Ask HN: Working through burnout? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Working through burnout?

63 pointscauterized92 comments

I know, I know, the solution to burnout is to slow down and take some time off.

What do you do when you're exhausted, your brain is fuzzy, and you just plain have to meet a hard deadline in a few days? You have obligations to your team and your company and yourself that just can't put off.

It's all well and good to say you'll take a week off once the deadline is met, but how do you keep your brain operative and your mind focused enough to read and write code for those intervening 3 days when you can barely read a sentence of plain English text without having to go back over it 3 times to extract any meaning?

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Honestly? Refuse. In my experience, there are very few situations where crunch time affects the bottom line. There are some, to be sure, but chances are slim that you have stumbled upon it. More likely, someone higher up got impatient and is driving this. I have worked many a Saturday nights until 3-4 am to try to launch a site on Monday, just to learn that there was going to be a month long delay because someone else didn't do something. I had a deadline of "we are launching this thing on Friday"... for 12 weeks straight (finally launched it once it was truly ready a year later).

For working weekends, I've adopted a policy of roughly one weekend a year. That's how often I believe true emergencies happen (at least for most situations; Google SRE need not apply).

Look, if it's an isolated incident, take some breaks, find something to distract and relax you, get sleep. If it's a second or third attempt to get the team to crunch hard, quit.

This makes a lot of sense to me, and has happened a few times. Very rarely is the crunch worth it, and almost always "burning the midnight oil" results in bad code/bad work. To the point where it might have been better to have been fresh and made a decision that resulted in 5 minutes work, or no work, versus slogging away at a waste of time because you're doggedly doing something that makes no sense.

On top of that, there seems to be a theme of employers trying to expect that lately, or "well, its IT, you're expected to work out of hours for free". Just refuse that and find a better employer, is my advice, if that happens too often.

I agree with a slight twist.

Its also helpful to remember that you need to "manage up" and push back on clients or managers if you don't think deadlines are feasible given your resources.

I find it easiest to make sure people imposing deadlines understand that anything is possible given enough time and if they really need to have something done they will need narrow the scope.

If someone says:

"We need X by Friday"

If its not possible, I always say:

"hats not really possible, but what I can give you is X-2 by Friday and we could build into full X in about 3 weeks assuming nothing comes up."

Then if some new project comes up I always tell the person how it is going to change "X".

ie:

If someone says:

"There is a big problem with Y we need fixed"

I say, "Ok we can fix that but its going to push back X 8 weeks".

I hope that makes sense.

I was burnt out once. It got bad, I got depressed, for lack of better way to putting it, i felt "disconnected" from myself. My relationship was suffering, and nothing made it better. It only got worse. I'd get in this loop, where i'd work long hours. Get nothing done, so work longer hours. It kept repeating, getting worse and worse.

I tried taking a vacation, that did little to help. What worked for me was changing jobs. Still, I didn't get better immediately, it took me a good year or so to feel "productive" again.

It was one of the worst periods of time in my life, and i'd recommend you get out as fast as possible.

This, exactly. I'd like to add one thing though: do not force yourself trying to get back to "normal". I made that mistake, going back to work before I had properly recovered, and it actually resulted in prolonging my burnout and depression, possibly by years!

I was in a similar situation -- for me, I didn't feel like my contributions were welcomed, felt like there was too much of a load of work to do, but it also felt like useless work. Then the company downsized, and I was laid off for 4 months in the summer. During the recession, and only got a hand full of interviews during that time (I think 3 in-person, and 2 phone interviews). But that 4 months off made me a new person, so when I did get back to work (new job, with a strong need for my skill set) I felt (and performed) like I was 20 years younger.

So, "yes" to the job change, and a big "yes" to a real vacation (not just a week, but sometimes you need a month or more off). The best is if you can have some savings, and find a job that has a start date pushed out a bit (of course this is a bit risky depending on the job market and your ability to easily land a job).

If you are burned out, it may very well be that you will miss that 'hard deadline'. However, very few deadlines in life are really 'hard' (as in you will lose your life if you don't meet the deadline.) Talk to the folks who have set the deadline to see if it can be rescheduled. If they cannot or will not reschedule your deadlines, then resign yourself to the consequences of the missed deadline and start thinking of your life beyond the deadline. If it is some sort of application deadline, remember these sorts of deadlines are artificial. You can always apply the next round. Or a different opportunity will arise. All the best. Don't make burnout worse by stressing about deadlines. If missing the deadline isn't going to result in your death or the death of a loved one, it's not a final deadline.

^^ this. When you try and control things, you only let them control you. Ignore the deadline and focus on writing good code.

Seriously, the only practical thing that works is exercise and sleep. If you have to push through, exercise 1hr per day and sleep at least 6 hours during your ordeal. The exercise will clear your fog brain like nothing else can. Also, moderate your caffeine intake during this period - your adrenals are already shot from stress and exhaustion, no need to make it worse.

+1 for exercise.

Also as you give up coffee/sodas, don't give up fluids altogether.

Keep a bottle of water near you at all times. Enough people I know have ulcers or kidney stones from pushing through late shifts.

meh, exercise and sleep are great, and they certainly help, but sometimes the job itself is the core problem... Doesn't matter how fit and well rested you are if you're sick of doing the same thing day after day after day after day...

Agreed, but OP asks about getting the job done despite fatigue and burnout, short-term. For more general information on handling burnout long-term, I believe there are a wealth of HN posts already.

Agree 100% on the caffeine. You can get into a cycle of over-drinking coffee and ruining your sleep cycle. This kills your productivity the next day, so you drink more coffee...

Discipline. In more way than one.

Firstly, the discipline to avoid getting exhausted in the first place. I don't knee-jerk "yes" when asked to work overtime, I make a deliberate decision despite how much pride I might have in the product or how much pressure I am put under by management. When I work overtime for a single night it's seen as a big deal and a big favor: as it should be.

Secondly, the discipline to push through if the first case of discipline somehow fell short. Then I demand leave, bonus leave, immediate leave: no questions asked. If I've had the discipline to push through, I can easily demand that my employer has the discipline to ensure that I am in top working order despite their mistake.

You're asking how to drive a car when it's run out of gas. You don't. Maybe you can push it slowly, but really you should fill up, even just a little. It's a lot easier to drive a car to the next fill station than it is to kill yourself pushing it there. Take some time, even a just a little, and put some gas in your tank.

I'll +1 Exercise. Meditate. Sleep. When I read your comment this is what I read though: "I committed to this goal and I gave it everything I got but still came up short. How can I make it so I didn't come up short?"

I've been there not too long ago with the goal being making a multi-million euro part of an even bigger project with 7 figure fines for delays get off the critical path in the midst of a corporate reorganization. In the end me coming up a tad short still was a resounding success for the company. The multi-year personal recovery period afterwards wasn't though.

The main thing that I've learnt is that every company is in its most optimal state when every individual in it consistently cycles between being pushed to grow AND completely relaxing. It's the same formula sporters use to get better: if you're not pushed frequently you stall and underperform; if you can't relax your dynamic range decreases and you'll slowly become less effective.

For any company to get there its employees need to internalize one very specific guideline: when you're under stress and don't see a way to fully relax and shake it off sufficiently soon it's time to reorganize the process so that your stress levels become manageable again; hard deadline or no hard deadline.

Avoid crunch, it's not good for you, blah blah, see all the other comments. But sometimes you have to.

Try the "caf-nap". Drink a strong cup of coffee and immediately go to sleep (set an alarm for 45 mins or so). It can feel like a good 3-4 hour nap if it works.

In general, I'd say just make absolutely sure that that hard deadline is hard, and you can push yourself and recover afterward. Or if it's not really such a hard deadline, push it out long enough that you can recover.

If you are feeling foggy, work on the "grunt work" parts of the project (like lining up UI, or converting data or something that doesn't take much thinking), and when you are feeling more alert, work on the hard parts and firewall them off from sleepy you.

Don't take any drugs stronger than caffeine, even if your coworkers are.

Say to yourself, if I had to ship this literally four hours from now, what would I do? How could I fake it so that it appeared done? Do that. Then do it again. Then do it again until it's sort of really done.

Write down a priority list, not of importance but of implementation time. Cut the biggest item, no matter how important.

Look for parts that can be faked and retrofit later, with hardcoded data, textfiles, pure magic bullshit, whatever. Fake them.

Forget about quality. Once you're at this point, you've already missed your chance at that. Just get something done.

Make it a challenge, make it a war story. Don't let it happen again.

> Say to yourself, if I had to ship this literally four hours from now, what would I do? How could I fake it so that it appeared done? Do that. Then do it again. Then do it again until it's sort of really done.

That is really good advice

I totally know the feeling and have had to really dig deeply in the past year. Here are some things that worked.

1) Be ruthless about what you need to accomplish. This means choosing what to "do poorly" at. Sure everything is "important" but it's time to secretly throw a few things overboard.

2) Do whatever you can to optimize your wellbeing. Go to bed early and sleep enough. (1/3 dose of melatonin if you have trouble falling asleep.) Plan simple healthy meals that don't require much thinking or prep. A media fast is really good. Try to throw in a tiny bit of exercise (20 minutes) and 10 minutes of meditation here and there. (ex: when you arrive at the office)

3) Do the work in cycles so you get time to think between bursts. As we get older, the work wears us down so I treat screen time as "toxic exposure" and set a daily maximum. That doesn't mean you have to stop working...Just step away from the desk and visualize what you're going to do. Then get in there and work quickly and efficiently and get out and plan the next burst.

Bonus: In a real pinch, you need to work every day of the week. Though extra cycles and wellbeing make this pretty easy. If you're working too hard, the weekends are necessary to recover.

Totally agree with #1, drop things that are not really necessary. This is hard as if you care and are passionate about what you do, because you won't think you can drop anything. Trust me you can.

Exercise and eating are critical, something I personally fail at all too often when I get stressed. Supplements like others have said aren't going to fix the problem, but can help you control some of the symptoms (Vitamin B6, B12 & D are really good here). Just stay away from powerful drugs if at all possible, masking the symptom with a potent drug isn't worth the pain later. However, that said, sometimes in life it is necessary, so be your own judge.

Don't believe in the fallacy that you will take a week off when this deadline is met. Cause the reality is you will likely feel, I can't leave now because what if X happens, or Y etc. Instead, its likely time to renegotiate the deadline, likely was time 2+ weeks ago, but either way just do it.

Failure can be defined a lot of ways, missing a deadline is generally not one of them when the cost of missing it exceeds the value it offers. I have seen many deadlines set by a startup or small business because they feel they have to get to market by day X or they miss the boat, fail, go out of business, you name it. Guess what, Day X comes and nothing changes except the team is burnt and bitter at minimum for awhile. As usually even moderate success is Day X + Y. If the date has been long announced then yes meeting the date may be critical, but how you meet the date is still negotiable.

Just responding to thank everyone for their suggestions (and support!) -- a lot of really good ideas... Almost all of the advice is applicable to one situation or another (except possibly "take drugs" -- REALLY??)

In this particular case, I think the problem was the choice to prioritize other people's needs over my own -- even my own work tasks. The combination of stress and constant interruption was causing fatigue beyond what would normally be warranted by the actual amount of time I've been spending working (a bit more than is sustainable, but only for a few days so far) and sleeping (as much as usual). After a day of being deliberately selfish, I'm in a slightly better place.

To answer some of the questions and concerns brought up:

We have a deadline based on a 3rd-party real-world event. The deadline is non-negotiable. To a certain degree, feature set/which bugs we fix are.

I'm the project manager as well as a developer, so I'm not free from blame for the tight deadline. That said, we were on track to complete the project weeks ahead of schedule until a couple of critical features were delayed by unavailability of a crucial resource (despite my protests) until way later in the schedule than should have been acceptable.

In part, I'm working so hard in order to shield the team as much as possible from the consequences of my mistakes and the above-mentioned resource allocation error, which are not their fault. I'm demanding this of myself far more than my employer is demanding it of me, because I don't want to let these people down. Including a very supportive and not-unreasonably-demanding manager. Not a firing or quitting situation!

Do you have a hobby? If the answer is no, then you need to do some soul searching and find something external to technology that you would enjoy. My wife is a psychiatrist (well not yet, she is finishing her doctorate) and doing a study on burn out, she believes it is a undiagnosed form of temporal depression. Many times it's onset comes when a developer feels there is nothing more to learn, what she has named masters syndrome. Many times the very thing to break it, is to become a novice again. But the trick is a novice at something totally unrelated, my first one was ballistics. I bought a reloading bench and learned everything about the accuracy, power transfer of bullets. Fishing and Hunting have always been big for me as well, so I took time to do both. My wife believes that burn out is a product of a specific personality profile that likes to learn, but may feel that they have mastered their field. I stress that she is still collecting data and at this point it is conjecture, until the data validates it. But I can say developing new interests broke it for me and it certainly worth a try.

I don't think a hobby is going to help meet a deadline a few days away.

No you are correct, but if you are suffering from burn out you have a larger problem than a looming deadline. Corrective steps take time. It takes years to get to burn out, there is no magic bullet to undue that overnight.

Solve the "fuzzy brain" complex: Take time to evaluate your situation. Understanding your current position relative to your goal is incredibly important to maintaining having a clear mind during stressful circumstances. If your to-do list isn't logged somewhere, get it into the medium of your choice (physical or electronic). The cognitive load of those tasks is undoubtedly weighing on you. Keep paper nearby when you're going to sleep so any sudden thoughts can be offloaded immediately without the glowing allure of a display panel.

Prioritize: Are there some to-dos which have blockers? You might need an image from a 3rd party, task interdependencies, some information from someone working on the project... get those things happening in parallel while you work (start them as early as possible).

Keep the feedback loop short: Is it possible some part of the deliverable is going to be rejected or changes may be required? Can you mock it up and save some development time? Try to have the highest possible confidence in what you're building and keep the feedback loop small. Not only does provide you a requirements guarantee, it can help prevent unrealistic expectations about progress since everyone is kept updated as a side effect of the feedback loop. Don't fall into the trap of thinking "it's only 3 days anyways, they don't need to be involved, I just need to get this done."

Stay balanced: Don't increase or decrease caffeine intake. Decreasing it drag you down, increase will make you have manic productivity swings with deep valleys. Don't skip sleep, meals or exercise. Even if you don't normally exercise you should start during this period to prevent your mind from racing and to help rest at night. Do it daily as vigorously as you can, figure out if AM or PM works best for you. If you have a friend or significant other you can involve, it can help get more out of your limited free time between now and the deadline.

Good points about prioritising. It might be better to have one feature missing than going in to bat with several features only partially working or buggy.

There are quite a few long-term answers already to avoiding burnout, but the trick to getting past the next 3 days is to walk away for a brief break right now. Do something you really enjoy, ideally that lets your body get some exercise while you can completely ignore the work for a few hours. Let yourself forget for a few hours.

If it is too short of a break, it won't work. If it is too long of a break, you'll be too far disconnected and still feel burnt out when you try to start again. For me, 2-3 hours is about right.

And everyone else is correct. Once this is over, and you have recovered, find new routines to avoid this in future. Also, do some real analysis of how you got here in the first place - burnout due to hard deadlines is almost always a flaw in your project management process (or lack thereof). Treat this burnout like a performance problem in software - dig deep, find the root cause, and fix it.

Many people are telling you that discipline is the solution. They're not necessarily wrong, but the most disciplined person in the world cannot squeeze blood from a stone. Sometimes you're mentally fatigued, discouraged, and the task at hand seems overwhelming.

For me, progress is the solution to burnout. Stop whatever hard problem you're working on for a bit and work on something simple -- layout tweaks, small bug fixes, code cleanup, automated tests. This usually gives me the extra boost of dopamine I need to handle the larger task at hand.

Your mileage may vary of course but it's something that has worked wonders for me.

Take at least one hour consecutive walk every day without any gadgets. It'll give your brain time to recover and your body exercise to releave stress.

+1 for walking. I am a pathological walker. If I am having issues (stress, concern, overwhelmed) I walk for a few hours. I can't say it always works but it gives me something constructive to do and allows me to focus less on my immediate problems that I often can't change.

There are some drugs to help people with real medical conditions like narcolepsy that can help and have been known to help.

Natural stuff, take more breaks, and just have in the back of your mind that better days (specially nights are ahead).

Avoid burnouts, I was on some pills for a year to launch a product and then, first I got fired cause I couldn't do shit, then I slept for a month and couldn't get a job to save my life. That was 6 years ago, and is now that I feel better. Don't be STUPID is not worth it.

If you're as fogged out as you seem to be, then the hours you're spending at work are pretty much completely unproductive. I'd suggest you use them more wisely by going home and getting a really good nights sleep. Consider it an investment in being more productive tomorrow.

That is useless advice. More so, it is hurtful advice. "Get a long night sleep" is not always an option. And the person above is clearly asking "When a long night of sleep is not an option, what else can I do?" We all know there are professions (fire fighters, police, soldiers, nurses, doctors, computer programmers, etc) where it is sometimes necessary to work extreme hours. And the question being asked is clearly, how do you keep operating when you have to work extreme hours? If you have no answer, then don't post anything, and let others answer.

I see no reason for extreme hours for programmers, it's just wasted time. More companies should embrace 6 hour work days and 4 day work weeks, as people are then forced to work on only the important things and not do any busywork.

Go get a good long sleep. Rest. Get a hammock and sleep on parks. Enjoy life. Work is not life. Work is means to an end but not life.

Do you realize that the question being asked has nothing to do with what you are suggesting? The question is clearly about those situations where "Go get a good long sleep" is not an option. Are you going to argue that "Go get a good long sleep" is always an option, under all circumstances? if so, make that argument: detail the cases where the whole company was depending on you to reach some crucial deadline, and you felt able to go home and have a long night of sleep.

Please understand, I think your advice is good whenever it is possible. We should all try to get a good night of sleep, whenever we can. But sometimes it is not possible, and this thread is about those situations.

I assume you are intelligent enough to know that sometimes sleep is impossible. If I doubted your intelligence, then I might list the many situations where you advice does not apply. I will offer just one anecdote from my experience: in 2003 myself and my business partner were going to meet with investors on a Wednesday, to ask for $250,000. We were out of money, so we had to impress the investors, or we were doomed. I started getting ready for the demo on Monday, and I kept running into bugs, more and more bugs, endless bugs. I ended up working for 20 hours, then getting 2 hours of sleep, then working for 20 more hours, so that we could give a demo on that Wednesday that was bug free.

Sometimes sleep is not an option. That is what this thread is about.

> I started getting ready for the demo on Monday, and I kept running into bugs, more and more bugs, endless bugs. I ended up working for 20 hours, then getting 2 hours of sleep, then working for 20 more hours, so that we could give a demo on that Wednesday that was bug free.

And how good was your bugbusting on Tuesday? If you'd gone home at 5, got a proper night's sleep, and done a 6 hour day on Tuesday with a clear head, do you think you'd've caught more, or fewer bugs?

(mildly fictionalized account) Last week I pulled my colleague away from trying to fix some data loss in our production system. He pointed out, quite correctly, that unless this was fixed by midnight then our client reports would be incorrect. They were; we've apologised; we may lose clients over this. I still maintain it was the correct decision, because if he'd continued to mess with the production system in that state, there's a non-negligible chance those incorrect reports could've turned into something much worse.

Bullshit. How often do those "critical deadlines" end up not meaning anything other than some MBA chose a date at random? And if the business truly does hinge on meeting this one deadline, why is he he only one on it?

As for your sob story, why in the holy fuck did you put off the work until the week of the meeting?

>other than some MBA chose a date at random?

I'll bet you 90% of these companies working ridiculous hours are run by programmers.

We disagree. I've 35+ years professional programming experience and have done plenty of insane 90+ hour weeks. I've done coffee by the bucketful, cold showers in the early hours, loud music to keep awake, slapping myself to get the adrenalin going. On one project I began a shift at 7am on Friday, programmed until the early hours of Monday, drove 300 miles, installed and trained users, and collapsed into bed late Monday evening. I'm sure you've done more, and I'm not trying to start a peeing competition, just point out that I do have experience of this.

I still maintain that (possibly other than drugs), sleep is his best friend. He's largely unproductive at the moment, so a few hours "lost" to sleep is no real loss. What it will probably do is make his remaining wakeful hours more productive.

"If you have no answer, then don't post anything, and let others answer."

I don't see any answers in your post.

In his situation, it is always an option. The business is not going to come crashing down simply because he decided to get some sleep.

We all know there are professions (fire fighters, police, soldiers, nurses, doctors, computer programmers, etc) where it is sometimes necessary to work extreme hours.

One of those professions is not like the others.

And the question being asked is clearly, how do you keep operating when you have to work extreme hours?

And the honest answer is that, beyond a certain point, you simply can't. No-one is super-human. And clearly from the description the OP has given us, they have reached this point.

When you're being pressured to do those hours and you're already burnt out, it can be difficult to see your situation objectively and to make rational decisions about how to proceed. You are severely mentally impaired. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that it exists, but in this sort of situation denial and misplaced faith that some sort of heroic effort will make everything better is all too common a response.

In reality, if taking enough time out to have a decent meal, a bit of exercise and a proper sleep before continuing will cause catastrophic failure of the project then the project was already in so much trouble that the OP should bear no responsibility for what happens next. Playing hero at the expense of their own health is most likely just delaying the inevitable.

Sure, there could be an exception here... But it's about as likely as winning the lottery every week for a year.

>We all know there are professions (fire fighters, police, soldiers, nurses, doctors, computer programmers, etc)

Which one of those things doesn't belong? 5 of those are responsible for the health and/or lives of other people. They aren't sitting at a desk.

Unless you're working on some critical infrastructure, which is probably a very small percentage of people, in what circumstances should computer programmers be working "extreme" hours? Very, very few.

1) Stop reading HN.

2) Work your ass off for the next 3 days. You can do it. And for the next 3 days, have as many lunch and dinners with your team as you can -- meals with your team during a crunch time are a great morale booster. Also, don't pull all-nighters. Even if it's a crisis, you still need sleep.

3) On day 4, have the awkward conversation with your team lead, manager, etc... and quit.

4) Promise yourself you won't get into that kind of a situation ever again. And if you do find yourself in that kind of a situation again, promise yourself that you'll look for and deal with the warning signs sooner than three days before a deadline. (I know it's clichéd, but especially with burnout, prevention is much more effective than any cure.)

If you're gonna quit, why bother killing yourself for the next 3 days? Take your time and do the work well, on a reasonable pace.

You have obligations to your team and your company and yourself that just can't put off.

Yes, and they have obligations to you. Notably, not to kill you. That's the level of seriousness you're looking at - people who push through chronic fatigue (or adrenal fatigue) and carry on working extended hours without proper rest run quite a significant risk of death. Accept the fact that you are now totally unproductive and (possibly) actually having a negative impact on the project.

Best solution: Find a freelancer to step in for a few weeks to give you a break. Less good solution: cut your hours in half and hope the rest of the team can pick up the difference.

Get out! Now! Then clean your Appartment and realy Force Your Self to keep it clean.

Got burned twice. Took me 3 years to recover from the Last time. Just finished cleaning my Appartement from 3 years worth of trash. I am so relived!

If You try to work through it you just Drive your self deeper. Scaling back to halve time may work, but its realy the responsibility that kills you.

Sports, Arts, Travel Are helpfull and Friends! Tell Your Friends You Are burned, Tell them You will try to kick em out Your Life, and Tell them they should insist - they should not stop calling you even if you push em back.

Good luck! And next time: Take an early vacation before your Brain is fucked.

Take breaks and try excercise. I can tell you what won't work. Any "Smart drugs" I say this becasue I have been on amphetamines for years. The secret they don't want you to know? They stop working.. And you need more and more. Try to stop them? Not without a few months of having zero energy or being able to think at all. Stay away from "quick fixes" this includes nootropics. There is no simple solution and no substitute for resting and not overworking.

Continued use of nootropics is definitely not advised. I would say that they do have a time and place if you're really not feeling it or over-tired. This curbs dependency and tolerance issues. Addictive personalities should steer clear.

I've been on Vyvanse for years and it hasn't stopped working. If I don't take it, I'll feel tired by around 8 PM. If I do, I can stay up for much longer (although it doesn't seem to really hamper my ability to fall sleep).

Check out your hormone levels - I burned out HAAAARD trying to write actuarial exams while working 10 hours and applying for YC (didn't get in ;) - had to take 2 weeks off.

A persistent lack of sleep can cause your body to shut-off non-essential processes e.g. hormone regulation. My testosterone (I'm a guy) was abnormally low (<5th percentile) and it was largely due to lack of sleep, poor eating and 0 exercise. Also I took a testosterone cream supplement for a couple months and literally within weeks of this + gym + healthy food, I put on 10% my weight of muscle and magically had twice the energy I had before. I literally feel like life was a dream before changing my daily routines to keep my testosterone up (cold shower, heavy weights 4x per week, eat protein rich big meals with veg, etc. ) and keep myself sane (20min mindfulness meditation first thing in the morning). That's the other thing: your body functions best while the sun was up (we have had electricity for ~0.001% of man's complete lifetime so our bodies didn't evolve to function at night and we've only had lights for like 100 years. Before that you made a fire and had to chill in one spot!

TLDR: no sleep + poor diet = messed up hormones = low energy ... get your blood tested at your GP!

Exercise. Meditate. Sleep.

I have to say these three do wonders and are critical for sustainable productivity.

Meditating/relaxing in bed before sleep I think is pretty important. Just taking 10-30 minutes to completely relax the muscles, stretch everything, forget everything. Pine trees, crickets, water lapping over white sands.

To do it well, I focus on the extremities of the toes and fingers, and give them a really good stretch, then let them relax. Then work inwards. Eventually you'll feel like you're floating, and get a good night's sleep. But I also mean stretch your eyebrows, your jaw etc. Stretch everything possible and let it relax. Its amazing where you can hold tension.

I don't have much experience with stretching before sleep, but sounds like it would work, and work well! I only use meditation to clear my mind so I can get some peace and away from the problem I've been trying to solve during the day, otherwise I would be awake all night!

I really do prefer weight training an hour or so before sleep, it just gets the blood flowing without increasing the heart rate too much.

I agree, I think a good exercise/weight session is equally as good, if not better. Or both. We're pretty sedentary beasts, and I think that can cause a lot of problems.

Eat. Pray. Love. :)

For me, this is what I do and what has worked for me thus far.

Mental preparation. Always have conversations with yourself about your state of mind, be your own therapist, I tell myself that I'm blessed and working 24/7 is nothing. There are folks who have a much more physical and mentally demanding jobs.

There are people who are living in war zone and their job everyday is to survive, to avoid getting shot, blown to bits, find food within that chaos and still do whatever they have to do. There is no timeouts, no rest, the action could begin right while you are sleeping and you have to jump and get back at it. As a software developer, we have it easy. I imagine myself as a survivor in the midst of a war. I won't crack and I'm ready for whatever.

Cuss loud if you have to, laugh loud when you have to, have fun within the work, don't be 100% zoned in, while working, crack jokes, laugh, balance it out. You can do it. If you are mentally tough, you will not burnout. The physical toll on your body tho is a different matter, my biggest issue is that of eating right and weight gain. Best of luck.

"be your own therapist" That's impossible. It's like being your own dentist when you have problems in your teeth.

Actually I've found that reading certain books and watching certain movies makes me very introspective, and I can diagnose a lot of my own problems by journaling.

> "be your own therapist" That's impossible. It's like being your own dentist when you have problems in your teeth.

Sometimes it's possible, and sometimes it's not.

To respond to your analogy, I would equate "checking in" with your mental state with brushing your teeth.

No, you can't perform a root canal on yourself, just like you can't bring yourself out of spiraling depression or a mental disorder -- you can, however, do some "preventive maintenance," and take care of your mental state. Seek a professional if/when you need one.

"Burnout" is a nebulous state. Some people are burned out when they've had a hard week, and others are in an intense state of panic/depression. I think these should be treated (or self-treated) accordingly.

Stop. You're devaluing yourself. Every step you take past those barriers, you're both throwing yourself under the bus, and showing others that your time and effort is worth less. Something you'll come to believe more and more, feeding the cycle.

It's unsustainable, on loan from your future, and soon you'll stop being able to even meet the payments on the interest. Burning out is nothing compared to the sudden stop at the end, and that elusive 'almost there' Is. Not. True.

Whatever consequences you imagine lie before you if you don't stop, simply ponder what a death in your immediate family would do to that prioritisation. It /is/ negotiable, and if it isn't then you're not working for/with the right people anyway. If that's the case you're being treated as a disposable commodity. If you're replaceable, fungible, then you're a cost to be minimised, like a printer cartridge they try squeeze the last out of.

Self isn't something you get back easily (or at all) once traded away. Just don't.

Everyone's giving different answers, which is not surprising. We all have different strategies for coping with unendurable burdens.

My strategy is sheer bloodymindedness, but I find I can only dredge that up so often. When I push through burnout when I know I shouldn't, I end up knackered for months.

It's an effort I can really only dredge up once a year or so. Make sure you talk to your boss about this.

You burn out once a year? Is this common? I'm contemplating a venture but I'm trying to evaluate the {mental, emotional, financial} toll it will take before I do.

I was going to say "no I don't", except I've just tabulated it and found it's about a once every 18 month experience.

How's the rest of the team coping with it? If other people are also stressed, it is easier to go to management for an extension.

As for just working through it, programming work is not factory work. Productivity can be negative when you're tired, and x10 when you're on a roll. You may find yourself more productive just by not doing anything for a day and coming back.

My superficial suggestion: Sleep, diet, and exercise.

Cut everything else out until the task is done, provided the task holds that level of importance to you. Sleep will help your brain, exercise will energize you (even if it's just a brisk walk), and food will sustain you. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the basics—the foundation of quality effort.

My real suggestion? Take a step back and consider whether the environment around you will keep you healthy and happy long-term. Burnout charges interest, and if your environment doesn't afford you the opportunity to repay that interest, you'll spiral into psychological and physical bankruptcy.

So before finishing this project, take a physical step back, look at your environment objectively. Is it going to bankrupt you? If yes, seek to remedy the situation immediately and forcefully. If no, see my superficial suggestion and get to work.

Sometimes failing/falling hard is good; there are lessons to be learnt that we often don't learn any other way.

So, chances are this round of stress may not go well, and if it does, it may not be the last.

Step away and analyze where it is that you fail ( in addition to the other factors ). That will be a valuable learning opportunity.

Be sure you covered all your supplements. If you work indoors, you almost certainly don't get enough vitamin D. Also, multivitamins. Additionally, I take fish oil, ginkgo, and saffron and find my brain fog to be improved. But I think the Vitamin D is essential.

There is good information about supplements on examine.com

If only burnout could be fixed with food supplements...

Yeah I'm not saying it can be completely fixed with supplements, but when he mentions having to read the same sentence 3 times...it sounds like it could be more than just burn out. In my experience, when I've been at that level of disorientation, I've found supplements actually do help.

I agree though, no supplement is going to completely save the day here.

Drugs, but is this really the life you want for yourself?

Just relax! As one of my former bosses said: "All we do is just BI, we don't change the world and nobody is going to die if we f* it up." If it's really important to keep the deadline, you should be able to find help within your team or your company should pay 5.000$/day for a superhuman hacker to solve the problem.

Watch the Southpark episode "Ginger Cow". You don't have to sacrifice your health and wellbeing for a project. You can always find an other "very important" project and work yourself to death. But - high probably - you don't have a second life.

Try go for a swim in the ocean, an afternoon walk in a forest, a bit of dancing (and music!) at night. Don't underestimate how much rejuvenation you can get from having various natural (mental, emotional and physical) experiences like these.

There's also an adrenal support supplement which after a few days will help recycle hormones taking the load off your system. Essential oils supplements should also help with mental clarity.

If your digestion is currently poor, then after a few days of eating less toxic food you should have much more energy and less mental fatigue.

For some people the sense of fellowship is more important than self-being. If you are one of those, well, it's going to be tough for you. Anyhow I would recommend:

1. Take little walks during work. 2. You also need a sound board, a colleague whom you can trust to validate your work and thoughts, because the one thing you can't afford is to redo things. Just trust this random stranger from the internet on this one. 3. Try to get a fix on the date when you can take a time off.Knowing that takes of the edge off a bit.

> but how do you keep your brain operative and your mind focused enough to read and write code for those intervening 3 days

Adderal, Ritalin or Captagon can be used to get you out of a bad situation. But you should be very careful not to use them for longer periods because you will regret it. Talk to your doctor and then go talk to your employer.

I know where I live at least you can take a permanent medical leave for burn-out, the first month of which is to be paid by your employer, so most corporations would rather find a solution.

Such a US response hehe. I don't mean that much offense, but your first solution is to go to a pill? Its a hideous idea to me.

Surely a doctor isn't going to prescribe medication just because you're working too much? They're going to tell you to work less and sleep more. They don't care about your deadlines, they only care about you health.

It's like asking, how do I walk without legs?

Unlike what Nike's ad says, somethings are not possible, and most things are not worth it. Your family, sanity, health come first; more so than work, pride and money(beyond basics).

What you are experiencing is a sampling error, where you are surrounded by young people who have similar views as yourself. Get out, see more of the world, heck, work for a IT dept. You would be surprised by how much money they make for the work they do.

Are you sure it's only burnout? You could be depressed. I feel like the symptoms are kind of interchangeable to me. Mostly I can't tell if I'm depressed because work sucks or if work sucks because I'm depressed. Maybe talking to a therapist would help? Therapy and medication seem to help me a bit but I still wouldn't say I'm 100%.

Does your team have a project manager? If so, he or she is the person to go to when you think a project is in jeopardy.

How did it come to this? Were the original time estimates way off? Was there significant scope creep? Were there blockers that were beyond your control (ie. tech problems with dev environments, specs were delivered late, etc.)

More than likely, the release date can be pushed.

It's better to stop now and start the road to recovery, because these next three days will not be productive anyway.

You team will understand, the company cannot fairly* dismiss you for being overworked and stressed. You owe it to yourself to take a break and recharge.

* depends on your country's laws I guess, but if they value you they will give you time to recover.

A hard cardio workout, followed by a 20 min sauna, followed by a healthy meal... every morning. Tell yourself burnout is childish, and you're simply stepping up and doing what needs to be done. Then do it. Don't over think it. That's a big part of what burnout is, just refuse to play that mind game.

My general view is in the short term, you make those obligations. In the long term, you change your situation.

That said, there is a lot of good advice here -- sleep well, exercise, disconnect when not on the clock, talk to those who set the deadline and explain the situation in an advantageous way.

Not to get all hippie on you, but have you considered mindful meditation as an approach to quiet down your mind and improve focus?

You may find that the realisation that you are becoming more focused when you need it will help your relieve the stress that's causing your burnout.

Countdowns! When I feel the burnout is kicking in (usually every 2 years), I just keep counting down how many days and then hours are left to the deadline. It's like visualizing your own well deserved relief that slowly takes shape, it's quite motivating.

I wrote an article on this a while ago which may be of use:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/01/you-are-...

What will happen if you release in 8 days instead of 3? What will happen if you release in 3 days but with a major bug? What will happen if you release in 3 days, but you cut features that don't work?

Bingo. Is this a real deadline, as in the work will be worthless if it's done the day after, or is it just a target date? If the latter, communicate (important!) in clear terms that it will be late and push back if anyone complains about it. Then get some goddamn sleep, go for a bike ride, play some Xbox, whatever. It Is Not Your Fault It's Late.

This is very likely a project management problem and should be treated as such. If anyone tries to blame you, blame the project management process, unapologetically and unhesitatingly. Do not sacrifice your health/sanity to make up for shitty project management or ridiculous expectations. If the rest of the company refuses to see it your way and work toward fixing their probably-broken processes immediately, start sending our résumés.

Call in sick and get some rest. Your first obligation is to yourself.

Meth.

Have you tried cocaine?

exercise

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