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Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#21

Post by djchapman »

In parallel with the direct suggestions, address the stress itself. Prolonged stress limits brain function and therefore your ability to turn the situation around.

Do exercise coupled with controlled breathing, specifically with prolonged exhales, which tells our nervous system that there is no fight here. Do a tiny walk outside every two hours of coding, and consider yoga. Personally I also signed up for Blue Apron or similar mailed recipe kits because I found those instructions to be a relaxing level of activity, better than TV but still winding down, and there are those healthy diet benefits. I also rigged a sit / stand workstation with email on the low monitor and code on the high ones so switching position just happens.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#22

Post by tetha »

zer00eyz wrote: post #15
mswen wrote: post #3

In part your VP has already provided you the solution "allocated headcount for a large team". Question is can you keep all the balls in the air successfully while you go through the hiring cycle. I have talked with many CIO's who have gone through similar transitions in their own career. Starting as very technical and needing to transition to managing people, corporate functions and major projects. These transitions…

This is correct. HIRE HIRE HIRE! It is a conversation with your VP at this point. If I don't get the help you have told me I can go get this is going to sink, its going to be my number one priority. The other thing you need to find is a mentor, if you don't have any one in your circle (a former boss works, someone else who has been promoted) then you need to find outside help. Start looking for life coaches and or pr…

I know this is nitpicky, but: HIRE, HIRE, HIRE.. and delegate.

Don't just shanghai someone because he came through the office door. Hire someone with a clear goal and determination in your mind, something like "You analyze, refine, visualize and optimize workflows in this team" or "You're the guy to run around, collect business requirements, identify stakeholders, and priorize tasks with them".

And once they are in the team, throw as much of that responsibility in their direction and let them handle it. Control and support them as necesary. For one, this is the only way to reduce the workload on yourself. However, I've also found this to be a great motivation - people like having a purpose, a goal and feeling needed.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#23

Post by brown-dragon »

Schedule. Schedule. Schedule.

It's very important that you allocate some time to each area - upto 2 hr blocks of time for coding and architecture, 20 minutes for management tasks and a block of time for firefighting/reacting.

Also schedule in time for exercise, sleep, and just general downtime. All of which are very important.

Lastly, drop anything that's not important and delegate whatever you can. From your description it looks like you will be getting new hires to help you out soon. Just ride it out until you get support and make sure you don't burn out along the way. All the best!

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#24

Post by tapan_k »

mswen wrote: post #3

In part your VP has already provided you the solution "allocated headcount for a large team". Question is can you keep all the balls in the air successfully while you go through the hiring cycle. I have talked with many CIO's who have gone through similar transitions in their own career. Starting as very technical and needing to transition to managing people, corporate functions and major projects. These transitions…

While the VP is asking you to hire, the question is: why is your title not aligned with your responsibilities? Though you do not mention this, I have seen people in similar situations who send signals about not wanting "Manager" in their title. They are vocal about what they do not want to become in spite of what they are already bringing to the table, which can hinder professional growth.

Since you are directly reporting to someone who would otherwise be your skip level manager, you will need to fill in for your manager and ask for the correct job title to begin with. This will ensure two things:

1. Your responsibilities will be algined with your title; and

2. You will have better access to information and authority you need to build the right team, in addition to doing the right thing for people who already report into you.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#25

Post by nateweiss »

This doesn't directly address your question I suppose, but one thing that I have found to de-stress myself in times like this is to take a moment to consider the achievements you've made (with no formal training, etc). You're clearly super competent, can solve all sorts of problems, and a natural leader. This is great for you long-term. You will most likely have tons of great job opportunities in the future, which will most likely allow you to have the lifestyle you wish in the future. To me anyway, that can be a de-stressing line of thought, because while your current situation may be stressful, you can genuinely look at it and say that it is temporary (how temporary, I don't know). Even if the stress may be somewhat baked into your job now, you'll be able to address it in the future by getting yourself an awesome position. Easier to shake the present off if you realize you're in for a great future.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#26

Post by Havoc »

Delegate. There is a distinct disconnect between you saying "allocated headcount for a large team" yet you also saying "I'm still personally tasked with building out the architecture, writing code...".

e.g. Sick leave - grab a warm body & tell them they're in charge of sick leave now.

If you're reporting to the VP then you are reasonably high up the foodchain and thus you are (or should be) entitled to make calls like that.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#27

Post by lojack »

joshyeager wrote: post #9

I think your first step is to delegate some of your responsibilities ASAP. If you stop writing code and building estimates (but keep doing code reviews!) and hand off parts of the new hire training, that will free up time for other responsibilities. It will also help the people on your team grow so they can carry even more of the load for you. The Manager Tools podcasts have a lot of very useful advice that I think w…

Additionally, if they're giving the resources for a large team, you may be in a position to hire someone who some of these duties can be delegated to.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#28

Post by jwatte »

If you manage people, and report to a VP, that means your title should be "director," at least by valley standards.

Hopefully your VP can serve as an internal mentor and coach? An easy way to get started is to ask for advice on some particular point, and grow the discussion out from there over a few weeks.

If you manage two people, you should still have time to code yourself. If you manage six or more, and have business/design/project leadership responsibilities, you probably won't have a lot of time for coding on average. If you manage ten or more people, you should split the people in sub groups and get managers for those groups. Verify changes with your VP before actually implementing them, but make sure you rub the agenda of your team.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#29

Post by halfcat »

A budget mindset is helpful here, often critical. You need a time budget: brain dump your tasks, estimate time required for each task, put tasks on a calendar, repeat daily/weekly. I have never found a perfect method or tool to triage this fire-hydrant-level of workload. The best I can offer is, make time for it like your sanity depends on it. Getting on top of it is difficult initially, but it's temporary, and thereafter becomes manageable. Now you have crude metrics. Your VP can't argue with the laws of physics. This work on your time budget is like meditation: If you can't spend 10 minutes on it, then you need 3 hours.

Some times when people are self-taught, they lack confidence because they don't know what they don't know. This can lead to less competent colleagues, who happen to have a more aggressive personality than you, to move things in a bad direction. You sound like you have been entrusted with much. You probably know more than you realize.

It is critical to communicate your situation and needs to your VP. Unless you have immature management running the company, they need to know if you are drowning. Keep it objective (the metrics help with this). You don't want to come off complainy or the victim. Don't sugar coat the situation or be timid. You have some level of pull - the last thing your VP would want is for you to walk.

Don't ignore your health. Stress quickly becomes a vicious cycle, where once your willpower is depleted you make poor decisions, which only leads to worse stress. Whatever you eat, ask yourself what it is fueling. Get exercise. Unplug from work. Get enough sleep. See a doctor, or take supplements if needed. I had a big breakthrough in life when I started taking a supplement package. It pushed me over a tipping point. I was successful on a diet I had quit at least 30 times before, lost 40-50 lbs, no longer had afternoon crash in energy, and am much more productive even when I don't get enough sleep (I have a 1-year-old). My personal and professional lives improved significantly from getting my health in order.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with stress and overspecced responsibility?

#30

Post by cynusx »

The trick is to hire people below you so that your job becomes coordination and a set of minor tasks (HR, high-level architecture, roadmapping). For that you can't really delegate hiring as you need the right people in the right job. But you can definitely delegate training new hires, software architecture, writing code, product management and QA. I don't know how much headcount you've been given but if you have to manage more than 5 people your role should only involve management.

Break down all the tasks you are doing and are supposed to be doing. Every task that you can see yourself doing for more than 8h/week needs to be done by somebody you hire.

Before you jump in and go on a hiring spree, make sure to list the top 5 outcomes (with measurement) you want to achieve by hiring this person. It also helps to list the personality traits/skillset you think they will need to achieve those outcomes. Using this approach you know what you are looking for and frankly, this approach has helped me bring in people that completely own their domain and almost need no guidance (beyond the initial onboarding). Ironically the goal you should have as a manager is to make yourself obsolete.

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