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How to Burn Out Programming

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Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#101

Post by marcosdumay »

romaniv wrote: post #91

2. Have a negative attitude toward everything. People who pretend to think that you can simply willfully infuse yourself with positivity annoy me. Negativity is how individuals react to certain environments. You can change some features in the environment and fix that, but simply demanding everyone to be positive is stupid. It's essentially a demand for suffering in silence.

You can simply willfully infuse yourself with positivity. You can do the same with negativity.

Yep, most people most of the time get those as a reaction to their environment, but they are not caused by the environment, positivity and negativity are always self inflicted.

Anyway, I don't think a positive attitude is always the best for a person, but most of the times, it is.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#102

Post by civilian »

romaniv wrote: post #91

2. Have a negative attitude toward everything. People who pretend to think that you can simply willfully infuse yourself with positivity annoy me. Negativity is how individuals react to certain environments. You can change some features in the environment and fix that, but simply demanding everyone to be positive is stupid. It's essentially a demand for suffering in silence.

Yes, some negativity will always come up. But I've known people who have a miserable attitude about everything, or far too frequently, and as a disproportionate response to their environment. It's like they wake up and say "I want to be a crummy person today".

I was working data-validation at a big tech company, and the data-validation tool was under active development. It'd crash ~20 times in an 8 hour workday. I would happily restart my Tool and get back into it, but other people would huff and puff and rant. And it's like: What are you accomplishing with this attitude?

Empathically speaking, maybe it's because they have a hard home life or had a tough childhood. But it's unprofessional and your negative energy affects me. So I'll be the mirror you need and throw it all back in your face. :)

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#103

Post by lewaldman »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

So true, so true. As someone's manager I want them to know that these things are NOT roads to "success." Not everyone though has the makeup or fortitude to tell their boss no, and bosses who take advantage of that are a real problem. What is worse is someone who was so talented and now they are worthless because they can't find any motivation to do anything. Its like being so sore from exercising that you can't walk,…

IMHO the main cause of burnout are managers.

A manager must act as a shield for the people under them and not as a whip from the upper managemnt (Like a lot of them do, my current one included).

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#104

Post by marcosdumay »

nbrosnahan wrote: post #88
vog wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reverse burnout This is also known as "boreout". (However, I can't find evidence that "boreout" is a well-known word outside Germany. So maybe it's just one of our many German inventions of pseudo-english words.)

I'm gonna use it now. Question is, how do you find (and keep) a job that navigates the extremely narrow path between burnout and boreout?

Why do you think it's narrow?

(Question asked by somebody that got burnedout by trying to professionalise side projects just after getting boredout by my job. I see a huge distance between those.)

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#105

Post by marcosdumay »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #20
jcagalawan wrote: post #12

Now how about an article on how to recover from burn out, doing nothing all day for a couple months doesn't seem to be working out.

Ouch. My theory is that it's related to ego depletion. [1] If that's correct, you should find things that you want to do, and do them. Start small. And do your best to not focus on the burnout; focus on what you can enjoy about what you are doing. Look for little victories; I'm convinced that accomplishing things, anything , can help recharge you. I also think social connections can recharge you. Not the kind on Face…

Having goals is helpping me, not self imposed goals, but self diagnosed ones. I try to look into myself and discover something that I'd really like to achieve, then try to achieve it. It makes it easier to bear the kind of activities that burned you out, and it makes it easier to think "well, I don't really like what I'm doing now, but in a few minutes I'll be working towards X".

My goals are on the lines of knowing more about a subject, or teaching math to my daughter. I still didn't add any project to there (except for a research one), but I feel I'll be able to do another one soon.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#106

Post by marcosdumay »

dclara wrote: post #26
kayoone wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well its a form of depression. If you'r feeling unmotivated for longer periods time, frustrated at all the stuff you still need to do but still can't start, often procrastinating for days/weeks before you can make small progress.. Then you are probably burnt out. A project with big ambitions, tight deadlines and a small team and budget will get you there some time.

You are so right. It's even more accurate then the OP shows. We've all been there. But the thing is how to get out of it. A project with big ambitions and tight budget can not be stopped, but has to be delayed while you are recharging yourself. One thing I always avoid is depriving of enough sleep which will cause physically burned out and it's hard to recover as other people mentioned. It may cause long term negativ…

I guess more important than knowing how to cure burnout is knowing how identify it. When I got it a while ago my reaction was to put even more effort at the project, to compensate for my reduced productivity and get it done for once. All I can tell is that it was a very bad reaction.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#107

Post by jkn »

christiangenco wrote: post #96
chasing wrote: post #19

Where's "Don't exercise?" That'd be pretty close to the top of my list. A quick 2-3 mile jog around the neighborhood can help get me out of work-related funks. (I work at a home office, though, so it's easier for me to say "fuck it" and go do something sweaty in the middle of the day...) My theory is that, since the only real item on your jogging to-do list is to put one foot in front of the other, your brain is free…

Exercise, I've found, is probably the single most important aspect of maintaining "happiness." The problem is I can't consistently muster the willpower to block out an hour long chunk of time to go running or workout at gym. I found a lovely compromise, though: ### The Seven Minute Workout [1][2] ### It removes literally every excuse my brain can come up with not to work out. Too cold outside? Doesn't matter, you're…

Thanks a lot for this.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#108

Post by marcosdumay »

scotty79 wrote: post #23

Isn't "Do long enough things you dont like to do." enough to burn out?

Not for me.

- It's lacking intensity, more like "spend a big enough share of your day on long enough thigs".

- The "you don't like to do" part is not required (hell I burned out doing a side project, in a new language, with an amazing framework - at least, I was amazed, all th time untill burnout).

- And it's missing something that I suspect is the "lack of rewards" described on other posts.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#109

Post by Consultant32452 »

christiangenco wrote: post #96
chasing wrote: post #19

Where's "Don't exercise?" That'd be pretty close to the top of my list. A quick 2-3 mile jog around the neighborhood can help get me out of work-related funks. (I work at a home office, though, so it's easier for me to say "fuck it" and go do something sweaty in the middle of the day...) My theory is that, since the only real item on your jogging to-do list is to put one foot in front of the other, your brain is free…

Exercise, I've found, is probably the single most important aspect of maintaining "happiness." The problem is I can't consistently muster the willpower to block out an hour long chunk of time to go running or workout at gym. I found a lovely compromise, though: ### The Seven Minute Workout [1][2] ### It removes literally every excuse my brain can come up with not to work out. Too cold outside? Doesn't matter, you're…

I wanted to add, in addition to your comment, that it takes surprisingly little exercise to make a dramatic change in your over-all health levels. Blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. can be significantly affected without becoming a gym rat. 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there makes a huge difference.

Re: How to Burn Out Programming

#110

Post by dclara »

marcosdumay wrote: post #106
dclara wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so right. It's even more accurate then the OP shows. We've all been there. But the thing is how to get out of it. A project with big ambitions and tight budget can not be stopped, but has to be delayed while you are recharging yourself. One thing I always avoid is depriving of enough sleep which will cause physically burned out and it's hard to recover as other people mentioned. It may cause long term negativ…

I guess more important than knowing how to cure burnout is knowing how identify it. When I got it a while ago my reaction was to put even more effort at the project, to compensate for my reduced productivity and get it done for once. All I can tell is that it was a very bad reaction.

Very interesting reaction. It is a very rational decision to turn things over. But it looks like that it made you even more burned out.

Yes, once it happens, we have to turn around and do something else which is also productive. Give yourself enough relax both physically and mentally, then go out and talk to more people, you may get some positive energy and idea to make yourself refreshed.

To me, coding is like playing game. It's part of the language we use, but just talk to the machine instead. Somehow, I think programmers are really less superior, just like we are in the eye of the business people. We can do a good job to talk to machine, but may not be good to deal with people and make money. On the other hand, we are proud of us that we can make machine work according to our idea, we can create program to do whatever things we like, it's more or less like God created the world.

So trying to be God is not easy. Let's take a breathe and go further.

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