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Getting rid of burnout permanently

kentnguyen.com

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Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#21

Post by mattgibson »

cenhyperion wrote: post #18

I firmly believe that the reason most major religions standardized a sabbath day was for mental health reasons. There's a lot of value to taking a day for yourself in which you do no work. Even if you love what you do, you can't do it for 10 hours every single day for years.

I've heard something similar suggested as part of the reason for the spread of Islam. 5 prayer-breaks per day where you get to chill out in the shade for a bit is a pretty compelling offer in a hot part of the world. Especially if you are doing manual labour.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#22

Post by normloman »

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.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#23

Post by jimbokun »

"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. Technical feasibility. Gathering requirements. Testing. Investigating bugs. Various forms of technical support. Architecture and design. Documentation. Time sheets. Reports. Fixing builds and managing dependencies.

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.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#25

Post by dsirijus »

> there were times when I got completely burnt out as often as once every few days

Hm, maybe we call two different things a burnout. I had it twice, one ending in a visit to ER, the other one blasting a single song at max volume for 20h then crying and trying to quit my job.

I don't think the author actually had one, at least not by my definition of it.

That aside, my main cause of burnouts was working extremely hard on something and not finishing it, for a long time. Or always going after a moving target. Management and goal setting issue, really, and easy one to solve - break huge goals into subgoals, or even - don't have big goals at all.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#26

Post by throwawayaway »

dsirijus wrote: post #25

> there were times when I got completely burnt out as often as once every few days Hm, maybe we call two different things a burnout . I had it twice, one ending in a visit to ER, the other one blasting a single song at max volume for 20h then crying and trying to quit my job. I don't think the author actually had one, at least not by my definition of it. That aside, my main cause of burnouts was working extremely har…

both of those sound like nervous breakdowns.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#27

Post by codingdave »

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 started to type up a reply about how burnout tends to be project-related, not the norm, but then the more I thought about it... the more your final statement seems 100% true. Why am I trying to rationalize burnout in this industry? Even if I can explain occasional pushes to complete a project, you are correct.

Re: Getting rid of burnout permanently

#28

Post by brador »

The simple truth is if you're pushing to excel in any competitive field you're gonna have to push yourself to the limit. That's why the startup game is push, make FU money and walk, not build a lifestyle business out of it, because by the time you're done there's nothing left. You've given it your all.
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