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How do you deal with bad cyclic burnout? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by NikkiNikkiNikki@kbin.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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For some odd reason I burnout very frequently, or more like I get so brain dead that I literally cannot even come up with an Idea of what to do, let alone act on it. It feels like when I even try to start I get so exhausted that I have to lay down.

It always happens after I'm the most productive, but my down time feels so much longer than the time I get to create. I'd say I have at least 4 days to a week of productivity, and about 2 - 3 weeks of burnout. It's nuts.

The cycle repeats, though it can vary wildly in how long each part is.

I'm starting to get hella annoyed since I haven't drawn a thing in over a year and I was finally getting back into the groove at least doodling daily, just to be derailed hard.

I was thinking that I just lack creativity, but it became this catch-22 of "I have to actually draw with purpose and make things that I enjoy" and "I am so fucking tired that even opening a sketchbook or cleaning makes me want to take a nap / drop into a dead sleep".

What are your thoughts?

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[–] Lemmylefty@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I feel you about getting antsy when you’re not productive, or feeling a project won’t get worked on without active effort on your part, but one thing that helps me slow down is two pieces of knowledge.

One, that a ton of the processing your brain does is unconscious. You ever go for a walk to “clear your head” and suddenly a solution popped into your brain? Your mind never stopped working on the issue, it just got put outside your conscious awareness.

Two, that operating at lower efficiency for longer is exactly what tanks you and brings you down to zero efficiency (and also kills your ability to process unconsciously). You ever heard “fast is slow and slow is fast”?

Don’t think of it as being unproductive: do you think a car refueling is being unproductive? Or is that and an oil change part of routine maintenance that keeps you from needing to push it down the road to a station every so often?