creative burnout – Performance Zen

Through 2007, the number of posts I made per day/week/month decreased steadily. I know post new items 2-3 items a month, or less. After 2 years of steady entries, I just didn’t have anything to add to the conversation.

Having been an A-list groupie for this entire period, I lost touch with the self-perpetuating scene. A comment that I saw on Top Gear summed it up: Jeremy Clarkson had another chat show host on, and they both commented on how all British chat show hosts end up appearing on each others shows.

That’s how blogging began to feel to me. I began to step back.

I stepped back from true, active day-to-day management of GrabPERF.

I drifted, intellectually and emotionally.

I found the sharp edge of my humor, which had wandered off and gone hitchhiking through the British Isles disguised as Roger Daltrey for six months.

The last few weeks I have been asking myself if I want to go back to blogging, if I want to continue to produce the random ideas for the world to see.

The death of my grandmother a few weeks ago brought my world back into sharp focus. Who is going to see these stories, these tales? Who will be the keeper of my intellectual flame? What will people know of me when I fade away.

I will be trying to storm back. My brain is here.

I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER.

Ok…maybe that was delusional. But hang on for another wild ride.

NOTE: This was written in 2006. I achieved 1.5 of the 3 items.

I am working for a different company – 3 different companies counting acquisitions.
I am working in the Pacific Northwest, just not in one of the major cities
I am not living in Canada, but I can see it from my desk while I work.

Scott Berkun has an excellent essay on creative burnout.

For those of you who read this and may know me, this is a hard thing to accept. That I have gone so hatd at something for so long that it no longer excites me. Yes, there are elements of it that do motivate me, but the day-in, day-out work of taking apart companies’ Web performance data, answering the same questions, and hearing the same questions is no longer fun.

I used to live for this sort of thing. I would work from 06:00 – 00:00 because there were so many cool and interesting problems to solve. Now I heat those some questions and almost roll my eyes.

I have been immersed in this field for so long that I have lost a lot of my focus. But now I am asking questions that are the foundation of my life.

Where do I want to be in 5 years? Short Answer: Working in Canada, consulting and speaking to an international audience on trends in Web performance from a technical and process standpoint
Will I be working for the company I am working for now? Not likely.
Where will I be living? At minimum in one of the Pacific Northwest’s triad (Vancouver/Victoria, Seattle or Portland). Preferably near but not in Victoria, where I can easily get flights to my gigs.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and thinking how much better I would feel being closer to home. I accepted this move as a way to get out of one backward, dead-end job, but I often find myself questioning if it was a good move, or simply one of convenience.

Last night, I updated my resume/CV. Tomorrow, I will transfer it to Word, Text and PDF formats. Time to hit the pavement again.

Tag: creative burnout

The fading of blogging

Creative Burnout and the Future