The Six-Area Burnout Self-Audit
Score the six work factors that predict burnout before you crash
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 82%
Drawing on burnout research from Christina Maslach and the WHO, Bailey frames workplace burnout as arising from misalignment across six factors: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Because burnout has no external readout, he built a simple self-audit: every three to four months, or whenever exhaustion or Sunday dread hits, he scores himself out of ten in each area in a spreadsheet. The value is the trend line. A steady decline in one or more areas, paired with growing tiredness, cynicism, or a sense of pointlessness, signals you are on the stepping stones toward full burnout. Because workload is the primary clinical lever, it gets attacked first. The method is informal but anchors self-regulation in observable data rather than vibes.
Origin
Bailey built this after an on-stage anxiety attack forced him to confront his own burnout; he grounded it in Christina Maslach's and the WHO's six-factor model of workplace burnout while researching his book How to Calm Your Mind.
Core principles
- 01Burnout is caused by chronic stress, and work incubates it in six specific areas
- 02Exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy are stepping stones, not just an end state
- 03There is no external scoreboard for burnout, so you must build your own
- 04Workload is usually the primary contributor and the first lever to pull
- 05The trend line over time matters more than any single score
How to run it
- 1
Learn the six areas
Internalize the six work factors that incubate chronic stress: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Alignment with these drives engagement; misalignment drives burnout.
Pro tip Read 'values' as whether your daily actions let you express who you truly are, since that is where meaning is made.
- 2
Score each area out of ten
Rate how well you are currently doing in each of the six areas on a 0-10 scale. Keep it fast and informal rather than precise.
Watch out Do not skip an area because it feels fine; hidden misalignment in fairness or values often drives burnout quietly.
- 3
Log it in a spreadsheet
Record the dated scores in a simple spreadsheet so you can compare across sessions.
- 4
Re-run on a trigger or a timer
Repeat the audit every three to four months, or immediately whenever you feel wiped out or dread returning to work on Sunday.
Pro tip Let the feeling be the cue; Sunday dread is a reliable prompt to re-score.
- 5
Read the trend line and act on workload first
Look for downward trends paired with rising exhaustion, cynicism, or inefficacy. If burnout risk is climbing, cut workload before anything else, as clinicians do.
Watch out A single low score is less important than a consistent slide across several audits.
In the wild
Bailey describes noticing that his line had been ticking upward toward burnout during a stretch, and that as it climbed he started feeling more tired, cynical, and unproductive. Because the spreadsheet made the trend visible, he could connect the rising numbers to the felt experience and identify workload as the area to cut back on rather than guessing at the cause.
→ The trend line surfaced the buildup early enough to act on workload rather than collapsing.
Common mistakes
Waiting for exhaustion to be total
People assume burnout equals being wiped out, so they ignore cynicism or a sense of pointlessness that arrives while they still have energy. Those are stepping stones and belong in the audit.
Tracking scores but not the trend
A single snapshot tells you little. The method only works if you keep dated entries and read the direction of travel over months.
Is it for you?
Best for
Knowledge workers and managers who feel fine on the surface but suspect chronic stress is building.
Not ideal for
People in acute crisis who need clinical help rather than a self-tracking spreadsheet.
From the transcript
“I just have a spreadsheet so I write how well I'm doing in each of these six areas out of ten and it's pretty informal”
“those six factors charting how well you're doing in those six areas over time workload control reward Community fairness and values”
“workload is one to pay a particular mind to because that's often one of the primary contributors to burnout”
From the episode
How To Stop Feeling So Burned Out - Chris Bailey - #569
Chris Bailey