Work overload and too little human contact: what a journal shows before it is too late

Imagine someone, let's call him Kostya. He has kept a journal for six months, a few lines each evening. Open his entries for March and for September and they differ in one thing Kostya himself has not noticed. In March there are people in them: "lunch with Dima", "mum called", "argued with Anya about the holiday". In September there are no people. There are tasks, deadlines, "didn't make it again", and one word that appears in eight entries out of twelve: "drained".

Kostya thinks he is having a hard quarter. The journal shows the quarter has been running since June.

This article is about reading your own entries so you see that sooner. No test and no diagnosis; there will be neither here. There will be two scales that are free to use, and four signals visible in any journal.

What burnout is, without the drama

In 2019 the WHO added burnout to the International Classification of Diseases as an "occupational phenomenon", and said explicitly that it is not a medical condition. The definition is short: the result of chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, with three signs. Exhaustion. Distance from the work, cynicism. A sense that you have become worse at it.

Christina Maslach, who has studied burnout since the seventies, adds something important in a 2016 review: the three signs rarely arrive together. Exhaustion is usually first. Cynicism appears as a defence against exhaustion. The feeling of incompetence closes the chain, and by then the person is often convinced the problem is them.

Why it happens is explained by the model Evangelia Demerouti and colleagues published in 2001, "job demands and resources". Burnout grows when the demands of a job (volume, pace, conflicting roles) exceed its resources (support, autonomy, feedback, rest) for a long time. The key word is long. One hard month is not burnout. A hard month that has lasted since June is starting to look like it.

In ICD-11 burnout is described as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition, and refers to the work context only.

Which scales are free, and which are not

If you want something measurable to lean on, it matters which ones you may.

The Maslach Burnout Inventory, the MBI, the one people call "the Maslach test", is sold under licence by Mind Garden. Free copies online violate that licence. I am not publishing it or paraphrasing it.

The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, the OLBI, from the same 2001 Demerouti paper, is free. Sixteen statements, two scales: exhaustion and disengagement. The original is in the paper linked in the sources; if you take it, take that one, not a retelling.

For loneliness there is the three-item UCLA scale that Mary Elizabeth Hughes and colleagues built in 2004 for large surveys. Three questions about how often you feel: that you lack companionship; that you are left out; that you are isolated from others. Answers: hardly ever, some of the time, often. It is not a diagnosis of loneliness. It is a way to ask yourself a question you do not usually ask.

One caveat applies to all three, and it is not a formality. Any scale result is a screening, a reason to look closer. If the result scares you, the next step is a conversation with someone you trust, or with a professional, not a second test.

Why too little contact is not a separate topic

Kostya from the first paragraph stopped writing about people not because they disappeared. He stopped seeing them: lunch at the desk with a laptop, calls answered with "I'll call you back", weekends spent replying to email. Overload eats social contact first, because it looks like the most optional thing.

The 2015 meta-analysis by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and colleagues pooled 70 studies with a combined sample of over three million people. Loneliness, social isolation and living alone were each associated with higher mortality over the follow-up period: by roughly 26, 29 and 32 percent respectively. These are population correlations, not a verdict on any one person. But they are a reason not to file "no time to meet anyone" as a minor item next to "not sleeping enough".

And in the demands-and-resources model, contact sits on the resources side. Cutting it does not lighten your load. It removes the thing people use to carry the load.

Four signals in your entries

No special format is needed. You need a month or two of entries and one evening to read them in a row. Look for four things.

Words of tiredness repeat. "Drained", "no energy", "don't want anything", "again". One entry is a day. Eight out of twelve is exhaustion, the first of the three signs.

People have gone. Count how many entries in the last three weeks mention a living person outside work. If the answer is zero, that is a signal on its own, regardless of how you feel.

Weekends look like weekdays. The Saturday entry reads like the Tuesday one: the same tasks, the same email, the same "didn't make it". Rest has stopped being rest.

Cynicism has arrived. "Nobody needs it anyway", "why bother", "they always". That is the second of the three signs, and it usually follows exhaustion as a defence. Seeing it in your own entries is unpleasant, and it is also the most precise moment to stop.

What to do if you recognised yourself

The list is short because long lists do not get done in this state.

One person this week. Not "rebuild your social life" but one lunch, one call with no reason. Write down how it went.

One demand fewer. Look at the entries and find what keeps appearing as "didn't make it again". That is a candidate for a conversation with your manager, a handover, or a no. One item, not a reform.

One evening without email. The entry for it should read differently from the Tuesday one. If it does not, try again on another day.

If your entries contain thoughts that you do not want to live, or that people would be better off without you, that is no longer about burnout or about a journal. It is a reason to talk to someone today. Helplines and chat lines in your country are listed at findahelpline.com, and in the app Luna does not carry on as usual in such moments; she shows where to turn.

A month later

Read them again. Not to grade yourself, but to see three counters: words of tiredness, people, weekends. If even one has moved, the journal did what it is for. It does not treat and it does not fix. It shows you the quarter that has lasted since June while you still think it is a quarter.

On what is known about writing and anxiety I have a separate piece with its limits, and on the emotion diary that helps you find a word more precise than "drained" as well.