11 ms·

Burnout is real – how to avoid it

227 points by rspivak 7y ago

GrumpyYoungMan 7y ago
> "So serious in fact that in May, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the next version of its handbook of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD11), will recognize [burnout] as an official “occupational phenomenon” that could drive people to seek medical care." Eh, what? I thought ICD-10 already had a code for occupational burnout: Z73.0. (https://icd.codes/icd10cm/Z730 https://icd.codes/icd10cm/Z730)
- metaphor 7y ago
  Z73 appears to be "Problems related to life management difficulty". I presume they meant something more explicit like coding under Z56, "Problems related to employment and unemployment".
gloo 7y ago
Burnout is real indeed! https://burnout.so https://burnout.so
- slx26 7y ago
  > "Be the first to experience Burnout before everyone joins in" I mean...
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    It gets better! > Track vacations and plan burnouts. That just doesn't sound healthy.
    - tablet 7y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZW-AZ2mNeA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZW-AZ2mNeA&feature=youtu.be
      - 52-6F-62 7y ago
        Canadian curse. I'm barred (read: geofenced) from watching official SNL channels.
hysan 7y ago
Good compilation of the advice you often read about on the internet. However, a big factor in all of the solutions is having the support of the entire org/company. If your company doesn't believe that burnout is an issue and ignores your "no"s, gives you zero control over what is on your plate, and pressures you culturally, then to take back control, you are stuck fighting another battle on top of burnout. I've found that doing all the non-work bits of advice helps, but it doesn't reverse the trend. It only slows down your burn rate which can be dangerous. You begin to think it is under control when in reality, you're like a frog in a pot slowly being boiled alive. To really combat burnout, large influential companies need to target these types of articles at companies themselves, not individuals. We are beyond the point of calling out individuals. Notice how all of the language in this article (until #8) is centered around you. You are supposed to take full responsibility for burnout. It is your choice. Your lack of self-management is causing your burnout. But sometimes, it's really not you. It's them. I hope the community begins to realize that responsibility goes both ways and shifts the focus of these conversations onto companies. Don't put the entire onus of burnout on the employee. That is avoiding responsibility and too much of it can make it appear to be victim blaming. Start talking about how companies can change culture around this, train management to recognize it, and what it takes to make this a top-down effort instead of a bottom-up one. A good start to this conversation can be: What does Atlassian (or your company) do to prevent burnout throughout their company?
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  > If your company doesn't believe that burnout is an issue and ignores your "no"s, gives you zero control over what is on your plate, and pressures you culturally, then ...give notice and quit. No company would do this if they weren't completely toxic.
  - hysan 7y ago
    Far far easier said than done for many people. You never know a person's life situation - medical issues, financial obligations to family, etc. This also shifts the onus of the situation back onto the individual. Again, you are the one who determines if you burnout. No control? Just leave. If you stay, it's your fault if you burnout.
vfc1 7y ago
Burnout is an inevitable consequence of the modern workplace for a lot of people. A lot of those who don't have any problem with burnout are the ones burning out other people. In the modern workplace, workers are often given a task without being given the good conditions to take it through, or a good overview of the context that the task is part of. A good percentage of the tasks but not all are hot potatoes, and it can get very political (in some places this is worst than others, but its always there). You get to the office in the morning and have new 10 trouble tickets assigned to you, with estimations of 2 or 3h of execution time over which you have no control, estimated by a clueless middle manager who has never coded the simplest of programs in his/her life. If you make too many waves or comments about the length of the tasks, you are not going to last long and you know it, so what do you do? Stay late, take shorter breaks, connect one hour in the evening to get a couple more things done or do some preparation work like analysis, reading documentation, answer emails, etc. If you don't do that, you know that it's a fast track to performance improvement program which is essentially a death sentence. I think the problem is the system and not people, the current employer/employee social contract is needing a huge rehaul because society is coming to a breaking point which all these jobs disappearing due to automation and informatisation in general.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > a clueless middle manager who has never coded the simplest of programs in his/her life. I've never had manager who hasn't coded ever in his life. WhatI had most of the time was a manager who hasn't coded in a longtime.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - vfc1 7y ago
    I've had both, and I don't know what is worst to tell you the truth. The ones who have coded a long time ago think that their experience in another language/ecosystem still allows them to estimate tasks in a completely different environment, when in fact it doesn't. The non-technical manager will focus more on the business side and will be easier to manage in many situations, but the problem is that that type fo manager will neglect tasks that are purely linked to technical debt, refactoring etc that don't add new functionality to the system but are still really important.
agloeregrets 7y ago
What is funny about this is that Atlasssian’s Jira product is designed for two week “sprints”, a term referring to the idea of running quickly at a rate above a sustainable pace with no intent to keep running after the end. But these sprints normally are done repeatedly with no actual stop or sight of a finish line. Employees just churn through tickets with no designed breathing room or planned downtime. Jira is probably one of the biggest helpers at causing burnout with all of those burn down charts and story point comparisons, driving companies and employees to not support taking reasonable time off or spending time at lower pressure to encourage employee wellbeing. Basecamp’s team wrote a guide to their take on this process and why they rejected it called “Shape Up” which seems pretty pie in the sky but makes some incredibly good points on maintaining team happiness, culture and quality of work.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > “sprints”, a term referring to the idea of running quickly at a rate above a sustainable pace why would it it be "above sustainable pace".
  - dagw 7y ago
    That is literally the definition of the word. If you can run for more than, at most, a minute or so at a given pace you are pr. definition not sprinting.
    - dominotw 7y ago
      Isn't any running unsustainable though ?
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - AgloeDreams 7y ago
        Not really. Google ultramarathoning, Humans are incredibly well designed to run long distances at a sustained pace, it's like the one other thing we rock at better than other animals other than intelligence.
dlphn___xyz 7y ago
poor leadership always leads to burnout
mrfredward 7y ago
>Quick...tells his students he’s always available – except between 10pm and 6am. It’s important to put limits on when you’re reachable, he says. Really...this is their example of healthy boundary setting? A professor who says he's available the entire time he's awake, but won't answer emails when he's supposed to be sleeping.
- JeanMarcS 7y ago
  I thought the exact same thing reading this. Average healthy sleep time is 8 hour a day. Even if it's less for some, this professor can be disturbed when he eats ? When he is in his shower ? Seems strange to me.
  - Balgair 7y ago
    Depends on the discipline. Math professors aren't known for showering :)
    - qntty 7y ago
      Given how many math problems are solved in the shower I would think it would be the other way around
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Heh. I gave my students a 24 hour SLO for responding to emails when I was a TA in grad school, but I told them most emails would get responded to in less than 8 hours. That seemed to work well enough for all concerned: they got their question answered reasonably quickly, and I wasn't chained to my computer 24/7.
agumonkey 7y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20190731183556/https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/work-burnout-symptoms-and-prevention https://web.archive.org/web/20190731183556/https://www.atlas... in case the original stalls
notus 7y ago
This is just really generic advice that most people would come up with themselves by thinking about it for a while. I feel like this a constant problem with these advice blogs. I've learned so much from books like How to win friends and influence people, feeling good, meditations, etc. Yet I rarely ever see that advice repeated anywhere, they just go for really low hanging fruit and not a lot of thought is put into it.
- mikelyons 7y ago
  Original thought is too expensive for blogs that have to churn out topical content to make ad revenue, so they become consolidations of common sense.
altras 7y ago
I've battled severe burnout after my first startup :( Almost 8 years down the road and numerous other startup fails now I believe teams can do a better job with burnout symptoms within colleagues [1]. Please be mindful for your buddies. They may not have the energy to pull out themselves \/ [1] https://medium.com/camplight/what-can-we-do-to-prevent-teams-from-burning-out-ac68e7649e8c https://medium.com/camplight/what-can-we-do-to-prevent-teams...
dredmorbius 7y ago
Where and how specifically does Jira build in stress and burnout metrics and avoidance mechanisms into its tools and techniques? And when is it going to mandate a change of langauge in Scrum from "sprint" to some word vastly more reasonable in designating a staged, sustainable, work effort? The English language is in dire need of an idiom connoting the fox advising the henhouse. This post lacks all credibility.
- UglyToad 7y ago
  I agree, today marks my last day in employment with no job lined up due to burnout. A large part of what makes software development so unpleasant is Atlassian tools and they culture they foster. Ultimately the wider problem is business level implementations of scrum as a means to deskill, overload and remove the ability to display mastery from developers; but a company using Atlassian tools is a strong indicator they care more about metrics and permissions and tracking than letting developers work, in my experience.
- aklemm 7y ago
  "Sprint" isn't supposed to be sustainable. It acknowledges that for brief periods we set aside distractions/maintenance/cleanup and make progress and THEN back off to a state that lets us recuperate the whole environment. Or it should, anyway.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    If an activity is not meant to be sustainable, then stop using a word literally meaning "A burst of speed or activity" for prolonged, iterated, no-reprieve workfactor increments. (See above Humpty Dumpty "glory" quote.)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
asdfman123 7y ago
> Job burnout is an epidemic, and tech workers are especially at risk. Here’s how you can avoid feeling fried – and what employers can do to de-stress their workforce. Insane work hours and constantly availability is the epidemic here. Workers can de-stress their workforce by refusing to be available for more than 40 hours a week, and not worrying about doing outside projects if they don't feel like it. Employers can de-stress their workforce by not asking for more than 40 hours a week. > Quick, who is also a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, tells his students he’s always available – except between 10pm and 6am This is the solution to burnout? Telling people you are not available to answer emails and send over quick spreadsheets when you're literally asleep?
Balanceinfinity 7y ago
Step 1: TAKE YOUR VACATION!! - every minute allowed, every year. If they won't give you a chance to recharge your batteries, look elsewhere.
- mikelyons 7y ago
  And do what with it? For many of us burnout is tied to depression is tied to lack of a mate, hobby, social circle, life purpose. What outside of work is even worth doing? Seems like all I can think about outside of work is how badly I just want this all to be finished.
  - andrew_gardener 7y ago
    Might be stepping out but I think you've already identified quite a few things that can be worked on in order to help yourself out. hobby - honestly just try a bunch of different things for a while and you might be surprised what you like. Take up gardening, hobby games (build/paint miniatures and play 40k, battletech, etc.), hiking, really anything that requires some focus and a bit of work. In a lot of cases its more about having something to do other than work and being tired/lazy/depressed at home vegging out and/or getting into a worse headspace. mate/social circle - honestly this can be hard (especially if you’re really introverted) but getting into a hobby can open new doors. Also think about getting a pet or two. Animal companionship can really be more than a substitute for other people and fill you with all sorts of joys. life purpose - this is really hard but honestly you and in complete control over this if you push yourself hard enough. Literally just choose something. It can even be to just live as long as possible despite any shitty circumstances (doesn’t have to be some grand unachievable goal). I really hope I'm not stepping out of line but your message seemed like a call for help. I've had my own long spells of depression and some of the above have helped me a lot. Please also consider getting in contact with professional help if it’s really getting bad. Forget about shame, nervousness, or whatever had headspace your currently in, your life is 100% worth more than any of that.
    - mikelyons 7y ago
      The first time I heard all of this advice was 20 years ago, and people just repeat it every week for years on end ...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 7y ago
> * You’ve become cynical or critical at work > * You drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started > * You’re irritable or impatient with co-workers, customers or clients > * You lack the energy to be consistently productive > * You find it hard to concentrate > * You lack satisfaction from your achievements > * You feel disillusioned about your job > * You use food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply not feel > * Your sleep habits have changed > * You’re troubled by unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems, or other physical complaints You say "burnout symptoms", Corporate says "reasons to fire you". Potato, potahto.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
CzarnyZiutek 7y ago
Fitter, healthier and more productive. A pig In a cage On antibiotics
bobloblaw45 7y ago
I experienced burnout the first time I went to college. This was after years of school though having changed majors and transferring/lost lots of credits. And I mean a LONG time was spent I really should have taken a year or two off. Busting my rear end while having to be broke and slumming it for years on end with no rewards took its toll. At the end I was just pulling myself out of bed and going through the motions and not really caring about grades anymore. Burnout never crossed my mind since it's always something you associate with high stress jobs. Turned out it was a very expensive misunderstanding.
ajeet_dhaliwal 7y ago
Makes sense but most of these aren't really actionable unless you're at the top. Other than quitting to find a better culture of course. For example, 3. Manage your digital distractions, mentions Tim Cook. I'm sure he can decide to cut down on his notifications, but if you're working at a place where Slack is used, there's 100 channels and you're expected to respond quickly by the management, your only choice is to leave.
ticmasta 7y ago
>> Job burnout is an epidemic Start of sub-title. def: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time So a wide-spread, non-infectious phenomena that has been occurring... forever?, doesn't really meet the definition. I'm not debating this is a real thing nor that it may be more prevalent, but a bunch of generic tips that put the entire responsibility on avoiding burnout onto me seems likely to increase the risks rather than address them...
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  The term "epidemic" can be used for numerous conditions, some directly related to biologically infectious conditions, some not. You can find mentions of epidemics of cancer or heart disease, not generally of infectious origin, or of violence or (as in this case), mental health. The study of epidemiology hides its core principles well (most texts discuss statstical methods, rather than theoretical underpinnings), but they are: susceptible populations, adverse conditions, and vectors of transmission. You can apply fundamental epidemiological methods to any phenomenon matching this general description. Generally, a vector involves some transmission factor which promotes an adverse outcome, and some transmission carrier, which communicates that outcome between affected instances. To take a highly non-medical example: Iomega's Jaz drives, a removable, Winchester-style disk storage, in which platters and heads were separated, had a phenomenal capacity to create propogating media and drive failures: misaligned drives would damage heads, misaligned heads would damage drives. The condition could spread through an entire population of disks shared on a single drive, or drives in which disks were shared among systems. It was a phenomenally bad design. Disk/head misallignment was both the infectious agent and vector. In public health, contaminants (radioactive materials, lead, asbestos, PM2.5, endocrine disruptors) can transmit adverse health outcomes among populations. Host-to-host transmission isn't generally prevalent (though some secondary contact may occur), but source-to-host most definitely is. Prions transmit MCD and YCS without a direct biological agent. In the case of management and workplace factors, business organisation, management practices (or fads), and tools are transmission factors, and the educational, marketing, cultural, and ideological systems which promote those factors are the carriers. TL;DR: Agile is a disease.
- gerbilly 7y ago
CalRobert 7y ago
All of this advice would be great if following it didn't mean you would be next to get fired. They forgot "unionize". Remember, every time you attend a meeting while on your vacation, or answer an email at 10 PM, you're normalizing that behaviour. You're telling your boss it's OK to demand it of everyone.
pier25 7y ago
As someone who hasn't taken a vacation in almost 4 years... yeah this sounds familiar. Thankfully I'm ending my current job in a couple of weeks and will take a couple of free months before starting my next adventure.
topherjaynes 7y ago
I'm glad Atlassian is calling attention to this, but I'd love to see them incorporate tools and features into their products that could help identify and measure these recommendations. Most of the data is there, but we just need to expose views of worker metrics and not solely focus on projects. A teams burnout indicator would be just as important as velocity report.
artsyca 7y ago
Number one cause of burnout is organizations adopting Atlassian products and treating the process like some sort of finite state automaton
orangetang 7y ago
Everything should be done in balance.
bigYahnz 7y ago
I've felt like I've had serious burnout for almost four years now. We've lost about 70% of our development team with no plans on filling the positions they've left open. We've not had a manager for over two years now. Haven't had a project manager for over two years. Our workload constantly increases. I recently got done with a stint of 45 days straight. Down to only 6 days a week now, but will be back to 7 before the end of the year to meet deadlines. I work for a healthcare company that is top 5 in size in the country. Our CEO had record compensation last year. I'm very excited by that. I love technology! What an interesting and exciting job.
skizm 7y ago
None of this advice really addresses the core issue: people don’t want to be on other people’s schedule nearly all the time for 30+ years of their adult life. It’s relentless and soul crushing. I get 4 weeks off a year, and even if I take them all in a row, the only thing I can think of once my vacation starts is “the clock is ticking till I have to be back in the office.” And that’s always in the back of my mind no matter what and will be till I retire or somehow figure out a way to get fuck you money. No amount of meditation, saying no, time management etc., can fix that. I basically have no control of my life until then. Is there any fix to this? Can there be any fix really? My plan now is just to save aggressively until 40 or so, then either lean FIRE or switch to a 6 month on 6 month off contracting schedule. The only other option I can think of is take a job I might enjoy. But all those kinds of jobs pay poorly (relative to a software engineer’s salary), so I’d be locking myself into the working world for an extra decade or longer. Edit: I should note that I realize I am extremely fortunate to be in the situation I am. I don’t mean to sound like I’m ungrateful for a lot of the things in my life.
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  > My plan now is just to save aggressively until 40 or so, then either lean FIRE... This is the real answer to preventing burnout: focusing on getting to financial independence starting from the very first day you start your career. There is nothing more liberating and comforting than knowing you don't have to stay at your job one moment longer than you feel like it. Granted, it's not an option for everyone because of their life circumstances, but it is for most people in the software industry.
whenanother 7y ago
the only cure for burnouts in the us is a workers’ union. everything else is just attempting to deal with the symptom of the real problem of corporations having too much power.
jackvalentine 7y ago
I have everything on their list and I'll be talking to my director next week about making some changes. Thanks for posting.
burnt_husk 7y ago
Disclosure: I used to work at Atlassian. I've been reading HN for years without an account but this one triggered me to comment. I suffered burnout there. I had the misfortune of working as an "SRE" at Atlassian. The reality was you spent your days, nights, and weekends dealing with major incidents. I do not know if it was a conscious strategy, but it would seem the approach taken to reduce organizational wide pager fatigue and burnout from out of hours work was to concentrate it on a few. (My guess is that it was conscious, as that best explains why my cries for help whilst falling on seemingly sympathetic ears, yielded no changes.)

227 points by rspivak 7y ago

> "So serious in fact that in May, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the next version of its handbook of diseases, the International Classification of Diseases (ICD11), will recognize [burnout] as an official “occupational phenomenon” that could drive people to seek medical care." Eh, what? I thought ICD-10 already had a code for occupational burnout: Z73.0. (https://icd.codes/icd10cm/Z730 https://icd.codes/icd10cm/Z730)

metaphor 7y ago
Z73 appears to be "Problems related to life management difficulty". I presume they meant something more explicit like coding under Z56, "Problems related to employment and unemployment".

gloo 7y ago

Burnout is real indeed! https://burnout.so https://burnout.so

slx26 7y ago
> "Be the first to experience Burnout before everyone joins in" I mean...
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  It gets better! > Track vacations and plan burnouts. That just doesn't sound healthy.
  - tablet 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZW-AZ2mNeA&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZW-AZ2mNeA&feature=youtu.be
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      Canadian curse. I'm barred (read: geofenced) from watching official SNL channels.

hysan 7y ago

Good compilation of the advice you often read about on the internet. However, a big factor in all of the solutions is having the support of the entire org/company. If your company doesn't believe that burnout is an issue and ignores your "no"s, gives you zero control over what is on your plate, and pressures you culturally, then to take back control, you are stuck fighting another battle on top of burnout. I've found that doing all the non-work bits of advice helps, but it doesn't reverse the trend. It only slows down your burn rate which can be dangerous. You begin to think it is under control when in reality, you're like a frog in a pot slowly being boiled alive. To really combat burnout, large influential companies need to target these types of articles at companies themselves, not individuals. We are beyond the point of calling out individuals. Notice how all of the language in this article (until #8) is centered around you. You are supposed to take full responsibility for burnout. It is your choice. Your lack of self-management is causing your burnout. But sometimes, it's really not you. It's them. I hope the community begins to realize that responsibility goes both ways and shifts the focus of these conversations onto companies. Don't put the entire onus of burnout on the employee. That is avoiding responsibility and too much of it can make it appear to be victim blaming. Start talking about how companies can change culture around this, train management to recognize it, and what it takes to make this a top-down effort instead of a bottom-up one. A good start to this conversation can be: What does Atlassian (or your company) do to prevent burnout throughout their company?

JulianMorrison 7y ago
> If your company doesn't believe that burnout is an issue and ignores your "no"s, gives you zero control over what is on your plate, and pressures you culturally, then ...give notice and quit. No company would do this if they weren't completely toxic.
- hysan 7y ago
  Far far easier said than done for many people. You never know a person's life situation - medical issues, financial obligations to family, etc. This also shifts the onus of the situation back onto the individual. Again, you are the one who determines if you burnout. No control? Just leave. If you stay, it's your fault if you burnout.

vfc1 7y ago

Burnout is an inevitable consequence of the modern workplace for a lot of people. A lot of those who don't have any problem with burnout are the ones burning out other people. In the modern workplace, workers are often given a task without being given the good conditions to take it through, or a good overview of the context that the task is part of. A good percentage of the tasks but not all are hot potatoes, and it can get very political (in some places this is worst than others, but its always there). You get to the office in the morning and have new 10 trouble tickets assigned to you, with estimations of 2 or 3h of execution time over which you have no control, estimated by a clueless middle manager who has never coded the simplest of programs in his/her life. If you make too many waves or comments about the length of the tasks, you are not going to last long and you know it, so what do you do? Stay late, take shorter breaks, connect one hour in the evening to get a couple more things done or do some preparation work like analysis, reading documentation, answer emails, etc. If you don't do that, you know that it's a fast track to performance improvement program which is essentially a death sentence. I think the problem is the system and not people, the current employer/employee social contract is needing a huge rehaul because society is coming to a breaking point which all these jobs disappearing due to automation and informatisation in general.

dominotw 7y ago
> a clueless middle manager who has never coded the simplest of programs in his/her life. I've never had manager who hasn't coded ever in his life. WhatI had most of the time was a manager who hasn't coded in a longtime.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vfc1 7y ago
  I've had both, and I don't know what is worst to tell you the truth. The ones who have coded a long time ago think that their experience in another language/ecosystem still allows them to estimate tasks in a completely different environment, when in fact it doesn't. The non-technical manager will focus more on the business side and will be easier to manage in many situations, but the problem is that that type fo manager will neglect tasks that are purely linked to technical debt, refactoring etc that don't add new functionality to the system but are still really important.

agloeregrets 7y ago

What is funny about this is that Atlasssian’s Jira product is designed for two week “sprints”, a term referring to the idea of running quickly at a rate above a sustainable pace with no intent to keep running after the end. But these sprints normally are done repeatedly with no actual stop or sight of a finish line. Employees just churn through tickets with no designed breathing room or planned downtime. Jira is probably one of the biggest helpers at causing burnout with all of those burn down charts and story point comparisons, driving companies and employees to not support taking reasonable time off or spending time at lower pressure to encourage employee wellbeing. Basecamp’s team wrote a guide to their take on this process and why they rejected it called “Shape Up” which seems pretty pie in the sky but makes some incredibly good points on maintaining team happiness, culture and quality of work.

dominotw 7y ago
> “sprints”, a term referring to the idea of running quickly at a rate above a sustainable pace why would it it be "above sustainable pace".
- dagw 7y ago
  That is literally the definition of the word. If you can run for more than, at most, a minute or so at a given pace you are pr. definition not sprinting.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    Isn't any running unsustainable though ?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - AgloeDreams 7y ago
      Not really. Google ultramarathoning, Humans are incredibly well designed to run long distances at a sustained pace, it's like the one other thing we rock at better than other animals other than intelligence.

dlphn___xyz 7y ago

poor leadership always leads to burnout

mrfredward 7y ago

>Quick...tells his students he’s always available – except between 10pm and 6am. It’s important to put limits on when you’re reachable, he says. Really...this is their example of healthy boundary setting? A professor who says he's available the entire time he's awake, but won't answer emails when he's supposed to be sleeping.

JeanMarcS 7y ago
I thought the exact same thing reading this. Average healthy sleep time is 8 hour a day. Even if it's less for some, this professor can be disturbed when he eats ? When he is in his shower ? Seems strange to me.
- Balgair 7y ago
  Depends on the discipline. Math professors aren't known for showering :)
  - qntty 7y ago
    Given how many math problems are solved in the shower I would think it would be the other way around
pmiller2 7y ago
Heh. I gave my students a 24 hour SLO for responding to emails when I was a TA in grad school, but I told them most emails would get responded to in less than 8 hours. That seemed to work well enough for all concerned: they got their question answered reasonably quickly, and I wasn't chained to my computer 24/7.

agumonkey 7y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20190731183556/https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/work-burnout-symptoms-and-prevention https://web.archive.org/web/20190731183556/https://www.atlas... in case the original stalls

notus 7y ago

This is just really generic advice that most people would come up with themselves by thinking about it for a while. I feel like this a constant problem with these advice blogs. I've learned so much from books like How to win friends and influence people, feeling good, meditations, etc. Yet I rarely ever see that advice repeated anywhere, they just go for really low hanging fruit and not a lot of thought is put into it.

mikelyons 7y ago
Original thought is too expensive for blogs that have to churn out topical content to make ad revenue, so they become consolidations of common sense.

altras 7y ago

I've battled severe burnout after my first startup :( Almost 8 years down the road and numerous other startup fails now I believe teams can do a better job with burnout symptoms within colleagues [1]. Please be mindful for your buddies. They may not have the energy to pull out themselves \/ [1] https://medium.com/camplight/what-can-we-do-to-prevent-teams-from-burning-out-ac68e7649e8c https://medium.com/camplight/what-can-we-do-to-prevent-teams...

dredmorbius 7y ago

Where and how specifically does Jira build in stress and burnout metrics and avoidance mechanisms into its tools and techniques? And when is it going to mandate a change of langauge in Scrum from "sprint" to some word vastly more reasonable in designating a staged, sustainable, work effort? The English language is in dire need of an idiom connoting the fox advising the henhouse. This post lacks all credibility.

UglyToad 7y ago
I agree, today marks my last day in employment with no job lined up due to burnout. A large part of what makes software development so unpleasant is Atlassian tools and they culture they foster. Ultimately the wider problem is business level implementations of scrum as a means to deskill, overload and remove the ability to display mastery from developers; but a company using Atlassian tools is a strong indicator they care more about metrics and permissions and tracking than letting developers work, in my experience.
aklemm 7y ago
"Sprint" isn't supposed to be sustainable. It acknowledges that for brief periods we set aside distractions/maintenance/cleanup and make progress and THEN back off to a state that lets us recuperate the whole environment. Or it should, anyway.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  If an activity is not meant to be sustainable, then stop using a word literally meaning "A burst of speed or activity" for prolonged, iterated, no-reprieve workfactor increments. (See above Humpty Dumpty "glory" quote.)

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asdfman123 7y ago

> Job burnout is an epidemic, and tech workers are especially at risk. Here’s how you can avoid feeling fried – and what employers can do to de-stress their workforce. Insane work hours and constantly availability is the epidemic here. Workers can de-stress their workforce by refusing to be available for more than 40 hours a week, and not worrying about doing outside projects if they don't feel like it. Employers can de-stress their workforce by not asking for more than 40 hours a week. > Quick, who is also a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, tells his students he’s always available – except between 10pm and 6am This is the solution to burnout? Telling people you are not available to answer emails and send over quick spreadsheets when you're literally asleep?

Balanceinfinity 7y ago

Step 1: TAKE YOUR VACATION!! - every minute allowed, every year. If they won't give you a chance to recharge your batteries, look elsewhere.

mikelyons 7y ago
And do what with it? For many of us burnout is tied to depression is tied to lack of a mate, hobby, social circle, life purpose. What outside of work is even worth doing? Seems like all I can think about outside of work is how badly I just want this all to be finished.
- andrew_gardener 7y ago
  Might be stepping out but I think you've already identified quite a few things that can be worked on in order to help yourself out. hobby - honestly just try a bunch of different things for a while and you might be surprised what you like. Take up gardening, hobby games (build/paint miniatures and play 40k, battletech, etc.), hiking, really anything that requires some focus and a bit of work. In a lot of cases its more about having something to do other than work and being tired/lazy/depressed at home vegging out and/or getting into a worse headspace. mate/social circle - honestly this can be hard (especially if you’re really introverted) but getting into a hobby can open new doors. Also think about getting a pet or two. Animal companionship can really be more than a substitute for other people and fill you with all sorts of joys. life purpose - this is really hard but honestly you and in complete control over this if you push yourself hard enough. Literally just choose something. It can even be to just live as long as possible despite any shitty circumstances (doesn’t have to be some grand unachievable goal). I really hope I'm not stepping out of line but your message seemed like a call for help. I've had my own long spells of depression and some of the above have helped me a lot. Please also consider getting in contact with professional help if it’s really getting bad. Forget about shame, nervousness, or whatever had headspace your currently in, your life is 100% worth more than any of that.
  - mikelyons 7y ago
    The first time I heard all of this advice was 20 years ago, and people just repeat it every week for years on end ...

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bitwize 7y ago

> * You’ve become cynical or critical at work > * You drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started > * You’re irritable or impatient with co-workers, customers or clients > * You lack the energy to be consistently productive > * You find it hard to concentrate > * You lack satisfaction from your achievements > * You feel disillusioned about your job > * You use food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply not feel > * Your sleep habits have changed > * You’re troubled by unexplained headaches, stomach or bowel problems, or other physical complaints You say "burnout symptoms", Corporate says "reasons to fire you". Potato, potahto.

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CzarnyZiutek 7y ago

Fitter, healthier and more productive. A pig In a cage On antibiotics

bobloblaw45 7y ago

I experienced burnout the first time I went to college. This was after years of school though having changed majors and transferring/lost lots of credits. And I mean a LONG time was spent I really should have taken a year or two off. Busting my rear end while having to be broke and slumming it for years on end with no rewards took its toll. At the end I was just pulling myself out of bed and going through the motions and not really caring about grades anymore. Burnout never crossed my mind since it's always something you associate with high stress jobs. Turned out it was a very expensive misunderstanding.

ajeet_dhaliwal 7y ago

Makes sense but most of these aren't really actionable unless you're at the top. Other than quitting to find a better culture of course. For example, 3. Manage your digital distractions, mentions Tim Cook. I'm sure he can decide to cut down on his notifications, but if you're working at a place where Slack is used, there's 100 channels and you're expected to respond quickly by the management, your only choice is to leave.

ticmasta 7y ago

>> Job burnout is an epidemic Start of sub-title. def: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time So a wide-spread, non-infectious phenomena that has been occurring... forever?, doesn't really meet the definition. I'm not debating this is a real thing nor that it may be more prevalent, but a bunch of generic tips that put the entire responsibility on avoiding burnout onto me seems likely to increase the risks rather than address them...

dredmorbius 7y ago
The term "epidemic" can be used for numerous conditions, some directly related to biologically infectious conditions, some not. You can find mentions of epidemics of cancer or heart disease, not generally of infectious origin, or of violence or (as in this case), mental health. The study of epidemiology hides its core principles well (most texts discuss statstical methods, rather than theoretical underpinnings), but they are: susceptible populations, adverse conditions, and vectors of transmission. You can apply fundamental epidemiological methods to any phenomenon matching this general description. Generally, a vector involves some transmission factor which promotes an adverse outcome, and some transmission carrier, which communicates that outcome between affected instances. To take a highly non-medical example: Iomega's Jaz drives, a removable, Winchester-style disk storage, in which platters and heads were separated, had a phenomenal capacity to create propogating media and drive failures: misaligned drives would damage heads, misaligned heads would damage drives. The condition could spread through an entire population of disks shared on a single drive, or drives in which disks were shared among systems. It was a phenomenally bad design. Disk/head misallignment was both the infectious agent and vector. In public health, contaminants (radioactive materials, lead, asbestos, PM2.5, endocrine disruptors) can transmit adverse health outcomes among populations. Host-to-host transmission isn't generally prevalent (though some secondary contact may occur), but source-to-host most definitely is. Prions transmit MCD and YCS without a direct biological agent. In the case of management and workplace factors, business organisation, management practices (or fads), and tools are transmission factors, and the educational, marketing, cultural, and ideological systems which promote those factors are the carriers. TL;DR: Agile is a disease.
gerbilly 7y ago

CalRobert 7y ago

All of this advice would be great if following it didn't mean you would be next to get fired. They forgot "unionize". Remember, every time you attend a meeting while on your vacation, or answer an email at 10 PM, you're normalizing that behaviour. You're telling your boss it's OK to demand it of everyone.

pier25 7y ago

As someone who hasn't taken a vacation in almost 4 years... yeah this sounds familiar. Thankfully I'm ending my current job in a couple of weeks and will take a couple of free months before starting my next adventure.

topherjaynes 7y ago

I'm glad Atlassian is calling attention to this, but I'd love to see them incorporate tools and features into their products that could help identify and measure these recommendations. Most of the data is there, but we just need to expose views of worker metrics and not solely focus on projects. A teams burnout indicator would be just as important as velocity report.

artsyca 7y ago

Number one cause of burnout is organizations adopting Atlassian products and treating the process like some sort of finite state automaton

orangetang 7y ago

Everything should be done in balance.

bigYahnz 7y ago

I've felt like I've had serious burnout for almost four years now. We've lost about 70% of our development team with no plans on filling the positions they've left open. We've not had a manager for over two years now. Haven't had a project manager for over two years. Our workload constantly increases. I recently got done with a stint of 45 days straight. Down to only 6 days a week now, but will be back to 7 before the end of the year to meet deadlines. I work for a healthcare company that is top 5 in size in the country. Our CEO had record compensation last year. I'm very excited by that. I love technology! What an interesting and exciting job.

skizm 7y ago

None of this advice really addresses the core issue: people don’t want to be on other people’s schedule nearly all the time for 30+ years of their adult life. It’s relentless and soul crushing. I get 4 weeks off a year, and even if I take them all in a row, the only thing I can think of once my vacation starts is “the clock is ticking till I have to be back in the office.” And that’s always in the back of my mind no matter what and will be till I retire or somehow figure out a way to get fuck you money. No amount of meditation, saying no, time management etc., can fix that. I basically have no control of my life until then. Is there any fix to this? Can there be any fix really? My plan now is just to save aggressively until 40 or so, then either lean FIRE or switch to a 6 month on 6 month off contracting schedule. The only other option I can think of is take a job I might enjoy. But all those kinds of jobs pay poorly (relative to a software engineer’s salary), so I’d be locking myself into the working world for an extra decade or longer. Edit: I should note that I realize I am extremely fortunate to be in the situation I am. I don’t mean to sound like I’m ungrateful for a lot of the things in my life.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> My plan now is just to save aggressively until 40 or so, then either lean FIRE... This is the real answer to preventing burnout: focusing on getting to financial independence starting from the very first day you start your career. There is nothing more liberating and comforting than knowing you don't have to stay at your job one moment longer than you feel like it. Granted, it's not an option for everyone because of their life circumstances, but it is for most people in the software industry.

whenanother 7y ago

the only cure for burnouts in the us is a workers’ union. everything else is just attempting to deal with the symptom of the real problem of corporations having too much power.

jackvalentine 7y ago

I have everything on their list and I'll be talking to my director next week about making some changes. Thanks for posting.

burnt_husk 7y ago

Disclosure: I used to work at Atlassian. I've been reading HN for years without an account but this one triggered me to comment. I suffered burnout there. I had the misfortune of working as an "SRE" at Atlassian. The reality was you spent your days, nights, and weekends dealing with major incidents. I do not know if it was a conscious strategy, but it would seem the approach taken to reduce organizational wide pager fatigue and burnout from out of hours work was to concentrate it on a few. (My guess is that it was conscious, as that best explains why my cries for help whilst falling on seemingly sympathetic ears, yielded no changes.)