It’s 8am on Monday, and I’m in my office at my standing desk with the Sun streaming through the window.
I’m kicking off the day with a frenzied triage of email, meeting prep and multiple to-do lists. Yesterday was bad enough that a second to-do list was created to manage the first one.
Slack is lit up with messages from Indian developers who were busy working while I was sleeping. They need my input on how to proceed.
I scan my calendar to see what breathing room I have today. Not much.
I feel the physical fatigue aching in my body. But there’s too much on today—questions to answer, engineers to unblock and meetings to attend.
So I make more coffee. I’ll reward myself by numbing out later. And I lock in.
This was a familiar feeling during the burnout phase of being a founder. It happened day after day, week after week.