Ask HN: How do you know when you are burning out?
What are the signs that you're about to burn out?
I have talked about burn out a lot with folks I've worked with and trying to avoid it, but I feel like I might be on the cusp of it now and I'm trying to figure out how to recognize it?
What have you seen that was the precursor to it, what if anything did you or can you do to avoid it?
Right now I think I see a general lack of real energy, more stress from the recent economic impacts to our business, being more short tempered, getting sick more often (colds for instance).
Would love any advice or perspectives from the community.
Thanks!
EDIT:
When is it time to change jobs because of it?
111 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 192 ms ] threadWhen you get into conflicts and arguments with coworkers over mundane crap like their voice tone.
When you yell at your significant other after the work day is done.
When you rationalize and justify being glued to a monitor for over 8 hours a day as normal, necessary and natural.
Edit: I think its totally valid if this is a sign for you or a select number of people. Everyone is going to have a very personal experience with burnout.
This describes at least 95% of all workers, probably for pretty much their entire working lives.
This is really important. We were fighting over nothing. Switching jobs is cheaper than couples counseling or divorce.
my (unasked) advice: focus on what activities / people / places give you energy and leave you calm and relaxed. I think you did enough diagnosis.
best of luck!
Or conversely when you don't do much at all and still end up feeling exhausted and demoralized at the end of every day.
When is it time to change jobs: When you really dislike the person you're becoming (irritable, unusually cynical) and don't want it to be permanent.
I got lucky in that (through higher-up corporate politics) I was accidentally(?) reassigned to something else much more joyful and fitting my skills quickly after I started noticing these signs, but it was absolutely a learning moment to see the shift in mindset and mood. This last comment may sound odd, but something I wish I did earlier was to start journaling as it's a great way to notice emotional patterns and to suss out things that have been bothering you but might not be vocalizing (as much as you need to).
There is a completely demoralizing sense that my career has "evaporated" and none of my achievements, accomplishments or jobs have any worth.
It has caused me to become incredibly bitter, resentful and angry at the world. I don't know how to turn the trauma of this mistreatment and abandonment into a happy "this is ok" face for the world.
I love programming but I hate the gatekeepers who stand in the way of my autonomy. They think they know better but if they did, they wouldn't need to hire engineers in the first place. Product people can be amazing guiding lights in the dark but they can also be the most cancerous self-indulgent babies ever.
I just really don't understand how the industry adopted these ridiculous practices. I'm lucky that I get a ton of recruiters reaching out once I toggled my LinkedIn to say I'm open, but I don't understand what they expect other than me to say "I guess I'll message you in 3 months after I take on an unpaid second job of learning how to write algorithms I never once used in the last 15+ years of my engineering career to solve problems that are meant to just trick me". You would think they'd want to make it so that engineers did have the option of evaluating other companies at any time, rather than having to prepare endlessly. If I decide I want a new job now (which I did a few weeks ago), I can't do anything about it for a while (unless I'm one of those who practices LC all week rather than learning much more useful things).
No point in ranting further about this.. everyone is well aware.
There's of course some companies that don't subject you to this nonsense, but the list is really limited, and just finding out who they are has taken me many weeks and many phone calls. But a month of that plus trying to "learn" everything required for all of these interviews has made me burnt out and bitter (just like you said). I don't want to jump through these ridiculous hoops and play this stupid game... but what's the alternative?
Hopefully things get better.
What you are describing that I feel in the same boat on is the impossible whack a mole game we are trying to play. It's like a dart board on an always moving target.
It's impossible to catch that objective, you just need to practice / focus on what you are good at and try to look for opportunities that need these skills. It's hard for me because I don't want to work with PHP anymore, but I get a lot of recruiter spam for it. Maybe I could even be ok with a PHP dev based job if the people and structure around the work was reasonable and humane.
My goal right now is to focus on my strengths, try not to be too self-critical when the few opportunities I do see don't match up. It's a waiting game I just wish there was more that I could do proactively.
For instance, I notice that I might get angry that a person driving didn't see me at a pedestrian crossing. But what's the point in being angry? Why should I let that person "put me" in a bad mood?
I believe the trick is to recognise your emotions, what you can control and what you can't. Does it make sense to be angry at things beyond your control?
Also I've come to understand that the brain is fed what we give it. What you feed it through media, television, the people around you - these all affect it. We should ideally fiercly guard what our brain is fed. Thinking about this I started to notice how much people drink in movies / TV and how it made me feel like drinking too. It's a bit like "the five people you surround yourself most with" idea.
I'm still a work in progress, and hopefully some of what I've mentioned can help you on your own journey.
Leetcode is difficult for sure, but I do think it's good in many ways - at least it exists, you know it's necessary and the way I see it, it's kind of like having the answers to the exam!
Is it fair people make you go through this hazing process? No, but unless you have some better ideas, if it's truly the only thing between you and what you want, then maybe it's time to reframe it in your mind - what are some good things that could come out of it?
I know it's hard when "the world fucking sucks", but I'm sure there's also a part of you that enjoys learning and doing puzzles. Maybe it's time to tap back into that side of you. Take your time.
Everything you describe is a sign that you are burning out. Take a step back and find ways to improve the situation: short frequent breaks during the days, mini-vacations each week/month, EXERCISE OUTSIDE (walsk ,runs, bike, anything outside rain or shine), find a group of friends or family you ENJOY being around and spend more time talking and laughing with them.
You may not necessarily need to leave your job, but if it is REALLY tearing you down and you feel hopeless everytime you go to it, then NOW is the time to start looking for something else. Do not let all of this build up until you are at a breaking point and suddenly quit "out of the blue" because the pressure has built up too much. At that point it may be difficult to find a job and you might be so burnt out you literally don't have the motivation TO find a new job.
Good luck, find a way to heal yourself, and know that there are a lot of others out here who have gone through this and have begun to get through it - myself included.
If you notice yourself sliding, it's easier to fix things now than to let it get to such a stage. Obviously no one benefits (not even your employer with deadlines) if you're a zombie.
I needed to quit my job, get back into sports and hobbies, and basically didn't go near my laptop for 3 months. I'm lucky, I'm back to my old self (when other people start noticing and telling you this you realize how far gone you were). I know people who never recovered.
Prioritize you
I don't think so. Many people who reflect on themselves actively but have no experience with irreversible burnout think or say that they're burning out, but they just have good self-awareness.
Also -- based on my limited experience and some 'formal' education in burnout management, etc. -- I think that burnout can't be fixed with exercise, more free time, vacations, etc. These can help preventing burnout in your next role, but they generally won't fix your life in your current environment.
For people who are actually burned out the recommendation is generally that 1) first stop the thing that burns you out 2) then start doing things that seem to heal you 3) then make a plan for what you'd like to do next (e.g. in work) and how you plan to keep your balance 4) start doing the next thing
I.e. you can't make good plans and rebalance while you're in the middle of the thing that is burning you out.
I understand that this advice requires a lot of privilege (e.g. that you can drop work for a few months for example), but there are hacks that help even if you're less privileged.
> 2) then start doing things that seem to heal you
what if more free time, vacations, etc, seem to heal me?
I think I get your general gist, but this seemed a bit contradictory.
Depersonalization and cynicism are symptoms of burnout. But I think vacations solve burnout the same way that tissues solve colds. It's something you reach for instinctively.
I've possibly been mildly 'burned out' since the late 80s.
And... back in my day, all the smokers and ne'er-do-wells in high school were the 'burn outs'.
When you start asking questions like "What's a sign of burnout?", that's usually a sign of burnout.
Other obvious signs:
- experiencing less and less enthusiasm about work, making it difficult to want to go to work at all
- difficulty focusing on tasks at work because you can't muster up any "care" at all to actually think about what work wants you to do (Task: Change the font size on the About page. Internal response: "Why? Who cares...")
- taking longer breaks and finding any excuse to drag your feet when you are heading back to your desk
- taking sick days when you don't feel "sick" but really feel like you need a day off (I would argue that the way you feel is a valid reason for taking a "sick" day - which is why we call them "personal days" at my company. Sick, tired, hungover. We don't care. You need a day off, you take the day off)
- asking questions about when's the soonest you can take a vacation even if you have no vacation planned (feeling like you need to escape)
- becoming more disagreeable with your coworkers, tasks, friends, family, responsibilities, etc (related to the above "not caring". You start to not see the value in a lot of "trivial" things, and become disagreeable on their basic merits)
- eating and/or drinking more than usual (or other substance use)
The list goes on, but I would say that a lot of "burnout symptoms" are akin to those with depression.
Essentially, your energy, enthusiasm, and general give-a-shit slowly starts to fade.
Unfortunately, humans are rarely rational creatures. Even armed with this information, it can take quite a bit more "drudging along" before a person will hit their actual breaking point.
My personal recommendation when you start to feel this way, if you can, is to walk away....
It feels like a huge change to just quit your job, but looking back, I believe that the damage that burnout has caused would have been less if I had taken the financial hit and just quit the moment I started feeling it.
Edit:
In response to the poster's edit question "When is it time to change change jobs because of it?"
Asap.
The longer you stay, the more you will feel burnt out, and it will result in diminishing returns
Like you're not getting anything out of it. You don't care if the work is done or not. Nobody else seems to care. And even thinking about it makes you feel ill and horrible. Difficult situation to grind hard work out of
You don't need to work hard to be burnt out, you may just be continuously confronted with tasks or conditions that are too much for you to deal with. A high stress environment. Burnout is just another word for depression, caused by a specific set of circumstances that are usually work/career-related.
Your son may have clinical depression, you can't willpower yourself out of one of those.
The most burnt out I've felt was when I needed to be in an office from about 9-5 every day. I lived in a town I didn't really like where there wasn't much to do besides checkout yet another new brewery and I worked on a product that sounded kind of interesting for the first five minutes, but I quickly realized I couldn't care less about.
Now I work remotely. My hours are flexible and deadlines are relaxed. Most of my coworkers work remote and at different times. Most conversations are asynchronous, removing a lot of that fake urgency that comes from feeling like you need to respond immediately to someone's message. The product is more interesting and something that I can see adding value to peoples' lives.
The biggest thing for me personally though: I travel while I work. Not for work, but while I work.
I've always liked exploring and being able to spend a week working in a new town "just because" has been huge for me.
Because I don't work set hours, I can sleep in when I need to and work later that day. Or I can decide to go exploring around a new town for a couple of hours before I start work. I run errands anytime I need to - which is great for avoiding busy times and traffic.
Working remotely with flexible hours has removed a lot of small, but substantial, stressors in my life. I wouldn't say this is a panacea for burnout though because it really depends on the person and the company, but it has worked well for me.
"Work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Life" balance is more balanced.
It can definitely be expensive depending on where you stay, but there are some things that help me justify the cost in some situations. The freedom to come and go at any time - no lease/contract/mortgage, etc. Usually hotels are nicer than an apartment or house that I would stay in anyway - cleaner more up to date rooms, a pool, housekeeping, etc. Breakfast and coffee are complementary in most places. Free wifi in a lot of places that is usually pretty reliable (but make sure to double check ahead of time. Some places have terrible internet).
Some places can be as low as $70/night which is less than what I paid for rent the last time I had an apartment. Also, if you stay with certain hotel chains enough times in a year, you'll start to get complementary upgrades, the occasional free night, and some other little perks that do actually make it seem worth while.
Asking about "longer" term stay (multiple weeks, to a month) pricing has actually resulted in a decent discount a few times as well.
That said, it's not for everyone. You can certainly find cheaper places to rent in a lot of places, and it's definitely not something I'd recommend unless you are single and do not have any dependents (dogs, children, a goldfish, etc).
I still got massively burnt out by my last job. I decided to just leave, and that's been a big help so far.
You have to stop yourself, while you think you can still go on. I can’t stress this enough.
If you wait too long, eventually you’ll just stop caring, and that’s when you’ll end up doing something stupid, or have no desire to fix things.
So many years of putting out a garbage product nobody wants gets to you
And then nothing else seems better
Burnout is devastating, it cause people to rage quit, it causes people to be unresponsive, and to quit in bad times when they don't have good financial position.
The major points to remember are:
There will always re-entry pains, but you will likely return refreshed if you take time off properly.
Don't settle into the lure of doing nothing and not learning new skills during time off, just learn to do it at a good pace that fits you in between doing things you've always wanted to do while working.
Many companies are running on duct tape, life is always a gamble. It's your responsibility to balance your own risk with reward, and to reduce life's costs, being in undesirable situations, and unpredictability, no employer will do that for you.
Once you burn out, your stability and ability is completely thrown out of place, and you won't be able to maintain any work or life balance of your own. That's when things like homelessness and worse happen. It's important to work out a plan to never be near to, nor in, that burnout position. It's not easy if you're not wealthy I know, but you've always got to ask yourself if the people in life who ask you to do favors for them would do the exact same for you as a guide of who to trust... Life is unforgiving to people who don't have limits, ESPECIALLY during trying times.
Being neither selfish nor selfless is the best way forward in tough times.
What’s the difference?
Then I took a sabbatical, traveled, all of that and suddenly I started caring about the product, company, etc. again
If someone can do most stuff in general then it doesn’t sound like the clinical type to me.
It can be mild, possibly in an early stage (see: most, not all, of the comments here). Or it can be severe and have acute symptoms. And the connection between those is gradual.
Severe examples would be things like extreme tiredness, such that you can just fall asleep after a few minutes of work, sudden fear/anxiety/stress attacks, severely decreased stamina and cognitive ability, overly sensitive/overblown reactions to any kind of stress factor, complete shut down of your system, blackouts/fainting etc.
If you have full-blown burnout, then just doing a bit of exercise and a long holiday won't cut it. It's as if your whole body and mind will do everything to stop you from working, because going on like before is impossible. It can pin you down, leaving you unable to act without support. It might take years to recover from it, just like other forms of depression.
It's very good that people are aware of this and discuss possible early/mild symptoms. However do _not_ downplay the severity of its potential. An issue here is that it seems to hit some of the most productive and hardworking people the hardest, possibly because they power through the early symptoms for so long until they shut down.
Make sure your next gig is calm @ 40 hours weeks. Do that for a year. Godspeed. Burnout sucks.
For me it was a deep dissatisfaction with the work I was doing. This was caused by doing work that had no meaningful purpose, and also the people who were controlling what work I did were not giving me any autonomy or say in what was happening so I felt very powerless and my work was deeply unfulfilling.
It was multiple jobs where it was a bad fit, and I tried to force it and "make it work" because you have to get paid to live. For me burnout is a symptom of a sick society and unfortunately you can't just treat the individual its the societal conditions that cause the pain. The burnout and depression is a natural and reasonable reaction to the unpleasant experiences.
I would suggest changing jobs if you:
1. Lack friends / coworkers you can depend on 2. Feel like your work is not meaningfully contributing 3. Feel like your voice is not welcome or heard 4. Cannot find joy or happiness in tasks or hobbies you once enjoyed (outside of work) 5. Find yourself getting angry / snapping / losing temper over trivial non-important things either at work or at home.
Well, right now I'm trying to work through personal issues while I apply to jobs. It's really hard convincing myself I'm capable and qualified even though I have a resume to back up my skills.
I'm doing a few small contract / freelance websites. One was a real disaster and made me question if I want to be involved in this part of freelance. There is a value for customer facing PMs but I've only experienced their wrath in unprofessional "us vs them" environments that didn't value engineers.
On the plus side I picked up Next.js and I've worked with a few boilerplates enough to find what I like. I played around with Plasmic and while I like it, I found that sites I made with it became slow and clunky. I did a code test for a DREAM COMPANY local to where I live... they passed on me and this was a huge blow... but it was the first thing that's gotten me to do any real API development work in a few months and it was a good reminder that I still enjoy what I used to be able to get paid to do.
I'm editing a bunch of video for my YouTube channel. I've found taking video of my skiing and fishing exploits to be a hugely gratifying and uplifting experience. I have a new skill and hobby (making videos) and I hope at some point it will open some doors for me.
If I had six more months of runway I'd just be fishing and doing self care stuff but I have to keep walking on the emotional broken legs I have right now. My disability is invisible so it doesn't count to the NT world and in practical terms that just means I need to keep suffering, lowering my expectations and applying to shittier and shittier jobs till someone takes me.
Therapy is essential but it's not fast and it's not a 100% sure thing.
Part of me is completely demoralized and my gas tank is empty, but something deep down inside has been able to hang on and won't let me give up on life. I hope you have something similar.
I mean this in the most generous, caring way but lower your standards. Find ways to break out of the cycles you are stuck in, sometimes this means readjusting your expectations. It's painful and awful but for the first time in a long time I feel some progress happening. It's never what you want but you have to seek ways of looking at things positively, they will never find you on their own.
Coincidentally or not, this happened right after I decided to follow your advice and quit my job. Thank you.
At least then you have one good thing going on in your life and you have someone to look up to and that you feel in some way "has your back" and is helping to make you a better person.
You're burning out when you stop caring about something unfinished that you previously cared for and spent time on, and rationally should still. It can easily happen when your achievements aren't being recognized, valued and/or celebrated by you and others, and when you subconsciously feel that condition has no likely end in sight.
The inspiration and care needed to tackle hard work/problems requires tending to maintain. Cycles of achievement and recognition followed by deliberate reassessment so that the work continues to connect back to your inspiration.
One of the simple models for burnout says that the 5 phases of burnout are: 1) honeymoon phase (just after joining, everything is rosy) 2) realistic phase (there are good and bad things) 3) we as a team are sensible but all these others are {ignorant, lazy, etc.} 4) I'm doing my best but most people are around me are { ... } 5) apathy (I don't care anymore)
Most people leave at phase 4, and the rule is that you can't really move backwards in this process without changing roles. (Possibly inside the same company, but you must change something in the environment.)
- Trouble sleeping
- Not being able to enjoy my holiday / weekend due to the thought of having to go back to work with an increased backlog
- Enhanced imposter syndrome
- Work productivity drop
- Complete lack of purpose in the daily work
All of the above built up very slowly and I didn't realize until things got overwhelming. The good news for me was that all of the above disappeared almost instantly when I switched jobs.
Problem is that you cannot do anything significant or at scale on your own. Writing POC or some fun code on the weekends isn't satisfying as collaborating with group of people and accomplishing something worthwhile. Sure you can find an OS project but that requires significant time investment to make any major contributions and you likely have the same frustrations with it that made your original job un-fun.
As someone that's working full time on their own thing - I agree it is extremely difficult to do something major part time (let alone full time!!) When it comes to coding.
So I'd flip the script here and ask: does it need to be significant?
If the aim is to do something enjoyable, then maybe cut yourself some slack. Find joy in learning, or joy in helping a cause. Don't worry if you feel it's small. Do it for you. Also, say no to things that overextend you or divert you from your mission of enjoying your hobby.
Having a team lets you validate your ideas, inspire new ideas and motivate you when you to keep the project going when there are setbacks.
These could be caused by MANY things. Please go see a professional.
One advice (that a good professional will also probably tell) is to exercise yourself.
If you're not yet, this could be as simple to solve as getting your body to move vigorously and regularly.
Cardio-vascular exercises are best. Get your heart rate high for a minimum of 2 hours per week total. Start with 10 minutes per day. Something from moderate to intense. The more intense you can get, the better.
Also go see a professional before starting any exercises. Especially if you have any special medical condition, like heart diseases.
If you exercise really intensely it can also be a source of stress.
What I mean by intensely - for example doing 2h a day of high intensity training.
If anyone finds themselves trying super hard and wondering why they're doing "all the right things" but still not in the right mind, it can be good to perhaps try a more soothing form of exercise like swimming / yoga with a bit of lifting.
Please note I suggested 2h total per week.
That gives you 30 minutes per day in 4 days per week. Gives you some time to rest in between. I think it's pretty reasonable.
Even up to 1h/day, 4 days/week might be OK. Really depends on each individual.
At the end of every day I started reflecting on it. I started looking for answers and realized once you hit your peak of stress level your mind can handle, you start to crack, show signs of strong negative emotions during meetings/discussions, you will show those emotions somewhere else (like in traffic, waiting for coffee, when your kids take time to get ready), you loose patience and your rational mind starts to break down.
I later learned from some of the self book on how to not end up like that. There is a book called "Essentialism by Greg McKeown", you probably know by the title. But honestly do yourself a favor, read it/listen and try to apply and see if it helps.
Quitting should be the last option unless you already have another plan instead do the minimal thing necessary to keep your job (just as it says in the book). Remember, it's ok to do just enough work as long as you enjoy doing that, nobody can force you to put extra effort(it's ok to say no). It's based on how much effort you can put without reaching your breaking limit. Know your limits. Use tools to increase that limit (that's a career growth .. sometimes slow growth.. sometimes fast growth)
Go me.