Treating Dev Burnout

In this post, I’ll be sharing my personal experience with developer burnout. I’ll delve into the warning signs I missed at first, the toll it took on my passion for coding, and most importantly, the steps I took to crawl out of that pit and rekindle my love for programming.

Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting out, understanding burnout is crucial. So, grab a cup of coffee as always (or your favorite beverage), settle in, and let’s explore the depths of developer burnout and the path to recovery.

What is developer burnout?

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged or excessive stress. It’s not laziness or a lack of skill; it’s a genuine response to an unsustainable work environment or personal coding habits.

Burnout isn’t unique to developers, but our field can be a breeding ground for it. We juggle tight deadlines, complex problems, and ever-evolving technologies. All that pressure can lead to a state of chronic exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced productivity. It’s like your internal battery has run dry, and the thought of writing another line of code makes you want to crawl under your desk, even for that once-exciting personal project you had.

Common signs of developer burnout

Here is a list of some common signs of developer burnout so you can detect it by yourself:

• Emotional exhaustion: feeling drained, cynical, or apathetic towards your work.
• Physical symptoms: headaches, fatigue, trouble sleeping, or changes in appetite.
• Reduced professional efficacy: a decline in your sense of accomplishment or feeling like your skills are slipping.
• Increased cynicism: detachment from your work, negativity towards your projects, or a critical eye towards colleagues.

If you’re recognizing some of these signs in yourself, don’t worry - you’re not alone. In the next section, we’ll explore how I identified my own burnout and the path I took towards recovery.

How did I realize I had burnout?

For this section, we are going to go back to two years ago (2021). During that time, my spirit (and my nickname in some cases) was blossoming in the open-source community during my free time after my hours working with Linux servers at work, doing mostly projects around the code editor that I use, which as you may know, is Neovim.

I identify that time as the beginning of everything and I consider it a very important lesson, taking breaks. But this because of what? Well, if we look at my GitHub activity between 2021 and 2022 it is really huge, which meant commit after commit and never ending hours developing my projects.

But why all the trouble? Well, those who know me will know that at that time I was the happiest guy on earth and enthusiastic about my projects, bugs that were reported, bugs that I fixed quickly and the same goes for feature requests. I was literally a bull without taking pills lol. However, I would stay up until dawn programming and even losing track of time, especially when it came to eliminating those elusive bugs that refused to disappear, and that was the beginning of the bill that I would collect later.

Continuing with all this almost daily performance (also due to the pandemic that existed, I think it is not necessary to mention it much), there began to be work problems. The startup was going through a fragile moment and some of my coworkers were not… Very competent so to speak (I would like to write a post about it later, I think it has things that we have all experienced at some point hahaha), and as I was in charge from the production servers I started to have a lot of pressure on me, which at first I didn’t think would affect me, along with other events that led to the accumulation of stress.

Said stress was never really drained due to the global situations that limited us a lot, but it accumulated passively, so I didn’t notice it at first. So time went by, the startup died mysteriously and the CEO stopped showing signs of life on the radar from one day to the next, so being only approximately 18 years old I decided to relax a little and “enjoy” life, hangout with friends and gaming, in addition to continuing to dedicate myself to my open-source projects. Little by little, I was also gaining “stress” with the excuse of “I put too much effort into my projects and no one really uses it, it is not popular, etc.” and that was where I began to abandon the projects that I did with so much love and that even I used it daily.

Jumping a little further in time, we reached 2023, where I returned to work and despite not having realized it early, the excess stress had already damaged my system and had become burnout. I sporadically abandoned my personal projects and lost my good discipline for work, even putting it aside (adding to the poor internal organization of the new startup where I was located and some other conflicts). To have a good comparison of all the activity I’m talking about, we can see my activity on GitHub again for the year 2023.

It’s not even a third of what it was before, even counting contributions to the work’s private repositories!

Now, once the burnout became present, I began to realize the changes in my personality, my productivity and, above all, in what I love to do, which is programming. At first I didn’t really know what it was, I spent hours and hours researching and came to the conclusion that all the symptoms indicated burnout, however, I didn’t consciously know its cause and much less know how to treat it, since in my opinion, it is something that varies depending on the person.

Note: I came to realize that my mind was constantly looking for something new that attracted excessive attention, something that also led me to distro hopping for the first time in my life.

How did I get rid of burnout?

I must admit that it was something very complicated, and since it went so long without being treated it led me to have a really deteriorated mental health (I am still recovering, but fortunately the process has been very fast due to my personality). That is why I will share with you what helped me overcome it little by little, along with some general advice and suggestions when dealing with this condition.

There is a fundamental action to deal with that crap, and it is nothing more and nothing less than distracting yourself, taking a break or however you want to see it. If it happens to you and you are working, ask for a break or a short vacation if possible, because you will really need it.

I mostly distracted myself by going out with friends or staying at someone’s house to play something. Going out to climb the mountains in my city and bathe in the icy waterfalls was great to clear my mind and relax a little. Gaming also had some effect, but they must be games that are strictly not going to stress you out (I’m looking at you, League of Legends).

It is also extremely important that you take care of your sleep schedules and how much you sleep. This contributes enormously to your physical and mental health, and helps to indirectly deal with the stress of burnout and regulates your mood.

Another very important thing for me was talking about it with my friends, especially for some reason with my online friends. That helped me little by little begin to see things more clearly and get rid of a little of that great stress (thank you very much for tolerating me during that difficult state, sometimes it really made me want to kick myself lol). And most important of all, stop programming. No, it shouldn’t be a permanent thing, but you really need a break from it, even if they are hobby and fun projects. Then, progressively, start programming some hobby projects again to reconnect with your passion :).

Now, breaking all that down into more general and easy to organize information, we have to:

• Take a break: stop programming for a while, it’s the main cause of all that stress.
• Sleep well: you must take care of your sleep schedules and get enough sleep.
• Distract yourself: dedicate time to other things and distract your mind, there are many more things that can give you a good time.
• Get support: talk to someone you trust about it all, get rid of that stress.
• Do new things: just as you read, try new things and go to new places, it will help your mind clear and have fun.

Important: There may be other ways as well, however, I think those apply generally and are the ones that worked for me.

Conclusion

Recovering from developer burnout wasn’t a sprint, it was a marathon. But by prioritizing self-care, reconnecting with my passion, and seeking support, I found my way back to the joy of coding. Remember, burnout is a treatable condition, and there’s no shame in seeking help.

The developer community thrives on collaboration and support. If you’re feeling burnt out, reach out to a friend, mentor, or online forum. There’s a whole network of people who understand the challenges you face and are there to help you get back on your feet.

Take it slow, celebrate small victories, and don’t be afraid to ask for help. Implement the strategies that resonated with you, and don’t be afraid to experiment to find what works best. Most importantly, be kind to yourself. Your well-being is essential, and a healthy, happy developer is a productive developer.

Special Thanks

This journey wouldn’t have been possible without the unwavering support of some amazing people. A huge thank you to Vhyrro and Aloof for their patience and understanding during my rants. Your unwavering support was a lighthouse in the storm, and I’m incredibly grateful to have you in my life.

Thank you very much for being there for me and making me understand within my stubborn self that I should not demand too much of myself. Know that I will also be there if you need it 💜.

And also, thanks to all those people in the nvim-neorocks organization and the Neorg Discord server for their support and understanding, and a big apology for any inconvenience that we have had :P.