Take a break | Hacker News Reader

Take a break

robinrendle.com

433 pointsimartin2k163 comments

May I suggest a purely rational, evidence based take?

The trap is your belief in a linear relationship between effort and outcome. Working harder and longer produces more productivity, right?

That's false.

As you say so yourself, your memory goes to shit. It's not just a law of diminishing returns. For coders, past a certain point, exhaustion leads you to start undoing your work. You are into negative productivity.

I've pushed through all-nighters where I poured out a few thousand LOC only to find the next day that I had broken everything and introduced more bugs than I had time to fix. I just had to revert. An exhausted hacker is worse than no hacker at all. You're a liability to yourself and the project.

So, like driving when tired, realise that the urge to continue is completely irrational, and probably based in the emotional drives of fear or pride. It would be completely irrational for any manager to want you to code in that state, and anyone who pushes you to is also the idiot.

There was a time a dozen years ago when I was working alone on my (over-elaborate, uncontrollably sprawling) graphics software product. One time I wrote a multi-thousand-line refactoring of existing code into a new class and felt very happy about getting it done. The next day I discovered that I had already done the exact same work the previous week, just as a slightly differently named class.

That wasn’t an isolated memory loss experience in those days. I ordered lunch, sat down, then five minutes later just stood up and left, assuming I’d already eaten. An hour later I realized what happened.

Long-term productivity is impossible without proper rest, including regular vacations where you’re truly out of work mode preferably for a week at the minimum.

Working alone could be the reason too.

Rest sometimes brings clarity too. Even if you're not tired, you might be stuck in a way of thinking.

I am not sure about that. There are always tasks that can be done without having to think too much about it. The more time you put into them, the more of those small tasks you can complete. I wouldn't start building new features or change important parts of the code base after a 10hr day for sure, but there is a lot more that can't "break everything".

The problem is there will always be small tasks and those tasks might actually delay longer more important tasks. At some point you need to prioritize what is most important with your time.

If you’re always grinding small tasks to make time for a larger task that too will burn you out.

The point is there are lots of small tasks you can do when you're brain isn't capable of doing focused work. Certain work requires careful thinking and can only be done when you're in top shape to be done effectively. Prioritize that work when you're energetic, etc. Do the small tasks when you're not so you're high quality time get's used well.

Those tasks don't require concentration, yes, but they drain your energy supply just as well as those that do. This means that the likelihood you'll be energetic and creative tomorrow diminishes the more of them you pile up at the end of your shift.

So IMO do 2-3 of those and call it a day. You have to be in a work shape tomorrow as well.

> There are always tasks that can be done without having to think too much about it

As you tack more of these on to the end of the day, you get less rest, and tomorrow's window of opportunity for doing difficult work shortens.

There’s also personal aspect to that: working when your mind already fails - sucks. It feels like wandering in a deep forest only occasionally seeing the light. Or clicking randomly through windows management consoles in hope it works. Very uncomfortable, boring and demotivating, even if nothing goes wrong in a project afterwards.

This probably has no economical benefit even. I believe in most cases a second shift would do this work much quicker than an exhausted team that spends most of this time squeezing last drops of sanity at overtime rate. [laughs in corporative]

But it's not strictly false! Not without qualification.

Outcome is a sort of quadratic function of effort, so with very little effort you improve outcome a lot. Then as you go on and put more effort in, you continue to improve outcome. As you put a lot of effort in, the size of the improvement declines, but the outcome is still improved.

Then at some level of effort there's a plateau, after which additional effort really does make things worse. But that plateau is a surprising amount of effort away! When researchers talk about declining productivity with increasing effort, they mean this first derivative of outcome, not declining outcome itself.

And, to get to my point, a line is an excellent approximation of this quadratic function for most of the range of it we see normally. So it's no surprise people try to extrapolate using it.

I think you have to acknowledge the complexity of the problem to help people understand the mistake!

Generally, if I have to pull a massive effort (an all-nighter), which only happens a few times a year, I start with writing some tests that will keep the bug introduction problem to a minimum.

It works, though the frustration level is high. But better catch the bugs early than late.

So the solution is to figure out how to put in long hours effectively, not to throw it away. That's an excuse. Do you want to be rich, or not?

> Do you want to be rich, or not?

No. I'm a Christian and humanist you insensitive clod :)

Really and sincerely I do not.

If there's one philosophy I could share - that's given me a truly awesome life filled with gratitude, meaning, mostly decent health, intimate human relationships and personal agency it would be look for the riches you already have.

Much simpler to compare billionaires to hoarders/morbidly obese.

I'm sure you personally get more happiness by not doing (too much) more than necessary, but as a "Christian and humanist", aren't you asked to do more?

You can replace "being rich" with "helping others", it still applies: you can trade comfort, sanity and health for more output, whether that's money in your account or helping those in need.

The question is rather:

MUST You be rich, or not.

Rich people start their own companies, if you work long hours and do that then I guess it might be worth it.

It’s unlikely you’ll get rich grinding tasks for someone else.

Nobody gets rich by doing a lot of work.

You get rich by taking the value generated by other people's work.

If you aren't born rich, breaking out of the working class, even the top tier of it, requires significant effort and enormous luck. It's usually time and effort wasted in pursuit of something no one should want. However, if you dream of sitting atop the pyramid but you weren't born there, you better get on that grind.

I agree with what you're saying but as you said "evidence based", did you mean research-based evidence or anecdotal evidence? If you meant research-based evidence, can you provide it?

Completely in agrement with you.

We are fundamentaly biurnal, you wake up, (in whatever state you prefer), and then do your thing with a limited (daily provided) resources that are awailable to you.

Repeat.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2278827/

People are biurnal? No, people are diurnal. People who try to be nocturnal or biurnal are fooling themselves and screwing up their lives and probably negatively affecting the lives of those around them.

Yes, thank You.

I made a spelling error. Biurnal is not nocturnal. I am not promoting that kind of lifestile. (have done it myself, mind you)

There's more than a great deal of evidence and different rhythms to the contrary for your blanket statement to be in any way certain. Many people live long, very productive and healthy lives not being diurnal to great effect, even if most are diurnal.

I like the idea and sentiment of your comment. but it doesn’t line up with my experience. Sometimes I stay up really late, I make a sacrifice and I get a lot done.

"Sometimes" is vague. Is this: every day, every other day, once a week, or once a month?

The latter two sound reasonable. The former two sound like a recipe for a breakdown sooner or later.

It’s when the pressure is on and I make a choice to stop faffing around and deliver

"Sometimes it's better to stay in bed on monday rather than spend the rest of the week debugging monday's code"

- some computer bod I can't remember

Working productively all night is a skill.

Just like avoiding meetings.

Just like achieving flow state.

The all-nighter that results from not-wanting to stop the creative process is not the all-nighter of the deadline death march.

Deltas between effort and outcome aren't negative in the flow-state. The are positive and non-linear..that's what flow-state is.

And the hard part is that grinding out metaphorical-all-nighters might be the best way to practice achieving and maintaining flow-state. At least to the degree learning to achieve flow state directly correlates to butt-in-the-seat time.

Which it does.

The parent is clearly talking about death marches, not enjoying flow state.

The comment frames itself as data.

Another problem is contempt for "walking deads". I used to work 70 hours on average per week. Did so for 3 years. I received contempt for that "lack of productivity" I was showing by working all those long hours, because my colleagues had no way of evaluating my productivity if not by some kind of self-reassuring comparison to themselves. The same thing happened with respect to code Simplicity, another fetish to put on the list. In the end, although I decided nothing, I was in charge of all the shit they had not to deal with, so of course what needs to be done and how it should be done can be easily shrinked down. Because that's what matters to the workers. The wage being fixed with respect to how much is produced the only way they can optimize is by working less and this is what's hidden behind the logos of productivity coming out of the worker's mouth. Productivity means "productivity of the wage". Ditto for simplicity. Simplicity means "ease".

In fact my colleagues were pissed by the amount of code I was outputting and by its "sophistication". One weekend I decided to do a marathon and reimplement what I was on working on. I did in that weekend what we did in 3 months for 30 times less locs. I was also made aware of secrets negotiation of some of my colleagues to raise their wage, rendered jealous by the new, super-lazy, super-paid new hire. So I left. 3 months later, I received a call from my pair-buddy, the other backend pillar in the company. He decided to left. They found replacements, but I learnt what was planned to be done in 2 weeks by the two of us took 6 months. So what did managment do ? They distributed overtime work to everybody, including the 2 frontend lead devs that did not work on Friday. They left after 6 months too. That's when I received a call from HR, offering to come back at the condition that I behave (not kidding you). Well that guy got fired eventually and replaced by a pawn from the holding company. His CFO loyal friend followed him.

I've personally spent too many long hours up through the night in flow state without realizing how much time had passed until I could finally recognize the fatigue. The difference between pervasive engagement in an enjoyable hobby and a "death march" isn't as cut and dry as I used to believe.

It has served as a warning to me to never take the advice of "so long as you're happy you'll be fine" literally. Now I can't stay up past midnight without waking up fatigued for hours in the morning.

I was having so much fun and feeling a sense of personal fulfillment that I don't think anything short of a physical intervention would have stopped me. Words like those in the OP's post simply glanced off my consciousness for years, as I had believed I had found a decent activity to be interested in. Some consequences can only be appreciated by experiencing them in reality, and no amount of words can effect change on some personality types.

Good words. A lot of truth. Actually I was on a self-imposed death march, trying to achieve something my creative self couldn't deliver to my vain ego. You can be your own worst boss sometimes. Agree that all-nighters in a natural flow-sate are some of the best experiences.

> probably based in the emotional drives of fear or pride

More likely guilt, due to social expectations around productivity. Many senior developers experience impostor syndrome.

The amount of posts around productivity hacks and tricks on HN is telling.

> Working harder and longer produces more productivity, right?

Right. But I'd take it a step further and add...productive is not effective.

> Working harder and longer produces more productivity, right? > That's false.

Indeed it is, but don't mix up productivity and product (how ever you measure it). Productivity is like speed. Product is like distance travelled. Of course a sprinter will go faster, a marathonian however will go further. Now let's try to take a purely business-oriented view on the matter. Product doesn't matter per se, only the income it can bring does, and it varies according to productivity. Just hire more people and make them work less ? Of course this never really happens as you will hit the Mythical Month-Man wall very fast.

hehe yea, nothing makes you learn to rest better than seeing the 'progress' you made when coding in the negative productivity zone

I have alarm bells to realize that I've worked myself to unproductivity:

- Am I tempted to erase types? - Am I tempted to disable unit tests? - Am I tempted to go for technical debt?

Then yes, I have to take a long walk, read a book, or do some manual work until I feel refreshed and wide perspective returns.

I agree with everything except the example. Driving is probably one of the most linear progressions you could have used as an example, assuming we're going point A to point B.

Am I a super genius?

I've heard people say this for years and have never experienced it, and I've done plenty of development while tired.

Certainly the next day, with a clearer head, I can see the mistakes I couldn't before, but I've never been so off-the-rails-wrong that I literally just trashed it all and started over.

I would be interested in a poll to see if this is a common thing for people. Do I have a super power in being able to work reasonably well in less than perfect circumstances?

I've had to delete big chunks of code I wrote. Not because of burnout or exhaustion, but of sickness.

When I had a cold, but was good enough to sit up and type, I assumed I was good enough to work.

Nope. I've learned to monitor my health and energy levels better, and I stop when I know my productivity will be low (or negative)

I don't think most people that are like this rationalize it like this and make a conscious decision to act that way. It's more of a psychological compulsive thing, reinforced by becoming a habbit.

> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation, I notice fewer jokes, fewer attempts on my part to make people laugh. My memory goes to all hell too and I can’t seem to concentrate on prolonged amounts of anything. Books fall off my radar, I stop listening to music. My phone is in my hand at all times, scrolly-anxiety-inducing apps become impossible to avoid.

This describes me perfectly. Unfortunately I can’t take a break because it’s entirely due to being the parent of young children.

I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position.

I refer to it as the best kept secret of parenthood. No one tells you this until you are in it.

They do try. But it’s impossible to communicate and understand completely. It can only be experienced!

Same goes for the upsides.

>I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position.

I have to disagree and I'm a father. I think it's exactly like in the book "the happiness advantage", some people will see the positive and use it as possibility to grow and to get more productive.

On the other hand, People who focus on the negative and didn't learn to cope with stress will have problems in every high stress environment no matter the circumstances.

no matter the crap life throws at them some people simply march forward and this is the mindset you need - and not a break, which will only get you right back where you were.

Also a father, and I don't see it as a case of positives and negatives, rather how much energy you're putting into it.

There are many methods of minimizing the effort you're putting in and you can make it relatively easy, but like with everything it's a tradeoff.

Food is one major point. You can introduce a baby to solids early on and practice the BLW method, or you could just spoon feed them with ready-to-eat baby products - there's an order of magnitude difference in effort between those two approaches.

One thing I learned from this experience is that it's beyond the capabilities of a normal human couple to apply all the fancy, high-effort parenting methods - you'd need at least two grandparents cover just the more popular ones.

Absolutely this. You need to make sure they're clean, fed, safe (physically and emotionally), and are able to play (learn). Beyond that, choosing to parent on hard mode just gives you more stress for no benefit.

Looking back I see some benefit to doing extra - for example my toddler had no issue with weaning or adapting to daycare, which I heard is usually a problem.

We didn't implement independent sleeping and getting rid of the pacifier though(so far).

I believe that ultimately people usually try to do their best and there's no sense in beating yourself up about it or worse - someone else.

Yeah for sure try stuff out. But if it turns out to be hard, be willing to stop without feeling bad about it.

If you grow along with your kid everyone benefits. For me this is the greatest gift life has offered me.

Good luck “looking on the bright side” when you’ve had less than four hours sleep every night for the past week.

Some kids are just angels and sleep like champs, others fight every inch of the way and wake up constantly. As a result, different parents come up with wildly different “truths of parenting”.

This is true but also dependent on your "other circumstances". The US is decidedly a bad place to be a parent from what I can tell. Parental leave, even when graciously granted by the company is short and frowned upon nevertheless (generalizing here of course but this seems to be the overall majority of cases).

Taking a few months of parental leave right at the beginning was such a big help. All of the above becomes so much easier when you simply do not have to worry about work. Baby is not sleeping from 2a.m. to 5a.m. every night? Or only sleeps when having body contact, such as sleeping on your chest? So what! Stay up, do some chores, play some computer games or watch a movie w/ baby on your chest (yes there's ways where you do not have to worry about baby falling off and you have both hands available, so you definitely can get lots of computer gaming done in that time ;)). Go to bed at 5a.m. knowing you don't have to get up to get to work and be expected to have a fresh mind. You just fall asleep, exhausted and wake up for lunch time and it's fine! It just totally takes the extra stress out of that time (of course you're still gonna be tired from having your sleep rhythms effed up and such and sometimes baby just doesn't want to sleep at all, no matter what you do etc.) and I believe that can make for better parenting overall. Back in the day some of that would've been taken care of by living w/ your parents or in-laws.

Go to bed at 5a.m. knowing you don't have to get up to get to work and be expected to have a fresh mind. You just fall asleep, exhausted and wake up for lunch time and it's fine!

Baby wakes up at 6:30am like clockwork. Your move, parent.

Not to be a stick in the mud. You’re of course right that having additional responsibilities further increases the stress & difficulty.

Which in the case I described is not a big issue and basically entirely my point. 1.5 hours of sleep. Usually a killer. In the above mentioned situation it will still not be great, you'll be tired, groggy, irritable. But you won't snap at your PM for the 10th time in a row during standup and be cited to the boss' office or a formal warning or something.

As in I'm talking proper parental leave, meaning both parents can take 3-6 months off at the beginning, no questions asked, everyone is OK with it and it's totally normal. And you still get a reasonable amount of salary - in our case here in Canada from the parental leave part of E.I. meaning government guaranteed. Of course if I look at SV salaries, the maximums you can get under that program are laughable but here where we are it was totally workable at the time in our lives when we had kids.

Contrast that to what I hear about SV companies (I won't cite company names as that will draw the ire of the down voters here on HN, but I have inside knowledge i.e. new dads in such companies) where even if officially it's possible, nobody really does it. Sort of like "unlimited vacation", which sounds like it's better than the 30 days you get as a dev in most European countries but that in reality just ensures that nobody wants to be "the guy" that takes the most vacation and you still don't get more than you used to. If you were one of the "lucky ones" that had more than the minimum, you're now probably taking less time off than before.

> living w/ your parents or in-laws.

This does not help if your parents are working, which they usually are.

I am fully aware of that and that is why I wrote it the way I did. As in, you are quoting just one part, leaving out the most important part of that sentence:

     Back in the day some of that

This implies a time at which at least the mother (in-law) was probably a stay at home mom. Please take note of the word probably. Yes there are and always were exceptions. It's about likelihoods and how societal norms and such have shifted over time. In fact we should probably add "and/or grand parents". And while at it also making extra sure this isn't mis-understood as an absolute or a "current situation" statement: "or living very close by" vs. today where you're more likely to live further apart.

Some people have an easy time raising kids and some have a much harder time. There are a lot of reasons for this. Different kids, different parents, health issues.

The stress of a genuinely difficult parenting situation doesn't just go away with some superficial pop psych like focusing on the positive. That's such an astonishing claim, it's like telling a drowning person to use positive thinking to solve their problems.

Even a couple hours of a quality break helps. Especially if it’s regular. Not just when things are already out of control. My wife and I will be forever grateful to my mom for providing few hours break weekly-ish.

I wish I'd understood the degree to which small children destroy you. The amount of focus time you get falls by 90%+, you sleep horribly every night without fail, and you spend every quiet moment waiting for one of them to start screaming because they found some new and ingenious way to hurt themself.

Maybe a lot of that was having a 1-3 and 3-5 year old wfh during covid, but I feel like I'm broken ever since.

Nah my kids broke me before Covid. Covid just made it harder. Obviously ymmv but your kids breaking you happens without it without a pandemic.

I think the big question is once broken, and the kids finally start not completely breaking you every week... can you rebuild with the pieces left :)

We'll see! I have 10+ years to go before I'll find out for sure.

Anecdotal comment inbound, but you sound like you could benefit from a bit of hope: it really should get better, and soon. I have kids similarly distanced in age, the years you mentioned were the hardest so far and by far, even without a pandemic in the mix. That said, after they both were above age ~7 and able exist with a small bit of independence, things became easier. Like, an order of magnitude easier on my subjective and invented scale. Sleep improved, activities became fun again... in fact, I'm a bit sad when I can't convince one or the other to join me to do even simple things like picking up groceries.

Hang in there. Good luck.

Thanks. I'm not as miserable as I make it sounds but the life I had before is 100% gone and dead. I enjoy much of my days and adore my children but I do spend a lot of time realizing there's a lot of things I want to do that just won't happen. I also notice that every time a colleague talks about "working on something over the weekend" or learning more stuff after work I fall further behind professionally.

Honestly? They are doing something “productive” over the weekend but may be burning themselves out or won’t experience the good parts of parenting that weekend.

Don’t mean to put down those who don’t have kids - like myself - but I’m sure the grass seems greener elsewhere, especially when you’re tired.

Before I had kids, whenever I was tired at work, someone would say "you think that's bad? Wait til you have kids." I would roll my eyes and assume it was either hyperbole or that it was a mildly more intense version of what I felt. Of course, you know that I was wrong, and after 96 hours with a newborn I knew I was wrong too.

I compare the exhaustion you feel from parenting tothe effects of psychedelic drugs. It's pervasive, life altering, and impossible to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it.

My one year old is relatively easy compared to other kids. She’s generally not fussy unless teething, very happy and playful, can play by herself well (if necessary), etc.

My wife was out of town for a week and I had to single parent… even an insanely “easy” baby is so exhausting. I have mad respect for single parents.

I basically had to give up work during the day until she went down for naps and for the night - which meant my sleep was awful because I’d work at least until midnight each night just to catch up.

Parenting is surprisingly hard (wouldn’t trade it for anything, though).

Yeah, same, minus the phone bit. I absolutely hate the fucking thing. I keep it around because I need an app for communication with my twins preschool and it's undeniably a better point and shoot camera than most actual point and shoot cameras.

We have 3 kids, 3 years and under. I'm honestly more regimented in my personal life today than I was when I was active duty military. Things in (all of) our lives fall apart if I fall behind or start to slip. So I've become a sort of machine. I honestly think it's just a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that I've had to abandon entire categories of my self identity. I have 2, maybe 3 hobbies today. I get between 30 and 60 minutes of actual free time a day, but I like / want to spend time with my wife. I can't find time to maintain any relationships outside of my immediate family. I can't even really be more than 30 minutes from the house at any given moment, because my wife is still in recovery from the birth of our last child.

It's just very, very hard. We have little help, and most of the help we get is neither reliable nor consistent. My parents are visiting right now, from very far away, and this morning is the first real break that I have had in over a year. I stepped away 45 minutes ago and was able to get some much-needed cleaning done in the office. I plan to give my wife a break when her and our 1 year old wake up from their nap. That'll be the first time I've been able to do that on a weekend in longer than I can remember.

As a father of 3 (oldest at 4.5), I feel you. I have said, half jokingly, that the army was best practice I've had for being in this stage of life.

I don't really have anything to add except that I'm grateful you brought this up because reading your comment and its replies was a nice reminder that we're not alone. One day our young kids will grow up and be more independent, which is bittersweet, but 100% necessary if I'm to have any life. Hang in there, parents.

On top of taking regular breaks, I think we should also work slower. Burnout is a scary place to be in. While the news calls it “quiet quitting”, I think many people are simply burnt out from the last few years of world conditions and add on the rubber band effect of everything going back to “normal”. It’s just too much change in a short amount of time.

I wrote a book about this topic when I was in a state of burnout. I had enough of the many different aspects of the world (overwork, the news, social media, etc) that I believe led to stress based illness.

I don’t feel bad for taking time off anymore. You got to put yourself first sometimes to be able to show up for others.

I work with a project manager who is obsessed with deadlines. "Hey do you have an update? When do you think it will be done? Hey, the deadline is really close!" They maintain a complicated Gantt chart. What happens when we miss the deadline? Nothing really, our updates aren't on a fixed timeline, and our users are very happy with our product today. Everything is artificial.

This is simply management theater: estimations done with wishful thinking rather than analysis, deadlines serving no other purpose than pestering people to impose a pecking order.

I wonder whether you've ever asked the PM what happens when a deadline is missed? It may be he or she is shielding you from consequences and impacts you're unaware of, hence the anxiety. I had a PM act this way during on one of the projects in my department for awhile and they were a mess. Finally I requested they let the team absorb the impact instead of the PM handling everything. While fortunately is was recoverable, it was definitely a learning experience for the team.

As an IC I don’t want to absorb that. It’s really not in my JD. I don’t go to my “higher ups” to absorb some tasks from me and get down and dirty, and I expect them to also not involve me in their orchestration. Ultimately they should manage the situation for the money thay they receive.

When in the position to manage, it’s my responsability to create a controllable pipeline for task delivery and not bother the devs with office politics while providing them with a reasonable segmented work and enough autonomy to accomplish their best work.

This jumping to help, that I also used to partake in until I got burnt too many times, at the end of the day is one of the reasons for why, as a profession we get so much money but so little respect.

> It’s really not in my JD.

I've noodled on your response overnight. Here are my thoughts:

[1] Working within a team to deliver on time, or effectively communicating when that delivery is behind, is part of a good team working agreement. For that reason, I would expect it is part of most job descriptions implicitly and often explicitly.

[2] Managers, be they personnel, project, or product, absorb things from individual contributors quite often. An example of this is when re-prioritization needs to occur because another team member is unable to complete tasks for any number of reasons.

A delivery failure isn't office politics. Do you feel that it is? I could see if a manager were setting arbitrary deadlines without consensus with the team as being a meaningless nihilist exercise (i.e. office politics and their ilk). But where consensus was discussed, the failure to deliver then lives with the team.

> I've noodled on your response overnight

That's a high bar in today's social media climate; I'm afraid I'm responding without noodling on it.

> [1] Working within a team to deliver on time, or effectively communicating when that delivery is behind, is part of a good team working agreement. For that reason, I would expect it is part of most job descriptions implicitly and often explicitly.

I agree 100% with this. A good IC will keep the manager in the loop with the current state of progress and potential roadblocks. While I don't think 'communication' is solid enough to use in a job description, I believe it's crucial in a well-oiled team.

> [2] Managers, be they personnel, project, or product, absorb things from individual contributors quite often. An example of this is when re-prioritization needs to occur because another team member is unable to complete tasks for any number of reasons.

I feel this is similar to [1], IC -> Manager pipeline. I wholeheartedly agree that they should absorb as much information as possible and manage the project so that the theoretical matches the practical.

> A delivery failure isn't office politics. Do you feel that it is?

Sometimes? Many times? Delivery failures can be as arbitrary as an asteroid impact clearing out the team, office politics, bad planning, stupid ideas, bad teams, etc.

> I could see if a manager were setting arbitrary deadlines without consensus with the team as being a meaningless nihilist exercise (i.e., office politics and their ilk).

This also depends on what is delivered. Are we talking about founding engineers at an early-stage startup? Mid-level engineers at a company with thousands of them? In most companies, I'd be laughed out of the room if, after the business made the planning, features, and roadmap, I'd object with some personal and documented belief about the product.

> But where consensus was discussed, the failure to deliver then lives with the team.

I don't see any part in GP's * comment that makes me think of consensus. Nor communication. Nor re-prioritization. I feel this consensus is an escape hatch so that people in a position to fail end up protected. If I don't deliver, it's visible pretty fast, and I get pulled in for discussions regarding my failure mode. When the project manager fails, it's a team failure by consensus.

Ultimately, leadership is leadership for a reason. Management is the management for a reason. In the case of a failed invasion, would you blame the soldiers or the generals? I can see how one might blame the soldiers, but I'm not sure that will win you the following battles.

* > I work with a project manager who is obsessed with deadlines. "Hey do you have an update? When do you think it will be done? Hey, the deadline is really close!" They maintain a complicated Gantt chart. What happens when we miss the deadline? Nothing really, our updates aren't on a fixed timeline, and our users are very happy with our product today. Everything is artificial.

Sounds like they have anxiety because the project is beyond their control so to cope they micromanage.

We get the not enough “velocity” or not enough “productivity” talk from time to time. And it’s also defined against arbitrary deadlines with no consequences if missed. Ultimately, as a team, we end up producing lower quality code at higher burnout rates. We have a very high turnover rate and the solution proposed is always more “velocity” and / or “productivity”, whatever that means.

There will always be something and if you’re known for getting work done fast then.. you’re rewarded with more work.

"Quiet quitting" is dumbest fucking buzzword I've ever heard -- it's just "doing what you're hired to do," i.e. the exact opposite of quitting. Our society is entirely too obsessed with conjuring new and novel terms for things that don't need them.

As a developer and a parent with young kids, it is nearly laughable at the amount of stress one deals with everyday.

Wake up at 5:30, get all things ready for kids, wake up kids, get their breakfast ready, check my (work phone - who decided work phones are a good idea).

Take kids to school, get back to work, meetings and more meetings ( countless meetings are a waste of time but they still have them)

Time for lunch, hell no time, skip lunch, I got to finish implementing this thought. Chat pops up, someone is asking for help, stop what you doing, help them, back at your thought, what thought???

Ah time to pick up kids, rush to school, look left and right for cops while you going fast. Pick the kids, go home, work with the kids homework (I am going through elementary again and again and again ….)

Time for dinner, cook dinner, kids need to get ready for sleep and finally I can get back to my unfinished thought.

Oh man, it’s late, I need to get to bed, to get ready for tomorrow.

Being single and having that level of anxiety and stress, multiply that times 10 with kids. That gives you an idea what life as a developer with little children is.

It is called the “hamster wheel syndrome”. You think you are getting where you want to get, just to find out that you are stuck in the same place where you started but a hell a lot of more stress and anxiety.

1- taking breaks is important, but can’t seem to take them

2- we don’t do it enough as we don’t feel as we have time

3- life is moving to fast (stupid Covid) to stop and do things that matter in life (family and friends)

4- If we are not here one day, I promise no one from work will miss you past one week. Family and real friends will remember you forever.

Life is short, cherish it. (Coming from a guy that never stops working)

I've come to think that breaks are actually a necessity, just like sleep. Yes, you can compromise for a while but it will catch up to you. With young children you're basically trying to outlast the sleep deprivation but it cannot go on indefinitely (fortunately children grow up). I know it's easy to say, but I truly believe the vast majority of people require a breaks or will inevitably suffer extremely negative consequences.

Not that that will reduce your anxiety but if burnout hits you it's genuinely devastating.

Are you me? This is precisely what my life feels like. Honestly, one kid was actually manageable; two sort of hit the breaking point (it didn’t help that my work went to hell at the same time), but then we had twins and life now feels basically untenable with both of us working.

I love my kids profoundly, and I think in the long run I will be happier than if I’d not had them and focused on work instead (work tends not to care about you after you leave. Maybe if you’re Steve Jobs or something). But in the moment, life is pretty stressful.

> Honestly, one kid was actually manageable; two sort of hit the breaking point (it didn’t help that my work went to hell at the same time), but then we had twins and life now feels basically untenable with both of us working.

We have 3 kids, 3 years and under. Our twins are 3 and we have a 1 year old. I'm a Staff Software Engineer and my wife is a Senior Software Engineer II.

I feel like I'm perpetually treading water. There is a tug of war happening between my personal life and my professional life and it's frankly obscene. The professional life will lose if push comes to shove, and that will actively damage my employer, but my management team doesn't seem to give a shit.

I've become very Peter from Office Space about it all: I just don't care. When I feel my work-anxiety levels rising, I let it all out with a heavy sigh and stop caring. Work is work. I get my work done, but I prioritize higher quality and bug-free as much as possible. If work doesn't like this (and they don't, they really just want me to blast through my tasks -- despite the fact that some of them are extremely ambiguous at my level, things like digging through code no one has touched in 8 years to sort out performance problems; "So, you'll have that done by Thursday, right?") then that's their problem to deal with.

how the hell do you manage to survive that, being a dev and being a parent is separately challeging good lord.

I have a solution for you: be less productive. Seriously. Ramp down slowly so no one noticed, but just stop caring how much you get done. It doesn't matter. Or at least it doesn't matter nearly as much as you or your kids.

Work life balance is a hot topic. Personally, I think it is healthier to balance daily instead of yearly. I walk 1-2h/day, work maximum 8 hours a day, but havnen't had a 'vacation' in ages. I sort of tried taking 2 weeks to sit on a beach and it really didn't work for me. Just broke my routines and made me stressed.

Friends and family tell me I am stupid but I feel pretty happy. By taking a vacation every day instead of every year, I do not 'work in order to live'.

Though on the contrary, it is still nice to disconnect from the internet for 72h sometimes and I should probably do that more often.

I’m similar, except I do take vacations :). I work hard but spread it all out. Sometimes only work 4-6 hr a day Sometimes take 2 hour lunch break. But Sometimes take break from 4-7pm then work to midnight. Sometimes work on the weekend. (All at my own choosing, not because of on-call or anything.)

I have definitely been there. Once you get too tired your brain doesn't work well enough to tell you you need breaks. Your brain after a break (e.g. a week's holiday) just feels completely different.

What I do now is this: My first task after coming back from a break is to book a week's vacation ten weeks from that time. I work ten weeks, and take a week's break, that's my rule.

Even though it will be difficult to imagine I'll need a break after I've just come back from one.

Book it on the company's vacation planning tool if I'm employed, or on my calendar (and inform my customers) if I'm self-employed.

I don't worry about where to go, or what to do during it, or try to find the best time to go based on events I might be invited to (which I might not know yet), or which projects I'll be working on and when the best time for a break would be to fit in with them. A break isn't about any of that.

30 years in the workforce

2 years starting a new startup

5 years after it was acquired

Total burnout...

I resigned and am 10 months into a break, it's the best thing I've ever done!

Twenty years, two months into the second burn out on top of long term depression.

I'm going bankrupt for a second time because I can't work 100% anymore.

I'm yet to find a psychiatrist. Wish I could have a break sometimes.

Sometimes radical changes are necessary.

A good doc can help a lot, take care of yourself

10 years in. I started to have panic attacks last year. Took a a few 2 weeks vacations. They help only temporarily. Now i'm out of vacations, trapped in a foreign country without usual citizen rights to take a many-months break from work and without an option to return home(because of war). Feel trapped without any light ahead.

This is an ancient proverb and a cliche, yet sometimes it helps me to remember it: The night is always darkest before the dawn.

Try megadosing B1 (2000mg), B2 (1000mg+) and take NAD+ boosters like Niagen (300mg) for a month - a few of my friends/colleagues recovered from burnout/panic attacks with these. Your body needs NAD+ and B1 for energy, your brain needs FAD+ and B1 for energy (FAD+ comes from B2). You might be just low on basic energy elements and replenishing those might help you quickly. In general, it's a good idea to add multivitamin/multimineral as well and for B1 a bit of glucose as well (sugar/sweets).

Thanks! I will read on these things first.

You mentioned glucose -- actually i feel much less anxious right after i eat something sweet.

Magnesium supplements might be helpful, too. They helped me be calmer and to think more clearly again in a bad time in my life.

Also, I forgot to mention avoid sun exposure when taking B2 as it reacts with sunlight producing toxic substances in the skin. Winter seems ideal for taking it.

Iron is also helping tired people but nobody knows why, so you might try that as well (for a short time period).

This are very strong claims. Got any reliable research papers to share?

You don't have any savings after 20 years of working? What happened?

Many, many empty promises.

Not the person you're replying to, but I can relate to them. I've been working more than 20 years and currently have negative net worth. Shitty clothes, no car, no home, almost no pension, child on the way and I don't even know where we're going to live.

Being entrepreneurial and bootstrap-minded with big, bold visions can go poorly.

Doubly so when unexpected caring responsibilities appear in your life. Grief when you lose someone you love dearly, takes it out of you too. Add some clients who never paid. Volunteering on big projects to make a better world as well as help my own plans, only to find it being an infinite time sink. During the height of pandemic issues in 2020, I completely ran out of cash, hit the limit of my already credit-limit-hacked credit cards, and couldn't afford rent or food for a while. A rent deferral from the landlord, which I still had to pay back, helped, as did community food providers during lockdown.

If you worked with me, you'd probably consider me a highly skilled programmer among other things. I have a reasonably impressive résumé. It's not that I can't earn well, indeed I received a $350k plus equity offer a few months ago, which sadly was retracted on the day I was due to start due to the company's business changing direction. 1 year at that job would have set me up for years. Ah well.

And yet, homelessness isn't far away if I don't get another job soon. I haven't overspent either, I have next to nothing in the form of material wealth, and haven't been on a proper vacation in over a decade.

I'm always a bit irked when I see here on HN people suggesting that it's impossible to end up poor if you're a skilled developer. Shit happens, despite the potential for earning well.

> I'm always a bit irked when I see here on HN people suggesting that it's impossible to end up poor if you're a skilled developer. Shit happens, despite the potential for earning well.

It's pretty hard to end up poor as skilled developer, unless you spend many years chasing entreprenual ideas or otherwise engage in activities that don't guarantee income. But, if you just do paid work and are responsible with your money (assuming you live in a developed country), it's impossible to be broke after 20 years of working without a huge amount a bad luck.

Good to hear you are back on track. I can relate.

Hard workers will always think “But I can’t stop now!” , “Everything will go to shit if I stop working.” , and these kinds of thoughts like there is some force that keeps you from taking breaks. The only who is keeping you, is often yourself. Start learning to say no to bosses and your own magnum opus project and stand up for some basic stuff like recharging in good order.

Get your weekends in, get social / offline again, tune into the analog is my motto these days.

What do you do on a typical day?

First it was tons of sleeping and resting, too many computer games.

Then it was cleaning up stuff around the house and yard that I didn't have time to do.

Now it's getting back into woodworking and making things.

I missed the smell of freshly cut wood :)

10 months without work? I mean this as a sincere question but…how do you afford to live?

They said that they worked for 30 years and subsequently successfully sold a startup. In many cases, that will be enough to live off one's savings for at least a few years.

I firmly believe that people should take at least one day of the week to not work at all. My code is very buggy and sloppy when I'm completely exhausted, even my grammar and ability to organize ideas falls apart.

For many people it's traditionally Sunday or Saturday, but even if you don't observe a day of rest religiously, it is still very practical. If you are involved with intellectual work like coding, switching your brain to just relax and enjoy life at least one day a week will refresh your focus and drive.

Alan Perlis said to understand a program you must become both the machine and the program, and he also admits that programming is an unnatural act. Programming is essentially forcing your mind to think like a machine, and you can't do this all the time or it will burn you out.

Don't neglect your mental wellbeing, take care of yourself! If you want to be productive, this will help you in the long run. The servers will keep running if you take a bit of time off, people aren't built for 24/7 uptime.

Having a real weekend shouldn't be a novel idea.. I assume most people in our industry have that? I know it would be a luxury for some, but I couldn't live without it.

I agree, but with programmers in particular it's seen as a badge of honor and sometimes even as an expectation from employers to just "eat, sleep, and code" all the time. We have things like "the crunch" or hackathons, but the dark side to it is the lack of labor laws surrounding computer work.

In fact, computer programmers have special exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...

The FLSA guarantees minimum wage and 1.5x overtime pay for workers in the USA. In other words, if you are a computer programmer in the US, your employer can legally work you overtime/weekends without 1.5x pay like other workers.

Of course, the US also has the highest-paying programming jobs, and it has the most software developers by a very wide margin as America invented software engineering. This unique position in the labor market has caused the rights of computer programmers in the workplace to be largely overlooked.

Heck I can’t even go a full day without taking breaks every hour or two so I can move around. I am built for action, not to be sedentary like some others. So I have to find a balance - water breaks, bathroom, vape outside, go to the chiro during office hours, etc.

It really works for me. Letting my brain organize things to come or solve things in process isn’t always an active thing. I let the runtime process operate in the background while I enjoy the outdoors. Not everybody has this fortunate tool, but since I do, I use it extensively.

What really really sucks is when you're so burnt out that taking breaks doesn't even begin to help. At some point you either need a multi month long break to actually begin to recover, OR you need to address the issues at work itself so that a regular break actually works.

Hey, this is me.

This is extremely privileged advice, but the only thing I managed to do to help was to have a second place to go to where I didn't work - in my case a little cabin in the woods. Going there on the weekend forces me to take breaks. If I'm at home I'm working. It doesn't help that I'm a solo founder. Work is very rewarding but it can also be all consuming. And there my piano sits untouched.

I wish employers would see that their employees need to take a break, especially in this type of work where a lot of us really enjoy creating things... At my previous job I didn't even dare asking for vacation

Sometimes I don't think it's ignorance, it's willful strategy. I pay you to do X and don't care, so do X. If you burn out in the process I again don't care, I'll just replace you after because the timeliness is more important in this context.

It's like being in a race and knowing you're going to blow out a tire or something. It's a calculated risk you don't care too much about. I wish employers just treated people like humans, really, and not parts to abuse and replace.

The system has gone off the rails with never ending goals of productivity at all costs.

It's funny isn't it. Recently in a job with "unlimited" vacation, because of a dubious message from one of my two bosses who was a bit of a dick, I was too scared to take a real vacation. Until Christmas. Then I decided I was going to take some. It had been a rough year, isolating from Covid, not enough money, and living in shitty circumstances. It was the first PTO I'd had in over a decade, as working as a freelancer/consultant often means no PTO, so I decided to savor it, come what may.

I took just under 3 weeks, like almost everyone else: there was a shared vacation calendar where I could see everyone else's Christmas break.

My reward when I got back? Low performance metrics "in December" were cited when laying me off. It wasn't just about December, but December was the month they decided to measure and "give me a chance". They didn't take into account the break, and the only way their "assessment" could be satisfied would have been to work through Christmas.

I then worked my ass off to ship a technically difficult, world-record-beating feature during my notice month, which they told me if I delivered it would surely be impressive, and turn it around. I did ship it, but not until the very end of the notice period, which was too late. If they had cared, they would have seen it was on track.

If they had kept me on, let me relax, and worked with me rather than their choice of how to assess work, they would now have a world-beating product. It's their choice of course, and I now don't think they were serious about trying to build a real product. I think it's a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors scheme to keep grant money flowing in. After all, in about 4 years nobody has ever run the product on the real data it is designed for, except me, and I had to pay for servers from my own pocket to run those tests. Even now, I believe I'm the only person ever to run it, or even be able to run it.

It's been interesting to watch how the product has stayed in the doldrums since I left, and how the folks working on it are now starting to implement things for which I have had working, high-performance functionality for months in my private fork since leaving. (It's open source.) It will be particularly interesting to see if their version is ever able to run on the real world data it was created for, or if their perpetual optimism will be forever misplaced.

Ironically, I'd say the company had the nicest, most helpful HR, legal and accounting teams I've ever seen at any company. There was a lot to like, and I'm sad to have had to leave. But I don't miss feeling constantly afraid there.

And, as a person who really enjoys creating things, I don't miss watching another team member shipping garbage commits that usually didn't work, and doing fine, while I was the only person on the project providing real functionality but not scoring well on the right metrics, because I spent too much time solving the product's blocker problems. To score well I'd have to ship garbage too. Oh well.

Fuck that company.

This is why we have force vacations in Norway where it's the employers duty to ensure the employees take out their 5 weeks of vacation. No one gets reprimanded for taking vacation, since everyone has to take vacation.

In Sweden, knowing from friends who relocated here, the terms of the work visa in sweden include that one has to take the alotted vacation. Not taking vacation is grounds for not having visa renewed, to avoid exploitation.

A friend of mine went on a vacation approved by execs and when he returned they told him his metrics in the past few weeks were zero (no wonder) and he was placed on a 2-week termination notice right away. Something went badly wrong in our industry.

They deserved to lose you, so it's a tragedy for them but should not be for you.

Take a nap too. How have I only learned to nap in the past year (I’ve been an adult for a while)?

I used to feel brain fog and “procrastinate” constantly. I was tired.

Wow, he is exactly like me.

There is so much sense in the traditional (in various forms in various cultures, but always there) yearly cycle of holidays, periods between holidays, periods of waiting for holidays, and we suffer from having largely disconnected from it.

> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation

This has been me for the past few months at FAANG. Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine?

We had meeting after meeting about how to work better together. I think we both knew I needed a break and I’m taking one. But I would never expect a boss to tell you to not show up to work. Even though they won’t think twice before asking you to work late or the weekend.

How do you handle such situations?

> Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine?

This usually comes back to bite you during PIP, layoff and promo decision.

> How do you handle such situations?

These are all signs of burn out.

I think we've conflated hard work with results. Hard work is a symptom that we're doing something incorrectly. Either it's too challenging for us, or we're doing it the wrong way.

There seems to be too much value on hard work, and not enough on efficient progress, breaking things down into challenges that we're capable of achieving.

Hard work is never accomplished, it's only once we break them down into achievable tasks that we're ever able to tackle something initially deemed as hard.

It is more difficult to build the habits that’d allow for a smoother, less peak and valley ridden life, so we succumb to cycles of burnout and super charged recovery.

> less peak and valley ridden life

"Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height."

The most trivial but clear evidence of the power of breaks for me is a really tough crossword clue. I’ll be wracking my brain trying to get the answer and come up with nothing. Eventually I’ll give up and do something else, and when I pick it back up a few hours later, the answer immediately comes to me and I can’t believe I couldn’t get it before.

Super productive people usually only work a few hours a day. The rest of the time they think about how to solve the problems more efficiently with more automation and less work.

Doing the thinking part properly can make the difference between a project that takes 3 years and one that takes a few months.

Since having my first child, I've found that I have more time to think and less time to do, and it's definitely made me feel more productive (or maybe intentional is a better word). Both in non-work and work life.

There is a reverse situation too, alas.

Sometimes, a bottleneck appears. It just happens. It's a fact of life.

Classic bottleneck theory tells us that the best outcome is to focus all your energy to resolving the bottleneck as quickly as possible, so that normality is reestablished before an insurmountable mountain of tasks manifests suddenly, seemingly out of thin air.

And yet, tragically, the first sign of a bottleneck is exactly when we (or worse, your spouse) remembers our past resolutions/promises about appropriate work life balance and whatnot, dooming us to yet another unnecessary cycle of losing sleep and struggling to catch up for the next couple of weeks/months.

I took a 3 month sabbatical to do some travelling at one point. My productivity when I came back was completely off the charts. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I used to take a three month break between contracts - first one was actually forced because I was fired(burnout), but that experience helped me understand the value of such long periods of time off.

I was paid my full salary during that 3 months. It was somewhat lucky in that regard, but I certainly did work hard to achieve that. That is a mode that works well for me - cycles of extreme effort followed by extended time off. I know it isn't for everyone but I seem to be able to find my flow state with this approach.

I started blocking off Wednesday every few weeks for personal projects and contiguous blocks of rest and time away from work and family. It's been amazing. I can focus on my paid work during the week while knowing that a very short interval from now I have a day to do not-work. Wednesday means it's very unlikely to be stomped on by a long weekend or a family request.

If you have unlimited vacation I highly recommend it.

Developers: take a break!

Companies: we will organize the effort in sprints!

One of my favorite way to force breaks is to use a Bullet Journal and put all of my activities in a single list. As long as it's not too huge, my brain is good at breaking stuff up, and when I context switch from, say, debugging to writing a presentation, or work to emptying the dishwasher, I often feel quite refreshed while still getting done what I need to do.

And take actual breaks. I'm on the verge of burn out and wondering "whats happening? I'm taking regular time off work" and realize I'm taking time off to do other kinds of work (parents estate, medical issues, just other life work) rather than actually taking the time to recharge.

It's best, when you can take a break and know money is still flowing in. That requires a separation from hours worked to the money you earn.

Imagine most people could live off passive income (like dividends) - we could all work less, I guess.

Now, we also need an article on how to take a break from the world at large...

It starts outside this rectangle.

I would love to take a break, but every day missed is missed earnings. You have to realize how lucky you are to be in a position to take extended time away from work without suffering some kind of penalty.

The "no-bullshit" design of this blog is already kind of a break, very refreshing. Something about the style and/or the typo makes it pleasant to read also.

I wish I was productive, my life is nothing but a series of breaks. How you all are able to enjoy working? How are you so productive?

I relate a lot to this. I had a really hard time getting out of the college mindset and into the workplace mindset. Ultimately, for me, it meant finding a workplace that encouraged me to utilize my ADHD, rather than trying to control it; I can't say that that's what you need (since you may not have ADHD, obviously), but I do think finding a workplace that fits with the way your brain works is very helpful.

It also meant figuring out what I really want in life, and making sure I was working towards it! Nothing leads to burnout faster than feeling like you're going in the wrong direction.

Armodafinil. It allows me to get into a flow state more easily, concentrate for longer periods of time (and more deeply), do necessary things that aren't exciting without procrastinating, and finish things.

That definitely has helped me, too. But I don't like the fact that I need it.

I'd prefer if I didn't, but it has few side effects and it's not a recreational thing, so I find it's similar to the Mometasone furoate spray I'm being prescribed to manage my sinusitis. I'd prefer to not need that, too, but breathing is more important.

I found long term use of Mometasone to have unpleasant side effects. Have you tried Montelukast, or spoken to an ENT consultant? A small surgical procedure eliminated nearly all of my symptoms.

I've not tried Montelukast (didn't even know about it, but I will look into it, thank you!), but I did have a surgery, which improved the situation somewhat, but only to a "I can breathe somewhat" level. I don't know its technical name, but it came with a general anaesthetic, lots of care afterwards, and a three-page invoice.

Identify the right things to work on.

80:20 .. Find the tasks that give 80% of the return.

I do the same. I think it's an effect of ADHD in that it's likely a deficit of forward planning.

I've been burned out from every job I've ever done, even where I initially enjoyed it. Maybe my eventual retirement will be better.

Probably my eventual death will be even better. Can't get worried and stressed and sick from it all when you're no longer alive. Thankful that the eternal peace of non-existence is inevitable.

I believe the same. More so about the death.

Should I also take a break from mortage, food, and chores? Being inefficient slug still gets me salary..

There’s an idea for a new Dummies book, if no one’s already written it.

Dear diary. Thanks diary.

Maybe a year ago I felt sluggish at times. Slower to process and react. I had to manually think through things that I could normally do on autopilot. I was concerned about my long-term health.

A four-day weekend seemed to fix that.

Even Formula 1 cars have to stop at the pits.

At least, now I know I'm not crazy...ha!

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