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Burnout: Whatever you do, constantly be looking for ways to actively mitigate it. Just working less is NOT the only way to prevent it. Everyone has had times w

by reduce 12y ago

Burnout: Whatever you do, constantly be looking for ways to actively mitigate it. Just working less is NOT the only way to prevent it. Everyone has had times when they've worked long hours on something, and still felt great. Think about what was special in those situations. Ideas: 1) Play a sport. 2) Party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe Friday. This works well for many extremely hard working professionals in NYC. Not sure how well it would work in SV... 3) When coding, try to break up tasks into self-contained chunks that you can start and finish within one day. Accomplishing a new tangible goal each day can have a great mental effect. Catching up on big half-finished tasks from the previous day can be stressful and mentally draining. 4) Be around people you love being around. You'll feel less stressed about escaping the office if the people you're looking forward to being around are inside instead of outside the office. 5) Notice how it's so hard to focus late into the evening at the office, but once you're home you feel awake again and can work? For the earliest stage startup, consider making your work environment more like a home, or literally work out of your home with your cofounder. Your girlfriend/boyfriend may look down at you for doing this, get used to it. Partners hate startups. 6) Go for walks twice per day, preferably outdoors, in a place where you're surrounded by lots of people - or alone in nature, whatever you feel like you're missing. 7) Kick out whining people, immediately.

Ologn 12y ago
> 2) Party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe Friday. This works well for many extremely hard working professionals in NYC. Not sure how well it would work in SV... Probably one of the best comments I've seen on HN on some of the benefits of NYC over SV. Back in 1999 my company needed servers set up at a colo in Sunnyvale, so I flew out to the Bay Area. Saturday evening I head over to Fry's Electronics, and unexpectedly run into a friend of mine who had moved out to the Bay Area. We agree to meet later for dinner, then he says let's head back to his office. We walk in to his office at 9 PM and Saturday. The entire office is there, sitting at their desks. 90% male, if not more. This was their life. The thing though was - this was not Facebook, this was not Google. I can see doing that amount of work in some years in order to get a payoff. This was a company which it was obvious to me at the time, was going nowhere. It raised about $60 million from Kleiner Perkins in 2000, and has hobbled along since then, with another $30 million of Kleiner money in subsequent years. Last year the New York Times said the company and business "remains something of a work in progress", was "lagging many earlier expectations" and was still a small business. I could easily foresee this at the time. It's one of the problems. People at Facebook, Google etc. worked all hours in the early years, so every company feels they have to emulate that. But Google's don't come around every day - I was sending e-mail's to Google asking them to employ me back when they were still hosted at Stanford. It's obvious that many people would trade a few years of very hard work for the spigot of money early Facebook and Google employees got. But between such black swans, you want to have the ability to make a decent living working 40 hours a week, and live in a community where you can have a life beyond your tech job. It's not working hard versus having a life, it's not wanting to work 60+ hours a week when you're just spinning wheels. I've worked at companies where people started staying until 6, 7, 8 PM for no real reason. Then I learn there is trouble at home with their marriage, they often get a divorce. They stay at work because they don't want to go home and spend time with their spouse. It's what bothers me about SV, work for works sake, everything beyond focused on tech. If you catch a ride on a black swan it's a great thing, but if you don't, there's not much good about it.
- jlaurend 12y ago
  Those years don't make sense. Do you mean you were there in 2009 and they raised in 2000? It's hard to know when you're at a company that will make it big. Ok, so you can probably tell if you're at a FB or Google and you're on your way up. Likewise, you should be able to tell when you're at a really BAD company. Most companies are somewhere in between, though. That said, I'm not disagreeing with you. People shouldn't be working that hard unless there's a reason to. The goal should be to get to a point where the path to success is reasonable clear and makes those long nights useful. Otherwise it's better to fail fast (much easier said than done).
- ilamont 12y ago
  Elance: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/elance-and-odesk-merge-their-employment-clouds/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/elance-and-odesk-me... http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/elance http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/elance
FLUX-YOU 12y ago
>2) Party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe Friday. This works well for many extremely hard working professionals in NYC. So hard drugs and tons of alcohol? We might have different definitions for partying hard, but that's what I think of when I think of 'hard-working NYC professional'. Maybe we should chill out on that: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26219187/use-illicit-drugs-becomes-part-silicon-valleys-work http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26219187/use-illicit-... *Note, I have no idea if mercurynews is a decent source of news
- reduce 12y ago
  No, not like that.

by reduce 12y ago

Ologn 12y ago

> 2) Party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe Friday. This works well for many extremely hard working professionals in NYC. Not sure how well it would work in SV... Probably one of the best comments I've seen on HN on some of the benefits of NYC over SV. Back in 1999 my company needed servers set up at a colo in Sunnyvale, so I flew out to the Bay Area. Saturday evening I head over to Fry's Electronics, and unexpectedly run into a friend of mine who had moved out to the Bay Area. We agree to meet later for dinner, then he says let's head back to his office. We walk in to his office at 9 PM and Saturday. The entire office is there, sitting at their desks. 90% male, if not more. This was their life. The thing though was - this was not Facebook, this was not Google. I can see doing that amount of work in some years in order to get a payoff. This was a company which it was obvious to me at the time, was going nowhere. It raised about $60 million from Kleiner Perkins in 2000, and has hobbled along since then, with another $30 million of Kleiner money in subsequent years. Last year the New York Times said the company and business "remains something of a work in progress", was "lagging many earlier expectations" and was still a small business. I could easily foresee this at the time. It's one of the problems. People at Facebook, Google etc. worked all hours in the early years, so every company feels they have to emulate that. But Google's don't come around every day - I was sending e-mail's to Google asking them to employ me back when they were still hosted at Stanford. It's obvious that many people would trade a few years of very hard work for the spigot of money early Facebook and Google employees got. But between such black swans, you want to have the ability to make a decent living working 40 hours a week, and live in a community where you can have a life beyond your tech job. It's not working hard versus having a life, it's not wanting to work 60+ hours a week when you're just spinning wheels. I've worked at companies where people started staying until 6, 7, 8 PM for no real reason. Then I learn there is trouble at home with their marriage, they often get a divorce. They stay at work because they don't want to go home and spend time with their spouse. It's what bothers me about SV, work for works sake, everything beyond focused on tech. If you catch a ride on a black swan it's a great thing, but if you don't, there's not much good about it.

jlaurend 12y ago
Those years don't make sense. Do you mean you were there in 2009 and they raised in 2000? It's hard to know when you're at a company that will make it big. Ok, so you can probably tell if you're at a FB or Google and you're on your way up. Likewise, you should be able to tell when you're at a really BAD company. Most companies are somewhere in between, though. That said, I'm not disagreeing with you. People shouldn't be working that hard unless there's a reason to. The goal should be to get to a point where the path to success is reasonable clear and makes those long nights useful. Otherwise it's better to fail fast (much easier said than done).
ilamont 12y ago
Elance: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/elance-and-odesk-merge-their-employment-clouds/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/elance-and-odesk-me... http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/elance http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/elance

FLUX-YOU 12y ago

>2) Party hard, roughly 1 night per week, maybe Friday. This works well for many extremely hard working professionals in NYC. So hard drugs and tons of alcohol? We might have different definitions for partying hard, but that's what I think of when I think of 'hard-working NYC professional'. Maybe we should chill out on that: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26219187/use-illicit-drugs-becomes-part-silicon-valleys-work http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26219187/use-illicit-... *Note, I have no idea if mercurynews is a decent source of news

reduce 12y ago
No, not like that.