5 ms·

Comments here so far seem to be missing Newport's key point (in the second half of the article)... For many modern (knowledge work) jobs, it's volume of tasks,

by deet 3y ago

Comments here so far seem to be missing Newport's key point (in the second half of the article)... For many modern (knowledge work) jobs, it's volume of tasks, not duration, that seems to induce burnout. For instance, if you have 1 central task for the week--say, write a report--but there are ten subtasks (hold 5 meetings to prepare, read 3 background papers, ...), and then each of those have a bunch of subtasks (Slack each 5 meeting attendees 10 times to coordinate and schedule, get interrupted when reading each paper so have to resume X times each) ... this 1 central task can easily be dozens or hundreds of subtasks. And then each coworker is doing the same thing, adding tasks to your load (you have to read their messages, respond to their emails, etc) in a multiplicative way. Newport calls it the "Hive Mind" in one of his books. The number of total tasks, from very small to very large, each individual has to accomplish in a week ends up far far greater than expected on the surface. And adding to that, they come in in an unpredictable way. All this adds up to burnout, not just the number of hours. It's the intensity, and the unpredictability. I've experienced this myself. I was at one of the FAANGs, constantly bombarded with new tasks, and felt burnt out. Now, I'm at a startup--very much inspired by Cal Newport, and using AI and context awareness to make teams operate together more effectively (see bio)--and I'm working far more hours per week than before, but with less interruptions and less distraction, I'm able to focus and feel far less burnout despite the increased hours. All this to say, we really need to rethink how we work, not just how much.

nostrademons 3y ago
It's both. Burnout is when you invest too much emotionally in something or someone and don't get anything back from it. That can be because you have a steady stream of work items and none seem particularly important but you feel obligated to do each one. Or it can be because you labor on the same project for years and never complete it. Or it can be because you work hard and deliver but events outside your control make that delivery pointless. I'm an eng manager at a FAANG. I view my primary job to be saying "No, that doesn't matter." New bug comes in - if it's not a production outage or security bug, it can go in the bug queue and we can forget about it. Engineer says "But what about [edge case], now I have to worry about that too", I can say "No you don't. Ship it anyway." Request from another team comes in - "Sorry, we don't have engineering capacity for that." UX designer has a great new idea - "That's not feasible in the time and resource constraints we have." Probably doesn't make me very popular with other teams, users, or cross-functional partners, but my team (which had had recurrent problems with burnout and spinning their wheels before I joined) is being productive and delivering stuff and seems reasonably happy at work now.
- asdfman123 3y ago
  I’m an engineer at FAANG and it seems absurd, though, that we have so many resources but can’t apply some craftsmanship every so often. Instead, we churn out features, and everyone cheers when someone adds a new button to the UI.
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    It's not rewarded by the performance review system (except at Apple). You can apply craftsmanship, it's just you won't get credit for it, your manager won't get credit for it, your VP won't get credit for it, and so on. That makes it a hard sell. A good manager's not going to penalize you for going above and beyond and fixing issues that you see, but it's hard to make a case for it when there's lots of other stuff to do and nobody important is going to notice the bugfix you just made. (And chances are, new bugs are just going to be introduced by some other team chasing the hot new feature.)
    - asdfman123 3y ago
      It’s also true that I can become a very good portrait painter, but that’s not going to be rewarded by my job either. Still, I do try to make quality software, so I can actually be proud of what I’m doing.
- MrDresden 3y ago
  On behalf of your team, thank you for taking good care of them. As someone who has been in a team situation without a good manager (where every little thing got highest priority) and subsequently got burned out (also my fault to get too emotionally invested in the work) along with most of the team, I know firsthand the damage that bad management can have on morale, throughput and quality.
Falkon1313 3y ago
On a personal level, we also have to remember to say "No, I can't stay late tonight, I have things to do." or "I had to work a double shift yesterday, so no I am not going to be in first thing in the morning." and so on. When we're young and don't have any clout, it's really hard (and scary) to do that. Which is exactly why those of us who are older and have the experience and acceptance to do so really need to normalize it. To make it clear that that is ok. I'm extremely lucky because my company has a culture where people can, and routinely do, say things like "My brain's fried. I can't do anything else productive today so I'm leaving early." or "I didn't sleep well, so I'll be late today and I'll make it up later." And people ask for help almost every day. And we watch out for when someone's stressed and do not pile more things on them. Everyone agrees that none of us wants somebody just adding bugs because they're too overwhelmed, and then wasting time afterward reverting and fixing them. That's not productive. I know, that is rare. It requires everyone involved to create that culture of acceptance and assistance. Management alone can't do it, but also, if all the employees are doing it, they can't stop it. It's a duty of all of us senior employees to set the right example.
- wildrhythms 3y ago
  +100 to this, any time I get an 'emergency request' coming in like that I flat out tell them this is not going to happen, I can't do it given the time constraint. I didn't used to do that, but I got burned too many times and it hurt my mental health scrambling to meet someone else's fabricated, and usually self-inflicted deadline. My well-being is so much more important than somebody else's lack of planning. My usual strategy for dealing with this is saying "Sorry, I can't help given the time constraint. Since it's an emergency maybe we should bring this to the attention of <relevant manager 2 levels up>?" and magically the 'emergency' goes away and I never hear about it again.
- earthling8118 3y ago
  I wish I was fortunate enough to work at such a place. When I'm given the ability to make those kinds of decisions for myself, I can get some serious work done. However, not many of my jobs have allowed for that. I've even been let go from a job that demanded so much of my time that I did nothing but work and doordash food supposedly because I wasn't putting in the amount of time they wanted. This industry has completely alienated me to it. I loathe the grueling hours and the job search.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by deet 3y ago

nostrademons 3y ago

It's both. Burnout is when you invest too much emotionally in something or someone and don't get anything back from it. That can be because you have a steady stream of work items and none seem particularly important but you feel obligated to do each one. Or it can be because you labor on the same project for years and never complete it. Or it can be because you work hard and deliver but events outside your control make that delivery pointless. I'm an eng manager at a FAANG. I view my primary job to be saying "No, that doesn't matter." New bug comes in - if it's not a production outage or security bug, it can go in the bug queue and we can forget about it. Engineer says "But what about [edge case], now I have to worry about that too", I can say "No you don't. Ship it anyway." Request from another team comes in - "Sorry, we don't have engineering capacity for that." UX designer has a great new idea - "That's not feasible in the time and resource constraints we have." Probably doesn't make me very popular with other teams, users, or cross-functional partners, but my team (which had had recurrent problems with burnout and spinning their wheels before I joined) is being productive and delivering stuff and seems reasonably happy at work now.

asdfman123 3y ago
I’m an engineer at FAANG and it seems absurd, though, that we have so many resources but can’t apply some craftsmanship every so often. Instead, we churn out features, and everyone cheers when someone adds a new button to the UI.
- nostrademons 3y ago
  It's not rewarded by the performance review system (except at Apple). You can apply craftsmanship, it's just you won't get credit for it, your manager won't get credit for it, your VP won't get credit for it, and so on. That makes it a hard sell. A good manager's not going to penalize you for going above and beyond and fixing issues that you see, but it's hard to make a case for it when there's lots of other stuff to do and nobody important is going to notice the bugfix you just made. (And chances are, new bugs are just going to be introduced by some other team chasing the hot new feature.)
  - asdfman123 3y ago
    It’s also true that I can become a very good portrait painter, but that’s not going to be rewarded by my job either. Still, I do try to make quality software, so I can actually be proud of what I’m doing.
MrDresden 3y ago
On behalf of your team, thank you for taking good care of them. As someone who has been in a team situation without a good manager (where every little thing got highest priority) and subsequently got burned out (also my fault to get too emotionally invested in the work) along with most of the team, I know firsthand the damage that bad management can have on morale, throughput and quality.

Falkon1313 3y ago

On a personal level, we also have to remember to say "No, I can't stay late tonight, I have things to do." or "I had to work a double shift yesterday, so no I am not going to be in first thing in the morning." and so on. When we're young and don't have any clout, it's really hard (and scary) to do that. Which is exactly why those of us who are older and have the experience and acceptance to do so really need to normalize it. To make it clear that that is ok. I'm extremely lucky because my company has a culture where people can, and routinely do, say things like "My brain's fried. I can't do anything else productive today so I'm leaving early." or "I didn't sleep well, so I'll be late today and I'll make it up later." And people ask for help almost every day. And we watch out for when someone's stressed and do not pile more things on them. Everyone agrees that none of us wants somebody just adding bugs because they're too overwhelmed, and then wasting time afterward reverting and fixing them. That's not productive. I know, that is rare. It requires everyone involved to create that culture of acceptance and assistance. Management alone can't do it, but also, if all the employees are doing it, they can't stop it. It's a duty of all of us senior employees to set the right example.

wildrhythms 3y ago
+100 to this, any time I get an 'emergency request' coming in like that I flat out tell them this is not going to happen, I can't do it given the time constraint. I didn't used to do that, but I got burned too many times and it hurt my mental health scrambling to meet someone else's fabricated, and usually self-inflicted deadline. My well-being is so much more important than somebody else's lack of planning. My usual strategy for dealing with this is saying "Sorry, I can't help given the time constraint. Since it's an emergency maybe we should bring this to the attention of <relevant manager 2 levels up>?" and magically the 'emergency' goes away and I never hear about it again.
earthling8118 3y ago
I wish I was fortunate enough to work at such a place. When I'm given the ability to make those kinds of decisions for myself, I can get some serious work done. However, not many of my jobs have allowed for that. I've even been let go from a job that demanded so much of my time that I did nothing but work and doordash food supposedly because I wasn't putting in the amount of time they wanted. This industry has completely alienated me to it. I loathe the grueling hours and the job search.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]