Rekindling (on my experience with burnout) | Hacker News Reader

Rekindling (on my experience with burnout)

nate.io

71 pointsnkohari49 comments

I find this pretty offensive - if you get over it in three days, it's not burnout. You just needed a holiday. I'm all for raising awareness of it, but using "burnout" in this context trivialises it.

I've seen friends struggling with burnout, and the symptoms are much more severe: depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue syndrome, and they've taken years to get over it, if ever. One guy I know is unable to face any sort of IT work, or any sort of stressful work, and is now mowing lawns for a living.

I find your comment rather offensive myself.

You're trivializing the experience that I had because you know people who have had it worse. That's just ignorant.

I'm sorry that your friends are having a hard time of it, but that doesn't mean you know anything about my situation. Obviously, they're dealing with much more extreme cases than I was. I would guess, though, at some point they were in a position (as I was) where you could snap out of it with a firm jolt to the system.

I didn't write this as a guide for anyone with burnout, or with the hopes that it would be accepted into the fucking DSM-IV as a case study. I just wanted to share my experience... mostly for catharsis, but also in the hopes that someone feeling the same way would read it and do something to make a change.

I'm not trivialising it, and I'm sorry you took it that way.

It's quite possible that you were on the path to burnout, but what you were describing is not burnout, and I wish people would stop calling "burnout!" when they just need a holiday.

Burnout is not a real disorder (as far as the American Psychiatric Association is concerned). It's a problem one has with their motivation and is inherently personal in nature. How one gets over their burnout is also specific to them.

Depression, anxiety, and chronic fatigue are true disorders. It likely takes most patients more than 3 days to get over these disorders (if they ever do) but it's likely that a good portion of workers can get over their own "burnout" in 3 days or less.

I've seen all three triggered by overwork, chronic background stress and/or adrenal fatigue. Perhaps it's not an official disorder, but burnout is frequent enough in IT that it probably should be.

What makes you believe that it's not possible to recover from burnout in a few days? I'm reading "The Feeling Good Handbook" (David D. Burns) and p173 talks about a man who suffered from a serious depression that had threatened to ruin his business for quite some time and was steadily getting worse. Apparently he recovered from his depression within a week after after his session.

Obviously I'm not claiming this happens with all patients (it's taken me 4.5 months to move from "severe depression" on the BDC to "normal but unhappy"), but I don't understand why you're so convinced the poster wasn't suffering from a real and debilitating condition that - from his description of it - significantly decreased the quality of his life.

I'd also like to suggest the possibility that the OP may not have recovered at all, but have simply found some temporary respite. I see this from time to time on Facebook with people I know who are suffering from depression but who haven't received (or worked on) proper treatment - they'll post non-stop about how great everything is, how awesome the world is... and then they'll crash. They haven't addressed the underlying causes of their depression, they've simply found a temporary distraction from it.

Partly from watching other people go through it, partly from getting close to it myself a few times. I recently finished writing a book, while working full time and helping to run my wife's web business. Oh and two kids. I just got back from two weeks holiday, and that wasn't anywhere near enough, but it'll do for now.

Burnout is typically caused by long, relentless periods of overwork and stress, and takes an similarly long time to get over. And yes, it is quite possible the OP is not recovered from his burnout, but I'd rather not see people claiming that it's possible to recover from it by having a couple of days on a beach somewhere. There are enough heroics in IT as it is.

I suspect he hasn't recovered properly yet and hasn't realised.

I've experienced burnout a couple times. For me, a week of TV will make the world start looking brighter again. However, if I try and actually work for more than an hour or two, that murky grey feeling of dread pops straight back.

Both times I've gotten properly burned out its taken me ~3 months to recover properly, and really start enjoying my work again.

Burn-out often comes when you have lost control of your environment. I've been through stages where I've had to sit down, take myself by the shoulders and re-work everything. That means strategizing and talking with my co-workers about how I can deal with the workload I have, the pressure I feel. More often than not I find that I've been overwhelming myself with an excessive will-to-succeed. I keep getting caught up with this kind of personal stress so I've come to understand that it's just who I am, but now have tools to deal with it better. That doesn't just include making strategic planning (which is about 90% of resolving the issue) but also taking at least one week holiday in a location strictly without internet and any communication back to work.

This is a topic that is not discussed enough. We all know that entrepreneurship is a pursuit that requires us to ride an economic and emotional roller-coaster that can jerk us up and down far harder than if we decided to work for more established company. People do not talk about the lows enough because it is human nature to focus on the upside that a great startup can create. The tough pill to swallow here is that, even if you sell your company, things can feel awful. This paragraph really nailed it on the head:

Burnout is a sneaky bastard. It creeps up slowly and attaches to you like a parasite and starts to suck your lifeblood. Once it gets its fangs into you deep enough, you need a major jolt to the system in order to shake it off.

The great thing to hear is that Nate has had just such a jolt. Good luck for the future.

Thanks. I appreciate it. :)

This has reinforced something I have begun to suspect only recently, and over time am growing in certainty about - take holidays, take them often and get away from the daily monotony.

I've experienced the same feelings that the OP mentioned, and when he said he hadn't taken a holiday since 2007, alarm bells started ringing.

My bursts of inspiration, motivation and the flow of new ideas almost always comes during my 'time off' where I am completely disengaged from everything.

Not saying this works for everyone, but at least for the OP and myself, this is certainly true.

This should probably come as a timely reminder for me, as I'm dangerously close to burning out at the moment. I already find myself losing motivation and taking 2-3x longer to get anything done.

I think my problems are mostly related to chasing payments. If I was paid even half what I was owed, I could take a break for a few months quite comfortably. As it is, I get just enough to cover my bills. So I find myself working longer hours to try and bring in more money, getting less sleep/time to myself and none of that is helping. It's a kind of vicious circle in a way, I haven't the time or inclination any more to create an amazing Github profile or do freebie work to land a decent gig. I'd love to take a holiday (have had maybe 7 days off in 18 months) but I just can't afford to.

It's also quite difficult to talk about this to friends etc as it does sound on its face a very first world problem to have, especially when friends are having pensions slashed and the corporate axe dangling ominously. I can understand them having little sympathy.

Now, this isn't to whine (although it may read like that!). I know I'll figure it out in the end but hopefully reading stuff like this will give me that extra little bit of hope or the last push I need to really starting fixing things. It's a horrible feeling and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, except maybe Hitler (what a bastard!).

Have you thought about hiring a bookkeeper or accountant to help out? Not being valued by clients can make you feel pretty shitty, but it's amazing what a regular "When can we expect payment?" call will do.

There are other tricks you can use to perk yourself up - progress payments (including a deposit up front) and firing your most annoying client have both worked for me in the past.

Find a class of client which either pays invoices promptly or at least pays enough to cover credit risk. Also, charge more.

You've got to figure out why you're not getting paid, and some way of fixing it. 50% unpaid invoices is not normal.

I could not possibly stay motivated to work if I thought there was a 50% chance I was going to get cheated or seriously delayed on my end of the deal.

Working yourself to exhaustion does not solve the key problem here. Taking a vacation wouldn't solve it either.

Patio11 says get a better class of client, and he's right, but you're probably going to have to think about that some. Figure out where you're going wrong.

Good luck.

> I already find myself losing motivation and taking 2-3x longer to get anything done.

> have had maybe 7 days off in 18 months

For me the most depressing situation is not designating blocks of time as work or play exclusively. It means you end up procrastinating when you should be working, and feeling guilty when you should be having time off.

I'm speculating based on the above two quotes, but are you experiencing something similar? I can imagine it would be hard to have any guilt-free play at all with the spectre of unpaid bills over your head.

Still, I humbly suggest that you schedule at least one day off (and plan it, like, 13:00 - 15:00 - play playstation, 15:00 - 17:00 - walk in the park etc, so your mind doesn't naturally wander to work or mire itself in guilt). This won't make you feel any less depressed, but might give you the emotional resources to rambo through any tasks you've been avoiding.

P.S. Have you considered hiring a VA to send your late paying clients a weekly polite and friendly reminder to pay up?

Maybe you should have shared your feelings with your friends. I just got back from a trip and visited some friends from college. Once we got past the pleasantries of not seeing each other in almost a decade we started on how our life is now. It felt good to share our collective feelings on career and life and no one was there to judge me, some of us wish we could exchange lifestyles (more vacation time, more money, more exciting cities).

This is why I consider my friends from college to be my closest buddies. We all entered the world in the same socioeconomic position. We've all experienced similar problems so nothing is ever a first world problem for any of us.

That sucks - chasing payments sounds really frustrating, because it's not even like you're doing something wrong, it's just this situation that you shouldn't even have to deal with, but you do. It sounds really stressful. Good luck with everything.

It's also quite difficult to talk about this to friends etc as it does sound on its face a very first world problem to have

Not really. "First world problems" are things like "oh my iphone isn't so shiney", whereas sounds like you're getting overworked, feeling exploited in your job, are under financial pressure, and need some R&R.

I was in the same burnout boat. I took a month long vacation out of the country and when I came back I felt more energized for a total of 2 weeks. After the 2 weeks, it was back to feeling burned out and really just unhappy. I kept working and figured it was just a phase. It wasn't.

I quit my job last month. We'll see how I feel in 6 months. Hopefully, that was the cause! :)

This post gives me hope. I've been struggling with burnout over the last year myself. I wonder if there are enough burned out developers to form a support/meetup group in the Triangle.

I wonder if there are enough burned out developers to form a support/meetup group in the Triangle.

I've also struggled through a couple of phases of burnout... and I'll probably be there again at some point, as hard as I've been thrashing on this startup. So count me in, for one.

I'm with mindcrime - count me in. You all busy tonight? :)

I think I saw you RSVP for TriDUG tonight. I'm for discussing organizing something over beers after the meetup.

argh - hackers/founders and tridug tonight - not sure which I can make it too. is there a place to meet up afterwards?

The TriDUG crowd is headed to Mellow Mushroom in Durham after the meetup. I should be in attendance.

You all busy tonight? :)

I'm hosting the Hackers & Founders meetup tonight; but I'd be happy to meet and talk about this sometime soon.

You fail at vacationing, IMO, if you just do a week or so at a tourist resort in a tourist destination. Just based on seeing a lot of people who do very stressful work for a few months or years (I know a lot, thanks to war zone contracting and startupsa). The people who do a week and then back aren't as happy long term as the people who run away for up to a year.

To really recover, it is better to live like a local somewhere for a longer period of time. Assuming you are really burned out, it isn't like you are getting real work done anyway. You can also ease back into working from a remote location after a few weeks or months, maybe on another project.

Plenty of places where you can do this cost effectively (under $25 per day), the key being getting out of the tourist economy.

What an insensitive comment. You fail at vacationing. The man was trying to recover.

I think the way he said it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. It was just an observation that one week vacation isn't enough. I think he might have been suggesting that the guy should holiday for longer...

I've plodded through a miserable couple of years and am certain I'm burnt out. I've just handed in notice for my job, and know for certain that one week won't remove the feeling of work life AND home life sucking.

As humans, we bring meaning to whatever we choose. Nothing really has meaning except through the wiring in our brains. It's unfortunate that we concentrate so much on making money, that we don't concentrate on those things that would eliminate the need for it at all.

The other thing is you can probably put up with difficult work OR home, IFF the other is excellent. If both are stressed (and working with a relationship partner makes this more likely), it's really hard.

Maybe personal health (physical and psychological) is the third leg. ONE of the three can be compromised for a while, but if you compromise two, you'll end up losing all three pretty quickly.

I read it as the popular internet phrase ("you fail at X") rather than an attack, so I didn't take it personally. :)

Even if it was intended as an attack, it's not the most offensive response I've received to the post by a long shot.

I think short term vacationing is fine for preventing burn-out, but yes I agree to recover fully from burn-out a longer term holiday would be ideal (though obviously not everyone has this luxury.)

I understand what you mean and think I can elaborate: if I take a holiday to a nice hotel where everything is managed for me, I'll invariably spend some time thinking about work instead of relaxing. However if I take a vacation that is more exploratory in nature and involves either physical activity (hiking in a mountainous environment for example) or going somewhere that is outside of my comfort boundaries (say, a week in the jungle of Chiapas) my mind is focused 100% on where I am.

This is a real holiday: not just letting the body take a break but the mind.

Yeah -- maybe a package trip somewhere which DOES include a lot of daily activities (like a structured hike, hunt, photo safari, etc.) would be the best compromise. Someone else plans everything for you, but you still have to actually do it yourself.

An adventure, basically!

You're right. We just didn't want to spend the time planning a vacation (which had previously been a blocker to us actually going)... so we went to an all-inclusive resort that we could just push a button and book it.

Maybe it is a good start, but you should take another longer vacation too.

I've just been to India for a month. You can live there for 15$ a day.

Actually you can live in India for a lot less than that (even as a comfy tourist - although I guess you definition of comfy changes with age).

I'm a big proponent of properly taking weekends off (and not feeling guilty about it!). By this I mean not doing 'career' work; things like cleaning the house, DIY, shopping etc. are allowed.

In the long run, I'm much more productive taking weekends off, not to mention much less likely to get RSI, which I had problems with a few years ago. I can't say I know it prevents burnout, but I do know that starting work again after a weekend, I always feel more energised than I did on the Friday before.

I know what you mean.

I'm glad to read this. My experience is pretty terrible at the moment. I'm not at the burnout phase, but maybe it's taking longer and will consequently be a more spectacular breakdown. I feel myself getting to closer to the edge every day.

My life situation: I have a full time day job at a small business of 18 employees as their IT director. I fight fires all day and help them dig out of constant deadline pressures. Oh, and I have my own responsibilities and we have 'initiatives' that we're accountable to which are supposed to be outside of work.

It's been too much for awhile - nearly 2 years. A year ago I started diversifying so I had something to fall back on. I took on a large side project where I'm the sole developer. It was with a longtime moonlighting client of mine who has high expectations of quality and time. I would love to subcontract the development but I'm afraid that it will take more of my time to get started and the cost/quality won't be high enough.

I wake up at 5am, do my moonlighting until about 7am. Help get my 8month old ready for the day and off to daycare. I then still can maintain a workout (30 minutes a day 6 days a week for 5 years straight), and then get to my day job. I'm there until about 6, come home spend a few hour with my daughter and wife and then feel compelled to dig out of the 20 emails I get from my coworkers while I'm disconnected. After that I try to make progress on my moonlighting gig until about 10pm.

My weekends are the same way.

Is this a good way to live? No.

I fool myself into thinking that it's just one more project or one more deadline then the pressure is off. Another one immediately follows. Occasionally, I'll slip into needing to have a few beers while working to take the edge off - to just get through it. Also not good. I'm probably developing some form of RSI because my pinkies and wrist hurt as I type this.

So, I'm suffering. On the other side, my wife just quit her job, we're renting in a new city with a house for sale (mortgage already paid off though) in another. We have at least 60 months of savings and another 40 if/when the house sells. Need insurance though so I can't quit and have no idea what it would take to self-insure. Also, don't want to eat away at that rainy day fund now that I have a daughter to take care of.

What's the solution? I tell myself I'll finish up this side project and that'll be it. I'll try to reduce my hours at work. Hopefully I can get back to a normal life - if I even know what normal is any more...

(OP here.) I have a follow-up post in the works about minimization. I think that one of the major stresses in my life comes from waste. My wife and I have always been pretty minimal in the things that we choose to buy, but after we sold our company I think we lost sight of the importance of that a bit. I'm starting to suspect that some of my stress has come from having more than we need, and having to maintain it. (Particularly having to move it all from one house to the other, which always sucks.)

Anyways, my point is, your lifestyle can expand and contract rather readily, and money is power. The more money you have in the bank (and the further you can stretch that money), the less influence external pressures have on you -- and the more freedom you have in life.

I've also instituted a reasonably strict at-work/at-home policy with respect to email. I simply don't read my work email at home anymore, ever. If there's an emergency, the people I work with know they can always call, but emails will only be responded to the next morning. This also includes weekends, which I spend doing things that I find enjoyable, and never work.

Just some random thoughts. Remember (as I've had to) that people can only do well at things that they enjoy, and they only enjoy doings things that they do well.

Sounds like you've arranged things so that you're "on" 24/7, or close to it. That's definitely a trigger - in my experience, at least. It looks like you're getting less than 6 hours sleep too, particularly with an 8 month old.

You could try scaling back your after hours commitment to your daytime job. If you didn't have to email your coworkers after hours, you could either work on your side project more (the idea being to get it done and out of the way, then rest) or get more sleep. If you don't draw a "line in the sand" somewhere, clients, work, etc. will just keep pushing you until you can't take on any more work.

The other thing that you mention is "constant deadline pressures" and a client who has "high expectations of quality and time". One of my takeaways from rereading Rapid Development is that (even when specifying everything that they can think of) developers underestimate tasks by 20-30%. It's possible that you or your coworkers are falling into the same trap. I've found that keeping a record of estimates and actuals really helps push back against ridiculous estimates and expectations.

Hope that helps.

Can't really offer any qualified advice, except listen to yourself. My unqualified advice would be to try and slow down somehow before you burn out.

One thing I can definately say is, make sure that family life is working. If that falls apart, it's just one more problem you don't need. So definately make sure that you give enough attention to your wife, and make sure you're getting enough attention from her. This point can't be stressed enough.

Perhaps someone has been there and done that and can offer better advice?

someone has been there and done that and can offer better advice?

He has 60 months of savings. Take a vacation until you feel better...

A vacation does sound nice but I can't figure out how to do it. I guess I just need to learn to put it down, walk away. For me, there's such an incredible backlog of work that I can't seem to put it down. My wife calls me a workaholic... That could be the core issue.

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