The Burnout Budget: Experiencing Resource Loss and Recovery in Real Time

Abstract

This experiential exercise immerses students in allocating limited resources across work, health, finances, and relationships while encountering fixed costs and unpredictable events. The version presented here reflects how the activity is most commonly implemented in undergraduate and early graduate management courses. The Burnout Budget illustrates how unfair starting points, depletion, and constrained choices can fuel stress and burnout. The activity draws on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and experiential learning, and fits within a 40- to 60-min session, adapting easily to undergraduate, graduate, and executive contexts. Students connect firsthand experience to theory by examining tradeoffs, inequality, and recovery. The instructions, materials, and debrief guidance help instructors foster engagement and reflection on resilience and values in management education.

Keywords

experiential learning Conservation of Resources theory burnout stress resilience management education classroom simulation resource allocation

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