How to avoid burn out

1

How to avoid burn out

Hi all,
I had found some videos that I think are really interesting, they are
from professional developers that share his experiences writing software:

Jonathan Blow on Deep Work: The Shape of a Problem Doesn’t Start Anywhere

TL;DR:

  • Burn out is a discordance between the rational and the intuitive.

  • A human being wants:

    • physical comfort

    • external validation

    • a lot of physical and emotional connection

  • A programmer go through:

    • physical discomfort[0]:

    • lack of external validation

    • isolation

Jonathan Blow strategies to avoid burn out:

  • Meditation:

    • to keep distance and perspective
    • to reduce the loudness of mental noise

  • Take working breaks:

    • work on a different and smaller project

  • Have a hobby:

    • preferably a physical activity (he dance)

Don’t Break the Chain: Maintaining Productivity on Your 19th Game

TL;DR:

  • You (really) only need (and can work) a couple of hours

Obsessive-Compulsive Development: Retro/Grade Postmortem

Retro/Grade was featured in the 2009 IGF, with nominations in Excellence in Design and Excellence in Audio. After almost four years of grueling crunch, the game was finally released to positive reviews. Although 24 Caret Games was silent during development, Matt Gilgenbach will now talk about what went wrong on the project …

References:

[0] Yes, sitting too long can kill you, even if you exercise

Cheers and happy coding :slight_smile:

2 Likes
2

Awesome, thanks for compiling this! I’ve had a few bouts of burnout in the last couple of years. When I think about it, a lot of it stems from frustration and not meeting expectations. For example, on a new project I might assume that I can get up and running within an hour, and in reality it takes a whole freaking day!

Same goes with fixing a “small” bug that turns into a monster and ruins your day. So I think the biggest thing I have learned in the last year or two is to seriously lower my expectations and allow for the unexpected with EVERYTHING. It’s so hard not to get upset and down because you don’t get ahead, but the nature is that it all takes so much time and energy.

I think breaking things down into super small chunks helps me, so that i can feel like I’ve been successful in a session. Taking lots of breaks, eating healthy and working out and sleeping well is critical!

Thanks for sharing!

1 Like
3

Omg! AWESOME share thanks so much!

1 Like
4

What I do is start several projects at the same time.

Is slower but it helps me to keep my expectations low and it seems to be a good way (at least for me) to learn (it let me think about the problem for an extended period of time).

You are welcome :slight_smile:

You are welcome :slight_smile:

Cheers and happy coding :slight_smile:

1 Like
5

Wow, start several projects at once!! to me that sounds like a fast track to burnout for me. I find it so hard to switch between projects and keep focused, but that’s cool you can do it :slight_smile: