Giertz: Burnout is much easier when you are deeply passionate about work
Simone Giertz · Simone Giertz on Her Robots and Returning to Work After Brain Surgery · Y Combinator · Jun 5, 2019 · at 40:10
Inventor and YouTuber Simone Giertz discusses the psychology of burnout and creative work on the Y Combinator podcast.
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“I feel like it's in some way easier to burn out when it's something you're really excited about and care for”
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More from Simone Giertz
Giertz: Structuring content around personal interests prevents running out of ideas
“Like that my YouTube channel is more like a journal of personal interest than a specific topic, because then you can like, how are you going to run out of things then? Like anything that you're interested in, you can make content about.”
Giertz: Relying on a single platform makes a business brittle
“It's really brittle to kind of put all your eggs into one platform basket. Because like, who knows what's going to happen with YouTube in two years, it might not be a thing or like something changes.”
Giertz: Building 'shitty robots' was armor against being mocked in robotics
“Building shitty robots was this like way of approaching a very intimidating field, which is robotics that I was really interested in, but I haven't gone to school for. And I was like, oh, if I only try to build shitty things and nobody can like make a joke on …”
Giertz: Established audiences do not disappear when creators take time off
“In the beginning, you, when you start kind of building your platforms online, it just felt like if I didn't constantly feed this fire that I've like really worked my ass off to start, it would go out. And you realize, and now, like, because if I had some healt…”
Giertz: Peak productivity comes from fun, easy work rather than painful struggle
“If something comes easy to you, and you think it's fun then that's probably what you're best at, and, but at the same time, we have this, like, I've noticed for myself, at least, and that I've heard from a lot of other people, do you have this, like, programmi…”
Giertz: In fields with endless work, standard hours preserve life balance
“Like if you could work, if you're in a field where you could work 24 hours a day and still not get done, that means you could just as well work eight hours a day and just get a little bit less done, but have a good life on the side.”