How graphic designers can avoid burnout?

Are you familiar with this feeling of mental and physical exhaustion when you have no desire or energy to work? Of course, such episodes happen to all designers from time to time. But in case this condition lasts for a couple of weeks in a row, it’s a good sign of burnout.

Though burnout isn’t a medical condition, it could lead to something as serious as depression. Besides, it’s usually accompanied by psychosomatic symptoms. You might get a head- or stomachache several times a week before starting your design working day, your back and neck might hurt more than ever, and in rare cases, the psychosomatic goes as far as a leg or arm paralysis. Sorry, we didn’t mean to scare you. We just want to emphasize how important it is to recognize and prevent burnout. Hopefully, this article will help you with it!

Tiredness or burnout — what’s the difference?

Sometimes it’s hard to understand if you are experiencing burnout or just feel tired. The easiest way to find out what is going on with you is to have a vacation. You see, burnout is a kind of a crisis. And a crisis is always a sign that some changes need to be made in your life. That’s why it doesn’t go away that easily and requires some inner work to understand what exactly you can add or delete from your life to feel energized and engaged again. So, if you feel refreshed and willing to work after a good long vacation, it was just tiredness. But in case the quality rest didn’t help, and you still feel reluctant to go back to your daily design tasks, then you have burnout.

What causes burnout?

In order to solve any problem, first, we need to understand where it comes from. Let’s consider the most common issues that lead to burnout in general and in a designer’s work.

Luckily for us, professors Christina Maslach and Michael P. Leiter held surveys and interviews with over 10000 people working in different areas. The study showed that most issues come from the following six categories:

• workload (too much work, not enough resources);
• control (micromanagement, lack of influence, accountability without power);
• reward (not enough pay, acknowledgment or satisfaction);
• community (isolation, conflict, disrespect);
• fairness (discrimination, favoritism);
• values (ethical conflicts, meaningless tasks).

Let’s take a closer look at these points in connection with design work.

1. Workload. How many hours a day do you work? Many designers have a 12+ hour-long working day, and it’s not OK. At first, you might even enjoy such a heavy workload as a sign of your dedication. But it’s a trap: a few weeks of such a schedule will inevitably lead to fatigue. Besides, even if your average working day lasts about 8 hours, don’t hurry to skip to the next point. Most of us consider ourselves “working” only when doing something on our laptops, which is not correct. The workload also includes all the time you are thinking about your projects, even when walking out with your dog, cooking dinner, or visiting your parents. The time you think about work, though it could not be tracked hourly and be paid by your client, is also exhausting your energy, so pay attention to the work-related thoughts.
2. Control (or lack of it). Whether you work as a freelancer, or an in-house designer, or as a part of a studio, you always have someone’s opinions and whims to deal with. No matter how experienced you are at design and how right you are, your client’s or boss’s comments have to be considered, and there’s no way out of it (until you become a famous design guru, of course). And at the same time, you are always the one to blame if a design doesn’t work as expected, even though you warned everyone. Such lack of control often makes us feel miserable, and leads to burnout.
3. Reward. This factor consists of 3 main points: money, praise, and personal satisfaction. Surprisingly, this list is not a hierarchy — all the types of rewards are equally crucial for us, people. Sometimes we try to substitute the lack of satisfaction from a project by taking higher pay for it, and it really might work on a short distance. Still, if you continuously experience a shortage of acknowledgment or pleasure from your work, it always ends up with burnout.
4. Community. Feeling isolated or working in a toxic environment are powerful triggers for burnout. While the first one usually concerns freelance designers, the second mostly happens to in-house and studio workers. However, due to the lockdown almost all designers now work remotely, so the two factors often combine nowadays. Besides, the “community” factor includes the feeling of being treated like a service, just another screw in a huge machine.
5. Unfairness. Have you ever felt like all the fun tasks go to other designers, and you are always stuck with some boring routine? That’s what unfairness in design feels like. If it keeps happening for months in a row, there’s no wonder if one day you find it hard to get up and go to work.
6. Values. One of the most horrible experiences that a designer can get is to work with a client or start a project that goes against your ethics. Like, a vegan creating a website for a butchery. It doesn’t sound like fun at all. Right? And imagine (or recall) working on a meaningless task or a snipe hunt. A few weeks of such work, and prepare to say hi to a burnout.

Here’s an idea: let’s conduct little research together. There’s an option on Medium to highlight a particular phrase in the article, so we suggest you highlight one of the points that you relate to most of all in your current project. Thus, we’ll find out which factor bothers designers the most nowadays.

Now, when we know the main factors that lead to burnout, it’s time to investigate how to prevent it.

How to prevent burnout?

1. Find the proper amount of time to work on a project.

Each of us has our own limits of patience and interest in a project. We bet you know this feeling of excitement when you start working on a new project. You are so full of ideas and the urge to embody them ASAP. But while time goes by, the engagement begins to fade, and what you do starts to seem boring. For some people, this “arc” lasts about a week. Others feel excited much longer and don’t get bored by a project for over a month. We are all different, and your task now is to think for how long you usually keep the high spirits about a project. Let’s say it’s two weeks: in this case, you can either take only 2-week-long projects or divide big projects into the 2-week blocks. The scrum system works this way, and luckily for us, many companies use it in their work. And even if you are a freelancer, you can apply the scrum project management for your own workflow.

2. Be honest with yourself about how you feel about the project.

Usually, designers work guided by the inner motivation to create something impressive. But as we mentioned in the previous point, sooner or later, the level of engagement goes down. And what do we do when this happens? Most of us start the process of negotiation with ourselves. We try to look at the bright side of the project, persuade ourselves that we still like it, and so on. Although this seems like a good practice, in fact, it’s not. The negotiation is a delusion we are trying to keep ourselves in and takes lots of energy from us. A much better way is to be honest with yourself and say out loud (or write down) your REAL attitude to the current project. Of course, you don’t need to share your thoughts with a client or boss, or even colleagues, but dumping out all the mess on a piece of paper will help you feel much better and get an energy boost. We promise.

3. Try something new.

As we said before, burnout is a kind of a psychological crisis, and beating it requires some changes in your life. So one of the best ways to overcome or prevent burnout is to try something new. Create a list of the professional skills you admire in other people — maybe it would be motion design, or creating excellent landing pages, or lettering, or else. Pick the one that seems the easiest for you and start learning. This way, you will not only add a new source of inspiration to your life but also become a better professional.

4. Focus on your other hobbies.

It’s a common situation for designers to spend all their free time trying to perfect their craft. If you are busy with some side projects after work, if most of what you read and watch is related to design, and all your social media feeds are filled with UI/UX experts, let your hair down. Do some yoga, read pulp fiction, watch a sitcom for at least half an hour every day. Have some rest from the design. It’s important.

5. Get professional help.

Whether you are already experiencing burnout, or feeling close to it, or just don’t want to even come near it, a psychotherapist might be the best person to help you. There’s no weakness in asking for help. Burnout is a serious condition, and it’s worth avoiding or overcoming by all means.

In this article, we covered the basics of what causes burnout for graphic designers and hope that this information will help you avoid the unpleasant condition. The one last piece of advice we want to give you: treat yourself like your best friend. Work is just work. Stay safe!