout occurs because you are actively doing something that you fundamentally don't believe is worth the time.

I can work 80 hour weeks if it is a project that I am invested in or find interesting and feel zero burnout. I am working on a project currently I don't believe in and often I work maybe 6 to 10 hours of a 35 hour week and find it difficult to care about the work.

Reads like an AI generated ad for coaching. Someone please chime in if you feel otherwise but IMO this one is not worth the read.

HN needs to start prohibiting people from submitting posts when they turn up AI-generated content. They can still post comments, they just can't submit new threads. This is a site for humans and human-created writing. The article is a made-up farce.

Hey Claude - The information in this essay is fine, but you have got to stop leaning on correctio as a rhetorical device. The whole essay is built on it. We've talked about this before and it's grating because you use it in every piece of writing you produce. It's just not how people write.

Sharing my small bit of wisdom about burn out:

Burn out isn’t caused by putting in too many hours at work. It’s a symptom of forcing yourself to do work you don’t align with.

Forcing yourself to care about KPI’s and goals you don’t give a hoot about will usually result in collapse.

Started reading, got about halfway through the first sentence and a subscription nag popped up. You blocked the content, so I bounced.

I'm burnt out reading "What actually fixes things"

Sounds like a mis-alignment in purpose, and meaning.

Also, potentially chronic sleep deprivation. (Sleep apnea, disrupted circadian rhythm, possible artificial light, news/social scrolling)

Humans need alignment there, then we thrive.

Am I correct that this Maya person is looking for a job while burnt out? Man am I glad to live in a country where (for many people), when you burn out, your salary is secured even though you cannot work. You can fix the burnout first, then return to work.

over my long career, i have had the (dis)pleasure of working with many of these career/organization/employment consultant/coach types. if i can pass on a piece of advice for younger folk: avoid them. dont waste your money.

especially now, if you want coach-style advice, just put your thoughts/problems into chatgpt or whatever. that's probably all the coach is going to do anyway.

If you hate your job, an hour feels like hell. But it's your responsability, and if you don't like it, you just got to move.

AI;DR

I did read some actually until the cheap output quality started showing.

I have a hypothesis which has solved burn out for me, it’s contrarian to most health advice out there. “Just follow the sun and cut stimulation after it’s down”. You can use a tracker or my app sunsignal.app to help track it. As long as you: a) take a big break in the middle of the day b) cut stimulation after sunset (blue light, food, etc) and c) place most of your work between the daylight and otherwise let you body do what it pleases you will cure most of your health ailments. Fuck everyone else who tries to over complicate it and get you to resign into thinking you should accept the industrial age’s noise pollution and pretend you can override a broken environment’s poison with wearables, supplements, etc. you are being told to buy expensive solutions to symptoms rather than addressing the root cause.the industry has no problem selling you solutions to a problem it created.

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