Variety-as-Rest Anti-Burnout
Beat burnout by switching to a different kind of work when you lose steam, instead of stopping.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 80%
Hische sustains a high output across logos, printmaking, books, and a store not by taking breaks but by rotating between kinds of work that tax different parts of the brain. When cerebral concept work drains her, she switches to low-key production work (moving bezier handles), which feels restorative. The more homogeneous your work, the faster you burn out.
Origin
Jessica Hische's personal working method, which she attributes partly to how she works with ADHD.
Core principles
- 01Switch tasks when you lose steam rather than taking a break — a fresh task is the break
- 02Diverse work taxes different parts of the brain and uses your hands in different ways
- 03Concept work is cerebrally taxing; production work (bezier-pushing) is therapeutic Zen
- 04Two different 8-hour shifts feel easier than one continuous 16-hour shift
- 05The more homogeneous your career, the faster you burn out
How to run it
- 1
Keep multiple, different projects live
Maintain a portfolio of work that is genuinely different in kind — conceptual vs. production, digital vs. analog — not just multiple instances of the same task.
Pro tip Deliberately pair a cerebrally taxing project with a low-key production one so you always have somewhere restful to switch.
- 2
Switch at the first loss of steam
The moment enthusiasm drops on one thing, move to a different one, lose steam there, switch again — cycling instead of pausing.
Pro tip Bouncing between projects keeps you motivated to keep working overall.
- 3
Engineer contrast between blocks
Make consecutive blocks as different as possible — Hische's day job vs. night freelance felt like two separate shifts precisely because they were so unalike.
Watch out A homogeneous life and career burns out fastest, so guard the variety deliberately.
In the wild
Early in her career Hische had a full-time job plus evening freelance. People asked how she avoided burnout; the answer was that her day job was so different from her night job that it felt like two separate 8-hour shifts rather than one continuous 16-hour grind.
→ Sustained a double workload without burning out by leaning on contrast.
Common mistakes
Homogenizing your work to 'focus'
Narrowing to one kind of work removes the restorative contrast, so fatigue compounds and burnout arrives faster.
Is it for you?
Best for
Multi-disciplinary creatives and founders juggling many projects who feel drained by monotony
Not ideal for
People who thrive on deep single-project focus, or roles where context-switching carries a high coordination cost
From the transcript
“I bounce back and forth between projects a lot as I'm losing steam. And so, having multiple things to work on actually keeps me motivated”
“rather than taking like breaks, I just take a break by”
“my day job was so different from my night job that it felt like I was doing two separate 8-hour shifts instead of one continual…”
“the faster you're going to burn out”
From the episode
How to see like a designer: The hidden power of typography and logos
Jessica Hische (Lettering Artist, Author)