Overcoming burnout

http://www.onebigfluke.com/2012/04/overcoming-burnout.html

by joshfraser • 14 years ago

53 16 14 years ago

FreshCode• 14 years ago

Distancing myself from my computer for at least 72 hours lowers my coder's block, but I've found that working on a personal novelty side-project works equally well. The trick is distancing yourself from your usual work, which can be hard if you have only a single workspace. Working in a different milieu, like a coffee shop, helps.

(edit: grammar, distancing trick)

XLcommerce2• 14 years ago

I was starting to feel some burnout a week ago after a couple of months of 10+ hour days 6 days a week. Refurbishing my roof worked wonders for me. Spending 3 days pressure cleaning, replacing tiles and painting did wonders for me. Obviously not the kind of advice that applies to everyone but it worked for me. Plus my roof looks great now :)

darklajid• 14 years ago

I don't want to offend you, but from all I understand about the burnout syndrome it's hard to 'feel some burnout' (either you crash or not. Struggling with work/life is a different thing) and next to impossible to get back on track in 3 days, whatever those involve.

Good that it helped you and I second the advice of stepping away from the machine and doing something involving manual labor.

XLcommerce2• 14 years ago

No offence taken. Sounds like burnout was the wrong term to use. Maybe I staved off actual burnout from developing later on by taking this time off. Either way some manual labour felt good :)

srconstantin• 14 years ago

I do this. Every now and then I decide I'm "claiming the day in the name of fun" and just work on an interesting coding project. Having unofficial projects is necessary to survival.

jtheory• 14 years ago

This isn't bad advice; though I feel it's only a small part of the picture.

My desire to work on side projects definitely increases as I head towards burnout in whatever I'm supposed to be working on.

And giving myself permission to work on something completely different for a day definitely improves my mood, which can give me the energy to address whatever's bothering me.

But after that, I still have to fix the original problem -- usually one (or many) large, poorly-defined tasks that I've been dreading, or some personal interaction that frustrated me and was never resolved; usually compounded by weeks at some level of sleep debt.

So if I stay up all night working on the side project, then I'm worse off the next day, not better -- more sleep debt, and one pleasant day of escapism, but the same old problems still sitting there (but deadlines one day closer).

If I can spend a restful day or two, clear my head and just free myself to think about things, solutions start to bubble up, I can make some concrete plans to handle whatever's been dragging me down, and I can catch up on my sleep -- that's great.

The times this has worked really well, I generally don't work on side projects either. Filling my head with more interesting problems is pleasant, but my mind is still spinning at high velocity.

The better solution is to find a way to clear my head, reset my sleep cycle, and then take advantage of the clarity that follows.

waivej• 14 years ago

I've been finding lately that the side projects are where I push new ground. The best part is putting those aside when I've learned enough and coming back to the main project with new skills and code to borrow from. Though it takes a good 30-40 hours. (3-4 weeks of tinkering.)

6ren• 14 years ago

Some similarities to Feynman's solution to burnout http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

adnam2• 14 years ago

There's been a steady stream of "burnout" trip-reports, and without trying to sound condescending, most of them sound like luxury. Almost all "how to avoid burnout" advice is based on the assumption that YOU are fundamentally in control. I have yet to read the burnout story involving 3 competing jobs, 2 urgent deadlines, 1 screaming infant, a bout of flu and a sick relative. Well, sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get on with it. "Burnout" doesn't exist -- it's just a bunch of Stuff That Happens In Life. It's normal, it doesn't make you special, get over it, its boring.

dlitz• 14 years ago

As I see it, "burnout" in this context means that point where you stop thinking clearly and your productivity sharply drops. You could be making $10M/year or $10K/year and still experience burnout.

billpatrianakos• 14 years ago

This sounds like what people who don't understand depression or drug addiction say to the depressed or addicted. It's always "just pick yourself up by your bootstraps" and "grow some balls and quit using" but it's not that simple. Maybe people are complaining about a lot of first world problems but it's not the problems themselves that should be the focus but the feeling a person experiencing burnout gets. That feeling is uncontrollable and it's debilitating and it can happen to anyone, first world problems or not.

If you've ever experienced burnout you'd be more sympathetic I can tell that you haven't and that's good. It's not a matter of will power or moral fiber that keeps you from burning out or gets you out of it though so be careful, no one is immune.

adnam2• 14 years ago

Depression and addiction are both medically recognised conditions. Burnout, it appears, can mean almost anything.

mtrimpe• 14 years ago

This doesn't explain how to overcome burnout, it explains how to stave off burnout a bit longer.

Burnout is when you hit that actuall wall and slowing down a bit doesn't help, slowing down a lot doesn't even help and those two weeks off feel like just a drop in the bucket.

RollAHardSix• 14 years ago

I agree. At that point I think it's best you start looking at improving your quality of life over the course of the year rather than finding that 'immediate relief'.

And try different things. For me it was yoga. Someone else I know loves bowling with her husband. Another friend of mine enjoys hiking, another painting. And not everything has to be a masterpiece, that goes for both your hobbies, your startup, and your job.

bane• 14 years ago

Variety, use different parts of your brain (even if you aren't good at it), engage in physical activity if you are mainly sedentary, cut yourself off from the world every one in a while and just.....decompress.

Take hikes, go to a strange city and just walk around and exist there. Try drawing or sculpture, learn an instrument, try baking, or needlepoint, play video games.

Just don't do all of these things all at once.

Moderation.

nerdfiles• 14 years ago

I believe the implicit claim here is that regardless of whether the computer system is a contributory factor to burnout that association does not imply that it cannot be a factor in restoring one's self. Let's say, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

I suspect it is a response to a future decision the author intuits large groups of computer laborers may make: that computers, in general, establish a unique, more intensely stressful baseline type for burnout cases. Usually the standard response (or rather "therapy") to burnout, even in the professional, occupational setting, in engineering and technical jobs involves doing something unrelated to that type of work. It is Feynman's point made official through the history of its adoption in business and corporate settings. But _physics_ isn't tossed out; a particular _institution of physics studies_ is tabled. This point is going to be made for _computer systems_ as well; perhaps the author is now asserting it. Web building will soon become a respectable science, wherein its general idiom becomes abstracta that support true, albeit horrifyingly misleading, statements like "My Internet does not work" or "I read ten articles on the Internet today" which people use in everyday conversation.

As Wittgenstein would say,

"I launched the ball!" "He recoiled at the thought." "She exploded with joy." "The Sun gave me a sun burn." "My grandmother is a dinosaur." "Astrology is not a true science." "She turned at a right angle."

Is there anything essential as a response to burnout that involves stepping away from the computer system? What does it truly mean for us if "Internet" becomes a household name? How are people thinking about it? What are their statements about it? Why does most advice seem to suggest "stand up and go smell a flower, seek pleasure". Is the Web not pleasuable? Seeking _it_? Working on _it_? -- It seems clear to me that the author is making a very simple point: whence come hedonism of the craft? -- To me, it sounds like: "step out of the machine!" I believe this is what motivates the couched "freedom of will" discussion (burnout is a "wall"). Intuitions about Robert Nozick's Experience Machine are what are stake here.

Let's assume that "go outside and smell a rose" is the description of a machine. Our author, I suggest, argues that "write code for pleasurable project" is another description for a machine. What is assumed is that one can choose, regardless of practicality (that your project may be even less successful because of your choosing is irrelevant here, being compelled to make the decision does not necessitate that one should make it). What is at stake here, again, are intuitions about the machine, and namely what it affords at all. Choosing to take an experience of another sort involves concepts of continuity, roughly, I believe, Nozick's discovered intuitions of we have:

1. (Here I can only hope my analogy fits, but I believe it motivates, essentially, any apologetic position toward burnout:) "we first want to do actions" which gives any consequent desire for the experiences of those actions. In development and engineer jobs, technical jobs in general, we call this "burnout"; experiences (stress) eventually overwhelms desire to work (want to perform those actions). The storehouse of experience (one's work history) becomes nothing more than the description of some machine (a set of experiences one has had). So, there is an imperative to reject that machine. My follow-up is: Why does this response to burnout logically resemble Nozick's discovered intuition/response of: "Do not enter the machine"? -- "Step out of the usual." 2. (Again:) Whether it is choosing to code a fun side-project or going out to build a doghouse, we are enjoying our freedom. What's not important here are practical considerations, the limits of one's autonomy cannot be defined only in terms what one perceives as one's own limits; one's autonomy is not established through the capacity of one's epistemtic assessment. Going with the flow because the current is strong only establishes the acceptance of a machine-like existence. So "go fly a kite" to assert one's freedom. 3. (Again:) One's reality is limited to workflows and projects. "Leave the machine."

My general point here is that the structure of the argument: "go do something different," to me, looks very similar to our intuitions as to why one would reject the machine.

Overcoming burnout

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