3 ms·

A significant portion of the burnout problem is down to insufficient recovery. Sleep is important. Nutrition is important. Physical activity is important. Havi

A significant portion of the burnout problem is down to insufficient recovery. Sleep is important. Nutrition is important. Physical activity is important. Having out-of-office social interactions is important. Non-computer hobbies are important. This is in part personality and habits. You can have the greatest job in the world, if at the end of the day you go home and keep working on something else until you drop from exhaustion, that's not great. That may be fun, but it's not permitting the necessary recovery. I unfortunately think that is somewhat common in the tech world. Of course working conditions affect the amount of recovery that is possible. If you're working 10 hour shifts and have a 2 hour commute, then crash in the couch too tired to do anything, eat leftover pizza, and then get 5 hours of sleep before it's back in the wheel again, then it's just a matter of when it all comes crumbling down. You can live like that until you can't.

weatherlite 4y ago
Physical activity is so important I'm surprised companies generally don't actively encourage employees to exercise. Instead they stock the kitchens with sodas and junk food. I wouldn't make exercise mandatory but I'd try to encourage everyone to a 40 minute workout in the middle of the day a few times a week. Sure, not all companies are equipped for that but many are. The thing is most people are too tired before or after work and during the weekends. If we can get them to move a bit during the day it will work. And people will be healthier, less burned out and more productive.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  > I'd try to get everyone who agrees to a 40 minute workout in the middle of the day a few times a week. followed by a nap period, please.
- wonderwonder 4y ago
  That would be great but they would then expect you to go home 40 minutes later than normal
  - weatherlite 4y ago
    I agree. The expectation is silly, the workers will produce more despite the lost hour I'm certain of it. Why don't these Mckinsey guys freaking try it already.
Frost1x 4y ago
I'd say, from my armchair theory, there are a lot of factors that lead to burnout and most all of them I think stem from some underlying pressure to work more. It may he some culturally seeded external pressure of your peers or workplace saying you need to continually push the bar, it may be your own internal goals that create such conditions, but I think it almost always stems from setting and then continously trying to attain unrealistic goals in work. If you can set realistic goals in realistic time increments that create a situation you can attain with a reasonable work life balance, you no longer need to push 10 hour days, you can take the evening off and relax. You don't need to take your evening and spend it learning some new tech or prepping for interviews to make your need career step. The issue is that while the pressure can be internal, much of it is becoming external and out of people's control. The way interviews have shifted in the past 20 years is a pretty obvious case of this in my opinion, the bar has been pushed higher and higher due to external pressure pushing the bar up through competition. Many workplaces adopt ridiculous slave driving time management techniques that push people beyond comfortable levels, continously. For those who want to grow you do need to push your boundaries but even then, you need to do so realistically and not continously--people need time to stagnate and be comfortable before they grow a bit. People sometimes get bored at a job because it's not challenging, they feel they aren't growing, the tech is old, whatever but I've rarely heard anyone complain in these situations that they feel burnt out. They may feel bored or stagnant but I find those situations far more bareable than burnout conditions. My opinion is that burnout stems largely from Taylorism gone off the rails focusing on pushing human efficiency beyond its breaking point without caring about the humans involved. Technology is pretty bad because tech is a very efficiency focused industry with lots of creative engineers ready to figure out a new way to optimize every aspect they can without often without considering side effects. I don't think it's isolated to tech by any means but I think tech is uniquely positioned to create abusive pressuring situations more than many sectors.

weatherlite 4y ago

Physical activity is so important I'm surprised companies generally don't actively encourage employees to exercise. Instead they stock the kitchens with sodas and junk food. I wouldn't make exercise mandatory but I'd try to encourage everyone to a 40 minute workout in the middle of the day a few times a week. Sure, not all companies are equipped for that but many are. The thing is most people are too tired before or after work and during the weekends. If we can get them to move a bit during the day it will work. And people will be healthier, less burned out and more productive.

mgkimsal 4y ago
> I'd try to get everyone who agrees to a 40 minute workout in the middle of the day a few times a week. followed by a nap period, please.
wonderwonder 4y ago
That would be great but they would then expect you to go home 40 minutes later than normal
- weatherlite 4y ago
  I agree. The expectation is silly, the workers will produce more despite the lost hour I'm certain of it. Why don't these Mckinsey guys freaking try it already.

Frost1x 4y ago

I'd say, from my armchair theory, there are a lot of factors that lead to burnout and most all of them I think stem from some underlying pressure to work more. It may he some culturally seeded external pressure of your peers or workplace saying you need to continually push the bar, it may be your own internal goals that create such conditions, but I think it almost always stems from setting and then continously trying to attain unrealistic goals in work. If you can set realistic goals in realistic time increments that create a situation you can attain with a reasonable work life balance, you no longer need to push 10 hour days, you can take the evening off and relax. You don't need to take your evening and spend it learning some new tech or prepping for interviews to make your need career step. The issue is that while the pressure can be internal, much of it is becoming external and out of people's control. The way interviews have shifted in the past 20 years is a pretty obvious case of this in my opinion, the bar has been pushed higher and higher due to external pressure pushing the bar up through competition. Many workplaces adopt ridiculous slave driving time management techniques that push people beyond comfortable levels, continously. For those who want to grow you do need to push your boundaries but even then, you need to do so realistically and not continously--people need time to stagnate and be comfortable before they grow a bit. People sometimes get bored at a job because it's not challenging, they feel they aren't growing, the tech is old, whatever but I've rarely heard anyone complain in these situations that they feel burnt out. They may feel bored or stagnant but I find those situations far more bareable than burnout conditions. My opinion is that burnout stems largely from Taylorism gone off the rails focusing on pushing human efficiency beyond its breaking point without caring about the humans involved. Technology is pretty bad because tech is a very efficiency focused industry with lots of creative engineers ready to figure out a new way to optimize every aspect they can without often without considering side effects. I don't think it's isolated to tech by any means but I think tech is uniquely positioned to create abusive pressuring situations more than many sectors.