During my last burnout, I realised that trying to push my working hours to the breaking point was making me substantially less happy (because of the pressure of that question—‘could I be working right now?‘), and substantially less productive (because without time to breathe, I was too focused on the wrong tasks). Cutting myself slack has really, genuinely improved the volume (quantity × quality) of value I produce. I don’t think you need to accept a cop-out answer like ‘just be happy’, I believe that the conventional wisdom on knowledge and creative work is culturally over-moralised around ‘hard work’ (and particularly working hours in an American context), and isn’t optimal for productivity. Just takes some time to shake it out of your system.
During my last burnout, I realised that trying to push my working hours to the breaking point was making me substantially less happy (because of the pressure of that question—‘could I be working right now?‘), and substantially less productive (because without time to breathe, I was too focused on the wrong tasks). Cutting myself slack has really, genuinely improved the volume (quantity × quality) of value I produce. I don’t think you need to accept a cop-out answer like ‘just be happy’, I believe that the conventional wisdom on knowledge and creative work is culturally over-moralised around ‘hard work’ (and particularly working hours in an American context), and isn’t optimal for productivity. Just takes some time to shake it out of your system.
I can really recommend Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (or his Waking Up course), or Rework by Jason Fried & DHH for more pointers in this direction that have helped me 😌