{"id":8410,"date":"2021-10-17T13:02:12","date_gmt":"2021-10-17T13:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1370026"},"modified":"2021-10-17T13:02:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-17T13:02:12","slug":"7-reasons-why-programmers-burn-out-and-7-ways-to-prevent-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=8410","title":{"rendered":"7 reasons why programmers burn out \u2014 and 7 ways to prevent it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Jerry started their job as a junior developer, they couldn\u2019t wait to get to work each morning. And each evening, even after their 10-hour workdays, they\u2019d still feel energized. Now, two years later, Jerry looks like the shadow of what they used to be. Getting out of bed is hard these days, getting to work even harder. By the end of the day, they feel exhausted and drained. And they\u2019re already dreading the thought of going back tomorrow and wasting yet another day of their lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sounds familiar? Personally, I have yet to meet a programmer who hasn\u2019t been through at least one episode of burnout.<\/p>\n

It sounds paradox: The same person who fell in love with code in their teens or twenties, who have taken part in at least five hackathons over the past three years, and who contributes to open-source projects on weekends \u2014 how can this person possibly complain about burnout?<\/p>\n

Yes, they can.<\/p>\n

Reason 1: Monotonous work<\/h2>\n

Programming is sitting in front of a screen all day, except maybe for a lunch break and a few meetings here and there. Sure, it\u2019s the same in many other jobs. But the intensity of <\/span>staring-at-your-screen-while-sitting-in-a-very-unhealthy-position<\/em> <\/span>is highest in programming.<\/p>\n

Even if you find your work mentally stimulating, this monotony can quickly lead to physical sluggishness. This means that you don\u2019t get your work done as fast, so you start getting demotivated, so you work less, \u2026<\/p>\n

Getting out of this vicious cycle means adopting a healthy lifestyle. Which sounds easy in theory. But the declining rates of life expectancy show how hard it is.<\/p>\n

Reason 2: Rushing for deadlines<\/h2>\n

If you\u2019ve ever worked with Scrum and similar methodologies, or if you have an ambitious manager, you know what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re chasing deadline after deadline. You\u2019re probably missing a few deadlines along the way. You\u2019re expected to deliver everything by yesterday, and nobody cares that humans aren\u2019t capable of that.<\/p>\n

As a result, when you\u2019re thinking about your work, you\u2019re not feeling a sense of joy or accomplishment. You\u2019re feeling pressure.<\/p>\n

And that sucks all passion for coding out of you. You\u2019re expected to be a robot that always generates top-notch output and delivers it ahead of time. But you\u2019re human, so you respond with symptoms of burnout.<\/p>\n

Reason 3: Coworkers that suck<\/h2>\n

Consider the following situation: Your project is exciting you and you feel you\u2019re making progress on it. Still, every day you dread going to work. The simple thought of it is making you anxious and unhappy. What\u2019s wrong?<\/p>\n

Of course, your happiness at work is influenced by \u2014 well \u2014 your work. But even more importantly, your happiness is <\/span>influenced by your relationships<\/a> <\/span>\u2014 in or outside of work.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re happy with what you\u2019re doing but you\u2019re still dreading it, it\u2019s probably your coworkers. No matter whether they just don\u2019t share your values or whether the corporate culture makes them act in stupid ways \u2014 you don\u2019t deserve to be treated nastily.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re experiencing burnout symptoms that result from icky coworkers, know that <\/span>it\u2019s not your fault<\/em>. You might want to try some of the fixes listed further in this article. Or you might want to go a bit more radical and change departments or get a job with a different company entirely.<\/p>\n

Reason 4: No recognition<\/h2>\n

This part is related to your at-work relationships, but on another level. Your project may be wonderful and exciting, and your colleagues may be awesome.<\/p>\n

But whenever you feel like you\u2019ve achieved something, your manager comes around the corner with a totally different task. And every time they do that, the old task becomes completely irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Sounds familiar? I know it does to me.<\/p>\n

You can be as excited or passionate as you like about your field. If your work constantly gets invalidated, you\u2019ll lose your motivation.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll start dreading to go there because you know you won\u2019t create anything useful anyway. You\u2019ll be happy when the day is over \u2014 because it\u2019s over \u2014 but unhappy since it isn\u2019t Friday and you\u2019ll have to go to work again tomorrow. And at some point, you\u2019ll start thinking that even the skills that you\u2019re acquiring by completing your tasks are irrelevant.<\/p>\n

With time, this can lead to more severe symptoms. All because your manager has no idea what you should be doing.<\/p>\n

Reason 5: Getting paid<\/h2>\n

Getting paid too little \u2014 or too much! \u2014 can worsen your symptoms of burnout.<\/p>\n

Too little pay is a no-brainer for burnout. <\/span>(Yes, broke programmers exist!)<\/em> <\/span>If your passion for coding isn\u2019t enough to keep food on the table, you might not feel like your work is valued. Which brings us back to reason 4.<\/p>\n

But burnout can also worsen when you get paid <\/span>too much<\/em>. While a big check sounds great in theory, it can lead to disaster in real life. Let me illustrate this with my personal experience.<\/p>\n

As an undergraduate, I got very involved in programming. I\u2019d spend days and nights at the research lab coding software for scientific purposes, sometimes even neglecting my coursework for it. I loved it so much that I never expected any compensation for it. For years I worked for free. Even if that meant that I couldn\u2019t even afford tomatoes at the supermarket.<\/p>\n

This radically changed when I entered grad school. Suddenly I was being paid. Suddenly all my bills were covered. Suddenly I could buy tomatoes without having to think about the pennies. I was making a living. Of code!<\/p>\n

And then a silly idea entered my mind: If I was being paid to code, then each month I should be delivering a piece of code that is worth at least that amount of money.<\/p>\n

Reason 6: Meaningless tasks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Reasons 3 to 5 tackle problems that you might encounter despite having a great project. But sometimes your project just sucks.<\/p>\n

Maybe your project is just a heap of corporate B.S. with not much substance for a programmer. All you want is to code, and not take care of all the managerial duties, customer relations, and so on.<\/p>\n

Suddenly what had started as a wild passion became a source of pressure. Pressure to deliver. Pressure to perform. Pressure to give back the value that I was receiving in money.<\/p>\n

But the more you pressure yourself, the less you\u2019re going to perform. Especially when you\u2019re thinking about money.<\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019re not seeing the meaning in your project because you can\u2019t learn anything new from it. Programmers belong to the most curious creatures on this planet \u2014 if you can\u2019t learn from it, you don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

Maybe the project seems way beyond your skills. You feel that you\u2019re unable to master it, and that your manager completely over-estimated your skills.<\/p>\n

Or maybe you\u2019ve been working on a project for the past few months, and you still can\u2019t fathom what you\u2019re supposed to be doing. The task is a mystery and nobody seems able to explain it to you. This usually stems from mismanagement. Unfortunately, this situation happens more often than you think.<\/p>\n

In any case, from a corporate perspective, your project is your main reason to work. So if it sucks, no wonder you\u2019re experiencing burnout.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Reason 7: Walking the death march<\/h2>\n

This one is closely related to reason 6. The death march, in short, is when you\u2019re working on a project that is destined to fail.<\/p>\n

This can have many reasons: The deadline is too tight, you don\u2019t have enough resources, or your team is too small to carry it out. Especially when it\u2019s a big project that you\u2019re working on for many months, and when the stakes are high, this can lead to a huge amount of pressure on your shoulders.<\/p>\n

Your reaction to this can go both ways: Either you sink into complete apathy, come in late,<\/p>\n

Programmers are no robots<\/h2>\n

The tricky part about burnout is that what starts as a work problem splashes over to all areas of life. You start neglecting your family, your friends, your hobbies, and your self-care. And suddenly you\u2019re not caught in a work crisis, but a life crisis.<\/p>\n

It is vital to understand that \u2014 and I can\u2019t stress this enough \u2014 this is not your fault. Sure, recognizing your own mistakes is vital for personal growth. But blaming yourself for mistakes you haven\u2019t made will ruin you.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, the root of the problem of programmer\u2019s burnout is within the company culture or some form of mismanagement.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean that you need to change departments or quit your job right away. While this might be a good solution for the really hard cases, working with a few softer fixes can already do tremendous help.<\/p>\n

and leave early because you know that your work isn\u2019t going to change anything. Or you start putting in 14-hour days in the belief that this way you could turn things around.<\/p>\n

Your apathy is caused by demotivation and leads to more demotivation. You\u2019re basically removing the fuel that keeps your fire going.<\/p>\n

Or if you\u2019re the type that gets buried in their work, you\u2019re literally suffocating your passion with all the time you\u2019re investing into it.<\/p>\n

Both of these are natural responses. As before, just know that if the project isn\u2019t going well, it\u2019s not your fault<\/em>. You\u2019re an excellent programmer and you\u2019ve probably proven that on other projects. If this is going wrong, it\u2019s because of the circumstances and not because of you!<\/p>\n

Fix 1: Be compassionate with yourself<\/h2>\n

I know this sounds lame. But hear me out.<\/p>\n

Burnout is not your fault<\/em>. It is not a symptom of weakness. The pain you\u2019re experiencing is not from being an idiot. It is real. It is valid.<\/p>\n

I stress this so much because I\u2019m a culprit of this fallacy. I tend to blame myself for issues that I didn\u2019t cause and beat myself up when I should be nice to myself.<\/p>\n

Being compassionate with oneself is something that I\u2019m still learning. But the one thing I\u2019ve found is that this helps:<\/p>\n

Be your own best friend.<\/em><\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t keep in regular contact with your besties. But try to treat yourself like your best friend.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re beating yourself up for your apparent ignorance, incompetence or whatever, think of this: What would you tell your best friend if they were in your situation? How would you talk to them?<\/p>\n

Self-compassion, I have found, is an incredible hack for gaining more self-love. And that leads to \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 more happiness and productivity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Fix 2: Think about what used to excite you<\/h2>\n

I used to be so excited about programming, but I lost the spark when I entered grad school. For me the reason was that I was getting paid (reason 5); but for you, it might be any of the reasons stated above.<\/p>\n

What helped were the memoirs of Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, who was going through a period of burn-out when he received a job offer from the very renowned Institute of Advanced Study:<\/p>\n

\n

Institute for Advanced Study! Special exception! A position better than Einstein, even! It was ideal; it was perfect; it was absurd!<\/p>\n

It was absurd. The other offers had made me feel worse, up to a point. They were expecting me to accomplish something. But this offer was so ridiculous, so impossible for me ever to live up to, so ridiculously out of proportion. [\u2026] I laughed at it while I was shaving, thinking about it.<\/p>\n

And then I thought to myself, \u201cYou know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it\u2019s impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It\u2019s their mistake, not my failing.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a failure on my part that the Institute for Advanced Study expected me to be that good; it was impossible. It was clearly a mistake \u00ad\u00ad and the moment I appreciated the possibility that they might be wrong, I realized that it was also true of all the other places, including my own university. I am what I am, and if they expected me to be good and they\u2019re offering me some money for it, it\u2019s their hard luck.<\/p>\n

\u2014 From \u201cSurely you\u2019re joking, Mr. Feynman<\/a>\u201d, by Richard Feynman, Copyright 1985, pg. 100.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Feynman wasn\u2019t exactly coding. Still, it is this text that got me out of my rabbit hole at the beginning of my Ph.D. From it I concluded, if my doctorate school is overpaying me \u2014 then it\u2019s their fault. I\u2019ll be irresponsible like Mr. Feynman and do whatever the hell I like. And I did.<\/p>\n

Fix 3: Incorporate routine tasks<\/h2>\n

Having to go to work when you know you\u2019ll get nothing done is daunting. By definition.<\/p>\n

No matter whether the project is too hard, or mismanaged, or completely meaningless \u2014 you\u2019ll have to go without that dopamine surge that gives you your happy groove.<\/p>\n

One thing that can help reset your motivation is incorporating routine tasks. I like to start my workday with something easy, almost trivial. The task should be useful, but the main object is to get a tick off my todo-list.<\/p>\n

This tricks my monkey brain into wanting to fulfill the next task \u2014 because then I\u2019ll get another moment of accomplishment. I then slowly go from the easiest to the hardest parts.<\/p>\n

It sounds like procrastination of the difficult stuff. But it works! I\u2019m surprised quite regularly about how much I actually get done by doing the easy things first.<\/p>\n

Fix 4: Reflect<\/h2>\n

Set some time aside each day to practice some reflection. Everybody has their own technique, and you\u2019re free to develop yours. I use a reflection matrix that I fill each evening:<\/p>\n

\n

\"developers\"