Early 2018 I launched what I considered to be the largest project I had ever worked on. It involved many late nights over the course of 20 months and a painful amount of dev work. I had been the lead front-end developer, the solution architect, a client manager and a project manager. Filling all of these roles was not easy and we would often joke about how empty our lives would be once we launched.
I had no idea.
After an opportunity to reflect in December I realised that eight months later, I had still not recovered from this project.
I am burnt out.
My questions to the community, as I'm sure you've had similar experiences:
- Are you burnt out right now?
- How do you deal with your burnout?
- How do you carry on working when the deadlines keep coming?
- How do you recover when you need to pay the bills?
- How long did it take you to recover?
- How do you keep up with new tech if your day job seems overwhelming as it is?
- How do you deal with the depression?
As developers we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. Pressure to keep learning, to innovate, to keep going. We never stop to talk about the hard things and I don't think there is enough awareness for how badly developers are affected by burnout.
Let's discuss.
Top comments (15)
A few years ago, I left work early one day and saw an afternoon movie by myself.
It was a moment of treating myself I wasn’t used to.
It pivotally snapped me out of. A state of burnout. It’s simple, it wasn’t magic, but that day helped a lot.
no, Learn to sayit is not possible in given deadline, and have a solid reasoning behind it. Example, untested solution in short time may lead to bigger loss for company as new bugs might completely stop current revenue. And no CXO will ever disagree.Reminds me of our comic relief Slack channel at work started by a guy looking to raise the spirits of those around him. I contributed Eddie Izzard stand-up skits :)
Hmm.. employers must not block YouTube, in medicine studies, laughing does contribute to better health !!
For me it's a combination of things:
First two points help with my overall health and endurance. I have noticed that if I do skip exercising for a few days (3-4), I get tired a lot sooner + headaches if it's a particularly difficult day.
Third point (books) just helps to distract myself from day-to-day work or side project issues. Sometimes when you are stuck, it's good to do something else. I occasionally substitute book reading with PS4 but it's important not to go play time sinks such as Witcher, Mass Effect and so on (that can easily consume 3-8 hours :D), stay with short games such as Overwatch.
Fourth point - try to get into projects that are not too monotonic. Always volunteer to do something different, help your colleagues. In engineering, it's quite good to know several languages (backend, frontend) so you can do something completely different. As an example, after doing some big feature on the backend for the last 3 weeks, it's nice to jump on the frontend and do maybe 10-15 small tasks in several days. Really motivating! :)
Side projects. Sometimes you can end up in an environment (standard corporate job) with ancient legacy systems. After few months you might start hate coding and would even want to change your profession altogether. In this case side projects can make a real difference. An open source project can open you new career opportunities or just help staying sane working on a good, clean codebase that you can maintain/expand yourself :)
I hope this helps. It definitely helps me.
I try to keep my work to ~40 hours a week and if a project can't be done in a timeline then it can't be done. There are numerous studies out there demonstrating that you are less productive the more you work over 40 hours a week, at least for the majority of people. To get work done faster I try to block off sections of productive time or if a project is pressing I come in to work really early so I can have a good 3-4 hours of uninterrupted work.
With that said sometimes even working reasonable hours does not make you impervious to burnout. For me I feel burnout when I feel like really poor decisions are made after our team pointed it out. Whether it be schema design, UX, or being forced to use a specific technology. I deal with this by finding things I can improve and finding things outside of work to take my mind off things. For instance I am a dungeon master for a pathfinder campaign and prepping the next session really helps take my mind off work.
One word: diversification.
We can’t do always the same thing all fay long, we need to do diverse activities to give our brain rest.
It can be anything: reading, cooking, walking. Possibly more activities per day.
If it involes sports, even better, your body will thank you too!
There is no switch button to change one to another, as the burnout doesn’t come in one day, it will not go away, plus time is needed to create new habits.
You have one life, you translate that however you want.
Hope you find an answer on how to put some of benadryl cream on the burned place, because scar won't go away and time passed can not be recovered.
I feel like I am always near the edge, but never quite there yet.
What helps me staying afloat:
There was a longform article on BuzzfeedNews today about burn out, so this topic is fresh in my mind.
Yes. I do feel burnt out right now. I'm not sure when I started feeling burnt out but it feels like it has been ongoing.
I'm not great at dealing with it. Currently, I have enough energy after work to snuggle with my dogs and watch DVR'ed episodes of Futurama. I know it's not helpful long term, but it's the best I can think of atm.
Being burnt out has made me realize that having an improved work/life balance is a big deal for me. How can I correct it? I'm not sure yet, but it is something I am working on.
I don't have a lot of context on your situation other than what you have given us, but here are my two cents (although reading it now seems more like a nickle haha)
Are you burnt out right now?
No, I am not currently.
How do you deal with your burnout?
The best way to handle burnout is to avoid getting there to begin with.
If you are already at this stage, I think it is important to communicate this with your manager/mentor and reflect on what about your work is burning you out.
Based on this, he or she should be able to give you better advice since they will have more context on the situation.
Working long hours and late nights may be good short term, but it isn't sustainable long term.
Note: If your manager is not willing to work with you, don't be afraid to talk to his or her manager.
How do you carry on working when the deadlines keep coming?
The long term value that you can bring to the company is more valuable than burning yourself out for one project. Don't be afraid to push deadlines especially if not pushing it will impact your mental well-being and the quality of the code/work you are able to deliver. Remember that learning to say "No" is part of growing.
How do you recover when you need to pay the bills?
There are free or cheap things you can do to help recover. Here are some of the things I do:
How long did it take you to recover?
It depends.
How do you keep up with new tech if your day job seems overwhelming as it is?
You don't have to keep up with 100% of the new tech that comes up every day. This alone, will burn you out.
It sounds like you already have a pretty challenging project that I am sure you are learning a lot from. For me, I simply skim Dev.to and Hacker news to see if there are things I can apply to my personal or work projects (usually takes <5 min a day).
How do you deal with the depression?
Depression should always be taken seriously. It's like a chronic disease that will always come back if you don't have the tools or knowledge on how to properly deal with it.
As a side note, being depressed could make you more vulnerable to social engineering which could lead to permanent damages. Don't hesitate to see a professional. Most, if not all of the cost should be covered by insurance.
Good luck and wish you all the best!
I actually wrote up an article on dealing with burnouts and how to deal with them. Take a look and let me know your thoughts. The burnout, how do you deal with it?