Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Burnout

kristinn.ghost.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 138 posts

Re: Burnout

#11

Post by EC1 »

teacup50 wrote: post #10
EC1 wrote: post #3

> A few years ago I wanted to know everything. I spent the day at work thinking about what I would do when I got home and then spend the evening studying various things as hard as I could. I would stress over how there werent enought hours in the day to do what I wanted to do. There was rarely an hour in the day where I wasnt productive in some way. Oou, this resonates with me. For the past year I've been trying to o…

From someone in his 30s for whom this also resonates: The list never gets smaller. If anything, it not only gets longer, but the list items themselves grow even more ambitious and far reaching. I've done great things. I've started sustainable companies, released a prodigious amount of code, and some of it has shifted the course of industry and secured my position in it. At the same time, I'm exhausted. I'm tired of n…

That is exactly what I'm doing, thanks. I've realized slowly that I'm actually a huge extrovert, and that I need to see someone for at the very least a beer, every week or two, to fill that bar up. Once I feel it draining, I start getting a bit depressed and my productivity really takes a dive. I can actively notice this, and I know what I need to do to repair it. I need to be around people.

That's why I'm moving in with a buddy of mine who is part of a really awesome social circle. I feel if I live with him and we have people over once in awhile, that "meter" will never deplete and I can essentially live in a productivity vacuum.

It's also great that I live in a place that has crazy winter for most of the year, so there really is no option to even GO outside because in -20, the last place you want to be is outside.

I do however plan to travel for a few months and completely disconnect myself, something that I'm looking super forward to and acts as a behind the scenes motivational motor of sorts, a long term "goal".

Re: Burnout

#12

Post by jotm »

EC1 wrote: post #3

> A few years ago I wanted to know everything. I spent the day at work thinking about what I would do when I got home and then spend the evening studying various things as hard as I could. I would stress over how there werent enought hours in the day to do what I wanted to do. There was rarely an hour in the day where I wasnt productive in some way. Oou, this resonates with me. For the past year I've been trying to o…

That sounds great - but don't you get tired? After 6-8 hours of mental work (incl. learning), my ability to understand things is severely diminished.

I can go on working on simple tasks, physical work or something that I already know, but not on something new or anything that requires extensive of thinking/planning. Using any drugs?

Re: Burnout

#13

Post by [deleted] »

shadowmint wrote: post #7

That's true... but there's also the flip side to the coin. Finishing things is good; but if you have a project you want to finish, you'll never finish it if you halfheartedly look at it once a week for an hour. If you spend more than certain amount of time not looking at something or not working on it, you forget how it works and it takes all of that available time you have to get into 'the zone' where you're actuall…

[deleted]

Re: Burnout

#14

Post by JamesBaxter »

I'm nearly two years into my programming career and I'm really struggling with this balance. Every day at work I face a new programming challenge. Every night I feel guilty about not being able to motivate myself to work on either of the two side projects I've started.

Video games work well as something mindless that clears my head at the end of the day. The problem is stopping playing before I've wasted my whole evening and the pain I get in my fingers/wrists after a whole day of repetitive movement.

I need to find something less addictive that doesn't require much dexterity. I'm considering chess.

Re: Burnout

#15

Post by EC1 »

jotm wrote: post #12
EC1 wrote: post #3

> A few years ago I wanted to know everything. I spent the day at work thinking about what I would do when I got home and then spend the evening studying various things as hard as I could. I would stress over how there werent enought hours in the day to do what I wanted to do. There was rarely an hour in the day where I wasnt productive in some way. Oou, this resonates with me. For the past year I've been trying to o…

That sounds great - but don't you get tired? After 6-8 hours of mental work (incl. learning), my ability to understand things is severely diminished. I can go on working on simple tasks, physical work or something that I already know, but not on something new or anything that requires extensive of thinking/planning. Using any drugs?

My current day job is a mobile frontend developer. I'm not thinking up intense algorithms, doing crazy math, calculations, or whatnot. The hardest thing I do is performance optimization, and since the apps we develop right now are incredibly simple, it's by and large cookie cutter work.

It's not mentally exhausting because of my perspective on my job: I'm basically a construction worker, but in a virtual domain. So I'm doing construction, minus the intense physical work, with barely any mental workload as well. My day job just takes time. Dragging pixels. Uploading pixels. Shifting pixels. Zooming in on pixels. Deleting pixels. Asking for input on combinations of pixels. It's all pixels.

My day job is rarely mentally intensive, nor is my post-day job. Drafting contracts? Sending emails? Talking on the phone? I can't really remember the last task I had to do that wasn't purely just DOING. I can't remember the last time I had to bust some pen and paper out and seriously think about some sort of methodology.

So no, I don't find it tiring. I find it rewarding, especially since my hobby just so happened to turn into my career. I did UI/design on my spare time just for fun, then someone hired me, now I do it full time, and started my own company.

Yeah I use drugs. I use adderall (only used it twice in the past half year) if the previous night consisted of less than 6 hours of sleep (I always make sure to get 8 hours a night no matter what, doesn't matter how much work I have) and I smoke pot a few times a day, as well as a lot of coffee (2 strong in the morning - decaf throughout the day). It's not too bad right? I think my only "problem" is weed, and even then, I don't think it's a problem. I smoke because it's like relaxing WHILE working. I can smoke a bit, get this nice mild head rush for a few hours, and keep working, all the while enjoying the sun more, enjoying the tunes more, and generally being happier. Kills two birds with one stone.

Re: Burnout

#16

Post by jscheel »

I am finding that it's better to just leave the stupid computer off when I get home. It gives me more time with my wife and daughter, and I feel more rested and ready for the next day. For example, last Saturday was filled with bike rides, walks, and playing outside. That's it. Yes, I have a list of about 10,000 different things I'm interesting in learning and doing, and another list that size of things that actually need to get done, but none of that will ever relax me or come close to the quality time I spend decompressing with my family and friends.

Re: Burnout

#17

Post by mzarate06 »

EC1 wrote: post #3

> A few years ago I wanted to know everything. I spent the day at work thinking about what I would do when I got home and then spend the evening studying various things as hard as I could. I would stress over how there werent enought hours in the day to do what I wanted to do. There was rarely an hour in the day where I wasnt productive in some way. Oou, this resonates with me. For the past year I've been trying to o…

> For the past year I've been trying to optimize my life as best I could. This meant cutting out time for food ... [now] I cook all 7 days worth of food on Sunday nights ... it's working great.

Have you considered intermittent fasting? I typically only eat 5 or 6 days out the week. Aside from the health benefits, IF lends itself to productivity; I love having days where I don't need to worry about food or cooking at all.

There are various IF approaches, and it does take some getting used to, but I've found it worth it.

Re: Burnout

#18

Post by thu »

What do you do if chilling out is not an option ? If your day job is maddening (and you feel like any other job would probably be maddening too) and the only alternative you have is to start your own company ? What do you do if you need to keep the day job to pay bills and work on your own product in the evening and the week-end until it can bring money ? When it seems that you can either burn out or succeed ?

Re: Burnout

#19

Post by stevenkovar »

No matter how sharp your blade, your steel must be tempered.

Life is about balance. You will break if you don't give your mind and body the rest it deserves. Often, great ideas find me when I am cooling down.

Re: Burnout

#20

Post by snarfy »

Burnout is a syndrome that happens from a series of failures, resulting in your brain automatically associating work with failure.

The cure for burnout is a series of successes. You need to retrain your brain to associate work with success. Start small. Don't take on more than you can handle. Quit trying to make the uber server app and write a few simple command line utilities that work and work well.

Post reply on HN