4 types of burnout

Burnout seems increasingly common amongst indie hackers and creators. Every month I see someone on Twitter say they’re leaving, deleting Twitter or taking a break (and never come back).

I’m feeling it too, not just Twitter but everything. But having been through it a couple of times, I think I know how to manage it and get through it without drastic measures. Sometimes it’s due to working too hard or too long without a break. Sometimes, it’s feeling disengaged from the work because you’re ‘forced’ to do it, or failing too often. Other times, it’s the exhaustion from office politics or difficult colleagues/supervisors.

Thing is, we often associate burnout as physical burnout, like from working too hard. It’s so much more than that. This post by @addyosmani shows there’s 3 others we never knew:

Interpreting this for indies:

• Mental burnout:

  • Staring at your screen for long hours resulting in cognitive strain.
  • Working with phone notifications on, so constantly context switching and distracted.
  • Being perfectionist about your product, always feeling like the product is never good enough and the resulting constant dissatisfaction/

• Physical burnout:

  • Can’t sleep because you’re constantly ‘on’, replying to support emails at night, getting woken up by pings
  • Working 12h days, 7 days a week, no vacation, because you’re going “all in”.
  • Lack of exercise and movement from sitting in chair

• Social burnout:

  • Seeing everyone’s MRR tweets and feeling like a total failure.
  • Getting embroiled in toxic online drama and outrage.
  • Chatting with too many people, spending too much time on Twitter.
  • Self-doubt from seeing and comparing how everyone seems to be doing well.

• Emotional burnout:

  • Chronic stress from constantly hustling, needing to hit revenue goals for investors or yourself. Might manifest as constantly feeling tired and drained despite getting enough sleep.
  • Can’t bring yourself to do the work, no motivation.

Listing it out this way made me realised I definitely experienced more than 1 type in the past. It’s a complex issue, and an even more complex condition. Not something you can just sleep it off.