§ Methodology
How Should I Quit? works
This tool scores three things from your answers (burnout, meaning at work and intent to leave) with questions LifeByLogic wrote, then runs a simulation of staying and of leaving built from your own figures and expectations. Everything runs in your browser. Below is what each part does, which numbers are yours, which are LifeByLogic’s own choices, and what the tool cannot tell you. The full methodology gives the equations and the version history.
The three scores
Burnout (13 questions). Six questions ask about exhaustion (running out of energy, not recovering with rest) and seven about disengagement (feeling distant from or done with the work), the two parts that burnout research most often treats as its core (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001; Demerouti et al., 2001). Each answer is scored 0, 25, 50, 75 or 100, and one question is reverse-scored. Exhaustion and disengagement are the averages of their questions, and the burnout score is the average of the two.
Meaning at work (10 statements). Statements about significance, self-expression and growth, and contribution, drawing on research on meaningful work (Rosso, Dekas & Wrzesniewski, 2010; Steger, Dik & Duffy, 2012). One statement is reverse-scored, and the score is the average of all ten.
Intent to leave (3 statements). How often leaving is on your mind, whether you expect to be job hunting within a year, and whether you are staying only until something better turns up. In a large review of turnover studies, intentions to quit were among the best predictors of who actually left (Griffeth, Hom & Gaertner, 2000), though many people who intend to leave stay.
Every question was written by LifeByLogic. In October 2026 each one was compared with the best-known published scales on the same topics, and seven were rewritten so that none follows a published item’s wording. The questions have not been tested for reliability or validity and there are no norms, so the scores describe your answers, not where you stand against other people.
The simulation
Each of 10,000 runs plays out one version of staying and one version of leaving, year by year, over the horizon you choose. Both paths follow the same rules except where your answers differ.
| Part | How it works | Where the number comes from |
|---|
| Pay if you stay |
Year one at your current pay (C1); from year two, pay grows each year by your raise (C5) plus random variation (standard deviation 2 percentage points) |
Your figures; the variation is LifeByLogic’s choice |
| Pay if you leave |
No pay while searching; then a starting salary drawn between your low and high figures, most often near the likely one (C2, a triangular draw); from year two, raises of C6 plus variation (standard deviation 3 percentage points) |
Your figures; the larger variation is LifeByLogic’s choice, because a new employer’s raises are less known |
| Job search |
Months without pay before the new job starts, drawn at random with a typical length of 2, 4 or 8 months for an easy, moderate or difficult search (lognormal), capped at 24 |
LifeByLogic’s choice, not an estimate from labor statistics |
| Burnout and meaning, both paths |
Each year a score moves 5% of the way toward 50, the middle of the scale, plus random change (standard deviation 4 points), kept between 0 and 100 |
LifeByLogic’s choice, the same for both paths |
| What you expect from a new job |
On the quit path only, your burnout relief (C7) and meaning boost (C8) start in full when the new job starts and fade: about half is left after a year, an eighth after three years and almost none after five |
Your figures; the fading echoes the honeymoon-hangover pattern Boswell, Boudreau & Tichy (2005) found in managers who changed jobs, but the rate is LifeByLogic’s choice |
| Money score |
100 when a path’s total pay over the horizon covers your essential expenses (C4) for the whole horizon, 0 when it covers 40% or less, a straight line between |
LifeByLogic’s choice |
| Life-quality score |
(100 − average burnout + average meaning + money score) ÷ 3, using the averages over the horizon’s years |
LifeByLogic’s choice: equal weights, because research offers no agreed weights for these three |
The percentage at the top of the results is the share of runs in which the quit path’s life-quality score was higher than the stay path’s (ties count half). It describes how your assumptions play out under these rules. It is not the chance that leaving will turn out better for you: no study has checked this simulation against what happened to people who stayed or left.
The six patterns
Your pattern comes from today’s scores, not from the simulation. LifeByLogic chose the cut-points: on the 0–100 burnout score, 75 or more counts as high and 50 to 74 as moderate. The cut-points of 50 and 75 echo a convention some studies use with the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (Creedy et al., 2017, counted 50 or more as burnout), but this tool’s questions are not that inventory, so the bands are rough labels, not clinical levels. The patterns are checked in this order, and the first that fits is shown: Crystallized (high burnout, meaning under 50, six months of savings or more), Golden-Handcuffed (high burnout, under three months of savings), Torn (high burnout, meaning of 75 or more), Committed (burnout under 50, meaning of 50 or more, intent to leave under 40), Bridge-Builder (moderate burnout, intent to leave under 50) and Ambivalent (everything else, with a request for your savings when they would decide the pattern). When your pattern and the simulation lean different ways, the results say so.
The regret prompt
The regret sliders ask how much you would regret each choice ten years from now. They borrow an idea from research on regret: in studies reviewed by Gilovich and Medvec (1995), regrets about things people did were stronger in the short run, while regrets about things they did not do lasted longer. Jeff Bezos made the prompt popular as a career heuristic. It has not been tested as a way to decide about a job, and the simulation does not use it.
Limitations
It cannot see your situation. Family, health, the people you work with, the specific job you might take, your field’s job market and your identity never enter the simulation. The results show your own assumptions played forward, which helps you spot which assumption matters most; they do not predict what will happen.
The quit path assumes you leave first. It has no pay during the search. If you would line up a new job before leaving, the quit path costs less than shown; an easy search is the closest setting.
The fixed numbers are judgment calls. The drift toward 50, the yearly random change, the raise variation, the search lengths, the fading rate and the money score’s 40% floor are LifeByLogic’s choices. Different, equally reasonable choices would change the percentages.
Longer horizons are rougher. Random variation has more time to add up over 10 years than over 3, so treat 10-year runs as a thought experiment.
This is not a clinical measure. The burnout score is a self-reflection measure, not a diagnosis. If your burnout is high, please talk with a doctor or another qualified professional before making a big decision on the strength of this tool.