
Tips I use to avoid burnout - feross
http://addyosmani.com/blog/burnout/
======
kristianc
For me a few things

\- Doubled down on focus. Went back to using a single monitor, cut down
notifications on my phone and carved out time in my diary to do focused deep
work. Constant task switching has always been bad for burnout for me.

\- Was much more intentional about how I presented my work to others. I used
to think that if I needed to focus on how I communicated my work upwards, that
was somehow a reflection on the quality of the work itself. Instead I learned
that taking time out to focus on how you present your ideas acts as a force
multiplier on them.

\- Get out of toxic environments. Often I’ve found that the cause of burnout
is not hard work, I am capable of hard work for sustained periods, but hard
work with an expectation or repeated experience of failure in forms of
projects being scrapped or canceled. Success isn’t always its own reward, but
it does seem to help ward off against burnout.

\- I also spend a couple of hours in the gym nearly every day. It’s a high end
gym and this is my splurge for myself. For other people, their release may be
family.

~~~
malnourish
I am currently trying to learn how best to present my ideas and reach people
who don't necessarily see problems as a large network of pictures and concepts
in their heads.

It's a process that I struggle with, but I truly want to improve. Do you have
any suggestions or resources?

~~~
noman-land
One problem I see people make is to present the solution before the problem.

Nerds often have a tendency to be hyper focused on the details of the solution
because that's the most fun part and the part they have directly thought about
intensely.

Many people "up the chain", or in general who don't have intimate details of
the problem space may not grasp why such a solution is needed. So starting off
with it doesn't resonate with them.

I've found its better to first tell the story of "what got us here", that led
to this solution. If you do it right, you'll see the "a ha" moment go off in
people's faces and they're right with you.

------
lnsru
I think it also depends on toxicity of the organization. My untested hardware
was sent to production line in the factory elsewhere. I was telling to every
manager I could, not to do this. So “no” does not work. I was told, there will
be second developer one day, but it didn’t happen. Manager of other group sees
me declining and invites to go for lunch together. But he can’t help since my
manager and division manager are more buddies than professionals working
together. I was trying to make longer breaks to recharge working only 4 days a
week, but this was canceled a day after I send proposal how to test hardware.
I also got new table - a door place in open space office where I got
distracted every 3 minutes. Basically my all time gets wasted sitting there.
Last but not least, there will be committee next year to review everything I
did in the project and do the great blaming fest. It is believed, that this
will help to find the bugs I made due to my incompetence.

I read this and it does not sound real. To avoid burnout I simply need a new
job. I also packed my all personal belongings and am ready to hand in my
notice anytime I see it’s too much. Better unemployed for some time than
mentally broken.

~~~
6cd6beb
Some jobs just rely on attracting and retaining people with no boundaries and
no ability to set them. Startups are great at this. They foster a sense of
community between the workers and then understaff/overbook the team. When the
invariable crisis rolls in no one even has to tell people to work until 5 am.
They just do it because no one wants to "let down the team".

My last job I was at least the fourth or fifth person to break down and cry at
work. Plenty of those happened in meetings where the boss man was present.
They just quietly get replaced and that's that. Burn em and churn em. Never
shows up on the ledger and everyone writes it off as a crazy one-off
situation.

Then oh gosh a big deadline hits and we're down a person, better show off what
a team player we are and make sure we hit the deadline.

~~~
agumonkey
> let down the team

it's a deeply wired need, and it would be interesting to discuss that. I found
it easier to wake up in the morning when I felt part of team rather than going
to a company be a nameless cog. Surely being a cog may avoid being overworked
by never ending night shifts .. hence the debate.

~~~
wilsonrocks
I think the problem is when being part of a team is abused - so you get the
expectations but not the benefits.

------
clement_b
Some non-time off tips that work for me:

\- Remove most, if not all notifications from your phone. Not just work-
related, anything that will stimulate your brain for no good reason

\- Try to leave work on time to allow other activities after. Could be ranging
from going to the gym to raising your kids.

\- Monitor your smartphone usage and cut it down (use something like
RescueTime).

\- Go to places where there is no internet connection to have some you time
(e.g., a steam room is perfect to relax, or yoga)

\- Sleep the right amount of hours for you

\- Eat, drink well

\- Remember, in most jobs, no one dies if that thing is not done today.

\- Remember, if you have to work too much it's probably not your fault, but
poor planning / constraints in your org. that you cannot control

~~~
pleasecalllater
> \- Remove most, if not all notifications from your phone. Not just work-
> related, anything that will stimulate your brain for no good reason

My phone slipped into water and is not working. I liked it, huge screen, great
battery life. So I took some old one I had at home. Smaller. Terrible battery.
Old Android, so many apps don't work. I can only use it for calling and
texting a couple of times a day. I need to save the battery. I cannot read in
bed, as it's too small to be comfortable. It's small, so it fits into all my
pockets.

Oh, it's so great that I'm not going to buy a new one. I feel like I don't
have phone at all. I didn't know how it was slowly changing (destroying?) my
life.

~~~
clement_b
Before having a phone I was reading a lot of books.

Now, I read HN too much.

Is it better, is it worse?

Certainly not bad, if, the addictive, time wasting aspects are muted /
avoided.

I think not using a smartphone in 2020 is actually a massive evolution step
back. Used wisely, at the right time and for the right tasks, it's a killer
device.

But used for everything, all the time, it's just another form of crack.

Get your phone back, get on top of it, you'll be as happy, I'm sure.

(also, running an old Android version is quite risky on top of being annoying)

~~~
Insanity
When my previous phone broke, I switched back to an old "dumbphone". It was
quite lovely to charge it once a week and just forget about it for the most
part.

Eventually I got a new smartphone though - especially when travelling they are
a useful tool.

------
jownwayne
I'be been struggling with burnout myself during this year. In the darkest
times it got bad enough that I considered to abandon software development
altogether.

Thanks to a three months time off I'm through it now.

I've been writing about my experiences and my recovery, maybe they can be of
help to anyone else in a similar situation:

[https://www.damienklinnert.de/a-passion-
lost/](https://www.damienklinnert.de/a-passion-lost/)

My one piece of advice for you if you're in a similar situation would be to
take time off.

~~~
StavrosK
I had the same experience as you, years ago. I was severely burnt out (to the
point where I didn't want to do anything computer-related). Taking time off
fixed it, but I probably need to do that again now.

~~~
jownwayne
I’ve learned that it’s best to take the time off as soon as you notice
something is wrong. The longer you wait, the more time it takes.

After the last time it took me about two months to recover.

~~~
Insanity
Absolutely, I pushed it too far at some point and got put off by even the
thought of opening my IDE for months.

Having some hobbies outside of code can help as well.

------
kerkeslager
A lot of this becomes fairly obvious if you start from the assumptions that:

1\. Work exists only to support your lifestyle. If your work doesn't allow you
to live a lifestyle you are happy with, it's not serving its purpose. This is
obvious to most people when their work doesn't pay them enough, but it's not
as obvious when their work doesn't give them enough time.

2\. You are a person of worth who deserves to have proper boundaries around
your work.

3\. Your job is a transaction where they need you just as much as you need
them.

------
krsdcbl
Perhaps it does make sense to condense it to a few simple tips to watch out
for, but honestly this posts feels a lot like: "tips i use to avoid obesity;
eat less! do exercise!"

------
tra3
I wish this post Included something actionable. I know I shouldn’t overcommit
not just professionally but in my personal life too, but I do anyways. So how
do I stop? I know I should be asking for help more, but I’m prideful. How do I
get over that? And so forth with all of the points..

~~~
tnolet
This is the trick of repetition and probably why the list seems so obvious.
There is no “secret trick”. Saying no and taking breaks is just difficult.

------
amelius
My biggest tip: sleep!

Make sure you get 8 hours/night, and (say) 10 hours in stressful periods. If
you already think you have burnout, then sleep as much as you can.

~~~
hanniabu
From my observations, lack of sleep is typically a multiplier for another
aspect and not a root cause in itself.

~~~
reinkaos
Or it is a consequence of things that come with burnout like anxiety.

------
HHalvi
Here are the things that have worked out for me:

\- Constantly thinking and outsourcing the time i spend on _stuff_ that
doesn't matter (especially the bottom 10-20%). Good hack for doing this is
calendering all the things i do in a typical day and then reviewing it over
the weekends to subtract the automatable and (probably boring) non impactful
pieces.

\- Having two different phones, one for work and the other for everything
else. The work phone/number gets shut down as soon as i am done for the day
(no exceptions. Android has the concepts of users which can emulate similar
experience without the need to invest on another phone.

\- Not syncing emails constantly, instead i have 3 hour blocks for
syncing/replying to emails. Can't check emails all the time and neither at the
end and beginning of the day so three hour blocks work well for me.

------
failattu
I am really sad this didnt have sports and hobby/life in it as its very
important heres my tips after 5 years of stressful growth company management
would be following and is the following to my employees: \- Dont cut the flow
state in cold turkey as then you just lie in bed and die rather start by
lowering the work hours first to closer to 37,5h or less if possible \- Start
exercising sports that remove you from your phone so for example swimming is
great as it forces you to be alone with your head and carrying a phone to pool
is hard. \- Never work during a weekend. I do it you do it, everyone of us
does it in IT but you really need at least a day per week to do something
completely different. \- Weekend getaways, I go to no electricity cabins,
sailing etc. away from notifications so you really cant work. \- Kill
notifications, NO ONE will die if you dont answer to slack message in 5
minutes you can still check slack every hour or so or mail just kill toxic
notifications and keep the evening at your own pace. \- fix your monitoring.
Application downtime monitoring should be helping your mental health not
harming. \- Make friends outside work. They have completely different view to
the world which helps you with above

------
sys_64738
Crisp and to the point. No BS. I refuse to work more than 45 hours per week
and take 1w vacation per quarter. Time is more important than money as you
age.

------
mmargerum
The thing that's burning me out isn't the coding. It's the constant updating
of everything I use across 3 machines and nothing working despite these
updates. Within minutes of sitting down to code I encounter some flow killing
problem. I so miss the days of DOS, μEmacs, and Microsoft C. Yeh we had to
code everything, but it all just worked.

~~~
swiley
You can have a modern Linux dev environment like that, I run my laptop from
ram with very little specialized configuration.

------
jamil7
Basic organisation skills applied to work and life helped me a lot, I was
sorely missing in this area and dedicated some time to getting a system in
place. I spend 15 minutes in the morning planning my day. This had a lot of
benefits, one is being way less stressed if I know I can "dump" incoming
information somewhere and parse it later.

------
markpapadakis
This is what I believe is the the main cause of burnout and how to efficiently
prevent it and deal with it if necessary:

[https://medium.com/@markpapadakis/how-to-prevent-burnout-
and...](https://medium.com/@markpapadakis/how-to-prevent-burnout-and-how-to-
recover-from-it-dc02b9fbd477)

------
jasoneckert
I always joke with my students that the best way to avoid burnout is to avoid
work. Work is overrated anyways...

------
beebs93
Managing. Expectations.

Easily took away 75% of the stress at work and stopped from it bleeding into
my private life.

This can manifest itself as: \- being upfront with what you do and don't know
when asked to do anything so if delays occur, it won't be b/c you overpromised
== lose trust \- keeping stakeholders in the loop with any significant
developments so there are no surprises down the road \- estimate normal
project work as if you can only work ~8 hours a day/5 days a week (while
taking meetings, vacactions, other normal overheads into consideration)

This, IMHO, is a pre-req to properly implementing any of the other common
helpful tips others have listed.

------
m0zg
Over the past 20+ years in the industry I have found that yes, saying "no" is
the most important component. If you let other people to walk over you
eventually they'll complain you're not flat enough. This includes not working
on job-realated stuff on your own time (which is something the employer will
almost always try to cajole you into doing), and not checking work emails
after work.

The other two major components are sleep and physical activity. Just get that
30 minutes of HIIT cardio done, every day like clockwork, and sleep _at least
8 hours_ a night, every night.

------
koiz
Removing notifications from my day has helped a lot.

I still use several monitors because one task is done more efficiently across
several but notifications are truly the worst thing in the world.

Honestly there's only one type notification/email/IM/phone call I don't
mind... when something is down and needs fixing.

------
zengid
> _It 's OK to ask for help. This includes seeking collaboration vs. going
> alone_

This is a huge thing. I often feel pressure to improve my individual
programming skills, but this next year I want to focus on what I can do to be
a better collaborator and team member. I can only do so much in a day.

------
0x22
I would also remove caffeine (coffee, energy drinks) as a health step and see
how that affects work and your body. Most people are over-stressed and working
over time with caffeine is one of most common reason people do not sleep a
recommended 7-8 hours a day.

------
sys_64738
One thing I also learned is to leave work on achieving a goal, no matter how
small. This gives you disconnect at night.

------
msms01
Meditate. Yoga. Learn and become who you are.

------
Waterluvian
DON'T install Slack on your phone.

~~~
sys_64738
Slack is a terrible piece of software that tries to take over your computer.

~~~
m0zg
I use it in the browser. Works fine if you don't allow it to send
notifications.

------
anoplus
Good points, and I appreciate the conciseness of the post. Nice.

------
aledalgrande
\- sleep

\- sport

\- friends

~~~
sys_64738
\- toilet \- shower

------
spectramax
Isn't this obvious to every software engineer I know? Perhaps I am missing
something or living under a rock in my own ecosystem. Every single engineer
I've ever met knows these things: Don't over commit, take breaks, seek help
and know that time is important, may be remember to breathe? I am sorry, but
this is not some deep insight.

The author works at Google. I presume that if one is getting paid in excess of
$200k, you're a damn good professional at the very least. These things need
not be reminded or taught - they're _required_ and _necessary_ as a
professional software engineer.

Burn out happens when - the company or team is under duress, imagine running a
manufacturing software system and your factory lines are down. Yes, that gets
intense and you can have a burn out if problem requires rehauling the system
(takes 6 months say). Or the company is on the brink of collapse and you're
one of the 3 engineers holding it together. But, that's not because of the
reasons listed here. In fact, writing such an article is dismissive because it
distracts the discussion on what _really_ leads to burn out.

~~~
thih9
> that's not because of the reasons listed here

If we take one of your examples, „the company is on the brink of collapse and
you're one of the 3 engineers holding it together.”, we could still apply
advice from the article: „Learn to say "no" more often. Know your limits. It's
easy to over-commit”. It seems as if it would still help.

~~~
smallcharleston
I agree. If you’re one of 3 engineers holding it together, that’s the
company’s problem (unless you won’t be able to find another job). If the other
2 engineers start working all the time to try and hold it together, that’s
their problem (unless you won’t be able to find another job). I don’t know why
people sometimes seem so willing to take responsibility for other peoples’
business decisions.

I’m young and inexperienced but in my opinion there’s a difference between
“willing to work extra late on something occasionally when something
unexpected comes up and working late will actually help”, which is helpful for
the team, and just getting killed because of bad decisions other people did,
or business circumstances that are beyond your pay grade.

------
RickJWagner
Thanks for that, author. Tips of this kind are very useful.

