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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 psychol

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.

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.