I've never been burnt out(yet). What does it feel like?

Coding stops being fun. You do it because you have to, not because you want to, and you do as little of it as possible. You stop caring about new tech and exploring new things because you're just not interested anymore.

Much like depression, but specifically work related.

I've been there, and come back there at times when I overwork myself and don't get outside enough. Not fun.

You know that drive to get things done? The emotion that pushes you to accomplish amazing things, to build the product that you're being paid to build -- or the product of your dreams? To work long hours because you Need This Feature To Be Done Before Friday?

That part of you feels dead. You can barely convince yourself to get out of bed. You just feel numb. Tired all the time, but unable to get enough sleep to feel better.

It's not the same as depression, though if you put enough of your self-worth into your ability to be awesome, it can lead to depression.

It probably is related to just being under-slept, but it requires about 2-3 months of good sleep (probably longer if you can't take that much time off work and really relax) to recharge your brain.

It also may be related to the psychological concept of "ego depletion." [1] At least that's how it has felt to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

For me it was a weird mix of guilt and indifference. On the one hand I knew I was wasting my playing video games instead of working. On the other hand I didn't really give a shit. Being burned out was total indifference towards working - with everything that entails, including being self-sustaining money wise - while at the same time having the knowledge that what I was doing was not beneficial to my life and would very quickly end up hurting me.

Looking back I was in that spiral for too long, I spent months not doing much of anything. I'm not sure at what point it started getting better for me, it seemed to just gradually get better very slowly. Eventually I shook up my life by taking a job in an entirely different country and the difference in daily life was enough to invigorate me again.

Imagine depression, but about your job. You try to force yourself to do the necessary tasks, and it takes enormous effort (if done at all). You may just no longer care. Feeling exhausted constantly, both physically and/or emotionally is also frequently experienced.

I sometimes have to pull off tight deadlines that require me to go three or four days with only a couple hours of sleep each time (it's grad school, it sucks).

Burnout for me feels like the third day of that all the time. A fatigue so deep it's almost an ache. The thought of booting up your IDE feels like the equivalent of sitting through a lecture after that third day of little to no sleep. Sure, you can do it, but it just seems like such a chore.

That's burnout. It takes the things that invigorate you and turns them into chores. Then it breaks both your legs. Have fun getting your chores done.

> It takes the things that invigorate you and turns them into chores. Then it breaks both your legs. Have fun getting your chores done.

This part of your description was much better than my whole post.

Well its a form of depression. If you'r feeling unmotivated for longer periods time, frustrated at all the stuff you still need to do but still can't start, often procrastinating for days/weeks before you can make small progress.. Then you are probably burnt out. A project with big ambitions, tight deadlines and a small team and budget will get you there some time.

You are so right. It's even more accurate then the OP shows. We've all been there. But the thing is how to get out of it. A project with big ambitions and tight budget can not be stopped, but has to be delayed while you are recharging yourself.

One thing I always avoid is depriving of enough sleep which will cause physically burned out and it's hard to recover as other people mentioned. It may cause long term negative effect. If it happens in a short term, make it up quickly to fully recover yourself and come back to the energy level soon.

Psychologically if we are burned out for a certain task, we can switch to some other type of tasks instead of doing nothing productive. But sometimes, it's hard to keep the engine running without burning out of fuel. For most of the startup teams, after reaching a certain milestone, it will be followed by a lot of lip service or brain storming before they gear up towards a new target.

I guess more important than knowing how to cure burnout is knowing how identify it. When I got it a while ago my reaction was to put even more effort at the project, to compensate for my reduced productivity and get it done for once. All I can tell is that it was a very bad reaction.

Very interesting reaction. It is a very rational decision to turn things over. But it looks like that it made you even more burned out.

Yes, once it happens, we have to turn around and do something else which is also productive. Give yourself enough relax both physically and mentally, then go out and talk to more people, you may get some positive energy and idea to make yourself refreshed.

To me, coding is like playing game. It's part of the language we use, but just talk to the machine instead. Somehow, I think programmers are really less superior, just like we are in the eye of the business people. We can do a good job to talk to machine, but may not be good to deal with people and make money. On the other hand, we are proud of us that we can make machine work according to our idea, we can create program to do whatever things we like, it's more or less like God created the world.

So trying to be God is not easy. Let's take a breathe and go further.

The most relatable way I've found to describe it as that after burning out it takes 100% of your current effort to achieve 10% of your previous output.

That's ignoring the random bouts of crying for no particular reason and things like that, because I'm pretty sure they're unique to each individual.

Seconded. What I notice most when I'm on the verge of burnout is a lack of capacity for stress. Say when something breaks first thing in the morning - under normal circumstances, it's cause for some grumbling and maybe frustration at the time taken out of your day. When burnout is at hand, I'm just out of my mind. I don't have the tolerance for even the minor stressors, and nowhere close to my normal patience for the slow, thoughtful work necessary for top performance.

Burn out - for me - means a shorter temper and less productivity.

Apparently blaming other people (in my case for 'not pulling their weight') is actually one of the clinical symptoms of (upcoming) burnout.

Or the reverse: a total lack of impact. "Broken. How about that."

All of the things mentioned in other comments. However my burnout also lead to chronic fatigue syndrome, which (at least for some people) seems to be caused by extreme burnout. Severe depression/anxiety, inability to digest much food, severe fatigue (not able to walk very far, if at all), vertigo/POTS, disrupted sleep cycle, feeling very cold, etc. Some people get chronic pain as well.