Overcoming burnout

This isn't bad advice; though I feel it's only a small part of the picture.

My desire to work on side projects definitely increases as I head towards burnout in whatever I'm supposed to be working on.

And giving myself permission to work on something completely different for a day definitely improves my mood, which can give me the energy to address whatever's bothering me.

But after that, I still have to fix the original problem -- usually one (or many) large, poorly-defined tasks that I've been dreading, or some personal interaction that frustrated me and was never resolved; usually compounded by weeks at some level of sleep debt.

So if I stay up all night working on the side project, then I'm worse off the next day, not better -- more sleep debt, and one pleasant day of escapism, but the same old problems still sitting there (but deadlines one day closer).

If I can spend a restful day or two, clear my head and just free myself to think about things, solutions start to bubble up, I can make some concrete plans to handle whatever's been dragging me down, and I can catch up on my sleep -- that's great.

The times this has worked really well, I generally don't work on side projects either. Filling my head with more interesting problems is pleasant, but my mind is still spinning at high velocity.

The better solution is to find a way to clear my head, reset my sleep cycle, and then take advantage of the clarity that follows.

Distancing myself from my computer for at least 72 hours lowers my coder's block, but I've found that working on a personal novelty side-project works equally well. The trick is distancing yourself from your usual work, which can be hard if you have only a single workspace. Working in a different milieu, like a coffee shop, helps.

(edit: grammar, distancing trick)

Some similarities to Feynman's solution to burnout http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html

This doesn't explain how to overcome burnout, it explains how to stave off burnout a bit longer.

Burnout is when you hit that actuall wall and slowing down a bit doesn't help, slowing down a lot doesn't even help and those two weeks off feel like just a drop in the bucket.

I was starting to feel some burnout a week ago after a couple of months of 10+ hour days 6 days a week. Refurbishing my roof worked wonders for me. Spending 3 days pressure cleaning, replacing tiles and painting did wonders for me. Obviously not the kind of advice that applies to everyone but it worked for me. Plus my roof looks great now :)

I do this. Every now and then I decide I'm "claiming the day in the name of fun" and just work on an interesting coding project. Having unofficial projects is necessary to survival.

Variety, use different parts of your brain (even if you aren't good at it), engage in physical activity if you are mainly sedentary, cut yourself off from the world every one in a while and just.....decompress.

Take hikes, go to a strange city and just walk around and exist there. Try drawing or sculpture, learn an instrument, try baking, or needlepoint, play video games.

Just don't do all of these things all at once.

Moderation.

There's been a steady stream of "burnout" trip-reports, and without trying to sound condescending, most of them sound like luxury. Almost all "how to avoid burnout" advice is based on the assumption that YOU are fundamentally in control. I have yet to read the burnout story involving 3 competing jobs, 2 urgent deadlines, 1 screaming infant, a bout of flu and a sick relative. Well, sometimes you just have to knuckle down and get on with it. "Burnout" doesn't exist -- it's just a bunch of Stuff That Happens In Life. It's normal, it doesn't make you special, get over it, its boring.

I believe the implicit claim here is that regardless of whether the computer system is a contributory factor to burnout that association does not imply that it cannot be a factor in restoring one's self. Let's say, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

I suspect it is a response to a future decision the author intuits large groups of computer laborers may make: that computers, in general, establish a unique, more intensely stressful baseline type for burnout cases. Usually the standard response (or rather "therapy") to burnout, even in the professional, occupational setting, in engineering and technical jobs involves doing something unrelated to that type of work. It is Feynman's point made official through the history of its adoption in business and corporate settings. But _physics_ isn't tossed out; a particular _institution of physics studies_ is tabled. This point is going to be made for _computer systems_ as well; perhaps the author is now asserting it. Web building will soon become a respectable science, wherein its general idiom becomes abstracta that support true, albeit horrifyingly misleading, statements like "My Internet does not work" or "I read ten articles on the Internet today" which people use in everyday conversation.

As Wittgenstein would say,

"I launched the ball!" "He recoiled at the thought." "She exploded with joy." "The Sun gave me a sun burn." "My grandmother is a dinosaur." "Astrology is not a true science." "She turned at a right angle."

Is there anything essential as a response to burnout that involves stepping away from the computer system? What does it truly mean for us if "Internet" becomes a household name? How are people thinking about it? What are their statements about it? Why does most advice seem to suggest "stand up and go smell a flower, seek pleasure". Is the Web not pleasuable? Seeking _it_? Working on _it_? -- It seems clear to me that the author is making a very simple point: whence come hedonism of the craft? -- To me, it sounds like: "step out of the machine!" I believe this is what motivates the couched "freedom of will" discussion (burnout is a "wall"). Intuitions about Robert Nozick's Experience Machine are what are stake here.

Let's assume that "go outside and smell a rose" is the description of a machine. Our author, I suggest, argues that "write code for pleasurable project" is another description for a machine. What is assumed is that one can choose, regardless of practicality (that your project may be even less successful because of your choosing is irrelevant here, being compelled to make the decision does not necessitate that one should make it). What is at stake here, again, are intuitions about the machine, and namely what it affords at all. Choosing to take an experience of another sort involves concepts of continuity, roughly, I believe, Nozick's discovered intuitions of we have:

1. (Here I can only hope my analogy fits, but I believe it motivates, essentially, any apologetic position toward burnout:) "we first want to do actions" which gives any consequent desire for the experiences of those actions. In development and engineer jobs, technical jobs in general, we call this "burnout"; experiences (stress) eventually overwhelms desire to work (want to perform those actions). The storehouse of experience (one's work history) becomes nothing more than the description of some machine (a set of experiences one has had). So, there is an imperative to reject that machine. My follow-up is: Why does this response to burnout logically resemble Nozick's discovered intuition/response of: "Do not enter the machine"? -- "Step out of the usual." 2. (Again:) Whether it is choosing to code a fun side-project or going out to build a doghouse, we are enjoying our freedom. What's not important here are practical considerations, the limits of one's autonomy cannot be defined only in terms what one perceives as one's own limits; one's autonomy is not established through the capacity of one's epistemtic assessment. Going with the flow because the current is strong only establishes the acceptance of a machine-like existence. So "go fly a kite" to assert one's freedom. 3. (Again:) One's reality is limited to workflows and projects. "Leave the machine."

My general point here is that the structure of the argument: "go do something different," to me, looks very similar to our intuitions as to why one would reject the machine.