This reminded me of a couple of very bad times in my life where I was caught in that awful loop of being unable to meet all the demands on my life and feeling that it would be impossible to not continue to try to go on anyway.
It's strange in retrospect how liberating divorce, unemployment, bankruptcy, and foreclosure can be. Don't get me wrong: going through all that absolutely sucked, and I wouldn't want to do it again. There were a few times when I genuinely went hungry and had no place to stay.
But having survived it, I no longer feel any need to keep up appearances or have the latest gadget or have a lot of stuff at all. A lot of the pressure I used to feel is simply gone because I don't give a shit what other people think about my life any more. (Well, I care about what my wife (same one, we are back together) and daughter think, but that's it.)
I especially liked the references to ancient descriptions of the condition. It's nothing new.
This week my cat died. I held him in my hands as he passed away after 20 years of being a fuzzy friend. After the first tears passed I felt an overwhelming sense of relief at I wasn't sure how to process.
I've been working on something big, at least in my head, for over a year now. For the first six months my coworkers were skeptical at best and at worst, unsupportive and critical. But I pressed on because no one understood the vision, and no one would until I proved it possible. Then, after a tipping point, that mysterious market change where suddenly everything becomes clear, everyone went from critic to heaping hope, expectation, and almost desperation for the success of my project. A small scrappy idea went from nothing to 100m$ and success went from a few million users to demands for over 1 billion. And so with impossible expectations, I pressed on again. I began suffer constant tightness in my chest, visions of the void that kept me awake and wide eyed in terror, and anger. Deep down I knew this couldn't meet my or my peers expectations, at least not overnight.
After my cat died, it reminded me that all things end. And when something ends it's a chance to start something new. My panic and burnout was the realization I too would die, and this project is likely to be my biggest measurable contribution to humanity. I got on a plane and flew to nowhere in particular and just hung out for a few days. Then I came back and started to look for a new place to live.
Being frozen in the same position for a long time, working towards the same goal is self destructive. Its seems to be a crippling side effect of the obsessions Silicon Valley is so eager to promote. It's takes variety and purposeful breaks sometimes to complete anything big. I don't have renewed energy yet, but I think I will soon... if I just let myself explore. Eventually whatever I build will be a representation of that hopeful exploration, and that spirit is the most important part.
So many comments like this usually end in sorrow. It's somewhat reassuring and human to hear that you're back together with your wife and helping raise your daughter again.
It sounds like going through those things led to a better overall ending than trying to forge ahead in the first place. It's great to hear you pulled through.
I haven't been in your shoes exactly, but I've blown it big-time in some very high pressure scenarios (military). I can attest to the liberation I felt at no longer caring to uphold the expectations of others, though the consequences were quite painful.
I'm glad that you and your family are back together.
Having skirted around the edge, and been through burnout several times, I urge especially solo entrepreneurs to set up a support group with other colleagues, friends or family to keep watch on their mood and performance.
It is all too easy too rationalise some of the symptoms of burnout as @eliboy stated in this thread as being 'other things' and ignoring the bigger picture. For example, if you are feeling tired and sad, is it depression or early onset burnout, or are you just suffering lack of sleep? Or just dehydration? Or is it because you had a late night out a couple of days ago?
Left to your own devices (especially when you are already burning out), it is all too easy to diagnose it as the latter causes, especially as your reasoning ability will be diminished.
Many times I have felt overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, thinking that it was because I couldn't say "No" to new projects, but it ended up being pure burnout.
Oh, and the frequent 'cure' for burnout from many of my colleagues is to force me to take a break and do nothing for a while. That actually makes it worse for me. I find that my best solution for burnout is to actually WORK HARD at another passion of mine - for example, If programming gets me down, I will go off and learn a fiendishly difficult piece on classical guitar instead. Others are horrified that I am putting my brain through more gruelling stress, but I find that thinking about music rather than programming for a while tends to help me feel creative and refreshed again.
I'm going to take one small phrase you wrote entirely out of context because I think there's a point to make.
I'm suffering from burnout at the moment and trying to figure out a way past it. I recently attended a 10-day silent meditation training and one of the requirements was to surrender all my devices (phone, computer, etc) and any other forms of distraction (books, pen and paper, playing cards). Basically, I was alone with only my mind for 10 days, unable to speak or communicate with others for the entire period. It was hell for the first couple days, but by the third day I was really starting to enjoy it.
As I've re-integrated my devices again, the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it and be much more conscious about reintegrating my devices afterwards. I'm starting to believe that, at least for me, burnout is an overstimulation, and things that I didn't even realize were forms of stimulation were contributing. But the biggest forms of stimulation, Internet, computers, phones and television are all things that I now realize I have to use incredibly judiciously.
I think we'll look back at this time, when we introduced all these devices into our society without any concept of the damage they cause, very similarly to the times when we used lead paint on our walls or asbestos in our ceilings. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but once we study the effect it has on our health, we'll be horrified.
P.S. On the doing nothing front, having spent 10 days being forced to do nothing but think in between the meditation sessions, it's really underrated and I wonder whether you've given it a fair shot. You really have to go days of doing literally nothing but thinking before it starts to give you any benefit. But once you do, you can just feel the stress melting away. The hard part is making it through the initial stage and then maintaining that benefit once you start to reintegrate with the rest of society.
I think I've been on the border of burnout for a few months now myself.
Out of curiosity I wonder if personalities are more prone to burnout. I know some of folks aren't big fans of the pseudoscience of personality types but I'm still interested if there's some correlation.
I like the Myers-Briggs type personality indicator/test at http://www.16personalities.com (I'm not affiliated in any way) as they add another dimension called identity which resolves to either assertive or turbulent.
My results when I last took this a few weeks ago were INTP-T.
Perhaps there's a correlation to strategy?... mine is constant improvement.
> if you are feeling tired and sad, is it depression or early onset burnout, or are you just suffering lack of sleep?
Or maybe you're just not that into working in tech, and you're only doing it because x,y,z circumstance 'pushed' you into it when you were younger.
There's nothing wrong with career change, doing something different with your life, if you feel like programming or startups or whatever might be making you miserable.
I don't want to discount your story or make light of it, but are you sure you've been "through" it? Maybe you meant to say you have closely avoided actual burnout several times?
You don't go "through" it without traumatic damage. The title doesn't say "minds turned to ash" for nothing.
I can't imagine anybody going through burnout twice, you have to be extremely unlucky AND stupid because the trauma turns up the alarm bells to eleven if you even get close to it (which is also lot sooner than before). This is some existential dread level of avoidance we're talking about here, the kind you need immense willpower to overcome. I'd do anything to avoid having to go through that again (maybe if I had children).
Ellen White, a very progressive health advocate and founder of the sda church actually recommended moving away from cities and working out in nature in tasks like farming. This prophetic insight has actually helped a lot of people. The church still runs a number of health resorts that do this and the results are off the charts.
Whenever I hear stories about people regularly putting in 80+ hour weeks it just blows my mind. I could never do that, and the mere thought of it is almost enough to send me into a spiral of depression.
For anyone who currently finds themselves in that situation: if you are in love with your work and happy with your lifestyle, then good for you. The world needs smart, dedicated people. But if you're feeling burnt out or otherwise unhappy with the hours: know that there tons of interesting and well paying jobs out there that don't demand such crazy hours.
- SF Bay Area Software Engineer working 40 hrs a week... often less.
Not all people work long hours because that's the role they ended up with or they feel they "have to". I work more than 40 hours a week as an escape from other tasks and problems in life (similar to how people use alcohol, food or gaming for that purpose).
I'd recommend the book "The Truth About Burnout" [0]. It talks about 6 sources of burnout: work overload, lack of control, insufficient reward, breakdown of community, absence of fairness and conflicting values.
For a long time I had burnout (or only a beginning). After a while, I suspected I might be burned out and it might be because of hard work, I work part-time and go to school too. It don't think it helped now that summer has come and I don't go to school, so I read the book. I think it's because lack of control, absence of fairness, conflicting values and insufficient reward. Note that it doesn't have to be true, it's enough for you to feel unpaid, that you don't have control, etc.
I definitely experienced this at the last stages of my first startup. In my opinion, your own psychology is probably the hardest thing to manage.
Ben Horowitz refers to this stage as The Struggle.
He talks about how when you start your company you do it with a clear vision of how success looks like. You are going to create an amazing company with the smartest people, build a great product and make the world a bit better. After working day and night, you realize things are not going as planned. The market isn't quite what you thought it would be. Your employees are losing confidence, some are quitting. You are running low on cash. You lose a loyal customer and walls start closing in and you find yourself in the struggle. The struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place.
When you are in the struggle nothing is easy and nothing feels right.
> limitless choice debilitates far more than it liberates
This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.
Look at foodstuffs in supermarkets, many times, packaging will come in a many different sizes in many different brands, leaving comparison a challenge.
I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.
Wow, culture shock. Everything has unit prices marked in your typical chain supermarket in Finland (and elsewhere in Western Europe?) I never thought of it as something special, but I guess it's mandated by some regulation or other.
Don't even get me started on electronics when it comes to the overabundance of choice. I only buy Apple laptops now specifically because the choice is so limited and I can be sure that I'm getting "the best" laptop.
Right now I'm trying to actively force myself to make more choices during my downtime. Where do I want to go? Where do I want to eat? What do I want to do? It's tough going sometimes given the overabundance of options and information. However the feeling that you know you are doing something because that's what you want is worth it.
Don't know how much others can empathize with this post. I'll say that the article hit me incredibly hard and I already ordered a print of "Melancholy I" to hang in my office.
> This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.
That reminds me of how ITA's QPX has additional effort invested into ensuring that the top connection search results aren't almost identical with only minor differences, even if the resulting order doesn't correspond to some simple "objective" metrics.
> I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.
They do this in Canada too, though I have seen instances where two comparable products are measured in different units. For example, one brand of yogourt is price per 100g while another is price per 100mL.
My experience with burnout is that it's almost identical to worry, with a sense of not feeling "good enough". I've had the feeling of burnout from being the sole sysadmin and devops at an HFT firm. An identical feeling happened during a streak of rational paranoia (I discussed it with my doc who agreed that it was rational, fwiw) during the final and post stages of a lawsuit for Chicago's mayor's phone records. The not-feeling-good enough there came from having to constantly convince others that the work was worth it.
Burnout sucks, but the more near-overwhelming work I get into, the more I realize how complicated it really is. That comes with learning to avoid it, though.
Burn out also looks like the effect of a constant bullying.
I mean, I have a wife, I work 9~16h paid 8 for 70$ I can't enjoy her on week end, nor the sun. It was the same when I was a coder except I was earning more money.
In society it has become common to forget about punch clocks. The limit between a safe haven you can protect yourself and mend your mind has been constantly shrinking: commutation, seminar, social events, excessive work hours, extra load (like being a sysadmin when you code or repairing unsafe truck when you are a mover) ...
I dare say: «burn out» is just the medicalisation of a social problem. In the worst of European glory and exploitation scheme USA used to abhor but are now embracing there used to be something called «professional fatigue».
This «fatigue» disappeared after the social struggle and the imposition of effective decent work hours.
Burn-out is just a pitiful way for employers to blame workers for the result of their actions on which they don't want to take responsibilities.
It is a counter productive management harming globally the society as much as jails are breaking humans.
Have you tried to ask at your job a strict workhours compensation? Your job will laugh at you.
Oh, I already can guess there are some exceptions out there that will answer I live in a world they don't see. But, how much of you when counting commuting, extra activities work related (like reading news to stay up to date, going to user groups), reading mails do actually have less than 48hr/week that are work related?
There's a weird pride in working long hours. I see it a lot in nyc, and when I hear it I always wonder what combination of stimulus were able to generate that willful want of it. I prefer to calculate and maximize dollars per hour. If you're working a lot, then at least have it be at a high hourly rate.
I worked at Goldman Sachs for one year and saw this a lot. People even put bottles of Paxil on their desk, as if depression was sign of commitment to the job. A large percent of these people were working at the firm for other people's approval. I left, quickly. Not only did I work at lot less at my next job, a hedge fund, but I found a set of people that liked to work and get the heck out. Everyone had other things they were doing after work, whether it was socializing or coaching baseball or open source projects.
Burnout includes context. People at Goldman Sachs were burnt out often, because for most, the premise of working there was irrational. People at my next job were working just as much but it was more meaningful and for the right reasons, so I saw little burnout.
It's past time this was said: we need to start shaming people who voluntarily work long hours. Not those for whom the alternative is unemployment, of course; they are victims to be pitied. But those who work long hours when they could have chosen otherwise, are harming not only themselves and their employers, but everyone who has to interact with the economy, which means pretty much everyone. That behavior needs to stop being considered socially acceptable.
I've had experiences like these at tech companies (long hours + expected to work on the weekends). No thanks. I'm glad my current NYC employer doesn't ask any more than 40 hours.
Avoiding burnout is about setting boundaries for both yourself and your coworkers to avoid unhealthy expectations. If your job _expects_ you to work more than 50 hours a week max, you need to have a talk with the relevant manager. It's a two way street though, because you must also be willing to limit your own involvement and not go overboard working if you have a type A personality.
Tying together a few comments I'm seeing here (farms, meditation, electronic device & information overload), I'll bring out the importance of nature. Some ideas:
if you like running, try trail running
do find a friend with a farm or garden and spend some time working there
weekend camping is often possible, whether in desert or forest, and sometimes it's easy to make it a 3-4 day trip.
if you really need something hard that's not programming, push your physical boundaries a little on the hike. Nothing to clear and focus the mind like "it's 5 pm, the sun sets in an hour, bad weather is coming in, we have 4 kilometers of canoeing until we get to the campsite and then we need to set up the tent!" Maybe I shouldn't really "recommend" this as any good wilderness type will have tried to avoid this situation.
I just took a long trip to the countryside and the lack of nature even in my tree-filled neighborhood was a shock when returning. And you can learn a lot from observing nature: trees just grow, animals do what they do; in their environment they don't fight their own nature and try to do something else.
I find small breaks throughout the day are best. Can be 5 mins or 30 mins. Grab it when you can and return refreshed. Or just switch tasks. The idea of recovering after all day - let alone months - is a big trap. Easier if you love your work as I am fortunate enough to do.
Is it possible that the solution to working hard is acquiring resources so you can stop working hard and this is done by working hard? Hence, creating a loop.
IMO Burnout is a loop spiralling out of control. Solution is a break out of the loop. But how? Mass acquisition of resources?
Know why you are there, what you want to accomplish, and what you are willing to do to accomplish it. And remember you have the option to walk away if your goals aren't met.
The latter is key - making a reasonable CHOICE to be in the situation is a big step towards making it bearable.
Pretty much. I'm saving up for an early retirement which, for me, means "do similar work (softdev) but at my own pace and only for as long as I feel it the project is viable."
Burnout isn't interesting to organizational psychologists because it was relatively well-understood in 90s. There's only so much you can study in this space and all the low-hanging fruit is gone. It's still a popular topic for some, but the reason you don't see the actual research is probably because you expect it to be covered in blogs. Go to a university library, get on the wifi, and download some proceedings of organizational and cognitive psychology journals.
To anyone suffering from ACTUAL long-term burnout, in the sense that a "Mind turned to ash" doesn't sound like hyperbole at all, and trying to recover:
Do NOT bother with this article. Save yourself the emotional drain (maybe go outside for a bit ;) ) It contains NO actionable advice, just a few anonymised stories, some academic and pop-psych ideas. Also conspicuously absent is any mention of these patients' recovery or future.
Maybe this article does serve as a nice warning for those heading towards burnout. I wrote the above, to help others already suffering. As a warning it's way too long for the crowd that is too busy working too many hours. Now trust me you can get it from working as little as 16h/wk! If that sounds like you--best of luck.
Yes the stories are so recognizable. Especially when he contrasted the first story with the second because the first one hit most of the main factors and then got convoluted with a whole bunch of other psychodevelopmental factors that the second story demonstrated have nothing to do with burnout.
The article could have been about 1/3rd it's length and I'm a bit bummed about this. Normally I wouldn't complain about that but this guy is a psychiatrist and I truly wonder what he was trying to achieve with this article, if it is anything besides self-promotion he would have written a disclaimer like above as a summary to help sufferers.
Myself, burnt out in 2007. Never got better. I don't actually want to read anonymized burnout-stories. It's an emotional drain with no reward (I'll page through a few in this thread, because this burnt-out husk of my former self is compassionate). I read it on the off-chance that maybe it'd contain some info or idea that I haven't tried in the past 9 years. So, that was my mental energy for the day.
I don't have answers either, but maybe some ehrm, burnout pro-tips. The web is full of stories to serve as warnings before burnout, but hardly anything for after, especially for sufferers where a few months rest just does not cut it. So here's a few things, maybe it'll help someone:
- Meditation is really nice. Maybe even more important was finding a group to do it with[0], it adds a dimension, mine are the kindest people I know in the world, and it helps motivate to do it daily . For mindfulness meditation, I found I need at least 2-3 sessions/week, for the exercise to carry on outside the actual moments of practising it. Apart from sitting, occasionally try a walking meditation (look it up) just like with physical exercise, changing up the practice helps if/when you get stuck. And don't forget there's more kinds besides mindfulness. One that is quite orthogonal to mindfulness is compassion meditation or "metta" meditation[1].
- Physical exercise is also really nice. I like running. I only found out I'm actually good at sports during the first half year of acute symptoms when I literally couldn't use a computer for more than 10 minutes. I used to do strength exercises too (various pullups mainly), liked the results but the exercises carried that scary burning feel in it. Maybe you're different, try it because I hear that stuff is really healthy :) Figure out what's nice for you.
- Something creative that gets you (even just sometimes) into flow. I like drawing and singing. If you play a live instrument that's probably good too. Unfortunately for me, computer programming doesn't quite fit this category any more. Not even democoding :'-( I still do it anyway because I really really want to and my creativity wants to get out and some things you can only express in code.
- Keeping a positive attitude is probably the hardest but it's also nice. I'm not sure if the start of this post is a good example but that came from the heart and I hope the tips make up for it :)
These are nice things to do when you can't do anything else.
I also do volunteer work and teaching kids my otherwise-wasted years of studying computer science, but I don't know if that is for everyone. Other people I know really enjoy working with elderly people, providing company and hearing their stories etc. they love it but don't understand why I like working with kids and vice versa. To each their own :)
[1] if you always practiced both you might think "what, no, they're two sides of the same coin" and you'd be right--for you. because if you've only ever practiced mindfulness, you're in for a treat! you're one of today's lucky 10,000 ;-) (https://xkcd.com/1053/)
[2] I like to end on a positive note so I'm hiding this bit in the unreferenced footnote. Ahem. Seriously, fuck this author. The link below the linked article from the same author, "The way out of burnout" would hopefully get flagged for misleading title on HN. I had to page through it because I can't read more of this drivel in detail, but again no actionable advice; "less severe cases of burnout" are advised to take action to avoid actual burnout (great) and actual cases of burnout are advised that this no longer works for them (whoa, my mind is blown, like the ashes in the Lebowski movie)
[+] [-] sverige|9 years ago|reply
It's strange in retrospect how liberating divorce, unemployment, bankruptcy, and foreclosure can be. Don't get me wrong: going through all that absolutely sucked, and I wouldn't want to do it again. There were a few times when I genuinely went hungry and had no place to stay.
But having survived it, I no longer feel any need to keep up appearances or have the latest gadget or have a lot of stuff at all. A lot of the pressure I used to feel is simply gone because I don't give a shit what other people think about my life any more. (Well, I care about what my wife (same one, we are back together) and daughter think, but that's it.)
I especially liked the references to ancient descriptions of the condition. It's nothing new.
[+] [-] tsunamifury|9 years ago|reply
I've been working on something big, at least in my head, for over a year now. For the first six months my coworkers were skeptical at best and at worst, unsupportive and critical. But I pressed on because no one understood the vision, and no one would until I proved it possible. Then, after a tipping point, that mysterious market change where suddenly everything becomes clear, everyone went from critic to heaping hope, expectation, and almost desperation for the success of my project. A small scrappy idea went from nothing to 100m$ and success went from a few million users to demands for over 1 billion. And so with impossible expectations, I pressed on again. I began suffer constant tightness in my chest, visions of the void that kept me awake and wide eyed in terror, and anger. Deep down I knew this couldn't meet my or my peers expectations, at least not overnight.
After my cat died, it reminded me that all things end. And when something ends it's a chance to start something new. My panic and burnout was the realization I too would die, and this project is likely to be my biggest measurable contribution to humanity. I got on a plane and flew to nowhere in particular and just hung out for a few days. Then I came back and started to look for a new place to live.
Being frozen in the same position for a long time, working towards the same goal is self destructive. Its seems to be a crippling side effect of the obsessions Silicon Valley is so eager to promote. It's takes variety and purposeful breaks sometimes to complete anything big. I don't have renewed energy yet, but I think I will soon... if I just let myself explore. Eventually whatever I build will be a representation of that hopeful exploration, and that spirit is the most important part.
[+] [-] Shank|9 years ago|reply
It sounds like going through those things led to a better overall ending than trying to forge ahead in the first place. It's great to hear you pulled through.
[+] [-] aswanson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RUG3Y|9 years ago|reply
I'm glad that you and your family are back together.
[+] [-] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
It is all too easy too rationalise some of the symptoms of burnout as @eliboy stated in this thread as being 'other things' and ignoring the bigger picture. For example, if you are feeling tired and sad, is it depression or early onset burnout, or are you just suffering lack of sleep? Or just dehydration? Or is it because you had a late night out a couple of days ago?
Left to your own devices (especially when you are already burning out), it is all too easy to diagnose it as the latter causes, especially as your reasoning ability will be diminished.
Many times I have felt overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, thinking that it was because I couldn't say "No" to new projects, but it ended up being pure burnout.
Oh, and the frequent 'cure' for burnout from many of my colleagues is to force me to take a break and do nothing for a while. That actually makes it worse for me. I find that my best solution for burnout is to actually WORK HARD at another passion of mine - for example, If programming gets me down, I will go off and learn a fiendishly difficult piece on classical guitar instead. Others are horrified that I am putting my brain through more gruelling stress, but I find that thinking about music rather than programming for a while tends to help me feel creative and refreshed again.
[+] [-] curun1r|9 years ago|reply
I'm going to take one small phrase you wrote entirely out of context because I think there's a point to make.
I'm suffering from burnout at the moment and trying to figure out a way past it. I recently attended a 10-day silent meditation training and one of the requirements was to surrender all my devices (phone, computer, etc) and any other forms of distraction (books, pen and paper, playing cards). Basically, I was alone with only my mind for 10 days, unable to speak or communicate with others for the entire period. It was hell for the first couple days, but by the third day I was really starting to enjoy it.
As I've re-integrated my devices again, the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it and be much more conscious about reintegrating my devices afterwards. I'm starting to believe that, at least for me, burnout is an overstimulation, and things that I didn't even realize were forms of stimulation were contributing. But the biggest forms of stimulation, Internet, computers, phones and television are all things that I now realize I have to use incredibly judiciously.
I think we'll look back at this time, when we introduced all these devices into our society without any concept of the damage they cause, very similarly to the times when we used lead paint on our walls or asbestos in our ceilings. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but once we study the effect it has on our health, we'll be horrified.
P.S. On the doing nothing front, having spent 10 days being forced to do nothing but think in between the meditation sessions, it's really underrated and I wonder whether you've given it a fair shot. You really have to go days of doing literally nothing but thinking before it starts to give you any benefit. But once you do, you can just feel the stress melting away. The hard part is making it through the initial stage and then maintaining that benefit once you start to reintegrate with the rest of society.
[+] [-] jrs235|9 years ago|reply
Out of curiosity I wonder if personalities are more prone to burnout. I know some of folks aren't big fans of the pseudoscience of personality types but I'm still interested if there's some correlation.
I like the Myers-Briggs type personality indicator/test at http://www.16personalities.com (I'm not affiliated in any way) as they add another dimension called identity which resolves to either assertive or turbulent.
My results when I last took this a few weeks ago were INTP-T.
Perhaps there's a correlation to strategy?... mine is constant improvement.
[+] [-] orthoganol|9 years ago|reply
Or maybe you're just not that into working in tech, and you're only doing it because x,y,z circumstance 'pushed' you into it when you were younger.
There's nothing wrong with career change, doing something different with your life, if you feel like programming or startups or whatever might be making you miserable.
[+] [-] tripzilch|9 years ago|reply
Wait--what?! How?
I don't want to discount your story or make light of it, but are you sure you've been "through" it? Maybe you meant to say you have closely avoided actual burnout several times?
You don't go "through" it without traumatic damage. The title doesn't say "minds turned to ash" for nothing.
I can't imagine anybody going through burnout twice, you have to be extremely unlucky AND stupid because the trauma turns up the alarm bells to eleven if you even get close to it (which is also lot sooner than before). This is some existential dread level of avoidance we're talking about here, the kind you need immense willpower to overcome. I'd do anything to avoid having to go through that again (maybe if I had children).
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tr33house|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] freetime|9 years ago|reply
For anyone who currently finds themselves in that situation: if you are in love with your work and happy with your lifestyle, then good for you. The world needs smart, dedicated people. But if you're feeling burnt out or otherwise unhappy with the hours: know that there tons of interesting and well paying jobs out there that don't demand such crazy hours.
- SF Bay Area Software Engineer working 40 hrs a week... often less.
[+] [-] lobotryas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asimuvPR|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eliboy|9 years ago|reply
For a long time I had burnout (or only a beginning). After a while, I suspected I might be burned out and it might be because of hard work, I work part-time and go to school too. It don't think it helped now that summer has come and I don't go to school, so I read the book. I think it's because lack of control, absence of fairness, conflicting values and insufficient reward. Note that it doesn't have to be true, it's enough for you to feel unpaid, that you don't have control, etc.
[0] - https://amzn.com/1118692136
[+] [-] microcolonel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrecuero|9 years ago|reply
Ben Horowitz refers to this stage as The Struggle. He talks about how when you start your company you do it with a clear vision of how success looks like. You are going to create an amazing company with the smartest people, build a great product and make the world a bit better. After working day and night, you realize things are not going as planned. The market isn't quite what you thought it would be. Your employees are losing confidence, some are quitting. You are running low on cash. You lose a loyal customer and walls start closing in and you find yourself in the struggle. The struggle is when you wonder why you started the company in the first place.
When you are in the struggle nothing is easy and nothing feels right.
[+] [-] paulvs|9 years ago|reply
This, is one of the main sources of time waste and stress in everyday life. Take choosing a car insurance policy, each insurer will provide many options with only minor or irrelevant differences, making comparing competing offers hard.
Look at foodstuffs in supermarkets, many times, packaging will come in a many different sizes in many different brands, leaving comparison a challenge.
I admire what some supermarkets in Australia did when they introduced info on price per 100g for all weighable items.
[+] [-] Sharlin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lobotryas|9 years ago|reply
Right now I'm trying to actively force myself to make more choices during my downtime. Where do I want to go? Where do I want to eat? What do I want to do? It's tough going sometimes given the overabundance of options and information. However the feeling that you know you are doing something because that's what you want is worth it.
Don't know how much others can empathize with this post. I'll say that the article hit me incredibly hard and I already ordered a print of "Melancholy I" to hang in my office.
[+] [-] geon|9 years ago|reply
Here in sweden, that is required by law.
Also nutritional info is per 100 gr, not per "serving".
[+] [-] seoguru|9 years ago|reply
He has other interesting theses as well. google him.
[+] [-] jakub_h|9 years ago|reply
That reminds me of how ITA's QPX has additional effort invested into ensuring that the top connection search results aren't almost identical with only minor differences, even if the resulting order doesn't correspond to some simple "objective" metrics.
[+] [-] pyre|9 years ago|reply
They do this in Canada too, though I have seen instances where two comparable products are measured in different units. For example, one brand of yogourt is price per 100g while another is price per 100mL.
[+] [-] bpchaps|9 years ago|reply
Burnout sucks, but the more near-overwhelming work I get into, the more I realize how complicated it really is. That comes with learning to avoid it, though.
[+] [-] SFJulie|9 years ago|reply
I mean, I have a wife, I work 9~16h paid 8 for 70$ I can't enjoy her on week end, nor the sun. It was the same when I was a coder except I was earning more money.
In society it has become common to forget about punch clocks. The limit between a safe haven you can protect yourself and mend your mind has been constantly shrinking: commutation, seminar, social events, excessive work hours, extra load (like being a sysadmin when you code or repairing unsafe truck when you are a mover) ...
I dare say: «burn out» is just the medicalisation of a social problem. In the worst of European glory and exploitation scheme USA used to abhor but are now embracing there used to be something called «professional fatigue».
This «fatigue» disappeared after the social struggle and the imposition of effective decent work hours.
Burn-out is just a pitiful way for employers to blame workers for the result of their actions on which they don't want to take responsibilities.
It is a counter productive management harming globally the society as much as jails are breaking humans.
Have you tried to ask at your job a strict workhours compensation? Your job will laugh at you.
Oh, I already can guess there are some exceptions out there that will answer I live in a world they don't see. But, how much of you when counting commuting, extra activities work related (like reading news to stay up to date, going to user groups), reading mails do actually have less than 48hr/week that are work related?
[+] [-] thinkloop|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|9 years ago|reply
Burnout includes context. People at Goldman Sachs were burnt out often, because for most, the premise of working there was irrational. People at my next job were working just as much but it was more meaningful and for the right reasons, so I saw little burnout.
[+] [-] rwallace|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sotojuan|9 years ago|reply
But yeah, finance is another scary world.
[+] [-] b34r|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaitai|9 years ago|reply
if you like running, try trail running
do find a friend with a farm or garden and spend some time working there
weekend camping is often possible, whether in desert or forest, and sometimes it's easy to make it a 3-4 day trip.
if you really need something hard that's not programming, push your physical boundaries a little on the hike. Nothing to clear and focus the mind like "it's 5 pm, the sun sets in an hour, bad weather is coming in, we have 4 kilometers of canoeing until we get to the campsite and then we need to set up the tent!" Maybe I shouldn't really "recommend" this as any good wilderness type will have tried to avoid this situation.
I just took a long trip to the countryside and the lack of nature even in my tree-filled neighborhood was a shock when returning. And you can learn a lot from observing nature: trees just grow, animals do what they do; in their environment they don't fight their own nature and try to do something else.
[+] [-] sklivvz1971|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bernardlunn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brador|9 years ago|reply
IMO Burnout is a loop spiralling out of control. Solution is a break out of the loop. But how? Mass acquisition of resources?
[+] [-] sixtypoundhound|9 years ago|reply
Know why you are there, what you want to accomplish, and what you are willing to do to accomplish it. And remember you have the option to walk away if your goals aren't met.
The latter is key - making a reasonable CHOICE to be in the situation is a big step towards making it bearable.
[+] [-] xamluser|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hehheh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JoeAltmaier|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dnautics|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tedks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tripzilch|9 years ago|reply
Do NOT bother with this article. Save yourself the emotional drain (maybe go outside for a bit ;) ) It contains NO actionable advice, just a few anonymised stories, some academic and pop-psych ideas. Also conspicuously absent is any mention of these patients' recovery or future.
Maybe this article does serve as a nice warning for those heading towards burnout. I wrote the above, to help others already suffering. As a warning it's way too long for the crowd that is too busy working too many hours. Now trust me you can get it from working as little as 16h/wk! If that sounds like you--best of luck.
Yes the stories are so recognizable. Especially when he contrasted the first story with the second because the first one hit most of the main factors and then got convoluted with a whole bunch of other psychodevelopmental factors that the second story demonstrated have nothing to do with burnout.
The article could have been about 1/3rd it's length and I'm a bit bummed about this. Normally I wouldn't complain about that but this guy is a psychiatrist and I truly wonder what he was trying to achieve with this article, if it is anything besides self-promotion he would have written a disclaimer like above as a summary to help sufferers.
Myself, burnt out in 2007. Never got better. I don't actually want to read anonymized burnout-stories. It's an emotional drain with no reward (I'll page through a few in this thread, because this burnt-out husk of my former self is compassionate). I read it on the off-chance that maybe it'd contain some info or idea that I haven't tried in the past 9 years. So, that was my mental energy for the day.
I don't have answers either, but maybe some ehrm, burnout pro-tips. The web is full of stories to serve as warnings before burnout, but hardly anything for after, especially for sufferers where a few months rest just does not cut it. So here's a few things, maybe it'll help someone:
- Meditation is really nice. Maybe even more important was finding a group to do it with[0], it adds a dimension, mine are the kindest people I know in the world, and it helps motivate to do it daily . For mindfulness meditation, I found I need at least 2-3 sessions/week, for the exercise to carry on outside the actual moments of practising it. Apart from sitting, occasionally try a walking meditation (look it up) just like with physical exercise, changing up the practice helps if/when you get stuck. And don't forget there's more kinds besides mindfulness. One that is quite orthogonal to mindfulness is compassion meditation or "metta" meditation[1].
- Physical exercise is also really nice. I like running. I only found out I'm actually good at sports during the first half year of acute symptoms when I literally couldn't use a computer for more than 10 minutes. I used to do strength exercises too (various pullups mainly), liked the results but the exercises carried that scary burning feel in it. Maybe you're different, try it because I hear that stuff is really healthy :) Figure out what's nice for you.
- Something creative that gets you (even just sometimes) into flow. I like drawing and singing. If you play a live instrument that's probably good too. Unfortunately for me, computer programming doesn't quite fit this category any more. Not even democoding :'-( I still do it anyway because I really really want to and my creativity wants to get out and some things you can only express in code.
- Keeping a positive attitude is probably the hardest but it's also nice. I'm not sure if the start of this post is a good example but that came from the heart and I hope the tips make up for it :)
These are nice things to do when you can't do anything else.
I also do volunteer work and teaching kids my otherwise-wasted years of studying computer science, but I don't know if that is for everyone. Other people I know really enjoy working with elderly people, providing company and hearing their stories etc. they love it but don't understand why I like working with kids and vice versa. To each their own :)
[0] try http://wkup.org or http://reddit.com/r/meditation (the sidebar) to find a meditation group in your area (sometimes called "sangha")
[1] if you always practiced both you might think "what, no, they're two sides of the same coin" and you'd be right--for you. because if you've only ever practiced mindfulness, you're in for a treat! you're one of today's lucky 10,000 ;-) (https://xkcd.com/1053/)
[2] I like to end on a positive note so I'm hiding this bit in the unreferenced footnote. Ahem. Seriously, fuck this author. The link below the linked article from the same author, "The way out of burnout" would hopefully get flagged for misleading title on HN. I had to page through it because I can't read more of this drivel in detail, but again no actionable advice; "less severe cases of burnout" are advised to take action to avoid actual burnout (great) and actual cases of burnout are advised that this no longer works for them (whoa, my mind is blown, like the ashes in the Lebowski movie)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] plg|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avacariu|9 years ago|reply