Battling Burnout Amidst the Pandemic

Nowadays you’d see more and more articles about burnout, especially among millennials. Apparently, it’s very common among young workers that if you search the internet, there’s sure to be a long list of articles that discuss it.

Goodhousekeeping.com cited a 2016 publication in World Psychiatry defining burnout as “characterized by overwhelming exhaustion, feeling cynical and detached from your job, and a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment at work.”

For many, burnout could stem from too much workload, micromanaging bosses, salary that is just not commensurate with your skills and experience, or an unhealthy work environment in general.

For others, it could be that they feel as if their jobs lack purpose or the leadership is not performing their duties as well as they demand their employees to do theirs. The latter, in my experience could be really demotivating, and personally it has caused me to be detached from my job.

With the current COVID-19 pandemic, most employees are working from home, and while this may sound great for some, for others, especially those who have been working in a division with no clear workflows, poor team rapport, and a divisive and uninclusive leadership even before the global crisis, this is a nightmare.

If you’re in the unlucky category, you must have Googled how to deal with these problems already. But here are some tips you’ve probably read or heard of before, but I’ll still share anyway.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

1. Practice self-care

For a lot of stressed out workaholic people, meals and hydration are almost forgotten as soon as they sit down for work. But here's an idea, how about you take your time cooking breakfast? Perhaps cook a dish you've always wanted to try and finally try out that spice you bought months ago but forgot because… WORK. How about you sip that coffee slowly, inhale the aroma, and just let your morning unfold without to-do lists swimming in your head?

2. Observe normal work hours

If you normally sign in for work at 8am and sign off by 5pm, do that too while you're working from home. If you don't get rewards for signing in earlier and working till nightfall, don't do it. Your health matters now more than ever. Designate work hours and break time for yourself. Do not check e-mails during lunch, especially if you're not expecting anything urgent.

If by any chance you're using Microsoft Teams, a friend of mine suggested to set "quiet hours," and schedule yours from 5pm to 8am. This way, you get to respect your own time as well as others'.

Mute notifications on your phone after working hours. Take the time to rest and tend to your mental health.

The world of work has now changed drastically since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing us into a paradigm shift, with our work habits and hours challenged. We do what we can to cope.

3. Go back to your hobbies

In the past, you may have put off buying new books because you "have no time to read," or you may have cancelled buying a gadget because you have "no time to use it." Well guess what? You now have time. In fact, you now have all the time in the world! No one from your office will monitor your actions. For sure you won't be in that Zoom meeting forever, right?

It's a trick burnout often plays in our minds, that we have too much work to do and this causes us to think that we don't have enough time for anything else. That, or everything just sounds tiring and pointless.

4. Phone a friend

Once again, do something you haven't had time to do because you don't have time, and that is, check on your friends. There are a lot of messaging apps available these days. Catch up and tell stories! Looking out for each other is much needed these days.

5. Spend more time with your family

Before the pandemic, you would probably be out of the door long before the sun rose and return home much later than desired, leaving you with little to no chance of quality time with your family. Now, you see them all day everyday.

If you happen to live away from your family, call them often as often as you can. It would take more time before you get to safely go home to them again, so it's nice to hear their voices, or have them on video call at least twice or thrice a week. And what's even better, you can talk to them for as long as you want.

Do you have some more to add to the list? Do leave a comment! Visit Trees Overhead for more!