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I remember reading this published insight[1] from Marissa Mayer a few months ago: Burnout is caused by resentment Which sounded amazing, until this guy who da

I remember reading this published insight[1] from Marissa Mayer a few months ago: Burnout is caused by resentment Which sounded amazing, until this guy who dated a neuroscientist commented[2]: No. Burnout is caused when you repeatedly make large amounts of sacrifice and or effort into high-risk problems that fail. It's the result of a negative prediction error in the nucleus accumbens. You effectively condition your brain to associate work with failure. Subconsciously, then eventually, consciously, you wonder if it's worth it. The best way to prevent burnout is to follow up a serious failure with doing small things that you know are going to work. As a biologist, I frequently put in 50-70 and sometimes 100 hour workweeks. The very nature of experimental science (lots of unkowns) means that failure happens. The nature of the culture means that grad students are "groomed" by sticking them on low-probability of success, high reward fishing expeditions (gotta get those nature, science papers) I used to burn out for months after accumulating many many hours of work on high-risk projects. I saw other grad students get it really bad, and burn out for years. During my first postdoc, I dated a neuroscientist and reprogrammed my work habits. On the heels of the failure of a project where I have spent weeks building up for, I will quickly force myself to do routine molecular biology, or general lab tasks, or a repeat of an experiment that I have gotten to work in the past. These all have an immediate reward. Now I don't burn out anymore, and find it easier to re-attempt very difficult things, with a clearer mindset. For coders, I would posit that most burnout comes on the heels of failure that is not in the hands of the coder (management decisions, market realities, etc). My suggested remedy would be to reassociate work with success by doing routine things such as debugging or code testing that will restore the act of working with the little "pops" of endorphins. That is not to say that having a healthy life schedule makes burnout less likely (I think it does; and one should have a healthy lifestyle for its own sake) but I don't think it addresses the main issue. Then I finally realized how many times I've burnt out in my life, and I became much better into avoiding it. Which is really hard to do. And it seems to me that this is one of the many points that Ben Horowitz talks about on his What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology[3] [1] http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Burnout-is-caused-by-resentment.html http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Burnout-is-caused-by-resentment... [2] http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Burnout-is-caused-by-resentment.html#comment-478842490 http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Burnout-is-caused-by-resentment... [3] http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/01/what%E2%80%99s-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/ http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/01/what%E2%80%99s-the-most-diff...

ultimoo 14y ago
Nice read! It makes a lot of sense too. We developers could probably do something as small as working on a projecteuler.net problem for 30 minutes at the end of a rough day.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
  Unlikely to work as you probably don't see that as work therefore you're not fighting the link between work and failure.
  - alanctgardner2 14y ago
    Not true. If you code and solve problems at work, and fail spectacularly, you don't want to try and solve more problems. The brain is very good at generalizing stimuli: having your code compile is like a programmer's own little Skinner box. So if you can find problems in other domains and solve them, you'll still enjoy programming and solving problems. I do agree that you need some successes at work, though. If you were doing really well in private, but everything at work was going wrong that would cause problems.
  - jerf 14y ago
    Your nucleus accumbens isn't necessarily very smart, and isn't necessarily segmenting its world into "work" and "not work". "Work" here is a poor term in this context, it's an English word and subject to a lot of ambiguity. It might be somewhat more accurate to rephrase that as "You are training yourself to believe that all effort is futile", effort towards anything, which is why you end up just staring into space. Or perhaps not, who knows what the truest truth is, I'm really more saying that I doubt that part of your brain sees "work" as you were using the term.
    - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
      I think it depends on the individual and how they see work, how one aspect of their life leaks into another another and so on. Speaking personally I know that even when I'm stressed at work I still know the difference between tasks carried out as part of my job, and tasks carried out which are potentially similar, and which may be being carried out in a work setting, but which are not work. Don't get me wrong, if I feel work is going badly, doing something else and being OK at it is almost certainly a good thing, I just think that doing something work related and doing it well is probably better.

ultimoo 14y ago

Nice read! It makes a lot of sense too. We developers could probably do something as small as working on a projecteuler.net problem for 30 minutes at the end of a rough day.

Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
Unlikely to work as you probably don't see that as work therefore you're not fighting the link between work and failure.
- alanctgardner2 14y ago
  Not true. If you code and solve problems at work, and fail spectacularly, you don't want to try and solve more problems. The brain is very good at generalizing stimuli: having your code compile is like a programmer's own little Skinner box. So if you can find problems in other domains and solve them, you'll still enjoy programming and solving problems. I do agree that you need some successes at work, though. If you were doing really well in private, but everything at work was going wrong that would cause problems.
- jerf 14y ago
  Your nucleus accumbens isn't necessarily very smart, and isn't necessarily segmenting its world into "work" and "not work". "Work" here is a poor term in this context, it's an English word and subject to a lot of ambiguity. It might be somewhat more accurate to rephrase that as "You are training yourself to believe that all effort is futile", effort towards anything, which is why you end up just staring into space. Or perhaps not, who knows what the truest truth is, I'm really more saying that I doubt that part of your brain sees "work" as you were using the term.
  - Tyrannosaurs 14y ago
    I think it depends on the individual and how they see work, how one aspect of their life leaks into another another and so on. Speaking personally I know that even when I'm stressed at work I still know the difference between tasks carried out as part of my job, and tasks carried out which are potentially similar, and which may be being carried out in a work setting, but which are not work. Don't get me wrong, if I feel work is going badly, doing something else and being OK at it is almost certainly a good thing, I just think that doing something work related and doing it well is probably better.