Coming out of hibernation

We’re only at the end of January but already “burnout” is the word on everyone’s radar. There have been viral articles, videos, think pieces and there have been a lot of us feeling it. While I may not agree with all of the commentaries, I do know all about the feeling of being burned out. It had consumed me at the end of last year.

So, I decided that “in order to preserve what’s left of my sanity and my stability. [I was] thinking of taking a period of hibernation over this winter.” I planned it out and then I took a fortnight off all work and then a further month away from this blog to hibernate.

Planning is all well and good, but when it actually came to taking the time off there were three key things that I really focused in on and felt the benefits of resting, nesting, and ingesting.

First, let’s talk about resting. For me, going home is always the best way to switch off. I get to spend time with my dog which is something I end up yearning for somewhere in my soul when I’ve been away too long. My mum looks after me, even though she really doesn’t need to and probably shouldn’t. I’m so focused on being there, with them, I stop checking my phone and scrolling through feeds after feeds of content that isn’t nourishing. I go to bed earlier. I enjoy the lack of London rush. I am home. So the time I had there over Christmas, which totalled out to around ten days went some way to curing the tiredness I was feeling in my bones at the end of the year.

I talked a little about nesting in my hibernation post originally. I wanted to spend sometime before the new year to get my house, literally, in order. I’d like to say I got on the clear your shit up train before the Marie Kondo series mania, but I’m not sure what good it would do me. Taking the time to properly deep clean my space and reorganise left me feeling calmer, as it always does. I made sure everything had a place to go to; you have no idea the transformative power a shoe rack has had on my life. I also organised my digital files. I created templates for the documents I create most and structure around folders which had become dumping grounds. When you get busy, or at least when I get busy, things fall through the cracks and then after a while, bad habits are made. So, I reset and built a nest I wanted to come home to.

Finally, I ingested as much new content as I could. I watched films and TV. I read more. I’ve been to museums and parks. I’ve eaten new food. Mnemosyne, memory, is the mother of the nine muses. Remembering, putting ideas back together, is the foundation for all inspiration. If you don’t have memories to put back together, you don’t have anything to support your creativity.

But after that period of hibernation, I struggled to get back to my desk. I’d lost any inertia I had that had kept me running, even when all I had was fumes. Perhaps, that’s because I was still tired, even though I had plenty of ideas. Perhaps, it was a sign that I really needed to just sit and watch Netflix. But perhaps, it was a symptom of just going for a hard stop with very little preparation.

When you’re running you don’t stop by suddenly collapsing to the ground having a nap on the road and then have the expectation you can leap up and hit running pace immediately. You slow down. Then you sit. Then you rest (hopefully in the comfort of your own home). Then you get up again. You might walk at first. Then, and only then, do you start running.

There should be something similar when you take a break. There needs to be a transition period to help you adjust, to acclimatise to your new pace.

I think of it a bit like jet lag. Once you know it’s coming and you can give yourself space to deal with it, it doesn’t leave you half as wobbly.

Hibernation isn’t a sustainable solution to burn out. Working to a point of exhaustion and then taking a couple of weeks off – then having to fight myself to get going again – doesn’t make for a good lifestyle.

I need monthly, weekly, daily reminders that I’m not a shark. I can and should stop. I have to prioritise my life over a faux-need to be productive. My work will be better for it. But more importantly, I will be better for it.

But it’s easy to type that. It’s much harder to deal with the nagging sense of guilt when I’m not making and to shake the idea that when I am making it should always be for an audience, for external value.

I’m working on it.

In practical terms, going forward from here I’m abandoning my official content schedule. I don’t want to compromise quality, whether that’s in what I make for you or for clients, or in the life, I make for myself, for nothing more than strict adherence to a self-imposed consistency measure. That said, I still think I’ll write about two posts a week. There’s a huge list of things I want to write and illustrate and share with whoever may be out there. But I’m going to share when it’s time to share, rather than when the excel demands it.

Natalie