How To Avoid Developer Burnout — Trips and Tricks To Thrive As A Developer
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Are you handling stress in your life properly? Dev or otherwise?
Having consistent stress over code that you need to write or not being able to stare at your IDE for longer than 10 minutes without tabbing out and browsing another information source (email, social, slack, etc)? These are both symptoms of developer burnout. In other words, you have spent so much energy on writing code that you cannot stand it anymore.
As is the standard dev lifestyle to work 8+ hours a day at your job then throw a few more hours away working on a side project. It happens when your job is also your hobby. Fear not dear reader — at least don’t add more stress — there are proven ways to avoid burning out.
The very first step (much like any other “recovery”) is acceptance. Know that burnout is a thing, it’s real, you can burn out, and know that you will get through it. It’s not forever.
What is the cause of burnout?
To help doge burnout you need to have a grasp on what it stems from in the first place. Burnout comes from spending too much energy on a single activity, which in turn affects every other aspect of your life. This is the simplest definition that I’ve found for the source of burnout.
Given this description it’s easy to see that, in the case of coding, if you spend 12–18 hours a day writing code then you have no time for anything else. No time to unwind, process your thoughts, handle anything really. You may be able to squeeze sleep and food into that window if you’re not too fried to get that done.
Usually I find myself thinking about code, bugs, solutions, even when not actively writing code. My main focus is still on code even if I’m not sitting at my desk actively engaging with it. Your mind is unable to break from the coding state of mind. Even if you’re not engaging with them up front and center things like pending tasks at work, future features you’re trying to implement on a side project, frameworks that you want to learn, anything like that is adding stress and anxiety to your daily life.
No matter the reason (save the world, change the world, because I want to, it will help my career) — you’ll end up burning out because you’re filling your headspace with nothing but code.
This stress can even manifest in muscle aches, gastrointestinal issues, graying or thinning hair, headache, eye problems. I know because I’ve experienced some of these.
Ok, so what do you do about it?
Step one. Get the f*** away from code for a minute. Of course not all day (we still have work to do, and money to make), but set a window where you can code and be done. That “thing” can wait a little longer. Be done = close your code editor(s), stop looking up solutions, and make notes for where to pick up tomorrow. You. Are. Done.
Keep in mind that no matter how much you love to write code, you’re still a person and you can’t write code if you don’t take care of yourself. As a person, who is a human, you need more than just code in your life. You need some time outside, good food, socialization, and entertainment. Things that will take you away from coding.
Here are more examples:
Games
Not feeling super social, or not a social person in general? Find a game that takes you away from the day to day. I personally like D&D (you can play it solo), and video games (I bounce around between Call Of Duty Cold War and Diablo III. Find one that speaks to you and jump in feet first. Try to fit some down time with a game in after work for an hour or two. Games usually require you to pay pretty close attention to what you’re doing, so this can help you switch your thoughts up from coding to something else.
Read a book / watch a movie
While not even close to each other in terms of what you’re doing they do share the element of taking you out of this world and into another. Books do this especially well for me. (I’m currently reading “Ready Player Two” by Ernest Cline and it is thrilling!!) If you’re more of a fan of just zoning into something and letting the screen do the work, then movies are great for this. I am not much of a tv or movie kind of person (I’m currently ~20 movies behind in the Marvel Cinematic Universe). Try to get a physical book if you can (I don’t hate on my e-reader), but for me there is no substitute for a good physical book.
Call a friend or family, better even, go out with them
Try to leave and be social if you can, if not (covid or otherwise) try to schedule a call with friends or family after you’re done working. I always get a call from my dad, bless him, at 3:30 PM when I am right in the middle of work and I hate to push it off as he goes to bed rather early, but I can usually catch him around 5:30. Either way the goal with social encounters is to not talk about work, but anything else.
Take a good break
I don’t mean sit in front of your computer, pull out your phone, and scroll social media. Get up. Get away from your work stuff. Take a walk, grab some food, something to take up a little chunk of time. After all, usually, that “thing” you’re working on can wait. There are exceptions of course, but if you’re constantly under fire to get something done then you may want to consider other options for employment as that shouldn’t be the case for developers.
Speaking of Getting off Social Media
Don’t get me wrong, I love reddit, Facebook, twitter and others, but it’s good for you to take a break from those once in a while. Besides, do you really need to see that your brother in law ate a taco for lunch? I’ve personally uninstalled most social media from my phone just to help keep them at bay. I can only check them at a computer. If the notifications stress you out, remove them. Mobile devices allow you to manage notifications and you can silence them all. Don’t want to do that? Turn the phone off for a bit. You aren’t missing much anyways. The goal being to unplug for a while and you cannot do that if you have constant reminders going off in your pocket.
It Can Wait
Ultimately the theme being repeated here is that it can wait. This is the mantra that you need to keep present in your mind if you’re experiencing burn out. Not to be lazy and put things off, but that it is ok to take breaks and keep yourself healthy. The bug you’ve been working on the past 5 days? It can wait. That new feature that people are dying to have? It can wait. The next release of your open source project? It too can wait (though it’s exciting isn’t it?). That work email? It can wait a bit. Once you’re ok with the fact that you can’t be the best you if you don’t stay healthy (then none of that cool stuff will get done), taking a break becomes much easier to accept.
What tips and tricks do you know of for handling dev burnout? Let me know! Thanks.
