Burnout for the struggling artist

You’re struggling, so you open some page on the internet that tells you about burnout.

It tells you to take time off.

Do yoga.

Eat healthy.

Take a stroll with the dog — imaginary or otherwise.

But that’s not something everybody can comfortably do. Sometimes stepping out of your creative abyss brings forth another problem: your wallet thinning while you “take a break.”

It feels like swapping one anxiety for another. And yet… there are ways to give yourself space without collapsing your life.

Know your creative flow

I can guarantee that when I’m working and I’m in the zone, I do way more than the canonical 8 hours per day — more like 12 straight.That means that every two weeks of work, I’ve effectively worked three.

If you’re like me and you work in vertical outbursts of ideas, you deserve a break. Not as a luxury — as maintenance.

Diversify a little

Sometimes you’ve simply had enough of one assignment. It happens.

So bring something new into the mix: a side gig, a smaller project, something that pulls you in a different direction.

My main one is doing stuff for te people at Tapblaze, the guys who created Good Pizza, Great Pizza, which I’ve been scoring since 2020. It’s fun, varied, and wildly unpredictable — one minute I’m writing tango, the next I’m sculpting chiptune-inspired tracks or seasonal music for Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Christmas…

Having variety helps a great deal. Now even more so since the release of Good Coffee, Great Coffee.

Find the environment that works for you

I’m writing this at 2:30 a.m. with trance music (Siskin, bless you) pumping in my ears.That’s when my brain finally clocks in and says, “Alright, let’s work.”

I’ve tried several “studio” configurations over the years, but eventually I migrated back to the bedroom — mainly because it’s the only room nobody uses during the day.The rest of the house is a traffic jam of regular daytime life: footsteps, conversations, doors, deliveries, appliances doing their things… civilization, basically.

The bedroom? Pure silence. A small, unclaimed pocket of the universe where I can actually think.

Not glamorous, but quiet — and that’s all you need sometimes.

Do something else (and no, Netflix doesn’t count)

Read.

Go out.

Eat an ice cream.

Go to a live music show.

Make love.

You can also try more ambitious combinations like making love at a live music show, or reading an ice cream. I won’t judge.

Just… do something else.

Find a hobby.

And no — Netflix is not a hobby. It’s an evil application that adds screen time to your screen time. I should know; I was geeking out about Star Trek before it was cool to geek out about Star Trek. Seriously: stay away from screens.

Stop multitasking your free time

If you go for a walk, you don’t need headphones.

Just your trainers.

Let your brain idle.

I fail at this constantly.

“I’ll put on the coffee and while it brews I’ll start my PC / read the news / clean the cat litter!”

I even feel proud of this absurd productivity acrobatics.

Bullshit.

The world taught us to “optimize our time” because we believe we don’t have any.

Secret: we do have it. We just use it very poorly.

Cramming every nook of “liberated” time with overlapping tasks is not the way.

Learn to get bored

Really.

Sit there.

Do nothing.

Your mind will wander — and that wandering is where ideas live when they’re too shy to knock.