Huberman Lab Clips
How to Avoid Burnout | Dr. Cal Newport & Dr. Andrew Huberman
Dr. Cal Newport and Dr. Andrew Huberman discuss the root causes of burnout, highlighting how modern work practices, such as the constant checking of emails and continuous involvement in meetings, resulting in less time for meaningful work, contribute to the feeling of exhaustion and disengagement.
Cal Newport, Ph.D. (@CalNewportMedia) is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University and bestselling author of numerous books on focus and productivity and how to access the deepest possible layers of your cognitive abilities in order to do quality work and lead a more balanced life. Dr. Andrew Huberman is a tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford University School of Medicine and host of the Huberman Lab podcast.
Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/p4ZfkezDTXQ
Show notes: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-cal-newport-how-to-enhance-focus-and-improve-productivity
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Timestamps
00:00 Exploring Burnout: Definitions and Personal Insights
00:15 The Poetic Perspective on Burnout and Wholeheartedness
00:44 Diagnosing Burnout in Knowledge Work: Quantity vs. Quality of Work
01:04 The Administrative Overhead: A Major Contributor to Burnout
01:49 The Psychological Impact of Modern Work Practices
02:40 The Absurdity of Current Work Culture and Its Effects
04:11 The Role of Digital Communication in Workplace Burnout
07:28 Cultural and Organizational Shifts Needed for Change
08:42 Envisioning the Cognitive Revolution in Knowledge Work
11:15 Concluding Thoughts and Invitation to Watch Full Episode
#HubermanLab #CalNewport #Studying
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I'm interested in this concept of burnout. Yeah. We hear about burnout. We associate with too much
adrenaline, lack of sleep, tired and wired, feeling disengaged. The poet, David White,
has a beautiful poem, I forget the title about
burnout where he says that, I think the cure to burnout
is wholeheartedness. And I always like that
it's a bit more abstract than the kinds of things
we're talking about today. But I like that because there's something
about wholeheartedness, really leaning into something with the true desire to be
there and to explore it, no matter how hard, that is the opposite extreme of burnout. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think burnout in, if we're thinking knowledge work, like people with office
jobs, my diagnosis there, it's not exactly quantity of
work, that does play a role. It's the kind of work, because
I think what's happening, what's been deranging actually
for people in these jobs is workloads are getting larger, in part because communication
is low friction, and we always want to be
demonstrating activity because of pseudo productivity, and people are always
asking us to do things and we say yes. Everything we say yes to brings with it administrative
overhead, right? Which is talking about the
thing, but not actually doing it. So it's like emails about the commitment, it's meetings about the commitment, because our workloads are larger, what happens then is
more and more of our time has to service this
administrative overhead because everything we say yes to brings with it its own overhead, it adds up, it aggregates, right? So now more and more of our
day is spent talking about work and not actually doing the work, and then make it even worse, it's not like this overhead
is all batched together, it's sort of spread out
throughout your day. So it's also putting you in that state of constant distraction, which
makes it hard to do work. What I think is burning people out is they're now in this
state where they're saying, I'm spending most of my
day talking about work, sending emails, attending meetings. Very little time is left to actually make progress on the work, and then the workload
gets larger and larger. This by itself is deranging, right? It feels like you're in some
sort of nihilistic experiment. Like, what is this? Why do I have six hours of meetings? I'm not actually, this can't
be the right way to work and then what happens of course is you have to recover
time in the morning, in the afternoon, maybe
after kids go to bed to try to actually make progress. So now you also have just a
straight work quantity issue. So you're working more hours,
there's an energy drain. But I think that psychological piece of this can't possibly make sense. That like, I am checking
email once every two minutes and spent six hours in Zoom, like doing very little
actual high value work. Like this can't be the right way to work. That's what I think the
burnout epidemic right now is coming from is that
psychological component of, we all know this is stupid, but no one is saying the
emperor has no clothes on. We all know that the amount of
email and meetings I'm doing is such a waste of my salary. Like this is a highly trained brain, like I could be writing
these reports or this code or creating these business strategies, but we're all just accepting this. I think the absurdity
of the current situation is creating as much of the burnout as it is just, we also have
to add these extra hours. There's just like a straight
aggregation of work quantity. It's almost analogous to
taking professional athletes or would be professional athletes and having them do a bunch
of other physical labor so that they're showing
up not fresh for the game and little micro injuries
and distracted and- And no one's admitting that
this doesn't make sense and everyone's just getting injured and no one's talking about it. So it's the absurdity of it
would drive people crazy, and it is driving people crazy. It's so difficult though
because certain things like smartphones are very
useful on the hospital ward. I mean, doctors can communicate, nurses communicate so much faster now, parents and kids can communicate, Who's going to pick up the kids? Nope, got stuck in
traffic. You go this way. Alternate route on Google
maps and, and on and on. So it's all woven in with stuff that's also highly adaptive. It makes it tough. Yeah. You know, it's almost like the work of being a selective filter-
Yeah. is half the work of trying to
deload the cognitive systems that would allow you to do deep work. Yeah, well and the workplace
is even harder than that because part of the
issue is email and Slack, let's just say digital communication. I spent a lot of time
studying that closely, right? From like a techno critic standpoint, the introduction of digital communication to the workplace and the problem there is the reason why we're checking this all the time, it's not some like individual
habit de optimization. It's not, oh, I should
just check this less often. What happened is when we introduced low friction digital
communication to the office, this emerging consensus came about that said, great, let's
just use ad hoc messaging as our major way of collaborating. Like we can just figure
things out on the fly. I can just be like, Andrew, what's going on with the whatever? And you can answer me
and I can send it back. This was very convenient,
the activation cost was low and so this is how we began
actually collaborating on work. Now what happens is as
workloads get higher, we now have many things at the same time, they're all generating these asynchronous back and forth conversations. Most of these have some sort
of time sensitivity, right? So if I email you and say like, what's going on with like the
guests coming later today? we have to kind of resolve
this before later today so now, it's not just that these messages are going back and forth with
all these different threads, but I have to keep checking my inbox to make sure the gap's not too big. This is not a failure of habits,
it's not a moral failure, it's necessitated by the fact that all these back
and forth conversations have to keep moving forward. So it is difficult then
if you're in this system to step out by yourself because this is the
way we're collaborating is these asynchronous
back and forth messages and I can't disengage myself from that without slowing things down. Like from a mathematical
game theory point of view, it's a suboptimal nash equilibrium. It's not the right place, not
the right way to run this, the utility value of this
configuration is low, but no one individual can
deploy a different strategy that's going to be higher value. We're stuck in it, right? And so now it becomes really
hard for an individual just to say, I want to
check my email less often. It's built in systemically into this hyperactive hive mind workflow and the only way to break free from the suboptimal configuration is to basically have
the organization itself do like a really high cost
change to the rules of the game. These are how we're collaborating now. We're not using email freely anymore. We're going to use this system instead. Here, it it's a very
expensive top down procedure to free ourselves from the suboptimality. It's like in the world of work, that's partially why this is
such an intractable problem and I tried to write a
book about this recently and it was really hard to gain traction because it's not easy to solve this. Like no individual can move out of this, and you have to put in a lot
of energy as an organization to try to change this. So, in some sense, email
is a more insidious problem than social media on the phone, because at least over here,
this is my engagement with this and I might have these
moderate behavioral addictions, but I could make differences here. In my company, oh, this is much worse. This is like a systemic problem. It's an emergent deterministic work impact on a economic, social, cultural system that was completely dynamical and went in a way we didn't really expect. So it's a really tough
situation sometimes, especially in the world of work. How do we get out of this
constant distraction? It's why, you know, I wrote “Deep Work” and I was like, well, why
don't people just do this? That's why they don't just do this because it's not so easy
to reclaim this time. Well, it's like when I was a
graduate student in postdoc, I was focused on eating pretty well, meaning just cleanish food and people talked less
about that at that time. Yeah. I was also really committed
to exercise since I was 16, people were less committed to that in the academic sector at that time. Now I think it's commonplace for people. Like, I'm going to my yoga class, I'm doing my zone two
cardio, I go to the gym, you know, men and women do this. Yeah. I remember having like this
like sneak off to the gym like yeah, yeah and you know, you felt like a bit of an odd ball if you were the one bringing your lunch to the, you know, the pizza luncheon. Yeah. Not that there's anything
wrong with pizza, love pizza but I was trying to eat well. I have for a long time. I feel better when I do and
I'm grateful that I did. But you get some weird looks like, “Oh, do you have an eating
disorder or something like that?” That's what people would say then. Yep. Now people would probably look, you know, that looks better than the pizza people start to understand. So I think there needs
to be a cultural shift. Yep. And I think there has
been a cultural shift around food and exercise. Certainly food, meditation, sleep. Yep. I think people are far more accepting and actually encouraging of their workers and coworkers taking really good care in order to function better for longer. Yeah. I think it's going
to be the next revolution and it's going to be a revolution
that's going to unlock, we're talking on the scale of
like a trillion dollar GBP. When we go through knowledge
work and have this revolution, I call it like the cognitive revolution. Let's take really seriously how
the brains our workers work. Like these are our number one assets. Like, not to be too mechanistic about it, but what is our main capital asset if we're a knowledge work organization? We have some buildings, but
it's really these brains that we have like
employment contracts with. These brains create value. Let's take seriously how
the brains actually operate and as soon as we do,
we'll say, “Oh my god, these brains are checking
email once every two minutes. What a disaster.” It's like if we had a car
factory and we spent $20 million on one of these German
robots that can, you know, put cars on the doors or whatever and we just weren't taking care of it and it was like rusty and
it was dropping the doors and the production
pipeline was going down. It's like, this is crazy, we got to take care of
this equipment, right? When we have the cognitive revolution, the sort of cognitive capital
revolution and knowledge work, I think it's going to unlock
a trillion dollar GDP. I think that's how
unproductive we've been. If we just think in the pure raw terms of brains producing
stuff that's worth money. Like if we're just like
super deterministic and kind of inhumane about
it, so much is being lost because we're in these
suboptimal nash equilibriums, everyone just email everyone all the time, everyone's just on Slack all the time, that when we finally have the
revolution to get over that, it's going to be a massive economic hit. And you know, AI might
play a role in this, right? Because maybe AI, once it
gets planning capabilities, is going to be able to take the burden of some of the back and forth planning, I think it's easier to get
there with cultural shifts, I don't think we have to wait to build an email capable Chat GPT to do this, like you could solve this tomorrow, This is cultural as
much as it's tool based. But I think it's going
to be a huge revolution when we get there. Akin to like the assembly
line in manufacturing, which was like a 10x improvement
in productivity metrics, when we figured out the
continuous motion assembly line with interchangeable parts was a massive, it created this productivity engine, I'm using the economic
sense of productivity now, you know, dollars per
worker, the economic miracle that came from this process-based
industrial innovations in the late 19th, early 20th century that the money generated by that, the wealth generated by that was the foundation of the modern west. Like the whole world as
we know it was built. So there's these huge latent potentials, and right now I don't think
we're there with the brain and I think it's going
to be a huge revolution. It's just difficult, right? It's not an easy revolution to start, but I think it's going to
change whole industries in ways that we're not, it's
going to be hard to even imagine. Thank you for tuning into the
Huberman Lab Clips channel. If you enjoyed the clip
that you just viewed, please check out the full
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#Avoid #Burnout #Cal #Newport #Andrew #Huberman
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This is great explanation!
If i engage in a activity giving my 100% being super eficient and disciplined, i can go a few months that way but when the burnout hits… I go months without doing anything productive
Guys do you have any idea to reduce burnout while being pressurized?
Please invite Dr Alex Kim Pang, he also wrote book on work/rest
You did an excellent job!
Great episode
We all realize we are renting our lives. We pay to survive monthly. All of our time is spent on the hamster wheel for moments of reprieve only to stress that we aren't running on the wheel fast, or hard enough so next month we will get ahead. Ahead of what? It's a loop, not a line
This is exactly it
Can we can an actual video aboout burnout and not only about office workers??? Nobody talks about no office people
You're not just helping individuals – you're creating a movement of people who know change is possible. I’m right there with you.
Marx actually pretty much diagnosed it in the 1800s through his concept of alienation. The most burned-out occupation today by the way is not office staff but nurse assistants. Why? Because their work is undervalued and carried out under extreme, often unrealistic conditions. They are expected to perform altruistic labor, running tirelessly between patients and even skipping basic needs like toilet breaks, because people's lives depend on them. This creates a combination of absurd expectations—demanding the impossible—and genuine emotional investment in life-and-death work. Yet, society places their profession at the bottom of the value hierarchy.
On top of this, these roles are predominantly filled by women, who often shoulder additional responsibilities for children and relatives. Marx's concept of alienation applies here because care work—essential for maintaining and reproducing society—is inherently ill-suited to a profit-driven logic. Yet, under capitalism, it becomes competitive and profit-margin driven. This disconnects the supposed meaning of the work (caring for others) from how it is actually planned and carried out. Furthermore, this segment of the workforce has very little power. Many nurse assistants lack secure employment, have few opportunities to improve their working conditions, and are often unable to rely on unions or collective action to fight for their rights.
No dr cal new. is wrong. People are burning out, because of the actual quantaty aka the workload due to the main goal of a Company making more Money and therefore Not hiring enough people. Hate when people who obviously Never worked a „real“ Job say stuff like that. But his str8 A+ stuff back in the days is pure Gold.
I’m experiencing this at my job …I think the only cure is leaving my job and taking more risk and creating my own freedom
writing reports no one will read and creating strategies that don't improve anything is just as absurd and meaingless as teams' meetings. I'm burnt out but nothing discussed here is useful. You are a peer of talking heads
There's literally nothing addressed about "how to avoid burnout" in this clip
I’m a CPA and this is exactly me 💯. My best hope is AI steps in to assist in some respect.
I own a small business. I got the feeling my office manager was getting caught up in the “firefighting” tendencies of one of our major customers. We reworked her workflow to get ALL of her tasks done BEFORE any email. By day two she was reporting increased productivity. By day 3 she called me at 2 in the afternoon and said, “I’ve already been through my entire workflow twice today… I’m out of stuff to do”
Quite a clickbait video title. talks about burnout, and some interesting points, but not necesarily how to avoid it other than changing at a cultural level
Forget burnout. Bring light to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
– Burnout in knowledge work is not just due to the quantity of work, but because of the type of work and the administrative overhead associated with constant communication and meetings 📉
– The rise of digital communication like email and Slack has led to a system of asynchronous back-and-forth conversations that create a constant need to check messages and maintain time-sensitive discussions 📧
– The current workforce is stuck in a suboptimal workflow where individuals cannot break free from high-activity communication methods without systemic changes in the organization 🔄
– The impact of email and digital communication on productivity is a systemic problem that requires a cultural shift similar to how society has shifted towards valuing food, exercise, meditation, and sleep 💡
– There is a need for a cognitive revolution in knowledge work that prioritizes understanding how brains function and operate, similar to maintaining valuable capital equipment in a factory 🧠
– The cognitive revolution in knowledge work could lead to a significant economic boost, potentially unlocking a trillion-dollar GDP by optimizing brain functionality and increasing productivity 📈
– The future of work may involve leveraging AI to handle some communication planning tasks, but a cultural shift towards more efficient collaboration methods is crucial for immediate progress 🤖
– The cognitive revolution could transform industries similarly to how the assembly line revolutionized manufacturing, leading to unimaginable changes and advancements in productivity and economic output 🚀
I've been screaming that the Emperor is stark-bollocked-naked.
For some one like me whos whole business is on whatsapp
Actually cudnt agree more
What i have did do is place timing, strict timings for orders placement
Via whatsapp
This is interesting but this is not burnout. Burnout existed before email and internet.
Great to hear you both speak on this in such articulate detail – the hardest part for me is being in this place and seeing outside of it, the deconstruct what is actually happening enough to solve it – then having enough bandwidth remaining to execute the solution – Interestingly this last few weeks, I took time out, while still delivering operational priorities, to solve my personal problem, and I did, only to find my boss was unhappy and didn't understand why I took the time out to solve it – he himself couldn't see it clearly enough to understand why it was needed