[mrburton]

Personally, I'm not burnt out.

To void burn out, I did a few things which I feel are extremely helpful.

1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office".

2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls.

3. Have a defined schedule - Awake at 6am, washed/dressed by 6:30am, Red Bull (or if you like food) and at my desk by 7am. I do work long hours, but I enjoy it because I'm accomplishing something.

4. Work on something that excites you or find joy in your work somehow.

5. Lastly, realize most of the mental stress can be managed with a little mindfulness, learning to accept that you still can grow and find joy even when at home and cut back on social media; or if you're like me, I cut out 99% of social media.

I hope everyone remains positive. Do something today, that makes you better tomorrow.

[endymi0n]

6. Don‘t have young kids at home.

Sorry for the unqualified snark here, just couldn‘t resist. The realities couldn‘t be more different for different people at this time.

Someone recently asked me whether I enjoyed my Corona free time as well.

I didn’t know what to answer as could not even comprehend the concept.

I‘m missing everything. Time for myself. Silence. Holidays. Physical movement. Sanity.

Work and Noise, non-stop, around the clock. Still falling behind on all projects with limited understanding of single colleagues with more time to kill than Netflix has content.

I love those rascals, but I‘m crashing on the couch every night and barely make it out of bed the next day. Just functioning and surviving.

Never been more exhausted in my life before.

[volfied]

Yeah, I think the people that had the best of this shitty situation are introverted, no child couples with stable remote supporting jobs.

My wife and I are toast by kids'(2&4) bedtime, and can only sit on the couch watching something and reel from the day.

Like Ron Swanson said, I miss silence, and the absence of noise.

[mchusma]

Your comment resonated with me. 3 kids, (6,4,1) so my days start around 5am with the baby and basically alternating between working and helping with kids alternating every 30 minutes until 8. Every day.

[crucialfelix]

I totally feel you. It's certainly been really hard for us. 4 year old going crazy, me at my desk all day most days. We try to cover for the other one while they get personal time, but it's me with the full time job.

This past few weeks I've started work at 6am (it's 6:07 right now) so that I can create some more space during the day and give her time.

I give my son some focused attention / special time in the middle of the day and in the evening. It's important that he gets a good intense dose of me and I'm not distracted when with him. Without that he's feeling unwanted (why does papa work all the time?) and he acts out. He refuses to join us for dinner: "I'm working" he says.

I was burnt out. Right now I'm doing well.

[seneca]

> 6. Don‘t have young kids at home.

I disagree. I've got more kids than you do (edit: I misread your post, I'm not clear how many children you have. My apology for the mistake), all at difficult ages including a 1 year old. They are one of the few things making COVID seclusion tolerable for me.

The near constant interaction can be exhausting, but it has also been very rewarding. I know my kids better than ever and have gotten to participate in a lot of moments I would've missed.

I find that the narrative I give myself around things like this is very important. If I told myself I was barely surviving my kids I would probably feel that way. Instead I focus on how lucky I am to be surrounded by my family, and that it's a wonderful thing to have unprecedented amounts of time with them. I've perhaps never been happier with my family than I have been during the pandemic.

None of that is a criticism of people who are struggling. Just looking to offer another point of view.

[nafizh]

Same boat here. 2 kids - 2.5 years and 2 months. All day just cycling between work and kids every 30-40 mins. Exhausted and falling behind projects at the same time with limited understanding from superiors and colleagues who either are single or can afford child care.

[chrisseaton]

> Don‘t have young kids at home

I've really enjoyed the extra time with my six-year-old daughter rather than sending her off to school. Having her around the house and able to come into my office for random cuddles during the working day is a joy.

[ck425]

I'm not dismissing the challenges you're facing but single no child people are suffering too, just very different challenges. I've spent almost a year alone in a flat with no separate working space and unable to do any of my usual hobbies and social activities. The challenges are very different but both groups have challenges.

[mrburton]

I personally don't have children and I didn't _really_ understand how difficult it is to have kids at home while working. When I moved back East, I did spend 3 days at my brothers.

He has two adorable little girls; 1.5 years old and 2 months.

His kids are pretty calm, by most standards.. but you can't let the older one out of sight for a few seconds.

I certainly feel your pain even though I don't have kids.

Question: Tell me how much you love going to the bathroom or getting washed now. It's the only time you have to yourself lol

[seanmcdirmid]

At the beginning of this, our day care closed down for a couple of months and it was tough (thankfully grandma got stuck with us at the time). Things got much better when daycare reopened, though we had to switch due to moving and had a misfire with a daycare that was too big and too restrictive for our tastes (we found one that could be less restrictive because they had fewer kids).

[jacquesm]

If you can, get some noise cancelling headphones. That really helps with getting silence and some time for yourself.

[yllorepap]

I think I’d rather be tired than lonely. I’ve feel like I’ve got no reason to live.

[itsoktocry]

>Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office".

If this is important (and I agree it is) then we're setting up the vast majority of people for burnout. Most people don't have the luxury of a room they can convert into an office.

[Pet_Ant]

> Most people don't have the luxury of a room they can convert into an office.

For those who don't understand, here's my annecdote:

After the divorce the only thing I could afford in my son's school district is a 2 bedroom^ apartment. I have to pack up "my office" just to serve dinner. We now have lunch from the couch. I'm not complaining, but the idea of a dedicated room is up there with personal island for me.

^ the master is his to give him playspace lacking a playroom

[sli]

The fourth bullet point is also a non-starter. I'm sorry, but it's not, nor was it ever, good advice for programmers to write code both at work and at home. We don't expect this of other careers, we shouldn't expect it of developers, either.

Feel free to write code after work if you like, but to consider it anywhere close to a requirement, even to just help with burnout, is perpetuating a rather toxic view of this particular industry's workers.

[scrose]

Just want to chime in and say your dedicated space doesn’t need to be a room!

I’ve gone the entire pandemic in a 450sq ft studio with my wife and our pets. My trick was to put my desk between a window and a wall and get an $80 room divider. Anytime the room divider was closed it meant one of two things: “Please don’t distract me, I’m busy”. Or “I’m not sitting back at my desk to work until tomorrow”

I love working — prior to my wife moving in, all I wanted to do was code and tinker with different ideas. But I know that isn’t sustainable for many reasons. Having a blocked off space, as tiny as it may be, to “get in the zone” or literally separate me from work has worked wonders for my mental health during the pandemic.

* I used some past tense here because we finally just upgraded to a 1 bedroom after 2 years :)

[ewmiller]

Can confirm. I live in a 450 square foot studio apartment and I work from home every day. I would love a separate room to just be my "office," but my only room is already my kitchen, bedroom and living room too...

[mrburton]

I 100% agree. I moved from Mountain View CA to Jersey City, NJ. When I moved, I intentionally made sure I found a place with an extra bedroom. That being said, trust me, I know not everyone can afford it.

I grew up sleeping on the floor for 15 years because I couldn't afford a bed. I get it.

[sologoub]

If you are in a studio it’s going to be harder, but if you literally have a room, there are ways to make it work - I’ve been working literally inches from my bed by putting a standing desk converter on a low 3-drawer dresser. The key is that when I’m working - the standing desk and chair are there and the bed is made/not used. When it’s time to stop work, I fold everything away so it’s not in the way, move the chair out and spend some time outside of that room. I return there when it’s time to sleep and don’t touch any work related items. It’s an odd mental switch, but been working well for me. The context of the room is reset. Having grown up in small Soviet-era apartments helps I guess.

[oaiey]

I think, especially in context of burnout, is the mental switch. If necessary, cleanup your whole equipment and shove it below the bed or to the pots. Do some sports in between and do not code for fun but watch some Netflix. On a TV and not your VSCode plugin :)

[cloverich]

In lieu of a separate actual space, a separate conceptual space can help too. Recently I started making an active effort to shut work down. Write down closing thoughts for the day, close all tabs and open processes, shut it all down. Block off time in my calendar, and even if I have to stay online for something important, I still go through the "shtudown" routine with everything that isn't the urgent situation. That whay when the urgency resolves, I am ready to just drop it and walk away. Its not since I approached this more mindfully that I realized just how much I was letting it weigh on me.

[sriku]

One purpose is to enable you to concentrate on work, but I am don't think that's the biggest win. The core idea here is to use physical space mapped to mental space so you can move between activities easily. It can be a specific corner of a room too. Like - "when I sit here I'm ideating, when I go there I'm designing, when I sit at that desk I'm coding" sort of split. You don't need to be fine grained, but it is similar to "when I sit at the dining table, I eat". Quite possible to design this even in small spaces.

[shortandsweet]

Why are you pissing on this person's fire that's keeping them alive?

[thegreatpeter]

I agree. A 1 bedroom WFH in the city of Chicago fkin' sucks

[Izkata]

The goal is to have a physical mapping that allows context switching. A whole separate room is the obvious ideal, but as I don't have that either, I came up with something different that works well enough: I have two couches (sort of, two parts of an Ikea couch), so I rearranged them a bit and one of them is now strictly for work, the other for non-work.

[bitxbitxbitcoin]

Anything can help provide that same context switching to a lesser extent. Examples can be wearing your hair a certain way during working hours, or wearing one set of headphones for work and another for play, etc.

[e9]

1. Kicked out my roommate and made an office. Didn't help.

2. It's very hard to do casual check-in with another person.I feel like I'm bothering them too much. I can't get over it. Too stressful. Was way easier in person. Just feel the room and interrupt as needed.

3. I wake up early, take my pre-workout or red bull or 5h energy but just stare at the screen for 4 hours between 8 and noon and can't start.

4. I love the product but I can't start working wihtout others around me.

5. I hired multiple therapists. They put me on meds. I took medical leave. Nothing helped.

For me, work is for work and home is for home or for "work on autopilot"

[wccrawford]

Our company has a daily meeting for the team. On paper, it's to talk about what we did yesterday and what we're doing today. And we do that. But we're allowed to take as much time beyond that as we like to socialize. We talk about tv, movies, games, sports, whatever.

Without this, I think I would be a lot worse off in this crisis, and I'm a pretty extreme introvert.

If I was in your situation and had to actually bug people to talk to them... Ugh. No way.

Have you asked others if they want to be on an 8 hr/day video call with you? Perhaps there are others that would prefer that, or would do it to help you.

I personally would not enjoy that, but if someone on my team needed it... I'd at least try to deal with it.

Alternatively, maybe you can find a few of them to do it for 2 hrs/day and take the edge off.

[jedberg]

Not sure what your budget situation is, but what if you got a new roommate and then rented another small apartment nearby to be your "office"? It wouldn't solve the people around part, but at least you'd have an office to go to.

[mancerayder]

> 1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office".

I live in a city where an apartment costs 1500 a square foot, so a two bedroom apartment for a single person is barely affordable.

This pandemic has taught me that crowded cities suck.

[mrburton]

Life choices always have an impact. I'm not judging you, because trust me, expensive areas like New York City (I love living there) are great, but blow during a pandemic since you're unable to enjoy what the actual city has to offer.

When I relocated back east, I made it a point to a) not live in the city since it'll be overpriced and I won't be able to enjoy the surrounding area and b) Price per square footage wouldn't make sense if I'm at home 24/7. So I went across the river and pay less for _a lot more_.

I know a lot of people are moving to Austin TX. They get a LOT more for their money. I was lucky to be on a month by month lease when the pandemic hit.

[smoe]

In my opinion crowded cities really suck, during pandemics. I love to huge city I'm living in. But during the last 9-10 months I only had all the downsides of city living and none of the upsides. If I were not that attached to the apartment I'm renting currently for how hard it is to find one with its characteristics for the price, I would have long ago terminated the contract and moved to the country side for the time being as a large part of my colleagues.

[madeofpalk]

I know it’s easier said than done, but move!

I was fortunate enough that my lease expired back in July so I looked for somewhere a bit further out of the city with more room. I pay a smidge more each month, but I probably at least doubled the size of my place and I have a dedicated office now

[ttymck]

$1500 per square foot?

[eanthy]

I've never been more relaxed too, here are some more pointers:

1. Realise you're lucky to be in this position to work from home, as opposed to medical staff and being depressed is a luxury.

2. You are not a code machine, amount of code written is not a good measure of how productive you are. Better think of how much you contributed overall or learnt something new that year.

3. Your work is not your life, so focus and even obsess over other things such as hobbies and spend more mental energy on that rather than worry about your job. Your job just pays the bills nothing more.

4. Find online ways to socialise such as playing online games. If you're introverted that should be enough to satisfy your social needs.

[ck425]

> being depressed is a luxury

I know rationally that you're correct but it's damn hard to keep that in mind when you're depressed.

[verganileonardo]

I would recommend dropping the Red Bull. Switch to coffee, if you like that. Even an iced can coffee would be healthier.

I used to drink it daily and it destroyed my body. Also, Red Bull is quite expensive!

[voodootrucker]

Yes, maybe this is just me, but every time I have an extended work from home period, depression follows after a few months.

I was working around this once by drinking red bull, which I found lifted my emotions temporarily, but after it wore off in 4 hours I crashed way harder into despair. This effect built up over time and fortunately I noticed it and stopped using it routinely.

YMMV - just a friendly warning of how it affected me.

[drakudo]

I would recommend dropping coffee for tea. Switch to tea... (sorry for mocking ;) ). Honestly, while real bean coffee includes caffeine, which energizes you for 30 minutes, it also includes theobromine, which would put you to sleep after 30 minutes; tea (black tea and earl gray) has caffeine only. Instant coffee with milk (like Nescafe decaf) is a good beverage to drink before the bed time, since it contains theobromine only

[mrburton]

You might want to kill me after I say this, certainly people on HN want to kill me just for fun ;), but I also drink coffee. I only drink sugar free Red Bull. What's strange is I can stop for months without any withdraw from caffeine. I often go from drinking Red Bull + Coffee for a few months to just water for multiple months.

Once I finish this case, I think it's time to go back to water and coffee for 6 months. :)

[rcarmo]

I switched back from coffee to tea.

Partly because we have "real coffee" here in Portugal (expresso, a cultural import from the Italians via the Cimbalino series of coffee shop hardware, IIRC), partly because a long mug is better suited to winter, and partly because I am back working 90% with British folk, to the extent where we can compare blends...

But, overall, it suits me better. Takes longer to drink, does not mess with my stomach in the mornings, and smells great.

(Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed).

[traveler01]

Advise: If you have a gaming PC don't work in the same division and in the said PC.

You end up really not using the PC for anything else than working because in your free time last thing you wan't will be in the front of that PC.

I sold my gaming PC and bought a Xbox to spend my free (I used my laptop to work at the company so I'm just using that laptop to also work).

[josefresco]

I use my PC for both work and PC gaming. I find I have to get up from my desk for at least 45-60 min and reset after my workday before I'm ready to sit back down and game.

[notacoward]

Good advice. Thank you. I'd also add some sort of exercise. It doesn't have to be intense, and sometimes it's not even about the physical benefits. Just the ritual and the focus on something other than work or current events and the various chemical things that happen with exercise might yield more mental benefits than physical. Getting outside makes it even better, if your circumstances allow that. It's like getting good sleep (another important thing BTW). The difference won't be immediate or dramatic, but over sufficient time you'll feel just a bit better.

[mihirchronicles]

I would second these guidelines as well to make wfh manageable.

I'll emphasize on 3. Manage your expectations with your direct reports. Let them know in order to stay sane you are going to have set schedule to manage stress while wfh. I do this with everyone I meet at work to set those expectations onset. It has helped tremendously.

[rcarmo]

I have been doing all of those for 327 days and have already had two instances when I was near burnout. Here's my schedule:

- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200

My recommendations (which are very much like yours):

- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230

Some venting on remote challenges:

- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830

[flatiron]

6. Don’t have young children

I messed up sadly on that one.

[newu010221]

For me #1 is turning off my work laptop. I don't have any notifications on my phone either. I don't have any problems with turning work off.

[newbie2020]

Point #1 is a luxury in itself. If you can even say that, then circumstances are likely a lot easier for you.

Point #4... not everyone has that choice.

[mrburton]

Item #1 - 100% correct.

Item #4 - I fully disagree. Some choices are scary to actually make, but are healthy. For instance, my mom stayed with her abusive husband for many years because she had Stockholm syndrome. If you had asked her why didn't she leave during that time, she would say "I didn't have a choice". Ask her now, and she will tell you "Fear - fear of not knowing how things would work out."

Sometimes the hardest choices to make are the impossible choices.

[bergstromm466]

> 2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls.

Are you listening to the others venting too?

[shortandsweet]

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your offering. Genuinely!

[paxys]

6. Drink water throughout the day.

I'm convinced that a large part of the stress people have been feeling this past year is due to dehydration and lack of proper nutrition.

[jniedrauer]

I'm not at all convinced. I was in peak physical condition while training for mountain races this year, and I still experienced the same stress and anxiety everyone else did.

[nradov]

There's no scientific evidence that drinking extra water when you're not thirsty has any health benefits.

[ck425]

I definitely notice a positive difference when I drink more water than coffee but the core problems causing burnout are still there and unresolved. It's a boost not a fix.