You didn’t burn out overnight, and won’t heal immediately. For me, using technology for burnout treatment is about grounding and increasing connection.
Meditation, journaling and talk therapy all help me get grounded and stay connected to why journalism is meaningful. Calm is my go-to meditation app for quieting my mind and letting solutions and insights surface. Many of my job-seeker clients face decision fatigue — Should they apply for that role? Is it worth it to reach out to that contact? What’s the best way to structure their days now? — and they often benefit from giving themselves space to say less and listen. If sitting still to meditate isn’t their jam, I also recommend going for a walk as a form of moving meditation.
For journaling, I like Notion so I can access notes on my phone and on my laptop. And after geeking out on template how-to videos, I give each journal entry its own look and feel with icons and covers. And then there’s Zoom for therapy.
Connection, even the kind forged through screens, can remind us that we aren’t alone, especially when so many people are looking for work. Rather than viewing those folks as competitors, consider at least some of them as comrades and possible collaborators.
I recently facilitated a coaching cohort via Zoom that participants dubbed “Career Club” because of how many of them were staring down searches or pivots. The caring camaraderie was a consistent benefit they mentioned; they also sent each other job leads and connections.
LinkedIn and its endless scroll don’t just have to be how you look for a job, it can also help you find your people. “Even a small message can go a long way,” said Jennifer Bradtke, a licensed clinical psychologist with ChangeWorks Psychology who specializes in burnout.
The bottom line is to use technology to tap into what makes us most human, especially during the sometimes dehumanizing process of looking for work in the AI era.
“We live in community, we heal in community,” Bradtke said. “You are more than just your job.”
Read Karen’s full column, where she explains how job search burnout happens.
