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Burnout freelancer on Upwork. Causes, tools, solutions

I have often heard: “Upwork is hemorrhoids. I have to stupidly click the mouse, watch a movie on the laptop in order to sit more hours. So I went to XYZ ... ”. This thesis, personal problems with productivity, as well as a considerable number of self-help books, prompted me to write this post. My whole IT career is connected with Upwork (which was oDesk). This is a little, a lot of 10,000+ hours of work, 10+ years spent in this system, with short breaks.

But there was one serious problem, a bug in my mental system - it is a regular burnout from work, which I did not realize. It was bad, nervous, anxious, but the cause could not be found. She sat somewhere deep in the subconscious, buried deeper in early childhood and did not allow to see the real situation. How enlightenment came and what to do to avoid burnout - read under the cut.

Briefly about yourself


I started on oDesk'e, as an agency freelancer, then having established relations with a long-term client, I crawled into independence, that is, an individual freelancer. Including was the experience of working on the platform as a customer. In total, he hired 20 freelancers of different specializations, mostly developers and designers.

In short, I know this platform on both sides of the barricades.
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Over these 10 years, many habits have been developed. Formed so-called comfort zone and overall mentality and worldview. In my opinion - the environment and circumstances shape the character of a person. If you do not engage in your environment for a long time, then you can easily socially degrade , but more on that later.

Below we will discuss how to increase productivity and not to fade while working on Upwork . This clarification is not accidental, since my main experience as a developer is hourly contracts, with the time tracker turned on. Although most of the recommendations apply to any employee of the organization where they implement time tracking and similar software. And subjectively, this post will be useful for all knowledge workers (developers, administrators, copywriters, designers, marketers, and others, sorry I forgot), since most of it is about health and brain function, and tools to prevent burnout.

Personally, my main specialization is .NET development for desktop and web. But it was necessary, more than once, to impose, draw design, write documentation, design a database, engage in testing. A freelancer is “skillful hands”; he usually doesn’t have a narrow specialization, as is customary in large companies. The developer, which is again subjective, is the most energy-intensive specialization for the brain.

Therefore, in the post, I will start with the foundation, that is, with health. After 10 years of freelancing, I seriously thought about this issue, as my state of health often deteriorated and more than once brought me to a burnout, when I could not work physically due to exhaustion of brain resources. As they say, do not repeat the mistakes of others, make your own.

Pro components of your health


The picture on the right is part of your overall health. I wanted to describe this topic in more detail in a separate post, but once the inspiration was found and the topic closely intersects with the title of the post, then I will briefly describe the essence. This chart states that our health is divided into spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical. As you can see, the biggest circle is physical health, besides everything, it depends on all internal circles. Further, our emotions and mentality, it is the health of the brain, which we will examine in more detail below. And within everything - spiritual health, which is difficult to keep track of, but has a huge impact on the rest of the composer, and ultimately on your well-being. Not for nothing they say: "In a healthy body - a healthy mind."

In short, recommendations for each:


In the end, starting with a small, then trying to keep track of all four components of health - the chances that you will burn from work will be zero. This is how to develop the habit of brushing your teeth. By analogy, starting with one tooth, for example - get enough sleep. Go to brushing two teeth and so on until the habit for all teeth is developed. According to various sources, any habit is developed in 21-24 days, everyday repetition. I can recommend a famous book on the topic - The power of Habit . The division into components and part of the advice is taken from the book - Choose Yourself! .

About brain physiology and mental health


Briefly describe how the work of the brain, namely the prefrontal cortex . The prefrontal cortex is responsible for processing and analyzing abstract concepts, suppresses instinctive reactions such as hit or run, sets goals. Let's just say this is the facade or filter of our subconscious. If the resources of this part of the brain are exhausted, the minimum that awaits us is procrastination, and in terminal cases - increased nervousness, anxiety, irritability. To get rid of this, the subconscious pushes the person to any methods of solving the issue. Including alcohol, nicotine, promiscuous sex and so on.

At the same time, rational thinking is turned off, so the central processor doesn't care about morals and other bodies, it needs to restore the resource. So laid by nature and evolution.

By the way, the brain consciously works by 5-7%, the remaining 95% is your “software” installed during life, that is, the unconscious. The program of behavior works as it pleases, based on patterns, beliefs, following the crowd (the monkey sees - the monkey does), self-preservation instincts and others.

Therefore, for a long time focusing on a single task requiring active brain work, the resources of the prefrontal cortex are exhausted. The maximum time of concentration on one mental task is 30-40 minutes . After that comes an uninvited guest - Aunt Prokra.


We are starting to get distracted, get into social networks, frighten off videos, read habr. This is a natural reaction of the subconscious program, the brain needs rest and it seeks solutions in other places that are less energy consuming. And often he finds it in entertainment content, which temporarily provokes the release of dopamine. But choosing this path, the brain does not really relax. The release of dopamine knocks the reward system and return to the task more difficult, I want to be more distracted.

And here Upwork?


Let's go back to the hourly work at Upwork. For a long time working on this platform, I have a pattern - more hours = more than $ . I often sat out for 10 hours in a row (a record of 16), knocking on the clave for the first 3–4 hours and stuffing the code, and then procrastinating, made the tired brain write at least a line. A couple of 10-minute breaks for a snack - that's all the rest. I want to emphasize that it was hatching , and not productively worked.

Needless to say, by the end of the day I was squeezed out of a lemon and walked like a zombie, without any desire to do anything. Burnout .

In general, such an 8-10-hour mode without take-out and rest, I kept a maximum of 2 weeks, then I needed a pit stop.

I met aliens (landed in India) who worked 16 hours every day. How they did it, I did not recognize. Maybe like in the movie “Taxi”, when one Korean taxi driver sleeps in the trunk, then the other is driving, then they change. “Who will distinguish a Korean from a Korean? (with)".

When I started my career at the age of 20, of course, I didn’t realize how much damage I did to health, I didn’t know the words procrastination and the prefrontal cortex either. The only thing that interested me was the amount of $ earned per week. Although, despite the age, the alarm bells and procrastination occurred repeatedly, as well as pit stops. Ultimately, by the age of 30, it was easy to calculate that health had gone down and, willy-nilly, I began to look for a solution to the problem.

The problem is called burnout and exhaustion. Work is not on the result, but on the amount of $ . Mentality $ = hour. It is my deep conviction that the Upwork tracking system should be focused on the result, not on the number of hours.

At least have such an option. You say: “but there is a Fixed-Price!”. There is, but the ideal horse in a vacuum, for long-term projects, should look like Jira or any other SUP. You enter the time spent on the task → customer apruvit → you receive a profit. All in one system. Upwork would act as a guarantee of payment, as well as on Hourly-projects. Fixed-price is not adapted for tracking tasks, and milestones are available only on the client side. Too much of a smut in the end, so people often go to the remote with direct payment, when confidence has formed between the customer and the performer.

How to recharge?


(from English. recharge - recharge) I have already written a short tip: tired - rest. The younger you are, the more energy and energy you have in solving mental problems. But still, you need to develop a habit so that a red light lights up in your head when you feel tired and your brain refuses to give a result. If in more detail, the following is a list of recommendations that will help avoid burnout :

- Use the "Tomato" method

In other words, alternate work and rest as often as possible. Let's rest the brain after an active working sprint in order to avoid procrastination and overwork. This is an important tip for this post. It was he who led me to the proper organization of my working time. The technique is based on short sprints up to 40 minutes of work (remember the resource of the prefrontal cortex) and then 5-15 minutes of rest. The default proportion is 25/5 minutes. I use a proportion of 40/10 minutes to fall out of the stream less often and rest more. In addition, it does not affect the money earned, the tracker takes a screenshot on average every 10 minutes or more.

What to do in 5-10 minutes of rest?
The main goal is to rest the brain. Switch to reading social. networks, blogs, books or videos are not an option. Dopamine will add a little, but the effect in terms of rest will be small. Therefore, I personally do one of the following:


What else can you do:


General advice - you need to turn off the prefrontal part, by doing something with your hands that you can do on the machine. Embroider a cross, solder, collect layouts, also suitable, if it does not require mental effort. Thus, your pre-frontal part normalizes its resource and you can continue to encode, write texts, draw designs.

Tool:

  1. I use Tomaighty (available on Windows and Mac) - as this is a very simple solution with a timer and sound signals. There are many more options, from gaming, with character pumping, to mobile applications.

- Observe the mode of operation and the mode of rest
In freelancing, chaos is a common occurrence. This is his dignity and his main drawback. To teach oneself to work according to the regime is to live easier. You maintain a rhythm and do not overwork without need. You know when you go to bed and when you have free time. Yes, we have the opportunity to do other things at any time and for the majority - to work at any time. But in priority - try to comply with the regime.

Tool:


- Update the situation and types of tasks
If you add newness to the workflow, the prefrontal cortex remains in good shape. The new brain always reacts, because it is important for survival. "I did not have time to navigate - did not survive." Change the setting and type of tasks.

Situation:


Task Type:

Freelancers usually have frequent task rotations. Especially designers, copywriters, on average, have many times more orders and tasks than developers. Therefore, I can give advice to developers, especially for long-term projects:


- Use the tracker of mood and health. For example, the Pacifica application does a great job of it. In it, you can describe and improve your mood, receive notifications “How do you feel?”, Use the inhalation / exhalation technique and meditation, set goals for health and in general, and much more.

Upwork Tracker Tips


  1. If you are annoyed by notifications, disable them. For example, yes. It is better then to go to Work Diary and remove the excess, than to sweat because of the constant screenshot notifications. In the place of Upwork, I would generally make this window as inconspicuous as possible, that is, semi-transparent and small. By the way, for 10 years, I got only one harmful customer who strictly monitored the screenshots and demanded to remove those that in his opinion do not apply to work. The remaining ~ 50, always treated normally, if I check mail for example, answer in the messenger or go to the forum. Voltage from surveillance - this should reduce.

  2. Use hotkeys to start and stop time tracking. For example, you urgently need to switch to a non-working task, press Ctrl + Alt + PgDown. Again, go back to the task - Ctrl + Alt + PgUp. This is set up in my HotKeys tab, the default shortcut keys are different.


  3. Add time manually . If you have established a trusting relationship with a client, feel free to click Add Manual Time if, for example, the Internet disappeared or you worked outside the desktop (collected by a robot). Or, let's be honest, just zadolbalis from tracking your actions. After all, the result is important for the customer - not screenshots. Of course, the other side of the medal is that Upwork does not guarantee payment of manual time, and the customer himself must be warned by you before he is billed. Therefore, the key word here is trust .

  4. Put a “View Work Diary” reminder at the end of the workday until it becomes a habit. For example, while I was writing this post, the tracker was suddenly ON. I hide the icon itself from the tray in order to completely ignore the fact that I am working under supervision.

  5. Write a monetary goal for the week and write it on a sticker with a pencil so that it is in front of your eyes. At the end of the day, erase the graph for how many hours or $ is left to the goal, and enter the new numbers taking into account the accumulated. Thus, you daily control your income and workloads, and are motivated for faster fulfillment and overfulfilment of the goal. But do not forget about overwork and rest!

  6. Put the Upwork mobile app . This will keep your finger on the pulse when you are offline. The same applies to the mobile versions of instant messengers that the client and the team use. Be it Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, but more often Slack, Flowdock and the like.

  7. Close the Upwork application on the desktop to finish the job. I have a habit of not turning off the computer at all, so as not to waste time loading. I know about hibernation, but it does not work on my hardware and still wait. Instead of a thousand words, one picture, after the day of the upwork desktop app enabled:

    Upwork eats memory

How much more memory will eat upwork.exe and how other programs will be loaded - you can guess. Request with this bug sent to Upwork'a support, waiting for an update.

In conclusion, I would like to say that adherence to these principles, namely, to monitor health and alternate coding and rest during the day, saved me from many problems that were associated with overwork. Productivity increased and the energy was enough for a lot more cases. Now I spend more time with my family, eliminated alcohol from use, I visit interesting events, so as not to drop out of society, I pump technical and other skills.

Do not forget about health and career success!

PS Useful related links


How to prevent emotional burnout
» How to minimize occupational diseases in IT
» How not to procrastinate and recharge in time

UPD from comments from niksite :
» Slack Community OdeskConf
» Guide to work at Apvorka

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/318340/

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