Burnout: How do you guys cope?

[Glenn Fricker]

Hey gang,

After 15 years on this roller coaster, I've gotta admit, I'm getting close to a total burnout. Dealing with the same shit on project after project. If I'm not teaching someone how to make a tempo map, I'm teaching someone how to play their fucking instrument. Waiting to get paid, waiting to release the disc, work schedules, never being 100% happy with anything, dealing with unreliable people, it does tend to weigh heavy on oneself after a while.

I haven't had a serious break since on studio projects since January 2010, and I'm taking the next two weeks off. I'm hoping that it's long enough: I've got clients coming in at the end of July & I want to give them my best. Right now, I just feel very, very drained.


How do you guys cope with the day to day bullshit & avoid burning out?

 

[PhilTheBeard]

Meditation, Hot showers, Steak and Whiskey........ And hot loving from my lady. Pretty much the only way to not get burntout is to always try and break away from whatever routine you have made for yourself in your studio. Find different way's to get your day started or even just take an hour a day to experiment with new things and try and learn something new and exciting that you never have done before to keep that passion for it alive without killing your brain to much.

 

[Zack Uidl]

Glenn, do you have a strict contract for clients to sign? I have them for whatever I do in my music business and I have never had to deal with anything that you are mentioning the clients doing. And, if someone were to need to know how to do something, which does happen of course, I get them to sign up for a lesson were they pay me to teach them how to do whatever it is that I need from them.

I maybe track down a payment 2-3 times a year and it is always something tiny. It is always something like a student paid for 4 lessons for the month when there are 5 weeks or something like that.

That being said, I definitely still get burned out as I am doing music and nothing but music almost every day of the year. The thing that helps me the most is diversifying what I do in the music industry. Session work, composition for games/film/tv, teaching, touring/playing live, publishing instructional products like ebooks/books and DVDs, etc. So, while every day is similar, there is still a lot of variety.

Sounds like a break is a great idea for sure! Get some much needed relaxation man!

 

[KHE]

maybe over-simplificated, but my advices:
- don't take your work home after the work-day (physically AND mentaly). writing-down all your to-do-stuff / ideas / problems helps tons to let go your constantly fast-moving minds.
- find something you love to do after your work-day(hobby/activity/ect). it resets your minds and let you to forget all the problems for a small time. (i jump out of airplanes for example)
- find new challenges in your buissness. maybe work on some other music-styles?
- try to break your routines.
- learn to say "NO" (don't know if this a problem in your case)
- take a (long) break if it doen't get better.
(i don't work at a studio, but it belongs to all jobs)

be careful man!! enjoy your holidays! do something special, use your free-time (not just hanging around )!

cheers,
markus

 

[Skinny Viking]

Meditation, Hot showers, Steak and Whiskey........ And hot loving from my lady. Pretty much the only way to not get burntout is to always try and break away from whatever routine you have made for yourself in your studio. Find different way's to get your day started or even just take an hour a day to experiment with new things and try and learn something new and exciting that you never have done before to keep that passion for it alive without killing your brain to much.

I would like to +1 hot lovin from Phil's lady

 

[ArthurD]

- Don't take work home.
- Exercise yourself. I recommend Martial Arts
- Read books to relax at home
- Have good sex at least 4 times a week
- Walk the fucking dog and have fun with
- Organize your time and your stuff
- Go out at least once a week (movies, opera, theater, wathever NOT related to party or drinking)
- Drink water
- Organize your studio work time as a "normal" working time, with day schedules and brakes

a solution for your teaching problem is to make a written tutorial and obligate (by contract) the bands to read and apply them.

EDIT: enjoy your holydays! Go to the beach or somewhere calm

 

[Firaxis]

Hopefully the break will work out man, it seems you've lost the excitement of making a group of shitheads sound great I thought your work was great if it makes any difference!

 

[guitarguru777]

Cure .... what in the fuck makes you think theres a cure ....LOL

4 years here and I am ready to give up ... 82+ hours a week in the studio doing shit, no days off EVER .....

 

[Ermz]

I recently had a huge burn out. Ended up taking about a month and a half off with nothing to do with audio. I actually had to sever ties with clients, more or less, just to get away from that head space entirely.

I found it helped to reacquaint myself with the reasons I got into working with music in the first place. For me that meant playing albums like 'Still Life', 'Night is the New Day' & 'Dummy' several times a day. Basically all the things that make me remember that there IS good music out there, despite how much much of the modern metal, and music in general, scene has raped itself.

What it means in the future is taking much fewer power and thrash projects, and trying to focus myself more on projects that have prospects for career progression, rather than burning out all of my heart and soul on CDs that will get heard by a few hundred people, if lucky.

Above all, just take some time and try to remember WHY you started doing production in the first place. Maybe even do a cover song yourself, recorded properly... or take part in a mix competition, solely for fun, just to remember the joy of the process, without the extraneous bullshit.

Otherwise just fly some co-op with me in Rise of Flight . Good luck bro.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

I honestly don't understand how it's humanly possible to "not take work home" when self-employed in this business. Before I snagged an easy little side-profession to go along with the studio gig (which in the end changed my life completely, at least for the time being), the job was with me basically every waking hour I had just so I could get my bills paid

 

[if6was9]

You need hobbies outside of just music or music production. You need an activity where you can go and not even think about it at all, where your mind is totally off thinking about something else. This helps you to get your mind clear and recharge the batteries.

I do Brazialian jiu jitsu and it fills that role for me. Someone above said they do martial arts above and I'd recommend it highly for someone in your posititon. Find one thats relevant to your interest could be kick boxing or yoga. There's something out there for everyone regardless of age and risk of injury and amount of contact you're comfortable with. Gets you fit and thinking about the techniques helps keep your mind off anything else. If a guy is trying to choke you then you're not gonna be thinking about what mic you're gonna use tomorrow!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Go shoot some clays. Relaxing as fuck.

 

[fatalforce]

I agree with everyone who mentioned breaking the trend of your usual schedule. Taking a break and spending some time on some other things really helps free your mind.

I recently started taking kung fu and it's been amazing! It's helping my mind and body. I'd been burning out for a long time, too stubborn to realize it. This and taking a vacation (from work) recently helped revitalize and inspire me to work on some projects I've been too tired to try. Let us know which path you follow and if it worked!

 

[LeSedna]

Today I did not wake up to fly. There are safety nets though (calling a stand by pilot), I think I personnally reached a point of tiredness because in the last 11 months I have :
- been integrated in a company
- done their challenging (which is internationnally recognized by, among others, the best airline in the world, which plans these year into recruiting 1200 pilots from our company because they just love our seriousness) ground training
- simulator training + final exam
- line training (integration on line with trainer captains)
- final exam on line
- been sent 4 times out of base randomly for a week
- passed the 6monthly simulateur check and then got only 2 days from the UK to Porto to relocate before my first day there
- been integrated in my final base, Porto
- been sent twice out of base after that
- passed the +3 months exam online

all of that without a real week off. Even if my weekend are made of 4 days off, it's tough, because i quite never leave the environment and there is always something remembering it me of work. I'm reaching a point of hard time because summer is the worst time for a pilot. It's good money wise (i'm paid to the hour) but I reach the maximum monthly limit of 100 flight hours (we legally do 900 max a year and usually 750 in my base) which is a LOT, in a normal airline you would do 70 which is already tiring.

So I simply didn't wake up, didn't hear the several alarms I set up every day, didn't hear the 7 calls of our Rostering, woke up 2 hours late, called them to apologize, then went back to sleep and slept 4 more hours and woke up at 12 instead of 4. And I have just no excuse for it, I'm just so tired.

So I'm spending my next 4 days off trying to relax as much as possible because there is no way they accept me placing extra days off (I have 10 a year + 1 month that I cannot chose, all unpaid) during july or august.

And currently my evasion is that hot lady I'm (more than) flirting with

But seriously I'm trying hard to find ways to relax. Even now my 4 days off are not totally off, but are dedicated to travel to Toulouse to do my yearly medical examination, but my father lives nearby, and I'm gonna use the shit out of his swimming pool, take a ridiculous sunbathe, play with his lovely dog in the swimming pool (she loves to jump and swim)...

 

[53Crëw]

Taking a break to clear your head helps.

Pursue some other interest if you have them... Hiking, photography, whatever...

Change your surroundings (go somewhere else for vacation.)

Simple diversions like going out to dinner a few nights, try some new restaurants, or go see a couple movies if you can't totally break away for a while.

Just do things to change your thoughts and environment and enjoy life for a while. That should help you start fresh later.

Good luck!

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

I've been at this level of burnout, or maybe worse, for about a year straight now and I pretty much just put my head down and deal with it. I try to tell myself like, what if I had to keep up this pace no matter what(ie. if i had a child, etc) I wanna know I am prepared even when it is killing me.

It's fucking tough sometimes though. Projects end up taking twice as long because it gets harder and harder to focus... and I really have to force myself to give a shit on a lot of projects- I just have to keep reminding myself that these people are essentially supporting my lifestyle and they deserve me to work my hardest.

I've been working on figuring out how I can take a full month off, but it's probably gonna end up being two weeks. and it will be really hard to completely stay away anyway. This business is brutal.

 

[Derykus]

Have a really bad experience not related to music or the studio.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I totally know where you're coming from.
Taking time off and not taking your work home is good advice.....but I too don't see how it'd be possible.
If you're fully booked and always behind your schedule (cause clients delay the hole process by several things, like not giving you feedback in time etc, which again leads to overlapping projects etc), you just cannot take time off and you have to work at home.
If I planned a vacation, the earliest possible date would be in a year or so, and even if I marked that time in my calendar some previous projects would hang into that time and make it impossible.
Not to mention the money you don't make in your time off etc.
And even if it would be possible, there's still the work related shit you'll have to deal with (I'm getting like 50 mails per day for example, if you ignore those for 2 weeks, you'll end up in an even bigger mess.
I totally hear you about burn out though, I'm at a point where I'm far less productive than I used to be....still sitting on the studio all day long of course, just not getting as much stuff done anymore.

 

[HCL]

Otherwise just fly some co-op with me in Rise of Flight . Good luck bro.

!

 

[StefTD]

almost everything that I could mention was already posted, but what really, really helps myself to relax
is cooking-not like taking a pizza from the fridge and put it in the oven.
I mean real cooking, going to get yourself good ingredients (there's a weekly market here for example
where you can buy lots of great stuff you won't get in a normal store) and cook something special for
yourself, the longer it takes, the better.
You have to organize yourself, there's no time for you to think about your work, it's fun and in the end
you get a great meal

Going out for a walk is nice, too, me and my girl just started walking around every evening for like 30-60
minutes, sometimes I go out alone, just walking around, there's sooo much going on in the world.
I live in a town that would be considered small in the USA and I am pretty interested in what's going on
but we still accidently went to a free blues and jazz open air concert that was like a mile away from my
home.

Fishing is cool, too.