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

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

#181

Post by rmellow »

dumbfounder wrote: post #106

I am part of a group of CEOs that meet with a coach to work through company issues, and one of the things they continually drill into us is that employees need to buy into the mission of the company in order to be most effective. The reason they are most effective is that they are happy when working on something that means something to them. So I think it's good advice the other way as well. Find a company with a mis…

> Find a company with a mission you can get behind, which should help motivate you to excel, and thus have a sense of accomplishment, and ultimately be happier.

The company mission exists to guide decision making. Employee motivation and happiness comes from understanding that a job exists to pay for a fulfilling life

High performing people can choose where they work. Here's how you can attract them to your company:

- Make their job reasonably challenging. Their accomplishments should look good on a resume.

- Give them reasonable autonomy on how they work and who they work with (hiring).

- Enable a fulfilling life, whether on the job or out of the job: Reasonable and predictable work hours, good working environment.

- Don't make them pretend to drink the kool-aid. In fact, keep the kool-aid in a corner where people have to go out of their way to drink it. Having guiding principles on how to do business is fine, just don't pretend like someone's life motivation is to change the world through quantum-AI-enabled-crypto-retargeting-adtech.

- What makes me in particular go to work everyday? I like my coworkers and becoming better at my craft.

- There's no shortcut for a good working environment. Focus on having the right people/incentives/culture. Perks and offsites only go so far and won't fix your company.

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

#182

Post by hardware2win »

b112 wrote: post #154
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…

This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people I'll chime in here with more of this. 1) Make sure all work related correspondence goes via specific email aliases, logins, etc, etc. And turn it off when away from work. 2) Probably, get a personal phone, and just turn off your work phone after hours. One way to burn out, is to never, ever have work, and work related issues, out of your mind. Unless you are on-call…

Get different room for work when WFH

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

#183

Post by 8jef »

Was burned out at 21. Took me a few years to figure out some lingering childhood trauma was pulling me down. Came to term by accepting that some things I can't change, and figured out that control upon people should not be desired (got help to get to that). Then decided I should only pursue things in life that I love, whatever that is.

Like many said, caring less can be good, but only if that means you don't take things at a personal level. It's never about ourselves, it's about the others. Greatest truth I've ever learned.

Overall, a great hack in life is to develop some faith in the fact that things work out by themselves over time.

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

#184

Post by simple-thoughts »

Burnout is extremely common in solo dev web3 projects. The first time I saw a dev stop responding to messages except telling close friends he was traveling Europe it looked like a moral failing. The 10th time it looked more systematic. Dev work requires extreme focus under pressure - then when they crack the community blamed the dev instead of looking at themselves for placing unreasonable expectations.

Unfortunately for your situation, I have almost never seen a dev fully recover from extreme burnout. If your case isn’t too severe you should immediately get away from code for an extended period of time until it becomes attractive to you again. Otherwise, don’t blame yourself but transition into a different field. Management is possible for individuals with ASD if you can put in the focus to learn social cues.

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

#185

Post by maerF0x0 »

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…

> Sabbath

Some context for the fun of it. Sabbath is the 7th day of rest that the God of Genesis took -- yes even God found rest to at least be good (if not needed). He also prescribed for the jewish people of the Old testament seven sacred feasts, which could be multiday if not weeklong festivities and breaks from work. Then there was the Sabbatical you mentioned -- One year off in 7 to rest the land and labor. Furthermore there was "Jubilee" -- a special sabbatical year every 7th sabbatical that went even further :)

Seems like ancient people (if not God) deeply understood the need for rest!

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

#186

Post by webnrrd2k »

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…

I call it ”the healing power of apathy".

It sounds funny and weird, but benign neglect is sometimes an appropriate response.

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

#187

Post by Workaccount2 »

bsenftner wrote: post #156
sethammons wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize, illegal work environments and unreasonable expectations on developers is "best practices" in software development. This doesn't match my decade+ of experience. 35-50hr weeks and open communication on project statuses and timelines. I've had two or three crunch-times. Worked at a startup that went unicorn.

Perhaps my ambition exposed me to the worst of our industry: Apple Macintosh pre-release developer (everything in Assembly), OS dev for both the 3D0 and the original PSX game consoles, was at E.A. during the E.A. Spouse Era, managed a game studio for several years while also coding on titles, was a director of R&D for the first Internet live video infrastructure provider, worked in feature film VFX across 9 features…

Modern tech jobs (in the era of free money, which may be ending) have really put a clamp on long hours. Tech jobs were notorious for long hours until recently where it has flipped, and they are known for comfy work/life balance approach.

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

#188

Post by wnolens »

bsenftner wrote: post #156
sethammons wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do realize, illegal work environments and unreasonable expectations on developers is "best practices" in software development. This doesn't match my decade+ of experience. 35-50hr weeks and open communication on project statuses and timelines. I've had two or three crunch-times. Worked at a startup that went unicorn.

Perhaps my ambition exposed me to the worst of our industry: Apple Macintosh pre-release developer (everything in Assembly), OS dev for both the 3D0 and the original PSX game consoles, was at E.A. during the E.A. Spouse Era, managed a game studio for several years while also coding on titles, was a director of R&D for the first Internet live video infrastructure provider, worked in feature film VFX across 9 features…

Do you consider yourself a victim? Holding the titles of director and principal means you used your position to reinforce this pattern, no?

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

#190

Post by dahart »

aspyct wrote: post #93

I think working 5 days a week, 8h a day on the same topic is insane. I can't think of anything I would want to do for so many hours a day, almost every day. For me, switching to 4 days a week was a huge improvement in my quality of life. Now I've switched to 3, and have a completely different second job 2 days a week. And two days of rest. I love both, for different reasons, but could never go back to a full week of…

> Essentially, you’re trading time against money. What’s most valuable to you?

It took me an embarrassingly long time for this to sink in all the way. I worked in crunch-time-heavy jobs like filmmaking and video games, sometimes doing 12 hours a day for 7 days a week for stretches. The problem with working that much is that it’s essentially using 100% of your time: after eating and sleeping, there is not enough left to have time for friends or family or much of anything else at all. I finally realized that when I trade all of my time away for money, I’m effectively putting a dollar amount on the value of my life, and it turns out that the number wasn’t anywhere near high enough for me.

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