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

I've been thinking about the following question a lot in the past few years: How do we keep our work from damaging us? I think a lot of people here have offered good advice here: put guardrails on your work. No reason to work over 40 hours/week. And if you need to, work less than 40 hrs/week for a while. If that doesn't help then maybe a sabbatical is in order.

The cult of constant productivity is strong in this culture. Try to recognize it and resist it. Don't rest so you can be more productive (I often hear this) - rest because you are a human being who has worth regardless of how productive you are. Rest because you realize you are finite and have a finite amount of energy to give. Rest because you need to. Consider practicing sabbath - sure that's a term usually associated with certain religions - but the concept is applicable even if you're not religious. Pick a day to disconnect. Don't try to be productive. Get out in nature and let your mind wander. Disconnect from social media. Try to connect with yourself, others and nature again.

> It's less that and more that you're not maximizing retirement savings at that point, which is something that stresses a lot of folks out.

I understand where this is coming from, but it can be a trap. Maximizing your retirement savings for the distant future at the cost of your current health is not a good tradeoff.

All things in balance. One's current needs are just as important as their future needs. "Future you" can figure it out when the time comes. They're pretty smart :p. "Future you" would want you to properly take care of "current you".

I say this as someone who has spent most of my net worth -- over $100k -- over the past 2 years of not working as I've taken time to heal and grow and learn how to live life better.

It's been a difficult journey for me but it is something I needed to do. I have more hope for the future than I have had in many, many years.

> Also, even within software, I can't imagine trying to find a job with a 6-month gap on my resume. I'm not in the bay area, and even working remotely, competition is brutal. A gap on your resume is a great reason to get immediately rejected by wherever you're applying to.

This may be a hurdle, but it's probably not as big as you think. You were taking care of your health -- no details required. The matter has since been resolved and you are excited and ready to make use of your skills again. Do they need someone with your skillset or not? Don't project your worry onto them :) They will sense that and that will be the actual issue.

Agreed. Currently I am on a 3-month sabbatical after being laid off from my previous position of 7 years. While I could have opted for a longer duration, I’ve been happy with the time off thus far, and my efforts of saving and investing over the years has made finances a non-issue during this time.

I also set up my next gig in the weeks immediately following layoffs, which I’ll be starting in November, so I’m excited to know that there’s financial security at the end of this experience.

It’s been a much needed break.

I'll try to summarize my process: I've been working as a freelance full stack dev for around 12 years now. 2 years ago I hit a point where I couldn't work anymore. I just had such a strong aversion to the job, it almost felt like pain to sit down and just look at code. It was really bad for around a month where I barely worked and really struggled with clients and earning money. I then had a mushroom trip where i completely broke down. The idea that I've built my whole life around this career that just deals with "virtual stuff" and doesn't really add any value to peoples lifes made me panic. I had no plan B. Somehow I managed to really go into these feelings of despair and had a strong emotional release. I woke up the next day with a new strength to change things. Since then I've simplified my job a lot and had many very fortunate opportunities. I'm running my own very minimal one-guy saas business now that came out of an old project. I work maybe 2 hours per day and get by well. Everything seemed to just magically come together as a result of this psilocybin experience (and a couple more after that). Not recommending this approach, but it worked for me.

I wouldn't say I've rediscovered my love for coding, but I have periods where I do enjoy it again (if I limit the time I spend in front of the screen and balance it with other activities). Also what was important was to really focus on simplfiying my own life and also achieving that through my work/product for others. You could say the crisis helped me to shift my intention regarding my purpose and to really appreciate simplicity.

This 100%. I got burned out by the classic case of working at a startup from pre-seed round. After two or three years or so of working virtually every single day, including between leisure activities on “days off” and almost always “on call” replying to emails and DMs, I just stopped. I didn’t reply at absurd hours, even if I knew the answer or had something to say. I didn’t spend hours outside of work thinking about work anymore.

Over time, I started putting more time into properly decompressing from work at the end of the day so I didn’t feel stressed about the next day.

I get burned out from time to time still, but it’s much more “in the moment” burn out vs systemic burn out.