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Comment by mrburton | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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

These people are also the most overrepresented on various internet fora.

I had a "Covid fling" with someone who I would have never dated otherwise. Obviously, that made things a lot more fun than they otherwise would have been.

I think singles are more represented than couples.

> These people are also the most overrepresented on various internet fora.

They have the most time.

I am a childless couple, and although I love my partner and there have been no major fights or anything during this whole pandemic, we are living in a small 1 1/2 room flat and sometimes it's just stressful to go from working from home to constantly sitting on top of each other. There is no retreat, either you go to the bedroom/office and the other person stays in the living room or you are stuck on top of each other. All in all I'm very grateful for our privileged situation, but I would not say I enjoy lockdowns or the pandemic.

this. same situation as you. Do you have any tips? Mine is having a predefined schedule throughout the day (semi formal schedule will work) works great. Also, are both of you working? how do you work? 6 hrs each?

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.

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.

> 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.

You're saying that lockdown added value to your life with kids. That's not an argument that having kids is easier than not having kids.

Life is complex. A change can be beneficial in some ways and harmful to others. And you have many children and keeps wanting more, you are probably an extravert not an introvert.

> I've got more kids than you do

They never said how many kids they had, which makes it hard to take your comment seriously.

You don't know what their kids are like, how much spousal support they have, the floorplan or acoustics of their home, how hard their work is, or what their threshold for noise is.

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

No. It's easy to convince yourself that that sort of thing is helpful, but all you're really saying is that you can't understand because your particular circumstances are better.

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.

> 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.

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.

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

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).

Restrictive with covid precautions?

My daughters daycare told us point blank no staff wear masks unless answering the door and they “don’t want to close for a virus” (you can read between the lines). One of the teachers also shops for instacart half days. No thank you.

Staff in our state (WA) are required to wear masks. Kids under 5 aren’t required to wear masks. They take precautions, but at least we are allowed to escort our kid to class and talk to the teacher everyday.

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

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

Hey, I know it’s hard to think otherwise right now, but there are many great reasons to live and you being alive and in hopefully good health is a great gift. There are many people that are in bad situations and one way to not be lonely is to try and connect with others you might be able to help just by being there.

Hang on and things will get better!

This is going to be over soon, so look forward to it and start getting ready (eat, exercise, and relearn grooming/dressing you forgot during lockdown). More so than before covid, other people are going to want to meet you.

Hey, reach out anytime if you just want someone to chat with. Email is in my bio.

>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.

> 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

I understand too having been divorced and had to downsize to be close to my son for shared custody. What helped is doing away with a bed and opting for a Japanese futon setup where I fold up my bed and have loads more space to work.

A workspace can be temporal not geographic. Use your "non-commute time" to change over the curtains/linens/folding-furniture (and clothes!) to change the context from home to work. Like Mr Rogers changing his shoes and sweater.

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.

A lot of us get into programming because we enjoy it, but the realities of work often mean doing boring repetitive tasks. OP isn't suggesting that it's mandatory, just a way to keep from feeling burnt out, and I agree.

Additionally, if you're smart that time can wind up being compensated later. I wrote JavaScript on my own for 3.5 years before I started doing it professionally, and while I didn't get paid, it allowed me to eventually double my income, so I consider it a great investment.

> We don't expect this of other careers,

Sure we do. Doctors may be expected to read medical journals or keep up on the latest research, for example.

> Additionally, if you're smart that time can wind up being compensated later. I wrote JavaScript on my own for 3.5 years before I started doing it professionally, and while I didn't get paid, it allowed me to eventually double my income, so I consider it a great investment.

Great if you are young and have no commitments. Not so great if you are old and have many commitments.

Or are we expecting programmers to program after work even during their later years?

> Or are we expecting programmers to program after work even during their later years?

Look, OP suggested a strategy for not getting burnt out that works for them, and I'm just saying what works for me. You are the one who is turning this into some sort of "expectation".

If you don't want to code outside of work, and don't see value in it, don't do it. Nobody gives a rats ass.

Indeed doctors do, at least in the US although I don’t know how it works internationally. They’re called CMEs (continuing medical education) and they need to earn a certain number of hours per year

CMEs are one thing, but many good doctors keep up to date on medical advances in their field regardless.

Who said it had to be writing code? If finding joy in work is unrealistic, then take up a musical instrument, build a model railroad, write short stories, or something totally unrelated. (I've been a full-time code monkey by day and musician by night for going on six years, and I'm still finding other hobbies to dabble in.)

"Work on" might be bad verbiage then, particularly if we are talking about people who the term "work" might just make anxious.

"Find a hobby" would be a better phrasing.

Two counter points. First, it depends on the personality. If you don't find programming on its own gratifying and enjoyable, there's no need to force it on the side. But second, if you do enjoy programming, are burnt out, and have never tried a side project, give it an honest shot. It is so utterly counter-intuitive that programming on the side can cure your burn out from programming as a job, but time and again that has been my experience. I don't quite understand how it has this effect on me (and others), but it does. A few hours or a weekend of coding on a side project, and I come back to work like I've just been on vacation, sometimes even struggling to remember just what it was that was bothering me so much last week.

I took item 4 to mean "at work" -- find something enjoyable to work on at work / while actually working... Which definitely isn't always an option depending on your job.

I agree to what you're saying, but the 4th bullet should not mean this. Find joy in what you're doing is independent advice. I would add to this that outside of work, you should also look for something that gives you joy. Something that is not coding would be preferred.

It's not really your place to tell people what hobbies are OK to enjoy.

That one seems like pretty common advice even for non-software fields. The work you love doesn't have to be software, too, but you should be working on something you enjoy (or if you get fulfillment from your job, that's just a bonus!)

Your risk is being left behind. It's unfortunate but true.

Programing at work and programing as a hobby are very different activities.

One should never consider it a requirement, but it's not a recipe for certain burn-out either. (But yeah, if you are doing it because it's a requirement, then it's work and it will lead to burn-out.)

> We don't expect this of other careers

That is so not true. When are doctors supposed to perform research or their required continuing education? When seeing clients? No. It’s on their own time.

Continual Medical Education (CMEs) are definitely during normal work days. They're also often at fancy destinations with hotels and mai tais. My father and other family have done them for years. They never had to take vacation days.

Doctors have a terrible working schedule and I'm not jealous of it one bit, but this is really not true.

They may be on-call sometimes but generally if they're off they are not working or training.

They read UpToDate on work time.

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 :)

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...

I don't have a feeling for how big that is, but I work from home in a small flat. I have found that I can get this separation from only using my desk for work. I don't sit in my office chair or at my desk in my own time, if I'm writing code in my free time I do it on my sofa or at my coffee table.

Alternatives I've heard from others are things like dressing up for work. I had a colleague that wore a suit to work every day (at a tech startup) so that when he got home he could change into something else. That helped him define a boundary.

Find what works for you, it doesn't have to be physical space.

> dressing up for work

That's actually a great point - the days that I put on a button-up and nice jeans as if I was going into an office are days that I'm way more productive, as opposed to wearing pajamas all day.

Well my dress up is limited to putting on a different t-shirt. (What's further down is irrelevant for zoom meetings) But it does help. I have a set of slightly more respectable work t-shirts and a very different set of home shirts. And it does change my mind set. And it is very nice to take it off at the end of the day.

Also my kids whom are stuck at home at the moment recognise the difference and "somewhat" tries to disturb me less if I got a work shirt on.

I agree - dressing up was implied with "get washed/dressed". It's very important to get dressed for work.

I find that going for a walk before / after work is helpful to get in the right mindset. Hopefully that's an option available to you.

Make sure you've got everything ready to go when you 'arrive'. Don't do chores during the day -- but if you have a partner, discuss your reasoning for this with them beforehand.

You can set up movable paper walls Japanese style and separate spaces that way.

The word is http://enwp.org/paravent

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

On Windows 10 you can have separate virtual desktops. You can use win+tab to add and switch to one and then bring all of your work windows over to it. I used to use that when I began WFH but got out of the practice. You can switch between them by doing ctrl+win+left arrow or ctrl+win+right but be careful because some graphics drivers use ctrl+alt+left/right/up/down to rotate the screen and I've messed up my multi-desktop setup more than once by mistaking the key combo.

It's not as good as having a separate system for office work but you can conceptually separate what you are doing at least.

I have a separate work laptop from my employer, but if I didn't, I would just create another user account on my computer.

I try to keep work/personal data completely separated. No logging in to private email from work account, no hobby code and work code accessible for same user account. No Hacker News or other unrelated sites on work browser. Private matters during work hours done on my private phone.

I find this good for work/free time separation, and helps a lot with concentration too.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Buy a bootable external drive for your computer. Have all your "work" stuff on that drive. When you reach then end of your work day, shut down the computer, disconnect the external drive and store it in a closet until the start of your next work day.

When booted off the work drive, do not mount your internal drive.

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"

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.

Yeah I tried the constant live streaming thing. It helped for a bit.

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.

So I tried to see if they let me work from wework or some other shared space but I work with some equipment that can’t be seen in public

> 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.

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.

I've lived in Austin for just over 10 years and while there are major benefits over the coasts, the downside is the city is also importing the bad things.

Homelessness is off the charts with the street camping and violence that comes along with it. If you're familiar with SF, it's nothing like the Tenderloin but more like SOMA-lite.

In addition, shootings are way up. For context, there were 39 total in 2019. In the summer of 2020, we had 40 consecutive days of shootings. Further, the local DA has also adopted the mindset of not prosecuting "low level" crimes of any theft under $750.

Sacrificing what makes Austin compelling is not the way to go.

The city also has no even remotely sane urban planning, resulting in the worst sprawl I've seen anywhere in the USA in the last 10 years.

Austin isn't entirely alone with this: most of the sunbelt cities that are growing are doing so in the context of a complete lack of long term city planning. But Austin, IMO, is the worst right now. Even Phoenix, with an even more insane lack of water than Austin, has managed this side of things better.

I consider myself fairly liberal, but the current trend of progressive DAs failing to prosecute quality of life crimes (phrased as so-called "quality of life" in quotes) adds to my pessimism. It's happening in the cities with jobs and things to do, limiting the options if you don't subscribe to that social policy.

I was in Austin last year and was shocked by the homeless there. I spoke to a few people and they had informed me that some laws changed recently which allows them to live under bridges and the lots of churches etc.

I was taken back because I never thought Austin would have such a problem.

Austin lifted the ban on camping on city land in 2019.

* Except in front of City Hall. Camping is still banned there.

I've thought about Austin and other places, if I'm honest. It's a huge change as it would require new friends and, harder, a new job. It's on my mind.

I'm single so I'm wary of not living in a large, walkable city.

Murders spiked 50% in Austin last year.

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.

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

Still single, and I'd hate to find myself single and in the suburbs alone with a house when the party starts when this apocalypse is over.

But I've heavily considered it!

$1500 per square foot?

I was confused too. But I'm pretty sure they mean condos cost $1500/sf to buy, and not apartments cost $1500/sq/month

The average was $1770 a sf for a condo in 2018.

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.

> 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.

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!

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.

Yes!

And the worst case scenarios happened when my body was tired and wanted to stop, but my brain was high on Red Bull and didn't let me fall sleep.

If you generally use anything as a crutch it will start wearing off and you will build up a tolerance unless you start enjoying it for the sake of enjoying it and nothing more.

This can apply to pretty much any substance or routine. Right now for me it's video games :(

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

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. :)

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).

> (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).

Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "American-style coffee"? Are you referring to something you would get at Starbucks, or are you referring to the quality of the coffee beans used to make it?

American-style "coffee" is harshly roasted at high temperatures and then ground to a powder in a destructive processing machine. Finally, it is diluted with water and even mixed with sugar to make it more palatable.

Europeans prefer to chew on a few green coffee beans throughout the day as a long-lasting source of clean, non-jittery, all-natural energy.

The US coffee tradition is both not very strong and made without pressure (drip/filter.) Most places use espresso level pressure even on larger weaker coffees. The stovetop moka is still typical for occasional coffee drinkers and is lower pressure, but still made stronger than drip coffee.

If you add an equal quantity of hot water to an espresso that is the European cafe attempt at emulating an American coffee, but it still has different taste because of the pressure.

I don't think Europe is as obsessed with aribica beans, robusta is common and actually quite good. In drip coffee, arabica is really the only thing drinkable or the closest to drinkable depending on your perspective.

American coffee is diluted whereas in most other places I know it's not.

It's worth noting that "American" styles like v60 pour-overs, chemex, and cold brew iced coffee often have more caffeine per typical serving than traditional espresso drinks.

I recently got a coffee-grinder for Christmas so it’s my morning treat. Even though, I love the caffeine buzz, I try to drink only tea in the afternoon and I concur with the longer drinking being more enjoyable.

I’m currently experimenting with different blends of black tea and decreasing the amount of milk (as is tradition in Ireland) so that I can taste the tea better. I find that I can develop a taste for any decent tea leaf (or coffee bean).

I'm on the look for a nice coffee grinder. Can you recommend yours, and are you happy to share brand and model if so?

My other half got me a De'Longhi Burr Coffee Grinder [1] as a Christmas gift (after I had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that I was thinking of buying a burr grinder [2] for coffee). Previously, I had used a blade grinder but the problem with those is that they do not "grind" the coffee evenly (produce a mixture of fine and coarse particles).

I can't compare the De'Longhi with any other burr grinder but the results are similar to those of the shop that I get my coffee from. Its one downside is that the minimum grind quantity is too much coffee for one person so I try to time it for when my wife will share the coffee with me. The whole point of grinding your own is that you can then brew the coffee at its freshest.

So far, I've been enjoying the results of having freshly ground coffee. Best of luck with your own grinding.

[1] https://www.delonghi.com/en-us/products/coffee-and-espresso/...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burr_mill

Fantastic, thank you!

what do you mean by "american-style coffee"? as an american, coffee to me means drip coffee, which is more "diluted" i suppose but is certainly not more processed or "mixed" than espresso. most american coffee is not sweet starbucks drinks.

"American" coffee in europe usually refers to drip coffee.

Note though than in Northern Europe "coffee" means generally drip coffee, and you need to specify espresso/cappuccino/etc for the Southern variants.

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).

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.

Something that helps me is having 2 laptops (though I'd imagine it would work just as well with 2 accounts on the same computer). My work-provided laptop stays in my work area at all times, and I don't put anything work-related on my personal laptop. I also took at least an hour or two customizing each one (name, background, dock) so that it feels different than the other. That way when I hop off my work laptop at the end of the day, if I decide to pick up my personal laptop, it immediately feels like I'm doing something different.

These days I have different computers for work and play but I used to just have one for both.

If that's you, absolutely, definitely, try having different user accounts for work and personal.

Having that separation is very important, and having different accounts is an cheap and easy way that almost everyone's OS already supports.

Yup. I have a room I use as an ‘office’, with a PC I use for both gaming and work. I look forward to the evening where I take a step back from it, cook dinner, then come back for some games :)

One bad thing is I keep trying to use my Discord push-to-mute keybind in zoom and it never works :(

Not sure what OS you're using but there's various ways to script that so it works when zoom isn't focused.

Not the same but if you have to use the same laptop you can create separate work and leisure user accounts.

When I'm working I use a dock/monitor/mechanical keyboard and sit in an office chair, but after work I switch to just the laptop and sit on the couch. Every little bit helps.

Used to do that before buying the console. Laptop isn't the best for gaming tho (mine atleast).

Couldn't stand doing that. It would just feel like I wasn't getting enough rest you know?

Now I just go to the living room and play in my Xbox. Dunno, I need to change environments to separate things.

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.

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.

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

6. Don’t have young children

I messed up sadly on that one.

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.

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.

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.

> 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?

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your offering. Genuinely!

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.

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.

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

There are other things that dehydration manifests itself as beside just being thirsty though.

Lightheadedness is a big one for me.

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.

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