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Getting rid of burnout permanently

kentnguyen.com

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Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#111

Post by w0rd-driven »

noir_lord wrote: post #34

Fantastic Article. Three weeks ago I hit absolute rock bottom with exhaustion from working hard for the last 2 years (I worked out I've been working 70-80 hour weeks since Dev 2010 with 8 days off in 4 years). I resolved to get my life sorted out, I cut back work hours drastically, started riding my bike more and went to the Doctors to get help with sleeping tablets and pain management (the last 3 months I've been wa…

Parts of this resonate with me and yet I have a variable 40 hour a week ceiling where if I'm extremely lucky I top out at that. I can safely say I've had many of those thoughts and they didn't revolve around the amount of time I spent at work.

Some days just the act of leaving the house and coming home has me beat down. There's a serious lack of energy just spending 4 days in an office and working from home on Friday. I guess I'm saying the amount of time spent doesn't equate to the feelings of burnout. I'm fairly positive now many of my symptoms that you've expressed are likely due to some form of depression, however serious or mild it may be. I don't have anxiety attacks that I'm conscious of but that and thoughts of "wishing everything would end" are pretty clear indicators to me.

I'm glad you're on the right track and it looks like what you're doing is having some positive impact. Always stick with what works because it's clearly a push in a positive direction for you. Like me, however, you may wish to look into dealing with depression because I've exhibited many of these same symptomatic behaviors. That can affect us the same no matter if we're working 4 hours a week or 40 really, it all feels the same to me at least.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#112

Post by collyw »

enraged_camel wrote: post #47

The author's theory is that burnout is caused by not doing the things one loves. I have a different, albeit perhaps related theory: burnout is caused by not being able to get in the "flow" for extended periods of time. I can relate to the author's example of having split duties involving coding and not coding, as I'm in the same boat. About half of my week involves developing my company's learning management system,…

Sounds like my situation exactly. Down to looking for other jobs (except I am a Django developer).

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#114

Post by seivan »

sergiosgc wrote: post #45
normloman wrote: post #22

Um... Not work so hard? I'm not a programmer, so I'm viewing the stuff on hacker news from outside the bubble, so to speak. And from here, y'all look crazy. To the average person, spending extra hours at work with no overtime pay is absurd, but you all discuss it like it's no big deal. Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul. People must be trained not to accept burnout as normal.

There is another view. Programmers commonly have two characteristics that make them talk a lot about burnout: a) They are analytical people. It comes with the job. You can't program if you don't think analytically, and this characteristic can't possibly be confined to work activities, so it gets ingrained into personality. b) They like what they do. Naturally, this is not true for every individual, but is true for mo…

Funny how people assume long hours for software engineers is self-inflicted. I take it you guys don't have non engineering managers.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#115

Post by programmarchy »

ljnelson wrote: post #58
normloman wrote: post #22

Um... Not work so hard? I'm not a programmer, so I'm viewing the stuff on hacker news from outside the bubble, so to speak. And from here, y'all look crazy. To the average person, spending extra hours at work with no overtime pay is absurd, but you all discuss it like it's no big deal. Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul. People must be trained not to accept burnout as normal.

I'm in the bubble and you are absolutely dead on. My secret to avoiding burnout was to do contracting for four years. After this, and after going back to full-time work, I realized (at more than an intellectual level) for the first time that the more you work the less you make. Completely eye-opening. Respect the 9-to-5 workday and good things will happen.

Curious how contracting helped you realize this. Did you work more or less hours while contracting? How did contract work help you avoid burnout?

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#116

Post by gnopgnip »

littleweep wrote: post #57
FiatLuxDave wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also coming from outside the bubble. From a different viewpoint, though, programmers aren't so bad about this. Try hanging out with some medical doctors and nurses, instead. I might think my 60 hour weeks are bad, but i just can't complain about it to my wife when she gets home from her 80 hour weeks. Burnout is a completely accepted part of nursing, and many nurses take it into account in career planning. Not sa…

The nurses I know have schedules that cap at three 12-hour days per week (36 hours/week). What kind of nurses work 80 hours a week?

Does that include any on call time?

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#117

Post by kelukelugames »

zz1 wrote: post #43
kelukelugames wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company actively encourages people to not over work. The CEO shot down a nap room because it implies people should stay longer.

> shot down a nap room because it implies people should stay longer True! Smart move: did it work?

No, instead we nap at our desks like real engineers!

Just kidding. :) This story re-affirmed my decision to join the company.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#118

Post by jimbokun »

abhimskywalker wrote: post #104
jimbokun wrote: post #23

"As a software developer, I’m passionate about writing codes and creating new things. However, as I also need to perform managerial duties, I had less and less time to do so. Repeatedly, I had to work for days without writing any useful code for the team, I became highly agitated." It's surprising how hard it can be to find time to just write code, even with a full time job in software development. Meetings. Email. T…

"All of these are good and important and necessary for any software product to succeed. But they call also really suck the passion and productivity out of a person." Exactly! How do you normally deal with these? (Just curious as a still younger developer who has recently left business corporate world (excel etc.) about a year ago to pursue developing as full time at a startup) These are the most frustrating things th…

Occasionally I will block off a several hour appointment on my calendar labeled "Develop Software". Usually works. Sometimes do it for our entire team.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#119

Post by abduhl »

rwallace wrote: post #90
ranran876 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a bit apples to oranges. Programming is for the most part sitting quietly in front of a computer screen for hours each day. At face value it looks easier, but it's actually a lot more brain-numbing. If I'm honest with myself, I think I can do it for 4 hours a day before my brain starts to slowly shutdown. I've been working for only a couple years and I'm seriously concerned about my future in the industr…

I'll let you into a secret: four hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day is about the limit of what the rest of us can do as well. I don't know whether that's a human universal, but if there are exceptions, they are exceptional indeed. A programmer working eight hours a day is at best doing four hours of high-quality concentrated work and four hours of random crap like attending meetings, checking e-mail a…

I've been noticing this type of thinking a lot on HN. It simply isn't true. I am not in the tech industry (if you search my comment history you'll find I do underground tunneling) but everybody I have interacted with at my firm that is above the junior level (and the majority of those at the junior level) puts in far more than 4 hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day.

Out of the normal 45 to 60 hours I work a week when I am doing design work, at least 75% of that time is spent doing high level thinking. I am not an anomaly in my firm.

I don't accept nor do I respect the idea that a person is only good for a couple of hours of high quality work to their employer per day.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#120

Post by pconner »

potatolicious wrote: post #100
sergiosgc wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another view. Programmers commonly have two characteristics that make them talk a lot about burnout: a) They are analytical people. It comes with the job. You can't program if you don't think analytically, and this characteristic can't possibly be confined to work activities, so it gets ingrained into personality. b) They like what they do. Naturally, this is not true for every individual, but is true for mo…

> "Much to the contrary: the profession is so taxing for individuals that don't like to code that it self selects "code lovers"." I disagree with this part. I think this part is entirely a myth we've concocted for ourselves - we overtly select for "code lovers" with the predisposition that non-"code lovers" are incapable of handling the work. I have never, ever, seen this proven out, but it's a common belief nonethel…

HN self-selects "code lovers." It's easy to see that how the belief that this also applies to the industry can propagate here.
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