How I deal with burnout (two remote jobs)

I spent 8 months working two full time remote tech jobs and got extremely burnt out.

In this video I talk about the things I do to avoid getting overwhelmed with work and not get burnt out.

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Getting good sleep is a major key to avoiding burnout. A trick that I use to fall asleep fast is to read fiction books right before bed. It slows down your mind and helps you to get your mind off work. I mean how can you think about work when you're lost in Branden Sanderson's world of Mistborns and inquisitors. I also use Andrew Hubberman's Sleep cocktail. It's a set of supplements that can help you sleep.

Another way to avoid burnout is to cut down on screen time, specifically things like social media, online shopping and anything else that tends to make you anxious or make you feel behind, like you have a lot to do. It's weird how finding the perfect jacket online, reading the reviews, watching videos on jackets, can take over my thoughts and make me feel like I have so much to do.

The next thing is HARD exercise. When you're struggling to breath and your legs are burning and your mind is telling you to stop, to turn back, it's hard to be stressing about work. My favorite form of hard exercise is the bike. Last year while I was working two jobs I was training for a 200 mile bike race. Those long days on the bike were some of the most peaceful and present times that I had and when you get back home you're much more relaxed and nothing is that big of a deal, especially work.

Other things that have helped me a lot are meditation, talking to my company about my workload, be ok letting people down or not being a tippy top performer for a time.

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When the pandemic hit everyone was forced to work from home. I set up my home office and got to work. I work as a User Experience (UX) designer at a tech company.

When you work from home you realize that you have a lot more time to get your work done. You're not being distracted by people in the office trying to talk to you or long lunches with co-workers or time spent commuting.

I used my extra time to do freelance and contractor work. I realized that instead of the inconsistent work and downtime between projects I could get another full time remote job and double my income. For jobs like UX, product management and web development (coding, engineering), the job depends on the work, not on meetings or anything else. If I could get my work done then both companies would be happy and I could make a lot more money.

Well I pulled it off and worked two jobs for 8 months. I was able to pay off debt, pay off both of our cars, dabble in crypto and NFTs and put some money away.

It wasn't until after my two jobs experience that I realized there is an entire online community doing this. It's called Overemployed. They're on Reddit:   / overemployed  
If you have questions about working two remote jobs they have some great resources. There is also a discord group where you can chat with people that are currently doing it.