3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Burning Out on YouTube

Nick I love your video essays please more

As one of those couple hundred people who loves your next level offerings and workshops, your content is so rich and dense that I worry about my own burnout from trying to take it all in! Thank you for modeling meaning, "zooming out," and aging gracefully.

You've fallen into the trap that idea oriented people are prone too. More good ideas than the drive that's available can sustain. It isn't surprising that the Ideaverse you've created can make this possible. Something about the unlimited nature of the digital world is like a Thanksgiving feast, where you get about a quarter way through your plate and realize your eyes were bigger than your stomach. There is an art to saying no to an idea. Some people call it a discipline, and it certainly requires discipline, but I believe it is more of an art. That is because you must, in saying no, decide which ideas are aligned with what you already have going on and which ones are a good idea but could only spread you thinner. Which ideas make your efforts deeper rather than wider? I deeply appreciate your efforts and thoughts Nick. There were parts of this video that basically describe why I couldn't participate in your cohort as deeply as I desperately wanted to. I definitely recognize this same cycle in my own life. Thanks for continuing to be honest with yourself and with us. This challenge of priorities in life always reminds me of Augustine's principle of rightly ordered loves.

"But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally." (On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28)

Yes i understand, I had a burnout couple of years ago while i was very productive , i really needed to zoom out which i didn't do :)

Can totally relate to the need to zoom out from time to time. That was the start of my journey into note taking/making and PKM

Excellent video, thank you for sharing what you have learned!

Nick, I was driving long distances on the 401 highway (here in Canada) the other day. At every gas and food court place along that highway there are now enormous digital advertising screens pulling drivers’ attention from the road and from the natural landscape. It felt like another assault. Now not only am I being pushed at, put through sales funnels, and urged on to ever more anxious overwhelm when I am online, but I can’t escape it when I’m driving.
Your LYT workshops and videos have always been the exact opposite of that — honest, thoughtful, inspiring, helpful. You, the team and the LYT community have helped me recover from a very serious creator burnout.
With today’s video, my already very high opinion of you has multiplied. Thank you, Nick, for being authentically you. While no one achieves individuation in their lifetime, your intentions going forward show that you’re making some significant leaps along that path. I look forward to the journey.

I saw that development coming. Wish you all the luck. We will be on the lookout for all the interesting staff you will keep producing.

Thanks for making this video! I am really looking forward to seeing your new content, especially as someone who hasn't been able to attend your workshops in the past!

I feel curious. I feel connected. I've enjoyed both the front of and the back of the stage with your videos and products Nick. I've also had my own challenges with job burnout this year and the timing of this video is perfect. I don't want to see other people going through burnout, but I'm glad they are recognizing it like I am and try to get out of the vicious cycle. You and your team are so great, keep doing what you are doing and can't wait to see what's next!

I am happy you have (finally) embraced your identity as an influencer 😊

Nick, just know that you have a whole community here to support you. You have been such a sensei for us and we are truly appreciative.

Map of Contents = Table of Contents. How does MoC differ from ToC?

Thank you for all the effort and time spent helping to build up the knowledge management space in general and then building the amazing community that is LYT!

I thought having a second brain was aimed to Prevent this 😅
I really think this pkm thing was blown way out of proportion, you know, like any thing marketable?

Is 'backstage' a euphemism for customer? So Fremium vs Premium? Sorry I'm new here.

Good people without experience explosive growth often struggle with this. I would find you a COO asap.

I feel more Curious about where you are headed - it is exciting - tingling, I feel more connected to you and your team - because you shared your vulnerability. Looking forward to whatever your next stage brings Nick and team... you always leave me wanting to know more - and that to me is what I am looking for in the people who I want to spend more time with - the creative people. I also truly hope that you will be open to creating and sharing live and in public with friends and other people who stimulate your thinking and help to bring the best out of you. Just know that there are so many of us here who are more than willing to help out every way possible. (@createpei)

This is problem of this channel. Not many videos despite awesome content.

Nick, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this video. Although I am nowhere near as well known as you are, I definitely identify with the "Accidental Creator" discussion. I started sharing organization tips as a hobby and just recently monetized. Juggling that with a full time position in higher education and teaching part-time at two other institutions gives me a full plate. My trick so far is to try to find common threads with what I'm doing, but I am definitely concerned with trying to do too much. I look forward to more of your videos.

Curious, did you major in something in college which allowed you to get the video editor job? Looking into this myself but have an English master's...

Hi Nick, 3 things I thought during your video: 1) From what started as a hobby, you're now in conflict of how your personal interests are being obscured by the business opportunities you are being able to seize. This is a dilema inherent to entrepreneurship; 2) The burn out effect is wide across society and this, at least in my understanding, is an effect of productivity culture and technological rationality. Scholars have been talking about these effects for many decades now. Bifo Berardi is one that is interesting to read. He talks about the negative cognitive effects of cognitive capitalism; and 3) As a listener, it felt like I was witnessing a therapy session. If you don't have a therapist, a good idea would be to have one so that you can continue this self-reflection. I'm not saying that it wasn't a good video or anything of that sort, I am simply pointing to something that you might not have realized? Not sure, but I thought it would be helpful to give you some feedback. Cheers!

I am new to obsidian, I want to start using obsidian but I am afraid and I don't know that after taking all of those notes how am I going to revise before exam, in the conventional method you have fixed amount of pages with clear table of contents so I know how much I have to study unfortunately I don't know how would I do that with obsidian I am afraid I would end up on rabbit hole and instead of studying what I need to study i would just study random things by following all those links, and again before starting studying i don't even know how many links or pages I have to go through🤔
Any ideas how you guys deal with that

Add oil Nick! You've been amazing and I hope to see your next adventures soon!

I worked as a doctor for 30 years. At the end of the pandemic, after three years of working 96 hours a week, I burned out. It was so bad that the simple idea of returning to work at the hospital was making me feel bad. I left my job, I graduated in philosophy, and I am doing a doctorate. I am happy, I have a life that I love now. Vulnerability can be scary. But it can disclose to you your deepest humanity and become a superpower to change your life. Obstacles limit you only if you see them as obstacles. What if they are opportunity to change? I wish you all the best, and I hope you can be happy with yourself soon

I always wanted to hear more about what you find exciting, what intrigues you, what starts the sparks. Thats why the New direction of your Channel sounds something I want to be part of. I wish you all the best, take care!

I just arrived at your channel because I just started diving into Obsidian. It's really inspiring to see someone be genuine and acknowledge that something needs to change. Hustle culture has a toxic side and so many people forget to leave room for themselves to be themselves. I watched this video to the finish, and the reason was because I could tell it was real. Thanks for being authentic. We definitely need more of that in the world. I look forward to seeing how things evolve. Liked and subscribed, and let's see where all this takes us. Keep it playful.

Hello Nick, I've been introduced to this channel by a friend about 3 or 4 years ago. It's also the first time I started using Obsidian. Back in my school days I've been doing quite similar thing on papers and notebooks. It's the only way I knew to process everything flowing in and out of my mind since childhood, which was all by sheer intuition, not by carefully thinking. So it's mind-blowing to knew about Obsidian and people who developed a community and workshop around it.
I can totally understand the feeling of burnout, although I didn't create things toward public. But I stopped doing notemaking since a deciding moment, and didn't give it a return time. I believe that's something beyond brain's control. Please just live your life. You don't owe anything to anyone.

Felt so much of this, Nick!

We need to hang out some time.

The reason I came to your channel was for your Obsidian content, and the reason I continue to return is because of you. You care, and it shows. You have passion for the things you share with us, and vulnerable, introspective videos like this help us understand the tremendous work behind the content we love and the real struggles that come with it. I was relieved that this wasn't a farewell video. Keep doing what you do, and we'll keep dropping in. We're all the better for it.

Спасибо за видео! Делай то, что любишь ❤ и не выгорай 😊

❤ !

I wanted to choose one word that might describe your Superpower, Nick. That word is “Relatable”, IMO.

I really enjoyed learning about your history and the history of the work.

This resonates so deeply. I'm doing deep work these days to get to the core root cause behind why we overwhelm ourselves, as it's been a huge issue for me as well. I've discovered some deep buried things in myself, for example a fear of boredom (because in boredom there's nothing to maintain the built-up egoic structure). Another was feeling led around by opportunities and other people's suggestions of what to do, pulling into places I'm not truly ready for, and then trying to execute their ideas (especially through a business course). There's a root of how the mind operating system functions, which is parts-based, not holistic. But capturing and organizing all the parts can't be done, because it's unending -- there's too many, and all those parts put together don't equal the whole.

And what ends up happening is when I live this way, I can do all the organizing robotic work. But I can't get the awareness to execute on the mind's well-laid plains, so anything that requires real creativity of presence doesn't flow that way (a bit hard to explain without context).

In people at the height of productivity with complete acceptance of running their life by the mind's system, productivity can run fairly well and a lot gets done. But for me I've seen beyond that, and I'm ultimately choosing to move beyond egoic-based living. So I've learned that because I'm not fully choosing the mind's way, it works less well for me than it does for those others.

This summer I reached the extreme end of 2 years of incredible yet complex built-up systems in Notion that my mind can creatively plan, but that I end up not aligning to actually live out. The more structure there was, the less I wanted to use it. So it became like a 1000 story skyscraper full of intricate tunnels and hallways and elevators, but with no real space for living in. And only a few tenants here and there.

I tried to corral them to force them there, but there was less and less willingness to do so.

So a couple weeks ago I threw all that structure away and landed in Obsidian, looking for a much simpler and more expansive opportunity to bring my core work into the world that is designed for being acting, not mind.

Thank you, lots of insights, especially about the front and back stage

You do you. It’s all good. One word for you…. Fractals. You gotta look into fractals. 😊

I really appreciate your authenticity and that you are striving to make videos for really important reasons. It inspired me and made me feel joyful.

found your channel when trying to understand Obsidian, but only subscribed after watching this video. I am curious what you will share going forward.