Comment by cyberferret | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cyberferret | Hacker News Reader

Burnout doesn't differentiate between gender, race, sexual orientation, social status or the size of your bank account.

Much like when I was in flying training and we were subjected to the altitude simulation pressure chamber so that we could each identify how we individually experienced the onset of hypoxia, I think it is important that everyone notates down the onset of burnout at home or at work.

For me, Stage 1 is when I start feeling myself getting irritable and snapping at those close to me for no reason at all. S2 is when I start having trouble sleeping, and get a really stiff neck leading to headaches. I've got to catch it at that point otherwise if it moves to S3 - crippling headaches, inability to focus on simple tasks or S4 - inability to even get out of a chair due to the feeling of extreme fatigue, then the recovery process is SO much longer and harder.

Keep a working journal, or better still, ask someone close to you that you can trust to note any out of character behavioural changes and advise you of them so that you can start to detect patterns and take action to mitigate.

I agree you need to catch it early. I often wonder what the most time-efficient form of mitigation is.

Complete and total removal from the source until ready.

The most time-efficient already implies you see burnout as something you just have to push through and get back to work. This is wrong; the most time-efficient way is to avoid getting it altogether. Stick to regular working hours, don't take your work home, stick to 5 working days a week if possible. And if you're in a managerial position, your job is to delegate work, not do things yourself anyway in addition to trying to delegate things.

For me, it is to totally distance myself from my work. That means downing tools, and taking myself away from tech completely, and usually into a different environment. Low stage burnout can be solved by simply spending a weekend completely away from phones and computers, and just pottering in the garden.

Later stage burnout usually means taking myself away from even my home town for a bit and soaking up experiences in a different place. Which is exactly what I am doing now - tomorrow I hop on a plane for a 20 hour flight to the other side of the world, to spend a week on a ship (never been on a cruise before). Maximum recharge, no work.

Addendum: Important to realise that burnout recovery doesn't necessarily mean sit on a beach and do nothing. Often, my recovery time is some of my busiest, but it is doing something completely different from programming which recharges me, like learning a new song on the guitar, or doing other audio work.

Back in December; my stress levels were pretty high. I'm a can-do kind of employee; I really enjoy the adrenaline of sorting out an interesting unexpected problem on a short timescale.

But I was faced with multiple deadlines and some unexpected work came up and I was called up for jury service ( a not very nice case). I took my laptop home and tried to finish the projects after a day in court.

One day, at lunch in the court, I was thinking about a project and found myself silently weeping. So I got straight on the phone to my boss and explained that I;d just found myself crying, thought that this was probably a bad sign and thought I should stop on that project.

I'm lucky in that I have an employer that values me, trusts me and takes their duty of care seriously. It probably helps that I'm a man in my 50s. They told me to knock off the project completely and commanded me to stop thinking about it until after Christmas.

So, IF

* You have a good employer. * You have the courage to admit weakness

The most effective thing to do is to tell your boss asap and ask for reasonable accommodation until you feel better.

I'm back to doing stupid amounts of work, but my boss trusts that if it feels like it is causing me problems I will tell them, and I trust that they will deal with me reasonably.

The most efficient mitigation is saying no to any additional obligation, and most probably also to some current obligations you already had accepted.

Thinking about the issue in terms of time-efficiency will likely not help. It takes as long as it takes until you are back in balance, and accepting that is part of the remedy.

This is also an important factor. I know when I am experiencing burnout, the feeling of anxiety and being overwhelmed is heightened. Any extra task thrown at me just snowballs those feelings until I become paralysed with indecision.

It is important to 'shed the load' when you feel the onset of burnout. Don't take on anything new - just focus on finishing what you have, and then take a break or reward yourself accordingly before doing any more.

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