Burnout vs. Boreout: Which One is Affecting Your Productivity?

Burnout, characterised by emotional exhaustion due to overwhelming stress, is a well-known issue in today’s fast-paced world. But what about its less-talked-about counterpart, boreout?

Boreout is the emotional exhaustion that creeps in when you're chronically under-stimulated, a feeling many of us might not even recognise as a problem. I first encountered the term boreout in Adam Grant’s Think Again. Grant is an organisational psychologist at The Wharton School, with popular TED talks, a podcast and other best-selling books including Think Again.

Grant assured readers that boreout is an actual term in psychology. The phenomenon and symptoms of boreout strongly resonated with me. The symptoms of both burnout and boreout are exhaustion and disengagement. However the causes, and therefore the techniques for prevention and recovery differ between the two situations.

What can cause boreout?

Boreout is primarily caused by prolonged periods of under-stimulation, lack of meaningful work, and a mismatch between one's skills and the tasks they are assigned. Boreout can occur for many reasons, below are some common examples.

1. Lack of variety in work

Performing the same tasks day in and day out that involve routine and unchallenging work can make you feel like you are stuck in a loop and lead to a feeling of pointlessness. This is a recipe for boredom and disengagement.

2. Underutilisation of skills

When your skills, experience, knowledge, or abilities exceed the demands of your job, you may feel underutilised and unchallenged. If your role doesn’t offer opportunities for skill development or career advancement, it can lead to frustration and a sense of stagnation.

3. Lack of meaningful work

Tasks that seem unimportant or lack a connection to organisational goals can make work feel meaningless and your role feel unimportant, leading to a lack of motivation.

4. Not enough work to do

This might seem strange but having too little work to do can be just as problematic as having too much. Whether this is ongoing or during extended periods of downtime in roles where the workload fluctuates, lead to boredom, frustration and a sense of wasting time.

5. Mismatched role expectations

Similar to the situation of underutilisation of skills, when starting a new job if the reality of a job is vastly different from what was expected (e.g., more mundane than anticipated), it can lead to disappointment and boreout. Similarly, being overqualified for a job can make the work seem too easy or unchallenging, leading to a lack of interest and engagement.

6. Lack of autonomy

Micromanagement from a superior can lead to burnout, but lack of autonomy in how to complete tasks can also lead to boreout and disengagement by reducing the sense of ownership and creativity with tasks. Inflexible work environments that don’t allow for creative problem-solving or decision-making can also contribute to feelings of boredom.

7. Isolation

A lack of social engagement and collaboration in the work environment can feel isolating and monotonous, leading to emotional disengagement. For people who thrive in more collaborative or interactive environments, working remotely or in isolation can contribute to boreout.

These factors can accumulate over time, leading to a state of boreout where one feels emotionally numb, unmotivated, and disengaged from their work.

How do you prevent and recover from boreout?

Importantly, distinguishing whether you have burnout or boreout is important because the ways to prevent and recover differ.

Whereas burnout requires changes to the amount of work you are doing and the ways of working, and to some extent the type of work if it is highly energy draining.

Boreout prevention and recovery requires changes to the type of work you do to be more stimulating and engaging by introducing challenge, meaning, novelty and variety to your tasks.

This could involve:

• Use elements of ‘job crafting’: where you change some aspects of your role to take on a new challenge such as a project outside your usual responsibilities.

• Create your own mini work challenges: such as learning a new software program to make an aspect of your job more efficient.

• Learn a new skill: either at work or outside of work, that will keep your mind active and open new opportunities.

• More collaborative work: introduce more opportunities for in person interaction and collaboration with colleagues and clients or customers.

• Stimulation outside of work: get stimulation outside your job with an engaging hobby or side hustle.

• A new role that is more challenging and engaging: Look for a new job, either inside or outside your existing organisation, that is more challenging, stimulating and engaging.