[hnthrowaway1982]

I'm glad to read this. My experience is pretty terrible at the moment. I'm not at the burnout phase, but maybe it's taking longer and will consequently be a more spectacular breakdown. I feel myself getting to closer to the edge every day.

My life situation: I have a full time day job at a small business of 18 employees as their IT director. I fight fires all day and help them dig out of constant deadline pressures. Oh, and I have my own responsibilities and we have 'initiatives' that we're accountable to which are supposed to be outside of work.

It's been too much for awhile - nearly 2 years. A year ago I started diversifying so I had something to fall back on. I took on a large side project where I'm the sole developer. It was with a longtime moonlighting client of mine who has high expectations of quality and time. I would love to subcontract the development but I'm afraid that it will take more of my time to get started and the cost/quality won't be high enough.

I wake up at 5am, do my moonlighting until about 7am. Help get my 8month old ready for the day and off to daycare. I then still can maintain a workout (30 minutes a day 6 days a week for 5 years straight), and then get to my day job. I'm there until about 6, come home spend a few hour with my daughter and wife and then feel compelled to dig out of the 20 emails I get from my coworkers while I'm disconnected. After that I try to make progress on my moonlighting gig until about 10pm.

My weekends are the same way.

Is this a good way to live? No.

I fool myself into thinking that it's just one more project or one more deadline then the pressure is off. Another one immediately follows. Occasionally, I'll slip into needing to have a few beers while working to take the edge off - to just get through it. Also not good. I'm probably developing some form of RSI because my pinkies and wrist hurt as I type this.

So, I'm suffering. On the other side, my wife just quit her job, we're renting in a new city with a house for sale (mortgage already paid off though) in another. We have at least 60 months of savings and another 40 if/when the house sells. Need insurance though so I can't quit and have no idea what it would take to self-insure. Also, don't want to eat away at that rainy day fund now that I have a daughter to take care of.

What's the solution? I tell myself I'll finish up this side project and that'll be it. I'll try to reduce my hours at work. Hopefully I can get back to a normal life - if I even know what normal is any more...

[nkohari]

(OP here.) I have a follow-up post in the works about minimization. I think that one of the major stresses in my life comes from waste. My wife and I have always been pretty minimal in the things that we choose to buy, but after we sold our company I think we lost sight of the importance of that a bit. I'm starting to suspect that some of my stress has come from having more than we need, and having to maintain it. (Particularly having to move it all from one house to the other, which always sucks.)

Anyways, my point is, your lifestyle can expand and contract rather readily, and money is power. The more money you have in the bank (and the further you can stretch that money), the less influence external pressures have on you -- and the more freedom you have in life.

I've also instituted a reasonably strict at-work/at-home policy with respect to email. I simply don't read my work email at home anymore, ever. If there's an emergency, the people I work with know they can always call, but emails will only be responded to the next morning. This also includes weekends, which I spend doing things that I find enjoyable, and never work.

Just some random thoughts. Remember (as I've had to) that people can only do well at things that they enjoy, and they only enjoy doings things that they do well.

[anthonyb]

Sounds like you've arranged things so that you're "on" 24/7, or close to it. That's definitely a trigger - in my experience, at least. It looks like you're getting less than 6 hours sleep too, particularly with an 8 month old.

You could try scaling back your after hours commitment to your daytime job. If you didn't have to email your coworkers after hours, you could either work on your side project more (the idea being to get it done and out of the way, then rest) or get more sleep. If you don't draw a "line in the sand" somewhere, clients, work, etc. will just keep pushing you until you can't take on any more work.

The other thing that you mention is "constant deadline pressures" and a client who has "high expectations of quality and time". One of my takeaways from rereading Rapid Development is that (even when specifying everything that they can think of) developers underestimate tasks by 20-30%. It's possible that you or your coworkers are falling into the same trap. I've found that keeping a record of estimates and actuals really helps push back against ridiculous estimates and expectations.

Hope that helps.

[tristanstraub]

Can't really offer any qualified advice, except listen to yourself. My unqualified advice would be to try and slow down somehow before you burn out.

One thing I can definately say is, make sure that family life is working. If that falls apart, it's just one more problem you don't need. So definately make sure that you give enough attention to your wife, and make sure you're getting enough attention from her. This point can't be stressed enough.

Perhaps someone has been there and done that and can offer better advice?

[moe]

someone has been there and done that and can offer better advice?

He has 60 months of savings. Take a vacation until you feel better...

[hnthrowaway1982]

A vacation does sound nice but I can't figure out how to do it. I guess I just need to learn to put it down, walk away. For me, there's such an incredible backlog of work that I can't seem to put it down. My wife calls me a workaholic... That could be the core issue.