Aliasgher Janmohammed

I faced burnout. It was the oddest thing in the world because it wasn’t easy to figure out at all. It also crept in right after a 2-week December break – I was probably burnt out before the break if I look back. Of course, what didn’t help was coming back to a loaded January with deadlines around every corner.

Eventually, what broke the camel’s back were steady signs from my body and brain. I was getting injured more easily while exercising. I was exhausted by 3 pm every day. And by Wednesday, I probably wanted my week to be over. Slow signs started creeping into my work. Whoever has worked with me will tell you that details matter to me – but I was missing them. I was making mistakes that I probably wouldn’t have made when I was at my best or even at 80% of my best.

At my workplace, we do stand-ups and one of the prompts is “How present are you?” With every standup, I would write “100%” or say that I was “present.” But the reality hadn’t dawned on me yet, that I was actually at 50% or less. I finally realized how exhausted I was when I missed a detail in a meeting. I didn’t do that normally. A first hint at what could possibly be wrong. This was followed by a physio appointment where the therapist started asking me questions about how much I was eating and if I was sleeping properly. At first, I thought to myself, “Why is this relevant?” But as we spoke about it more, it hit me right in the face. It was related. All of it was. The exhaustion, the tiredness. Every time I was part of a conversation, I was thinking about a million other things, which wasn’t fair to the person speaking to me.

Initially, I thought the reason was super simple. Two of my colleagues had gone on maternity leave (yay for them!) and the extra load had just crept up, adding to a plate that was already full. I decided I would take leave for a week and come back refreshed. But there was something gnawing at me still; I wasn’t out of the woods. I was back at work again but this time I noticed the signs that I had previously ignored – end-of-day exhaustion and wanting my week to be over by Wednesday.

It just didn’t make sense though. My company has a progressive policy of 4-day workweeks; so how was this happening? Why didn’t I get any time at the end of the week to do all the things I enjoy? – going out, personal development, blogging, date nights. I got to Friday and I couldn’t concentrate on a single thing. I realized I was more productive outside of my work hours when I had a 5-day workweek.

What was happening? I wish I could tell you the answer was reading one thing and then getting an epiphany. The reality was that I had a bunch of epiphanies by talking to a bunch of people. The latter part was crucial because I kept asking people about this and sharing my experience. I spoke to my wife, mentor, coach, friends, and literally anyone I could find. The suggestions and feedback were amazing. I realized I had incorporated a bunch of anti-patterns into my life that I had to stop doing:

Anti-pattern 1: Not taking breaks and no dedicated lunch breaks

Because my work is mainly in front of the computer, I just went on doing work from 9 am to 5 pm. I would take a mini-break here or there but even during my break, I was responding to Slack messages or emails. Lunch had become a 15-minute short break. No wonder I was exhausted at the end of the day.

Anti-pattern 2: My work structure was haphazard

Your work can be structured into basically 3 parts: the stuff you enjoy, the stuff you don’t enjoy, and the stuff you need to do (but still don’t enjoy). I enjoy creative work, facilitation, writing. I don’t like reporting, unnecessary meetings, logging my time, etc. I wish I could say you can ignore the stuff you don’t like but unfortunately, you just have to do it. But your work structure can make a difference. My mentor advised me to structure my day so that I did creative work (that re-energized me) in the morning and more uncreative work in the afternoon so that it helped me switch off and also didn’t drain me from the early hours.

Anti-pattern 3: Taking work into personal life (not because someone asked me to)

My brain struggles to switch off. I am always wondering about this or that. Which is completely fine and doesn’t hurt my sleep too much. But if I don’t switch from my work, the to-do lists keep playing in my head at 3 am. Before COVID, the office space and home space allowed a good separation of the two. The drive from work to home also switched your brain. But, enter work-from-home, and everything became haphazard. You work from the bed you sleep in. Your brain doesn’t know what space is for what.

Anti-pattern 4: Not eating the right foods or enough

This is tied to anti-pattern 1 but worth a mention. I rushed through my breakfast and lunch, not being mindful about how much I was eating (not enough) or pausing to eat properly. I also didn’t pay enough attention to what was being consumed – was it giving me energy or just filling me up for right now?

Throughout these conversations, I had moments of reflecting and thinking about how I could break these anti-patterns. Below are a few things I started implementing:

1. Work using a pomodoro clock in chunks of 15 to 30 minutes of focus time. More importantly, take a dedicated 15-minute break after the focus time.
2. Set alarms to remind you that lunch starts at 13:00 and set another alarm that reminds you that lunch is over at 14:00. The alarm is crucial.
3. Try as much as possible to do creative work in the morning while leaving “brain-dead” activities for later in the day.
4. Create a break-the-cycle ritual after work – something that switches your brain from work to personal life. This shouldn’t involve sitting on your phone.
5. Incorporate protein into my food, especially during days where I am exercising.

There are three important lessons I learned while creating these new habits:

• First, you might think that if you take a 15-minute break between work sessions, you won’t do enough work. Wrong! Your brain does a better job at finding solutions or thinking creatively when you don’t think about work. In fact, read something totally unrelated to your work when you’re solving a work problem and see your brain do wonders.

• Second, time perception is warped. You might start taking a lunch break and think you’ve taken enough of a break, but you haven’t. I would take breaks and think, “Oh, it has been so long.” When I started timing myself, I saw that my actual lunch break was 15 minutes, not 1 hour, and my breaks between focus chunks were 2 minutes, not 15 minutes. Hence, the alarm on my phone that notifies me to start taking a lunch break and tells me to go back to work when the hour is over.

• Finally, there were many things I was doing before I burnt out that are also helpful. Exercising is the obvious addition. Yoga is another one. If you pray during structured time periods in the day like a Muslim, that is also super useful as it gives you a moment to yourself and connects you spiritually.

Burnout doesn’t announce itself with a bang – it creeps in silently until one day you realize you’re operating at half capacity. My journey through burnout taught me that the solution isn’t just about taking time off; it’s about fundamentally changing how you approach your daily work and life. The anti-patterns I discovered might not be universal, but the principle is: listen to your body, be intentional about your time, and create structures that support your wellbeing. If you’re feeling the weight of exhaustion or noticing those small mistakes creeping in, don’t wait until you’re completely drained. Start making small adjustments now – your future self will thank you for it. Remember, productivity isn’t about working non-stop; it’s about working well when you are working, and then truly disconnecting when you’re not.