5 ms·

The Antidote to Burnout is Progress

80 points by jalopy 13y ago

CCs 13y ago
Clickable link: https://idonethis.com/ https://idonethis.com/
runemadsen 13y ago
I'm a little tired of seeing all these posts about what burnout is, and how to prevent it, written by people who doesn't have any experience in clinical psychology. "Burnout is caused by working and failing". "Prevent burnout by clicking this list of TODO items". Please don't approach these complicated issues from a "this is a trend" angle. I'm pretty sure there are other, better, and way more complicated reasons why you can feel miserable at your job. Burnout can be linked to a medical illness, malnutrition, depression, etc, etc...
- skore 13y ago
  I think we're seeing what usually happens after psychological concepts "go mainstream". First they start to get over diagnosed (actually, in most cases, over self-diagnosed) and then they get so overused in the public discourse that almost anybody thinks they can chime in. For me, the opener captured the problem: > Burnout is a motivation problem, a listlessness, a defeatist attitude, and perhaps even a hopelessness, triggered by the lack of progress. Even a quick glance at wikipedia tells you that the major component in Burnout is Exhaustion. Making it about motivation sounds analogous to telling depressed people that they really need to cheer up more. If your main focus in trying to deal with Burnout is to micro-manage yourself better and track your probably already obsessive introspection on work even closer, the only thing you end up doing is driving the car even faster against the next tree. Motivation issues might coincide with burnout, they might play into the spiral of self loathing that feeds your burnout. But they are just one of the components that make you exhausted. The main thing you need to do when you are exhausted is to stop and give yourself time to heal. However: The author isn't talking about Burnout, he is just accurate in using the term as it is broadly understood. It is reasonably accurate for the early stages of a Burnout. Even the title, citing 'antidote' is reasonably accurate since antidotes are mostly given quickly after a person was poisoned. Not when that person is already deathly ill. I would agree with you, however, that this article probably does more harm than good. Particularly hand-wavy "...and exercise, diet, reading" in the last sentence do leave a stale aftertaste, making this more blog spam than content. Funnily enough, it's blog spam around a HN Comment thread. Go figure. Meta article on Burnout articles should surface any day now.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    And hey, "reading." Since I'm reading right now, I hope to be motivated again RSN.
- derekp7 13y ago
  The thing is, the popular (high-level) definition of burnout is "The magic that allowed code to mysteriously flow through my fingers to the keyboard is broken". Or, to a manager, "My golden-egg-laying chicken is on the fritz". And in many cases (assuming no major underlying issue) it is a simple cause, and a simple solution. So I don't see too much harm in articles like this if they can help out some people. The only downside is if these articles do more harm than good, by either trivializing the condition or offering harmful advice for the cases in which it doesn't fit.
  - runemadsen 13y ago
    And trivializing the condition is exactly what I think they are doing. The authors have no clue who the reader is or feels, and giving a dumb 1-2-3 solution can just make it worse when it doesn't work. Again, there are disciplines devoted to solving these problems, and it's not tech blogging.
    - derekp7 13y ago
      I'm sure that is true. However, where do you draw the line between putting out helpful advice, and not saying anything because someone might get hurt by it? I for one am glad to see how-to articles covering things like auto repair, even though someone could end up killing themselves if they screw up a break job (for example).
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  I don't think you can really understand what burnout is until you have actually experienced severe and complete burnout (aka chronic fatigue syndrome). For managers of highly creative and productive developers there are some very simple things you can do to help prevent burnout in your employees: [1] give them interesting stuff to work on, [2] give them freedom, and [3] don't be an asshole. Very simple in theory, but unfortunately most managers fail on at least 2 of the 3.
Paul_D_Santana 13y ago
This reminds me of Dan Miller's 7 Areas of Success: Career Financial Personal Development Physical Relationships Spiritual Social As he often says on his podcast [1], you must be making continual deposits of success in every area, and career is only ONE area. For example, if you experience a temporary "interruption of employment status", the first thing you should do is start an exercise regimen (if you don't already have one). Each one feeds into each other, and I know after a particularly terrible day, I personally feel a hundred times better after a challenging CrossFit workout with friends. [1] http://www.48days.com/category/48-days-podcast http://www.48days.com/category/48-days-podcast
- gcb0 13y ago
  This reminds me of catch-22. it is easy said. but how can you have progress if you are burned out?
  - Paul_D_Santana 13y ago
    Exercise; spend time with friends and family; attend service at your chosen place of worship; join a new group on meetup.com.
    - gcb0 13y ago
      if people did that, they wouldn't be burned out. hence a catch-22.
      - dasil003 13y ago
        The key is that burnout doesn't prevent progress in all areas.
  - stray 13y ago
    Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.
brandon_wirtz 13y ago
I think most the people who write these posts are clueless as to what burnout is. You can give people money, pats on the back, pizza parties but if you run them hard enough they will burn out. I have been working without rest for a year on a project (http://www.stremor.com http://www.stremor.com) that has had huge amounts of progress. It pays well enough, I like the people I work with, we have achieved great things, and we have gotten recognition. So by all these measures I should have no burn out. I have been burned out several times. You can't do genius level work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks and not burn out. The Addiction to progress I have had me doing 80 and 100 hour weeks. I was burning my self out. Not because my needs weren't met, but because the brain just can't do that much work for that long. I would sleep through an entire weekend after 2 weeks of 100 hours. But the addiction to progress and the excitement of the work meant that I didn't want to "go play". What it really comes down to is people have limits. Those limits are additive. If you are at 40% of your financial stress limit, and 40% of your relationship stress limit, and 40% of your Micro-Manager driving you batty limit, then you are at 120% of your limits. And you can run for a while at over 100% but not indefinitely. Even when all my Career, financial, physical, sexual, and other limits are at 5% if my Hours of intense concentration limit has been hit I will burn out. And so will employees. The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the Mental limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can maximize the employee output. Every time you push the employee at 150% for 2 days, you need to let them recover at 75% for 4 days. Burn out isn't a bad thing as long as you can refuel and keep going. It is about managing the sprints, and preventing the burn out from causing failures.
- saidajigumi 13y ago
  > The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the Mental limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can maximize the employee output. I find it ironic that you describe the very real negative effects of burnout, but then describe a recipe for inducing ... burnout. May I suggest that you read Tom DeMarco's book Slack? It specifically addresses what I'll term "operational fallacies" like this regarding knowledge work, and covers making an organization more effective (doing the right work) vs. merely efficient (doing lots of work) by adjusting the character and pace of work.
orangethirty 13y ago
Right. Burnout also happens with success.
spockz 13y ago
Burnouts come in various forms and one of the symptoms is exhaustion. As another comment already stated a person has a limited amount of energy that can be spent. Working at more than 100% it's possible but consumes a lot of energy. One of the sources of this energy can be excitement (adrenaline) because you intrinsically like what you are doing or because you get a sense of ffulfillment in completing things. Which brings us back to the antidote suggested by the post. The suggested actions are typical measures for improving one's self-esteem. When one's self-esteem is low one tends to suffer from the same symptoms as exhaustion. The post suggests that burnout is caused by repeated failure of obtaining success after spending a serious amount of effort and commitment. This however is a classic example of something that induces low self-esteem. So be sure that you are not primarily fueled by this need for success when working over your max. Because if that is what is giving you energy you will lose it once you have some failures.
milesf 13y ago
There's no such thing as burnout, it's really heartache in disguise.
lsinger 13y ago
For outstanding research on the meaning of progress in your work, take a look at "the progress principle" by Amabile and Kramer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/142219857X/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/142219857X/ Gist: yes, progress is essential to feel good about your work.
kylequest 13y ago
This guy is completely clueless about burnout. Lack of progress or lack of success lead to depression and not burnout. Burnout is caused by "sprinting" for too long resulting in prolonged exhaustion. "Sprinting" is ok for very short periods of time, but running a (never ending) marathon like it's a sprint results in a burnout. No success or progress can fix that. Plain and simple...
- cpncrunch 13y ago
  Have you ever experienced burnout yourself? Generally severe burnout will result in depression as well.

80 points by jalopy 13y ago

CCs 13y ago

Clickable link: https://idonethis.com/ https://idonethis.com/

I'm a little tired of seeing all these posts about what burnout is, and how to prevent it, written by people who doesn't have any experience in clinical psychology. "Burnout is caused by working and failing". "Prevent burnout by clicking this list of TODO items". Please don't approach these complicated issues from a "this is a trend" angle. I'm pretty sure there are other, better, and way more complicated reasons why you can feel miserable at your job. Burnout can be linked to a medical illness, malnutrition, depression, etc, etc...

skore 13y ago
I think we're seeing what usually happens after psychological concepts "go mainstream". First they start to get over diagnosed (actually, in most cases, over self-diagnosed) and then they get so overused in the public discourse that almost anybody thinks they can chime in. For me, the opener captured the problem: > Burnout is a motivation problem, a listlessness, a defeatist attitude, and perhaps even a hopelessness, triggered by the lack of progress. Even a quick glance at wikipedia tells you that the major component in Burnout is Exhaustion. Making it about motivation sounds analogous to telling depressed people that they really need to cheer up more. If your main focus in trying to deal with Burnout is to micro-manage yourself better and track your probably already obsessive introspection on work even closer, the only thing you end up doing is driving the car even faster against the next tree. Motivation issues might coincide with burnout, they might play into the spiral of self loathing that feeds your burnout. But they are just one of the components that make you exhausted. The main thing you need to do when you are exhausted is to stop and give yourself time to heal. However: The author isn't talking about Burnout, he is just accurate in using the term as it is broadly understood. It is reasonably accurate for the early stages of a Burnout. Even the title, citing 'antidote' is reasonably accurate since antidotes are mostly given quickly after a person was poisoned. Not when that person is already deathly ill. I would agree with you, however, that this article probably does more harm than good. Particularly hand-wavy "...and exercise, diet, reading" in the last sentence do leave a stale aftertaste, making this more blog spam than content. Funnily enough, it's blog spam around a HN Comment thread. Go figure. Meta article on Burnout articles should surface any day now.
- rhizome 13y ago
  And hey, "reading." Since I'm reading right now, I hope to be motivated again RSN.
derekp7 13y ago
The thing is, the popular (high-level) definition of burnout is "The magic that allowed code to mysteriously flow through my fingers to the keyboard is broken". Or, to a manager, "My golden-egg-laying chicken is on the fritz". And in many cases (assuming no major underlying issue) it is a simple cause, and a simple solution. So I don't see too much harm in articles like this if they can help out some people. The only downside is if these articles do more harm than good, by either trivializing the condition or offering harmful advice for the cases in which it doesn't fit.
- runemadsen 13y ago
  And trivializing the condition is exactly what I think they are doing. The authors have no clue who the reader is or feels, and giving a dumb 1-2-3 solution can just make it worse when it doesn't work. Again, there are disciplines devoted to solving these problems, and it's not tech blogging.
  - derekp7 13y ago
    I'm sure that is true. However, where do you draw the line between putting out helpful advice, and not saying anything because someone might get hurt by it? I for one am glad to see how-to articles covering things like auto repair, even though someone could end up killing themselves if they screw up a break job (for example).
cpncrunch 13y ago
I don't think you can really understand what burnout is until you have actually experienced severe and complete burnout (aka chronic fatigue syndrome). For managers of highly creative and productive developers there are some very simple things you can do to help prevent burnout in your employees: [1] give them interesting stuff to work on, [2] give them freedom, and [3] don't be an asshole. Very simple in theory, but unfortunately most managers fail on at least 2 of the 3.

Paul_D_Santana 13y ago

This reminds me of Dan Miller's 7 Areas of Success: Career Financial Personal Development Physical Relationships Spiritual Social As he often says on his podcast [1], you must be making continual deposits of success in every area, and career is only ONE area. For example, if you experience a temporary "interruption of employment status", the first thing you should do is start an exercise regimen (if you don't already have one). Each one feeds into each other, and I know after a particularly terrible day, I personally feel a hundred times better after a challenging CrossFit workout with friends. [1] http://www.48days.com/category/48-days-podcast http://www.48days.com/category/48-days-podcast

gcb0 13y ago
This reminds me of catch-22. it is easy said. but how can you have progress if you are burned out?
- Paul_D_Santana 13y ago
  Exercise; spend time with friends and family; attend service at your chosen place of worship; join a new group on meetup.com.
  - gcb0 13y ago
    if people did that, they wouldn't be burned out. hence a catch-22.
    - dasil003 13y ago
      The key is that burnout doesn't prevent progress in all areas.
- stray 13y ago
  Havermeyer was a lead bombardier who never missed. Yossarian was a lead bombardier who had been demoted because he no longer gave a damn whether he missed or not. He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.

brandon_wirtz 13y ago

I think most the people who write these posts are clueless as to what burnout is. You can give people money, pats on the back, pizza parties but if you run them hard enough they will burn out. I have been working without rest for a year on a project (http://www.stremor.com http://www.stremor.com) that has had huge amounts of progress. It pays well enough, I like the people I work with, we have achieved great things, and we have gotten recognition. So by all these measures I should have no burn out. I have been burned out several times. You can't do genius level work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks and not burn out. The Addiction to progress I have had me doing 80 and 100 hour weeks. I was burning my self out. Not because my needs weren't met, but because the brain just can't do that much work for that long. I would sleep through an entire weekend after 2 weeks of 100 hours. But the addiction to progress and the excitement of the work meant that I didn't want to "go play". What it really comes down to is people have limits. Those limits are additive. If you are at 40% of your financial stress limit, and 40% of your relationship stress limit, and 40% of your Micro-Manager driving you batty limit, then you are at 120% of your limits. And you can run for a while at over 100% but not indefinitely. Even when all my Career, financial, physical, sexual, and other limits are at 5% if my Hours of intense concentration limit has been hit I will burn out. And so will employees. The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the Mental limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can maximize the employee output. Every time you push the employee at 150% for 2 days, you need to let them recover at 75% for 4 days. Burn out isn't a bad thing as long as you can refuel and keep going. It is about managing the sprints, and preventing the burn out from causing failures.

saidajigumi 13y ago
> The task of a good manager is to run an employee up to the point of the Mental limits and make sure all those other limits are at 5% so they can maximize the employee output. I find it ironic that you describe the very real negative effects of burnout, but then describe a recipe for inducing ... burnout. May I suggest that you read Tom DeMarco's book Slack? It specifically addresses what I'll term "operational fallacies" like this regarding knowledge work, and covers making an organization more effective (doing the right work) vs. merely efficient (doing lots of work) by adjusting the character and pace of work.

orangethirty 13y ago

Right. Burnout also happens with success.

spockz 13y ago

Burnouts come in various forms and one of the symptoms is exhaustion. As another comment already stated a person has a limited amount of energy that can be spent. Working at more than 100% it's possible but consumes a lot of energy. One of the sources of this energy can be excitement (adrenaline) because you intrinsically like what you are doing or because you get a sense of ffulfillment in completing things. Which brings us back to the antidote suggested by the post. The suggested actions are typical measures for improving one's self-esteem. When one's self-esteem is low one tends to suffer from the same symptoms as exhaustion. The post suggests that burnout is caused by repeated failure of obtaining success after spending a serious amount of effort and commitment. This however is a classic example of something that induces low self-esteem. So be sure that you are not primarily fueled by this need for success when working over your max. Because if that is what is giving you energy you will lose it once you have some failures.

milesf 13y ago

There's no such thing as burnout, it's really heartache in disguise.

lsinger 13y ago

For outstanding research on the meaning of progress in your work, take a look at "the progress principle" by Amabile and Kramer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/142219857X/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/142219857X/ Gist: yes, progress is essential to feel good about your work.

kylequest 13y ago

This guy is completely clueless about burnout. Lack of progress or lack of success lead to depression and not burnout. Burnout is caused by "sprinting" for too long resulting in prolonged exhaustion. "Sprinting" is ok for very short periods of time, but running a (never ending) marathon like it's a sprint results in a burnout. No success or progress can fix that. Plain and simple...

cpncrunch 13y ago
Have you ever experienced burnout yourself? Generally severe burnout will result in depression as well.