It’s no lie that by the time you’re 35, you want nothing to do with writing code professionally. When I was in my early 20s, I thought that I would write code forever. Nothing seems more appealing than spending 8–12 hours each day writing code or learning about development. Those were exciting times; I’m sure you’re going through the same thing, or you’ve been through it already. If you do it for long enough, you will burn out and that’s when it starts going down hill.

Signs That You’re Overdoing It

Sleeping Less. I used to research “how to sleep less” just so that I could cram more learning time into my days. After 2 weeks of sleeping only 1.5 hours each day, I was so exhausted that I border line started to hallucinate. Contrary to what “studies” show you, you can’t sleep 1.5 hours each day at three 30 minute intervals.

You Stop Hanging Out with Friends. Each second of the day is optimized. By hanging out with friends/family, you’re “wasting time.” You feel that your time is better spent buried in the book, watching that YouTube tutorial series, or practicing writing code.

You’ve Stopped Enjoying Everything Else. There are hardcore gamers that I’ve met. Through conversation, I would ask them what they’re playing now. Their response almost shocked me: “I don’t play much anymore. I mainly study.” These were people that relaxed through games and now they’ve stepped away from them completely.

You Find Exercise a Waste of Time. This is on a new level. Even doing healthy activities seems like a waste. If you could only write those additional lines of code, everything would be great. It’s not like you have to worry about your health right now anyways.

The Developer Burnout-Productivity Cycle

When you’re younger, you might not notice any sort of burnout. You’re a machine that works all day long. My coworkers nicknamed me “Robot.” They couldn’t understand how I was able to put in 8 hours at work and an additional 8 hours studying/working on side projects after I got off.

As time progresses, you start to feel it. It might happen only once per year initially. You get to the point that you just don’t want to do anything. You’re not writing any code. You’re not hanging out with friends. Nothing. You’re just sitting there in front of your computer and trying to get yourself motivated enough to get back into it.

You finally think to yourself, “vacation. I need some time off.” You take a few days off and binge watch a few shows on Netflix. You feel refreshed and get back to work. After about 6 months, you get that feeling again. You’re burnt-out. You need some time off again, and the cycle repeats itself.

You’re like a person on a diet: it’s not sustainable. You need to make a lifestyle change. After years of this cycle, you become so irritated at the simplest questions. You start questioning your career choices: “maybe I should leave programming and become a farmer.” You’re getting to the point that you want nothing to do with technology. And then you finally do it. You stop coding and go into a leadership or project management role.

Lifestyle Change

There are developers that are in their 40s and happy. They must know the formula to success. You know what to do but you’re fighting it.

Stop Thinking in Deadlines. There are always going to be projects and there will always be deadlines. You don’t have to extend those deadlines to your personal life. How many times have you said, “when I finish this project, then I’ll start to exercise.” Trust me when I tell you, you’ll always create another project for yourself.

Get Out of the House. It doesn’t matter where you go, just get out of your home each day. Go to the gym, meet up with friends, stop by Best Buy. It doesn’t matter. The idea is to separate yourself from your addiction, which in this case is code.

Stop Working at a Specific Time. Even if you have side projects that you’re working on in hopes of quitting your 9–5, you should still set a reasonable time to stop working. I’m saying 8:00pm, not midnight. Watch your favorite show. Hang out with others (I hope you’re seeing the theme here: socialize).

If you don’t change your lifestyle, you will eventually burnout to the point that you quit writing code. It could be that all you need is some organization. Stop going through life telling yourself that you’ll “live when you get to a certain point in software development.” You never will.