The guy wants advice on "how", not some words to make him feel better about not doing stuff, so let's give him that.
> for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I want to point out that this is one of the reasons why people never start things. Let me share my experience as someone who has started, AND burned out, multiple times. Hopefully this helps people change their beliefs.
1. Yes you are right that you will burn out if you push yourself too hard, but this only happens if the result is not satisfying enough compared to the effort you pour in. From my multiple experiences where some I succeeded and some failed, I only burned out enough to give up when things weren't going well despite the effort I put in. I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.
2. Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. This is why people want to "save it for the best" and don't commit 100%, because they "want to be able to commit 100% only when they truly really come across the perfect opportunity". But the thing is, these people NEVER end up doing anything because of the law of inertia. "The perfect opportunity" is an elusive thing, and the more you wait, the higher the bar goes up, which means you will never meet that perfect moment.
3. Burning out is a phase, not the end. I've burned out multiple times, and stopped working for a couple of months to several months (and did nothing but entertain myself). But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing. This never happens to people who wait for the perfect moment because they don't even know what it feels like. They think there's only one chance.
4. Don't try to bend the spoon. It's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.
> I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.
I strongly disagree with this. I'm a compulsive person, I used to say yes to everything, I enjoy everything. I don't think I ever spent effort towards something that wasn't rewarding in some way or other.
However. Stress is stress and it can be negative or positive. Stress makes you perform better, adrenaline pumping, your senses sharpen. It can all be in a positive loop with great feedback, everyone loving what you do, amazing results, and still you end up burnt out.
My stress manifests physically, "skipped" heartbeats, adrenaline rushes when waking up in the night, I even got atricular fibrilation (AF) and was hospitalised to be "reset" through one of those heart machines you see in ER. I was convinced there was something very wrong with me. Heart problem? Doctors did test after test, and nothing.
I learnt my lesson, I know how to recognise the signs now. I can manage it by just taking care of myself.
But guess what, every single thing I do is fun, positive, great feedback.
I disagree as well. I actually gave a whole talk on the topic. Burnout has nothing to do with whether an undertaking is successful or not. If you look at Christina Maslach's work on the measurement and factors that lead to burnout you will see that the success/failure of the effort is not a significant antecedent to burnout.
For anyone interested in a (potentially) helpful framework for how to evaluate opportunities and avoid burnout, you can watch my talk here - https://vimeo.com/202061452
Are you 100% sure that it was positive stress that got you into the ER? I myself distinguish between stress (=anxiety of not meeting goals in time), and positive motivation (=joy, and not the caffeine one). Sadly, I haven't had much of the second type in recent years, but it's something I'm working on. It sounds as if your HPA axis gets super worked up and your body enters fight or flight mode, causing your heart to go crazy. That's what kept happening to me until I actively took care of the underlying stresses or beliefs I have while coding ("I'm not gonna make it" / "I won't have the time to finish it" / "I won't finish this task today but I desperately want to"...). I didn't get heart symptoms, but rather fatigue and anhedonia.
Just some thoughts on caffeine, since I think stress in programmers is often caused by it, or covered up:
I only very rarely have caffeine, and rather do vitamins if I need to be more stress resistant (Vit C, D, K2, Pantethine and sometimes B vitamins). That way I'm not fooled by the motivation that comes with caffeine, which somehow covers up what I really want to do. If I have caffeine I get giddy about the thought of writing this and that tool, while I couldn't care less when off caffeine.
It's hard to describe, but I can quite easily get "into the flow". This is where I focus on a single project, time cease to exist and I just become one with the code. I can focus on coding for hours and hours without break. In fact, lunch and toilet breaks are irritating distractions. I can go to sleep at night uneasy about something I'm not exactly sure about and suddenly the solution strikes me when I'm half awake in the shower next morning.
I don't use much caffeine, a bit of coffee in the morning, rarely in the afternoon – however I do know that coffee and alcohol makes my condition worse.
It's totally engulfing and extremely productive. This _is_ the mythical man month that people talk about. Only. For me it takes a toll. It's not about any underlying stress like "I won't make it in time". My work is luckily such that I don't have much pressure. It's being "in the zone" that is the problem.
The "flow state". I love it yet mustn't overdo it.
I don't think you need to label this as a condition. I can remember when I used to get into those states. Sadly, it was an artifact of my youth.
I probably would be able to get back into that state if I somehow managed to get all my responsibilities squared away for large periods of time-or alternately, convince myself thoroughly enough to ignore them.
Well, it's great that you found out your boundaries! Most people never do things that push their comfort zone and never find that out, and live their lives wondering what it would have been like.
Sounds like you have a medical condition for dealing with stress, but most people don't have that kind of condition, so obviously if you have that kind of condition you should watch out for yourself, health is everything.
> Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover.
Speak for yourself, buddy. I'm still trying to overcome medical issues from my last bout with burnout, including sleep disturbances and stress-related gastritis, and so far the medical profession hasn't had much luck in dealing with any of them.
Burnout and the stress that goes along with it can absolutely do lasting damage to your body.
Oh now my recent state makes sense. I very recently had an endoscopy after vomiting blood, turned out my stomach lining that had become so inflamed it had slightly torn and had started to bleed. I couldn't really think what it could be, I don't really drink, my diet is good, I exercise daily and I don't get much in the way of negative stress. The only change recently in my life was taking up helping a friend code their app, again not exactly stressful but it did consume the rest of my free time I had outside of work, seems like even a slow burn out can cause health issues.
Yeah sure, this can happen.
But for most people that's not what burnout means.
Mostly it's having a project you want to start but every time you think about it you think "I'll have more time tomorrow, I'll just watch TV now", or "Ugh I can't concentrate on this, I'll take a break". And before you know it 6 months have passed.
That is more common, and that you can recover from
You can't. Because it's impossible to describe how hard it was for me in words, you would have to experience it yourself.
When I say "burnout", I don't just mean mental burnout. I've even been in situations where I went completely broke, lived homeless, and much more sensitive details I can't talk about on a public forum.
Of course it doesn't have to be all life threatening to qualify as a "burnout". I've been through more moderate burnouts where I just couldn't keep up mentally. I started doubting humanity (I still haven't fully recovered from this and don't think I ever will).
But overall, these are things you can't just describe. Even if I did, people who've never been through one will never understand.
What I meant was I got to know more about how the world works, and the world is a messy place the more you know about it. So basically what i meant was the world let me down a little. It is impossible to "unknow" what you already know, so that's what i meant when i can't recover, which is a good thing (although some people may decide to take it negatively)
So in my case there have been no downside and only upsides. I regret 0% of the decisions I made and the "burnouts" have been just part of the experience. Just like how when you date someone and you go through all the fights and perils, and it feels like hell when you're living it, but in a couple of years it's all good memory (not talking about weird cases like an abusive partner)
Have you ever had brake fade in a car? It's like that, but inside your mind. Everything starts feeling mushy and mental processes don't get the results they used to.
I will counter with one (older person's, I guess) observation of a bunch of my friends who are now in their early to mid fourties and late thirties. The one's who focus on making a career and accomplishments, be they for social value or greater equality for all or the justice in society being more balanced, etc. etc...... anyway, they end up at my age, when naturally, the larger group starts to drift apart a bit, looking around alone with their accomplishments being their only companion. That's great if you are only driven by business success/societal accolades. Super awesome and congratulations. You've figured out what makes you happy and I commend you. That isn't most people.
Take some of that spare time and energy and go out, meet some people and have some fun. Blow off some steam. Have some sex. Meet four or five significant others. Pair them down to the point where you're both (or whatever) are happy. Build a life together. And stop rushing around. I know a bunch (most) of friends who are on their third or fourth spouse because they were in such a hurry to get things done, they never took the time to figure out who their significant other was, who their friends were or why they liked them or who, in fact, they really were.
Don't fill the hole inside of yourself with hollow accolades and useless trophies. Take some time to figure out who you are and what is really going to make you happy. Experiment with different things. Fail. Try something else... You know. Live your life. Have fun.
Now. That being said. I doubt this will be an overly popular sentiment. But when their friends start dying, they'll see them all start saying the same sorts of things, and none of them are, "I wish I'd spent more time working."
P.S.
If you want to figure some stuff out and do some good, go volunteer at an eldercare facility. That can be you in 50 years (I'm guessing at ages here, forgive me). Sitting in a home, alone for the most part, wishing people would visit.
Building a happy life with strong relationships is important to the society at large. Trust me. Society without happy people without friends is fucking terrifying.
> But when their friends start dying, they'll see them all start saying the same sorts of things, and none of them are, "I wish I'd spent more time working."
I hear this a lot. But I'm not sure if this is always true. I chose an education path that required a much greater amount of work than other paths I could have taken. I would spend weekends working on homework and projects when others were out having fun. But as I start my career, it seems to have paid off (so far). I have a better work/life balance than many of my friends due to sacrificing some free time earlier in life.
Now I wonder: if I work hard in my 20s, can I retire a decade earlier that I otherwise might have? Or (more likely) can I save up enough that I can start spending my time working on projects that are entirely self-driven? Saving and working hard early in life can also result in a lot more time to spend with family later on. In other words, there is a tradeoff between voluntarily working harder earlier in life and effectively being forced to work hard later in life. Sure, you could be struck by a meteorite today, and you would never reap the reward from all of the work that you put in, but the much more likely scenario is that if you don't put in enough work in the front end, you will end up working 9-5 at 70 years old. So I can see many possible situations arising later in life where I think "I wish I spent more time working".
You seem to have missed one very valid option, the middle road, you don't have to trade free time now for free time later, there is in my opinion a happy middle ground to be had (like most thing life, politics being the primary one).
Sure you could argue that you get more free time later if you give up free time now but then you enter into the difficulty of quantifying the quality of the free time. When you are young, active and healthy you might be able to enjoy your free time more or perhaps having more money later in life allows you to do things you enjoy more, either way I feel balance is the key.
Do you really want to spend your most productive, healthy and free/uncommitted years working too much just to have more time when your body is starting to weaken and many of your dreams start to become impossible?
Do you want to spend less time with your children for the chance to have more time for your grandchildren?
B.S. chemical engineer -> Ph.D. chemical engineer -> data scientist
The "working a lot" was mostly the last couple years of my Ph.D. where I would frequently pull all-nighters to finish everything I needed to, but I'm glad I did that now. It's not nearly the optimal path for rapid wealth accumulation, but it's a good balance between having work that I enjoy and having enough leftover time to work on startup projects and hang out with my family.
Anyone who builds accomplishments without building lasting and deep relationships with people around them has done something wrong in the process.
Early in life, I had a small amount of artistic success (music). Though I probably couldn't have gone big with it, I did enjoy some amount of regional fame. Hard work, definitely an accomplishment, and I built several friendships out of it that have lasted over two decades (as well as lots that did fade away in time).
Similar thing with a startup I cofounded several years ago--the problem we were solving had me out in the public eye for a while, and I ended up building friendships with lots more people...people I'm still friends with.
And you know, if not for the relationships I build, some of which turned into lasting friendships, I wouldn't have had the success in the first place.
Nothing goes anywhere in life without people around you, helping you out. If you don't treat those people as the most important part of whatever you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
>Anyone who builds accomplishments without building lasting and deep relationships with people around them has done something wrong in the process.
This is one of the fundamentals of leadership, and leadership starts with leading your own life. One of the other fundamentals is awareness -- self-awareness and awareness of others, which these comments seem to be touching on.
I, for one, wish I'd spent more time working, earlier in life, so I could've saved enough to make work optional now. Nothing like having a whole day free, to give you that "I wanna start a project" feeling.
>But when their friends start dying, they'll see them all start saying the same sorts of things, and none of them are, "I wish I'd spent more time working."
The issue here is we do not know the true spectrum of outcomes with and without working. I assume many people who say "I wish i worked less" on their deathbeds presume that all the trappings of their work would come with.
I would trust it more if people paired what they'd give up with what they want to gain. ie if they said "Putting my daughter through college wasnt worth it, I wish i worked less". Or (more realistically) "I wish I spent less money on luxury, so I would have had more time with people".
Also a note of caution, any time you're wasting time thats marginal time you will be begging for on your deathbed. "I wish I had one more day with my wife (or kids)" -- today could be that day, instead of wasting it, use it up fully.
im not sure the drifter-bro-waster life of idle leisure is that satisfying. Your telling me people at the top of their careers, yan le cun (deep learning etc) are not having constructive, exiting, shared, social fun? you think hans zimmer has an isolated boring life? stress in any case has more to do with context and attitude than it has to do with the profession you practice.
Being at the bottom of one's craft doesn't equal happiness either. Accomplishments in a field are not a replacement for a healthy outlook, but they have their merits.
The crux of the problem is overlooking how work can be "positive" too. 9-5 can be pure drudgery that drains every ounce of your energy, but if you can find work that is fulfilling, putting additional hours won't exhaust you; in fact, I think it'll recompense your lost spirit at job. I would go far as to say that, expending your time in watching TV, video games, social media is more wearing than people realise. I have seen myself exhausted on days where I managed to do nothing at work; and highly motivated, when I achieved something significant.
> for most people this is an exercise that will in the long run lead to burnout. Your mind is already subconsciously telling you this.
I want to point out that this is one of the reasons why people never start things. Let me share my experience as someone who has started, AND burned out, multiple times. Hopefully this helps people change their beliefs.
1. Yes you are right that you will burn out if you push yourself too hard, but this only happens if the result is not satisfying enough compared to the effort you pour in. From my multiple experiences where some I succeeded and some failed, I only burned out enough to give up when things weren't going well despite the effort I put in. I guarantee you you WILL NOT burn out if your thing goes well.
2. Another mistake people make is thinking that burning out is like dying, and you can't recover. This is why people want to "save it for the best" and don't commit 100%, because they "want to be able to commit 100% only when they truly really come across the perfect opportunity". But the thing is, these people NEVER end up doing anything because of the law of inertia. "The perfect opportunity" is an elusive thing, and the more you wait, the higher the bar goes up, which means you will never meet that perfect moment.
3. Burning out is a phase, not the end. I've burned out multiple times, and stopped working for a couple of months to several months (and did nothing but entertain myself). But eventually you recover and can't wait to start a new thing. This never happens to people who wait for the perfect moment because they don't even know what it feels like. They think there's only one chance.
4. Don't try to bend the spoon. It's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is yourself.