41–50 of 102 posts
I won't go into all of it, but one thing that has really helped is to have all the tasks in progress on a board where everyone can see them.
And only have one task in express lane and two non-express items at any time.
You haven't said whether the problem is too much work or competing priorities (or both). Whatever it is, this has helped me.
I got burnt out working 10+ hour days, 7 days a week for a year, tried to ignore it and push through and was noticeably showing signs of burnout and productivity issues because of it. I couldn't take it anymore and asked for a week vacation. 3 days into the week vacation I was fired.
Amazon employee spotted.
My manager and I had a 10 year relationship going. I had just transitioned to a new role, had a new born and taken on too much. I was feeling it for 6 months but finally broke at around 9 months. I told him I couldn't do it anymore and that I wanted a sabbatical. I told them that my backup plan was to just quit. He talked me off the ledge and within a day had transitioned my troublesome projects to others and moved m…
I'm a boss of devs. My off the cuff response to you is "please, god _please_, talk to your boss." Say exactly what you told us. "I'm burnt out, I've tried addressing the problem..." Before you do, think through what's causing the burnout. It could be the hours, that's where everyone goes first, but it could be a particular client, it could be the number of projects you're having to concurrently work, it could be your…
I got burnt out working 10+ hour days, 7 days a week for a year, tried to ignore it and push through and was noticeably showing signs of burnout and productivity issues because of it. I couldn't take it anymore and asked for a week vacation. 3 days into the week vacation I was fired.
Also, on average, how many hours per day do you spend working or thinking about work? If it's more than 8-9, stop it. Go be with your family/dog/whatever is important to you and don't think about work at nights or on the weekend at all. If you need to, turn off work emails (or even better, don't have them on your phone to begin with), Slack notifications, or whatever your org's ball and chain of choice is. I've worked at places where it seems impossible to disconnect like that, and that's a pretty solid indicator that you should look for something new (at least in my experience).
We've switched to using Kanban at work. I won't go into all of it, but one thing that has really helped is to have all the tasks in progress on a board where everyone can see them. And only have one task in express lane and two non-express items at any time. You haven't said whether the problem is too much work or competing priorities (or both). Whatever it is, this has helped me.
I supervise developers. This is easy: talk to your boss. Either way, this solves your problem. Outcome 1: it goes well. Your boss listens with empathy. Your boss works with you to find ways to help you feel better. You take some vacation or etc., and then come back to work feeling renewed. Success! Outcome 2: it goes poorly. Your boss blows you off. Now you have an easy next step: Go find a better place to work (e.g.…
I had a similar conversation with a manager a few years back, and it went much better than I expected. It's tough, because on one hand you're literally saying to the boss, "I'm currently unhappy and unable to work at the level I expect of myself.", but hopefully they are able to empathize enough to want to work through it. It could easily go the other way, though. My advice is to be prepared for it to be a conversati…
I think this is a really good way of putting it. I think it's also important to realize that you may go through stages of feeling like this fairly frequently. It's when you don't do something about it (often because you feel like you can't), that it gets to be a problem.
The conversation "I want to do more / I want to do better. Here are the things that are in my way", feels a bit awkward at first, but in reality it is music to a manager's ears -- especially if your manager has been thinking, "What's going on with Joe? I really expect more from him." Often they are afraid to broach the subject because they don't want to put pressure on you and potentially make things worse.
Removing roadblocks so that people can do their work really well is the job of a manager. I think that many people don't realize this and as a result don't take advantage of/empower their managers. Often people view their manager as an impediment to work around (or simply as the gatekeeper to getting a higher salary).
Even if things are going well, I recommend that people get into the habit of saying, "I want to improve X, but I'm having difficulty because of Y" (even if Y is, "I don't know what to do"). See how your manager reacts and whether or not they can help you (directly or indirectly). A good manager is worth a lot!