Name: Video recording for Avoiding Burnout as a Developer: Practical Steps and Tools - Codementor Events
Uploaded: 2022-04-27
Description: We’ll also explore tools for mitigating burnout, how to recognize its onset, and a few more surprises with Jen in this talk.

We’ll also explore tools for mitigating burnout, how to recognize its onset, and a few more surprises with Jen in this talk.

*This talk was part of Developer Growth Summit 2022. Go to [the DGS2022 page](https://www.codementor.io/events/developer-growth-summit?ref=eventpage) to view recordings of all sessions.*

## About the talk
Burnout in tech is rampant. In this talk, Jen will share her perspective after 22 years in the industry. We’ll also explore tools for mitigating burnout, how to recognize its onset, and a few more surprises!

### This talk will cover

- Tools to mitigate burnout
- How to recognize burnout early on
- Exercises to avoid burnout

non-technical events about soft or workplace skills like communication skills

Essential Skills

### What are some signs of burnout?


Recently, there’s been an interesting read called the “State of burnout.” It stated that women are at a higher risk of burnout. The signs include:


* Inability to relax
* Headaches, backaches, physical pain
* Bad attitude at work, cynicism, criticism 
* Dependences on alcohol, etc.
* Anxiety
* Exhaustion 
* Demotivation 


These are all signs of burnout. The general thought for why you burnout is you have too much work, too many hours of work. In the pandemic, a lot of us picked up a lot of side hustles and that may be contributing to your burnout. The real cause of burnout has to do with a misalignment of where you’re supposed to be according to external factors, where you are, and where you want to be. If there’s a misalignment between you and your supervisor and your own ideas about your career paths, you may experience exhaustion, demotivation, and burnout.


Here are a couple of other things that can lead to burnout. One is imposter syndrome, when you’re given a task you start experiencing a burnout because you either overprepare or procrastinate due to the feeling of inadequacy. Another thing is what we call the “real-developer syndrome.” You may feel like you’re not a real developer unless you’re coding 24/7, online all the time, do one more ticket than others, and just continue to ship and ship like an android. This is extremely harmful to your work-life balance and mental health and will 100% lead to burnout. This is the overwork piece, not so much the misalignment. 


It’s great to talk to your tech friends but do seek professional help if you feel like you’re burning out.


### What are some tips to avoid burnouts?


Here are some tips to avoid burnout. The first one is to be green and surround yourself with plants and flowers. The second one is to work out, and kickboxing is a good outlet. Finding your hobbies also helps, so look within yourself and see what you might be interested in. You also want to make sure you find your squad and the people you really like hanging out with. Try to make connections with people because we are people who need people. 


You can also take care of something/someone else, like having a pet. Strong advice is to get off social media because it’s a huge time suck and not very productive. The last thing is to create something, whether it’s painting or crocheting. Create something because we are creative beings. Don’t stress about it, but you can try a side project like contributing to civic groups that need developers.

Video recording for: Avoiding Burnout as a Developer: Practical Steps and Tools

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