Ask HN: How do you know when you are burning out? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you know when you are burning out?

116 pointsanondevguy107 comments

What are the signs that you're about to burn out?

I have talked about burn out a lot with folks I've worked with and trying to avoid it, but I feel like I might be on the cusp of it now and I'm trying to figure out how to recognize it?

What have you seen that was the precursor to it, what if anything did you or can you do to avoid it?

Right now I think I see a general lack of real energy, more stress from the recent economic impacts to our business, being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).

Would love any advice or perspectives from the community.

Thanks!

EDIT:

When is it time to change jobs because of it?

View on HN

If you think you are on the cusp of burnout, you are already IN the burnout. Burnout isn't like a moment that occurs that you can pin point. It sneaks up on you and by the time you are thinking of it you are already deep in it.

Everything you describe is a sign that you are burning out. Take a step back and find ways to improve the situation: short frequent breaks during the days, mini-vacations each week/month, EXERCISE OUTSIDE (walsk ,runs, bike, anything outside rain or shine), find a group of friends or family you ENJOY being around and spend more time talking and laughing with them.

You may not necessarily need to leave your job, but if it is REALLY tearing you down and you feel hopeless everytime you go to it, then NOW is the time to start looking for something else. Do not let all of this build up until you are at a breaking point and suddenly quit "out of the blue" because the pressure has built up too much. At that point it may be difficult to find a job and you might be so burnt out you literally don't have the motivation TO find a new job.

Good luck, find a way to heal yourself, and know that there are a lot of others out here who have gone through this and have begun to get through it - myself included.

I've been on the extreme end of this, crawling out of bed at 845, leaving work 15 minutes early, eating and going straight back to bed.

If you notice yourself sliding, it's easier to fix things now than to let it get to such a stage. Obviously no one benefits (not even your employer with deadlines) if you're a zombie.

I needed to quit my job, get back into sports and hobbies, and basically didn't go near my laptop for 3 months. I'm lucky, I'm back to my old self (when other people start noticing and telling you this you realize how far gone you were). I know people who never recovered.

Prioritize you

> If you think you are on the cusp of burnout, you are already IN the burnout.

I don't think so. Many people who reflect on themselves actively but have no experience with irreversible burnout think or say that they're burning out, but they just have good self-awareness.

Also -- based on my limited experience and some 'formal' education in burnout management, etc. -- I think that burnout can't be fixed with exercise, more free time, vacations, etc. These can help preventing burnout in your next role, but they generally won't fix your life in your current environment.

For people who are actually burned out the recommendation is generally that 1) first stop the thing that burns you out 2) then start doing things that seem to heal you 3) then make a plan for what you'd like to do next (e.g. in work) and how you plan to keep your balance 4) start doing the next thing

I.e. you can't make good plans and rebalance while you're in the middle of the thing that is burning you out.

I understand that this advice requires a lot of privilege (e.g. that you can drop work for a few months for example), but there are hacks that help even if you're less privileged.

> I think that burnout can't be fixed with exercise, more free time, vacations, etc...

> 2) then start doing things that seem to heal you

what if more free time, vacations, etc, seem to heal me?

I think I get your general gist, but this seemed a bit contradictory.

In my case, exercise seems to be the thing for getting over burnout and free time/vacations don't really help. Curious what helps for others

Exercise doesn't seem to help me much, as... I'm already doing regular daily exercise and still am in 'burnout' mode. Stepping away from everything for, say, a few weeks might help. However, there's little chance of taking 'extended' time away from any projects and coming back to those projects. They'll move to someone else.

For me it was lack of control that was causing burn out. Exercise definitely improved my mood but it was only for couple of hours. Once I decided that I will switch job, I was 1000x better although I was working longer and harder.

I think someone else mentioned that lack of progress/control is what causes burnout. Generally, vacations make you lose control.

Depersonalization and cynicism are symptoms of burnout. But I think vacations solve burnout the same way that tissues solve colds. It's something you reach for instinctively.

> cynicism are symptoms of burnout

I've possibly been mildly 'burned out' since the late 80s.

And... back in my day, all the smokers and ne'er-do-wells in high school were the 'burn outs'.

Keyword here is "think" - if you KNOW you are on the cusp of burnout we can assume you're self-reflective enough to notice it for what it is. Self-reflection is a skill that most early 20s people haven't fully developed yet. If you think you're on the cusp of burnout, then chances are you're in it.

This.

When you start asking questions like "What's a sign of burnout?", that's usually a sign of burnout.

Other obvious signs:

- experiencing less and less enthusiasm about work, making it difficult to want to go to work at all

- difficulty focusing on tasks at work because you can't muster up any "care" at all to actually think about what work wants you to do (Task: Change the font size on the About page. Internal response: "Why? Who cares...")

- taking longer breaks and finding any excuse to drag your feet when you are heading back to your desk

- taking sick days when you don't feel "sick" but really feel like you need a day off (I would argue that the way you feel is a valid reason for taking a "sick" day - which is why we call them "personal days" at my company. Sick, tired, hungover. We don't care. You need a day off, you take the day off)

- asking questions about when's the soonest you can take a vacation even if you have no vacation planned (feeling like you need to escape)

- becoming more disagreeable with your coworkers, tasks, friends, family, responsibilities, etc (related to the above "not caring". You start to not see the value in a lot of "trivial" things, and become disagreeable on their basic merits)

- eating and/or drinking more than usual (or other substance use)

The list goes on, but I would say that a lot of "burnout symptoms" are akin to those with depression.

Essentially, your energy, enthusiasm, and general give-a-shit slowly starts to fade.

Unfortunately, humans are rarely rational creatures. Even armed with this information, it can take quite a bit more "drudging along" before a person will hit their actual breaking point.

My personal recommendation when you start to feel this way, if you can, is to walk away....

It feels like a huge change to just quit your job, but looking back, I believe that the damage that burnout has caused would have been less if I had taken the financial hit and just quit the moment I started feeling it.

Edit:

In response to the poster's edit question "When is it time to change change jobs because of it?"

Asap.

The longer you stay, the more you will feel burnt out, and it will result in diminishing returns

These symptoms make me wonder if my son has a burnout from school. Except he's not remotely working hard.

i sympathize a lot with all of the symptoms. in my experience, as someone who used to work pretty hard, once you're past the cusp of 'it's all pointless' it makes it really really hard to bother.

Like you're not getting anything out of it. You don't care if the work is done or not. Nobody else seems to care. And even thinking about it makes you feel ill and horrible. Difficult situation to grind hard work out of

Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor but I've had diagnosed work-related depression ('burnout') and got treated for it. This is based solely on my personal experience:

You don't need to work hard to be burnt out, you may just be continuously confronted with tasks or conditions that are too much for you to deal with. A high stress environment. Burnout is just another word for depression, caused by a specific set of circumstances that are usually work/career-related.

Your son may have clinical depression, you can't willpower yourself out of one of those.

What sort of job did you switch to? My problem right now is that I am pretty convinced I'm burned out, but nothing seems better. Objectively the job is fine if a little pointless, and if I can't appreciate that one .. y'know?

Same type of job (software), different circumstances.

The most burnt out I've felt was when I needed to be in an office from about 9-5 every day. I lived in a town I didn't really like where there wasn't much to do besides checkout yet another new brewery and I worked on a product that sounded kind of interesting for the first five minutes, but I quickly realized I couldn't care less about.

Now I work remotely. My hours are flexible and deadlines are relaxed. Most of my coworkers work remote and at different times. Most conversations are asynchronous, removing a lot of that fake urgency that comes from feeling like you need to respond immediately to someone's message. The product is more interesting and something that I can see adding value to peoples' lives.

The biggest thing for me personally though: I travel while I work. Not for work, but while I work.

I've always liked exploring and being able to spend a week working in a new town "just because" has been huge for me.

Because I don't work set hours, I can sleep in when I need to and work later that day. Or I can decide to go exploring around a new town for a couple of hours before I start work. I run errands anytime I need to - which is great for avoiding busy times and traffic.

Working remotely with flexible hours has removed a lot of small, but substantial, stressors in my life. I wouldn't say this is a panacea for burnout though because it really depends on the person and the company, but it has worked well for me.

"Work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Life" balance is more balanced.

In what places do you sleep, shower, and work while traveling? Do you pay for hotels? I've considered a similar lifestyle, but paying for hotels all the time isn't enticing.

Hotels, mostly.

It can definitely be expensive depending on where you stay, but there are some things that help me justify the cost in some situations. The freedom to come and go at any time - no lease/contract/mortgage, etc. Usually hotels are nicer than an apartment or house that I would stay in anyway - cleaner more up to date rooms, a pool, housekeeping, etc. Breakfast and coffee are complementary in most places. Free wifi in a lot of places that is usually pretty reliable (but make sure to double check ahead of time. Some places have terrible internet).

Some places can be as low as $70/night which is less than what I paid for rent the last time I had an apartment. Also, if you stay with certain hotel chains enough times in a year, you'll start to get complementary upgrades, the occasional free night, and some other little perks that do actually make it seem worth while.

Asking about "longer" term stay (multiple weeks, to a month) pricing has actually resulted in a decent discount a few times as well.

That said, it's not for everyone. You can certainly find cheaper places to rent in a lot of places, and it's definitely not something I'd recommend unless you are single and do not have any dependents (dogs, children, a goldfish, etc).

I think burnout is easier to recognize in others than in oneself.

I always see people mentioning that exercise is one of the solutions to burnout. I'm going to disagree with that. I got a puppy early last year. Once we could start taking walks I started walking on average 4.5-5 miles between walking him and my own usual walks to the store or whatever.

I still got massively burnt out by my last job. I decided to just leave, and that's been a big help so far.

This.

You have to stop yourself, while you think you can still go on. I can’t stress this enough.

If you wait too long, eventually you’ll just stop caring, and that’s when you’ll end up doing something stupid, or have no desire to fix things.

That's where I'm at right now :(

So many years of putting out a garbage product nobody wants gets to you

And then nothing else seems better

If one has enough money and retirement savings to pad them through the next year, I'd highly recommend taking this tumultuous period off working in the corporate world.

Burnout is devastating, it cause people to rage quit, it causes people to be unresponsive, and to quit in bad times when they don't have good financial position.

The major points to remember are:

There will always re-entry pains, but you will likely return refreshed if you take time off properly.

Don't settle into the lure of doing nothing and not learning new skills during time off, just learn to do it at a good pace that fits you in between doing things you've always wanted to do while working.

Many companies are running on duct tape, life is always a gamble. It's your responsibility to balance your own risk with reward, and to reduce life's costs, being in undesirable situations, and unpredictability, no employer will do that for you.

Once you burn out, your stability and ability is completely thrown out of place, and you won't be able to maintain any work or life balance of your own. That's when things like homelessness and worse happen. It's important to work out a plan to never be near to, nor in, that burnout position. It's not easy if you're not wealthy I know, but you've always got to ask yourself if the people in life who ask you to do favors for them would do the exact same for you as a guide of who to trust... Life is unforgiving to people who don't have limits, ESPECIALLY during trying times.

Being neither selfish nor selfless is the best way forward in tough times.

What were the signs for me: No joy in life, even with hobbies or parts of works that were always pretty pleasant. Being snippy, dreading work days rather than having a neutral-to-slightly-positive take on them. (You don't have to always "like" work but I've found there's a real difference between dread and neutral).

When is it time to change jobs: When you really dislike the person you're becoming (irritable, unusually cynical) and don't want it to be permanent.

I got lucky in that (through higher-up corporate politics) I was accidentally(?) reassigned to something else much more joyful and fitting my skills quickly after I started noticing these signs, but it was absolutely a learning moment to see the shift in mindset and mood. This last comment may sound odd, but something I wish I did earlier was to start journaling as it's a great way to notice emotional patterns and to suss out things that have been bothering you but might not be vocalizing (as much as you need to).

Then that time comes to change jobs but even after 10+ years of experience, you now need to grind Leetcode out for months just so you have a chance of getting through pointless tech screens... how do you avoid burnout from that alone, and how do you even get through the process if you're burnt out to begin with?

Hello person with my same struggle yet different username. I feel you 110% on this one.

There is a completely demoralizing sense that my career has "evaporated" and none of my achievements, accomplishments or jobs have any worth.

It has caused me to become incredibly bitter, resentful and angry at the world. I don't know how to turn the trauma of this mistreatment and abandonment into a happy "this is ok" face for the world.

This is why I Love technology but dislike the tech industry.

Simple and concise.

I love programming but I hate the gatekeepers who stand in the way of my autonomy. They think they know better but if they did, they wouldn't need to hire engineers in the first place. Product people can be amazing guiding lights in the dark but they can also be the most cancerous self-indulgent babies ever.

Hello!

I just really don't understand how the industry adopted these ridiculous practices. I'm lucky that I get a ton of recruiters reaching out once I toggled my LinkedIn to say I'm open, but I don't understand what they expect other than me to say "I guess I'll message you in 3 months after I take on an unpaid second job of learning how to write algorithms I never once used in the last 15+ years of my engineering career to solve problems that are meant to just trick me". You would think they'd want to make it so that engineers did have the option of evaluating other companies at any time, rather than having to prepare endlessly. If I decide I want a new job now (which I did a few weeks ago), I can't do anything about it for a while (unless I'm one of those who practices LC all week rather than learning much more useful things).

No point in ranting further about this.. everyone is well aware.

There's of course some companies that don't subject you to this nonsense, but the list is really limited, and just finding out who they are has taken me many weeks and many phone calls. But a month of that plus trying to "learn" everything required for all of these interviews has made me burnt out and bitter (just like you said). I don't want to jump through these ridiculous hoops and play this stupid game... but what's the alternative?

I'm currently going through this right now. I gave myself a month to "study" for the tech interviews, but I find myself demotivated and can't muster the time or the effort to go through them. I'd do one or two Leetcode problems, but that's it.

Hopefully things get better.

My current strategy is lowering my expectations and being willing to engage in different work.

What you are describing that I feel in the same boat on is the impossible whack a mole game we are trying to play. It's like a dart board on an always moving target.

It's impossible to catch that objective, you just need to practice / focus on what you are good at and try to look for opportunities that need these skills. It's hard for me because I don't want to work with PHP anymore, but I get a lot of recruiter spam for it. Maybe I could even be ok with a PHP dev based job if the people and structure around the work was reasonable and humane.

My goal right now is to focus on my strengths, try not to be too self-critical when the few opportunities I do see don't match up. It's a waiting game I just wish there was more that I could do proactively.

I've also been through the "Everyone in the world sucks" phase and I do still think that to a certain degree lol but I also feel more in tune with analysing myself and emotions when I have such thoughts.

For instance, I notice that I might get angry that a person driving didn't see me at a pedestrian crossing. But what's the point in being angry? Why should I let that person "put me" in a bad mood?

I believe the trick is to recognise your emotions, what you can control and what you can't. Does it make sense to be angry at things beyond your control?

Also I've come to understand that the brain is fed what we give it. What you feed it through media, television, the people around you - these all affect it. We should ideally fiercly guard what our brain is fed. Thinking about this I started to notice how much people drink in movies / TV and how it made me feel like drinking too. It's a bit like "the five people you surround yourself most with" idea.

I'm still a work in progress, and hopefully some of what I've mentioned can help you on your own journey.

Leetcode is difficult for sure, but I do think it's good in many ways - at least it exists, you know it's necessary and the way I see it, it's kind of like having the answers to the exam!

Is it fair people make you go through this hazing process? No, but unless you have some better ideas, if it's truly the only thing between you and what you want, then maybe it's time to reframe it in your mind - what are some good things that could come out of it?

I know it's hard when "the world fucking sucks", but I'm sure there's also a part of you that enjoys learning and doing puzzles. Maybe it's time to tap back into that side of you. Take your time.

For me a true sense of "I am burned out" is like a recession. You don't see it coming but you can look back 6 months and realize "oh shit I'm deep in very bad burnout".

For me it was a deep dissatisfaction with the work I was doing. This was caused by doing work that had no meaningful purpose, and also the people who were controlling what work I did were not giving me any autonomy or say in what was happening so I felt very powerless and my work was deeply unfulfilling.

It was multiple jobs where it was a bad fit, and I tried to force it and "make it work" because you have to get paid to live. For me burnout is a symptom of a sick society and unfortunately you can't just treat the individual its the societal conditions that cause the pain. The burnout and depression is a natural and reasonable reaction to the unpleasant experiences.

I would suggest changing jobs if you:

1. Lack friends / coworkers you can depend on 2. Feel like your work is not meaningfully contributing 3. Feel like your voice is not welcome or heard 4. Cannot find joy or happiness in tasks or hobbies you once enjoyed (outside of work) 5. Find yourself getting angry / snapping / losing temper over trivial non-important things either at work or at home.

Of all the comments in the thread, this one feels the most true to me. If you don't mind me asking, what did you end up doing?

Hahaha oh boy!

Well, right now I'm trying to work through personal issues while I apply to jobs. It's really hard convincing myself I'm capable and qualified even though I have a resume to back up my skills.

I'm doing a few small contract / freelance websites. One was a real disaster and made me question if I want to be involved in this part of freelance. There is a value for customer facing PMs but I've only experienced their wrath in unprofessional "us vs them" environments that didn't value engineers.

On the plus side I picked up Next.js and I've worked with a few boilerplates enough to find what I like. I played around with Plasmic and while I like it, I found that sites I made with it became slow and clunky. I did a code test for a DREAM COMPANY local to where I live... they passed on me and this was a huge blow... but it was the first thing that's gotten me to do any real API development work in a few months and it was a good reminder that I still enjoy what I used to be able to get paid to do.

I'm editing a bunch of video for my YouTube channel. I've found taking video of my skiing and fishing exploits to be a hugely gratifying and uplifting experience. I have a new skill and hobby (making videos) and I hope at some point it will open some doors for me.

If I had six more months of runway I'd just be fishing and doing self care stuff but I have to keep walking on the emotional broken legs I have right now. My disability is invisible so it doesn't count to the NT world and in practical terms that just means I need to keep suffering, lowering my expectations and applying to shittier and shittier jobs till someone takes me.

Therapy is essential but it's not fast and it's not a 100% sure thing.

Part of me is completely demoralized and my gas tank is empty, but something deep down inside has been able to hang on and won't let me give up on life. I hope you have something similar.

You did the exact thing I've been fantasizing for over 6 months at this point. Wishing you the best.

If your anything like me, stop thinking about it and make changes to better your life. Stop rationalizing away the blockers.

I mean this in the most generous, caring way but lower your standards. Find ways to break out of the cycles you are stuck in, sometimes this means readjusting your expectations. It's painful and awful but for the first time in a long time I feel some progress happening. It's never what you want but you have to seek ways of looking at things positively, they will never find you on their own.

I don't know if you'll see this, but today I got a job offer for an 80% pay raise, and I get to take a whole month to rest before starting.

Coincidentally or not, this happened right after I decided to follow your advice and quit my job. Thank you.

A very simple test for workplace burnout: do you feel that 1) customers 2) colleagues are {malicious, idiots, ignorant, lazy, etc.}?

One of the simple models for burnout says that the 5 phases of burnout are: 1) honeymoon phase (just after joining, everything is rosy) 2) realistic phase (there are good and bad things) 3) we as a team are sensible but all these others are {ignorant, lazy, etc.} 4) I'm doing my best but most people are around me are { ... } 5) apathy (I don't care anymore)

Most people leave at phase 4, and the rule is that you can't really move backwards in this process without changing roles. (Possibly inside the same company, but you must change something in the environment.)

Pretty simplistic yet effective, no-BS yardstick to measure the burnout effect. I was at burnout stage 4 & just recently spoke with my management to change focus. If they wouldn't have agreed, I might have quit.

There are plenty of jobs where the modal customer is malicious, stupid, and lazy, such as low-end retail.

TIL I'm burnt out. Thanks!

I realized I was burning out when I started yelling at my kids. Here's how I realized it and I quit the job although I loved it.

At the end of every day I started reflecting on it. I started looking for answers and realized once you hit your peak of stress level your mind can handle, you start to crack, show signs of strong negative emotions during meetings/discussions, you will show those emotions somewhere else (like in traffic, waiting for coffee, when your kids take time to get ready), you loose patience and your rational mind starts to break down.

I later learned from some of the self book on how to not end up like that. There is a book called "Essentialism by Greg McKeown", you probably know by the title. But honestly do yourself a favor, read it/listen and try to apply and see if it helps.

Quitting should be the last option unless you already have another plan instead do the minimal thing necessary to keep your job (just as it says in the book). Remember, it's ok to do just enough work as long as you enjoy doing that, nobody can force you to put extra effort(it's ok to say no). It's based on how much effort you can put without reaching your breaking limit. Know your limits. Use tools to increase that limit (that's a career growth .. sometimes slow growth.. sometimes fast growth)

Here are the signs that I had during my burnout: - Hoping to get sick to get a few days without having to cope with work

- Trouble sleeping

- Not being able to enjoy my holiday / weekend due to the thought of having to go back to work with an increased backlog

- Enhanced imposter syndrome

- Work productivity drop

- Complete lack of purpose in the daily work

All of the above built up very slowly and I didn't realize until things got overwhelming. The good news for me was that all of the above disappeared almost instantly when I switched jobs.

> lack of energy, stress, short temper, low immunity

These could be caused by MANY things. Please go see a professional.

One advice (that a good professional will also probably tell) is to exercise yourself.

If you're not yet, this could be as simple to solve as getting your body to move vigorously and regularly.

Cardio-vascular exercises are best. Get your heart rate high for a minimum of 2 hours per week total. Start with 10 minutes per day. Something from moderate to intense. The more intense you can get, the better.

Also go see a professional before starting any exercises. Especially if you have any special medical condition, like heart diseases.

I agree with people exercising somewhat, but I think from personal experience that the opposite can be true sometimes as well.

If you exercise really intensely it can also be a source of stress.

What I mean by intensely - for example doing 2h a day of high intensity training.

If anyone finds themselves trying super hard and wondering why they're doing "all the right things" but still not in the right mind, it can be good to perhaps try a more soothing form of exercise like swimming / yoga with a bit of lifting.

2h per day, 7 days a week is pretty harsh indeed.

Please note I suggested 2h total per week.

That gives you 30 minutes per day in 4 days per week. Gives you some time to rest in between. I think it's pretty reasonable.

Even up to 1h/day, 4 days/week might be OK. Really depends on each individual.

‘Professionals’ are usually completely indifferent and don’t give a shit about anything past a medication request. It’s this way in Australia. Don’t know about elsewhere.

When you don't spring out of bed excited to see what the work day brings you.

When you get into conflicts and arguments with coworkers over mundane crap like their voice tone.

When you yell at your significant other after the work day is done.

When you rationalize and justify being glued to a monitor for over 8 hours a day as normal, necessary and natural.

To be honest, 'springing out of bed excited to see what the work day brings you' seems like a weird standard for evaluating burn out, or even for evaluating how normal your job is. My hypothesis is that most people are not exactly springing out of bed to go to work...but they are also not burned out.

Edit: I think its totally valid if this is a sign for you or a select number of people. Everyone is going to have a very personal experience with burnout.

I definitely find that when I'm close to burning out, I'm eager to start arguments and throw unnecessary barbs into conversations. It's a more specific example of the general symptom of beginning not to care.

> When you don't spring out of bed excited to see what the work day brings you.

This describes at least 95% of all workers, probably for pretty much their entire working lives.

> When you yell at your significant other after the work day is done.

This is really important. We were fighting over nothing. Switching jobs is cheaper than couples counseling or divorce.

My one piece of advice is keep your job! Do much less work. But stay at it. Unemployed and burned out can be a dangerous trap that has long term consequences. Much better to barely be working while you sort yourself out. Stay on the horse.

Another piece of advice to go along with this - channel some of your funds into some form of coaching / betterment for yourself. I don't think it matters exactly what it is, just choose someone that you respect that can help you in some way (physically / mentally / spiritually whatever).

At least then you have one good thing going on in your life and you have someone to look up to and that you feel in some way "has your back" and is helping to make you a better person.

Some commenters may need to think about distinguishing between burnout and actual medical depression.

You're burning out when you stop caring about something unfinished that you previously cared for and spent time on, and rationally should still. It can easily happen when your achievements aren't being recognized, valued and/or celebrated by you and others, and when you subconsciously feel that condition has no likely end in sight.

The inspiration and care needed to tackle hard work/problems requires tending to maintain. Cycles of achievement and recognition followed by deliberate reassessment so that the work continues to connect back to your inspiration.

>What are the signs that you're about to burn out?

Burnout is a float number not a binary.

Early burnout is just crashing after work. You might be mentally/physically/spiritually exhausted from whatever and you just cant go on. This early burnout feels normal but it's the warning zone. Time to do something. If not stress += 1 is going to happen.

Second stage is where you start doubting yourself. The things from the first stage exhausting you are now making you feel shame. Like did my skills drop or am I not good enough to fix that problem?

The third stage is about putting armor on. You need to defend against your detractors who are seeing you fail. They are commenting and putting you down. You need to defend yourself constantly. You're deeply burnout and aren't performing properly and people are noticing.

The final stage that is rock bottom. You're in crisis and falling apart. You're probably experiencing lots of health problems.

>What have you seen that was the precursor to it, what if anything did you or can you do to avoid it?

I figure everyone goes through it at least once. You totally can avoid it and get help. If you go looking for help and dont really need it... it's not a bad thing. So what's the risk in trying to get help?

>Right now I think I see a general lack of real energy, more stress from the recent economic impacts to our business, being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).

You have to also realize that perhaps some of these things are just what's going on around you. Might be happening and just coincidentally looking like burnout.

In no particular order and YMMV. I'll add more as I think of them.

As people have mentioned, it can creep up on you and if you are worried about it you might already been burning...

* struggling making time for your hobbies/friends/non-work activities

* scared of your inbox

* sleeping longer

* Eating more (comfort eating), or eating less

* Exercising more and being harder on your body or exercising less frequently and struggling to find energy when you do exercise

* Taking more drugs, drinking more alcohol

* Being short with those who are close to you (snapping)

* Losing your desire for a long and happy life

Try to think about something you're really excited to do. If you can't think of anything, you're probably getting pretty close.

Sounds like there is a lot of overlap between burnout and depression.

In some sense it's easy to figure out: If you change everything and the feeling stays the same, congratulations. You are depressed.

I recently went through this, and I’m a month into a sabbatical to recover.

Most of the answers here are resonating, but one other thing I noticed was a slide over in my baseline heart rate variability and resting heart rate.

My burnout was driven by an extremely high stress role/environment so this may not apply to everyone, but a few weeks after leaving, my resting heart rate plummeted and my HRV has been trending back up.

(I have seen my doctor, and they agreed that the factors were stress related as I was otherwise in good health).

I’ve found keeping an eye on these metrics useful as a high level indicator of overall stress, and it has been satisfying seeing them return to normal as I focus on self.

I'm not sure if it counts as burnout, but I've had my share of trying work situations, some of which pushed me into melancholy. Although the following may not apply to everyone, I believe it does in my case. My takeaways: unless it's your own firm, don't get too involved or emotionally immersed in your work; it's usually just a contract of labour for money. Also, I have a tendency to hold out hope that things will turn out okay in the end, even when most people have gone on. It never ends well, and I'm still trying to recognize when a change is necessary...

Needing more and more time to get less and less done. Constant preference for "short breaks", distractions and procrastination, instead of trying to focus on work. At this point you are already burnt out.

On changing jobs - Depends. If work isn't getting better *today*: ie, if they refuse to fire that toxic asshole, if they refuse to change that insane deadline -> if you have six months of savings, take a sabbatical for at least 3 of them. You are done starting now. No job is worth your mental health. You put in your two weeks starting now.

Make sure your next gig is calm @ 40 hours weeks. Do that for a year. Godspeed. Burnout sucks.

One tangible thing I've found is when I get the urge to call in sick to work just to avoid going, it's probably about that time to make a change.

- are you screaming/ranting in your car on the way home or when alone? <-- #1 sign I need to switch jobs.

- do you wake up and say "ugh I hate my job" every day?

- are you depressed (more than normal) or have feelings of hopelessness?

- has your activity level (errands, workouts) changed substantively, and is lack of time due to work devotion not the case?

- has the "spark of creativity" disappeared?

- sneaky structural sleep deprivation for work?

> are you screaming/ranting in your car on the way home or when alone? <-- #1 sign I need to switch jobs.

I work remotely. So my first warning is my wife yelling from the other room: "I hope you're ranting out loud again and not in a meeting!"

When you do way too much and feel exhausted and demoralized at the end of every day.

Or conversely when you don't do much at all and still end up feeling exhausted and demoralized at the end of every day.

Oh yay. Reading these comments made me realise I'm in full burnout.

Go me.

same -_-

- taking sick days when healthy - procrastinating aka slacking - dreading the next meeting, starting your work day, working on a deliverable - frequently oversleeping - abusing substances - normal work seems harder than usual because of a lack of focus

Seek professional advice, talk to a psychologist, start therapy.

I see a lot of well intentioned advice here, but keep in mind that these are not professional therapists you are talking to here. Burnout can be different for everyone, just because you have some "symptoms" doesn't mean you are burnout.

I've been through a burnout once and I was not doing therapy, I felt helpless, took me years to feel like myself again. The second time I experienced the same symptoms I had professional help and was able to get my life back together relatively quickly thanks to that. It helped me so much, I'm so thankful for that.

I totally know when I'm burning out!

Low energy and meaningless procrastination is tell tell signs, also time spent on twitter or youtube is.

I became some kind of expert in managing my pre-burn out parts. I usually recognize that it is happening, and take a break for 1 day or 2. I also have an accountability buddy with whom we speak once a week and update each other on our projects. So talking to them also helps me to get out of that rut. Sometimes outside perspective helps.

But yeah my thing is: recognize it's happening, take a break (if you can), and talk to somebody who's not in your field.

When downtime is not beautiful, lovely, and freedom, but rather a liability.

oh oh

5 months ago, I was depressed about my work and feeling like a failure. Both in career and life. I thought I was going through midlife crisis. And my inability to make FAANG money was the cause of my problems. I posted about it here [1].

My job was not bad, I worked 30 hours or so. Had excellent benefits. My team was great and my manager was super flexible. So I thought it cannot be work that was causing me feel depressed. But I decided that I need to get into FAANG and started studying LeetCode. Also my backup plan was to move into management in my current company. I worked longer hours, and studied late into night.

However, my happiness increased, I was motivated.

About a month ago, I gave my 2 weeks notice. I didn't get into FAANG or got FAANG salary but still got a decent bump in pay raise. More importantly, I cannot remember when was last time I felt this relaxed. My average HRV increased from 40ms to 100ms.

I realized that I was not going through midlife crisis but rather feeling burned out because in my cushy job, I had no actual freedom. We were doing checkmark driven development. I could not use my best judgement to do anything but most trivial things.

It wasn't the money that was the issue also. At my new job, I believe in company's overall mission. My last company is known for being backward and surviving by financial engineering. My new company is a smaller company, so it seems I can actually make important decisions.

And most importantly I feel I am in control of my career now. However, my default will be to leave after every 1 year, unless company and work convinces me to stay for another year.

And yes I realize that I am feeling excited because of my new job and may settle back into my low state. If that happen then I will focus on moving into management or different career.

But I guess to answer your question, work has a great influence on you. If you are not feeling good about it or life, then change work now! I say that because I almost thought about divorce because I thought my wife was giving me stress.

EDIT: Thank you, HN!

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29709273

weekends are depressing because monday is coming... social life feels like a chore. getting sick on off days and holidays.

my (unasked) advice: focus on what activities / people / places give you energy and leave you calm and relaxed. I think you did enough diagnosis.

best of luck!

Treat work as normal labor. Don’t expect joy from work. Try to be less involved. But still efficient, just the bare minimum. It’s just a contract after all. Invest the money you get from your labor in a stable social life. Healthy life style. Spend the free time you’re left with practicing your hobbies. It can still be coding. But something you’re excited about.

> It can still be coding. But something you’re excited about.

Problem is that you cannot do anything significant or at scale on your own. Writing POC or some fun code on the weekends isn't satisfying as collaborating with group of people and accomplishing something worthwhile. Sure you can find an OS project but that requires significant time investment to make any major contributions and you likely have the same frustrations with it that made your original job un-fun.

I feel this so much. It seems like the whole tech industry is just sick. Nobody is making anything worthwhile. Its just all ad-tech or scummy subscription plans, or other new and exciting ways to "extract" the "value" out of the world. And anything I make myself is such a minor drop in the bucket that there's no way to meaningfully contribute to anything through software.

It's probably good to highlight the words "significant" and "major contribution" here.

As someone that's working full time on their own thing - I agree it is extremely difficult to do something major part time (let alone full time!!) When it comes to coding.

So I'd flip the script here and ask: does it need to be significant?

If the aim is to do something enjoyable, then maybe cut yourself some slack. Find joy in learning, or joy in helping a cause. Don't worry if you feel it's small. Do it for you. Also, say no to things that overextend you or divert you from your mission of enjoying your hobby.

no it doesn't need to be but hard to keep the momentum and commitment going if you are a one man team working on something on the side.

Having a team lets you validate your ideas, inspire new ideas and motivate you when you to keep the project going when there are setbacks.

Well, in my case. I realized that i find my day to day job boring and there is still little joy. Mainly because i don’t feel challenged. I know how to do it so what i see is that how much effort is needed to accomplish. What i do is that i invest my free time/ no commitments, in things harder than my current skills allow me to achieve. And thankfully i do find joy in doing that. In my case is just joy not making something big and successful

Started crying when no one saw me.

Also a friend telling me I always looked sad.

(I didn't realize it back then. Burning out was something that only happened to rich business guys back them and I only realized years later, maybe while drafted, what had happened.)

The golden rule of attention (or heiristic, mental model) to remember: once you consciously focus on something — you’ll find more and more of it just by the act of focusing.

If you anticipate burning out without really feeling it (just because you read fancy blog post about it) — you put more energy to this side of your system.

With such complicated things like human mind it’s better trust your unique intuitions and feelings rather than look for general rules or patterns. Or at least trust a professional capable of analyzing your specific circumstances and give personalized advice.

> When is it time to change jobs because of it?

It's always time.

If you weren't being paid, would you still go in there every day? The answer is clearly "no."

Therefore all of the other things companies and people tell themselves about how people like working there are really not true. Because no one values anything more than the money.

And if you aren't getting any benefit from the money, because the job is making you depressed, then you have lost the one thing that motivates you to go in there every day.

The only solution is to stop going.

They are many signs, but when you start asking this question, you are very likely already burning out.

I have a few burnout coworkers around me, the signs I've observed: - complaints about the system/process/workload, - always busy but no fruitful deliverables, - memory loss/slow reaction, - bad tempered, easy to become anger when hearing about different opinions, - worse immunity but not taking sick leave.

For me, the sign of burnout is when it becomes very hard to do anything and I find myself procrastinating. So I'd say procrastination is a sign of burn out on the horizon. What happens next is you force yourself to do things anyways, and eventually your brain just says "no" - and at that point you hit full on burn out, where your work productivity drops substantially.

> being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).

Telltale signs that you're already burned out.

> When is it time to change jobs because of it?

What you could do instead is count your "fuck you money" and take some time off. Unless of course you don't have any, which is alone enough to cause burnout.

When you think about what happiness is, I think you maybe burning out or is already burned out.

When you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning and end up phoning in sick.

Watch out for depression.

I’d suggest taking a long break and a holiday somewhere which is not anywhere in your normal location. During which, I’d reevaluate your priorities.

Check out the Maslach Burnout Inventory.

The main symptoms include emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, low self-assessment of competence and success, low productivity, and cynicism.

Recovery may take over a year, though, so plan around that.

A lot of the symptoms described in this thread just sound like depression.

What’s the difference?

In my case, it was limited to work stuff. I would want to do literally anything except work. Even tech stuff, I could spend any amount of time building a random website that serves no purpose, I just didn't want to look at Jira anymore.

Then I took a sabbatical, traveled, all of that and suddenly I started caring about the product, company, etc. again

I think the symptoms are pretty similar, the main difference from what I understand is burnout is triggered by repeated stress from work, and it's a mechanism our brains use to defend against that kind of constant stress. Typically it goes away if you remove the stress (aka job).

From the experiences I’ve had and seen I think the depression can be kind of like a symptom. It could be just a component of the burnout, it could be a temporary state having to do with other situations/conditions. Or it could be the clinical type that is biochemical and a completely different animal to be dealing with.

If someone can do most stuff in general then it doesn’t sound like the clinical type to me.

Burnout is really just a form of depression that strongly relates to work.

It can be mild, possibly in an early stage (see: most, not all, of the comments here). Or it can be severe and have acute symptoms. And the connection between those is gradual.

Severe examples would be things like extreme tiredness, such that you can just fall asleep after a few minutes of work, sudden fear/anxiety/stress attacks, severely decreased stamina and cognitive ability, overly sensitive/overblown reactions to any kind of stress factor, complete shut down of your system, blackouts/fainting etc.

If you have full-blown burnout, then just doing a bit of exercise and a long holiday won't cut it. It's as if your whole body and mind will do everything to stop you from working, because going on like before is impossible. It can pin you down, leaving you unable to act without support. It might take years to recover from it, just like other forms of depression.

It's very good that people are aware of this and discuss possible early/mild symptoms. However do _not_ downplay the severity of its potential. An issue here is that it seems to hit some of the most productive and hardworking people the hardest, possibly because they power through the early symptoms for so long until they shut down.

I really appreciate the thoughtful responses, what a great community this is

I've felt very lonely and isolated lately, I submitted some posts similar to yours on here and Reddit. I hate the cliche but it's strangely comforting to see others dealing with the same challenges I am.

Thank you for having the courage to post and being honest about your struggles.

To me a telltale sign is we you just don’t give a fuck about your work anymore, even though you previously cared and maybe even enjoyed it.

Hm... I realized I was burned out when I scraped signage from my car with a kitchen rag ane baking soda. Wasn't even drunk.

If you have to ask, it's already happened.

No, saying that is how everyone ends up with PTSD, and how they learn how to be helpless. Any hardship is not the end of it all.

How do you know when you are in love?

The first place I'd look is your bank account...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com