Managing ADHD Burnout at Work: 3 Top Tips from an ADHD Therapist

ADHD burnout is a common occurrence in those with ADHD. It can have a detrimental effect on someone’s personal, educational, and as we will elaborate on here, professional life. In this blog, we will go through what ADHD burnout actually is, what it may look like at work, and finally some tips for coping with it in the workplace.

What is ADHD Burnout?

ADHD burnout is when someone with ADHD feel an overwhelming sense of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion from constantly managing their ADHD symptoms for a prolonged time period.

For example, ADHD symptoms that may eventually lead to ADHD burnout may be:

• Inability to manage time effectively. This may meant that the person can’t accurately estimate how much they can get done in a period of time, and therefore end up asking too much of themselves. They may be constantly on-the-go to get everything they planned to get done completed, inevitably leading to burnout.

• Overcommitment. This leads into a sense of overcommitment. Overestimating how much they can complete in a time frame as well as being unable to say ‘no’ to people leads to overcommitment. This too causes a constant state of stress.

• Masking. ADHDers often mask to conceal their ADHD symptoms. This may be putting in extensive effort to pay attention to mask their inattentive symptoms, suppressing their emotions, or they may stop stimming (a form of self-soothing) in front of other people.

These are just a couple of ADHD symptoms that, through managing and suppressing for a an extended time period, can cause ADHD burnout.

ADHD burnout itself can manifest into many symptoms. Here are a few examples:

• Lack of motivation. They may not be as interested completing tasks they might’ve been before.

• Constant exhaustion. This doesn’t improve with sleep or time.

• Irritability. They may become increasingly irritable and frustrated.

• Physical symptoms. ADHD burnout may cause physical pains to their bodies, including headaches and stomach aches.

It has been found that 93% of people with ADHD experience burnout, which is why it is crucial that we are able to identify and prevent it, especially at work. Here is another blog by us that explores what ADHD burnout is, in more detail: What is ADHD burnout? We recommend you give this a read.

ADHD burnout at work

ADHD burnout can have a significant negative impact in the workplace. It is already true that 22 days’ worth of productivity is lost in those with ADHD (according to WHO) due to the symptoms not integrating with neurotypical working environment, equipment, and patterns. With probable ADHD burnout on top of this, many more valuable working days can be lost if burnout is not prevented.

Burnout can impact work in numerous ways. Firstly, it involves a lack of motivation. This is detrimental in the workplace, as the individual does not feel any drive to complete their tasks and therefore, they may not get their work done. This may cause negative outcomes for them, and in extreme circumstances, may lead them to losing their job. Similarly, constant state of exhaustion and physical symptoms often lead to a sharp decrease in productivity if the individual is physically unable to complete the work for their job.

There are many things involves in a regular job that may be directly contributing to ADHD burnout, which is important to acknowledge for the prevention of this occurring. Firstly, as previously mentioned, the workplace can prove to be tailored to the neurotypical brain. For example, an office may have lots of people in, creating noise and distractions that lead to people with ADHD getting distracted and not completing their work – causing increased stress.

This shows that ADHD burnout can impact, and be impacted by their work life. It can turn into a vicious cycle of being burnt out by workload, which then causes the workload to become even more unmanageable. It is important to take action to prevent this from happening to you.

Coping with ADHD burnout at work: 3 tips

As we have mentioned, coping with and preventing ADHD burnout at work is at the benefit of the individual, the business, and the economy. Here are some ways you can take a step towards overcoming it.

Diary management

Your manager may be able to arrange and adjust your daily calendar in a way that works best for you. If you are burnt out, they may be able to lessen your responsibilities, and increase the time you have to complete your tasks. This could be beneficial for you as you would have extended time to work up motivation. Similarly, if you are experiencing exhaustion, extra time would be ideal for you.

Realistic deadlines managed by a supervisor or supportive buddy

One of the causes of ADHD burnout is overcommitment and overestimating the amount you can get done in a time frame, mediated by inability to manage time effectively. Through setting out realistic deadlines, which are double checked by someone who doesn’t face these struggles and has adequate time management, you can ensure that you aren’t taking on too many responsibilities at once and that you aren’t overestimating how much you can do. This will hopefully reduce the stress you may be putting yourself under, and relieve the symptoms of ADHD burnout, if not preventing it from occurring.

Break down your tasks

Following the previous tip, another way you can ensure that you aren’t taking too much on for a given time period, you should break down your tasks when you are planning your day. This will enable you to allocate them more accurate time slots to complete each step, giving you leeway for any potential distractions. This is because it is easier to estimate how long a small step will take instead of a big task, therefore reducing the chance you will underestimate how long you will take for it which would leave you stressed out. Also, breaking down your tasks into steps is beneficial as these steps are much more approachable than a bit overwhelming task. This means that you are less likely to procrastinate them and lose time, increasing your productivity at work.

We hope this blog has been helpful to you in teaching you about the more professional side of ADHD burnout, and how to cope with it at work. We have numerous other blogs on ADHD, such as Reasonable adjustments for ADHD at work, How to stop procrastination with ADHD, and What is Task Paralysis in ADHD.

We would also highly recommend you read ADHD burnout vs Autistic burnout as it explores what ADHD burnout is in more detail and compares it with autistic burnout.

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