How to know when to stop

Burnout

This X post by Emmett Shear (most famous for being CEO of Twitch) had a huge impact on how I think about burnout.

Emmett describes 3 main causes of burnout (paraphrased):

• Permanent On-call: Never having true time off, because work can always reach you (or in the case of very intense jobs, because the work never actually ends). I had always co

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In short, I was mentally, emotionally, and physically burnout. But it took me a long time to figure it out because I wasn’t listless or unproductive or disengaged from my work. The problem was: All I was engaged with was my work. And that was causing me to work in a way that was utterly unsustainable.

This is a question of balance. Those who come to me and say, “You know, I work 15 hours a day,” I say, “I am not interested.” I am interested in the quality of working hours, not the quantity. The brain of the human being. Do you think that during the first five hours of the day you are the same as you are in the last five hours? No way. You’re tir... See more

Advice I’d give my younger self: Don’t focus on energy output (working too hard). Focus on energy production (recharging activities). If you produce more energy than you burn, it’s impossible to burn out.

4. The person who is well rested might be able to work 16-hour days 6 days per week. The person who never works but scrolls TikTok all day can str... See more