What is a professional burnout? Let me ask you this. Have you ever felt exhausted, fresh out of any ideas to the point where you can’t bear your job, where every minute trying to do some actual work lasts like an eternity and you can’t wait to leave? The thoughts of not having anything in common with this particular field ever again entering your mind every so often and you are really considering to walk away for good? This sounds a lot like a burnout to me. Some of us have already experienced it, some are experiencing it now and some might go through it in future (which I’m sincerely hoping you won’t).

Unfortunately, a professional burnout is not that uncommon. The programming industry is as much at risk as any other, if not more. Many things in the world of IT can lead to this point of creative exhaustion where it’s no longer possible to be as productive as before or even productive at all. That’s why in this article I’m going to highlight what can be the cause of this burnout and what can be done to prevent or overcome it.

Causes of a burnout

When it comes to a professional burnout, it’s rarely just one thing. But the list of everything that ignite the burnout, or, better say, put out the fire inside of us can be endless. Here I want to highlight the most obvious ones.

Doing monotonous work.

Tight unrealistic deadlines. A load of high priority work occurred at a last minute which forces you to quickly reorganize all of you tasks to make it in time.

There’s no time to eat healthy and it’s always either snacking or just drinking coffee non stop.

You stop seeing what comes out of your work.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. But there is no point in trying to figure out all of the possibilities. Let’s concentrate on what can you do about them.

What can you do

These might seem like a common knowledge to you, but really it’s much harder to follow these recommendations than you think. It’s much easier to lose yourself than to stay in sync.

1. Manage your workload. In programming you have to be focused, clear-minded, fresh with new ideas. So, falling asleep on your keyboard or rushly bounce from one task to another are not very great options. That’s why I want to consider other options. First of all, accept that there is no way in hell you can finish all of your work at once. But what you can do is prioritise. Make a list, whether in you mind or better on paper, with the things you need to do today. Bear in mind that the most urgent and important tasks should be at the top of your list. Concentrate on them. Another thing you can do, is to limit your time to do each task. This might prevent you from wasting your time when you are stuck on something. Sometimes it’s better to move forward and come back to this task later. Distracting your mind while doing other work can help to unlock the stalemate. If you see that you can’t get to everything on your list today, cut some of them off. Estimate what is more valuable and focus on that. This tactic will improve your self-organisation and prevent you from getting overly stressed.

2. Start eating better. We all know that food has its impact on our health and well-being. Poor nutrition can have many unfortunate outcomes. But it’s never too late to start making better choices. You might consider cutting back on sugar. Drink black coffee, unsweetened tea and clean water. Give up sodas and fruit juices. Stop buying junk food. Instead of chocolate bars, cookies and donuts snack on fruits, buy or make at home a salad with healthy ingredients. Don’t eat too much, a handful is enough. Especially try not to eat mindlessly, when you are in the middle of doing something else. This will lead to consuming much more than you actually need. And in the result you’ll feel more tired and sleepy. Not a very productive combination at work. Eat a wide variety of foods. Always eat all the vegetables on your plate before eating anything else. More proteins and greens and less simple carbs. So you don’t feel pressured to snack on something bad make sure that you always have healthy food with you. You can chop fruits or vegetables each evening to take to work the next day. It’s very easy to do especially on weekends and it doesn’t consume much time. Vacuum containers will help to keep your food fresh.

3. Improve your sleep. This one is easy. Who could do anything while passing out? If you’re sleeping with open eyes you can’t think, you can barely walk straight. Non-systematic sleep can lead to an early weariness and irritancy. There are a few things that might help you with that. Schedule your bedtime. Figure out the time that is the most preferable for you and go to bed at this same time every night. Don’t eat, work on your laptop, watch TV or play with your phone in bed and for at least some time before going to sleep. Don’t drink coffee in the evening (approximately for 6 hours before bed). Relax yourself before going to sleep. Take a bath or meditate, a light stretch can be useful too. Set you evening routine and stick to it, so you won’t need to get up and go to the bathroom or brush your teeth, or suddenly check your mail. Create an environment that is good for your sleep. The bed has to be comfortable and bedroom should be dark and quiet. Remove the distractions (you can shut down your phone or change settings, so it won’t buzz with notifications at night). Slightly open a window if it’s too hot or take a warmer blanket if it’s too cold (if you have a thermostat, temperature adjustment should be easier). If lying in bed you still can’t fall asleep, try playing low key soothing music.

4. Move and exercise more. And not just by going to the bathroom and back. Muscles need to work. Any exercise might help to relieve some stress, so it’s a win win for body and mind. Don’t have time for a gym? OK, no biggie. You can go for a short run in the morning. Nobody’s saying anything about a marathon or a race. But even a light jog reduces risks of developing some diseases, can help you to blow off some steam and make you feel fresh. Not such a bad option. You can also go bike riding. Other everyday solutions might be taking a longer path home, walking in the park, taking stairs, putting on some music and dancing… Improvise! It doesn’t have to be boring push-ups.

5. Apply your skills not just for work. If you sincerely love programming there are a lot of options besides work to continue applying your knowledge and enjoying yourself in a process. You can start contributing to an open source projects (check out our previous article on this topic), for example, that might make you a part of great communities with fellow-thinkers and amazing possibilities. You can do important work and get to know amazing people. Or you can get involved with coding games, which will give you the opportunity to gain new skills or improve your own while having fun. It’s a good way to practice along with other people and combine coding and gaming. You can become a teacher to someone or learn a thing or two from somebody else, create something of your own or submit an interesting solution, share it with others, engage in some discussions and so on. It might be a good change of scenery with less stress involved. Plus, this way your subconscious might stop drawing parallels between your work and programming as a separate thing. Because sometimes due to the stresses at work we start thinking that we hate everything that we’re doing there. But actually you have pretty good skills and you love solving coding puzzles and doing projects.

6. Concentrate on a goal. Sometimes we’re becoming so taking up with routine tasks that we even forget what we’re doing this for. But what you should always keep in mind is the whole picture and not just the separate brushstrokes. Think of yourself as a painter who looks very closely to adjust the lines and smear paint in a needed way, but then backs away to actually see the picture in its fullest. When developing a product try to also be a user of this product. Stay involved and take interest in the further plans for the project, ask your supervisor how the latest innovations which you took part in affected the project in a whole. All of these will give you a new perspective and clearer view of a full picture which you’ve helped or are still helping to paint. It’s a great motivation to continue moving forward.

7. Make your workplace more comfortable. Surely, you won’t start bringing cozy furniture to your office, but a few delightful pictures of your family, friends or some happy moments from life can really be a good addition to your desk. Display something cheerful, maybe even sentimentally important or colorful, that brings good memories and warmth to your heart, puts you at ease. Consider also cleaning your desk at the end of the day. You don’t have to be too OCD about that. Just put everything in a way, so it’ll look nice and more comfortable for you to start working the next day. It all will significantly improve your emotional state at work, will help you to find your happy place when things start bringing you down.

8. Take up a hobby. We often think that hobbies are for those you have nothing else to do. However, people with busy stressful lives can really benefit from hobbies. A hobby gives you some time in your schedule to do something pleasurable and non-work related. When you are engaged with a hobby you are having fun and experiencing a sense of freedom which minimizes stress. It’s a positive activity which you look forward to after a hard day at work. Hobby may bring you satisfaction and gratification that you can’t get at work. And it can be a social thing too, because hobbies sometimes are a group activities. Considering the fact that programmers usually have very artistic personalities, it won’t be too hard to find something that works for you. It can be photography, playing a musical instrument, drawing or painting, sculpting, making clay figures or tableware, wood carving, puzzles or even gardening. You don’t necessarily have to be awesome at it, you just have to feel awesome while doing it.

It’s also not that hard to start. You can google or ask around whether there are any interesting classes in the vicinity that you might consider taking. You can also ask some of your friend and colleagues if they’d consider doing the same thing, so you’d have a company right away. If you don’t feel like joining any groups, you can just google some online courses, buy or find online a self-learning manual, install an app available for your phone which will help you to master something on your own. For example, if you want to start playing guitar you can easily find many websites and YouTube lessons that will help you. Rocksmith will challenge you for 60 days and will make you feel like a real rock star guitarist. Or you can as easily check out the GuitarLessons.comwhere Nate Savage and Andrew Clarke help you to learn with their instructional videos and additionally written explanations free of charge.

9. Switch projects. If you feel like hitting a brick wall it might be a sign that you need to make some changes. I’m obviously not encouraging you to rush into anything, like quitting your job permanently or going AWOL. But you may consider pros and cons and make a deliberate decision concerning your place in the project. If you’ll reach a conclusion that in this project or at this part of it you can’t continue to evolve or you can’t be very productive then it might be a good idea to look at other options. If the project is relatively diverse then you may switch to the different area of it where you can be more useful. Or you can ask to be transferred to a completely different project that might profit more from your involvement in it.

10. Take a vacation. More and more often occurs the refusal by many employees to take their vacation time. It happens due to many different factors, like they don’t want to fall behind on work or they think that these way they can save time for when they will need it more. Some just don’t want to be treated differently by their employers or simply don’t like taking breaks, because they don’t know what to do with themselves. No matter the reasons, every human being needs to chill out from time to time, and weekends won’t cut it. You have to take a normal full term vocation free of your routines and work related stresses. Go soul searching. Go to the theater, movies, pool, camping, whatever that can give you new emotions. Take your family and go to the beach, play center, spend time with your kids, call friends you haven’t called for a long time, go to your parents. You can plan a trip you’ve always wanted (or you promised your wife for far too long). Find a good traveling agency (better to do it through somebody you know well and by good recommendations), book a hotel room, maybe even an excursion to some of the most beautiful and exciting places there. Or if you are going camping, synchronize calendars with your friends (if it’s a group thing), so everybody is available, buy all the gear you need there (sheds, sleeping bags and so on), learn to read the map of the place you’re going, try checking for weather forecasts.

You can figure out how you’d like to spend your free time for yourself, but there also are some things you need to do before going. First of all, deal with your everyday tasks. Explain your responsibilities, what and when should be done, prepare and organize your work for people who will be replacing you while you’re gone. Secondly, make clear your availability to the person in charge and colleagues. Whether you’ll be able to check emails or answer work calls. You don’t have to be on top of everything, your company will survive without you.

Conclusion

Here we went through some of the things that can cause burning out and how to deal with it. And the last thing I want to add is that I love work and I understand how it can be. Well, sometimes we all might hate it, but it is what it is. But believe me, turning back, work is not all that matters. You won’t be able to say later on that you were so damn happy staying all night finishing the project. Yeah, you can be great at what you do, you can be proud of it, you can create something really cool, but you might also become lonely, unproductive and, God forbid but stuff happens, sick. And what then? Then you’d want to remember time spent with closed ones, but there’ll be nothing to remember. So, overdoing it at work may cost you your work and your personal life. And, maybe, knowing the enemy will help you to avoid or cope with it properly. Anyway, you can always find something that works for you. If you’ve ever had this kind of a problem, please, write what was your way out? What helped you? And I wish you to stay healthy, happy and code productive. Enjoy programming and enjoy living!

P.S. Big thanks to Dooder for the awesome illustrations.