Below are signs and sources of burnout. If you can relate to a large majority of the signs on this page, consider implementing more healthy mental health practices to improve your mental health. Feel free to reach out to your lead or another trusted individual to help speak about your concerns and come up with better strategies.

Feel free to edit and add onto this page!

Signs of Burnout

• Feeling like you don’t have enough time to finish all your tasks

• Not receiving a full 8 hours of sleep (or whatever amount you require to properly function)

• Not enough breaks or rest

• Not setting boundaries with respect to Midnight Sun, e.g. overcommitting time and energy

• Not having fun with Midnight Sun anymore

• Not learning anything or feeling growth

• Feeling a lack of freedom; feeling like you don’t have the freedom to accept and decline tasks

• Academics dropping more than preferred

• Hair is falling out (from high stress)

• Constant anxiety (going to sleep stress, waking up stress)

• Irritable moods

• Easily anxious

• Not having time to take part in hobbies

• Feeling guilty for doing something that is not Midnight Sun related

• Having to decide between work or fun on Sunday Sabbath

• Imposter syndrome; feeling like you are not qualified or smart enough for your role; comparing oneself to the achievements of the previous lead

Sources of Burnout

• Lack of a strong onboarding/training procedure which requires leads to be overly involved in the new member’s work during the term

• There are too many meetings

• There is not a set routinely schedule for work (including remote, onsite, meetings, and design reviews)

• Leads taking on too much responsibility

• Low amount of members contributing to minor tasks which results in leads working overtime to catch up on progress. Extremely bad because the time of leads are better spent on other items

• Having Midnight Sun on my mind for too many days of the week

• Not having a clear idea of where to seek for help on challenging issues

• Ineffective leadership handover

• Low quality deliverables of members

  • Resulted in more meetings

  • Might have been a result of weak onboarding/training process

  • Ended up repeating the same advice to multiple groups/individuals

• Low member retention rate = more leads doing grunt/trivial work

  • Also leads to lower trust in handing out tasks, kind of a vicious cycle here

• Lack of lead position succession security - being unsure if there are members to properly succeed you in your role and therefore feeling stuck in your role.

• Documentation/knowledge reference on previous design decisions and processes etc. :(

  • Compounded by how niche some of the work done is, no alternate resources; especially for composite work.