
Ask HN: Can I ask about burnout? - LifeQuestioner
How long were you running on burnout before you gave yourself recovery time?
How do you recover from Burnout?
How do you recognise you are in a state of burnout?<p>And, how long did it take you to recover?<p>I&#x27;m in this last question state at the moment being asked back to Work. It&#x27;s been a month...I still don&#x27;t feel i&#x27;m back to a functioning level but I was running on burnout for a year - I didn&#x27;t give myself a break after final university year and went straight into work when I was already burnt out then(I know, I know, silly me!).<p>Thanks HN!
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burnout_tmp
Recovering from burnout for me (I've been hit twice - once when I got out of
school, once more recently from a truly terrible work environment) takes about
half a year of avoiding programming, but I have other issues (anxiety,
depression) that come with the burnout. It's easy to tell now that it's
happened twice - there's this pretty deep unwillingness to code coupled with a
kind of fog that comes with reasoning about your programs that makes your work
inferior to your 100%.

If your job is nasty like mine was, I know it's hard to start moving on but
you have to switch. The longer you let yourself be burned out, the longer it
takes to get back to 100%. I've made a certain set of choices that let me
pursue a graduate degree and I feel much better, but you have to be on the
lookout for abusive situations. For me, it's about 3 to 6 months of laying off
of work. But really, extricating yourself from whatever situation is bothering
you is what you want to do.

Avoiding burnout is pretty simple - be in an environment you like, surrounded
by people whose company you enjoy, spending your spare time doing healthy
things (exercise, going out, meditating, whatever works for you) that aren't
related to work. Avoid indulging too much in vices like drinking, smoking, and
drugs. Take breaks when you work, stand up, stretch, walk about. Sitting down
for too long makes you stiff and feel stagnant. Take your vacation days when
you feel worn out. Do what you can to make sure you're healthy and happy. If
your employer feels threatened by you taking care of yourself, you find a new
job.

Basically, work is a function of your competence, willingness, and emotional
state. You do your best when all three of those are at max.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
"coupled with a kind of fog that comes with reasoning about your programs" \-
could you elaborate on this at all?

I've noticed patterns changing in my coding. I can't believe it's only just
properly dawned on it's burnout related.

Thankyou for your valuable input =)

~~~
burnout_tmp
Basically, you're overworked so you're not as focused. One little example I
can remember was this - we were maintaining a less than impressive codebase
under a lot of time pressure (bad management practices, such is life). There
was a bug caused by me using two functions together that looked like a pair,
but in fact the function to transform data was not idempotent, and the
function to undo that transformation would sometimes mangle the data. I should
have tested the code involved instead of just using it naively, but I wasn't
in the mental state of mind to watch for such things.

Little things like that. Programming takes a lot of mental discipline, so you
need to be at your best.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
This well explains why my code has been so above and beyond buggy the last few
months I almost spend more time fixing bugs than actually coding! Thank you =)

------
falicon
I think the trick isn't so much in the down time (or the length of it)...it's
in what you do with any free time.

Burnout is generally a result of getting stuck doing lots of stuff you don't
want to the majority of your time...and generally very little of what you _do_
want to be doing...

So in my experience you only get over burnout by focusing and rediscovering
what you were truly passionate about in the first place (or at the very least
what you are insanely passionate about now).

Then, once you can figure out what excites you, start getting small wins in
that direction however you can...and before you know it, you'll be full of
energy and near impossible to stop again.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
Yeah I realised this was very much how I got into a state of burnout in the
first place - and I was staying in a role through guilt, not enjoyment.

I guess from your comments and my situation it should mean not returning to
the role.

~~~
falicon
It's very rare that "going back" ever turns out well or as people hope (there
are a few exceptions).

Keep in mind that you left for a reason...and the only thing you can really
change is _you_...have you changed so much that _you_ are missing it? That
_you_ can't move on without it?

My advice, as long as you have other reasonable options, take one of those
paths instead...

------
thenipper
I've been burned out in the past and I'm going to to with what might sound
like a cop out answer: It really varies. I think it depends on:

\- Your personality \- What you did with your off time \- What kind of job
situation you're going back to

I do think the last point is probably the most relevant. Are you going back to
the same situation as you were before? Then you're probably not going to feel
like a month is a long enough time. To be honest there might not be a long
enough time. You might need to find a new job. Especially with having run at
burnout levels for a year or more. It was probably longer then you think.

I've had burnout twice in my career. Once I negotiated getting laid off, took
the summer off (went to the beach a lot) and then started a much more low-key
job after about 4 months of just relaxing and recharging.

More recently I was starting to burnout. I thankfully said something to my
boss during my review and we had work taken off my plate. I'm lucky enough to
have a great boss that understood that and was willing to do it. It's
definitely helped curtail any sense of burnout.

------
zer00eyz
"I didn't give myself a break after final university year"

Ok...

Stop drinking, exercise, and have an activity out side of work (that isn't
drinking or eating).

That outside activity is important. Take some classes, join a club/meetup
group, go to church, find a hobby sport.

The trick to not burning out is to have other outlets, where you do things you
enjoy. Your going to realize when work is getting "bad" because you skipping
out on the outside activity (don't do this), or your looking forward to it so
much your not working.

When this happens you know to "slow down" and plan some more personal time to
balance things out take a weekend out of town, a vacation, change jobs etc.

------
itaifrenkel
I recently read the BuronOut wikipedia page
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout)
because I was having some thoughts about it myself. Burnout is a real problem
in the software industry. With the exception of 2 months hiking leave (about
five years ago), I never stopped working since after University (actually also
during). I found that multiple short intensive vacations (long weekends 4-5
days), in times of stress, eases the tension a lot. It also depends how much
support do you get at work (from you peers/manager, can you openly talk about
it)? And how much support do you get at home from your immediate family. A few
things to remember - once you got a new job it is ok to negotiate the start
date. Buy yourself enough time to recover, knowing that you are going back to
work, but not now. Depending on your negotiation skills, if you can't get the
salary you wanted, try to trade it with vacation days (so you can take more
long weekends). Some burnouts could take a few months to recover from. Take
your time.... Looking back at your career 10 years from now, these few months
are very short, and who knows - you might get more offers during that time...
going to meetups, messaging friends for better job offers, asking them about
the stress levels in the place they work.

------
andersthue
I burned out pretty good 6 years ago, I was able to work around two to three
hours a day, it took me two years to get to six hours days and I have tried to
keep it at that ever since.

I told my complete founder story on the rogue podcast recently
[http://www.roguestartups.com/rs023-perseverance-with-
anders-...](http://www.roguestartups.com/rs023-perseverance-with-anders-
pedersen-of-timeblock/)

------
Torgo
I overworked for seven years. I took an entire year off. Time alone wasn't
enough. I kept a lot of the same bad habits, I just wasn't working. What I
failed to do was make conscious, positive actions to de-stress and fix my
lifestyle (which led to the overwork) during that time.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
Thanks for your response :). Could I ask what those bad-habbits were that you
became aware of? And what positive actions you took to destress? :)

~~~
Torgo
Not observing a consistent and sensible sleep schedule.

------
mdomans
I'm sooooo sorry for you. Here's a story and some advice.

My grandfather was born in a small village in Poland. He's younger brother
died in infancy. His older brother was blown up to pieces during the war. My
grandfather worked as a foreman in a steel mill. He also kept bees and
animals. And he built his own house.

To this day, I have the shovel he used to dig the foundations himself. The
handle got impregnated with his sweat and body oils. It looks as if someone
put varnish on it.

Personally, I've been working since being legally able to (16) and only
stopped for 1 year of Uni, then found a company I wanted to work with and made
anything I was able to to get hired. I haven't had a break longer than 1 week
since that day.

Burnout is only in your mind. Burnout means you never pushed yourself hard
enough and that you never really wanted anything in your life hard enough.

My advice for you is: stop being sorry for yourself, take a cold shower, drink
a coffee and get on with your life. You only get one, achieve something - you
can behave burnt out when you're old.

~~~
burnout_tmp
Your advice is pretty off to be honest. I'm sure your grandfather was a
wonderful man and I don't mean to belittle him by belittling your point, but
what you're saying isn't helpful at all to OP. For example, I also got a job
out of school, except mine was during the financial crisis at a company where
I routinely was working 65-70 hours a week. My salary went to paying bills for
my family, while I helped with my fathers foundering business because the
economy was so terrible, and treatment for my mother who was having a
breakdown caused by her having a serious debilitating illness. Eventually our
house was foreclosed on. I remember packing all of our things into plastic
trashbags the night that we were foreclosed on and waking up the next morning
to go to work. I didn't have the luxury of stopping, even for an instant. We
fought our way out, but it's not like I didn't come out of things unscathed.
It's not as impressive as your grandfather and I certainly don't mean to
compare myself to him, but everyone has a story to tell. You can't just wave
one anecdote in someone's face to invalidate their experience.

It's a nice meme to say that burnout's all in the mind, but you don't know
anything about OP, and you certainly don't know anything about the mass
majority of people who've had to balance immensely stressful work situations
with immensely stressful personal situations. Maybe you should be more
measured in your words instead of being presumptuous about OP's drive or
character.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
Thanks...in my case you're actually quite correct I think =). I was in foster
care homes at various points. My drive and inspiration and the only reason I
got to university. Because I wanted to be in a position to help my real
family.

Like yourself I had family members who kept having breakdowns. I remember
having taken my Mum into hospital after a suicide attempt and i'd go take an
exam the next morning on only 2 hours sleep, desperate to still get the grades
to get into uni.

 __ _Which is why this issue of burnout has gotten to me so much_.

How is it I can content with running on several hours of sleep for a few
months whilst pushing myself to somehow do exams when I could barely read the
questions I was so tired.. and not reach burnout...

And yet now, I have. It doesn't seem logical. But it seems I was at least
focusing on something I was passionate about(goal to help my family in the
future) and at work I have not been.

Low salary sometimes paid weeks late, not mentally stimulating...essentially
going against the very thing I wanted to be able to do. Help my family. Your
post has helped me to work that out, thanks!

------
jeffmould
When I first got out of college in the mid-90s I was under a lot pressure from
my family to find a job and get to work. Within a month I landed a great job
working for a government contractor. I loved every minute of the job and the
people I worked with, but after 3 years I wanted more. I also knew my skills
were worth a lot more than they were paying me.

At this time the first "bubble" was beginning to grow rapidly and I was lucky
enough to end up as one of the first employees at an application service
provider (ASP), or what could be considered a precursor to the SaaS market
today. It was a great job and the pace was fast as with any startup. We worked
long hours and saw our work actually come to life as we built out global
datacenters and brought on large customers. After 2 years though I wanted
something different and more.

I wasn't burned out, but at this point my career acceleration had become my
drug. I was always wanting more and was out to surpass my previous position. I
didn't mind the long hours and would burn the candle from both ends while
occasionally lighting a match in the middle as well. I got a job at Microsoft
as a technical account manager for premier support.

I truly liked the job, but it was not the pace I had grown accustomed to over
the past 7 years. It was in to work between 8 or 9 and home by 5:30 every day.
On some days there would be a customer crisis that would wind into the night
or a support issue that needed escalating, but it wasn't the same. It was then
I started to lose interest. I don't think my body adjusted properly from going
non-stop to a skidding halt.

This loss of interest caused me to burn out on technology. I thought at the
time I had reached the pinnacle of career moves. I was working at Microsoft
when the bubble burst and the startup scene dried up almost overnight. I grew
to dislike the job, and even more the environment, within Microsoft. Yet at
the same time, I didn't see other jobs as a stepping stone, I only saw them as
falling backwards. I decided to quit and give it all up almost overnight.

I packed up, moved to Florida. I took a couple months off and thought I would
get back into IT. I applied to a couple positions in Florida, but was in for
the second big shock. Salaries in Florida were not even comparable to what I
was making in the D.C. area. We were talking $20-30K differences. Granted the
cost of living was much cheaper, but at the time I didn't want to look at it
that way. I turned down great jobs because I was too stubborn to look at the
big picture when it came to salary. Looking back though, I also think I was
still burned out from IT work and was using salary as an excuse to get back
in.

At this point I jumped ship. I went into a completely unrelated field (funeral
industry), yet one that was non-stop 24x7 excitement for lack of a better
word. I was instantly back to working long hours and loving every minute of
it. Working a non-IT related job though made me miss technology. I started
doing consulting on the side to fill the void and keep my feet wet. Yet I
continued to work for almost 7 years at the new job. The longest I had stayed
at any job up to this point.

I am back in IT to some degree now, but have learned a lot along the way. I
learned that there is no real answer to how long it takes to "recover" from
being burned out or how to recover. Every person is different, but one thing
is definite, you can't force yourself back in when you are not ready. I also
learned that every time I have those feelings of needing more or wanting more,
I stop everything that second. It may be at completely random times. I will go
for a long walk, listen to music, and appreciate life in general. I also got
random jobs completely unrelated to IT. These jobs allowed me to see other
people, learn new things, and completely detach from my IT self. But they also
made me realize what I liked and disliked about working in IT. I now use that
mental list to adjust my work/life balance so I can control my feelings of
burnout.

I know I relate a lot of burnout to IT in the above, but it doesn't matter
what your position or job is. Burnout can, and will, occur in any job. My best
suggestion is to stop whatever you are doing for however long you can
financially afford to do so. Find something different or do some soul
searching by taking a vacation where you can detach from your normal everyday
life. Do things outside your comfort zone. If you can't afford to not work, or
if you are unsure about going back at any time, find a different job that is
completely unrelated to what you were doing previously. At least for me, I
think my burnout came from always wanting more from career. It didn't come
from the job itself, but the push to get more from the job or have a better
job.

~~~
Udik
I find your story interesting as it's the only one that relates burnout not to
excessive hours and huge amounts of work piling up, but to the opposite, a too
quiet work environment where everything is dealt with at a slow, steady pace,
without great excitement. This is the exact situation I find myself in now,
complete with the dislike for the job and the environment. Luckily I've just
quit my job and looking forward to a a couple of months of holidays and,
maybe, general rethinking of my career..

~~~
jeffmould
Yes, I found that my burnout is not directly related to the amount of work,
but more so my interest in the work. When I begin to lose interest and/or
focus in the work, I no longer relish going to work. This results in a
"burnout" type effect for me and I need to get away from everything.

------
shaftway
I hit my burnout point about 10 years into work. I had flunked out of college,
so I was about 30. I was in banking, doing risk analysis. I had a manager who
would give us arbitrary, ridiculously short deadlines, then expect us to work
all hours to meet them. I was listening to suicide-y music. The breaking point
was when I got my bonus; it was less than half of what I had been promised.

When I hit that burnout point, I took 2 weeks off and went to a remote place
with no internet. I drank heavily the first couple of days (I think of it as a
mental-reset). And then I started analyzing what made me burn out. I realized
that for me it was a combination of two things: Time, and Talent. I was
spending too much time at work, and I was working with supremely untalented
people. I also realized that I had a good amount of experience under my belt,
and that I was fairly desirable as an employee.

Armed with that knowledge I went back to work, and started saying "no". I also
started interviewing (I'm not stupid).

> No, I'm not staying late tonight. No, I'm not staying late tomorrow night.
> I've got arrangements. What am I doing? That's personal.

I wasn't anti-social. When the team did things I hung out with them and was
friendly. I just didn't work late.

> No, I'm not going to work with him on that project. In the past he has
> worked against me, even though I was the lead. I don't feel like the project
> can be a success if he's involved, and I don't want to be on a doomed
> project.

If any of my "no"s had been met with threats of being fired, I would have quit
on the spot. I made it clear to my manager that I enjoyed what I was doing,
but I had a handful of open offers at a higher rate. My manager backed down
for a bit. We started a new project, it was done later than his demand, but
before my estimate. And it was the most stable project we'd built. After that
I never felt like he was judging me again.

Eventually I did move on, and at every job since then it's been about setting
expectations on day one. I do not work evenings or weekends (unless it's
something I'm genuinely excited about). I do not run errands for other people.
I do not fix other people's bugs or document their code just because they
think they're too important to (of course I work with other people's code, I'm
just not their bug bitch).

It's been 9 years and I haven't felt burnout-y since. It didn't fix everything
overnight, but actually enjoying my primary job helped the burnout feelings
fade. I still get angry and frustrated, but they're usually short-term things
that I can eventually work around or fix.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
Wow, I never even thought about the Talent thing...sometimes i've been working
in an empty room on my own with no-one to bounce ideas off, which could happen
for a week at a time. Lonely and not mentally stimulating.

I'd be an idiot to go back, Ive realised. I'm really glad to have worked this
out now rather than later.

Thank you so much for sharing your story.

