Everyone, this is a wiki with my notes from the session. They are incomplete and of course can’t capture all the richness of ideas we’ve been hearing during the session, so I’d like to ask your help: please add the things I’m missing by editing this wiki or by leaving your thoughts below in a comment. Post-sessions reflections help a lot!
Session proposal: /t/making-lote3/360/the-burning-edge
During this session we asked ourselves how can we become better at caring and supporting one another through intense workload risking burnout. Most of us in attendance have experienced it or have been on the verge of it at some point in our working life.
-one risk is with managing expectations: making it clear what it’s ok and not eg putting demands on other people for things one can do him/herself: who does the work calls the shots.
-especially in the public sector a lot of burnout cases come from not having any control on your work environment: top down directives, time constraints and deadlines etc.
First round of thoughts:
-Pietro: “internet addict”; not eating chocolate for 20 years due to a former addiction; one way to avoid burnout is simply shut off the work that burns you out eg use Internet only x hours a day -> the disadvantage is lack in flexibility; “I wrote my own rules”, own document: introducing a modern democratic system into your own life – making changes but leaving some time before putting into action
-Annelieke: affirmations that strengthen your motivations and keep yourself in a loop of fixes
-K : when do you know when to say stop? how do we become aware that we’re reaching a critical moment and verging on burnout?
-Merel? “You can burnout even when you’re having fun”; Enjoying what I was doing while I was burning out -> solution to recognize the sudden moments of tiresome and take more often breaks
-David Bovill: recognize who is specialist in keeping up with key tasks-> who to turn to in order to cope with small specific bits of burdening information
-Annelieke: Shared agreement & trust with the people who surround us for moments when we need to trust their opinion more than we trust ours -> accept beforehand that when we’ll be verging on something serious we leave ourselves to be saved by others
Second round of thoughts:
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an idea that stays with us and
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what things can we each take responsibility for in order to help avoid burnout, for ourselves and our peers?
-Annelieke wants to go away from quick fixes – still dysfunctional
-Tom: stress is the difference between whats conceivable to achieve and what you like to achieve; ppl take huge projects and don’t have a lot of resources to get there; would like to see less of a focus on action
-Leo: developing grounded trust in myself to resume my project -> rewards help and then is willing to rest
-Harry: resting period is important: activity& exercises; find common interests aside from the projects that you’re doing –clear out
-Mariella: list of to dos longer than the list of things to think; a program for the community to create in freedom, without a to do list
-Judith: cant connect with myself anymore; create physical interactions between us, fun situations
-Nadia: disconnect between physical, cognitive and social wellbeing; make a habit of doing more physical activities
-Rianon: lots of things we can do on our own, individually; we have no time to think about how we are feeling: dedicating more time and space for that; feelings equally respected than intellectual ability/talk
-Merel: Edgeryders is a culture
-Reece: martial artist; help people getting physical
-Gaia: functions through cycles of working hard, burning out, then again .
-David: 2 ways of looking at burnout: 1. how it feels, what you can do about it; 2. The systemic nature, which is mostly interested in
- Following up on the @LOTEwaterbot great idea, we can start taking care of one another on a daily basis through a CAREbot, automated tweet: “before you start your day, give yourself a minute”
-Natali: disrupting and distracting people when they seem stressed or preoccupied – making people shortly open up during busy routines
- Resource: The nicest place of the Internet – http://thenicestplaceontheinter.net/
Ramona Bavassano:
“Burnout is a neurosis coming up when you focus on one goal and ignore other important aspect in your life. Change the loop and transform this energy.”
“Taking yourself too seriously is the most ridiculous thing you can do in your life”
Photo by [zoescope]