Burnout

The world today is busier than ever. We are doing more than we have ever done, with no intentions of stopping or slowing down. Additionally, we are also doing a number of things at the same time, fondly known as multi-tasking.

However, as much as we would love to continue to steam forward like railway engines, we have a cap on the amount of things we can complete in one go. Today, we will talk about the impacts of this busy state of mind and try to decipher if there is a better way to maintain a health and positivity for ourselves.

Renewal is not just innovation and change. It is also the process of bringing the results of change into line with our purposes.

– John W. Gardner

We live in a productivity focussed world. Organisations across the globe are looking for more ways to streamline efforts, reduce costs and maximise their profits. The advent of artificial intelligence in the workplace has made this more achievable than ever. Consequently, organisations are now looking for productivity results way higher than what we had even three years ago.

Knowledge workers today are also sensitive to this fact, and are constantly looking to stay on top of their game as well. Everyone would love to be able to end their work days with having crossed off everything they intended to complete at the beginning of the day. However, so much technology being added to our roles has added a degree of complexity. We can work from wherever we want, whenever we want and how much ever we want.

The numbers, however, state a completely different story. According to a recent study, there has been a steady decline in the number of hours people have been working across the globe. The question arises, has our productivity declined? Well, not really. We are leading all time periods in history when it comes to production volumes. This can be alluded to a strong increase in the available tools and technology, along with our willingness to put in increased efforts.

We have talked about a couple of trends so far, working hours and productivity. There is one more trend I would like to add to this equation, which is burnout. Burnout is a state of mental, physical and emotional exhaustion caused by excessive demands on our attention from work and other areas of our lives. The interesting point I would bring to light is that the demands here cannot be quantified in terms of hours, but in something called cognitive load.

What is cognitive load, you ask? Cognitive load is our brain’s ability to process information. There are two components that impact cognitive load: the difficulty of the information and the format of its presentation. Simply stated, higher the cognitive load for an extended duration, the more prone we are to burnout. So, to prevent ourselves from burnout, we should know how to manage our cognitive load.

The interesting facet of cognitive load, that I feel is an under-represented percentage of the overall equation is that cognitive load encompasses the inputs our brain receives from all areas of our life, and not just work. What do I mean when I say cognitive load considers all inputs to our brains? Well, we live in the age of information, & things that we consider to be “relaxing activities” are also inputs to the brain.

Basically put, the micro-actions we take daily like using our phone in between meetings or having Netflix running in the background while we type an email are all activities that add to the highly cluttered to do list for our brains. This way, while we think we are providing our brains with relaxation, the brain continues to work at a million miles an hour.

The fall, however, for us being burnt out is always taken by work, be it a job we are working or activities we take up for ourselves. We antagonise work as the sole source for burnout. While that might be true for some of us, there is a perspective which gets missed. If work is the only component of your life which is burning you out, you have ample components which can provide you with the renewal to fight burnout as well.

It’s too simplistic to pin burnout solely on your work.

We tend to over-emphasise the impact of work on burnout, because we have being conditioned to consider work as just that, work. Something that we have to do, not something we should want to do. However, over time, we have forgotten that in addition to providing us sustenance through financial compensation, work is also a key component to the equation of human beings feeling fulfilled and satisfied by our quality of life.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂