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Developers Burnout. I Burned Out.

Tyler Potts ✌️ on March 18, 2019

A developer can burnout. I burned out. I read a post called Developer burnout is real by Daragh Byrne and I wanted to share my experienc...
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Wendy Stocker

What a wonderful honest post! I love stuff like this, and definitely don't think this is talked about in the tech world enough. Possibly because so many companies have adopted a 'churn and burn' mentality.

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Tyler Potts ✌️

Thank you and yes a lot of companies are the same and are not bothered about an employee's mental state.

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chustedde

Thanks for sharing your experiences - I can definitely relate to some of it. I think your tip to participate in fun coding projects is a good one. For me, learning about languages or frameworks I don't use at work is often more fun than trying a new project in something I'm already familiar with. A positive side effect is that sometimes I can bring this new knowledge back to work and help solve problems in a way I wouldn't have thought of before!

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Tyler Potts ✌️

That is awesome, it's exactly how I feel. Fun projects always help.

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Eugene Samonenko

Fully agree! + the same story, and my receipt is to leave company with "performance" corporate culture (salary does not matter), work on interesting projects with inspiration and , have hobby, ride bike, do not drink alcohol, take care about my 7 cats 😺

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Tyler Potts ✌️

Nice, I don't drink either. I also have 8 kittens right now. A litter. 😁

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Daragh Byrne • Edited

“Personally, I started to burn out because I was determined to code all the time, I thought that the more I code the better I'll be and the more I'd want to do development. I was completely wrong. The more I coded the worse I got.” - exactly this!

Your list of solutions is solid. I’d add active, intentional relaxation.

For those interested I blog on this topic at codingmindfully.com.

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Tyler Potts ✌️

Thanks dude your post was what inspired me to write this. 😁

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Daragh Byrne

👍🥳

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Román Miranda

Great post! Some other tips, that work for me, is to have at least 30 mins of exercise (running, soccer, whatever) and to turn off any distractors (tv, phone notification even music) when I work, in my case I've detected that having multiple things walks you to a quicker burnout.

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Tyler Potts ✌️

That is an awesome tip about exercise it really does help clear your mind. 😁

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Kaleb M

Definitely feel like putting in some time to relax helps you power through some code later. Our mind will tell you its time for a break, we should listen :)

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Tyler Potts ✌️

Yes, a little relaxation can help stimulate the brain back in to high gear

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Robin Palotai

I wonder how were you let to code all the time? You make it sound like a personal choice, but in a team setting coding has a goal, and that goal needs to be reached in a limited time. Maybe you didn't get enough attention, or the goals were ambiguous?

I also found coding sustainable by following a focus-relax pattern, vs monothonic churning. Recently I'm writing actionable advice in my book Programming Without Anxiety if you are interested.

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Tyler Potts ✌️

I wouldn't say coding something quickly, it was the feeling of accomplishing something I thought was hard that made me start enjoying it again 😁

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Alex Domakidis • Edited

You know you've burned out when you can no longer type a working for loop or when you find yourself discussing with clients about project specifications in your sleep.