6 ms·

Work Stress: How the 42% Rule Could Help You Recover from Burnout (2020)

45 points by philonoist 5y ago

godDLL 5y ago
In my experience I would define the burnout phenomenon as reinforced, conditioned fatigue. Learned apathy. Learned hopelessness. For me it was happening, and is happening because I care. Because I care what other people think things are. Because I care what other people think I am to them. It is very obscure how one can learn the art of manliness. How one can be sure what things are and what you are to other people, and not be swayed all day this and that way. Sitting there coding you get used to direct communication. I tell this to be that. I read what this does. But then your boss comes in to boss you (as he should), and you don't switch. You listen to him talking as if you're having those thoughts, you try to understand his position and accommodate. You don't engage him like this other person that he is, rather you relate to him/her. You take them in like they're documentation, not like they're marketing material. And now they just told you what you care about, and you take that on, and run with it. And you keep on caring about it when come home, going to bed, waking up in the morning. You're built to prioritize dangers, and warnings, and worry above other things as a biological being. Maybe 10 to one above other things. And your boss will not be 10 parts praise to 1 part business, he can't do that. He'll be business first and niceties later. That doesn't mean that all is hell and you should stress and punch it, but you do. And because it happens every day by day 21 it is a habit of yours. You learn to stress and punch it, and take your anxiety home with you and never let it go. You never rest. You get exhausted. You burn out. I'm learning to be my own man, know what is what, put up filters. Express my care as a consequence of work decisions and not as a precursor. Invoke care in context. I see some people have this from young age. Many of them had a father, or fathers. I'm learning this at 38, after having misplaced care all of my most statistically productive period of life, and having nothing to show for it, consequently. Learning about the concepts of "agreeableness" and proclivity to "negative emotion" helped make sense of how this works in my life, with other people. What I'm saying, I guess is that the article takes a systematic, top-down view to this. Looking for a solution at a societal level, telling people how much to work and when to stop. But in my experience it isn't about any of that at all. Instead it is about knowing when you're tired and what to do about that. It is about knowing how to be when working and how to be when your boss is talking to you. It is about caring for the things you're doing and are about to do, not the things you left waiting for you at work tomorrow. It is about practicing completing things, being done with things, and not practicing worrying about things (that's your boss' job) or practicing being accommodating (again, not your job).
thenerdhead 5y ago
> Science is pretty clear on the amount: it’s 42%. What science? There's not even a way to claim that number in the article. I would personally argue that there is an optimal stopping point that is true in other problems. That number is 1/e or 37%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping 37% of a 24 hour day is ~9 hours. Most people work ~8-9 hours a day before stopping. Most people sleep for ~8-9 hours a day. Most people have leisure for ~8-9 hours a day. This percentage is pretty consistent & has actual backing in other applications. There are other major variables not accounted for such as circadian rhythm and your biological working clock, but that's besides the point.
- Jeff_Brown 5y ago
  The thing is that the eight hours of work is not all the work, it's just all the work for your employer. When I sleep eight hours and work eight hours, given that i also have to do bio maintenace (eat, shower, etc.) for around three hours, and do chores for two hours, I'm left with about three.
  - thenerdhead 5y ago
    That makes sense given it's 37% of your leisure time.
    - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
      It should add up to 24 hours but I have my doubts. Maybe my timeline leaks.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  Work 8-5 Study for work 5-8 Gym 8-10 Chores 10-11 Free time 11-12 Burn out: imminent
  - PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    > Work 8-5 > Study for work 5-8 That’s not normal. If you’re doing this, you’re actually working 8-8. This schedule can work for a short periods and special occasions, but it shouldn’t be your norm. This can usually be fixed by improving your efficiency at work: Get down to business quickly and limit time spent browsing the internet and other non-work activities. Consolidate work to normal working hours, save the leisure for later. > Gym 8-10 Also not normal or even necessary. A 30-minute gym trip is more than sufficient to stay in great shape. You can also go 2-3 times a week instead of 7 days a week. Spending 10-14 hours at the gym every week is an extreme outlier of exercise.
Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago
This articles seems to a victim of the flaw of averages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29793256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29793256
prionassembly 5y ago
It's strange that it reduces kids to a chore (although kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine). Some of the time spent with my kid is restorative; indeed, much of the resistance to returning from the home-office has to do with wanting to spend time with the kids. Having children is a good thing for the soul. We're supposed to have them, it's in our DNA. Something is out of whack with contemporaneity -- the time is out of joint -- when we can only see them as a cost center.
- throw1234651234 5y ago
  I don't know how you do it.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    It depends on psychology. Different people process social interaction in different ways (and it's the same for basically every experience, not just social interaction).
- cj 5y ago
  > kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine I'm part of the "childlress" class you describe, and no, it's overtly obvious how much work a child is, and is the precise reason I don't have any. > Having children is a good thing for the soul. I get the same fulfillment (without all the work) by being extremely close with cousins and siblings with children. It's really fun and fulfilling being the "cool uncle" - but having one of my own 24/7? No thanks, hard pass!
  - mayoff 5y ago
    It is impossible for you to know whether it's “the same fulfillment” if you have not actually been in both situations.
    - falcolas 5y ago
      Here's the problem with that: there's the chance that if you have children you will hate them. Probably more so if you've been pressured into having children. This is not a socially acceptable response, so you usually only ever see this response in anonymous "off my chest" spaces. And if you hate your children, you're doing them a vast disservice. There is no moral imperative to have children, and I wish people would stop pressuring the voluntarily childless into having children.
chipgap98 5y ago
Lets assume that 42% number is real, which is a big if. If you count sleep as rest then wouldn't you only need to rest a couple hours a day to meet this rule? I feel like the article acts like that is some unattainable number. For most people working white collar jobs that doesn't seem crazy.
- cirrus3 5y ago
  Did you read the article? Yes, sleep counts. And no, the article doesn't think it unattainable either.
tibanne 5y ago
- davemp 5y ago
  > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. You committed the very same sin. []: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
BlueTemplar 5y ago
If you can recover from it (especially in just a few months of vacation), then it's not burnout, it's just "getting tired".
agumonkey 5y ago
Anybody knows research, books or else about the origin of burnout ? My small work experience has made me isolate a few ingredients: - loosely defined tasks - improper team spirit / organizational communication People feel bad when they feel they can't do their part and feel worthy / look ok / belong. Badly defined => badly trained => unfair blame (or the potential for it). They feel bad if they can't be open about issues and rely a bit on the group for support. They feel bad if they don't know how to get information (this links back to the first point). A group is a strange soup and fears / doubts / tiny ego bursts can rapidly turn it into an acid bath.. but the opposite is true, most people want to be team players and care for a group and for a duty.
- alexpetralia 5y ago
  I have surmised that it is a feeling of "chronic stress" (as differentiated from transient, acute stress), in particular due to psychological entropy. This is a general lack of direction, purpose, coherence, comprehension - all aggregating into a rudderless feeling of "what the hell am I doing?" It is not from people working too hard - people work hard all the time without burnout. They burnout when they work hard and fail, or have doubts about their success. Conversely, it also can happen when people work too little. That's because it is not about effort. It is about an absence of meaning (purpose) that causes us to "burn out" in any discernible forward direction. It is similar to depression: you don't know which way is up. It can happen at work, but also in a relationship, within a family, with friends, etc.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Very good points. That's why I prefer fast foods over most jobs .. these jobs are very well defined, there's no slack or lack of direction since everything has to be done and gone in 5 minutes. It's also very nice to give food to people. Even if you're sweating a lot for many hours, you don't accumulate a lot of negative stuff in your mind (unless bad boss, harassment). Also very fair point about the fact that it's larger than work.. it's social-general.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  > People feel bad when they feel they can't do their part and feel worthy / look ok / belong. Badly defined => badly trained => unfair blame (or the potential for it). They feel bad if they can't be open about issues and rely a bit on the group for support. They feel bad if they don't know how to get information (this links back to the first point). A lot of this is probably learned helplessness. When things are always randomly breaking and you're powerless to affect your solution in any other way than putting out the constant fires, that's a surefire way to burn out. It's not just that it's a stressful situation, it's when they keep coming and there doesn't appear to be any obvious means of avoiding them or improving your situation. That's when you get fucked up.
stellalo 5y ago
“Science is pretty clear” -> doesn’t cite any science.
MrDresden 5y ago
This is absolute bs. If you believe you have the symptoms of a burnout then please, seek out help from a qualified specialist. Do not start gobbling up pseudoscience like this. Take it from someone who hase had burnout multiple times and sought help. It really does help.
xwdv 5y ago
To prevent burnout, choose a career where you are paid for the value you provide instead of physical hours spent working. This way you can decouple work from time. As you build your skills, you can reduce work to a daily chore of just a few hours instead of the key focus of your day.

45 points by philonoist 5y ago

In my experience I would define the burnout phenomenon as reinforced, conditioned fatigue. Learned apathy. Learned hopelessness. For me it was happening, and is happening because I care. Because I care what other people think things are. Because I care what other people think I am to them. It is very obscure how one can learn the art of manliness. How one can be sure what things are and what you are to other people, and not be swayed all day this and that way. Sitting there coding you get used to direct communication. I tell this to be that. I read what this does. But then your boss comes in to boss you (as he should), and you don't switch. You listen to him talking as if you're having those thoughts, you try to understand his position and accommodate. You don't engage him like this other person that he is, rather you relate to him/her. You take them in like they're documentation, not like they're marketing material. And now they just told you what you care about, and you take that on, and run with it. And you keep on caring about it when come home, going to bed, waking up in the morning. You're built to prioritize dangers, and warnings, and worry above other things as a biological being. Maybe 10 to one above other things. And your boss will not be 10 parts praise to 1 part business, he can't do that. He'll be business first and niceties later. That doesn't mean that all is hell and you should stress and punch it, but you do. And because it happens every day by day 21 it is a habit of yours. You learn to stress and punch it, and take your anxiety home with you and never let it go. You never rest. You get exhausted. You burn out. I'm learning to be my own man, know what is what, put up filters. Express my care as a consequence of work decisions and not as a precursor. Invoke care in context. I see some people have this from young age. Many of them had a father, or fathers. I'm learning this at 38, after having misplaced care all of my most statistically productive period of life, and having nothing to show for it, consequently. Learning about the concepts of "agreeableness" and proclivity to "negative emotion" helped make sense of how this works in my life, with other people. What I'm saying, I guess is that the article takes a systematic, top-down view to this. Looking for a solution at a societal level, telling people how much to work and when to stop. But in my experience it isn't about any of that at all. Instead it is about knowing when you're tired and what to do about that. It is about knowing how to be when working and how to be when your boss is talking to you. It is about caring for the things you're doing and are about to do, not the things you left waiting for you at work tomorrow. It is about practicing completing things, being done with things, and not practicing worrying about things (that's your boss' job) or practicing being accommodating (again, not your job).

thenerdhead 5y ago

> Science is pretty clear on the amount: it’s 42%. What science? There's not even a way to claim that number in the article. I would personally argue that there is an optimal stopping point that is true in other problems. That number is 1/e or 37%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_stopping 37% of a 24 hour day is ~9 hours. Most people work ~8-9 hours a day before stopping. Most people sleep for ~8-9 hours a day. Most people have leisure for ~8-9 hours a day. This percentage is pretty consistent & has actual backing in other applications. There are other major variables not accounted for such as circadian rhythm and your biological working clock, but that's besides the point.

Jeff_Brown 5y ago
The thing is that the eight hours of work is not all the work, it's just all the work for your employer. When I sleep eight hours and work eight hours, given that i also have to do bio maintenace (eat, shower, etc.) for around three hours, and do chores for two hours, I'm left with about three.
- thenerdhead 5y ago
  That makes sense given it's 37% of your leisure time.
  - Jeff_Brown 5y ago
    It should add up to 24 hours but I have my doubts. Maybe my timeline leaks.
throw1234651234 5y ago
Work 8-5 Study for work 5-8 Gym 8-10 Chores 10-11 Free time 11-12 Burn out: imminent
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > Work 8-5 > Study for work 5-8 That’s not normal. If you’re doing this, you’re actually working 8-8. This schedule can work for a short periods and special occasions, but it shouldn’t be your norm. This can usually be fixed by improving your efficiency at work: Get down to business quickly and limit time spent browsing the internet and other non-work activities. Consolidate work to normal working hours, save the leisure for later. > Gym 8-10 Also not normal or even necessary. A 30-minute gym trip is more than sufficient to stay in great shape. You can also go 2-3 times a week instead of 7 days a week. Spending 10-14 hours at the gym every week is an extreme outlier of exercise.

Eddy_Viscosity2 5y ago

This articles seems to a victim of the flaw of averages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29793256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29793256

prionassembly 5y ago

It's strange that it reduces kids to a chore (although kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine). Some of the time spent with my kid is restorative; indeed, much of the resistance to returning from the home-office has to do with wanting to spend time with the kids. Having children is a good thing for the soul. We're supposed to have them, it's in our DNA. Something is out of whack with contemporaneity -- the time is out of joint -- when we can only see them as a cost center.

throw1234651234 5y ago
I don't know how you do it.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  It depends on psychology. Different people process social interaction in different ways (and it's the same for basically every experience, not just social interaction).
cj 5y ago
> kid-related chores are WAY more numerous than the childless can ever imagine I'm part of the "childlress" class you describe, and no, it's overtly obvious how much work a child is, and is the precise reason I don't have any. > Having children is a good thing for the soul. I get the same fulfillment (without all the work) by being extremely close with cousins and siblings with children. It's really fun and fulfilling being the "cool uncle" - but having one of my own 24/7? No thanks, hard pass!
- mayoff 5y ago
  It is impossible for you to know whether it's “the same fulfillment” if you have not actually been in both situations.
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Here's the problem with that: there's the chance that if you have children you will hate them. Probably more so if you've been pressured into having children. This is not a socially acceptable response, so you usually only ever see this response in anonymous "off my chest" spaces. And if you hate your children, you're doing them a vast disservice. There is no moral imperative to have children, and I wish people would stop pressuring the voluntarily childless into having children.

chipgap98 5y ago

Lets assume that 42% number is real, which is a big if. If you count sleep as rest then wouldn't you only need to rest a couple hours a day to meet this rule? I feel like the article acts like that is some unattainable number. For most people working white collar jobs that doesn't seem crazy.

cirrus3 5y ago
Did you read the article? Yes, sleep counts. And no, the article doesn't think it unattainable either.

tibanne 5y ago

davemp 5y ago
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. You committed the very same sin. []: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

BlueTemplar 5y ago

If you can recover from it (especially in just a few months of vacation), then it's not burnout, it's just "getting tired".

agumonkey 5y ago

Anybody knows research, books or else about the origin of burnout ? My small work experience has made me isolate a few ingredients: - loosely defined tasks - improper team spirit / organizational communication People feel bad when they feel they can't do their part and feel worthy / look ok / belong. Badly defined => badly trained => unfair blame (or the potential for it). They feel bad if they can't be open about issues and rely a bit on the group for support. They feel bad if they don't know how to get information (this links back to the first point). A group is a strange soup and fears / doubts / tiny ego bursts can rapidly turn it into an acid bath.. but the opposite is true, most people want to be team players and care for a group and for a duty.

alexpetralia 5y ago
I have surmised that it is a feeling of "chronic stress" (as differentiated from transient, acute stress), in particular due to psychological entropy. This is a general lack of direction, purpose, coherence, comprehension - all aggregating into a rudderless feeling of "what the hell am I doing?" It is not from people working too hard - people work hard all the time without burnout. They burnout when they work hard and fail, or have doubts about their success. Conversely, it also can happen when people work too little. That's because it is not about effort. It is about an absence of meaning (purpose) that causes us to "burn out" in any discernible forward direction. It is similar to depression: you don't know which way is up. It can happen at work, but also in a relationship, within a family, with friends, etc.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Very good points. That's why I prefer fast foods over most jobs .. these jobs are very well defined, there's no slack or lack of direction since everything has to be done and gone in 5 minutes. It's also very nice to give food to people. Even if you're sweating a lot for many hours, you don't accumulate a lot of negative stuff in your mind (unless bad boss, harassment). Also very fair point about the fact that it's larger than work.. it's social-general.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
> People feel bad when they feel they can't do their part and feel worthy / look ok / belong. Badly defined => badly trained => unfair blame (or the potential for it). They feel bad if they can't be open about issues and rely a bit on the group for support. They feel bad if they don't know how to get information (this links back to the first point). A lot of this is probably learned helplessness. When things are always randomly breaking and you're powerless to affect your solution in any other way than putting out the constant fires, that's a surefire way to burn out. It's not just that it's a stressful situation, it's when they keep coming and there doesn't appear to be any obvious means of avoiding them or improving your situation. That's when you get fucked up.

stellalo 5y ago

“Science is pretty clear” -> doesn’t cite any science.

MrDresden 5y ago

This is absolute bs. If you believe you have the symptoms of a burnout then please, seek out help from a qualified specialist. Do not start gobbling up pseudoscience like this. Take it from someone who hase had burnout multiple times and sought help. It really does help.

xwdv 5y ago

To prevent burnout, choose a career where you are paid for the value you provide instead of physical hours spent working. This way you can decouple work from time. As you build your skills, you can reduce work to a daily chore of just a few hours instead of the key focus of your day.