Interesting article in The Age today, http://blogs.theage.com.au/managementline/archives/2006/12/the_road_to_bur.html with a link to a great article in The New Yorker on a summary of research into Burnout.

But here's a quote:

'So burnout is about the gap between what we expect, and what we actually get. And it happens to people who build their lives too much around their work.

And it's also driven by a sense of inefficiency which raises the question of whether emails, mobile phones, laptops and the BlackBerry (or CrackBerry) has made burnout more likely. The more we speed up, the more frustrated we get when we have to slow down.

Consider for instance this bit of research cited in the magazine:

"In 2005, a psychiatrist at King's College London did a study in which one group was asked to take an IQ test while doing nothing, and a second group to take an IQ test while distracted by e-mails and ringing telephones. The uninterrupted group did better by an average of ten points, which wasn't much of a surprise. What was a surprise is that the e-mailers also did worse, by an average of six points, than a group in a similar study that had been tested while stoned. That's right. Stoned. Those people were literally burned out, and they did better."