Going somewhere quiet to reset after burning out: what helped, and week three
Left for a small coastal place for two months. It helped, and not in the way I expected, and there is a predictable bad patch nobody warned me about.
What helped
- A fixed, dull daily shape. Same walk, same time, same cafe. The point was not the activities, it was not making decisions.
- Physical work. Anything with a visible result at the end of an hour. Walking, cooking properly, fixing something.
- Being somewhere with nothing to achieve. No sights, no list. A place with things worth seeing turns into a project.
- Leaving the work devices in a drawer rather than deleting anything. Deleting made me anxious; a drawer was enough.
Week three
Weeks one and two feel wonderful. Week three is boredom and a strong urge to fill the time productively, and that is the moment the whole thing either works or turns into working from a nicer location. Sitting through it was the actual treatment.
What did not help
The place itself, mostly. Two people I know did the same thing and it did nothing for them, and the difference was whether they had actually stopped or merely relocated. Somewhere quiet makes stopping easier; it does not do the stopping for you.
Nothing here is advice about anyone's health. It is what a few of us did.
@moving_didnt_fix · 3w ago
Moved twice hoping the place was the variable. It was not. The second time I brought the same schedule and the same three open loops and got the same result in better weather.
What changed things was ending the loops, not moving. If you cannot stop before you go, you will not stop when you arrive, and a nice view makes it easier to not notice.
Reply
Report