I chanced upon Garrit‘s toot today, which led me to Doug Belshaw‘s newsletter-blog. I do enjoy Doug’s blog but fail to keep up for a variety of reasons. A shout-out like Garrit did on his blog helped me find myself to it proper after what’s been a while.
If we are talking life/career burnout, I am always in.
Of course I stopped writing as often on this blog, but I am tempted to try and speak openly about something I do struggle with — almost always have, and always will. While I have only landed in the crash and burn scenes a couple of times (so far), I am always very aware that I’m skirting these lines and can tip over very easily.
Today I had a call with my immediate boss to discuss some measures we can put in place so I can deal with work better — away from what feels like a cocktail of depression and burnout presenting in unusual (to me) ways.
What I’m doing now to tackle things.
I have already been taking measures in my individual capacity for a while, but I think it was time to reach out and ask for some more support while I work through this process.
Here are some things I am doing, then:
- Paired coding sessions.
At least once a week, more if possible/required. Fight that isolation of working remote. - Changing my work environment frequently.
A change of scenery keeps things interesting, I guess. I do have to give up the big screen but I’ll take that over this. - Picking off shorter tasks from the backlog.
This can help me feel more accomplished about my work day and work weeks. Balancing it better with new features. - Hobbies.
I’ve been at it for a while. Just more of the same. Invest my time in hobbies that are not coding. - Continue to see my therapist.
Keeping my emotional burden and general mental health in check so I have space to…live. - Talking to friends about it. Call it venting if you will.
- Finding in-person tech events/meetups to feel a connection with coding as an activity again.
I think that’s it. It seems to help a little. The proverbial jury is still out.
How do you handle the almost-burned-out stage? What are some things you would do?