
How I got a burnout - chriseidhof
http://chriseidhof.tumblr.com/post/9667398258/how-i-got-a-burnout
======
toblender
Burnout is real. It is dangerous. I try to address burnout by doing other
activities, such as acting/long boarding/creating web comics (toblender.com).

A friend told me that Henry Ford was the one who established the 40 hour week.
This was not because he was kind, it was because anything over 8 hours a day
produces diminishing returns.

I think I'm in a bout of burnout right now. I've opted to work a full time
contract, to fund my startup, while burning midnight and weekend oils for my
startup. I think a vacation, of simply doing NOTHING would be a good idea.

They bring up this point in the book "7 habits of highly effective people",
you have to take time to sharpen the saw. Or you'll be wasting a lot of effort
hacking away with a dull blade.

~~~
mattm
You can read here about Henry Ford and the 40 hour work week -
<http://www.worklessparty.org/timework/ford.htm>

For knowledge work though, the studies I've come across seem to suggest that a
work week of 30 hours would be ideal. You can read this article about how
Kellogg's actually had productivity go up when moving to a 30 hour work week -
[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1093/is_1_42/ai_53697784/)

Financially independent authors have also been known to just work 4 hours a
day on their writing and then use the rest of the day for leisure and re-
cooperation.

~~~
lsc
I think most knowledge workers only have 4 hours of productive work a day, if
you don't count screwing off on facebook or hn or what have you.

30 hours, I think, is a good expectation of a salary worker, assuming they
work for most of those 30 hours.

------
bad_user

         building something similar to Ruby on Rails 
         << in Haskell >> is not that hard
    

Actually, yes it is.

You may be able to build something similarly productive, but Rails cannot be
replicated in part or in full in any statically-typed programming language,
especially one that doesn't allow runtime introspection.

To me, the author's problem is that instead of working on cool projects that
bring him joy and/or money, he instead went on to chase wild geese. And
building yet another web framework by copying what's already done, reinventing
the wheel for the N-th time in history, that's not fun. Building iPhone
projects, on the other hand can be quite fun, not to mention something you can
sell.

Stop chasing for the ultimate, mythical, most awesome programming experience
and start doing practical things that you can finish. Compromises are a big
part of that.

~~~
Locke1689
The problem the author probably had (and one I've experienced at times) is
that those "cool projects that bring him joy and/or money" are not very cool.
Unfortunately, web programming is boring. And easy. And lucrative. This means
that you may not enjoy your RoR apps, but you have to do them because your
more challenging projects aren't immediately monetizeable.

 _Building iPhone projects, on the other hand can be quite fun_

This is where I think we may disagree. Fundamentally, most iPhone projects are
too easy to be interesting. It's like chopping wood all day.

~~~
ido
It may be easy in the purely technical sense, but that can be exactly the
thing to afford you a view into the other aspects of making and selling
software beside the programming (design, marketing, etc).

You might even learn that the coding is indeed not the hardest part of making
a living off of your own software projects :)

~~~
Locke1689
That doesn't mean I'll get any more enjoyment out of it. My parents are both
physicians -- I know their job is very difficult. Medicine, however, doesn't
appeal to me. What does is hard technical problems.

------
praeclarum
I like how we use the word "burnout" in place of the word "depression". When
you're depressed, even the things that you used to love doing become chores.

Taking a vacation isn't the right answer to depression. You have to identify
and attack the causes straight on. (Or find some drugs and idle the rest of
your life away.)

~~~
niels_olson
doc here. Burnout != depression. I appreciate you're trying to understand the
difference, and I'm glad you've thought about it a bit. Please read
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect>, and I encourage you to
keep reading on your own and try to ask more questions.

------
wccrawford
I have burned out before. I dealt with it with a combination of vacation (only
had 2 weeks) and just slugging through the days until it got better. My code
was crap during that time and everything suffered for it.

At that company, they had burned out every single developer they had ever had.
I signed on as a junior programmer and ended up doing senior level things in
the first month... Alone. No help. (They did give me amazing raises to
compensate for this, so I'm not complaining.)

But eventually, they managed to burn me out, too. But instead of quitting, I
just kept at it.

The result is that I'm now much less likely to burn out again because I have
seen what it's like to code-like-a-crazy-man, and code-like-a-depressed-
monkey. And I can balance the 2 enough to make sure I never hit either extreme
again.

------
brianl
I am really grateful that I had great friends who were able to notice when I
was totally burning out.

They talked me into taking some time off to go on a road trip with them and
pulled me out of a dark and ugly hole. I had to deal with the wrath of the
boss when I returned, but getting out of the hole gave me the right
perspective to look for something much better. I was out of there within a few
weeks.

Cheers to great friends! And, please don't forget to be one.

------
sidwyn
I find this post a bit too anti-climax. I was hoping to hear a longer story
for the first part, at least. Well I'm looking forward to the second part!

------
jwatte
You "hand in" you thesis and are graded 8.5? What did you do before then? Did
you ask your thesis advisor for feedback while working on it? Did you study
previous 9.0 theses and compare yours? How did you track that you were on the
right path to meet your goal?

"Set direction, work without feedback or correction, surface for air at the
end" is not a suitable methodology for success.

~~~
chriseidhof
I did talk with my thesis advisors a lot, and thought I was on the right
track. In hindsight, I wasn't. I blamed them for it, but eventually realized
it was my fault in the end.

------
azolotov
This doesn't really explain 'how' you got burnout. What was the reason?

------
sramc323
I worked for a startup that got acquired a couple years ago. The acquiring
company means well but it's nowhere I would have ever applied to, if you know
what I mean.

Thing is, it just wouldn't make financial sense to leave. I have to stay until
I'm vested. Nowhere else would come close to making that up.

I took a road trip with my family this summer, hoping it would relieve the
burnout. We had a brilliant great time driving across the American Southwest.

Coming back, burnout is worse. I find I care even less. I find myself avoiding
major projects and looking busy. I'm nudging features and scope in ways to
most minimize my effort. I worry that I'm gonna get warped and dull. What's
gonna happen by the time I am fully vested?

~~~
krobertson
I've had that happen before.

Generally, I find I have two types of burn outs.

One is where I am just tired of coding. With those, I focus on being
productive during the day. Sometimes, work on improving my diet since I find
that influences my energy level and my mood. Beyond that, will leave work at a
reasonable time and just not even open my laptop at home and stay off it as
much as I can on the weekends. Go out and do other stuff.

The other is more around burnout on the project I'm on. With those, I try to
have little personal side projects. Either some idea I had, new technology I
want to try, etc. Nothing too big and crazy, but some coding I consider fun
and look forward to doing. With that, I find I'm still productive during the
day and have my side stuff at night, and then make it through whatever boring
project phase I'm in and then looking forward to the next one.

------
dbuizert
My mom is a burnout. She is no longer capable of working at all. She can
fulfill tiny things at home for a short period.

We canceled many vacations because of her burnout. So treat it serious,
because it can cost you your career and will control your life!

------
mas644
As others have stated, it happens to all of us. I think one has to learn how
to take breaks often. The world is not gonna fall apart if you take a week off
every once in a couple of months to let go of your computer and snooze on a
beach somewhere. Also as one other person posted, sometimes what you perceive
as burnout may be clinical depression...but from the way the poster was
talking about it sounded more like job dissatisfaction than depression.

Also, it depends on where you work. You have to enjoy the team you're working
with and you have to enjoy the work you're doing. Sounds like a big part of it
for the submitter had to do with the language in which they were programming.
That's a big deal to a lot of programmers. Programming is an art! If an
employer or project requirements forces tools upon you that do not jive with
how your thoughts flow, not surprising you're burnt out. Do what you love,
tons of companies that use Haskell...even ones that use embedded computers.
Also sounded like the submitter was enjoying their academic career as a
Masters student. Perhaps going down the academic route is a better option. In
summary, do what you love!

------
Maven911
What would you call if you are not "burned-out", but rather you hate the
drudgery of work day-in day-out, know that you are not giving 100% and don't
have the energy to put in that level of effort..what would you call that ?

Would "unmotivated" do ? I don't think that is the right word, since I know
the feeling and it's not just a matter of all-you-got-to-do is get
motivated....

~~~
WalterSear
The start of burn out.

------
g-garron
There is one important fact in our life.

We've got to love what we do, to do it right. Otherwise it won't be possible
to have the job well done.

It may be done with no errors, but without the passion, it will never be the
same.

If a good chef enjoys what he is doing he becomes a "great" chef.

Anyone in your situation, needs to look a way to change, the direction of his
life.

------
chriseidhof
Normally I would reply quickly to the discussion, but I probably won't before
tomorrow morning, sorry for that.

------
markkum
I had my worst burnout symptoms at a 9-to-5 job after I sold my first startup.
That's how I realized I'm an entrepreneur. I left the job and the lockup
shares, and have since been happy, sometimes rich/stressless sometimes
poor/stressed, 24/7 startup kind of guy.

------
pkandathil
Sorry to hear that this guy did not make his dream grade. A lot of us have had
that experience where you don't get the job of your dreams or get into the
university you love...

This is common and part of life, but if every time you fail, you give up, then
its not productive.

Recently, I have been thinking that no specific job can define you as good or
bad programmer. No school can really define how intelligent you are or how
much passion you have for a topic. These institutions can help you discover
them but a lot relies on you to really make it happen.

All the best to author of this article, I really hope he breaks out of this
low and gets back to doing what he loves.

~~~
0xEA
You missed the point

------
dustinupdyke
A bit off focus, but I always find it odd when people declare they would
prefer to code in x because it is more beautiful, more y, or more z.

Languages are tools, we should select the right one for the job and use it as
such.

------
dethstarr
Burnout is very real, happened to me before. You need the vacation time to
decompress. The thing is, you can't take vacation time when you're leading a
startup.

------
BillPosters
So you got burnout. Boo Hoo.

Part 2 should be in on page 2, not "some time later on", I won't be back, the
story is not that interesting sorry!

------
berntb
There _might_ be physical reasons behind burnouts.

A personal example -- a simple bacteria infection in a tooth, which didn't
give any normal problems like pain etc. Allergies can make you tired -- and
some (well, at least mine) food allergies won't have much throat effects,
which makes them hard to identify yourself.

So check up on physical health, too.

------
dany_dev
this post is so sad..... :D

------
sgt
This is how I got a burnout: [http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
ash4/228173_101502...](http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-
ash4/228173_10150250845881311_539446310_9291499_5190914_n.jpg)

