Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#161

Post by jesse__ » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

I suffered from pretty severe burnout once, which took me about a year to recover from. Thankfully, I had the means to quit working and change gears to a slower life tempo. I started rock climbing again, spending lots of time with my partner, even painting occasionally. One day, I just felt like programming again, for myself, and man was it fun!! I rediscovered the joy programming.

I decided to make a change in my work-life. I decided to only take jobs/contracts that I'm excited to work on. For me, that largely means graphics and game-engine programming. It's a tremendous amount of work to learn those skills, but when I'm working on graphics programming I feel like I'm programming for myself 90% of my day's.

I guess my advice here is (if you can) walk away, take some time off to recover, and you'll remember why you started programming.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#162

Post by Mezzie » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #67

Version467 wrote: post #48

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…

As a society we should figure out some sort of systemic work exchange program where people suffering from burnout can leave their career for 8 months to work in a brewery or be a fire watcher or herd goats or whatever until they figure out that, "damn, my old job wasn't so bad after all." Either that or they become a full time goat herder...

It's not systemic, but I'm unironically doing this. I live in a LCOL city and I just walked away from my previous career path and am working in a lingerie shop. It's definitely not a forever thing, but the time to get my brain together is invaluable.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#163

Post by muzani » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:33 PM UTC

highwaylights wrote: post #96

This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people but.. care less. You’re in an industry that values your skills and seems to always have demand. Whether or not that’s true in the future, it certainly is today , so the best thing you can do is put yourself first and worry less about work as a whole. Especially if it’s not your own company. Spend more time on you, on activities with friends and family, on hobbies. I…

Caring less is one of the main symptoms of medical burnout. I wonder if it's correlation the other way though.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#164

Post by agentultra » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:35 PM UTC

Yes.

Burnout for me was caused by feeling like I had no control over the amount of stress and pressure I was under.

Enjoyment came back when I felt free to pursue leisurely interests and work wasn’t the centre of my life. There was a long process of recovery after removing myself from the situation contributing to my burnout.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#165

Post by aliclark7 » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:36 PM UTC

strongpigeon wrote: post #27

I did. I got really burnt out at the beginning of the pandemic. Ended up quitting my job and taking some time off. For a long while, just thinking of doing coding projects would fill me with disgust. After about 9 months, I decided to make an app for the workout program I was following (5/3/1) as I didn’t like the ones out there or using spreadsheets. Working on something where I was user 0 was tons of fun and remind…

Off topic but what's the app called for 5/3/1?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#166

Post by premachb » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

highwaylights wrote: post #96

This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people but.. care less. You’re in an industry that values your skills and seems to always have demand. Whether or not that’s true in the future, it certainly is today , so the best thing you can do is put yourself first and worry less about work as a whole. Especially if it’s not your own company. Spend more time on you, on activities with friends and family, on hobbies. I…

100% agree. My life used to be all about tech / software engineering, especially when I got started in the industry and was learning a lot. One day I became burnt out and realized my life was so one dimensional, all I could talk about was different tech products and software engineering. I decided to put my work on the back burner and focus on instead trying various hobbies.

I ended up for a while just "caring less" about work while still getting my work done and putting all of my heart and soul into my hobbies (mostly Muay Thai and Running). Ironically, I think the time of putting engineering on the back burner has re-ignited my interest in it again. So it's not like you have to "care less" forever.

I've come to realize that I think life is cyclical like that and we need to be able to drive our energy towards new and interesting things, or even our families and the burn out is a signal you need to turn your energy towards something else. Your craft will always be waiting for you on the other side.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#167

Post by jesse__ » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

ryandvm wrote: post #67

Version467 wrote: post #48

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…

As a society we should figure out some sort of systemic work exchange program where people suffering from burnout can leave their career for 8 months to work in a brewery or be a fire watcher or herd goats or whatever until they figure out that, "damn, my old job wasn't so bad after all." Either that or they become a full time goat herder...

I mean, depending on where we're talking here, I think my girlfriend would love being a f/t goat hearder.. can you hook me up?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#168

Post by specproc » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:37 PM UTC

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #69

70hrs work-weeks? Of course you are burnt out. 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 yours…

Seconded. 70 hours is too much, even over a fairly short period of time let alone years. Everything you do above ~40 hours draws on finite reserves, getting back down to a sane work schedule is critical if you want to recover.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#169

Post by ygghr » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #75

Can you afford a sabbatical? The term has roots in "seven", just like Sabbath, so with 14 years in the industry, you've skipped one. I think a solid half-year off every seven to ten years is an excellent practice for intellectually demanding labor. What makes it a sabbatical is that it's a change of pace which furthers your career. I'd love to take a sabbatical and just work on building stuff, personally: from solder…

I think a sabbatical is a great suggestion. It's length depends on a balance of your financial situation and bank balance addiction and goals.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#170

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Oct 19, 2022, 1:38 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #60

wallflow3r wrote: post #33

"What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work." https://thetech.com/2010/04/09/dubai-v130-n18 I recommend reading the whole section on burnout. Although burnout isn't really the topic of the article this is the most enlightening writing I have ever read on it. Hoping it might serve you.

I enjoyed the article a lot. Not only the burnout part but also to enlighten me why free marketeers true believers incorporate as their moral ground on it. This quote brought to me how naive that view can be: > I’m a free marketeer. I believe that voluntary exchange is not just a good method of incentivizing people to provide their labor and talents to society, but a robust moral system — goods and services represent…

Free market believers aren't wrong on their belief that a free market has a kind of morality. Instead, they are wrong on their belief that free markets exist.

This disclaimer carries a lot of weight, and puts yourself into pure theoretical modeling:

> Absent negative externalities or monopoly effects

Anyway, we are biologically inclined into doing commerce. So you will find out that people have a great deal of easiness into adopting pro-market beliefs.