[MrRoboSteve]

Oblarg: dealing with burnout is really about setting priorities. Learning how to deal with it is a skill -- one that you'll be able to apply at work as well as with volunteering. In the FRC world, I try to do this:

1. Consider changing your definition of success from "a great robot" to "kids were inspired." There are a lot more opportunities for reward in FRC using the latter criterion.

2. Don't overschedule yourself and the team. Most weeks during the build season, FRC 3081 has 20 hours of meetings, and no one is expected to be at every one. With school and other commitments, those hours beyond 20 in a week have diminishing returns.

We see the same thing at work -- people can handle a couple weeks going well beyond 40 hours, but if you consistently see people working 12 hour days you find that there's a lot of slack in the marginal 20 hours.

3. Schedule breaks. Don't be at every build session.

4. Take care of yourself first. You'll find me at the YMCA a lot in the two weeks prior to the FRC season (also working off those xmas treats).

I'm like Jim in that I'm pretty ready to be done at the end of the build season. But I've learned through work that I feel the same way when a project is coming to an end, so I think of it more as being ready to move on and less about the particular thing I'm working on.