I had a nice surprise yesterday when my book was mentioned in Lenny Rachitsky’s newsletter!
Noam Segal followed up on the tech worker sentiment survey they published a few weeks ago which showed that the vast majority of tech workers were suffering from some level of burnout by interviewing people to learn more about what helps people to handle burnout. This issue publishes a framework for people to “systematically design a career and lifestyle that make burnout structurally unlikely”.
The “ARMOR” framework reflects a lot of the advice I have given to people based on my own burnout experience and from the research I’ve done:
Autonomy – take control of your time and energy, and communicate your needs
Rock Solid Boundaries – be willing to say no, and give yourself time for breaks
Maintenance Rituals – monitor your health and emotions for early warning signs
Original Thinking – recognize the systemic nature of burnout
Role Architecture – find roles that align with what energizes you and where your values are shared by others
The newsletter goes into much greater detail on how to implement those principles in your life to avoid burnout, and I was delighted to read in the “Get comfortable saying no” section a quote from one of the people they interviewed:
“I read this book called You Have a Choice by Eric Nehrlich. One of the big unlocks for me was ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to . . . as long as you’re okay with the consequences.’”
This is the key idea behind my book: we can always make different choices…if we are willing to accept the consequences. So many of us suffer because we don’t feel like we have choices – this happened to me in my own burnout experience because I thought I had to do whatever my manager asked. When we realize that we don’t _have_ to keep the job, get the promotion or even necessarily meet expectations, it creates a freedom to explore more options. So I’m honored that somebody mentioned that my perspective helped them in handling burnout, and I hope that it will guide others to the book.
Check out the whole ARMOR framework to avoid burnout at https://lnkd.in/gjNqFYCv