
Ask HN: 9-5 burnout? - noamelf
I always feel a little strange among all the other 9-5 workers. It&#x27;s really difficult for me to do that every day of the week. It&#x27;s not that I&#x27;m not enjoying work or anything like that, while I&#x27;m at the office I totally enjoy it, but I once I get home I feel drained out, as if I can&#x27;t do anything but watch TV. It&#x27;s like all my mental powers are gone and I can only do the simplest thing possible.<p>Thing is, when people are talking about burn out, they usually mean 60 hours work week, so complaining about a 40-45 work week feels spoiled. Maybe my psych is not built for continues effort but short sprints and relaxation. When I stay to work from home, and split my work day into 2 halves, morning till noon, and evening until night, I feel much better, though I still work the same time more or less. Problem is, this is not something I can do regularly since It&#x27;s not common to work from home where I work, and I&#x27;m leading a dev team so I need to be around.<p>Does anyone else feels the same way? How do you handle daily burn out?
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biasforaction
I burned myself out building and launching a cloud service last year. After
that service launched publicly, I quickly took three weeks off. The first week
I felt depressed and was barely able to get up in the morning. The second week
I started to feel better and was able to achieve daily goals. The third week I
started to feel like my normal self but was nowhere close to being ready to go
back to work.

Currently, I'm still struggling to have my normal drive during the 9-5. My
short-term memory is not at its best. I'm averaging only a couple hours of
coding a day but I'm also a lead on my team, so I have a lot of interruptions
throughout the day. I feel energized on Monday, but by Friday I feel like a
failure (like right now). I feel stuck.

After work I invest my time into improving skill-sets, knowledge, and other
projects until 10 or 11 pm. My goal is to have an exit strategy in place by
the end of this year.

I know I'm still recovering from the burnout and it seems like it's going to
take another year to recover fully. Every week I want to break down, cry, and
leave but I'm afraid to jeopardize everything that I've worked hard to
achieve.

I would like to share more about my story and background, but I'm afraid to
share too many personal details that will identify myself.

"Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're My Only Hope"

~~~
PaulStatezny
It sounds like you really gave your all to your employer, and it left you
feeling demoralized and depressed. It also sounds like you feel stuck. Stuck
in the situation, stuck in the bad feelings. My heart goes out to you.

At times, I’ve put an unhealthy focus on work, and it’s left me feeling
drained of life. Probably a similar feeling to yours.

It sounds like your schedule isn’t allowing for much human-to-human
connection. (Away from computers!) I don’t know about you, but that’s probably
the main human need I have when I overwork! I’d suggest limiting the evening
learning sessions and try to invest in some friendships! Try to brighten up
someone’s day!

~~~
muzani
Ha, interesting. Every time I'm severely burnt out, it has to do with humans,
not computers.

Computers do work as you tell them to. Humans will make life difficult for you
just to make it easy for themselves.

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itamarst
I definitely feel that way - I'm much happier when I'm working less than 40
hours a week, these days. It is possible to start with what you want and
eventually negotiate or find a work situation that meets your needs.

Some options:

1\. If you have good relationship at current job, see what you can negotiate.
E.g. maybe you can become individual contributor. Maybe you can figure out way
to make it work just by rearranging things - in office first half of day,
available from 4-5 pm in afternoon, or something.

2\. Find a different job where you can the job schedule you want. E.g. remote
job, or just a job with more flexible work schedule.

2\. Negotiate a less-than-40-hours job - definitely possible, I interviewed
someone who has been doing that for 15 years:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-
programmer...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/)

(I talk about options, negotiation skills and more in my related book, The
Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek:
[https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)).

------
muzani
Working a proper 9-5 job in software is extremely tiring. I compare it to
athletes; you can't expect an athlete to work 8 hours a day of intense
training without collapsing. Often they work a certain amount of hard hours
and a few softer ones. They cycle it.

One should do the same for programming as well. It's all energy management. I
find I can only work 3 hours on a tough problem, and the rest would be
something lighter like refactoring or writing tests.

A lot of people who wake up at 5 and sleep at 11 PM are managers, which isn't
as energy intensive.

------
BjoernKW
First, everyone's different. There's no single optimal workload that applies
to everyone.

That said, 8 hours of real, intense, mentally challenging work per day
probably is more than enough for most people.

The problem is that when talking about work in terms of time spent this often
includes stuff that isn't really work at all but mindless busywork like
writing emails, attending pointless meetings or idle water cooler talk.

This is particularly prevalent with those 'vaunted' 60+ hour weeks (also see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law)).

The point being: Your 40 hour work week might very well be equivalent to
somebody else's 60 hour work week in terms of workload and mental energy
required.

You seem to have already found a viable solution by working remotely and
splitting your day in 2 halves. If that works for you you should try to
optimise your work in a way that you can do this more frequently.

There are fully remote companies with employees across multiple timezones. So,
this is definitely achievable. It just requires a little more effort than the
default 9-5 kind of work organisation.

It should be in your employer's interest to ensure the long-term happiness and
effectiveness of employees. So, why not talk with your employer about this and
try to make the necessary changes in work organisation?

------
parttimethrow
I feel _exactly_ the same way as you do. (I thought I was the only one who
feel like I just want to relax and do nothing in the evening even though only
working a 9-5 office job!)

I'm at a relatively 9-5 job now (aside from occasional week nights or weekends
emergency response work). The thing is, I've _been_ in 60-hour jobs (even
80-hour in some cases) before. I know what that feels like. I know what true
burn-out is. I've even done that for 5 years. It was a cool experience when I
was younger. I keep thinking that, my job is 9-5 now, I really shouldn't be
feeling burn-out. But I am.

I blame it on the commute a lot; in Silicon Valley, a normally 40-minute drive
becomes 1.5 hour one way, and 3 hours a day is a lot of time to spend on the
road, and it's taxing. I know it's a huge part of the reason to feel burn-out.
Like you, I'm also in the position of a team lead. I already have a one day a
week WFH arrangement. It's helping me survive and not quit the job, but it's
only borderline acceptable. I feel like I can't move to more WFH days. But
having read itamarst's comment, I feel like maybe I should ask. I would
probably feel better if I either WFH 2 days or, just work only 4 days and WFH
1 of those 4 days.

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zackmorris
Just in case this is an XY problem, maybe looking at the question in a
different light could help. Instead of asking why we are burned out, maybe we
could ask why we feel burned out.

For me, the opportunity cost of being burned out is that I can't summon the
energy to work on my side projects and hobbies. It really kills me that every
day I come home and have hours that I could spend coding or building
something, but instead I just watch TV over a beer.

A couple of people closest to me say to just do all the things. So they are
advocating discipline which is great and something I could probably find again
if I was more disciplined.

My gut feeling though is that the issue might be more complicated than that.
From prior experience, I know my odds of failure at any side project I attempt
are somewhere around 90% if I measure them in terms of monetary gain. So I'm
subconsciously multiplying the cost/benefit analysis by 10 and getting
discouraged. But if I remove risk from the equation, maybe by working on
something low-risk like an open source project or learning a skill I don't
know (like playing music), then maybe I could get closer to feeling rewarded
by tinkering instead of drained. Then I could build on that and add more
ambitious projects over time (in theory).

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Freak_NL
Can you cut down on the number of days you work? Even as a team-lead your team
should be able to handle missing you one day a week (your team wouldn't be
very self-sufficient if even that is impossible).

I am fortunate to live in a country where working three or four days a week
instead of five is perfectly acceptable. I have explicitly chosen to work four
days a week (four times 9-to-17), and use the remaining workday for my own
relaxation/chores/shopping/projects. My partner does the same thing with a
different day off, so we each get our own home alone downtime day. It works
really well for us.

By working less days you effectively sacrifice only four evenings for
recuperation from work, but keep three days for yourself. Of course that means
less income, so this depends on your personal financial situation as well. It
does make it easier to simply accept that you simply need the downtime in the
evenings.

Some people are fine working five days a week, some aren't.

> Thing is, when people are talking about burn out, they usually mean 60 hours
> work week.

Only in some countries (US I guess?). Burnout is a global phenomenon. In the
Netherlands people tend to work 40 hours a week, but burnout is still common
enough here.

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tboyd47
Think of human activity as lying on a spectrum of mental effort. You probably
need activities that lie somewhere in the middle range of energy and
complexity. Work is probably on the higher end: an continuously exhausting
challenge. Vegging out in front of the TV is the lower end: relaxing, but
unfulfilling and boring.

If the only mentally engaging activity you ever do is work, then every time
you get bored, you will jump straight into overdrive just by THINKING about
it. This will actually wear you out even if it's only 30 hours a week or 20
hours. You need activities that are only a little bit challenging to distract
you from the big one.

I experienced the same problem myself (replace TV with jogging). I had other
things going on (RSI, frustrating work environment), but adding hobbies like
competitive video gaming and painting landscapes helped my mental health
tremendously.

~~~
noamelf
> Think of human activity as lying on a spectrum of mental effort. You
> probably need activities that lie somewhere in the middle range of energy
> and complexity. Work is probably on the higher end: an continuously
> exhausting challenge. Vegging out in front of the TV is the lower end:
> relaxing, but unfulfilling and boring.

> If the only mentally engaging activity you ever do is work, then every time
> you get bored, you will jump straight into overdrive just by THINKING about
> it. This will actually wear you out even if it's only 30 hours a week or 20
> hours. You need activities that are only a little bit challenging to
> distract you from the big one.

That's a very interesting way to look at it. Problem is I'm too tired during
to pick anything up after work. I really feel that if I can reduce the amount
of mental energy I consume at work, I'll actually have the desire to pick up
the guitar or something like that.

Maybe using something like the pomodoro technique can help with that, and then
taking more breaks. I think one of my problems is though, that my ambition
takeover and I want to get just one more thing done. I feel like I need to
produce better results, etc.

~~~
tboyd47
What about on the weekends?

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Kevin_S
I've spent 2 years doing 8-5 and it just doesn't work for me. I'm going back
to school and becoming an academic. The requirement to be here is what hurts
the most, I'll happily work more hours as long as they are flexible and on my
own accord, in my own space.

I am counting down the days.

------
p0ints
I'm feeling the same. I think it's very common. That's what motivates people
to go above and beyond and try to be financially independent - as the
alternative is having very little from life until you're old and retired.

------
shoo
If you want to have time in your week outside of work where you aren't
drained, one thing to try is waking up earlier every day and focusing on your
own stuff before heading in to the office

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SirLJ
Yep, working from home, I take 2 hours lunch break to exercise a bit, eat and
nap for an hour and after that I can be productive again in the the few
remaining hours until 16:30

------
Chyzwar
Get rid of the TV.

~~~
PaulStatezny
> Get rid of the TV.

I agree this can be helpful. But it seems there are some deeper things going
on.

I’m no psychologist or therapist, but it seems there are things going on at
the emotional or psychological level that need to be addressed.

Of course I don’t know this person, but I imagine solely getting rid of the TV
would just make room for a different “mind numbing habit”.

------
alansmitheebk
I'm guessing that you're an introvert and being around everyone in the office
is what wears you out. If this is case, try and move your desk to a quieter
less crowded part of the office and invest in some good headphones. You can
also try going out for a walk in the middle of the day to get away from
everyone.

Another thing you can do is focus on having more energy by doing things like
working out, eating better, etc. If you are always tired you might want to go
see your doctor and check for hypothyroid and / or low testosterone (assuming
you are a middle-aged man)

