I find this pretty offensive - if you get over it in three days, it's not burnout. You just needed a holiday. I'm all for raising awareness of it, but using "burnout" in this context trivialises it.
I've seen friends struggling with burnout, and the symptoms are much more severe: depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome, and they've taken years to get over it, if ever. One guy I know is unable to face any sort of IT work, or any sort of stressful work, and is now mowing lawns for a living.
You're trivializing the experience that I had because you know people who have had it worse. That's just ignorant.
I'm sorry that your friends are having a hard time of it, but that doesn't mean you know anything about my situation. Obviously, they're dealing with much more extreme cases than I was. I would guess, though, at some point they were in a position (as I was) where you could snap out of it with a firm jolt to the system.
I didn't write this as a guide for anyone with burnout, or with the hopes that it would be accepted into the fucking DSM-IV as a case study. I just wanted to share my experience... mostly for catharsis, but also in the hopes that someone feeling the same way would read it and do something to make a change.
I'm not trivialising it, and I'm sorry you took it that way.
It's quite possible that you were on the path to burnout, but what you were describing is not burnout, and I wish people would stop calling "burnout!" when they just need a holiday.
Burnout is not a real disorder (as far as the American Psychiatric Association is concerned). It's a problem one has with their motivation and is inherently personal in nature. How one gets over their burnout is also specific to them.
Depression, anxiety, and chronic fatigue are true disorders. It likely takes most patients more than 3 days to get over these disorders (if they ever do) but it's likely that a good portion of workers can get over their own "burnout" in 3 days or less.
I've seen all three triggered by overwork, chronic background stress and/or adrenal fatigue. Perhaps it's not an official disorder, but burnout is frequent enough in IT that it probably should be.
What makes you believe that it's not possible to recover from burnout in a few days? I'm reading "The Feeling Good Handbook" (David D. Burns) and p173 talks about a man who suffered from a serious depression that had threatened to ruin his business for quite some time and was steadily getting worse. Apparently he recovered from his depression within a week after after his session.
Obviously I'm not claiming this happens with all patients (it's taken me 4.5 months to move from "severe depression" on the BDC to "normal but unhappy"), but I don't understand why you're so convinced the poster wasn't suffering from a real and debilitating condition that - from his description of it - significantly decreased the quality of his life.
I'd also like to suggest the possibility that the OP may not have recovered at all, but have simply found some temporary respite. I see this from time to time on Facebook with people I know who are suffering from depression but who haven't received (or worked on) proper treatment - they'll post non-stop about how great everything is, how awesome the world is... and then they'll crash. They haven't addressed the underlying causes of their depression, they've simply found a temporary distraction from it.
Partly from watching other people go through it, partly from getting close to it myself a few times. I recently finished writing a book, while working full time and helping to run my wife's web business. Oh and two kids. I just got back from two weeks holiday, and that wasn't anywhere near enough, but it'll do for now.
Burnout is typically caused by long, relentless periods of overwork and stress, and takes an similarly long time to get over. And yes, it is quite possible the OP is not recovered from his burnout, but I'd rather not see people claiming that it's possible to recover from it by having a couple of days on a beach somewhere. There are enough heroics in IT as it is.
I suspect he hasn't recovered properly yet and hasn't realised.
I've experienced burnout a couple times. For me, a week of TV will make the world start looking brighter again. However, if I try and actually work for more than an hour or two, that murky grey feeling of dread pops straight back.
Both times I've gotten properly burned out its taken me ~3 months to recover properly, and really start enjoying my work again.
Burn-out often comes when you have lost control of your environment. I've been through stages where I've had to sit down, take myself by the shoulders and re-work everything. That means strategizing and talking with my co-workers about how I can deal with the workload I have, the pressure I feel. More often than not I find that I've been overwhelming myself with an excessive will-to-succeed. I keep getting caught up with this kind of personal stress so I've come to understand that it's just who I am, but now have tools to deal with it better. That doesn't just include making strategic planning (which is about 90% of resolving the issue) but also taking at least one week holiday in a location strictly without internet and any communication back to work.
I've seen friends struggling with burnout, and the symptoms are much more severe: depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome, and they've taken years to get over it, if ever. One guy I know is unable to face any sort of IT work, or any sort of stressful work, and is now mowing lawns for a living.