Living in this current world is ideal for motion designers.
There is a continuous stream of content available and ready for production, which raises the demand for a designer like you.
However, even if we love this job, it’s not all sunshine and butterflies as the growing workload can lead to stress and physical exhaustion. You then suffer from a motion designer burnout.
Most designers work either in their own office or freelance from their own homes, making them susceptible to isolation.
Being alone with much stress can lead to the decline of your psychological and physical health.
I’ve struggled with this stress, as well. After recovering, I’ve decided to share my experiences and tips to help you avoid burnout and to create a healthy work/personal life balance.
Table of Contents
Find an online community
Finding people with similar jobs and interests in the industry gives you much support. You can share your struggles and prevent loneliness by talking or hanging out occasionally.
Using Maslow’s Pyramid of human needs, we find that love and belonging are just below psychological needs.
Having a connection to other human beings or even animals helps to provide us with the support we need to stay healthy. Therefore, even if you are on the clock with your projects, you should make it a priority to talk to a friend at least once a day.
Occasionally, I will call or text a friend, asking to talk. I share my struggles, and they share theirs.
When I have more time, we plan a date to hang out and have a drink together to unwind. It works wonders.
Find out what matters to you
While it’s vital to earn a stable income and to be able to provide for yourself, it should not be the main reason you’re alive. It would help if you worked to live, not live to work.
Make sure you find some time to spend with friends and family and take enough breaks during the day.
To stay connected to my family and friends, I’ve tried to host a monthly game-night during which we pick a board game and spend hours playing.
I also try to take my weekends off to visit my family.
When planning activities with friends, it’s easier to have a stable event than to try and plan free activities. Therefore, a monthly game night is ideal.
Another essential thing to remember is that you need to keep asking yourself, “how am I feeling today?” now and then.
Reflect upon your feelings with a warm cup of coffee or tea and take this time to find out more about yourself.
If you’re not feeling well, look for the cause and try to eliminate that where possible.
Stay active
If you’re a bit like me, and I am not very proud of it, you probably don’t consider yourself to be very sporty. However, I started exercising regularly at the beginning of this year and have never felt better. I kept up my workouts, and they transformed me.
I’ve recently started working from home, rather than from a studio.
Running helps me to go outside and be active daily. This routine is beneficial for my mental and physical health.
Don’t worry, however. You don’t need to run if you don’t like it.
Just try to find an activity that you enjoy doing even if it’s just a daily walk around the block. Exercise keeps the burnout symptoms in check.
Look from another perspective
Working in a highly competitive environment can be stressful, especially when you feel the need to keep up all the time with the latest trends and demands.
One way to deal with this is by gaining another perspective. This perspective gives you insight into your current work and quality. It offers you helpful feedback to improve at your own pace.
To find someone to give you feedback, you can ask a colleague, former client, or close friend.
My personal favorite is joining a mastermind group. This group offers support, feedback, and helps you achieve your goals. Look for a group with other motion designer jobs and make some connections there!
Make your goals reachable
Having goals and celebrating each step is a great way to keep motivated.
However, not only as a graphic or motion designer, a mistake many people make is to underestimate their goal. Therefore, it’s essential to make sure you’re heading in the right direction before facing the challenge.
If you want to start your studio, you need to make sure beforehand that you know what it entails.
Instead of animating, you may need to keep generating sales and do PR. Or your workload gets so much that you can’t keep up and need to hire an employee. Is that what you want?
Before starting to work towards your goal, you need to ask yourself some critical questions to help you find out the pros and cons of your goal.
- What do you want your life to look like in three years?
- What are your values? Use these to create a vision for the future
- Make use of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound)
Organize your stuff
Lastly, organizing my thoughts and schedule has helped me with the pressure of deadlines. You can make use of multiple ways to stay organized.
My first tip is to set up a contract for your clients. The agreement explains every detail, all the required information, and your method.
Once your client has read and signed this, you can direct them to the contract whenever they request things that are not within your scope.
If you aren’t much of an expert when it comes to arrangements, you can hire an accountant to help you create one.
Secondly, use a calendar and add in everything. Want to post something on social media? Add it to your schedule.
Does your mom invite you to a family dinner on Sunday night? Add it to your calendar.
Try to color-code each event into different categories like “leisure,” “work,” “social media,” and “meetings.”
If you want to, you can even add commuting time. As an example, when client X asks you to provide them with your logo animation services, you can add it to your calendar and color it according to your “work” tab.
The color codes give you a clear view of your schedule, what you have to do, and how much time you have for each task. It helps to lift the weight from my shoulders. Hopefully, it does the same for you.
A short disclaimer
All these tips have benefited me and my personal life. Ever since implementing them, I have lived a happier and healthier life.
It’s probably not perfect for everyone, but you are free to try and alter them to suit your own life. It prevented my motion designer burnout, and I sincerely hope it helps you too.
