Preventing that Early Burn-Out

Since both Calamity and the Godmother are snoring on the project room sofa from working through four nights in a row, I'll be taking over for a bit.

KEEPING YOUR SANITY

I cannot stress enough how important this is: No matter how much energy and passion you have for the job – ESPECIALLY if you have heaps of passion for the job – you will burn through your own resources quicker than you will start noticing it. And there lies the danger.

Pushing creative people to their limits is a surefire way to produce stunning results in the short-term.

When we started out with out education, our professors kept pushing us. “You need to do more”, they would always say. “The assignments you have to do for us aren’t nearly enough. They should be a fraction of your output while you’re here.”

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GRIND YOURSELF DOWN

So we, young as we were, deprived ourselves of sleep, working from morning to evening to late at night until the final presentation. Naturally, peer pressure is a major force of motivation in such settings. After all, each of us wanted to impress our teams, or they would leave us for better ones with shinier projects that could potentially win festival prizes.

Then came semester break and from one day to the next, we would fall into a deep, dark hole of emptiness: We had gotten so accustomed to the constant hamster wheel that was our studies that we had forgotten how to literally do anything else than crunch in front of a PC.

By the start of the forth semester, many of the folks I had started out with had already vanished. The last of them I met told me they were now training to be a mechanic and would only use their art for venting from now on.

Again, there is nothing wrong with that. It just shows that the person in question had realized that the perceived constant one-upping mentality present at campus had gotten to them to a point that it affected their mental health.

By the time these things had begun to happen, our professors had drawn the line and told us not to do as many night shifts anymore.

HOW CAN THAT BE PREVENTED?

It’s often harder than it sounds, especially amongst creative people, but: Don’t compare yourself to those around you. It will drive you nuts. Many who came to uni to “study” animation already have years of industry experience and do the course to have one extra piece of paper saying they have a matching degree which may result in a higher salary at some point.

Put your goals into perspective with what you’ve got. You’re here to learn, discover and improve your skills, not to win a frickin’ Oscar with your first project.

SOME SIMPLE METHODS FOR GETTING THROUGH DEADLINES IN ONE PIECE:

• Sleep regularly and sleep more than five hours per night.

• Do some sort of workout. Go running, do some yoga, go to the gym, go swimming, lift water bottles or heavy pans and pots while watching Let’s Plays… just do something to wind down after sitting all day. It will make you feel better and heighten your concentration levels.

• Try not to pull night shifts.

• Have a fixed daily work schedule.

• Have a working timeline to keep an eye on when you need to be done with what.

• Make lists of tasks. Tick off everything you have accomplished. It’s hugely satisfying, makes you see progress and will keep you on track.

• Take a weekend off now and then. In fact, make Sundays (or any other weekday that suits best) your “Me Time” day if you can.

• Have a common workspace if you work in a team. Skype calls and WhatsApp chats only help so much if you need a shoulder to cry on because Maya just crashed on your last four hours of work. Chances are high that the person next to you has run into that exact problem before and knows how to fix it. Besides – you’ll have a ton of stories to tell about all the creative madness that can go down while you’re actually getting stuff done.

APPS YOU SHOULD HAVE A LOOK AT:

• FOR PLANNING: Producteev, Slack or just a good ol’ Google Docs spreadsheet that you can colour from red to green each time you finish something. I’m sure there are better alternatives out there, but those were the ones I personally have used the most.

• FOR SLEEPING AND WELL-RESTED EYES: f.lux. Removes strain on your eyes and adjusts the lighting of your screen to the light outside, so it should help you sleep better after a long evening of staring into a screen whose lighting is designed to always mimic broad daylight, even at 3am. Windows 10 now comes with a built-in feature that essentially lets you the same things, but I doubt it has a Cave Painting mode yet.

• FOR CONCENTRATION: Too broke to permanently move into the next Starbucks, but want to enjoy the coffee house ambience anyway? Love the sound of nature while you work? Websites like A Soft Murmur or Rainy Mood let you listen to rain and thunderstorms or mix and match different sounds from coffee shop ambiances to cozy fireplaces while you’re working. For more variety, I recommend you check out Youtube channels such as TheSilentWatcher, Brad McBride and (for RPG enthusiasts), The Guild of Ambience and Virtual Fireplace. They even have Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter-themed ambiences, so it can also help immersing yourself in the ambience you’re trying to create with your project.

#mentalhealth #studentlife #vfx #resources #learning