I've fully recovered from burnout

In March 2023, I posted:

Just thinking about how “I’ve fully recovered from burnout” is a sentence I have never seen or heard someone say. Google has 1 result for that sentence (in quotes). Changing “fully” to “completely”: also 1 result. Changing to “totally”: 0 results.

^{I checked again today. Kagi has a couple results that Google didn’t, but not enough to be particularly encouraging.}

As you might guess, this wasn’t just idle curiosity. I suffered work-related burnout during my first full-time job as a web developer. I’d been working too many hours, for too many months, on a disaster cleanup project that felt both impossible and unnecessary. I was overworked and overwhelmed. The idea of getting up for work every Monday completely drained me.

I didn’t recognize the symptoms of burnout. Young as I was, I had far too much experience putting up with mental and emotional exhaustion for years at a time. Luckily, my wife wasn’t willing to watch me put up with it, so she said something.

In almost the same moment I realized it was okay to quit my job, I made up my mind to do so. I just needed someone, anyone, to give me permission.

That was in 2017. Seven years later, in 2024, I declared myself fully recovered. That’s not a worst-case scenario; far from it. Many burnout stories are longer. Some go on for decades. Some people believe they will never recover.

But I recovered, and hopefully that means other people can too. I don’t know what will work for anyone else. But I can share what worked for me.

1: Quitting

There was no alternative to quitting. A vacation of any length would have been laughably insufficient. A raise wouldn’t have solved anything. A title or team change would only have prolonged the inevitable.

I needed a clean break.

Quitting was a enormous weight off my chest, even before my two weeks’ notice was up. And it wasn’t just the best thing for me—it was good for everyone. It brought the company’s attention to problems they’d previously been able to ignore. It gave me a platform to talk about what needed to change. It brought urgency to issues I’d been trying to handle on my own; other people got involved and took responsibility. I don’t know what happened after I left, but what happened right before I left was better than anything I could have accomplished if I’d stayed.

To anyone feeling guilty about the idea: sometimes quitting is the best gift you can give.

But even if it hadn’t been, I know enough now to look back and say my health is more important than any project or company. And since my health was at risk, I needed to stop doing what I was doing, and stop thinking about it, forever.

Your health matters, too. You can quit for no other reason than that. You have permission.

My recovery began the day I left that office for the last time.

2: Reduced pressure

My next job was completely different, even though my job title was the same. It was at a company that prided itself on being a “best place to work,” and though the benefits package was impressive, what really made it great was the culture.

Where my previous job had been focused on survival and contract preservation, making work feel like one emergency after another, this job was laser-focused on consistent, sustainable results. They didn’t care when (or if) I came into the office, they didn’t care when I went to the dentist or the grocery store, and they definitely didn’t care how many hours I worked. As long as I kept delivering high-quality software, I was golden.

I think the autonomy was just as important as the flexibility. There were weeks when I took it easy and (very occasionally) weeks when I worked overtime. But what mattered was that nobody was looking over my shoulder, pressuring me to stay later or work harder. How I got from point A to point B was my business. My manager trusted me to get things done, and I made sure not to betray that trust.

I stayed for six years. I would have stayed six more if circumstances hadn’t changed. That job gave me space to listen to myself, to rest, to breathe, and to feel a sense of control over my life again. And in return, I gave it the best work I’d ever done.

3: Healthcare

In 2021 I was diagnosed with a mental health condition and started treatment. I’d had the condition my entire life, but it had somehow evaded detection until then.

Finding the right treatment was groundbreaking. The texture of my life changed. New projects felt exciting instead of exhausting. My anxiety levels dropped to a whisper.

Even if there hadn’t been a diagnosis to be made, I think therapy would have been an essential part of my recovery. I won’t give you my whole spiel about therapy right now, but I have one, and you can guess how it goes.

(Therapy is awesome.)

4: Boredom

This was how I knew I’d recovered from burnout: I felt bored at work. I actually, genuinely wished there was more to do.

I’m dead serious about this. For my money, it’s the most important part of the equation. If there’s one thing you need to experience in order to get better, it’s boredom. (Or maybe restlessness?)

The right kind of boredom is more than just repetition and tedium. It’s a combination of unfilled time and a lack of challenging work.

That was what my job turned into in 2024, after several rounds of layoffs turned my team into a skeleton crew and any semblance of progress or impact evaporated. I was kept on to maintain a lucrative piece of software that rarely broke down, so most days there wasn’t much to do.

It didn’t take me long to realize I needed more. I couldn’t sit around and do nothing all day. I spent six months trying to re-skill and help the team move in a new direction, but ultimately there wasn’t a good direction to move in. So I started interviewing elsewhere, and was lucky enough to land at an equally good company with plenty of interesting work to take on.

Being able to jump into new projects, without the gnawing fear that I’ll lose my autonomy and burn out again, has been a lot of fun. I’m older and wiser—there are lines I won’t cross, red flags I know to watch out for—but I no longer feel the deep-rooted weariness, the void where my enthusiasm should be, the incredibly heavy weight of getting up in the morning.

I’m doing so much better.

Moving forward

I found my boredom by accident. I don’t how hard it would be to find again. Hopefully I won’t have to.

If you don’t have that kind of luck, your best bet is to avoid burnout in the first place. Easier said than done, I know.

If you’re suffering from burnout, hang in there. I’m sending you my best, most free-range organic vibes. Things can get better and I hope they do. You deserve to feel good at work again.

^{Want to read more about the signs of burnout and how to avoid it? There are two chapters on the subject in my book, which you can download for free here.}