14 ms·

Take a break

433 points by imartin2k 4y ago

luxurytent 4y ago
It is more difficult to build the habits that’d allow for a smoother, less peak and valley ridden life, so we succumb to cycles of burnout and super charged recovery.
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
  > less peak and valley ridden life "Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height."
admissionsguy 4y ago
Wow, he is exactly like me. There is so much sense in the traditional (in various forms in various cultures, but always there) yearly cycle of holidays, periods between holidays, periods of waiting for holidays, and we suffer from having largely disconnected from it.
quechimba 4y ago
I wish employers would see that their employees need to take a break, especially in this type of work where a lot of us really enjoy creating things... At my previous job I didn't even dare asking for vacation
- Frost1x 4y ago
  Sometimes I don't think it's ignorance, it's willful strategy. I pay you to do X and don't care, so do X. If you burn out in the process I again don't care, I'll just replace you after because the timeliness is more important in this context. It's like being in a race and knowing you're going to blow out a tire or something. It's a calculated risk you don't care too much about. I wish employers just treated people like humans, really, and not parts to abuse and replace. The system has gone off the rails with never ending goals of productivity at all costs.
- throwaway394875 4y ago
  It's funny isn't it. Recently in a job with "unlimited" vacation, because of a dubious message from one of my two bosses who was a bit of a dick, I was too scared to take a real vacation. Until Christmas. Then I decided I was going to take some. It had been a rough year, isolating from Covid, not enough money, and living in shitty circumstances. It was the first PTO I'd had in over a decade, as working as a freelancer/consultant often means no PTO, so I decided to savor it, come what may. I took just under 3 weeks, like almost everyone else: there was a shared vacation calendar where I could see everyone else's Christmas break. My reward when I got back? Low performance metrics "in December" were cited when laying me off. It wasn't just about December, but December was the month they decided to measure and "give me a chance". They didn't take into account the break, and the only way their "assessment" could be satisfied would have been to work through Christmas. I then worked my ass off to ship a technically difficult, world-record-beating feature during my notice month, which they told me if I delivered it would surely be impressive, and turn it around. I did ship it, but not until the very end of the notice period, which was too late. If they had cared, they would have seen it was on track. If they had kept me on, let me relax, and worked with me rather than their choice of how to assess work, they would now have a world-beating product. It's their choice of course, and I now don't think they were serious about trying to build a real product. I think it's a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors scheme to keep grant money flowing in. After all, in about 4 years nobody has ever run the product on the real data it is designed for, except me, and I had to pay for servers from my own pocket to run those tests. Even now, I believe I'm the only person ever to run it, or even be able to run it. It's been interesting to watch how the product has stayed in the doldrums since I left, and how the folks working on it are now starting to implement things for which I have had working, high-performance functionality for months in my private fork since leaving. (It's open source.) It will be particularly interesting to see if their version is ever able to run on the real world data it was created for, or if their perpetual optimism will be forever misplaced. Ironically, I'd say the company had the nicest, most helpful HR, legal and accounting teams I've ever seen at any company. There was a lot to like, and I'm sad to have had to leave. But I don't miss feeling constantly afraid there. And, as a person who really enjoys creating things, I don't miss watching another team member shipping garbage commits that usually didn't work, and doing fine, while I was the only person on the project providing real functionality but not scoring well on the right metrics, because I spent too much time solving the product's blocker problems. To score well I'd have to ship garbage too. Oh well.
9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago
There’s an idea for a new Dummies book, if no one’s already written it.
calrain 4y ago
30 years in the workforce 2 years starting a new startup 5 years after it was acquired Total burnout... I resigned and am 10 months into a break, it's the best thing I've ever done!
- ArjenM 4y ago
  Twenty years, two months into the second burn out on top of long term depression. I'm going bankrupt for a second time because I can't work 100% anymore. I'm yet to find a psychiatrist. Wish I could have a break sometimes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - calrain 4y ago
    Sometimes radical changes are necessary. A good doc can help a lot, take care of yourself
  - GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
    10 years in. I started to have panic attacks last year. Took a a few 2 weeks vacations. They help only temporarily. Now i'm out of vacations, trapped in a foreign country without usual citizen rights to take a many-months break from work and without an option to return home(because of war). Feel trapped without any light ahead.
    - minihat 4y ago
      This is an ancient proverb and a cliche, yet sometimes it helps me to remember it: The night is always darkest before the dawn.
    - bitL 4y ago
      Try megadosing B1 (2000mg), B2 (1000mg+) and take NAD+ boosters like Niagen (300mg) for a month - a few of my friends/colleagues recovered from burnout/panic attacks with these. Your body needs NAD+ and B1 for energy, your brain needs FAD+ and B1 for energy (FAD+ comes from B2). You might be just low on basic energy elements and replenishing those might help you quickly. In general, it's a good idea to add multivitamin/multimineral as well and for B1 a bit of glucose as well (sugar/sweets).
nonrandomstring 4y ago
May I suggest a purely rational, evidence based take? The trap is your belief in a linear relationship between effort and outcome. Working harder and longer produces more productivity, right? That's false. As you say so yourself, your memory goes to shit. It's not just a law of diminishing returns. For coders, past a certain point, exhaustion leads you to start undoing your work. You are into negative productivity. I've pushed through all-nighters where I poured out a few thousand LOC only to find the next day that I had broken everything and introduced more bugs than I had time to fix. I just had to revert. An exhausted hacker is worse than no hacker at all. You're a liability to yourself and the project. So, like driving when tired, realise that the urge to continue is completely irrational, and probably based in the emotional drives of fear or pride. It would be completely irrational for any manager to want you to code in that state, and anyone who pushes you to is also the idiot.
- pavlov 4y ago
  There was a time a dozen years ago when I was working alone on my (over-elaborate, uncontrollably sprawling) graphics software product. One time I wrote a multi-thousand-line refactoring of existing code into a new class and felt very happy about getting it done. The next day I discovered that I had already done the exact same work the previous week, just as a slightly differently named class. That wasn’t an isolated memory loss experience in those days. I ordered lunch, sat down, then five minutes later just stood up and left, assuming I’d already eaten. An hour later I realized what happened. Long-term productivity is impossible without proper rest, including regular vacations where you’re truly out of work mode preferably for a week at the minimum.
  - DenisM 4y ago
    Working alone could be the reason too.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    Rest sometimes brings clarity too. Even if you're not tired, you might be stuck in a way of thinking.
- 4y ago
6stringmerc 4y ago
Heck I can’t even go a full day without taking breaks every hour or two so I can move around. I am built for action, not to be sedentary like some others. So I have to find a balance - water breaks, bathroom, vape outside, go to the chiro during office hours, etc. It really works for me. Letting my brain organize things to come or solve things in process isn’t always an active thing. I let the runtime process operate in the background while I enjoy the outdoors. Not everybody has this fortunate tool, but since I do, I use it extensively.
greymalik 4y ago
> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation, I notice fewer jokes, fewer attempts on my part to make people laugh. My memory goes to all hell too and I can’t seem to concentrate on prolonged amounts of anything. Books fall off my radar, I stop listening to music. My phone is in my hand at all times, scrolly-anxiety-inducing apps become impossible to avoid. This describes me perfectly. Unfortunately I can’t take a break because it’s entirely due to being the parent of young children.
- Swinx43 4y ago
  I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position. I refer to it as the best kept secret of parenthood. No one tells you this until you are in it.
  - afandian 4y ago
    They do try. But it’s impossible to communicate and understand completely. It can only be experienced! Same goes for the upsides.
  - Silverback_VII 4y ago
    >I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position. I have to disagree and I'm a father. I think it's exactly like in the book "the happiness advantage", some people will see the positive and use it as possibility to grow and to get more productive. On the other hand, People who focus on the negative and didn't learn to cope with stress will have problems in every high stress environment no matter the circumstances. no matter the crap life throws at them some people simply march forward and this is the mindset you need - and not a break, which will only get you right back where you were.
    - Tade0 4y ago
      Also a father, and I don't see it as a case of positives and negatives, rather how much energy you're putting into it. There are many methods of minimizing the effort you're putting in and you can make it relatively easy, but like with everything it's a tradeoff. Food is one major point. You can introduce a baby to solids early on and practice the BLW method, or you could just spoon feed them with ready-to-eat baby products - there's an order of magnitude difference in effort between those two approaches. One thing I learned from this experience is that it's beyond the capabilities of a normal human couple to apply all the fancy, high-effort parenting methods - you'd need at least two grandparents cover just the more popular ones.
idontwantthis 4y ago
Take a nap too. How have I only learned to nap in the past year (I’ve been an adult for a while)? I used to feel brain fog and “procrastinate” constantly. I was tired.
thenerdhead 4y ago
On top of taking regular breaks, I think we should also work slower. Burnout is a scary place to be in. While the news calls it “quiet quitting”, I think many people are simply burnt out from the last few years of world conditions and add on the rubber band effect of everything going back to “normal”. It’s just too much change in a short amount of time. I wrote a book about this topic when I was in a state of burnout. I had enough of the many different aspects of the world (overwork, the news, social media, etc) that I believe led to stress based illness. I don’t feel bad for taking time off anymore. You got to put yourself first sometimes to be able to show up for others.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  I work with a project manager who is obsessed with deadlines. "Hey do you have an update? When do you think it will be done? Hey, the deadline is really close!" They maintain a complicated Gantt chart. What happens when we miss the deadline? Nothing really, our updates aren't on a fixed timeline, and our users are very happy with our product today. Everything is artificial.
  - laserlight 4y ago
    This is simply management theater: estimations done with wishful thinking rather than analysis, deadlines serving no other purpose than pestering people to impose a pecking order.
  - tomrod 4y ago
    I wonder whether you've ever asked the PM what happens when a deadline is missed? It may be he or she is shielding you from consequences and impacts you're unaware of, hence the anxiety. I had a PM act this way during on one of the projects in my department for awhile and they were a mess. Finally I requested they let the team absorb the impact instead of the PM handling everything. While fortunately is was recoverable, it was definitely a learning experience for the team.
    - ThalesX 4y ago
      As an IC I don’t want to absorb that. It’s really not in my JD. I don’t go to my “higher ups” to absorb some tasks from me and get down and dirty, and I expect them to also not involve me in their orchestration. Ultimately they should manage the situation for the money thay they receive. When in the position to manage, it’s my responsability to create a controllable pipeline for task delivery and not bother the devs with office politics while providing them with a reasonable segmented work and enough autonomy to accomplish their best work. This jumping to help, that I also used to partake in until I got burnt too many times, at the end of the day is one of the reasons for why, as a profession we get so much money but so little respect.
avgcorrection 4y ago
Dear diary. Thanks diary. Maybe a year ago I felt sluggish at times. Slower to process and react. I had to manually think through things that I could normally do on autopilot. I was concerned about my long-term health. A four-day weekend seemed to fix that.
tekstar 4y ago
Hey, this is me. This is extremely privileged advice, but the only thing I managed to do to help was to have a second place to go to where I didn't work - in my case a little cabin in the woods. Going there on the weekend forces me to take breaks. If I'm at home I'm working. It doesn't help that I'm a solo founder. Work is very rewarding but it can also be all consuming. And there my piano sits untouched.
waterghola 4y ago
I do the same. I think it's an effect of ADHD in that it's likely a deficit of forward planning. I've been burned out from every job I've ever done, even where I initially enjoyed it. Maybe my eventual retirement will be better. Probably my eventual death will be even better. Can't get worried and stressed and sick from it all when you're no longer alive. Thankful that the eternal peace of non-existence is inevitable.
- rrgok 4y ago
  I believe the same. More so about the death.
atemerev 4y ago
I wish I was productive, my life is nothing but a series of breaks. How you all are able to enjoy working? How are you so productive?
- NoraCodes 4y ago
  I relate a lot to this. I had a really hard time getting out of the college mindset and into the workplace mindset. Ultimately, for me, it meant finding a workplace that encouraged me to utilize my ADHD, rather than trying to control it; I can't say that that's what you need (since you may not have ADHD, obviously), but I do think finding a workplace that fits with the way your brain works is very helpful. It also meant figuring out what I really want in life, and making sure I was working towards it! Nothing leads to burnout faster than feeling like you're going in the wrong direction.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Armodafinil. It allows me to get into a flow state more easily, concentrate for longer periods of time (and more deeply), do necessary things that aren't exciting without procrastinating, and finish things.
  - johnbellone 4y ago
    That definitely has helped me, too. But I don't like the fact that I need it.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      I'd prefer if I didn't, but it has few side effects and it's not a recreational thing, so I find it's similar to the Mometasone furoate spray I'm being prescribed to manage my sinusitis. I'd prefer to not need that, too, but breathing is more important.
      - l3w3 4y ago
        I found long term use of Mometasone to have unpleasant side effects. Have you tried Montelukast, or spoken to an ENT consultant? A small surgical procedure eliminated nearly all of my symptoms.
GoToRO 4y ago
Developers: take a break! Companies: we will organize the effort in sprints!
adrianmsmith 4y ago
I have definitely been there. Once you get too tired your brain doesn't work well enough to tell you you need breaks. Your brain after a break (e.g. a week's holiday) just feels completely different. What I do now is this: My first task after coming back from a break is to book a week's vacation ten weeks from that time. I work ten weeks, and take a week's break, that's my rule. Even though it will be difficult to imagine I'll need a break after I've just come back from one. Book it on the company's vacation planning tool if I'm employed, or on my calendar (and inform my customers) if I'm self-employed. I don't worry about where to go, or what to do during it, or try to find the best time to go based on events I might be invited to (which I might not know yet), or which projects I'll be working on and when the best time for a break would be to fit in with them. A break isn't about any of that.
bdbenton 4y ago
I firmly believe that people should take at least one day of the week to not work at all. My code is very buggy and sloppy when I'm completely exhausted, even my grammar and ability to organize ideas falls apart. For many people it's traditionally Sunday or Saturday, but even if you don't observe a day of rest religiously, it is still very practical. If you are involved with intellectual work like coding, switching your brain to just relax and enjoy life at least one day a week will refresh your focus and drive. Alan Perlis said to understand a program you must become both the machine and the program, and he also admits that programming is an unnatural act. Programming is essentially forcing your mind to think like a machine, and you can't do this all the time or it will burn you out. Don't neglect your mental wellbeing, take care of yourself! If you want to be productive, this will help you in the long run. The servers will keep running if you take a bit of time off, people aren't built for 24/7 uptime.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Having a real weekend shouldn't be a novel idea.. I assume most people in our industry have that? I know it would be a luxury for some, but I couldn't live without it.
  - bdbenton 4y ago
    I agree, but with programmers in particular it's seen as a badge of honor and sometimes even as an expectation from employers to just "eat, sleep, and code" all the time. We have things like "the crunch" or hackathons, but the dark side to it is the lack of labor laws surrounding computer work. In fact, computer programmers have special exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... The FLSA guarantees minimum wage and 1.5x overtime pay for workers in the USA. In other words, if you are a computer programmer in the US, your employer can legally work you overtime/weekends without 1.5x pay like other workers. Of course, the US also has the highest-paying programming jobs, and it has the most software developers by a very wide margin as America invented software engineering. This unique position in the labor market has caused the rights of computer programmers in the workplace to be largely overlooked.
dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
Now, we also need an article on how to take a break from the world at large...
- Tao3300 4y ago
  It starts outside this rectangle.
zokier 4y ago
Should I also take a break from mortage, food, and chores? Being inefficient slug still gets me salary..
mbrodersen 4y ago
Super productive people usually only work a few hours a day. The rest of the time they think about how to solve the problems more efficiently with more automation and less work. Doing the thinking part properly can make the difference between a project that takes 3 years and one that takes a few months.
- derwiki 4y ago
  Since having my first child, I've found that I have more time to think and less time to do, and it's definitely made me feel more productive (or maybe intentional is a better word). Both in non-work and work life.
slics 4y ago
As a developer and a parent with young kids, it is nearly laughable at the amount of stress one deals with everyday. Wake up at 5:30, get all things ready for kids, wake up kids, get their breakfast ready, check my (work phone - who decided work phones are a good idea). Take kids to school, get back to work, meetings and more meetings ( countless meetings are a waste of time but they still have them) Time for lunch, hell no time, skip lunch, I got to finish implementing this thought. Chat pops up, someone is asking for help, stop what you doing, help them, back at your thought, what thought??? Ah time to pick up kids, rush to school, look left and right for cops while you going fast. Pick the kids, go home, work with the kids homework (I am going through elementary again and again and again ….) Time for dinner, cook dinner, kids need to get ready for sleep and finally I can get back to my unfinished thought. Oh man, it’s late, I need to get to bed, to get ready for tomorrow. Being single and having that level of anxiety and stress, multiply that times 10 with kids. That gives you an idea what life as a developer with little children is. It is called the “hamster wheel syndrome”. You think you are getting where you want to get, just to find out that you are stuck in the same place where you started but a hell a lot of more stress and anxiety. 1- taking breaks is important, but can’t seem to take them 2- we don’t do it enough as we don’t feel as we have time 3- life is moving to fast (stupid Covid) to stop and do things that matter in life (family and friends) 4- If we are not here one day, I promise no one from work will miss you past one week. Family and real friends will remember you forever. Life is short, cherish it. (Coming from a guy that never stops working)
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  I've come to think that breaks are actually a necessity, just like sleep. Yes, you can compromise for a while but it will catch up to you. With young children you're basically trying to outlast the sleep deprivation but it cannot go on indefinitely (fortunately children grow up). I know it's easy to say, but I truly believe the vast majority of people require a breaks or will inevitably suffer extremely negative consequences. Not that that will reduce your anxiety but if burnout hits you it's genuinely devastating.
- bertr4nd 4y ago
  Are you me? This is precisely what my life feels like. Honestly, one kid was actually manageable; two sort of hit the breaking point (it didn’t help that my work went to hell at the same time), but then we had twins and life now feels basically untenable with both of us working. I love my kids profoundly, and I think in the long run I will be happier than if I’d not had them and focused on work instead (work tends not to care about you after you leave. Maybe if you’re Steve Jobs or something). But in the moment, life is pretty stressful.
ifemide006 4y ago
At least, now I know I'm not crazy...ha!
Trasmatta 4y ago
What really really sucks is when you're so burnt out that taking breaks doesn't even begin to help. At some point you either need a multi month long break to actually begin to recover, OR you need to address the issues at work itself so that a regular break actually works.
29athrowaway 4y ago
Even Formula 1 cars have to stop at the pits.
osigurdson 4y ago
I took a 3 month sabbatical to do some travelling at one point. My productivity when I came back was completely off the charts. I'd recommend it to anyone.
- Tade0 4y ago
  I used to take a three month break between contracts - first one was actually forced because I was fired(burnout), but that experience helped me understand the value of such long periods of time off.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    I was paid my full salary during that 3 months. It was somewhat lucky in that regard, but I certainly did work hard to achieve that. That is a mode that works well for me - cycles of extreme effort followed by extended time off. I know it isn't for everyone but I seem to be able to find my flow state with this approach.
cainxinth 4y ago
The most trivial but clear evidence of the power of breaks for me is a really tough crossword clue. I’ll be wracking my brain trying to get the answer and come up with nothing. Eventually I’ll give up and do something else, and when I pick it back up a few hours later, the answer immediately comes to me and I can’t believe I couldn’t get it before.
oldsklgdfth 4y ago
> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation This has been me for the past few months at FAANG. Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine? We had meeting after meeting about how to work better together. I think we both knew I needed a break and I’m taking one. But I would never expect a boss to tell you to not show up to work. Even though they won’t think twice before asking you to work late or the weekend. How do you handle such situations?
- abdabab 4y ago
  > Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine? This usually comes back to bite you during PIP, layoff and promo decision. > How do you handle such situations? These are all signs of burn out.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
0xHenry 4y ago
ta238911 4y ago
It's best, when you can take a break and know money is still flowing in. That requires a separation from hours worked to the money you earn. Imagine most people could live off passive income (like dividends) - we could all work less, I guess.
NoraCodes 4y ago
One of my favorite way to force breaks is to use a Bullet Journal and put all of my activities in a single list. As long as it's not too huge, my brain is good at breaking stuff up, and when I context switch from, say, debugging to writing a presentation, or work to emptying the dishwasher, I often feel quite refreshed while still getting done what I need to do.
annie_muss 4y ago
I would love to take a break, but every day missed is missed earnings. You have to realize how lucky you are to be in a position to take extended time away from work without suffering some kind of penalty.
tpoacher 4y ago
There is a reverse situation too, alas. Sometimes, a bottleneck appears. It just happens. It's a fact of life. Classic bottleneck theory tells us that the best outcome is to focus all your energy to resolving the bottleneck as quickly as possible, so that normality is reestablished before an insurmountable mountain of tasks manifests suddenly, seemingly out of thin air. And yet, tragically, the first sign of a bottleneck is exactly when we (or worse, your spouse) remembers our past resolutions/promises about appropriate work life balance and whatnot, dooming us to yet another unnecessary cycle of losing sleep and struggling to catch up for the next couple of weeks/months.
zrail 4y ago
I started blocking off Wednesday every few weeks for personal projects and contiguous blocks of rest and time away from work and family. It's been amazing. I can focus on my paid work during the week while knowing that a very short interval from now I have a day to do not-work. Wednesday means it's very unlikely to be stomped on by a long weekend or a family request. If you have unlimited vacation I highly recommend it.
sixhobbits 4y ago
Work life balance is a hot topic. Personally, I think it is healthier to balance daily instead of yearly. I walk 1-2h/day, work maximum 8 hours a day, but havnen't had a 'vacation' in ages. I sort of tried taking 2 weeks to sit on a beach and it really didn't work for me. Just broke my routines and made me stressed. Friends and family tell me I am stupid but I feel pretty happy. By taking a vacation every day instead of every year, I do not 'work in order to live'. Though on the contrary, it is still nice to disconnect from the internet for 72h sometimes and I should probably do that more often.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
  I’m similar, except I do take vacations :). I work hard but spread it all out. Sometimes only work 4-6 hr a day Sometimes take 2 hour lunch break. But Sometimes take break from 4-7pm then work to midnight. Sometimes work on the weekend. (All at my own choosing, not because of on-call or anything.)
w_for_wumbo 4y ago
I think we've conflated hard work with results. Hard work is a symptom that we're doing something incorrectly. Either it's too challenging for us, or we're doing it the wrong way. There seems to be too much value on hard work, and not enough on efficient progress, breaking things down into challenges that we're capable of achieving. Hard work is never accomplished, it's only once we break them down into achievable tasks that we're ever able to tackle something initially deemed as hard.
VectorLock 4y ago
And take actual breaks. I'm on the verge of burn out and wondering "whats happening? I'm taking regular time off work" and realize I'm taking time off to do other kinds of work (parents estate, medical issues, just other life work) rather than actually taking the time to recharge.
lgvld 4y ago
The "no-bullshit" design of this blog is already kind of a break, very refreshing. Something about the style and/or the typo makes it pleasant to read also.

433 points by imartin2k 4y ago

It is more difficult to build the habits that’d allow for a smoother, less peak and valley ridden life, so we succumb to cycles of burnout and super charged recovery.

Silverback_VII 4y ago
> less peak and valley ridden life "Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height."

admissionsguy 4y ago

Wow, he is exactly like me. There is so much sense in the traditional (in various forms in various cultures, but always there) yearly cycle of holidays, periods between holidays, periods of waiting for holidays, and we suffer from having largely disconnected from it.

quechimba 4y ago

I wish employers would see that their employees need to take a break, especially in this type of work where a lot of us really enjoy creating things... At my previous job I didn't even dare asking for vacation

Frost1x 4y ago
Sometimes I don't think it's ignorance, it's willful strategy. I pay you to do X and don't care, so do X. If you burn out in the process I again don't care, I'll just replace you after because the timeliness is more important in this context. It's like being in a race and knowing you're going to blow out a tire or something. It's a calculated risk you don't care too much about. I wish employers just treated people like humans, really, and not parts to abuse and replace. The system has gone off the rails with never ending goals of productivity at all costs.
throwaway394875 4y ago
It's funny isn't it. Recently in a job with "unlimited" vacation, because of a dubious message from one of my two bosses who was a bit of a dick, I was too scared to take a real vacation. Until Christmas. Then I decided I was going to take some. It had been a rough year, isolating from Covid, not enough money, and living in shitty circumstances. It was the first PTO I'd had in over a decade, as working as a freelancer/consultant often means no PTO, so I decided to savor it, come what may. I took just under 3 weeks, like almost everyone else: there was a shared vacation calendar where I could see everyone else's Christmas break. My reward when I got back? Low performance metrics "in December" were cited when laying me off. It wasn't just about December, but December was the month they decided to measure and "give me a chance". They didn't take into account the break, and the only way their "assessment" could be satisfied would have been to work through Christmas. I then worked my ass off to ship a technically difficult, world-record-beating feature during my notice month, which they told me if I delivered it would surely be impressive, and turn it around. I did ship it, but not until the very end of the notice period, which was too late. If they had cared, they would have seen it was on track. If they had kept me on, let me relax, and worked with me rather than their choice of how to assess work, they would now have a world-beating product. It's their choice of course, and I now don't think they were serious about trying to build a real product. I think it's a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors scheme to keep grant money flowing in. After all, in about 4 years nobody has ever run the product on the real data it is designed for, except me, and I had to pay for servers from my own pocket to run those tests. Even now, I believe I'm the only person ever to run it, or even be able to run it. It's been interesting to watch how the product has stayed in the doldrums since I left, and how the folks working on it are now starting to implement things for which I have had working, high-performance functionality for months in my private fork since leaving. (It's open source.) It will be particularly interesting to see if their version is ever able to run on the real world data it was created for, or if their perpetual optimism will be forever misplaced. Ironically, I'd say the company had the nicest, most helpful HR, legal and accounting teams I've ever seen at any company. There was a lot to like, and I'm sad to have had to leave. But I don't miss feeling constantly afraid there. And, as a person who really enjoys creating things, I don't miss watching another team member shipping garbage commits that usually didn't work, and doing fine, while I was the only person on the project providing real functionality but not scoring well on the right metrics, because I spent too much time solving the product's blocker problems. To score well I'd have to ship garbage too. Oh well.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y ago

There’s an idea for a new Dummies book, if no one’s already written it.

calrain 4y ago

30 years in the workforce 2 years starting a new startup 5 years after it was acquired Total burnout... I resigned and am 10 months into a break, it's the best thing I've ever done!

ArjenM 4y ago
Twenty years, two months into the second burn out on top of long term depression. I'm going bankrupt for a second time because I can't work 100% anymore. I'm yet to find a psychiatrist. Wish I could have a break sometimes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- calrain 4y ago
  Sometimes radical changes are necessary. A good doc can help a lot, take care of yourself
- GrigoriyMikh 4y ago
  10 years in. I started to have panic attacks last year. Took a a few 2 weeks vacations. They help only temporarily. Now i'm out of vacations, trapped in a foreign country without usual citizen rights to take a many-months break from work and without an option to return home(because of war). Feel trapped without any light ahead.
  - minihat 4y ago
    This is an ancient proverb and a cliche, yet sometimes it helps me to remember it: The night is always darkest before the dawn.
  - bitL 4y ago
    Try megadosing B1 (2000mg), B2 (1000mg+) and take NAD+ boosters like Niagen (300mg) for a month - a few of my friends/colleagues recovered from burnout/panic attacks with these. Your body needs NAD+ and B1 for energy, your brain needs FAD+ and B1 for energy (FAD+ comes from B2). You might be just low on basic energy elements and replenishing those might help you quickly. In general, it's a good idea to add multivitamin/multimineral as well and for B1 a bit of glucose as well (sugar/sweets).

nonrandomstring 4y ago

May I suggest a purely rational, evidence based take? The trap is your belief in a linear relationship between effort and outcome. Working harder and longer produces more productivity, right? That's false. As you say so yourself, your memory goes to shit. It's not just a law of diminishing returns. For coders, past a certain point, exhaustion leads you to start undoing your work. You are into negative productivity. I've pushed through all-nighters where I poured out a few thousand LOC only to find the next day that I had broken everything and introduced more bugs than I had time to fix. I just had to revert. An exhausted hacker is worse than no hacker at all. You're a liability to yourself and the project. So, like driving when tired, realise that the urge to continue is completely irrational, and probably based in the emotional drives of fear or pride. It would be completely irrational for any manager to want you to code in that state, and anyone who pushes you to is also the idiot.

pavlov 4y ago
There was a time a dozen years ago when I was working alone on my (over-elaborate, uncontrollably sprawling) graphics software product. One time I wrote a multi-thousand-line refactoring of existing code into a new class and felt very happy about getting it done. The next day I discovered that I had already done the exact same work the previous week, just as a slightly differently named class. That wasn’t an isolated memory loss experience in those days. I ordered lunch, sat down, then five minutes later just stood up and left, assuming I’d already eaten. An hour later I realized what happened. Long-term productivity is impossible without proper rest, including regular vacations where you’re truly out of work mode preferably for a week at the minimum.
- DenisM 4y ago
  Working alone could be the reason too.
- nicbou 4y ago
  Rest sometimes brings clarity too. Even if you're not tired, you might be stuck in a way of thinking.
4y ago

6stringmerc 4y ago

Heck I can’t even go a full day without taking breaks every hour or two so I can move around. I am built for action, not to be sedentary like some others. So I have to find a balance - water breaks, bathroom, vape outside, go to the chiro during office hours, etc. It really works for me. Letting my brain organize things to come or solve things in process isn’t always an active thing. I let the runtime process operate in the background while I enjoy the outdoors. Not everybody has this fortunate tool, but since I do, I use it extensively.

greymalik 4y ago

> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation, I notice fewer jokes, fewer attempts on my part to make people laugh. My memory goes to all hell too and I can’t seem to concentrate on prolonged amounts of anything. Books fall off my radar, I stop listening to music. My phone is in my hand at all times, scrolly-anxiety-inducing apps become impossible to avoid. This describes me perfectly. Unfortunately I can’t take a break because it’s entirely due to being the parent of young children.

Swinx43 4y ago
I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position. I refer to it as the best kept secret of parenthood. No one tells you this until you are in it.
- afandian 4y ago
  They do try. But it’s impossible to communicate and understand completely. It can only be experienced! Same goes for the upsides.
- Silverback_VII 4y ago
  >I think it is impossible to understand how much additional stress and anxiety being a parent of small children bring without being in that position. I have to disagree and I'm a father. I think it's exactly like in the book "the happiness advantage", some people will see the positive and use it as possibility to grow and to get more productive. On the other hand, People who focus on the negative and didn't learn to cope with stress will have problems in every high stress environment no matter the circumstances. no matter the crap life throws at them some people simply march forward and this is the mindset you need - and not a break, which will only get you right back where you were.
  - Tade0 4y ago
    Also a father, and I don't see it as a case of positives and negatives, rather how much energy you're putting into it. There are many methods of minimizing the effort you're putting in and you can make it relatively easy, but like with everything it's a tradeoff. Food is one major point. You can introduce a baby to solids early on and practice the BLW method, or you could just spoon feed them with ready-to-eat baby products - there's an order of magnitude difference in effort between those two approaches. One thing I learned from this experience is that it's beyond the capabilities of a normal human couple to apply all the fancy, high-effort parenting methods - you'd need at least two grandparents cover just the more popular ones.

idontwantthis 4y ago

Take a nap too. How have I only learned to nap in the past year (I’ve been an adult for a while)? I used to feel brain fog and “procrastinate” constantly. I was tired.

thenerdhead 4y ago

On top of taking regular breaks, I think we should also work slower. Burnout is a scary place to be in. While the news calls it “quiet quitting”, I think many people are simply burnt out from the last few years of world conditions and add on the rubber band effect of everything going back to “normal”. It’s just too much change in a short amount of time. I wrote a book about this topic when I was in a state of burnout. I had enough of the many different aspects of the world (overwork, the news, social media, etc) that I believe led to stress based illness. I don’t feel bad for taking time off anymore. You got to put yourself first sometimes to be able to show up for others.

wildrhythms 4y ago
I work with a project manager who is obsessed with deadlines. "Hey do you have an update? When do you think it will be done? Hey, the deadline is really close!" They maintain a complicated Gantt chart. What happens when we miss the deadline? Nothing really, our updates aren't on a fixed timeline, and our users are very happy with our product today. Everything is artificial.
- laserlight 4y ago
  This is simply management theater: estimations done with wishful thinking rather than analysis, deadlines serving no other purpose than pestering people to impose a pecking order.
- tomrod 4y ago
  I wonder whether you've ever asked the PM what happens when a deadline is missed? It may be he or she is shielding you from consequences and impacts you're unaware of, hence the anxiety. I had a PM act this way during on one of the projects in my department for awhile and they were a mess. Finally I requested they let the team absorb the impact instead of the PM handling everything. While fortunately is was recoverable, it was definitely a learning experience for the team.
  - ThalesX 4y ago
    As an IC I don’t want to absorb that. It’s really not in my JD. I don’t go to my “higher ups” to absorb some tasks from me and get down and dirty, and I expect them to also not involve me in their orchestration. Ultimately they should manage the situation for the money thay they receive. When in the position to manage, it’s my responsability to create a controllable pipeline for task delivery and not bother the devs with office politics while providing them with a reasonable segmented work and enough autonomy to accomplish their best work. This jumping to help, that I also used to partake in until I got burnt too many times, at the end of the day is one of the reasons for why, as a profession we get so much money but so little respect.

avgcorrection 4y ago

Dear diary. Thanks diary. Maybe a year ago I felt sluggish at times. Slower to process and react. I had to manually think through things that I could normally do on autopilot. I was concerned about my long-term health. A four-day weekend seemed to fix that.

tekstar 4y ago

Hey, this is me. This is extremely privileged advice, but the only thing I managed to do to help was to have a second place to go to where I didn't work - in my case a little cabin in the woods. Going there on the weekend forces me to take breaks. If I'm at home I'm working. It doesn't help that I'm a solo founder. Work is very rewarding but it can also be all consuming. And there my piano sits untouched.

waterghola 4y ago

I do the same. I think it's an effect of ADHD in that it's likely a deficit of forward planning. I've been burned out from every job I've ever done, even where I initially enjoyed it. Maybe my eventual retirement will be better. Probably my eventual death will be even better. Can't get worried and stressed and sick from it all when you're no longer alive. Thankful that the eternal peace of non-existence is inevitable.

rrgok 4y ago
I believe the same. More so about the death.

atemerev 4y ago

I wish I was productive, my life is nothing but a series of breaks. How you all are able to enjoy working? How are you so productive?

NoraCodes 4y ago
I relate a lot to this. I had a really hard time getting out of the college mindset and into the workplace mindset. Ultimately, for me, it meant finding a workplace that encouraged me to utilize my ADHD, rather than trying to control it; I can't say that that's what you need (since you may not have ADHD, obviously), but I do think finding a workplace that fits with the way your brain works is very helpful. It also meant figuring out what I really want in life, and making sure I was working towards it! Nothing leads to burnout faster than feeling like you're going in the wrong direction.
luckylion 4y ago
Armodafinil. It allows me to get into a flow state more easily, concentrate for longer periods of time (and more deeply), do necessary things that aren't exciting without procrastinating, and finish things.
- johnbellone 4y ago
  That definitely has helped me, too. But I don't like the fact that I need it.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I'd prefer if I didn't, but it has few side effects and it's not a recreational thing, so I find it's similar to the Mometasone furoate spray I'm being prescribed to manage my sinusitis. I'd prefer to not need that, too, but breathing is more important.
    - l3w3 4y ago
      I found long term use of Mometasone to have unpleasant side effects. Have you tried Montelukast, or spoken to an ENT consultant? A small surgical procedure eliminated nearly all of my symptoms.

GoToRO 4y ago

Developers: take a break! Companies: we will organize the effort in sprints!

adrianmsmith 4y ago

I have definitely been there. Once you get too tired your brain doesn't work well enough to tell you you need breaks. Your brain after a break (e.g. a week's holiday) just feels completely different. What I do now is this: My first task after coming back from a break is to book a week's vacation ten weeks from that time. I work ten weeks, and take a week's break, that's my rule. Even though it will be difficult to imagine I'll need a break after I've just come back from one. Book it on the company's vacation planning tool if I'm employed, or on my calendar (and inform my customers) if I'm self-employed. I don't worry about where to go, or what to do during it, or try to find the best time to go based on events I might be invited to (which I might not know yet), or which projects I'll be working on and when the best time for a break would be to fit in with them. A break isn't about any of that.

bdbenton 4y ago

I firmly believe that people should take at least one day of the week to not work at all. My code is very buggy and sloppy when I'm completely exhausted, even my grammar and ability to organize ideas falls apart. For many people it's traditionally Sunday or Saturday, but even if you don't observe a day of rest religiously, it is still very practical. If you are involved with intellectual work like coding, switching your brain to just relax and enjoy life at least one day a week will refresh your focus and drive. Alan Perlis said to understand a program you must become both the machine and the program, and he also admits that programming is an unnatural act. Programming is essentially forcing your mind to think like a machine, and you can't do this all the time or it will burn you out. Don't neglect your mental wellbeing, take care of yourself! If you want to be productive, this will help you in the long run. The servers will keep running if you take a bit of time off, people aren't built for 24/7 uptime.

kzrdude 4y ago
Having a real weekend shouldn't be a novel idea.. I assume most people in our industry have that? I know it would be a luxury for some, but I couldn't live without it.
- bdbenton 4y ago
  I agree, but with programmers in particular it's seen as a badge of honor and sometimes even as an expectation from employers to just "eat, sleep, and code" all the time. We have things like "the crunch" or hackathons, but the dark side to it is the lack of labor laws surrounding computer work. In fact, computer programmers have special exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-computer https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co... The FLSA guarantees minimum wage and 1.5x overtime pay for workers in the USA. In other words, if you are a computer programmer in the US, your employer can legally work you overtime/weekends without 1.5x pay like other workers. Of course, the US also has the highest-paying programming jobs, and it has the most software developers by a very wide margin as America invented software engineering. This unique position in the labor market has caused the rights of computer programmers in the workplace to be largely overlooked.

dennis_jeeves1 4y ago

Now, we also need an article on how to take a break from the world at large...

Tao3300 4y ago
It starts outside this rectangle.

zokier 4y ago

Should I also take a break from mortage, food, and chores? Being inefficient slug still gets me salary..

mbrodersen 4y ago

Super productive people usually only work a few hours a day. The rest of the time they think about how to solve the problems more efficiently with more automation and less work. Doing the thinking part properly can make the difference between a project that takes 3 years and one that takes a few months.

derwiki 4y ago
Since having my first child, I've found that I have more time to think and less time to do, and it's definitely made me feel more productive (or maybe intentional is a better word). Both in non-work and work life.

slics 4y ago

As a developer and a parent with young kids, it is nearly laughable at the amount of stress one deals with everyday. Wake up at 5:30, get all things ready for kids, wake up kids, get their breakfast ready, check my (work phone - who decided work phones are a good idea). Take kids to school, get back to work, meetings and more meetings ( countless meetings are a waste of time but they still have them) Time for lunch, hell no time, skip lunch, I got to finish implementing this thought. Chat pops up, someone is asking for help, stop what you doing, help them, back at your thought, what thought??? Ah time to pick up kids, rush to school, look left and right for cops while you going fast. Pick the kids, go home, work with the kids homework (I am going through elementary again and again and again ….) Time for dinner, cook dinner, kids need to get ready for sleep and finally I can get back to my unfinished thought. Oh man, it’s late, I need to get to bed, to get ready for tomorrow. Being single and having that level of anxiety and stress, multiply that times 10 with kids. That gives you an idea what life as a developer with little children is. It is called the “hamster wheel syndrome”. You think you are getting where you want to get, just to find out that you are stuck in the same place where you started but a hell a lot of more stress and anxiety. 1- taking breaks is important, but can’t seem to take them 2- we don’t do it enough as we don’t feel as we have time 3- life is moving to fast (stupid Covid) to stop and do things that matter in life (family and friends) 4- If we are not here one day, I promise no one from work will miss you past one week. Family and real friends will remember you forever. Life is short, cherish it. (Coming from a guy that never stops working)

bigDinosaur 4y ago
I've come to think that breaks are actually a necessity, just like sleep. Yes, you can compromise for a while but it will catch up to you. With young children you're basically trying to outlast the sleep deprivation but it cannot go on indefinitely (fortunately children grow up). I know it's easy to say, but I truly believe the vast majority of people require a breaks or will inevitably suffer extremely negative consequences. Not that that will reduce your anxiety but if burnout hits you it's genuinely devastating.
bertr4nd 4y ago
Are you me? This is precisely what my life feels like. Honestly, one kid was actually manageable; two sort of hit the breaking point (it didn’t help that my work went to hell at the same time), but then we had twins and life now feels basically untenable with both of us working. I love my kids profoundly, and I think in the long run I will be happier than if I’d not had them and focused on work instead (work tends not to care about you after you leave. Maybe if you’re Steve Jobs or something). But in the moment, life is pretty stressful.

ifemide006 4y ago

At least, now I know I'm not crazy...ha!

Trasmatta 4y ago

What really really sucks is when you're so burnt out that taking breaks doesn't even begin to help. At some point you either need a multi month long break to actually begin to recover, OR you need to address the issues at work itself so that a regular break actually works.

29athrowaway 4y ago

Even Formula 1 cars have to stop at the pits.

osigurdson 4y ago

I took a 3 month sabbatical to do some travelling at one point. My productivity when I came back was completely off the charts. I'd recommend it to anyone.

Tade0 4y ago
I used to take a three month break between contracts - first one was actually forced because I was fired(burnout), but that experience helped me understand the value of such long periods of time off.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  I was paid my full salary during that 3 months. It was somewhat lucky in that regard, but I certainly did work hard to achieve that. That is a mode that works well for me - cycles of extreme effort followed by extended time off. I know it isn't for everyone but I seem to be able to find my flow state with this approach.

cainxinth 4y ago

The most trivial but clear evidence of the power of breaks for me is a really tough crossword clue. I’ll be wracking my brain trying to get the answer and come up with nothing. Eventually I’ll give up and do something else, and when I pick it back up a few hours later, the answer immediately comes to me and I can’t believe I couldn’t get it before.

oldsklgdfth 4y ago

> small hurdles spike my anxiety, my anger flares at the slightest confrontation This has been me for the past few months at FAANG. Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine? We had meeting after meeting about how to work better together. I think we both knew I needed a break and I’m taking one. But I would never expect a boss to tell you to not show up to work. Even though they won’t think twice before asking you to work late or the weekend. How do you handle such situations?

abdabab 4y ago
> Basically, behaving completely disrespectfully to my boss. Anywhere else I’d been fired, but I guess if you deliver it’s fine? This usually comes back to bite you during PIP, layoff and promo decision. > How do you handle such situations? These are all signs of burn out.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

0xHenry 4y ago

ta238911 4y ago

It's best, when you can take a break and know money is still flowing in. That requires a separation from hours worked to the money you earn. Imagine most people could live off passive income (like dividends) - we could all work less, I guess.

NoraCodes 4y ago

One of my favorite way to force breaks is to use a Bullet Journal and put all of my activities in a single list. As long as it's not too huge, my brain is good at breaking stuff up, and when I context switch from, say, debugging to writing a presentation, or work to emptying the dishwasher, I often feel quite refreshed while still getting done what I need to do.

annie_muss 4y ago

I would love to take a break, but every day missed is missed earnings. You have to realize how lucky you are to be in a position to take extended time away from work without suffering some kind of penalty.

tpoacher 4y ago

There is a reverse situation too, alas. Sometimes, a bottleneck appears. It just happens. It's a fact of life. Classic bottleneck theory tells us that the best outcome is to focus all your energy to resolving the bottleneck as quickly as possible, so that normality is reestablished before an insurmountable mountain of tasks manifests suddenly, seemingly out of thin air. And yet, tragically, the first sign of a bottleneck is exactly when we (or worse, your spouse) remembers our past resolutions/promises about appropriate work life balance and whatnot, dooming us to yet another unnecessary cycle of losing sleep and struggling to catch up for the next couple of weeks/months.

zrail 4y ago

I started blocking off Wednesday every few weeks for personal projects and contiguous blocks of rest and time away from work and family. It's been amazing. I can focus on my paid work during the week while knowing that a very short interval from now I have a day to do not-work. Wednesday means it's very unlikely to be stomped on by a long weekend or a family request. If you have unlimited vacation I highly recommend it.

sixhobbits 4y ago

Work life balance is a hot topic. Personally, I think it is healthier to balance daily instead of yearly. I walk 1-2h/day, work maximum 8 hours a day, but havnen't had a 'vacation' in ages. I sort of tried taking 2 weeks to sit on a beach and it really didn't work for me. Just broke my routines and made me stressed. Friends and family tell me I am stupid but I feel pretty happy. By taking a vacation every day instead of every year, I do not 'work in order to live'. Though on the contrary, it is still nice to disconnect from the internet for 72h sometimes and I should probably do that more often.

therealdrag0 4y ago
I’m similar, except I do take vacations :). I work hard but spread it all out. Sometimes only work 4-6 hr a day Sometimes take 2 hour lunch break. But Sometimes take break from 4-7pm then work to midnight. Sometimes work on the weekend. (All at my own choosing, not because of on-call or anything.)

w_for_wumbo 4y ago

I think we've conflated hard work with results. Hard work is a symptom that we're doing something incorrectly. Either it's too challenging for us, or we're doing it the wrong way. There seems to be too much value on hard work, and not enough on efficient progress, breaking things down into challenges that we're capable of achieving. Hard work is never accomplished, it's only once we break them down into achievable tasks that we're ever able to tackle something initially deemed as hard.

VectorLock 4y ago

And take actual breaks. I'm on the verge of burn out and wondering "whats happening? I'm taking regular time off work" and realize I'm taking time off to do other kinds of work (parents estate, medical issues, just other life work) rather than actually taking the time to recharge.

lgvld 4y ago

The "no-bullshit" design of this blog is already kind of a break, very refreshing. Something about the style and/or the typo makes it pleasant to read also.