/Health

How I Got My Brain Back

- Brie Wolfson tl;dr: "Having my back against the wall forced me to understand more about what makes me tick, shuts me down, and picks me up." Struggling with depression, Brie tracked her moods to gain insights into what impacted them and how i.e. "a bad morning likely meant a bad day, seeing friends could go either way." Brie came up with a list of activities that positively impacted her mood, listed here, and created the "Post-It" method to execute them.

featured in #270

To Handle Increased Stress, Build Your Resilience (2018)

- Ama Marston Stephanie Marston tl;dr: To cultivate resilience: (1) Reframe how you think about stress e.g. “how can I use the energy created by feeling stressed to..." (2) Create a healthy relationship to control and note factors out of your control. (3) Understand root causes. (4) Link learning with action e.g.“what can I learn from this?” instead of “why me?”

featured in #267

Programmer’s Emotions

- Milosz Danczak tl;dr: Milosz lists all the various emotions he feels as a programmer, along with the cause of each e.g. Shame - "When I discover that something I wrote some time ago is faulty, I feel ashamed. Or when somebody finds an obvious mistake in my pull request."

featured in #265

Burnout in Software Development - Survey Results 2021

- Umer Mansoor tl;dr: (1) 82% indicated that they've experienced burnout in last 6-8 months. (2) 73% said burnout is negatively impacting productivity or personal life. (3) Increased workload and poor work culture are the main reasons. (4) 77% indicated that management is not aware or not taking steps to help. (5) 78% of the developers said they are planning to switch job within 12 months.

featured in #257

To Recover From Burnout, Regain Your Sense Of Control

- Elizabeth Grace Saunders tl;dr: When burned out, you think your circumstances are out of your control, but this victim mindset blocks you from changing your situation. You need to believe you have agency over your situation and you can implement changes, ranging from being more attentive to your physical and emotional needs, creating more boundaries at work (e.g. work less, take time off) or even looking for a new job.

featured in #255

Mental Health Impacts Of A Big Tech Job

- Jake Preston tl;dr: "I got to a point where I needed to leave and focus on myself." Jacob talks about the toxic work culture during his time at Apple and recounts a story where work was valued over employee's mental health. Much of this was exacerbated due to the fact that he could never switch off from work while at home.

featured in #254

Burning Out And Quitting

- Maya Kaczorowski tl;dr: "So why did I burn out? It was the neverending treadmill of yet another day’s worth of useless meetings, with a todo list that only grows, while you get less and less done on it every day. There isn’t a single moment that causes burnout, but there is a single moment when you realize it..." Maya discusses her experience.

featured in #248

How To Talk About Your Mental Health With Your Employer

- Kelly Greenwood tl;dr: (1) Self-reflect on the impact your mental is having on your work performance. (2) Consider context and resources that are available to you. (3) Explore your comfort level around sharing. (4) Start the conversation and have empathy for your manager.

featured in #243

Pockets Of Rest Enable Careers

- Will Larson tl;dr: Two pieces of advice if you feel burnt out: (1) Avoid making career decisions while in a bad mental place - take a two week vacation. (2) Great careers are not linear but often have a number of lulls. When you’re high energy, these lulls are opportunities to learn and accelerate your trajectory. When you are low energy, they are opportunities to rest.

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How To Prevent Or Recover From Developer Burnout

tl;dr: The author provides symptoms of burnout and runs through advice in four core areas - career, time management, lifestyle and self-care.

featured in #236