4 ms·

To be honest, I am burnout. I am not sure how to avoid burnout anymore. What do people do when they feel they are burnout? I am taking Friday off this month to

by yeukhon 10y ago

To be honest, I am burnout. I am not sure how to avoid burnout anymore. What do people do when they feel they are burnout? I am taking Friday off this month to relax, but when I back on Monday - Thursday, I feel burnout, feeling so much I want to accomplish, but yet, so disappointed in myself not able to deliver everything I want to do.

faebser 10y ago
Hey dude, i went through this too. Getting away from the computer, meditating, yoga and hiking in the mountains helped me but still it took me a year and a half to get better. If you feel too much pressure weighting you down go get proffesional help, even if it feels like a defeat. http://quietkit.com http://quietkit.com, guided meditaton for beginners
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Thank you!
notalaser 10y ago
> What do people do when they feel they are burnout? Take more than a free Friday.
pasta 10y ago
Serious: find another job. I think burnout happens when you put your standards higher than you can achieve. But there are different kind of standards. * You can burnout when you work harder than you can (physically and emotionally). * You can burnout when your social standard is different than your company's. * You can burnout when your standard is pleasing the user while your company's standard is pleasing the shareholders. * You can burn out when you think you are not replaceable and the company will collapse without you (fact: it won't). * And so on... I never had a burnout but I suffered from extreme fatigue because I was sitting all day. I got all kinds of physical and emotional problems. So I started to burn out. And what scared me most was that working out at the end of the day doesn't help much when you are sitting still 10 hours in a row. So I had the luck that I could change jobs. Maybe you are also lucky and can find something that will help you change the problem that burns you out.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  You can burn out if your authority doesn't match your responsibility. (That is, if your company considers you responsible for making X happen, but the things that they allow you to do don't allow you to actually make X happen.)
  - yeukhon 10y ago
    That's pretty much sums up (latter).
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Thank you. It's exactly what I am doing.
Thrillington 10y ago
Echoing faebser, it took me over 20 months to get over my recent burnout. It was a financial difficulty, but with the extra time of not working I was able to cut household expenses by about 60% (though those have crept back up since I'm working again). I volunteered for a layoff, so severence covered a lot of the time off. When I left I hit every item on this list. I thought I never wanted to look at a microcontroller again. I spent time with some personal projects. Dedicated myself to coaching a local roller derby team and generally followed my curiosity wherever it led. And I slowly found myself drifting back to embedded projects. I realized a combination of imposter and Stockholm syndrome had kept me at the company for years longer than I should have stayed. But I didn't have an issue with the specialization itself. I've now found a position I enjoy. In a nice twist of fate we are using a micro built by my previous company and my familiarity is a big asset. My new employer recognized my passion and talent, so this job came with a raise that will cover what I spent during my sabbatical. The gap did come up in interviews. I was truthful and said I volunteered for a layoff and took a long sabbatical. Then talked about the projects that gave me time to work on. In closing, I also want to echo the call to go find professional help. I spent many of the dark years talking. It took a long time to work up the courage to take the plunge. I would never have been ready to volunteer for that layoff, or make good use of my time off without those sessions.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Thank you. I do go through professional help, but I think switching job is the right path.
chvid 10y ago
Take a few days off and then quit your job. It is a good job market out there and there is no reason should put up with a job that is making you sick.
nunez 10y ago
One day of vacation isn't enough to let you relax. Think about it: if you're American, you spend 250 days of the year working. You have 104 weekend days that you aren't working, but let's assume that you do everything you couldn't do during the week on half of those weekends, which induces something similar to work-related stress. That's a lot of days! I like talking week-long blocks of time to recover. I work in consulting, and given the amount of decision-making and travel-related stress I undertake during the week, having a week of being at home and doing nothing is very, very welcome. I think the key is doing nothing. Nothing manifests itself differently to different people. To me, nothing means waking up whenever, driving for hours on end, watching a movie or working on a personal project at my own leisure. For others, it's shitloads of TV (which I don't like). For others still, it's hours of golf or something like that. Detaching completely from work is the key here. I'm going to emphasise this when I start leading my own teams. I want people to be at their best, and the only way to do that in a world like this is by stepping away from work every so often. You only live once. Good luck!

by yeukhon 10y ago

faebser 10y ago

Hey dude, i went through this too. Getting away from the computer, meditating, yoga and hiking in the mountains helped me but still it took me a year and a half to get better. If you feel too much pressure weighting you down go get proffesional help, even if it feels like a defeat. http://quietkit.com http://quietkit.com, guided meditaton for beginners

yeukhon 10y ago
Thank you!

notalaser 10y ago

> What do people do when they feel they are burnout? Take more than a free Friday.

pasta 10y ago

Serious: find another job. I think burnout happens when you put your standards higher than you can achieve. But there are different kind of standards. * You can burnout when you work harder than you can (physically and emotionally). * You can burnout when your social standard is different than your company's. * You can burnout when your standard is pleasing the user while your company's standard is pleasing the shareholders. * You can burn out when you think you are not replaceable and the company will collapse without you (fact: it won't). * And so on... I never had a burnout but I suffered from extreme fatigue because I was sitting all day. I got all kinds of physical and emotional problems. So I started to burn out. And what scared me most was that working out at the end of the day doesn't help much when you are sitting still 10 hours in a row. So I had the luck that I could change jobs. Maybe you are also lucky and can find something that will help you change the problem that burns you out.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
You can burn out if your authority doesn't match your responsibility. (That is, if your company considers you responsible for making X happen, but the things that they allow you to do don't allow you to actually make X happen.)
- yeukhon 10y ago
  That's pretty much sums up (latter).
yeukhon 10y ago
Thank you. It's exactly what I am doing.

Thrillington 10y ago

Echoing faebser, it took me over 20 months to get over my recent burnout. It was a financial difficulty, but with the extra time of not working I was able to cut household expenses by about 60% (though those have crept back up since I'm working again). I volunteered for a layoff, so severence covered a lot of the time off. When I left I hit every item on this list. I thought I never wanted to look at a microcontroller again. I spent time with some personal projects. Dedicated myself to coaching a local roller derby team and generally followed my curiosity wherever it led. And I slowly found myself drifting back to embedded projects. I realized a combination of imposter and Stockholm syndrome had kept me at the company for years longer than I should have stayed. But I didn't have an issue with the specialization itself. I've now found a position I enjoy. In a nice twist of fate we are using a micro built by my previous company and my familiarity is a big asset. My new employer recognized my passion and talent, so this job came with a raise that will cover what I spent during my sabbatical. The gap did come up in interviews. I was truthful and said I volunteered for a layoff and took a long sabbatical. Then talked about the projects that gave me time to work on. In closing, I also want to echo the call to go find professional help. I spent many of the dark years talking. It took a long time to work up the courage to take the plunge. I would never have been ready to volunteer for that layoff, or make good use of my time off without those sessions.

yeukhon 10y ago
Thank you. I do go through professional help, but I think switching job is the right path.

chvid 10y ago

Take a few days off and then quit your job. It is a good job market out there and there is no reason should put up with a job that is making you sick.

nunez 10y ago

One day of vacation isn't enough to let you relax. Think about it: if you're American, you spend 250 days of the year working. You have 104 weekend days that you aren't working, but let's assume that you do everything you couldn't do during the week on half of those weekends, which induces something similar to work-related stress. That's a lot of days! I like talking week-long blocks of time to recover. I work in consulting, and given the amount of decision-making and travel-related stress I undertake during the week, having a week of being at home and doing nothing is very, very welcome. I think the key is doing nothing. Nothing manifests itself differently to different people. To me, nothing means waking up whenever, driving for hours on end, watching a movie or working on a personal project at my own leisure. For others, it's shitloads of TV (which I don't like). For others still, it's hours of golf or something like that. Detaching completely from work is the key here. I'm going to emphasise this when I start leading my own teams. I want people to be at their best, and the only way to do that in a world like this is by stepping away from work every so often. You only live once. Good luck!