Are you properly handling the stress in your dev life right now?
Being stressed out because you have pending code to write or not being able to stare at your IDE for longer than 10 minutes without tabbing out and browsing the Web â are both symptoms of developer burnout. In other words, youâve spent so much of your energy coding that you no longer can stand it.
This happens to all of us senior and junior devs alike. Itâs the problem of having a job that sometimes is also a hobby. When that happens, you love coding so much that you spend nine hours working on it and then a few extra working on your personal projects.
Donât worry though â at least not too much â because there are ways to avoid burnout. You just have to understand what youâre going through first.
What Causes Developer Burnout?
For you to understand how to avoid it, you first need to understand where it comes from. Burnout comes from spending too much energy on a single activity, which in turn affects every other aspect of your life. Itâs that simple.
That can be seen in many ways, for instance, making coding the only activity you do your entire day. When you spend 12 to 18 hours a day coding, what else do you have time for? Other than eating and sleeping, I mean?
Or, perhaps only focusing on coding, even when youâre not writing code. Reading about coding, coding techniques, new frameworks, other languages. While youâre not actively writing code when doing any of these things, youâre still only focusing on a single task. Your mind is unable to break from the coding state of mind. Even if youâre not consciously thinking about them, your coding blockers (pending tasks on your daily job, future features youâre trying to implement on your pet project, new frameworks youâve been dying to learn but havenât had the time for) are adding to your stress and anxiety.
You can tell yourself youâre doing it for a reason but no matter how noble that reason might be, youâll end up burning out. Even if your mind resists it, your body will yield. Youâll start seeing physical problems such as losing (or graying) hair, stomach issues, upper back or neck pains due to strained muscles. These are all symptoms burned out developers feel. I know because Iâve felt them myself.
What Can You Do To Avoid Burnout Then?
Stop coding. Thatâs the first step.
Not entirely of course, but give yourself a fixed time window in which youâre allowed to code. Then stop.
And by âstopâ I mean it. Close your IDE, stop Googling for a solution, and making notes for tomorrow. Itâs âyouâ time now.
I donât care if you love coding. You are not a code-writing machine, youâre a person, and we humans need more than one thing in our lives. You need interaction with other people or activities that will keep your mind off of coding.
What can you do? Here are a few ideas:
Play a game
If youâre not a social person, playing games can also help.But, please don't play a game you developed, if not you will get disturbed is there are any bugs in the game play.
Find one that speaks to you and captures your attention, then dive right into it. Mind you, donât change one burnout for the other, but try to balance your gaming time within your day. Maybe spend one or two hours after work as a way to help your mind make the context switch into not thinking about code anymore.
And if you are a social person, you can still implement gaming with friends (especially now that weâre all isolated) through online gaming. Use voice chat to pretend youâre all sitting together; that also adds a lot to the experience and allows you to have an actual conversation about other peopleâs interests. Itâll force you to stop thinking about your code and think about something completely different.
Read a book / Watch a movie
While theyâre not the same type of activity, they both contribute in the same way: they take you out of your world and put you into a different one. If youâre more into ânot thinking and letting others do the work for you,â then a movie is a great escape ( I personally love watching movies to forget about work problems).
If, on the other hand, you have the time to read a book, then itâll have the same effect. Itâll take you out of your house and into a completely different world where your problems (and your context) donât exist. Youâll spend a few hours completely unaware of whatever is causing the burnout. Youâll feel refreshed and re-invigorated once youâve closed that book for the day.
Catch up with friends or family
If you can, leave your house. But if you canât, a video call or even a phone call will do. Talk to other people and actively listen to them. Making a call âbecause you have toâ and then going back to coding will not have any positive effect. Instead, spend some time having a conversation about life, about problems, or about anything that is not work-related. Something as simple as that will help you get your mind off whatever is causing your burnout.
Take a break
Funny story, I didnât know how to finish this article, and I had been writing since 4 a.m., so I left for a walk right at this point. It was a beautiful day, so my wife and I went for a walk. We picked up my kids from school, spent some time with them, and in the end, it was too late for me to go back to writing. Itâs the next day now, my mind is fresher, and I know how to move forward. I couldâve stressed out about the fact that I couldnât finish this story yesterday, but instead, I gave myself time. Thatâs the whole point of taking a break.
Get off of social media
Look, I get it, I love using Twitter, Clubhouse & LinkedIn, and Iâm sure you have your favorite social media platform, but you need to stop using them from time to time. Some people even recommend uninstalling these apps from your mobile devices, so you can remove the notifications-related anxiety from your life. This is great if you notice that your social media activity is 100% related to your burnout. If youâre getting burned out because you have an open source project thatâs getting lots of activity online, then your phone is probably buzzing with updates. Stop it. You canât unplug if youâre constantly reminded about it.
Remove work-related notifications from your mobile devices
In the same vein as the social media app removal, if itâs work thatâs causing your burnout, unplug from it. That means turning off email and slack (or whatever combination you might have) notifications, or even if you have a dedicated work phone, turn it off if you can. If youâre not meant to be working, you should not be looking at work-related notifications. Thatâs the rule you need to live by.
It Can Wait
Thatâs the mantra you need to keep in the back of your mind. That problem youâve been trying to solve for the past five days? It can wait a few more hours. Take a break. That new release of your framework? It can wait a little longer. Spend some time with your family. That email you started writing three times but got interrupted? It can wait; itâs âyouâ time. Go read a book.
Once you accept the fact that everything but your health can wait, then taking a break becomes slightly easier.
What are you doing to lower or avoid your own burnout? How are you handling stress during the pandemic? Share your experience with others in the comments.
Top comments (2)
These are good tips, and burnout is a real concern. I thought taking regular breaks - going for a walk, for example - would help, but during the walk I will just think about coding. To take a REAL break, as noted in this post, I need to transport my mind somewhere else. Watching a movie, visiting with non-coding friends, playing with my dogs, or working on something physical, are some things that seem to help. Would love to hear from others.
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