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Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

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Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#301

Post by jwilliams »

It's really tough (impossible) to think/work/act your way out of being burnt out. You need to reset, recharge, and then rebuild.

And from the very limited information here - you sound burnt out.

I don't know of many more longer term solutions aside from taking time out (and a lot of it, probably a vast amount more than people estimate). Obviously there is the exercise, sleep, floss, friends, family, pets, etc, etc. And I'd recommend that deeply. But that can be hard to effectively build without the battery having a decent amount of charge.

Not everyone can just peace out for a month, or 6, or a year. It's an enormous privilege to be able to do so. But take what you can.

Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#302

Post by DonHopkins »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #283
r_c_a_d wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 40 years I have only ever put the start and end year of each item on my resume. I guess this dates to when most jobs / education lasted multiple years. But I've stuck with it and no-one has ever questioned it. The couple of jobs I have had which were less than one year spanned a year-end so it never looked odd. When I am reviewing incoming resumes small gaps never bother me. Ocassionally I have seen multi-year gap…

Curious what you would consider an illegitimate career break?

Working for Oracle. ;)

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#303

Post by qkls »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #283
r_c_a_d wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 40 years I have only ever put the start and end year of each item on my resume. I guess this dates to when most jobs / education lasted multiple years. But I've stuck with it and no-one has ever questioned it. The couple of jobs I have had which were less than one year spanned a year-end so it never looked odd. When I am reviewing incoming resumes small gaps never bother me. Ocassionally I have seen multi-year gap…

Curious what you would consider an illegitimate career break?

Substance abuse related career breaks. At least recent.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#304

Post by koonsolo »

randomsearch wrote: post #291
koonsolo wrote: post #179

> I've put in countless hours of work every day (70-90 hrs), being on-call almost 24/7, sometimes for straight 7 days for months So why do you think you have the following: > but unable to concentrate, riddled with brain fog You're putting in WAY TOO MANY HOURS! Stop doing overtime, and read this: https://www.7pace.com/blog/overtime-kills and http://blog.approache.com/2010/11/rules-of-productivity.html On the career…

> Stop doing overtime, and read this: https://www.7pace.com/blog/overtime-kills and http://blog.approache.com/2010/11/rules-of-productivity.html That was fascinating reading, thanks for sharing. This seems like absolutely crucial data for a startup. Rationally, these links imply that a startup should work 40 hour weeks. Intuitively I'm not entirely convinced, but I want to be. I work 50 hours minimum and have regular…

There were periods in my life when I was obsessed with productivity. I found out that I can do about 3 to 4 hours of highly concentrated work a day. On extreme days, I could pull off 6 hours of concentration. But I always paid back that time in the days after.

Now I can't do those hours in 1 go, there need to be pauses in between. Spending 40 hours a week doing 15 to 20 hours of highly concentrated work seems reasonable to me.

It's possible that I'm highly unproductive with my 3 to 4 hours a day, but there are clues in my life that say otherwise. I have a masters degree in CS, and at work always got good to great reviews. So comparing myself to others, I'm doing pretty great. Never have I met anyone who was 2x or more productive than me (when I was not in my unproductive periods). I met plenty of people who were way smarter than me.

Another clue: while studying, I would do 75% of my study material before lunch, then had to struggle the remaining 25% in the afternoon and early evening. At 20:00, I was completely done. I would read 1 sentence, and it just would not stick in my head. It was impossible at that point for me to learn.

I know people who study way into the night, and I always wondered how they were able to pull this off. Well, in the end it turned out they didn't do shit in the mornings.

So for me, I'm very skeptical about working 60 to 80 hours a week. I think a lot of people are just fooling themselves. Sometimes you hear stories like Elon Musk or John Carmack, who seem to be able to work crazy amount of hours. But still I'm highly skeptical about their reporting. Let's just say I would love to see it with my own eyes if they fit into my theory or not. If they don't fit, I would love to know how they are able to do it.

I've seen others online that report the same as me. 4 hours a day of highly concentrated work. That you can sit in meetings 60 to 80 hours a week, I have no doubt. But I don't think it would equate into 60 to 80 hours of productive work.

Anyway, if you have more on the topic, I would love to hear it. Also, check out this video, which is also very informative and comes from a pretty reliable source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH1bewTg-P4

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#305

Post by abofh »

You're not alone, but it can help to identify the patterns and habits that led you down this path. There was a recent piece in entrepreneur - https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424454 that may offer some insight, and I think the author does some coaching around burnout if that's something you think can help.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#306

Post by madeofpalk »

feanaro wrote: post #200
colanderman wrote: post #9

1. Take time off, like a month or more. [1] Use it to do anything other than coding. Hone a hobby, travel, volunteer, etc. No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. 2. You are worth more than you currently think you are. Internalize this, know this, that is key. "I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very small team" --> is a desirable skill in and of itself. 3. Stop…

> No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving. Why would an employer care whether I took time off to pursue other things otherwise?

I've taken multiple six month stints off, and in the UK no one has ever asked about it.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#307

Post by sillysaurusx »

DonHopkins wrote: post #302
AlecSchueler wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what you would consider an illegitimate career break?

Working for Oracle. ;)

I actually laughed out loud, and really needed that today. Thank you.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31548548 was great too. You should turn these into TikToks or do standup or something.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#308

Post by madeofpalk »

bigDinosaur wrote: post #229
michaelmior wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree for small gaps. But I think it's at least somewhat understandable why a significant gap would be a concern. With the pace technology moves at, if you have not been working for an extended period of time, it's reasonable that you might have fallen behind. Certainly this shouldn't be reason in itself to reject a candidate and it at least somewhat depends on what you were doing during that time, but I find…

It really should be put in the context of someone's life. Did they spend a year or two travelling? Did they spend it working on personally productive projects? Or did they do nothing but play video games or do drugs? These are all very different extended gaps. The first two should be fine - if someone's skills have atrophied than that's another issue (but nothing a good interview or probation period won't pick up on…

I've taken sixth months off and mostly played video games and no one ever cared or asked??!

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#309

Post by chucksmash »

feanaro wrote: post #200
colanderman wrote: post #9

1. Take time off, like a month or more. [1] Use it to do anything other than coding. Hone a hobby, travel, volunteer, etc. No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. 2. You are worth more than you currently think you are. Internalize this, know this, that is key. "I am a sole developer for Mobile and Web platforms at this startup in a very small team" --> is a desirable skill in and of itself. 3. Stop…

> No-one will care about a month or two gap on your resume. On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving. Why would an employer care whether I took time off to pursue other things otherwise?

> On a related note, this "gap in resume" thing needs to stop being a thing at all. I don't know when it became a thing, but it feels distinctively like forcing a wage slave class to keep their head down and continue wageslaving.

I think you can better make sense of it as a vestigial organ of hiring process from before background checks were widespread, no "wageslavery" explanation needed.

Re: Ask HN: Burnt-out, directionless but want to turn it around

#310

Post by n_time »

You're being exploited. You've been worked to your limit. You probably share some blame in this but you're certainly not the one profiting from it so the key thing is you need to stop for a minute.

You need a break to re-evaluate. At least two weeks without work before you even bother trying to sort through important questions like who you are and what you want. Once you've relaxed, you can start to ask the heady, existential questions that it sounds like you've been putting off for a while.

Try asking for some extra vacation from your employers. If they won't give it to you, and you can afford it, ask for unpaid time off.

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