Can you afford sabbatical? At least a few months, but possibly more. I was able to reset it that way.
I have fantasized about having a sabbatical. I wonder if I'm paying the balance, or the interest, off of my burnout.
Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
201–210 of 370 posts
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#202College burned me out. The solution was, as another commenter suggested, to drop the baggage and move on. I had a semester left and my career in front of me. Which do you think I picked? Waiting another semester wouldn't have helped me in the slightest.
A couple jobs ago, I worked for a company in the Education disruption space and COVID essentially killed the culture. It was always a big "political activism" company, but the rhetoric got cranked to 11 with COVID and it was incredibly hard to get work done in the same way I used to. The cure here was to give myself more time, I realized here I had been sacrificing a lot for employers who didn't give two shits about me.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#203I've noticed that during my times of burnout I code less at home. I do what I need to at work and go do something else. Sometimes this involves taking up an alternative hobby until I feel the spark again. The last time this happened I didn't code outside work for 10 months. That's how I knew I was burned out. I love to write code and explore things.
I've also left jobs that burned me out for no real reason. For example, I was on a project where there were two of us holding down a critical piece of software. After hearing we will get more engineers for the Nth time I just gave up and left. I couldn't do the constant on-call, being the liaison for bugs and everything, etc.
I also deliberately avoid going into management to fix my burnout because you simply just transmute your burnout into a different form. What you need is a break. You may not wish to quit your job but it is important that you minimize your work as much as you can possibly and focus on yourself. Given you are working double a normal schedule you may even consider saving up enough money to take a month off and then looking for a new job.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#204This 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 but.. care less. I think there's a nuance in this that's easy to be missed. It's possible to care about the quality of your work but not care about the various forms of insanity in your management chain. I think a lot of people fear that not caring means you turn into a totally useless person - that extremely unproductive person in the company that everybody hates…
> I think there's a nuance in this that's easy to be missed. It's possible to care about the quality of your work but not care about the various forms of insanity in your management chain.
Yes, exactly! I've found this to be the main cause of my own burnout, caring too much about the background noise and not focusing enough on the parts of the job that I actually enjoy and do well. When I stopped caring so much about all the chatter in slack and jira, all-hands meetings, etc.. and spent all my time at my desk closing tickets assigned to me, and nothing more, things got better.
> People who care too much also complain too much.
I agree but I've also witnessed other devs burn out who just decided everything was their problem and tried way to hard to please everyone with a problem. Rather than complaining they imploded.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#205This 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"…
Coincidentally this is how I know what I am made to do. I've stopped programming on personal stuff for months at a time to solve burnout. Yet, I always manage to get the spark reignited, drop every other hobby, and focus on what I love doing. I've lost a lot of friends this way (sorry can't do X, I'm working on a project) but generally people don't understand anyway.
Sometimes separation makes the heart grow fonder, even in tech.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#206[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#207This 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…
Kind of this. I don't think it's "care less" but I think it's "care appropriately for 40 hours a week." The concept of "quiet quitting" is a shameful, panicky fraud perpetuated by the power holders in the industry that see their power slipping. "Quiet quitting" has been known as "work to rule" or "fulfilling a contract." My paystub says 40 hours. My original contract says nothing about overtime. I'm not quiet quittin…
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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#208No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#209If you can afford it, giving yourself a sabbatical is an incredible way to recharge.
Everyone's financial / family / etc situation is different, so do what works for you, but I think there's actually a pretty broad range of options you've got:
- Do nothing but reconnect with family/friends for an entire month - Do something, but not programming, and compensated if you need it, for N months - If situation allows, travel to a place you never expected to live
My guess is you'll end up with one of two outcomes, both good:
- You'll spend 2-3x the time you'd planned, because you're loving it so much - You'll end up rushing back into your engineering career, because you've hit on an idea or opportunity that you can't pass up
Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?
#210This 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…
Kind of this. I don't think it's "care less" but I think it's "care appropriately for 40 hours a week." The concept of "quiet quitting" is a shameful, panicky fraud perpetuated by the power holders in the industry that see their power slipping. "Quiet quitting" has been known as "work to rule" or "fulfilling a contract." My paystub says 40 hours. My original contract says nothing about overtime. I'm not quiet quittin…
> My job is a side quest, not a main quest.
Even if it were your main quest, I think the strategy you outline is worth following. Going all out is what causes burnout, and that applies to whether you are working for yourself or for someone else, and also whether you are working a job or working on your passion.
A career is like an ultra marathon -- maintain a sustainable pace, and run with people you like to spend time with.