61–70 of 370 posts
36 messages and nobody pointed out that a main source of burnout is when your *values* are not aligned with your work. It's unsurprising people burn out when their job is about optimizing ads to enrich some billionaire and stuff like that. Find jobs that are meaningful to you and you can improve.
Autistic here as well, tremendous burnout and trauma from my last job. It took me a lot of writing / reconnecting with why I love technology in the first place, and a 3 months sabbatical at the recurse center to… feel like I’m back. A big part in this is also the very privileged fact that I have total freedom and trust at my current work, which allows me to follow my holistic way of thinking and not having to do hier…
I took a job in an education setting, a much more diverse role, hardware/software/networking, very little coding, much less hours. I arrive at 8am then leave at 5pm on the dot everyday. I walk to and from work. I work very hard, but not at all when I'm at home. I only look at email when I am sat at my desk. I don't think much about what I've done on a given day, or what I'm going to do - just do what I'm told.
The scene in American Beauty where he finds a job with the least possible responsibility reminds me of my life.
I look forward to each day. I don't dread Sundays. I have a good nights sleep every night. It can be done with variety!
What you need is a change at work and the exercise to heal the mind. So as you make adjustments at work, also make sure you're setting aside time for any amount of exercise and vitamin d.
Every time I've changed jobs it's been a total reset for me. It takes a while for a job to reach 100% workload and that honeymoon period is usually enough to recover.
I believe that once you feel an unhealthy personal connection to your job it's time to move on. For example, you're upset and exhausted every day because a project you spent two years on isn't gaining traction and may be cut. Or you find yourself regularly checking in while vacation because you're worried.
After reflecting on an incident with my friend for a long time, I came to realize that taking days off every once in a while is not enough, and what maybe have saved me from burnout all these years is my habit of taking time off every day.
I have lots of activities out of work, for example, going to the gym three times a week, writing this blog, making Youtube videos, running my farm fishing business, reading consistently, and running my own SaaS and Open-source projects. Those are all self-imposed restrictions to get out of work on time and put my mind and body into different activities. Every day, I do something out of work for at least 2 hours, and I restrict work for the time it needs to be restricted. Once I started doing that, my productivity increased drastically even tho I started working fewer hours.
Worth noting that all my other activities outside of work are not time-sensitive, which means I can do them when I have time, and if I need more dedication for something, I can easily make it fit into my agenda. For that, I use the 2 days rule (I am allowed to skip any of that activity once but not twice in a row). This is important because having a hard agenda can increase your chances of burnout. The only hard activity I have in my schedule is to work 8 hours 5 days a week. The others I can move to best fit my needs that week.
My life hack to do it to Have a daily “Hour of something.” Having a personal routine helps you achieve goals out of work on a daily bases. I recently introduced two new routines in my day.
One hour of cleaning where every day. For this hour, I will clean or organize something in my house. This one hour helps my digital detox and cleans my mind. I liked the cleaning because it is practical and infinity and it gives me a sense of compliment, as a side effect my house is cleaner and neater.
The next, I am still incorporating, but I call the “hours of reading,” and it is 30 minutes at the moment. After lunch, I take 30 minutes to read a book instead of jumping back to work. This moment is when I calmly sit in the middle of the day and turn off my mind not to think about work; with that, I can keep up with my reading and learn something new.
These two routines grantees me at least 1:30 hours a day of not working and gets my mind and body back to a normal state. I usually do my “cleaning hour” after work, so I use it as the commute back home time. Since I work from home, it takes me 30 seconds to disconnect from work, and I do not want to bring to my personal life any stress I collect over my day of work.
I'm still pretty young so this might not apply, but I tried to skip university and make it as a freelancer. Worked out fine money wise, but got severe burn out working on a project that I shouldn't have taken on in the first place, but needed the money. I recovered fine, but it was pretty brutal. For a while I couldn't even look at code without getting nauseous and a having a splitting headache. I'm not exaggerating…
Things that worked for me: Exercise. Sleep. Reduce your workload to something manageable. Say No. Meditate, active meditation is ok (yoga, some martial arts, even running) Stop having hobbies that look like work and involve obligations, at least until you recover. Clear your todo list. Clear your inbox. Like, just empty them. Rest. Take back your evenings and weekends. Vacation if you can. Above all, this is going to…
Stop killing yourself for their profit. You have no downtime, you have no peace, you have no time to 'do' anything else.
70hrs a week (assuming you sleep 8hrs) only leaves you with 10hrs a week. That's just 2hrs a day! AND I bet most of those 2 hrs is used up in "morning routine, and food preparation".
You need to cut back A LOT.
Stop working at 40hrs. Stand up for yourself. Don't let your company bully you. Pre-Industrial revolution, the average person had more 'time off' then we do. A peasant, living subsistence farming lifestyle had more free time then you do.