Avoiding Webmaster Burnout
Written by Wenchy

Things in our industry have gone through some pretty major changes over the past few weeks and months and, as a result, life as a webmaster has changed drastically as well. The days of throwing a few pictures on a page and making tons of cash have gone the way of the dinosaur. Nowadays, in order to make adult website profitable, the webmaster must spend many more hours pounding away at the computer just to meet his/her bandwidth bill.

For those fortunate enough to be doing this full-time, the shift only meant adding a few hours to an already long work day. This is not necessarily a good thing, however. Most full-time webmasters were already putting in 40-60 hours in an average week and had no social life to speak of. I've heard horror stories of broken marriages, lost friends, and virtual unintentional isolation by a few webmasters who were absolutely dedicated to making their living on the Net. A vast majority of them will tell you it's worth it though, and that they wouldn't give it up if the alternative means doing the dance every day out there in nine-to-five land.

There is also a larger number of part-time webmasters (those also working outside in the "real" world) than ever before and for them, the added hours are problematic at best. Their days already consist of eight hours at work, two hours to commute, a couple of hours with the wife/girlfriend and kids (where applicable, of course), time for sleep, and an ever-increasing number of hours spent trying to make a buck on the adult Internet. All of a sudden they're working sixty to eighty hours a week and rapidly growing to hate the mere thought of their computers. Definitely not a good situation for anyone hoping to make the switch to full-time webmastering in the future.

In both cases, although obviously moreso for the part-timers, burnout is a very real occurrence. How do you know if you've got it? Your computer becomes Public Enemy No. 1... you grow to hate the mere site of that stupid electronic box sitting on your desk or table. The thought of actually sitting down and working, even if it's something as simple as checking your email or catching up on the webmaster boards, makes you want to throw yourself in front of a moving bus. You start manufacturing excuses and/or justifying any and all reasons to practice procrastination. Anything to avoid the computer!

Before you know it, you're six weeks behind on all your projects and the thought of trying to catch up is almost overwhelming. Your options become limited... either try to catch up and deal with the stress and hassle associated with it, or scrap whatever you left undone and start over again. Either way, your "burnout break" has just created a situation where you feel compelled to overdo it and try to cram in as many hours as you can to catch up, foregoing sleep, weekends, and your friends and family. Without realizing it, you've just set yourself up for a second bout with burnout.

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