I chanced upon Garrit's toot today, which led me to Doug Belshaw's newsletter-blog. I do enjoy Doug's blog but fail to keep up for a variety of reasons. A shout-out like Garrit did on his blog helped me find myself to it proper after what's been a while.

If we are talking life/career burnout, I am always in.

Of course I stopped writing as often on this blog, but I am tempted to try and speak openly about something I do struggle with — almost always have, and always will. While I have only landed in the crash and burn scenes a couple of times (so far), I am always very aware that I'm skirting these lines and can tip over very easily.

Today I had a call with my immediate boss to discuss some measures we can put in place so I can deal with work better — away from what feels like a cocktail of depression and burnout presenting in unusual (to me) ways.

What I'm doing now to tackle things.

I have already been taking measures in my individual capacity for a while, but I think it was time to reach out and ask for some more support while I work through this process.

Here are some things I am doing, then:

• Paired coding sessions. At least once a week, more if possible/required. Fight that isolation of working remote.
• Changing my work environment frequently. A change of scenery keeps things interesting, I guess. I do have to give up the big screen but I'll take that over this.
• Picking off shorter tasks from the backlog. This can help me feel more accomplished about my work day and work weeks. Balancing it better with new features.
• Hobbies. I've been at it for a while. Just more of the same. Invest my time in hobbies that are not coding.
• Continue to see my therapist. Keeping my emotional burden and general mental health in check so I have space to…live.
• Talking to friends about it. Call it venting if you will.
• Finding in-person tech events/meetups to feel a connection with coding as an activity again.

I think that's it. It seems to help a little. The proverbial jury is still out.

How do you handle the almost-burned-out stage? What are some things you would do?

I encourage you to get in touch over email by using the following convenience link for any discussion: comment via email.