Observations on Burnout

Off-Topic
1

I just stumbled upon this blog post about burnout:
http://angersock.com/blog/2019/01/27/observations-on-burnout/

I’ve been there, and I suspect that others in the Xojo community have as well. So I thought I’d share it.

The post includes several good tips on how to recover from burnout. (Scroll down to “Recovering from burnout.”)

  • Tim
2

LinkedIn reminded me (and the world) today that BKeeney Software’s been around for 18 years. It’s hard to imagine that my business can now go off to college.

I’ve worked hard on the hobbies. In the past five years I’ve picked up the mandolin and play in an orchestra. I didn’t say I was good - but I am getting better. “Better” is a tough to define. When the group I play with gets too fast I play a marimbula which is a great conversation starter.

I’m programming mentor for the local high school robotics program. In 5 years I’ve not learned how to program the robot. Do I care? No! Because I’m not the one responsible for it. But I can easily call out poor or no comments. Magic numbers in code, not committing changes to GitHub and all sorts of mistakes that I make on a regular basis. Maybe the next generation of coders will make more subtle and harder to find bugs because of what I teach them today. :stuck_out_tongue:

When the weather is nice I try to go for a walk once a day. Sadly this winter has been pretty miserable. Fresh air and sunshine are good for you.

I think the key to avoiding burnout and recovering from it is to do something completely different. Let the brain stop dwelling on the programming for a bit.

3

We are close to 20 years, too.
We could celebrate a bit in October at the conference. :slight_smile:

4

A couple of years ago the mother was in hospital. Afterwards I was well on my way to burn-out. Last year I had bad bore-out which was at least as bad as the burn-out.

The worst problem of both is no energy. The article - as most information on burnout and similar - focuses on the mind. However, mind and body are one. Your moods and your energy come from the body - your biochemistry. If you “fix” your body your energy and your mind will be in a much better shape to deal with stress. How do you do that?

  • no processed food: no “heart healthy” cereals, no bread, no pasta.
  • Gelatine/collagen: raw amino acids. You can buy them individually or you just eat them as they come. 5htp if you have severe fatigue. That stuff was for me like: oh wow.
  • Vitamins/minerals: as much as you can get. Way more than the usual recommendations. 10k vitamin d and not 1k.
  • Adaptogens like rhodiola and ashwaganda or ginseng: they aren’t a cure all. But they can help with stress.

As a well known copywriter says: stay frosty.

5

When I went to Uni, the coding part of the course, we were literally taught:

‘Enter the VAT rate as a constant. Then, when the VAT rate changes, the customer must pay you to change the application’

Even then, I was aghast.
That was about 1990 and I had already been coding for 8 years (just wanted a piece of paper to say I was good at it)