Can I Escape The Burnout? What's On The Horizon...

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Hey folks, I'm just headed to work on Wednesday. Uh, I don't have a topic. I'm running a little bit late. I didn't get to check Reddit and I don't think I have any pending questions right now. Um, I figured like I'm just trying to do a little bit better of catching up on on getting my vlogs out for this channel. Um, because I was reflecting on this a little bit. Like I like making the vlogs and like they're whatever. Like if I'm driving, it's obviously I'm not doing anything else. So for me, it's like an enjoyable thing to be able to create content on this channel. Um, but when I get like super super busy with stuff, then sometimes it can't happen. Or LA, last week I was on call uh and not driving to the office like I was barely leaving the house last week.

So um just based on the timing for on call. So then I didn't record many videos and like that kind of sucks. But you know, if I go back a couple weeks, I was on vacation for a week and then I came back and then I was uh cramming for like basically performance reviews and career conversations. So, I was just reflecting on this because I was coming out of a period of like pretty significant burnout and uh in May I got to take a couple weeks off, but it was weird because like I took those weeks off and while on vacation like that was good, but uh realistically I came back into like you know the last two weeks were incredibly busy. Um, so there I'm I'm trying to think of a good way to put this like in terms of like recovering from burnout. Like it hasn't been great.

Um, because those weeks off like it was almost like taking more time off just made more work pile up. Uh, which which sucks, right? And I think that's one of the reasons why in tech a lot of the time we hear about like people not using vacations and stuff. It's because when you take vacation it's like the work doesn't go away. So I think a couple things on this right like on this topic. Um, in theory, I feel like if you're doing you're doing a good job in terms of enabling others and stuff like that and like thinking about your role within a team, ideally like you should be able to like you should, it's going to sound like a really weird thing to say, you should be very replaceable. uh or uh not being a single point of failure is probably another good way to put that.

I don't mean to suggest like literally advertise yourself as replaceable. I just mean like you should be able to go on vacation and like not have it such that work piles up while you're gone because other people can make progress without you. Like that's sort of the ideal situation to be in. I say that fully acknowledging like I don't have a secret for for making that happen or else I would have. Um but that's something that I I need to keep that more in mind. Um you know these these last two weeks for me were a little bit different because those are things that I'm responsible for. Right? So, for example, um my on call shift, sure I could have swapped it, but like I need to I need to go on call at some point. So, I had to be on call. And then the week before that with performance reviews and stuff like that's not something that I I can delegate to someone else, right?

Like that's that's one of the core parts of uh of my role. So, I think what's just really unfortunate is like the timing of those things. With that big project wrapping up, I needed to take time off, but the time that I took off was in this period where there was um like basically I had other really big commitments in there like kind of interwoven if you will. So, it just made it so that you know coming back from vacation was like instant stress to the max. Um, I hate when people do this. Come on, don't drive the same speed as me. You're in the fast lane. So, anyway, I'm just sharing that because like um number one, I don't think we kind of reflect on that stuff enough. I think probably people have experienced that before, right? Where I don't know, maybe some like I think there's uh different groups of people, right?

Some people probably if if you had discretionary time off, you'd be like, "Hell yeah, I'm taking it as much as I can." Uh, but I think that's pretty rare to be honest from my experience. Uh, even without discretionary time off, I've had to chase people to make sure they're taking vacation and stuff. And I don't even do a good job of number one, chasing people to take their vacation, and number two, I don't do a good job of modeling that, which is crappy. Like, I should. Um, I'm very very fortunate to I mean for many many reasons to be married to my wife, but one of the things that she really helps me with seems like probably a little thing. Um, but like if it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't really take vacation because I don't I don't do a good job managing my time that way.

It's always like to the max to the max like trying to do anything I can like kind of riding that limit with being burnt out from work um or just taking on too many things cuz some like when I talk about burnout I think there's like the disengagement almost depression part of that but also there's this like I don't know if you'd call it burnout but when I take on too many things it's almost like your hands are so full and you're trying to juggle like things are going to just start falling apart. Even if you're like excited about those things, right? You start to instead of doing like a few things really well, you're trying to do too many very poorly. And I think I I ride that probably too close. So very fortunate that, you know, she likes she likes doing things. You know, she'll want to go away to a cottage for a weekend or she'll want to, you know, go on a trip or whatever.

And for me, like it's not that I dislike those things. I just don't think that I prioritize them. I don't um I personally do not care enough to go put those as a priority. So um like I said, fortunate that that that is a thing that she does. Um yeah, it just helps from like a balance perspective. So anyway, I'm like I said, I'm trying to make sure that I'm I feel like if I look from right now kind of looking forward, I have one pretty big thing that's come up unfortunately for work and uh if it weren't for that that kind of came out of nowhere. This is the thing, right? It's like if I if if I remove that one thing, I'm like I actually have a a pretty good manageable like set of scope of work in front of me, like hell yeah.

And then I have this other thing that just kind of came up and I'm like that could literally sap all of my time and energy. So I need to look at this kind of thing as a I need to be careful about it, right? because I cannot go back to back to back on like just things that suck the life out of me and cause burnout. Um because that will just be a continued downward spiral. So I think for this thing that's come up, I need to do make sure I'm doing a good job of like leading and driving it, but not to the point where like I'm having like a borderline meltdown on it. So I just need to be more aware of that. With that said though, so like things that are going on for me like outside of that, right, trying to make sure that for code commute, uh, just staying on top of the videos, right?

Like for example, I already went to CrossFit this morning. I didn't film in the morning. Could have, right? But I didn't. Um, I don't really have a good excuse. I just feel like I was kind of rushing all morning this morning. And like now I'm I'm already going to be like not like late for work, but getting to the office later than I want. So, I was like rushing to CrossFit. When I finished CrossFit, I was just too exhausted today to even film. So, didn't have a topic to get into this car to drive to work. And then that's why I turned the camera on part way to be like, "Okay, like it's not that I don't enjoy making the vlogs. It's just that I didn't do enough like kind of like homework before this one. But then I figured maybe it'd be good to talk about like because they are vlogs.

There's a there's like almost 300 of these videos so far. Like sometimes I feel like it's good just to check in with folks and let you know how how I'm doing. Not that you necessarily have to care, but just so you understand like what's going on behind the scenes because I think that's a part of it, right? It's been really cool on this channel compared to my main channel because my main channel has more subscribers. There's, you know, it makes a little bit more money per month in ad revenue. It's uh it's still not enough, but you know, it's uh arguably more like successful from metrics, but um the thing that it does not have is like the same kind of community around it, which is really cool. like it's been around longer. Code commute's relatively new and um there's just a lot more interaction. There's a lot more regular people showing up.

So, I really appreciate that. It's I think it's super cool to be able to have that. You know, channel doesn't need to be like a million subscribers before there's like cool aspects of that. It's I think I'm at just under 2500 right now on this channel and uh there's like people that show up regularly. They come over to the live streams on Dev Leader which is the other YouTube channel, right? So um it's just great to be able to interact with people and I really enjoy that. So like I said, part of it is making sure that you know because I am interacting with all of you a lot more closely, you just kind of understand like as I'm putting out content and stuff like what's going on on my side. Um, so we'll be trying to get a little bit more regular with the code commute videos.

Uh, so you know, reminder if you're watching this one, you know, submit your questions. Happy to answer them for you. Uh, I do want to I should I need to start pushing this more. So, um, the, uh, the reality is like this channel. Um well I guess both my channels really like I Okay, how do I go about this? Um this channel's done like quite well like organically because on social media like I I have a pretty big uh I shouldn't say pretty big but like comparatively um Dev Leader as a brand has significantly more followers than Code Commute, right? So like on LinkedIn I think I have like 28,000 followers there. Um, so my dev leader brand is associated with that which is helpful, but like code commute doesn't have like any of that kind of support from my other socials, right? Like I periodically share things, but like dev leader is my main thing on socials.

But um, where I'm going with this is like even dev leader has hundreds of YouTube videos. it has never hit an inflection point for growth. So, just to give you an idea, um, for all like for over two years straight, Dev Leader as a channel uh fluctuates between like 400 subscribers a month to 600 subscribers a month flat. Uh, most of the time, like I would say like 85% of the time, it's basically like right at 500 subscribers a month. Um, sometimes it goes a little bit above, sometimes a little bit below, but almost always like right on 500. And um, while there's that's nothing to complain about, the like from a YouTube growth perspective, the channel has literally never hit an inflection point. There's never been a viral video. I know some individuals have put out one video, literally one video, that's gotten them more subscribers than my entire two accounts put together from one video, right?

So, one of my challenges is like I need to be able to share my content more effectively. Um, I'm not I don't know. I'm not in the business of trying to create like viral videos, right? Um I don't want to do clickbait stuff. I don't like like this channel does not have uh I don't make thumbnails for anything, right? So I don't want to go down that path, but I realize like that's what people do on YouTube. That's what makes people click. So the other angle I'm trying to play is like if you find the content helpful, please do share. Um, I know that's like a pretty cliche thing like you know all the all the big YouTubers smash that like button, subscribe, get the hit the bell, whatever. Like the thing that matters or is the most impactful is sharing content, honestly. So, and I think I've said this in a couple spots, but the untapped social platform for me is Reddit.

And that's because basically every subreddit has strict rules around no self-promotion. Like I've been I've been banned from learn pro learn programming um the subreddit because someone asked for like resources on something and I provided them and then they banned me. I was like okay like I don't know what to do. Uh, I've been banned from the the LinkedIn subreddit for the same type of thing. Someone was like, "I need help with, you know, posting." So, I gave them a helpful post. And then I said, like, I schedule my post with Brand Ghost. Banned. Um, no warnings on either of these, by the way. Just banned outright. And uh, and it's not like my Reddit account's brand new. It's like 13 years old or 11 years old or something. So, for me, Reddit is a very untapped place.

I know that there are other creators that um I'm not going to name anyone because I think that's it's kind of a crappy thing to do, but I know other creators that use Reddit heavily for like their newsletters and stuff, but they also like they basically use pod engagement, which is like I think like like it works, but I think it's the the sliniest thing. Like you're just cheating. So, what they'll do is like basically if you post a newsletter on Reddit, um, like number one, you're already breaking self-promotion rules in like basically every subreddit, but people will post newsletters and then Redditors that pick up on it, they so they either ignore it outright or they pick up on it and then they completely flame and trash the newsletter. But what these other guys are doing is they'll post their newsletter and then they get the initial comments in from their friends so that there's like positive comments right from the beginning to boost it.

So, the sentiment is already positive to start with. And um yeah, and I know there's like people that I've seen where they're like, I got they were saying like from single Reddit posts, they ended up having like, you know, t like tens and tens of paid subscribers to their newsletter. So, it drives tons of traffic, but I'm not doing that. Like, number one, I don't want to get banned for more subreddits. Number two, I refuse to use stuff like pod engagement because it just it's like I don't know, it feels like the wrong thing to do. Like I would like to be successful with the social media stuff, but there's certain things I just will not do because it feels morally wrong to me. So that's why I always say like if you're able to if you find my contents helpful would love if you find opportunities to share it on Reddit in particular.

Uh other platforms are obviously helpful but I have a I have a decent presence on on everything else. Obviously no complaints for me if you want to share but Reddit's the big spot that I cannot go to. So super helpful. Um, and just wanted to remind folks, I guess I got to move over lanes here. That's not the right exit. This thing's lying to me. I was going to say feels like the wrong spot to be coming up for the exit, but it was like, you got to move over. No, I don't. Google, get out of here. Um, so yeah, like trying to keep up with the code commute videos. Um, the dev leader videos that I have kind of queued up are around AI tooling and stuff. So, finally got over to going through some videos with co-pilot and poll requests and stuff like that.

I have a couple more to make. So, the first first ones I filmed were uh one making the code website. So just kind of vibe coding through that showing where like things get frustrating or where it works well and um then from there I actually walk through some brand ghost changes that I had co-pilot in GitHub do and uh started that series off by talking about things like basically smaller more constrained features that it just did a really really good job on. Um, so trying to show like the happy path and then I'm going to make a couple more follow-up videos where I show things that it was just really crap at, like completely missed the mark. And then other things where um I actually purposefully gave it requests where I'm like, I don't expect it to work well. Like, it's open-ended.

don't expect it's going to nail it, but I want to use it to to see it come up with ideas and then I can like use that for myself to go maybe that's a direction I want to go because just a thought on this right like when it comes to prototyping things there's sometimes if we're not even talking about like a technology choice it's more about like how do I want to implement this architecture in my system sometimes it's like I got to go build it to see what it looks and feels like and then like that's an enjoyable process. But sometimes I have features and functionality where I'm like I know I need this but I'm actually not interested in like in like iterating on it. I just know what has to get done.

So, there's a couple things like this from Brand Ghost where I said like, you know, I'm just going to I had to do a couple of different poll requests to go build some like um of the basic infrastructure, right? So, to give you an example, I need to do like a media processing pipeline that has like a job system that can process videos and pictures and stuff like that. And like I don't want to build that to be honest. I know it has to get done. I know how to go build it or I have some ideas around that. But what I don't want to do is go code it all and then go h like, you know, should have done this part differently and like now I feel like I got to like change my design.

I'd rather just like let co-pilot put in some examples of how to build it then I can review it and then make decisions about like okay like do I want to go this direction now that I've seen it like it it gives me the thing to review in my own code base where I can make a decision about whether or not I like that approach and that is like an oddly powerful thing because I might throw out all of the code it makes all of it which is fine because it was I I want to say like it's free but it's like it's technically not free but like it was free for my time right and that that's a huge benefit because I didn't have to go prototype multiple variations just to go I like this one um I can just kind of read through

and see like this part this part feels good like I think I want to take this part of the you know that prototype type this other one that it tried doing like I actually like that like let me take note of that then uh I might go build it myself. I might give co-pilot those pieces and say like go put this all together. Um we'll see. But anyway, those are like the the types of videos I have coming up for Dev Leader. So that's been um it's been fun to film because that's actually just how I'm building software right now outside of work. Uh, let me in, buddy. You know, other otherwise like I'm obviously I'm still writing code. Uh, but I'm not I'm I'm not relying on agents as much in the IDE because the agent experience for me in the IDE is still crap.

Like, it's not getting better yet. Um, and when I say that, I mean like obviously I'm not expecting the technology over the past 2 weeks is going to have completely changed, but I mean like I'm using it and still not finding like the efficiency. If I use chat, even like using chat GPT sometimes is just more effective. I think the biggest productivity boost that I need to find with using LLMs though is actually I I need uh voice to text. Um there are some things that I'm finding like if I were to talk to you as a human on my team, right? You're a developer on my team. We're building something. I could tell you very quickly. I could articulate very quickly what I want, like what's broken, what needs to change, blah blah blah, why something's not working, all these things. And um I just find that I'm going to type it.

Come on, let me in here. I'm going to type it and like that's actually becoming a big time sync. Uh especially like with C-Pilot in GitHub when I'm creating issues, it's the perfect time for me to just like talk it out and then sometimes I'll go back over it and then I'll add in like some either code samples or you know format lists manually, but like I just kind of speak it out into my phone. That's the other thing, too. Like I'm just doing it on my phone, which is awesome, right? And I could be like before I'm going to bed uh or like eating breakfast in the morning or something, I could just open up GitHub, talk about an idea and an issue, send it off to co-pilot. Like I'll give you a good example. Last night I was uh I was talking with uh my business partner for for Brand Ghost and uh we're talking about a feature that we want to build that needs front end and backend changes.

So he he does a bunch of the front end work. I focus in the back end and he was like, "Okay, like you know, you work on the back end and I'll do the front end tomorrow." And he ended he was going to bed before me cuz we're in different time zones. And then since I was up before I went to bed, I was like, "You know what I should do? I should have co-pilot just kick off the first pass. What is this person doing? like absolutely not going like 20 on the highway. There was nothing in front of him. That's so dangerous. I was watching the traffic come up behind me like very fast. Come on, man. What is going on today? Today's a day. So, yeah, I kicked off uh you know, I I spoke into my phone, told Copilot what I'm expecting in the front-end feature and just uh assigned it and I I sent him a message.

I said, "By the way, when you wake up, check this poll request. It might be might be terrible, might be pretty good, but at least you have a starting point if you want to use it." Now, I don't know how much that like cost me technically. like was that, you know, already in my my monthly budget with co-pilot that cost me a buck, two bucks, I don't know. But like I think like I think it's worth it personally if we can save time like that. Even if you had to throw it out on that one, cool, no worries, right? Like it took me no effort to go speak into a GitHub issue. And if it was at all helpful, even just to give him ideas, even if he needs to throw the code out, then like so be it. Right? Getting some ideas is still better than than nothing at all.

There's been times where I'm reviewing the stuff Copilot does. I'm like, "Oh man, this is wrong. Like, this is really screwed up." And then I go to approach it a different way and I go, "Oh crap." Like it was actually right. like I didn't realize something and based on the structure of the code, it was able to make a more informed decision. It's just that it wasn't obvious to me and it wasn't displayed in a way that made me realize that. So, I think there's some cool opportunities like that. But, um yeah, that's been mostly how like software development's been looking. I don't know. I still feel like like chat GPT from a from a usability perspective like straight up just chatting seems so powerful even compared to like using the LLM tools rate in the IDE which blows my mind because when you're in the IDE you have all of the context of the codebase so I don't know why I am having better results with chat GPT without like any context.

It seems kind of crazy but but yeah I'm trying to to make it so that my my personal development workflow is like um as I'm directly coding so I'm working on a change let's say as I'm directly coding I will be using chat um if I have you know say I'm working on something directly in my IDE and I go ah crap like I'm I should probably go refactor a bunch of this stuff I might kick off an agent right at that point and then then I kind of context switch. So I like give it some instructions, make some simple changes but across some area and then have it go. U a good example this morning was like I had a test that co-pilot had made and I was like ah it's not quite right like it's close but not quite right and I asked it to do a bunch and it made one.

So, I said, "Okay, I'm going to fix this up to be how I want." And because I still have to poke around on this pull request, like I'm just going to tell the agent locally like, "Here's a test. Go like basically go replicate this pattern across the other ones now that I've shown you how to do it." Um, so I can run that locally and then context switch and go do something else. So I am kind of juggling all these things and then what's really nice is like completely asynchronously. I can keep just tossing issues into into GitHub and having co-pilot chip away at them. Like yesterday for example um we added I say we co-pilot I had co-pilot add over like 200 tests to our front end and like it's cool because it runs them as it's iterating. They're part of the build.

So, you know, I can do a quick check and if it's adding the tests and not break not making changes to the underlying code, I'm like, okay, like we're just getting better test coverage cuz some areas are lacking in it. So, but that's not something like I wasn't going to sit down and go write all those tests right now. I just wanted to get them started at least. So, co-pilot, thanks. Make a big dent in them. and it did. So, yeah, it's a it's a cool hybrid approach and I feel like I don't know, personally, it feels like it's helping me tackle a lot more um especially because of like the asynchronous nature of the um co-pilot agents doing pull requests. I love it. It's so cool. Okay, how do I want to park in this spot? But I think I want to move up so I hit that pole with my door.

Cool. Thanks for tuning in. I will try to have a topic on the way home. Appreciate you being here. See you next time.