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Personally, I'm not burnt out. To void burn out, I did a few things which I feel are extremely helpful. 1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leav

Personally, I'm not burnt out. To void burn out, I did a few things which I feel are extremely helpful. 1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office". 2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls. 3. Have a defined schedule - Awake at 6am, washed/dressed by 6:30am, Red Bull (or if you like food) and at my desk by 7am. I do work long hours, but I enjoy it because I'm accomplishing something. 4. Work on something that excites you or find joy in your work somehow. 5. Lastly, realize most of the mental stress can be managed with a little mindfulness, learning to accept that you still can grow and find joy even when at home and cut back on social media; or if you're like me, I cut out 99% of social media. I hope everyone remains positive. Do something today, that makes you better tomorrow.

verganileonardo 6y ago
I would recommend dropping the Red Bull. Switch to coffee, if you like that. Even an iced can coffee would be healthier. I used to drink it daily and it destroyed my body. Also, Red Bull is quite expensive!
- voodootrucker 6y ago
  Yes, maybe this is just me, but every time I have an extended work from home period, depression follows after a few months. I was working around this once by drinking red bull, which I found lifted my emotions temporarily, but after it wore off in 4 hours I crashed way harder into despair. This effect built up over time and fortunately I noticed it and stopped using it routinely. YMMV - just a friendly warning of how it affected me.
  - verganileonardo 6y ago
    Yes! And the worst case scenarios happened when my body was tired and wanted to stop, but my brain was high on Red Bull and didn't let me fall sleep.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    If you generally use anything as a crutch it will start wearing off and you will build up a tolerance unless you start enjoying it for the sake of enjoying it and nothing more. This can apply to pretty much any substance or routine. Right now for me it's video games :(
- rcarmo 6y ago
  I switched back from coffee to tea. Partly because we have "real coffee" here in Portugal (expresso, a cultural import from the Italians via the Cimbalino series of coffee shop hardware, IIRC), partly because a long mug is better suited to winter, and partly because I am back working 90% with British folk, to the extent where we can compare blends... But, overall, it suits me better. Takes longer to drink, does not mess with my stomach in the mornings, and smells great. (Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed).
  - nocman 6y ago
    > (Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed). Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "American-style coffee"? Are you referring to something you would get at Starbucks, or are you referring to the quality of the coffee beans used to make it?
    - bmn__ 6y ago
      American coffee is diluted whereas in most other places I know it's not.
    - foolmeonce 6y ago
      The US coffee tradition is both not very strong and made without pressure (drip/filter.) Most places use espresso level pressure even on larger weaker coffees. The stovetop moka is still typical for occasional coffee drinkers and is lower pressure, but still made stronger than drip coffee. If you add an equal quantity of hot water to an espresso that is the European cafe attempt at emulating an American coffee, but it still has different taste because of the pressure. I don't think Europe is as obsessed with aribica beans, robusta is common and actually quite good. In drip coffee, arabica is really the only thing drinkable or the closest to drinkable depending on your perspective.
    - legerdemain 6y ago
      American-style "coffee" is harshly roasted at high temperatures and then ground to a powder in a destructive processing machine. Finally, it is diluted with water and even mixed with sugar to make it more palatable. Europeans prefer to chew on a few green coffee beans throughout the day as a long-lasting source of clean, non-jittery, all-natural energy.
- drakudo 6y ago
  I would recommend dropping coffee for tea. Switch to tea... (sorry for mocking ;) ). Honestly, while real bean coffee includes caffeine, which energizes you for 30 minutes, it also includes theobromine, which would put you to sleep after 30 minutes; tea (black tea and earl gray) has caffeine only. Instant coffee with milk (like Nescafe decaf) is a good beverage to drink before the bed time, since it contains theobromine only
- mrburton 6y ago
  You might want to kill me after I say this, certainly people on HN want to kill me just for fun ;), but I also drink coffee. I only drink sugar free Red Bull. What's strange is I can stop for months without any withdraw from caffeine. I often go from drinking Red Bull + Coffee for a few months to just water for multiple months. Once I finish this case, I think it's time to go back to water and coffee for 6 months. :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
mihirchronicles 6y ago
I would second these guidelines as well to make wfh manageable. I'll emphasize on 3. Manage your expectations with your direct reports. Let them know in order to stay sane you are going to have set schedule to manage stress while wfh. I do this with everyone I meet at work to set those expectations onset. It has helped tremendously.
itsoktocry 6y ago
>Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office". If this is important (and I agree it is) then we're setting up the vast majority of people for burnout. Most people don't have the luxury of a room they can convert into an office.
- sli 6y ago
  The fourth bullet point is also a non-starter. I'm sorry, but it's not, nor was it ever, good advice for programmers to write code both at work and at home. We don't expect this of other careers, we shouldn't expect it of developers, either. Feel free to write code after work if you like, but to consider it anywhere close to a requirement, even to just help with burnout, is perpetuating a rather toxic view of this particular industry's workers.
  - progforlyfe 6y ago
    I took item 4 to mean "at work" -- find something enjoyable to work on at work / while actually working... Which definitely isn't always an option depending on your job.
  - zarq 6y ago
    I agree to what you're saying, but the 4th bullet should not mean this. Find joy in what you're doing is independent advice. I would add to this that outside of work, you should also look for something that gives you joy. Something that is not coding would be preferred.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      It's not really your place to tell people what hobbies are OK to enjoy.
  - gameman144 6y ago
    That one seems like pretty common advice even for non-software fields. The work you love doesn't have to be software, too, but you should be working on something you enjoy (or if you get fulfillment from your job, that's just a bonus!)
traveler01 6y ago
Advise: If you have a gaming PC don't work in the same division and in the said PC. You end up really not using the PC for anything else than working because in your free time last thing you wan't will be in the front of that PC. I sold my gaming PC and bought a Xbox to spend my free (I used my laptop to work at the company so I'm just using that laptop to also work).
- josefresco 6y ago
  I use my PC for both work and PC gaming. I find I have to get up from my desk for at least 45-60 min and reset after my workday before I'm ready to sit back down and game.
  - babelfish 6y ago
    Something that helps me is having 2 laptops (though I'd imagine it would work just as well with 2 accounts on the same computer). My work-provided laptop stays in my work area at all times, and I don't put anything work-related on my personal laptop. I also took at least an hour or two customizing each one (name, background, dock) so that it feels different than the other. That way when I hop off my work laptop at the end of the day, if I decide to pick up my personal laptop, it immediately feels like I'm doing something different.
    - jarofgreen 6y ago
      These days I have different computers for work and play but I used to just have one for both. If that's you, absolutely, definitely, try having different user accounts for work and personal. Having that separation is very important, and having different accounts is an cheap and easy way that almost everyone's OS already supports.
  - traveler01 6y ago
    Couldn't stand doing that. It would just feel like I wasn't getting enough rest you know? Now I just go to the living room and play in my Xbox. Dunno, I need to change environments to separate things.
rcarmo 6y ago
I have been doing all of those for 327 days and have already had two instances when I was near burnout. Here's my schedule: - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200 My recommendations (which are very much like yours): - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230 Some venting on remote challenges: - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830
paxys 6y ago
6. Drink water throughout the day. I'm convinced that a large part of the stress people have been feeling this past year is due to dehydration and lack of proper nutrition.
- nradov 6y ago
  There's no scientific evidence that drinking extra water when you're not thirsty has any health benefits.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    There are other things that dehydration manifests itself as beside just being thirsty though. Lightheadedness is a big one for me.
- jniedrauer 6y ago
  I'm not at all convinced. I was in peak physical condition while training for mountain races this year, and I still experienced the same stress and anxiety everyone else did.
- ck425 6y ago
  I definitely notice a positive difference when I drink more water than coffee but the core problems causing burnout are still there and unresolved. It's a boost not a fix.
mancerayder 6y ago
> 1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office". I live in a city where an apartment costs 1500 a square foot, so a two bedroom apartment for a single person is barely affordable. This pandemic has taught me that crowded cities suck.
- mrburton 6y ago
  Life choices always have an impact. I'm not judging you, because trust me, expensive areas like New York City (I love living there) are great, but blow during a pandemic since you're unable to enjoy what the actual city has to offer. When I relocated back east, I made it a point to a) not live in the city since it'll be overpriced and I won't be able to enjoy the surrounding area and b) Price per square footage wouldn't make sense if I'm at home 24/7. So I went across the river and pay less for _a lot more_. I know a lot of people are moving to Austin TX. They get a LOT more for their money. I was lucky to be on a month by month lease when the pandemic hit.
  - mancerayder 6y ago
    I've thought about Austin and other places, if I'm honest. It's a huge change as it would require new friends and, harder, a new job. It's on my mind. I'm single so I'm wary of not living in a large, walkable city.
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    I've lived in Austin for just over 10 years and while there are major benefits over the coasts, the downside is the city is also importing the bad things. Homelessness is off the charts with the street camping and violence that comes along with it. If you're familiar with SF, it's nothing like the Tenderloin but more like SOMA-lite. In addition, shootings are way up. For context, there were 39 total in 2019. In the summer of 2020, we had 40 consecutive days of shootings. Further, the local DA has also adopted the mindset of not prosecuting "low level" crimes of any theft under $750. Sacrificing what makes Austin compelling is not the way to go.
    - 6y ago
shortandsweet 6y ago
Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your offering. Genuinely!
notacoward 6y ago
Good advice. Thank you. I'd also add some sort of exercise. It doesn't have to be intense, and sometimes it's not even about the physical benefits. Just the ritual and the focus on something other than work or current events and the various chemical things that happen with exercise might yield more mental benefits than physical. Getting outside makes it even better, if your circumstances allow that. It's like getting good sleep (another important thing BTW). The difference won't be immediate or dramatic, but over sufficient time you'll feel just a bit better.
newbie2020 6y ago
Point #1 is a luxury in itself. If you can even say that, then circumstances are likely a lot easier for you. Point #4... not everyone has that choice.
- mrburton 6y ago
  Item #1 - 100% correct. Item #4 - I fully disagree. Some choices are scary to actually make, but are healthy. For instance, my mom stayed with her abusive husband for many years because she had Stockholm syndrome. If you had asked her why didn't she leave during that time, she would say "I didn't have a choice". Ask her now, and she will tell you "Fear - fear of not knowing how things would work out." Sometimes the hardest choices to make are the impossible choices.
flatiron 6y ago
6. Don’t have young children I messed up sadly on that one.
endymi0n 6y ago
6. Don‘t have young kids at home. Sorry for the unqualified snark here, just couldn‘t resist. The realities couldn‘t be more different for different people at this time. Someone recently asked me whether I enjoyed my Corona free time as well. I didn’t know what to answer as could not even comprehend the concept. I‘m missing everything. Time for myself. Silence. Holidays. Physical movement. Sanity. Work and Noise, non-stop, around the clock. Still falling behind on all projects with limited understanding of single colleagues with more time to kill than Netflix has content. I love those rascals, but I‘m crashing on the couch every night and barely make it out of bed the next day. Just functioning and surviving. Never been more exhausted in my life before.
- volfied 6y ago
  Yeah, I think the people that had the best of this shitty situation are introverted, no child couples with stable remote supporting jobs. My wife and I are toast by kids'(2&4) bedtime, and can only sit on the couch watching something and reel from the day. Like Ron Swanson said, I miss silence, and the absence of noise.
  - jdminhbg 6y ago
    > Yeah, I think the people that had the best of this shitty situation are introverted, no child couples with stable remote supporting jobs. These people are also the most overrepresented on various internet fora.
    - alisonkisk 6y ago
      I think singles are more represented than couples.
    - narrator 6y ago
      I had a "Covid fling" with someone who I would have never dated otherwise. Obviously, that made things a lot more fun than they otherwise would have been.
    - erm2500 6y ago
bergstromm466 6y ago
> 2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls. Are you listening to the others venting too?
e9 6y ago
1. Kicked out my roommate and made an office. Didn't help. 2. It's very hard to do casual check-in with another person.I feel like I'm bothering them too much. I can't get over it. Too stressful. Was way easier in person. Just feel the room and interrupt as needed. 3. I wake up early, take my pre-workout or red bull or 5h energy but just stare at the screen for 4 hours between 8 and noon and can't start. 4. I love the product but I can't start working wihtout others around me. 5. I hired multiple therapists. They put me on meds. I took medical leave. Nothing helped. For me, work is for work and home is for home or for "work on autopilot"
- wccrawford 6y ago
  Our company has a daily meeting for the team. On paper, it's to talk about what we did yesterday and what we're doing today. And we do that. But we're allowed to take as much time beyond that as we like to socialize. We talk about tv, movies, games, sports, whatever. Without this, I think I would be a lot worse off in this crisis, and I'm a pretty extreme introvert. If I was in your situation and had to actually bug people to talk to them... Ugh. No way. Have you asked others if they want to be on an 8 hr/day video call with you? Perhaps there are others that would prefer that, or would do it to help you. I personally would not enjoy that, but if someone on my team needed it... I'd at least try to deal with it. Alternatively, maybe you can find a few of them to do it for 2 hrs/day and take the edge off.
  - e9 6y ago
    Yeah I tried the constant live streaming thing. It helped for a bit.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Not sure what your budget situation is, but what if you got a new roommate and then rented another small apartment nearby to be your "office"? It wouldn't solve the people around part, but at least you'd have an office to go to.
  - e9 6y ago
newu010221 6y ago
For me #1 is turning off my work laptop. I don't have any notifications on my phone either. I don't have any problems with turning work off.
eanthy 6y ago
I've never been more relaxed too, here are some more pointers: 1. Realise you're lucky to be in this position to work from home, as opposed to medical staff and being depressed is a luxury. 2. You are not a code machine, amount of code written is not a good measure of how productive you are. Better think of how much you contributed overall or learnt something new that year. 3. Your work is not your life, so focus and even obsess over other things such as hobbies and spend more mental energy on that rather than worry about your job. Your job just pays the bills nothing more. 4. Find online ways to socialise such as playing online games. If you're introverted that should be enough to satisfy your social needs.
- ck425 6y ago
  > being depressed is a luxury I know rationally that you're correct but it's damn hard to keep that in mind when you're depressed.

verganileonardo 6y ago

I would recommend dropping the Red Bull. Switch to coffee, if you like that. Even an iced can coffee would be healthier. I used to drink it daily and it destroyed my body. Also, Red Bull is quite expensive!

voodootrucker 6y ago
Yes, maybe this is just me, but every time I have an extended work from home period, depression follows after a few months. I was working around this once by drinking red bull, which I found lifted my emotions temporarily, but after it wore off in 4 hours I crashed way harder into despair. This effect built up over time and fortunately I noticed it and stopped using it routinely. YMMV - just a friendly warning of how it affected me.
- verganileonardo 6y ago
  Yes! And the worst case scenarios happened when my body was tired and wanted to stop, but my brain was high on Red Bull and didn't let me fall sleep.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  If you generally use anything as a crutch it will start wearing off and you will build up a tolerance unless you start enjoying it for the sake of enjoying it and nothing more. This can apply to pretty much any substance or routine. Right now for me it's video games :(
rcarmo 6y ago
I switched back from coffee to tea. Partly because we have "real coffee" here in Portugal (expresso, a cultural import from the Italians via the Cimbalino series of coffee shop hardware, IIRC), partly because a long mug is better suited to winter, and partly because I am back working 90% with British folk, to the extent where we can compare blends... But, overall, it suits me better. Takes longer to drink, does not mess with my stomach in the mornings, and smells great. (Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed).
- nocman 6y ago
  > (Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed). Out of curiosity, what exactly do you mean by "American-style coffee"? Are you referring to something you would get at Starbucks, or are you referring to the quality of the coffee beans used to make it?
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    American coffee is diluted whereas in most other places I know it's not.
  - foolmeonce 6y ago
    The US coffee tradition is both not very strong and made without pressure (drip/filter.) Most places use espresso level pressure even on larger weaker coffees. The stovetop moka is still typical for occasional coffee drinkers and is lower pressure, but still made stronger than drip coffee. If you add an equal quantity of hot water to an espresso that is the European cafe attempt at emulating an American coffee, but it still has different taste because of the pressure. I don't think Europe is as obsessed with aribica beans, robusta is common and actually quite good. In drip coffee, arabica is really the only thing drinkable or the closest to drinkable depending on your perspective.
  - legerdemain 6y ago
    American-style "coffee" is harshly roasted at high temperatures and then ground to a powder in a destructive processing machine. Finally, it is diluted with water and even mixed with sugar to make it more palatable. Europeans prefer to chew on a few green coffee beans throughout the day as a long-lasting source of clean, non-jittery, all-natural energy.
drakudo 6y ago
I would recommend dropping coffee for tea. Switch to tea... (sorry for mocking ;) ). Honestly, while real bean coffee includes caffeine, which energizes you for 30 minutes, it also includes theobromine, which would put you to sleep after 30 minutes; tea (black tea and earl gray) has caffeine only. Instant coffee with milk (like Nescafe decaf) is a good beverage to drink before the bed time, since it contains theobromine only
mrburton 6y ago
You might want to kill me after I say this, certainly people on HN want to kill me just for fun ;), but I also drink coffee. I only drink sugar free Red Bull. What's strange is I can stop for months without any withdraw from caffeine. I often go from drinking Red Bull + Coffee for a few months to just water for multiple months. Once I finish this case, I think it's time to go back to water and coffee for 6 months. :)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

mihirchronicles 6y ago

I would second these guidelines as well to make wfh manageable. I'll emphasize on 3. Manage your expectations with your direct reports. Let them know in order to stay sane you are going to have set schedule to manage stress while wfh. I do this with everyone I meet at work to set those expectations onset. It has helped tremendously.

itsoktocry 6y ago

>Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office". If this is important (and I agree it is) then we're setting up the vast majority of people for burnout. Most people don't have the luxury of a room they can convert into an office.

sli 6y ago
The fourth bullet point is also a non-starter. I'm sorry, but it's not, nor was it ever, good advice for programmers to write code both at work and at home. We don't expect this of other careers, we shouldn't expect it of developers, either. Feel free to write code after work if you like, but to consider it anywhere close to a requirement, even to just help with burnout, is perpetuating a rather toxic view of this particular industry's workers.
- progforlyfe 6y ago
  I took item 4 to mean "at work" -- find something enjoyable to work on at work / while actually working... Which definitely isn't always an option depending on your job.
- zarq 6y ago
  I agree to what you're saying, but the 4th bullet should not mean this. Find joy in what you're doing is independent advice. I would add to this that outside of work, you should also look for something that gives you joy. Something that is not coding would be preferred.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    It's not really your place to tell people what hobbies are OK to enjoy.
- gameman144 6y ago
  That one seems like pretty common advice even for non-software fields. The work you love doesn't have to be software, too, but you should be working on something you enjoy (or if you get fulfillment from your job, that's just a bonus!)

traveler01 6y ago

Advise: If you have a gaming PC don't work in the same division and in the said PC. You end up really not using the PC for anything else than working because in your free time last thing you wan't will be in the front of that PC. I sold my gaming PC and bought a Xbox to spend my free (I used my laptop to work at the company so I'm just using that laptop to also work).

josefresco 6y ago
I use my PC for both work and PC gaming. I find I have to get up from my desk for at least 45-60 min and reset after my workday before I'm ready to sit back down and game.
- babelfish 6y ago
  Something that helps me is having 2 laptops (though I'd imagine it would work just as well with 2 accounts on the same computer). My work-provided laptop stays in my work area at all times, and I don't put anything work-related on my personal laptop. I also took at least an hour or two customizing each one (name, background, dock) so that it feels different than the other. That way when I hop off my work laptop at the end of the day, if I decide to pick up my personal laptop, it immediately feels like I'm doing something different.
  - jarofgreen 6y ago
    These days I have different computers for work and play but I used to just have one for both. If that's you, absolutely, definitely, try having different user accounts for work and personal. Having that separation is very important, and having different accounts is an cheap and easy way that almost everyone's OS already supports.
- traveler01 6y ago
  Couldn't stand doing that. It would just feel like I wasn't getting enough rest you know? Now I just go to the living room and play in my Xbox. Dunno, I need to change environments to separate things.

rcarmo 6y ago

I have been doing all of those for 327 days and have already had two instances when I was near burnout. Here's my schedule: - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200 My recommendations (which are very much like yours): - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230 Some venting on remote challenges: - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830 https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830

paxys 6y ago

6. Drink water throughout the day. I'm convinced that a large part of the stress people have been feeling this past year is due to dehydration and lack of proper nutrition.

nradov 6y ago
There's no scientific evidence that drinking extra water when you're not thirsty has any health benefits.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  There are other things that dehydration manifests itself as beside just being thirsty though. Lightheadedness is a big one for me.
jniedrauer 6y ago
I'm not at all convinced. I was in peak physical condition while training for mountain races this year, and I still experienced the same stress and anxiety everyone else did.
ck425 6y ago
I definitely notice a positive difference when I drink more water than coffee but the core problems causing burnout are still there and unresolved. It's a boost not a fix.

mancerayder 6y ago

> 1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office". I live in a city where an apartment costs 1500 a square foot, so a two bedroom apartment for a single person is barely affordable. This pandemic has taught me that crowded cities suck.

mrburton 6y ago
Life choices always have an impact. I'm not judging you, because trust me, expensive areas like New York City (I love living there) are great, but blow during a pandemic since you're unable to enjoy what the actual city has to offer. When I relocated back east, I made it a point to a) not live in the city since it'll be overpriced and I won't be able to enjoy the surrounding area and b) Price per square footage wouldn't make sense if I'm at home 24/7. So I went across the river and pay less for _a lot more_. I know a lot of people are moving to Austin TX. They get a LOT more for their money. I was lucky to be on a month by month lease when the pandemic hit.
- mancerayder 6y ago
  I've thought about Austin and other places, if I'm honest. It's a huge change as it would require new friends and, harder, a new job. It's on my mind. I'm single so I'm wary of not living in a large, walkable city.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  I've lived in Austin for just over 10 years and while there are major benefits over the coasts, the downside is the city is also importing the bad things. Homelessness is off the charts with the street camping and violence that comes along with it. If you're familiar with SF, it's nothing like the Tenderloin but more like SOMA-lite. In addition, shootings are way up. For context, there were 39 total in 2019. In the summer of 2020, we had 40 consecutive days of shootings. Further, the local DA has also adopted the mindset of not prosecuting "low level" crimes of any theft under $750. Sacrificing what makes Austin compelling is not the way to go.
  - 6y ago

shortandsweet 6y ago

Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your offering. Genuinely!

notacoward 6y ago

Good advice. Thank you. I'd also add some sort of exercise. It doesn't have to be intense, and sometimes it's not even about the physical benefits. Just the ritual and the focus on something other than work or current events and the various chemical things that happen with exercise might yield more mental benefits than physical. Getting outside makes it even better, if your circumstances allow that. It's like getting good sleep (another important thing BTW). The difference won't be immediate or dramatic, but over sufficient time you'll feel just a bit better.

newbie2020 6y ago

Point #1 is a luxury in itself. If you can even say that, then circumstances are likely a lot easier for you. Point #4... not everyone has that choice.

mrburton 6y ago
Item #1 - 100% correct. Item #4 - I fully disagree. Some choices are scary to actually make, but are healthy. For instance, my mom stayed with her abusive husband for many years because she had Stockholm syndrome. If you had asked her why didn't she leave during that time, she would say "I didn't have a choice". Ask her now, and she will tell you "Fear - fear of not knowing how things would work out." Sometimes the hardest choices to make are the impossible choices.

flatiron 6y ago

6. Don’t have young children I messed up sadly on that one.

endymi0n 6y ago

6. Don‘t have young kids at home. Sorry for the unqualified snark here, just couldn‘t resist. The realities couldn‘t be more different for different people at this time. Someone recently asked me whether I enjoyed my Corona free time as well. I didn’t know what to answer as could not even comprehend the concept. I‘m missing everything. Time for myself. Silence. Holidays. Physical movement. Sanity. Work and Noise, non-stop, around the clock. Still falling behind on all projects with limited understanding of single colleagues with more time to kill than Netflix has content. I love those rascals, but I‘m crashing on the couch every night and barely make it out of bed the next day. Just functioning and surviving. Never been more exhausted in my life before.

volfied 6y ago
Yeah, I think the people that had the best of this shitty situation are introverted, no child couples with stable remote supporting jobs. My wife and I are toast by kids'(2&4) bedtime, and can only sit on the couch watching something and reel from the day. Like Ron Swanson said, I miss silence, and the absence of noise.
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  > Yeah, I think the people that had the best of this shitty situation are introverted, no child couples with stable remote supporting jobs. These people are also the most overrepresented on various internet fora.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    I think singles are more represented than couples.
  - narrator 6y ago
    I had a "Covid fling" with someone who I would have never dated otherwise. Obviously, that made things a lot more fun than they otherwise would have been.
  - erm2500 6y ago

bergstromm466 6y ago

> 2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls. Are you listening to the others venting too?

e9 6y ago

1. Kicked out my roommate and made an office. Didn't help. 2. It's very hard to do casual check-in with another person.I feel like I'm bothering them too much. I can't get over it. Too stressful. Was way easier in person. Just feel the room and interrupt as needed. 3. I wake up early, take my pre-workout or red bull or 5h energy but just stare at the screen for 4 hours between 8 and noon and can't start. 4. I love the product but I can't start working wihtout others around me. 5. I hired multiple therapists. They put me on meds. I took medical leave. Nothing helped. For me, work is for work and home is for home or for "work on autopilot"

wccrawford 6y ago
Our company has a daily meeting for the team. On paper, it's to talk about what we did yesterday and what we're doing today. And we do that. But we're allowed to take as much time beyond that as we like to socialize. We talk about tv, movies, games, sports, whatever. Without this, I think I would be a lot worse off in this crisis, and I'm a pretty extreme introvert. If I was in your situation and had to actually bug people to talk to them... Ugh. No way. Have you asked others if they want to be on an 8 hr/day video call with you? Perhaps there are others that would prefer that, or would do it to help you. I personally would not enjoy that, but if someone on my team needed it... I'd at least try to deal with it. Alternatively, maybe you can find a few of them to do it for 2 hrs/day and take the edge off.
- e9 6y ago
  Yeah I tried the constant live streaming thing. It helped for a bit.
jedberg 6y ago
Not sure what your budget situation is, but what if you got a new roommate and then rented another small apartment nearby to be your "office"? It wouldn't solve the people around part, but at least you'd have an office to go to.
- e9 6y ago

newu010221 6y ago

For me #1 is turning off my work laptop. I don't have any notifications on my phone either. I don't have any problems with turning work off.

eanthy 6y ago

I've never been more relaxed too, here are some more pointers: 1. Realise you're lucky to be in this position to work from home, as opposed to medical staff and being depressed is a luxury. 2. You are not a code machine, amount of code written is not a good measure of how productive you are. Better think of how much you contributed overall or learnt something new that year. 3. Your work is not your life, so focus and even obsess over other things such as hobbies and spend more mental energy on that rather than worry about your job. Your job just pays the bills nothing more. 4. Find online ways to socialise such as playing online games. If you're introverted that should be enough to satisfy your social needs.

ck425 6y ago
> being depressed is a luxury I know rationally that you're correct but it's damn hard to keep that in mind when you're depressed.