Stamina
You know what’s really hard for me to do?
Stay completely enthusiastic on a project from start to finish.
In college we were given semester-long architecture projects. For my very first project, I devoted ALL of my free time to working on it. EVEN time I should have spent sleeping. I was averaging four hours of sleep a night or less when I finished it. When I did sleep, I was dreaming about cutting pieces of wood, and drawing floor plans. No surprise that, when I was done, I immediately got the flu, and was too sick to study for my other finals (oh well).
The next semester was similar – still not getting much sleep, still spending most of my time in the studio, still trying to pick glue off of my fingers in the shower… but this time, I had a wedding to go to 2 days before the review… so I had to work extra hard to get everything done in time. It was kind of nice to attend the review after having a normal night’s rest!
Slowly, with each of the following six semesters, I got more and more burnt out on spending all of my time working on the same project. I still thought about it all the time, and was passionate about its design, but I just didn’t have it in me anymore to be so energetic about it from start to finish.
So I would start off a project all excited, then be thinking “meh, whatever” by the end. This was especially true my semester in Rome, and my entire fifth year.
This is a really bad characteristic. It doesn’t mean I start a lot of things and don’t get them done, it just means I start a lot of things and don’t finish them quite as I’d like to because I’m so burnt out. And out of time. And under pressure to get them done.
I’ve really been fighting that in my job. So far I’ve been successful, but sometimes you get to the point where you just want to say “I give up” or “I don’t care anymore.”
Or… is it just me?
Themocracy
It’s totally a sign of being burnt out. I guess the best way to avoid burn out is to limit your time on each projects just to keep everything fresh. Devoting all your energy and effort into one project has to be draining. I think burn out is coming among lots of workers.
Here’s the thing about being an adult. We don’t have the same cycles we had in school. We don’t get parent-teacher days off. Or the whole summer for that matter. We don’t necessarily change jobs every 4 years. Life out here has much more of a permanence to it. And for people just out of school, I think that’s daunting. It’s easy to wonder how will I last? I’m not sure I can tell you what works … but you’ll figure out a balance. I’m sure of it.
I do better with shorter projects, under the time crunch. I do my best work towards the end of the project, which is when I enjoy it the most. But previous projects I’ve done, I stay focused, but tend to get overwhelmed if there are too many hands in the kitchen, so to speak.
As I get older, though, it’s harder to stay focused. I think part of that is being burned out… which happens much sooner than later.
Gina (Mannyed) – What I love about my job is that I jump around from a lot of projects; sometimes 5 a week! When I do start to work on one for a LONG time… that is when I start to feel the burn. Ah, the pleasures of working in a small firm! Hee hee hee 🙂
Nilsa – I’ve thought about that – how I’d like to switch up work every few years to keep things fresh… but really? How feasible is THAT? NOT AT ALL!!! I better get used to it 😉
martymankins – “Too many hands in the kitchen” – that’s a quote I find myself using a lot lately! That does seem to make me less likely to work on things… when I try doing something one way, and it keeps getting changed, by different people, over and over…
Take a vacation 🙂
kilax – That three-day weekend WAS my vacation 😉 Hee hee hee 😛