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Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

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Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#81

Post by clarkevans »

In a start-up, there's two things you're building: a product and a partnership. Sounds like you are focusing on the product only, and if you're partner isn't with you -- your start-up will fail (even if it succeeds technically).

Make sure your partner is in the trenches with you writing the business cases / user stories, writing test data / documenting of test cases, writing user manuals / making screen mockups, documenting system architecture (you sketch on whiteboard), and finally, doing manual testing early and often to give you feedback and to understand the challenges.

Later on, it'll be your job to be in the trench with your partner in the other side of the business: on sales calls, supporting client requests, presenting to investors, making hiring decisions, and establishing company culture. Don't think of it as dividing responsibility, think of it as sharing responsibility.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#82

Post by stingraycharles »

graeme wrote: post #55
stingraycharles wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Cambodia. I pay $250 a month for a villa, electricity is around $20 a month and water is free. Food costs me around $5 a day -- which is a lot. You could live off $2 a day if you want. For internet I use a sattelite connection, which gives me 4mbit full duplex for $25 a month. Life is great, but after 10 months spending time here I feel like I'm still recovering from the rat race back home. I'm spending my…

How did you arrange it? And is someone cooking/cleaning/shopping for you, or do you do that yourself?

I usually buy my food on the street -- i eat rice with pork or noodlesoup with beef in the morning ($1), eat some springrolls or whatever for lunch ($1), and go to the market and buy a grilled fish ($2) or some chicken ($4) with some rice and vegetables ($0.50).

You can easily get someone to do the cleaning and shopping for you, but I like to hop on my motorbike and do the shopping myself. I sometimes work from restaurants and chat with the staff (they get paid a bad salary, but their work atmosphere is really relaxed and have lots of time to chat).

As for the financials, I was lucky to get an exit with my business that basicly covered all the money I was personally in debt for plus a little extra. I rent my house completely furnitured through an agency which specializes in couples that are getting divorced, which brings in around $1000 a month. This covers my morgage and health insurance.

I live off money I had left after the exit (around $25k), and just accepted a freelance gig for a few grand which I'm really enjoying.

All in all, one of the best choices I made in my life, it really is so incredibly different here, and you really learn what it's like to live in a country without decent doctors, for example. At this point I do really start to miss my family and friends back home, but I'm very happy the Khmer are a very friendly kind of people, so I made a lot of friends here. I don't really hang out with expats, since they are generally still part of the whole lifestyle I want to avoid.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#83

Post by ZenoArrow »

cynusx wrote: post #77

Just take a break. Technical projects always take more time than expected and I've not seen one that actually finished in time. The key here is to manage expectations of the rest of the team (note the word "manage"). In order to do that well you need to learn how to manage your own expectations first, think about all the times you said it will take you X hours/days and it turns out to take much longer. If you're not…

> In summary, don't kill yourself over expectations.. take some time off to recover and then do a full project estimation to better manage their expectations (and your own).

This. Exactly this.

Note your body will probably crash for the first few days (depending on how burnt out you are). Just let it. Spend the time resting, eating quick to prepare but healthy meals and drinking plenty of water. Making decisions about re-organisation decisions can wait until you've recovered.

Oh and switch off your phone. Would recommend films and TV if you need a low-energy distraction.

I can say all this because I've burnt out before. My body just shut down, was hard to even move, luckily I was visiting friends who looked after me during this time. Don't wait until it gets that bad, explain you need a week off and take it.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#84

Post by ZenoArrow »

mod wrote: post #47

What does "bad with time" mean? Are you working 70 hours/week on the project ? Or work + project? Either way, definitely stop what you're doing. Work less. Also, "it hasn't felt like a partnership at all" -- is that to say he's not working on the project? I'd cease the partnership. I was in this situation recently, with a family member whom I trust. If they can't motivate themselves to work on it now, in its infancy,…

> What does "bad with time" mean?

I think he meant bad with setting realistic time estimates. It's an easy mistake to make when something is new to you, but it can cause problems, as OP is discovering.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#85

Post by bbody »

I think you need to remember that you don't do your best work when you are tired/stressed (Despite what our brain makes us think).

> I just want to get this project done, start making money but also nicely (without explaining all the technical details) why it is taking so long.

I know the feeling however, are you or your boss moving the goal posts constantly? I find this makes me burn out quickly.

If you can try to tell your boss you aren't working one weekend and switch off all technology/communication and think about your goals. Maybe read a fiction book that is unrelated to your work. It will help you understand how you think about yourself and the project more clearly.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#86

Post by russellhealy »

I suspect you are having trouble telling your partner how you feel, and what you need, for whatever reason. Can you share the details of the situation with a friend, and have them talk to your partner on your behalf? If not, I am happy to do it for you. Let me know. Edit: my username at gmail.com

It is important to deal with this, because you may break under the stress much faster than you expect. It's not a nice experience. Fix it while you can.

You may think you owe it to your partner/business to keep going, you may think you have brought this on yourself. Maybe you have, but in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter. It's not worth having a mental breakdown over it.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#87

Post by dsuth »

I recently worked on a project similar to this. Based on my experience, these are the things you need to do:

- Take a break for 3 days minimum. Go cold turkey, preferably not in the same city you are in. Just get out of there. It'll feel crazy, like you don't have the time, but trust me: at this point you're endangering your own health and the project. If you're a single point of failure, and it sounds like you are, things could go very pear-shaped if you keep this up and really fry your noggin. Which leads to my next point;

- You need help. You're trying to do too much, and it's just not possible within your apparent timeframe. See if you can get someone else in to help, or get one of the other team members to pick up some slack. It's completely unfair to expect 7 x 10 hour days from you, and anything less from the others. I'd state your reasoning calmly and clearly (after you've had a break; use the time to reflect on your work and where the project is going, trust me it will look different), and let the team know it's just not feasible unless you come back at significantly reduced hours + extended timeframe, or get some else on + extended timeframe to bring them up to speed. These are the realities of where you are, and the sooner you fess up to them (to yourself, and the team), the more chance you will have of salvaging what you've got.

Just my 2c.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#88

Post by karaujo »

oulu2006 wrote: post #61
nso wrote: post #7

I quit my job, sold my house, sold all my stuff and moved to a lazy beach town near the equator. Never felt happier, never felt more rested, never thought as clearly as I do now. Totally not answering you question when it comes to finishing the project, but sometimes you just have to call it quits because your health is more important than yet-another-website. If you are ever in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico -- gi…

Sounds like a great plan; I'm moving to Brazil for a bit to do the same thing. Not for too long the first time, but with an intention to scope out the place and find some incubators I can hack in; been learning portuguese for the last year to make it easier for me to do. I found English fluency was a lot less in Brazil than it was in other non-english speaking countries I had been to.

Don't come to Sao Paulo, we don't have water here. It's not raining enough lately.

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#89

Post by cauterized »

mod wrote: post #36
laex wrote: post #12

Is the idea behind the app validated ? Has your partner talked with the potential customers ? Is the problem you're solving really an important problem ? Have you already built an MVP ? I've been in similar situations where my non-tech friends ask me to start dev work on their ideas. My response usually to them is to find 10 customers willing to pay even before the product exists. So the bottom line is that you shoul…

I don't disagree, however if this hasn't been the idea, it's going to be a hard sell now. If the plan was "hey, let's build this mvp and meanwhile I'll do x, y, and z marketing materials, and then we'll get out and sell!" and OP agreed, well--that's where he's at. Saying "well I'm not working until you get 10 customers" at this point is not okay. In the future, OP: take this very good advice.

"I'm not working any more weekends until you get 10 customers" seems fair, though!

Re: Ask HN: What to do if you are ridiculously burnt out?

#90

Post by alttab »

mod wrote: post #42
alttab wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moar this. I've been in situations where the "idea" was driven by the "marketing guy," and it did not turn out well for me or my other technical partner. When I saw the writing on the wall, I called a meeting and told them I didn't see the pay off of what we were doing and they were free to continue with my contributions. They sold a total of like $100 worth of apps after working on the project for another 10 months.

The last sentence sounds familiar to me: I built a fully-functional MVP over a few hundred hours. My partner, a family member, was going to sell it. I picked the niche because it's not very SEO-friendly and so he, being completely non-technical, had something to contribute. He made ~6 sales in 1 month, never lifted a finger in the ~14 months since. The app has run smoothly with virtually zero intervention on my part,…

I'd say. My friend who stayed didn't look for a new job after his employer went under (like many mobile gaming companies did when their games got rejected from the appstore), so he moved into his parents house to finish the projects. In all, he created 10 apps, using a lot of the technology I originally built. His "partner" sued him for 98% ownership of essentially nothing. It turned out sad for everyone involved.
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