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General Discussion

How to prevent burnout?

Hey folks,

A topic that has interested me in the past few years is burnout. It's something that was brought up a lot throughout college and I never thought it would happen to me.

For the past three years, I've worked as a front-end developer at a creative agency. I've learned a variety of skills on the job and off. In the beginning, I used to dedicate most nights to continued practice on Treehouse or personal projects. But I'm finding now that it's becoming more difficult for me to have the energy to do so. I come home from work and the last thing I want to do is more coding.

Does anyone have any tips to prevent burnout or how to come out of it?

2 Answers

Brendan Whiting
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.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brendan Whiting
Front End Web Development Techdegree Graduate 84,738 Points

I think it's better to work on personal coding projects on the weekend rather than evenings. Working in the evenings is too many hours sitting in a chair staring at glowing rectangles all in one day, it's not healthy. Better to have other activities balance it out like exercise or cooking. A few extra coding hours on the weekend doesn't add the same strain.

Maybe you also need to find a project that is more inspiring to work on, or collaborators that are fun to work with. And if you don't have a big idea right now, or anyone to help, maybe take a little break until you do.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

:christmas_tree: This time of year, a fun way to practice is to participate in the Advent of Code, which is a set of fun little programming puzzles released one per day from December 1 through 25. Each can be solved in any programming language you like.

All previous puzzles are still available, so you can "catch up" for this year and enjoy the other year's puzzles during the rest of the year while waiting for next December (they've been doing this since 2015).

Happy coding! :santa: