Comment by ideonexus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ideonexus | Hacker News Reader

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I second the exercise recommendation. I started going to bed an hour earlier so I could get up and jog before work each morning. A half-hour jog at whatever pace you can take will do wonders for your stress levels and overall mental health. As a father, getting the family to accommodate me going to bed earlier was difficult, but we were adjusted within a few weeks.

Secondly, you absolutely have to get your life back. 60-hour-work weeks are inhumane. Your job is taking 20 hours of time with your family away from you every single week. You will never get that time back and you will always regret having lost it.

I will always regret the lost weekends with my previous employer. Management never gave me better evaluations or bigger raises for that time I spent improving their bottom line. I could have spent that time making happy memories like I do now. My experience is that if you start holding firm to 40-hour weeks, management will adjust their expectations to be more realistic.

Remember, your kids are only kids once. You must stand up for your right to spend time with them.

Thanks, for great recommendations.

My main reason to work 60 hours/week is because I am not as productive as I was long time ago. My employer is paying me, but I feel if I work 40 hours/week, then actual outcome is 2-3 hours of work per week, that's why I intentionally increased my work hours.

I agree with you about exercising

I understand completely. I replied on another comment that the Pomodoro Technique has been extremely helpful in fighting off my most recent bout of burn-out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

I like it because I don't have to think about being productive for 8 hours straight. Instead, I tell myself, "I'll be productive and focused for the next 25 minutes." Then I take a break and try another 25 minutes. At the end of the day, I've found I've been productive for four to five hours (I had to work up to this), which is very respectable. Additionally, I'm much more productive for those 25 minutes than I have been for hours before starting the technique.

As with the other comment, I'm sorry you're experiencing this. And I want to reiterate that you are not alone and not even unusual. You have an important factor going for you in that you recognize you are burnt-out, and can therefore correct the issue. I know coders who have spent years in burn-out mode and their skills have suffered as they stopped learning and stopped growing. Having this dialogue greatly improves your prospects for overcoming this.

By the way, I have tried Pomodoro Technique, its great, every morning I try to start my work with it, after 3-4 batches, someone comes with bug or feature request, or immediate task and I loose whole point of using Pomodoro. But it really helped a lot while fighting depression.

I strongly second everything ideonexus just said.

Also I'd check your sleep times and quality. When I had kids waking me up all night long, I also had extreme difficulty starting and focusing on coding during the day.

What if you're only working 50 hours a week and you're single (22) but feel burnt out (is that possible)?

That is absolutely possible. I remember getting burnt out many times in my twenties. I think one thing that helps is to remember that burn-out is a temporary phenomenon. If it lasts for longer than a month (and I've experience this), then you need to proactively take steps to try and fight it.

I recently overcame a severe bout of burn-out using the Pomodoro Technique and an Android app on my phone to manage it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

What this did is help compartmentalize my time. If you can focus on your work when it's work time, then you can relax and free your mind when its free-play time. Remember, you don't need to be productive for eight hours straight, just a 25 minute sprint. Then take a break and try another 25 minutes when you are ready to focus again. Pretty soon you'll be getting a respectable 4 hours of productivity in a day and that's more than most people can claim.

Most importantly: keep fighting the burn-out. If you keep facing it as a problem and keep actively trying to find solutions to it, you will get better and more efficient and beating it back when it does arise. I'm really sorry you're experiencing it at the moment, but I sincerely hope you get past it quickly and grow adept at recognizing when it's starting to happen again. You are not alone or even unusual in experiencing this.

Even at 40 hours or less people can become exhausted. What matters are abstractions like traction, relevance, independence, and opportunities to demonstrate skills. Being stuck or having a hard time contributing can tear almost anyone down rather quickly.

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