We engineers and developers are often expected to take an “always-on” role – always working, absorbing information, honing new skills. The situation becomes even more difficult for me when I am trying to take on another role as a PhD. Student, blurring the work and personal life boundaries, causing debilitating physical and mental effects. I am now called to take a head-on battle with burnout, and I am writing this article as a help and support to others that face the same problem as well as a numero-uno target for myself.
Burnout, a psychological response to “long-term exhaustion and diminished interest”, was first defined by an American Psychoanalyst Herbert Freudenberger. He defines burnout as “a demon born of the society and times we live in and our on going struggle to invest our lives with meaning. [...] (It) is not a condition that gets better by being ignored. Nor it is any kind of disgrace. On the contrary, it’s a problem born of good intentions.” [1].
Burnout goes through phases, but I am not going to write those here — its not the point. You can read about them here. The point of this article is to set targets on how to recover.
First step is to identify that something is going wrong. In my case I was able to identify it myself: nothing had the attraction it used to have. And what I mean by that: I was bored of everything: my research, my work, my life. I became more indifferent to some situations that I used to care greatly. Personal time was getting less and less with reducing sleep hours.
Then I tried to stop. However, stopping isn’t that easy: dependencies, responsibilities and promises. So I tried elaborating the issues I was facing at work with my employer, which understood the problem and things are starting to improve slowly on the work front. Being an engineer is extremely hard: you are expected to be on-call 24/7, you are expected to answer emails at 10PM at night, expected to check the status of the whole network. However, this sucks all your available mental power. I can not remember when I last had a holiday without having to answer a phone or check work-related emails. I can not remember a weekend passing without having to spend X hours catching up with email. I am taking a step back from that. No more email-answering on off-hours time, no more support or discussions on non-critical or work related issues when my work hours are over. And holidays are holidays.
Third step is to introduce boundaries and expectations. If everyone expected 110% from you up until now, let them know that you are not going to do that anymore. The days of 9-to-5 work hours are long gone and the boundaries between home and work are blurring. Especially when the office is “downstairs” or in the other room, in cases like myself. Unfortunately, I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t get a medal of honour for replying to email in the wee-hours, nor you become a better person if you check your Twitter every 1 minute. Setting sufficient boundaries between work and home has not only become a requirement in our ultra-connected and online world, but we must fight for it. Please understand people, its not all about the money, its about your mental health and happiness. Our lives are too short to be wasted like this.
As a creative type (yes, programmers, engineers and researchers are creative types. No balls no opinion, thank you), I find myself working more efficiently early in the morning, when everything is silent. The following words from Ernest Hemingway found a place in my heart when I read them:
“When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.“
I am trying to slowly move all my creative work earlier in the day, so I can be as fresh and energetic as possible when I am doing it. Even to the small percentage I’ve accomplished that I found that the work I produce during these hours is much better and I find myself to be more productive. Having the rest of the “business day” for 2nd class problems is a must, and free up that precious hour with creativity instead of dealing with instant messages and email.
This brings me to focus. Unfortunately, everything is instant nowadays: instant emails, instant chats, twitter, Facebook, phone calls. I tried closing my IM while working, and my productivity increased dramatically. And no, I am not chatting with friends, I am constantly interrupted by work-related questions and requests for hand-holding. Try to focus on stuff you are good and love doing, and leaving behind, if possible, what is soul draining: If you are a network engineer, focus on building scalable great networks not explain what is an IP to a client, if you are a developer, focus on building great web applications.
Balance via a process. A process guarantees to put your work into a timeline. It focuses more on getting things done than worrying what’s next. It is also important to let others know about this process, to understand how you work. When feeling overloaded and imbalanced: stop, decompress, communicate and focus.
A life should mean just that: life. You have your work-hours to be consumed by work.
[1] “Burn-Out: The High Cost of High Achievement.” Dr. Herbert J. Freudenberger with Geraldine Richelson, 0-385-15664-2, 1980
