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I'm not convinced burnout comes from merely working hard, it comes from when you work hard and expectation of reward is missed.


Agreed. It seems to me that burnout from work would only be qualified if burnout from play was a thing - because work to the fortunate among us, is play. Managing expectation is key, or more palpably perhaps - anticipation. The scientist, Robert Sapolsky, has done some interesting work on how dopamine affects behaviour. He shows that we get far more pleasure/dopamine from anticipation [future] rather than reward [present], where dopamine dries up. Our endurance is largely about our perception of the future. Good video here if anyone is interested: https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2...


In my case, it was due to crunch time shortly before release, and then after the project was released falling into a void of not knowing how to fill my time.

Which caused stress and eventually a burnout that I am only just slowly getting out of, after about 5 months.

I suppose it is different for each person though.


Spot on. When I was younger I could do 15 hour days without looking at the clock when orders were coming in and shipments were going out. Reward is a big motivator for time invested.




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