Well, a rough metric I’ve used is “I feel like I have a substantial increase in the likelihood of crashing my car into something or someone else if I attempt to commute to work today, because of exhaustion.”
After all, if you’re THAT worn out, even if you get to work you may just be staring at a screen blankly and getting nothing done for half the day anyway, so you really shouldn’t be billing hours to people.
That’s not perfect, but it also heavily depends on what your job is and your ability to get work done when at or near burned out, and your vacation/sick schedule, so I’m not sure if there’s going to be a single answer for everyone.
I think it’s pretty difficult and relies on you knowing yourself and being willing to push yourself. I think a good rule of thumb is if you’ve completed three pomodoros (or equivalent) in a row, you can justifiably take a 30 minute break (and then go and do three more pomodoros).
I know where my burnout point is only because I once pushed myself until I burnt out. Though I may still revisit that point again in the future and try to go past it.
Here’s a question: How can you tell the difference between “I need a break or I’ll burn out” and “Video-Gamer-Link wants to video game”?
Well, a rough metric I’ve used is “I feel like I have a substantial increase in the likelihood of crashing my car into something or someone else if I attempt to commute to work today, because of exhaustion.”
After all, if you’re THAT worn out, even if you get to work you may just be staring at a screen blankly and getting nothing done for half the day anyway, so you really shouldn’t be billing hours to people.
That’s not perfect, but it also heavily depends on what your job is and your ability to get work done when at or near burned out, and your vacation/sick schedule, so I’m not sure if there’s going to be a single answer for everyone.
I think it’s pretty difficult and relies on you knowing yourself and being willing to push yourself. I think a good rule of thumb is if you’ve completed three pomodoros (or equivalent) in a row, you can justifiably take a 30 minute break (and then go and do three more pomodoros).
I know where my burnout point is only because I once pushed myself until I burnt out. Though I may still revisit that point again in the future and try to go past it.