Dealing With Burnout In Software Development

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all right folks I just had to bring in the car for service just picked it up and uh just oil change and that kind of stuff I'm going to head to the office we're going to talk about burnout today burn out's an awesome topic um feel like it's not talked about enough um feel like a lot of people experience it a lot of people don't really know how to navigate it um I've made other videos about burnout um so this this one's not a User submitted uh topic or from Reddit this is actually something that I wanted to talk about um and I I still owe you guys a video um with my wife um and it's because she's she work she has a psychology background she works as a therapist so um what I'm going to be talking about today with respect to burnout

is not from a like therap IST background or a psychology background this is from lived experiences and I want I feel like I don't know there's uh you know help in hearing about this kind of stuff just from people that go through it or have experienced it and obviously someone like my wife would have a lot more um I don't know uh intelligent things to say about it from like uh from truly like a therapist kind of perspective from from a psychology background so I figured I'll talk about it um because it's uh it's relevant for many people and it's relevant for me right now so um for a little bit of background especially for folks that are kind of new to the channel um I a principal software engineering manager at Microsoft I worked at a startup for for eight years before Microsoft it's

actually been it's been almost 5 years at Microsoft now it's like four and a half so um actually time's flying I didn't uh I mean still only like half the time that I spent at the startup but uh just kind of crazy the time goes by so fast but I I used to work like like essentially Non-Stop and you know I I've talked about burnout from from this kind of situation in the past but um I think when I talk about burnout I feel like burnout is something that people can experience differently and I wanted to kind of go through a little bit of that today um because I think the sort of stereotypical way that we perceive burnout is like just for example someone it's almost like a depressive state right like you run down you're tired like you don't care about anything and

like there's no there's no you know uh enjoyment doing anything and like I mean a lot of those things sound similar to like depressive episodes and I think that I mean they're not the same thing but I think that there's a lot of similarity and I think that's the sort of stereotypical way we we think about burnout and then if we think about okay the stereotypical things that you know cause it or that lead to it are essentially like you hate what you're doing um and you're stuck doing things you hate and I I don't like so I think yeah that can be part of it but um I just think that different things can lead to it and I think that it you can see the symptoms or the uh you know the outcomes of burnout in different ways so um all I'll kind

of start by saying from before Microsoft when I was working absolutely nonstop uh at a startup this was and I always try to when I tell about this kind of time of my life I I always try to clarify no one made me do this okay so I don't like to talk about where I used to work as if it was a problem as if it was someone forcing me to do this like I had terrible leaders I love the people I work for I literally invited them to my wedding the the the founder and the and the CEO like they were invited to my wedding those are those are two people that are will always have like um you know a place in my heart because they're uh they had such a huge impact on my life so nothing nothing like that where I

hated where I worked and I was just stuck there or anything like that I loved where I worked and um and I worked Non-Stop and for me I mean there's I think a lot of things that led to that but I didn't really have other responsibilities or things outside of work like I'm a pretty simple guy like I love going to the gym I like video games I like cars and I like to build stuff so it was uh I mean I didn't really have anything else going on I was uh single for like an overwhelming majority of the time that I was working at this place I actually I met my wife uh like literally right at the end of my of my time there so um you know that was not that I didn't have relationships while I was working there but that

was you know um obviously that one led to marriage so which is awesome but I worked on stop and um I it's because I enjoyed it right like I really like what I was doing I was very motivated to uh to be part of what we were building when you have like a really really powerful Mission cuz like for us it's digital forensics um but it was like if you think about the impact we're having a lot of it was for you know focus on helping save uh kids right from pedophiles and things like that so um to be able to participate in that and know that like basically everything you're doing can acrw to helping kids like that is like it's really hard to not be in my opinion to not be motivated by doing that kind of work so U was motivated by

the mission um you know I I was always given a lot of trust and uh autonomy so um that felt good like that's probably one of the Staples in like in the career for me like I want to be trusted and I want to be in a position where I have autonomy if someone's micromanaging me it instantly falls apart um so so that was awesome and I when I've told this story before like I I point out that I had an amazing HR leader I've talked about her before in my my Vlogs here but the uh sort of advice she gave me was like hey you need to be careful because you're going to burn out and the only framing I had of burnout was kind of how I started this video like the the traditional sense and I remember saying to her like I

get what you're saying but like I love what I'm doing right like it's almost like an infinite energy source I just I love doing this so I like thank you for the heads up like I I appreciate it like I said um probably the best HR leader that I will ever have I don't know it's hard to imagine someone that was that's a better HR leader than she is so um so it was like I appreciate it but like I just don't I just don't see it that way but the reality was she was right um and I did experience burnout but I experienced it in ways that I didn't anticipate because it wasn't in the traditional sense right so um the way that I experienced burnout was very much from everything else outside of work having the symptoms of burnout but me not realizing

it because it kind of crept up over time so I talked about working there for 8 years right so if you think about over this period of time and I experienced it before the 8 years but um you know a few years into doing this where literally working every day um you know would wake up early would would go to work I would work then I would go to the gym and then I would work until I went to bed and then kind of repeat just every day um the the side effect of doing that was that I ended up getting like a lot of social anxiety and um I'm like I'm an introverted person in the first place uh feel like I always kind of have been that way but um when I say social anxiety like it was almost to the point where

like going to meet up with my own friends if it wasn't like if they were visiting me and it was my own kind of space I felt fine but if I had to if I you know were meeting up with friends from back home or something and it was like at their place and there might be other people I was already like don't want to do it like I I don't want to be I'm just anxious about it I'm uncomfortable thinking about myself in that situation and um it just became pretty bad right but like I didn't I didn't kind of piece these things together but I realized that all I was doing was work working so it made it really difficult to like to socialize to be like a normal person and um I ended up realizing after a while right like I'm going

through I'm going through burnout it just doesn't look the same like everything else in my life is is taking a hit um and when we talk about burnout in the traditional sense I would say like what you're observing generally is like your work is taking a hit because you're losing engagement with it um so it's almost like the inverse right how I'm describing it it's like the other things in my life that are important to me they were taking a hit because I just kept putting the energy into work um but inevitably this is the the thing that happens right when when everything else outside of work starts kind of falling apart eventually it's going to start having an impact on work like uh I I kind of you know obviously this isn't like scientifically backed or anything like that but I kind of think

about it like an equilibrium and if uh you know if if all you were doing was like neglecting work and just like doing stuff um you know like leaving early from work slacking at work just so you can have more time doing other things your work's going to suffer um so that you can do your hobbies but then eventually if your work suffering so much you can't afford your hobbies because you're whatever struggling with work so like I think these things have to be balanced and um so for me to solve that particular problem or at least to attempt to I said I need to pull myself away from work I need a forcing function that would do it so um I I showed it or I showed her sorry uh on a vlog recently because I was filming from home but I got my

dog Lila and lla was my attempt at um Let me let me have a responsibility outside of work right I couldn't snap my fingers and have a girlfriend so um let me go let me get a puppy and that will mean that I have something that I have to care for something that I have to be responsible for uh I know that it's a little bit different having companionship with an animal versus like friendships but um it I I've posted about this before like in you know written format I've said this in videos before I feel like uh and I know it sounds like corny but like lla saved my life right like being able to get that Saved My Life um because I was on a ridiculous spiral of burnout and not really recognizing it fully or the potential impact it could have had

cuz it like wasn't leading to health issues yet but I'm sure if I kept going I would have problems there would be so many other aspects of my life that would keep deteriorating until it was just really problematic so uh I fully believe that lla saved my life she's 10 years old now so to put it into perspective if you do the time frame so um so yeah that um was part of my solution and I I do think it helped right but this is kind of I've talked about this before this isn't necessarily news unless you haven't seen the videos of me talking about this before so probably for most people it's news um but the reason I wanted to make this video today is because I was talking to my wife about this recently and uh I said like I I'm feeling completely

burnt out and my wife will be the first to say that I do too many things I'm always stretched very thin uh you know whether it's work whether it's building brand ghosts whether it's creating courses uh making YouTube content the fact that I have code commute I told her I'm making a second YouTube channel and she said don't like absolutely don't do that and I said no like I'm like it's not extra work I'm just going to be filming in the car and she said don't do it it's too much for you because she sees what I take on and um and you know over the past couple years there's been opportunities that come up and I just have to start saying no to them um because I'm the kind of person that wants to take on opportunities but you know especially from conversations with

her she's like don't like you're already stretched too thin and she's right however um I go through little uh spurts of burnout and it's usually like when I'm I've talked about this before when I'm feeling like I I lose productivity and then I kind of spiral downward like I lose all the momentum that makes me feel kind of burnt out because it's so much energy to get the the momentum back up so that's periodic I'm not super concerned about that or that's not something that seems that interesting to me really um I think that's a bit of a side effect of taking on twoo much and um and yeah just the way that I approach productivity uh but that's something I'm aware of and trying to like work on but more recently this is where I'm heading with this I like when I told my

wife I'm feeling burnt out I I wanted to clarify to her I said it's not because I'm doing too much which I know that when she hears that she wants to to debate that with me and say like look I told you you're doing too much so I wanted to clarify I said I've been doing too much for for 2 years straight and experience like little little bits of uh you know disengagement or little bits of burnout because of the productivity stuff and I said this is different though and I said I think that I think I'm identifying what's unique about it and I said there are aspects to content creation there are aspects to creating courses or um being frustrated with things like in brand ghost where um I don't know like like there was a a Liv sight issue or something like there

are things that make me feel crappy periodically and I think that's part of life there's always going to be things that aren't great and you know I'll get demotivated and bounce back but I said this feels different because I think what's happening is I'm spending a ton of time on something that I don't actually enjoy and something that I don't actually see as much value in as the amount of time I'm spending on it so without going into the details there's a a project at work I'm responsible for and I've talked about this and uh the project itself is awesome I'm I'm excited truth truthfully I'm excited that I get to to have uh you know lead on this I get to help navigate it uh there's a ton of impact ton of visibility it's a great project but there are uh well not Parts

there is a part that um that I've had to work on and I feel like there is a disproportionate amount of time that I have to spend versus the value that it adds now I'm not making this video to complain about that or anything I've made videos about ownership recently and I stand by that where I'm like look this is something that needs to be owned I need to be responsible I need to I need to make sure this is going to be um successful and one one of the requirements is the thing I'm not going to go into the details of it but like is this thing that I'm talking about where I don't see as much value as as the time that's going into it and the side effect of that is that it's really burning me out like to put it into

perspective the amount of time I spend making content doing stuff like building brand ghosts outside of work like my wife will be the first to say like I spent all of my time doing this other stuff yet it's been okay now all of a sudden it hasn't taken that long and probably because I'm already operating at my capacity I have this other project now that's like spilling me over the edge and it's something that I'm not finding uh I don't personally align with uh the value for this component as much so it did not take long for me to feel like oh my goodness I am completely burnt out so the reason I'm sharing this is because like I said at the beginning of this video I think that a lot of people experience burnout in different ways have different um things that lead up

to it it's not like a cookie cutter one siiz fits-all um you know I told you about times in my career where I was working non-stop and and felt excited to go do it I'm telling you about a situation right now that took significantly less time for me to feel like oh my goodness like I am and this is like what I would call traditional burn over like I'm exhausted from it I am disengaged to the point where I don't want to do my hobbies like that's how burnt out I feel from it so it's like just to give you like complete transparency right like uh for my main Channel Dev leader I try to do three YouTube videos a week I recorded one I have topics to do that I think are going to be good and helpful and like I couldn't bring myself

to record them this week so far I just couldn't do it and it's not like they're hard I know I already know what the topic is I just have to talk about it and I'm like I just can't um to the day that I'm recording this right now this is a this is when Wednesday right now so um I I have videos queued on my YouTube channel like on on code commute to get posted and I they're uploaded they're ready to go and I just I forgot to schedule them and post them because that little part of my routine just fell apart like something so simple but like I couldn't bring myself to go like do it I have um I have a very small amount of the next course I'm making like the very last part that I have to film I did all

of the slides and stuff for it but like I can't I can't bring myself to go film it and it's like such a trivial amount of of work um and last night just to give you an example when I'm really feeling like I just can't do these things what was going through my head was like Hey take a break like go play video games or something and I'm even like I don't want to play video games like I don't want to do anything that's this feeling of burnout that um that I would say is probably like the traditional kind of way of looking at burn like I'm feeling that right now um now the difference or maybe not the difference the at least the the Silver Lining here because like I said I'm not making this video to complain about things I'm making it to

like share experience right um I know that this is a uh something that is on like a a Time Horizon that has an end I'm not I'm not concerned that like I'm doomed to be in this situation and stuck here and like it's perpetuated like I'm not concerned about that at all I know it's I know there's an end inight no concern there um it's really just like okay if this is what I'm going through like how do I understand this how do I how do I navigate it effectively because I don't want to be in this position where I feel this way and then cannot do anything else because it's a really weird spot to be in when you're like I can't even I can't even enjoy myself right I can't take a break from feeling like this to to go enjoy myself so

anyway this is me sharing this stuff because I think we don't talk about burnout enough and a lot of people go through it so um what I did last night instead of like trying to say hey I'm G to go play video games I just I said I'm gonna go to bed super early so I went to bed like an hour earlier than I normally do um I set my alarm for the normal time and I said I think it said it was going to be like 7 and 1 half hours of sleep I try to get at least six and I'm like that's great that's a ton of sleep um I'm going to hopefully wake up feeling refreshed and I said tomorrow's a new day like I'll I'll dive into things right and then I woke up this morning I felt rested but I

was like I'm still not I'm not ready so I just didn't force myself and I think one of the things I'm trying to do better is um one practice this disconnect thing that I just explained instead of looking for like a dopamine hit let me go play video games I was like just go to sleep like you're you're clearly exhausted go go to sleep right maybe not physically exhausted but mentally absolutely or like emotionally I don't know like just go sleep and then when I woke up and still felt like obviously like physically uh better but I'm like I'm not I'm not in the right State of Mind to like go dive into stuff and try being productive don't just wait I'm trying to get that reset um the other part to that though is like trying to be kind to myself which is uh

sounds funny but like uh very difficult to do because when I've made videos before about being productive the first thing that comes to mind is like I I kind of spiral right I build momentum if I'm being productive and then when something sets me off course and I lose my productivity it spirals down where I'm like it's so hard to get the momentum back so I'm trying to consciously be kind to myself and say like hey look like you have a timeline for your course it has to be done uh what's today it has to be done by Monday basically I said you have time there's very little left you've already talked to the editor about how much content's left like you're everything's good you don't need to rush and panic and try like you're good my YouTube channel I said if you feel good

tonight you can get the other videos filmed you already know what the topics are no pressure right the YouTube Channel's not going to go down it's going to be okay my code me videos I didn't schedule them today that's okay they're already done they're uploaded they're good to go you can film another video on the way into work like everything everything's fine these are easy for me to do I just talk um so it's like you know there actually isn't a problem right so just like be kind to yourself you're not you're not actually screwing anything up and I think that I don't consciously say that the other way don't consciously say like oh Nick you're such a screw-up oh you're so you should feel bad about yourself or something um but I think it it kind of feels that way because I end up

seeing the lack of productivity right where I'm like hey you're usually able to get three YouTube videos out and you should easily be able to go film these smaller course segments on top of that like you know what's the deal man like and it just feels like it's almost like guilt right like and I I just don't think that that's helpful I mean I what literally as I'm saying it I recognize it's not helpful but um it's because you're not consciously saying it that way so it's not so obvious so I'm trying to practice doing the opposite consciously reminding myself it's not the end of the world right like um it's not like I'm giving up on these things it's not like I said screw it like never making a YouTube video again or course is cancell like it's everything it's going to be fine

and in fact like the thing that like I was kind of saying the thing that I'm working on that is getting me disengaged I'm like there's a Time Horizon on that it's fine push through it you'll be okay it's just a little phase where it kind of sucks at least recognizing it right cuz I that's the thing I said in another video around uh like emotions and stuff or actually this was on my Dev leader live stream I was talking about this people were asking about like uh you know as an engineering manager you know how do you handle like anger and stuff like how do you handle those types of emotions and I said I think it's important that you don't like you don't pretend the emotion's not there it doesn't mean that you take out your anger on people but like to pretend

like you've you don't get angry or to pretend like you don't get sad like that to me is not the right solution emotions are there because you're and again my wife would need to be able to speak to this more effectively than me but it's like uh it's signaling to you right it's a way it's a response it's a way for you to kind of like get a signal about your body or the environment a scenario and then it's up to you to do something with that so I don't I think when you suppress those kinds of things or pretend like they're not there you're missing out on like feedback that you're that your body's giving you so um I don't want to pretend like oh I'm not burnt out like it's not a real thing I'm like hell I'm exhausted I'm mentally exhausted I'm

emotionally drained I'm not physically exhausted because I didn't go to CrossFit today um but like I don't want to pretend like those things don't exist so acknowledge them acknowledge try to understand what's causing it and then we learn from it so like I said it's a temp for everything how do I how do I learn from this type of situation and then help you know in the future if I have a period of time where I'm working on something like okay like how do I make sure that I can find ways to sprinkle an enjoyment so that I don't feel like get to this point of being completely overwhelmed these are just things I'm thinking of right so uh but yeah I I I wanted to make this video to talk about burnout so that there's awareness it's the same reason I like making videos

about impostor syndrome because people experience these things and then they're like okay well do I go to Reddit and ask about it and then get flamed by the entire internet and then you're like why did I do that I just wanted to ask about burnout and everyone hates me now so I'm just kidding reddits only bad most of the time but not all the time so I wanted to make this so that I could at least share like I'm someone that's experienced it uh in different ways currently kind of going through it here's how I'm navigating it and it's not going to be perfect right like I'm not telling you that I have it figured out exact opposite I have I don't have it figured out but I'm figuring it out right this is how I'm how I'm going through the process of trying to

figure this stuff out so I think that's it I'm almost at the office but um what else what else I think depending on when you're watching this if you're watching it right when it's come out I should should mention if you're staying to these the end of these videos you get the uh you get the pro tips but um right now so I don't know everyone's background obviously this channel is just very general for software engineering um if you are someone who's aspiring to be a software developer uh or you want to learn C I have courses on C and they're actually free right now for life on dome train so I figured I would mention that if you're watching this at some point far in the future I apologize they're probably not free right now um but they're free for life and you can

get them until the end of February and that's on dome train uh if you look at the link in the description of this YouTube video um you can find links to the Dome train courses but unless Nick chaps has changed is it there's a big banner at the top of the site so they're free um I spent I have spent and I continue to spend a lot of my my time trying to teach um more Junior developers about software engineering of course that's probably why you're here watching this and and uh big part of that for me is because I'm a like a c developer I I like to teach about C so was very fortunate to be able to make those courses on dome train you know super thankful for the opportunity it's uh it's really cool that people were are kind of giving

the trust to me to be able to teach about that topic because there's a million people that make courses right if you wanted to go learn C you could go search on the internet I'm sure there's a million courses on it so it's cool that I got to put one together I got to go on to dome train and that people are checking it out and they like it so totally free right now uh it's 11 and 1/2 hours of content it's two courses together the first one teaches you from literally no programming experience and just teaches you the basics and then the next one Builds on that so that's available and then the other courses I have aren't uh they're not free right now but if you're interested in them there are like General soft engineering courses so uh I've done these with Ryan

Murphy together on dome train so there's like a behavioral interview course there is a soft skills course there is uh getting promoted course there's we got a bunch we're wrapping up the next one right now but they're all focused on on software engineering careers in general not like a language specific thing not like a technical um focus so if you're interested in those go check those out on D train as well uh Nick chapsas does run sales periodically and the other thing to mention is that there's Dome train Pro and uh if you subscribe to that then you can access all of the courses so um I would recommend checking that out if you're if you're the kind of person that benefits from courses I would highly recommend them he has experts that put the courses together um I recognize not everyone learns from courses

and that's okay so it's not for everyone oh let's get this spot nice this is a good spot no one's taking it but never parked here because it's never free we're gonna do it though oh yeah very good okay um I think that's it though folks so just a reminder if you're going through burnout um it'll be okay the first step's awareness you got to take some action from there so thanks so much for watching and I will see you next time take care