Latest / The Burnout Podcast with Fexingo: Workplace Exhaustion, Recovery, and Sustainable Careers / How Career Burnout Reshapes Your Relationship with Time
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, I want to talk about something that comes up in almost every conversation I have with someone who's burned out. It's not sleep, not boundaries, not even workload. It's time. Luna: Time? Like, 'there aren't enough hours in the day' kind of time? Lucas: Exactly. But it's deeper than that. When you're burned out, time itself starts to feel different. It becomes this scarce, anxious-making resource. You're constantly racing against it, yet somehow also wasting it. There's a term for this — 'time scarcity.' And it's a hallmark of burnout. Luna: I know that feeling. It's like every minute has to be productive, but you're so exhausted that nothing feels productive enough. Lucas: Right. And the irony is, the more you try to squeeze productivity out of every second, the more burned out you get, which makes you less productive, which makes you feel even more pressed for time. It's a vicious cycle. I was reading some research by psychologist Cassie Mogilner Holmes — she studies time perception — and she found that when people feel time-scarce, they actually become less happy and more stressed, even if their objective workload hasn't changed. Luna: So it's not just about being busy. It's about how we perceive time. What changes when burnout sets in? Lucas: One big shift is that time starts to feel fragmented. You lose the ability to settle into a long, deep focus. Everything becomes urgent, but nothing feels meaningful. There's this concept called 'time confetti' — those tiny scraps of time you get between meetings, tasks, notifications. You try to use them productively, but they're so small that you end up just scrolling or half-working. And that leaves you feeling even more drained. Luna: Time confetti — I love that. It's like you're trying to build a career out of confetti pieces. It doesn't hold together. Lucas: Exactly. So one thing I've seen help is deliberately reclaiming bigger blocks of time — even if it's just thirty minutes — and protecting them like you would a client meeting. No phone, no Slack, no context switching. Just one thing, or even nothing. Rest counts. Luna: I think rest is the hard part. When you're in burnout mode, resting feels like a waste of time. But it's actually the only thing that breaks the cycle. Lucas: Totally. And there's research that shows when you focus on experiences rather than tasks, time actually expands. So if you treat a break as an experience — like making a cup of tea and actually tasting it, instead of just gulping it while checking email — you get more psychological time out of it. It's counterintuitive, but it works. Luna: So instead of trying to manage time better, we need to manage our relationship with time. That feels like a deeper shift. Lucas: It is. And it's harder because most time management advice is aimed at people who are already functional. For someone in burnout, the typical advice — 'just use a calendar more efficiently' — can actually make things worse. It adds another layer of pressure. Luna: So what's the first step? If someone listening is in that time-scarcity spiral, what can they actually do tomorrow? Lucas: I'd say start with one 'buffer block.' Pick a time of day — maybe 11 AM — and schedule a 15-minute block with no agenda. You can use it to breathe, stretch, stare out the window, whatever. The key is that it's not for 'catching up.' It's for existing. That alone can shift your sense of time from enemy to neutral. Luna: I like that. A permission slip to just be. I'm going to try that. Lucas: And another thing — be wary of the Pomodoro technique if you're burned out. The standard version — 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes break — can actually keep you in a state of high arousal all day. I've seen people modify it to 45 minutes of work with a 15-minute break where they actually step away from the screen. That longer break helps reset the nervous system. Luna: So it's about quality of breaks, not quantity. That makes sense. And I guess part of it is also giving yourself permission to do less. Because when time feels scarce, we tend to pack more in, which backfires. Lucas: Exactly. There's a concept called 'time affluence' — feeling like you have enough time. And studies show that people who feel time-affluent are happier, healthier, and even more productive in the long run. It's not about how many hours you have; it's about how you feel about them. Luna: That's a great note to end on. But before we wrap, I want to say something about this show. Lucas, we've been doing this for over a hundred episodes now, and we've never once run an ad. Lucas: Yeah, that's a deliberate choice. We don't want to interrupt these conversations with commercials. It just doesn't feel right for a show about burnout and recovery. If you've found value in any of these episodes — maybe it helped you reframe something or gave you a practical tool — and you want to support that ad-free approach, there's a link. Luna: It's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's it. No Patreon tiers, no exclusive content. Just a way to keep this space clean. And if it's not in the budget right now, honestly, just sharing an episode with a friend helps just as much. Lucas: Alright. Back to time. I think one more practical thing is to ask yourself: 'What would I do if I had all the time in the world?' Not the big answer — the small one. Maybe it's sitting on a bench for five minutes. And then give yourself permission to do that. Because in that moment, you do have the time. Luna: I love that. It's not about changing your whole schedule. It's about changing your relationship with the moments you already have. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where recovery starts.