[deleted]
Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
71–80 of 124 posts
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#72I "burned out" while working at a FAANG and it just turned out to be a health problem, accelerated by the food there. All of my side projects from the time are extremely uninspired.
Can you share some general information about the health problem, in case the rest of us should be watching out for it?
I would like to know too. But I can tell you about my experience.
I experienced something similar after moving to college from my hometown. Obviously the food was much different to what I had at my home. This led to me having cognitive and physical issues for 5 years that I stayed in the dorms. I used to feel like a zombie, no motivation or enthusiasm and a host of other symptoms. During my internship in my final year, I was diagnosed with something similar to IBS.
The solution was just to be conscious about what you eat and how it makes you feel.
The food at my internship was of such poor quality that it made me feel drained for many hours after eating. This was what prompted me to get checked seriously.
Am I better now? On average yes, but never like I was before moving to college. I eat a very restrictive diet. Semi permanent damages to one's system is not uncommon for people diagnosed with IBS.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#73Was tempted to make a throwaway account for this, but what the hell, burnout is really nothing to be ashamed of. I'm in a somewhat similar situation to you, but replace the 3 years with 10 years. I had many periods of 'minor' burnout along the way that I ignored or ploughed through, which in hindsight was a pretty big mistake. Around August last year I just couldn't continue. I wasn't sleeping, I was frequently run d…
With hindsight, do you think you could have avoided your burnout? Was it due to long hours? The type of work? Something else?
I think so, yeah. Aside from not listening to the obvious warning signs (insomnia, anxiety, depression, increased frequency of physical illness, etc.), there were definitely other red flags.
I think my biggest since issue was - and probably continues to be - very poor work/life balance (no hobbies, basically no social life outside of work, etc). Obviously it's hard to disentangle cause and effect, but I suspect a prerequisite for getting burnout is having a mania or hyper-fixation on work.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#74I am actually in an opposite position right now: buildings ideas I think are great that I cannot get any feedback on. I have tried promoting the ideas online and asking for feedback from friends and family in the real world. Crickets. If the ideas or execution fail epically I suspect somebody would have mentioned this. Silence. It’s weird because one of the ideas, easy multi computer website test automation in the br…
If you’re talking about the file system share, there are better tools for people with the skills to get it set up. The tech seems good, but the set up is hard. The limitation of local network is rough for getting people excited, you should set up a tiny relay to let people connect.
The documentation is a little unfocused, but the pitch is good. If we assume the pitch is the primary purpose, simplifying the user experience should be the top priority. There’s a bunch of tools that have tried to solve the “throw file at Mom” problem, but I haven’t seen one work without putting my files in someone else’s server.
I’m not sure how you differentiate this from Plex, WD myCloud, OneDrive, or Google Drive. That’s an important factor considering how easier some are and how powerful others are.
You built a desktop UI in the browser to share files? That’s a bit much for anyone to take a serious look at. It’s the same problem as documentation and this post: needs more focus.
If you’re enjoying making it, and it does useful things for you, have fun! But I don’t see it getting much feedback or traction due mostly to lack of focus, but solving some of the technical limitations would make it much more broadly applicable and would help as well.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#75Move on to other things. Stop trying to make it happen, it's a waste of time/life. Just accept that you don't enjoy it anymore and find new things to enjoy. YOLO.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you had therapy?
Yes. They mostly wanted me to take a lot of drugs, and there was talk of experimental brain surgery, and I just don’t want any of that - whole damn process just made me more stressed and anxious - so now, I just smoke weed from when I wake to when I pass out. I’m damaged, but functional - managed to build a house with my own hands this spring, while writing an ISO27k1 ISMS, while living off grid - I don’t just sit ar…
I'm so sorry to hear that, really. It's a shame you didn't find a better therapist, sometimes it takes a couple of tries before you find one that gets you.
I hope you find a path forward where you have health and happiness.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#77I am actually in an opposite position right now: buildings ideas I think are great that I cannot get any feedback on. I have tried promoting the ideas online and asking for feedback from friends and family in the real world. Crickets. If the ideas or execution fail epically I suspect somebody would have mentioned this. Silence. It’s weird because one of the ideas, easy multi computer website test automation in the br…
If you’re talking about the file system share, there are better tools for people with the skills to get it set up. The tech seems good, but the set up is hard. The limitation of local network is rough for getting people excited, you should set up a tiny relay to let people connect. The documentation is a little unfocused, but the pitch is good. If we assume the pitch is the primary purpose, simplifying the user exper…
Thank you so very much!!!
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Felt like I was reading a description of what I feel. Kind of punched me in the face when I read at the end that he's 70...I've been in my animal for 35 years...perhaps it's time to reconsider my life. The problem is, I will probably never do until another major crash happens...I assume this is a problem many of us have.
She* :) And yeah - very powerful piece of writing. She's a published fantasy author and I'm going to try one of her novels ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77197.Assassin_s_Apprent... )
Very nice coincidence: after years of putting off her novels, I started Ship of Magic just two days ago. Never thought I'd see someone quote her here.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#79I've been there a couple of times. I haven't found a cure, but I do have some bits of advice that might help:
1. A student once asked his teacher, "Master, what is enlightenment?" The master replied, "When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep.". Maybe you're still hungry or tired?
2. Richard Feynnam and his spinning plates story deals specifically with his burnout: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2291773
3. Refill your creative tanks. Expose yourself to experiences -- e.g. take a hike in scenic nature, or maybe travel to Rome for a week (edit: haha, not so easy these days!). Re-read books and listen to music that worked for you when you were younger. Some experiences won't resonate with you, but some might -- and that's why you're doing this.
4. Some passions / hobbies / occupations burn out for good. Don't be sad about that. I had it myself, and I have a friend who changed his career completely after a burnout.
Re: Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas
#80Pick up an analog hobby. Something that is tangible and away from the internet, computers and software. Christ, I sound like some loonie but there is pleasure in fixing your car, building a deck, gardening, or learning how to play an instrument. Avoid hobbies that are competitive in nature.
Big agreement here! Though, as it turns out, software is eating the world, and every analog hobby I've picked up eventually wants to become a computer hobby. You can choose to resist this entirely, or give in a bit. The analog part is still there waiting for you whenever you're tired of starting at rectangles. (Example A: FM synthesis ideas should obviously be reimplemented in python... Oh wait, super collider exists…
Example 3: Board games are cool and analog, I'll start designing those.
Oh but now if I want to find a publisher in this era of a totally saturated market the game should look nice, so I should spend some serious time on the graphic design and sell sheets and writing up the game rules and designing graphics to put in the game rules and making and editing pitch videos...on my computer.
Oh and it's really hard to find enough playtesters to play the game or publishers to look at the game (especially during the pandemic)...unless I make a digital version on Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia, and playtest on the computer.
Oh, people are getting used to certain things being automated for them like the setup in Tabletop Simulator, so now I'm expected to... write code in Lua to automate player setup or handle round cleanup and make things easier and faster.
Or, I don't really want to spend thousands of hours on hundreds of playtests to make sure this game is balanced / no first player advantage / etc...so I'll write Python scripts to model the gameplay and run a bunch of Monte Carlo simulations to analyze the data.
I almost spend more time on the computer than not for this analog hobby nowadays. Especially when working on games that are past the initial pen and paper and basic components phase.
When things largely moved online for the pandemic, it was a great opportunity to reach publishers I normally couldn't without going to a convention overseas, and yet I lost almost all motivation to work on board game design that year. Still had some great ideas for my designs, but I couldn't get myself to do much more than write those ideas down.
Eventually just started coding video games again. Figured if it's going to end up on the computer anyway, might as well make a video game to start and not have to have a publisher in the first place.