Wenchy's World

Avoiding Webmaster Burnout

By

Wenchy

Adult Copy

Things in our industry have gone through some pretty major changes over the past few weeks and months and, as a result, life as a webmaster has changed drastically as well. The days of throwing a few pictures on a page and making tons of cash have gone the way of the dinosaur. Nowadays, in order to make adult website profitable, the webmaster must spend many more hours pounding away at the computer just to meet his/her bandwidth bill.

For those fortunate enough to be doing this full-time, the shift only meant adding a few hours to an already long work day. This is not necessarily a good thing, however. Most full-time webmasters were already putting in 40-60 hours in an average week and had no social life to speak of. I've heard horror stories of broken marriages, lost friends, and virtual unintentional isolation by a few webmasters who were absolutely dedicated to making their living on the Net. A vast majority of them will tell you it's worth it though, and that they wouldn't give it up if the alternative means doing the dance every day out there in nine-to-five land.

There is also a larger number of part-time webmasters (those also working outside in the "real" world) than ever before and for them, the added hours are problematic at best. Their days already consist of eight hours at work, two hours to commute, a couple of hours with the wife/girlfriend and kids (where applicable, of course), time for sleep, and an ever-increasing number of hours spent trying to make a buck on the adult Internet. All of a sudden they're working sixty to eighty hours a week and rapidly growing to hate the mere thought of their computers. Definitely not a good situation for anyone hoping to make the switch to full-time webmastering in the future.

In both cases, although obviously moreso for the part-timers, burnout is a very real occurrence. How do you know if you've got it? Your computer becomes Public Enemy No. 1... you grow to hate the mere site of that stupid electronic box sitting on your desk or table. The thought of actually sitting down and working, even if it's something as simple as checking your email or catching up on the webmaster boards, makes you want to throw yourself in front of a moving bus. You start manufacturing excuses and/or justifying any and all reasons to practice procrastination. Anything to avoid the computer!

Before you know it, you're six weeks behind on all your projects and the thought of trying to catch up is almost overwhelming. Your options become limited... either try to catch up and deal with the stress and hassle associated with it, or scrap whatever you left undone and start over again. Either way, your "burnout break" has just created a situation where you feel compelled to overdo it and try to cram in as many hours as you can to catch up, foregoing sleep, weekends, and your friends and family. Without realizing it, you've just set yourself up for a second bout with burnout.

So, how are you supposed to avoid burning out? I have a few tips that I personally practice and that have proven to be effective.

1.  Set a Schedule
This sounds simple enough, right up until you sit down to do it. The idea is to map out a weekly plan for yourself. Start with what you know... how many hours a day you have to invest and what you want to accomplish... then assign yourself projects to complete during your daily sessions.

The key to scheduling is to be very strict with yourself; when your time is up, walk away! There is nothing so critical that it can't wait until tomorrow! If necessary, take five minutes out at the end of your daily session to map out tomorrow's schedule. Sometimes this actually works better because you know what you're in the middle of and what you need to finish a project.

Be honest with yourself when making your schedule. You should know approximately how much time you'll need to say gather banners from your sponsors for a site or thumbnail pictures for your galleries. Try not to schedule a ton of things you know you won't have time for... it's self-defeating and won't encourage you to utilize this valuable tool.

You should treat your schedule as a progress report with specific goals for each day. You can even reward yourself for accomplishing everything on your list for a particular day if you wish. Another perk of scheduling is that you may actually find yourself being more organized and making more efficient use of your time.

2.  Take Frequent Breaks
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this item. At least 10 minutes of every hour you need to get up, stretch, walk around a bit, smoke a cigarette, take the dog out, go to the bathroom or the fridge... get your butt out of that chair! Not only is this good for you physically, it gives your brain a couple of minutes to rest. Use this time to regroup if needed, or to mentally map out your next step. Believe me... when you go back to your chair after your mini vacation, you'll feel refreshed and ready to jump back into your project with renewed energy.

3.  Change Tasks Often
You use different parts of your brain for different tasks. It makes sense then to switch sides, so to speak, fairly regularly. If you're in the middle of building a site and you start feeling drained or tired, switch over and go do some submissions or read a board or look at sponsor banners (be sure you save your work before you switch!). Sometimes checking out other sites via a link list or search engine can spark new ideas for whatever you're working on. (A word of caution here... beware that you don't steal pages! Ideas are one thing, someone else's work is a no-no!). Most of the time you shouldn't need to shift gears for more than ten or fifteen minutes, but you'll be amazed at what a difference it can make!

4.  Take a Day Off!
Yes, I'm serious. Personally, Sunday is my day. I watch the NFL and NASCAR, hang out with my son, do housework and laundry and yard work (in the summertime). I rarely even walk into my office on Sundays except to empty the garbage can heehee However, I had to learn the hard way that I desperately needed that one day a week to call mine and, now that I have it, there's no way I'd give it up!

I know it sounds simple. I also know that those of you that work full-time jobs might balk at the idea of losing a whole day, especially one that doesn't involve your "real" job. You don't necessarily have to use Sunday, though. If you're a Monday Night Football fan, maybe you'd rather take Monday off... or Friday so you can go out for beers with your friends. Whatever works best for you is fine, as long as you do it! Make it a habit and before long your day off will be as valuable to you as your work time.

Well, there you have it. My burnout protection tips probably aren't going to save the world, but if they can save just one webmaster from "losing it", that's enough for me.

I know that we all, whether full- or part-time webmasters, take our work very seriously. But sometimes that seriousness can get in the way of common sense and taking care of ourselves both mentally and physically. Some of the younger crowd may be able to do with less sleep, some of the more experienced webmasters may not need to spend as much time on tasks due to having learned effective shortcuts, but all of us have to put in more time now than ever in order to be successful. Take care of your business but don't forget to take care of YOU. It's a balancing act, but it's one you can learn and adjust to fit perfectly into your unique situation.

Best of luck to all, and may your surfers continue to whip it out...

Wenchy