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Please, make sure you are eating healthy, exercising, taking regular breaks, and sleeping. Burnout manifests itself much quicker and continues to linger even l

by gamedna 11y ago

Please, make sure you are eating healthy, exercising, taking regular breaks, and sleeping. Burnout manifests itself much quicker and continues to linger even longer when our health is neglected. Start a conversation with your manager and a HR representative immediately. Burnt out engineers are a sign of bigger problems, and I guarantee that you are not the only one in that situation. If your company is worth working for, this type of conversation is welcomed. Some context: my most recent experience with burnout was about a year ago. A result of 8 sequential 130+ hour weeks. Around week 6 or 7, my code was utter garbage (more than usual), my attitude towards the project was awful and I was setting a bad example to my peers & team. In retrospect, I was probably hurting the company more than I was helping. Today, those 20 hour days with 2 to 4 hours of sleep screwed with my memory retention and general ability to focus. Wish I could take it back and do it differently. For me the burnout cycle ended after several conversations with the company's founders. They were very clear that employee health is paramount to the company's success and continue to work on mitigating the root causes of engineer burnout.

pjc50 11y ago
eating healthy, exercising, taking regular breaks, and sleeping Once someone's reached a 15 hour workday, that's pretty much impossible. Normalising hours to 8 has absolutely got to be the first step.
- gamedna 11y ago
  Selecting a somewhat arbitrary number of hours without establishing personal priorities for self well-being only fosters a more stressful situation that increases the probability for relapse. (disclaimer: what works for one person may not work for everyone) Nutrition, exercise, regular breaks, and a reasonable amount of sleep are what I consider the bare minimum and should be implemented with a thought out plan. When faced with the 15 hour week. I start by creating a time budget, allocating my personal priorities first. Here is a simplified example: Sleep: 6 hours Exercise: 1 hour Meals: 30mins x 4 = 2 hours Breaks: 8*15min = 2 hours ------------------------------- Total personal hours: 11 hours Remaining work hours: 13 hours /day 1 Day off every week to run personal errands, shopping, etc. For me, this budget yields a 6 day work week totaling close to 80 working hours ensuring a break roughly every hour and 4 nutrient dense smaller meals. Hope this helps.

by gamedna 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

eating healthy, exercising, taking regular breaks, and sleeping Once someone's reached a 15 hour workday, that's pretty much impossible. Normalising hours to 8 has absolutely got to be the first step.

gamedna 11y ago
Selecting a somewhat arbitrary number of hours without establishing personal priorities for self well-being only fosters a more stressful situation that increases the probability for relapse. (disclaimer: what works for one person may not work for everyone) Nutrition, exercise, regular breaks, and a reasonable amount of sleep are what I consider the bare minimum and should be implemented with a thought out plan. When faced with the 15 hour week. I start by creating a time budget, allocating my personal priorities first. Here is a simplified example: Sleep: 6 hours Exercise: 1 hour Meals: 30mins x 4 = 2 hours Breaks: 8*15min = 2 hours ------------------------------- Total personal hours: 11 hours Remaining work hours: 13 hours /day 1 Day off every week to run personal errands, shopping, etc. For me, this budget yields a 6 day work week totaling close to 80 working hours ensuring a break roughly every hour and 4 nutrient dense smaller meals. Hope this helps.