The author's premise is that you burnout because you do not spend time on the things that truly fulfill you, whatever those may be. It is very possible, and maybe even probable, that people who do not "work so hard" can still experience burn out because they do not use their free time to do the things that fulfill them.
If you are working so hard that you simply cannot find any time to fit in fulfilling activities, then yes, you should not work so hard.
If you are being taken advantage of and pressured into working too hard without adequate compensation, then you should find a better job.
However, "not work so hard" is not an answer to the problem as outlined by the author and seems more like a response to the headline than to the article itself.
I'm not missing the point of the article. I'm disregarding it.
When you're working so hard that you burn out, we shouldn't be discussing how to mitigate the effects. Just stop working.
This author tries to pretend the cause of burnout is not too much work, but too much "unfufilling" work. As if working from morning till midnight is perfectly fine, as long as you convince yourself the code you write in this half-asleep state is making the world a better place (and not just lining the pockets of your boss). This is exactly the attitude the tech industry needs to erase.
Yes, programming can be fun, but everyone needs a break, even from fun things. Furthermore, having a fulfilling job doesn't mean your time is free.
Hours worked doesn't always contribute to burnout. I can easily feel burnout working 40 hour weeks filled with unsatisfying work (e.g. bureaucratic paperwork, interruptions for unimportant issues, unchallenging problems, etc). Conversely, if I am actually able to code and develop an application that is semi-interesting, I could easily go past 40 hours a week and not feel any burnout because it is fulfilling and/or enjoyable. I could also stay at 40 or a little below.
The key consideration is (perceived) fulfillment. Time spent is involved in determining this, but isn't the only variable - importance of work, enjoyment/satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, etc.
You're right. It's not just a matter of hours worked. Fufillment plays into it too. But even a job you love can burn out if you do it for too long. What's more, most of you consider programming a fulfilling career. So if you're burning out, it's probably due to your long hours. And we know programmers work long hours. So do the math.
I can corroborate this. My last job was not very intense[0], but I still experienced burnout symptoms after a few months. After a while, I just hated going to work. I got a new job, and I was suddenly energized. I started staying late to work on things not because they were past due, but because I was interested in them. I found a sense of accomplishment and self-fulfillment in doing them.
[0] Typical 8-5, fairly laid-back atmosphere, significant amount of freedom.
>>There's gotta be an official name for these. That skinny page with varying font sizes of text images or embedded youtube videos encouraging you to buy/ act now / sign-up for their free newsletter til a big call-to-action at the bottom after scrolling for 10 minutes?
Exactly. It is the same story when people say "Facebook ads don't work" or whatever the new ad platform is. If you could simply hand $X to an ad company and reliably return $2X or even $1.2X then the money would simply not last because there would be no barriers to entry.
Customer acquisition is not something you can leave to chance, it would be like placing a bet a blackjack table and saying you better quit if you lose. If you dont know how to count cards, you should have quit before even sitting down. If you dont know how to utilize different ad channels, you are better off studying them before betting anything, otherwise you are just playing blind.
Find a repeatable way to profitably onboard customers. If you cannot do that and have truly put the effort in to understand the different channels, then it may be time to pivot. Otherwise, you are just gambling.
Give me a break. Cuban is the first to admit that he got lucky in terms of his valuation, but it wasnt his first exit and his extensive writing on business should show that his success was not the result of luck.
Further, if it werent for his intelligent investing, he would have lost nearly all of the proceeds from that sale, like so many others did(1). It was exactly his smart investing that allowed him to _keep_ his "lucky" windfall
You're missing my point. He "made" his fortune by selling a company at a spectacular overvaluation. That's fine, but don't pretend that he turned a few million into a few billion through smart investing.
With regard to the moves he made after the ridiculous Broadcast.com sale, all he did was lock in his profits. That turned out to be the correct move, but that doesn't necessarily say anything about his investing skills. It just shows that he realized that he had hit the lottery and wanted to insure his win.
Warren Buffett made his money through smart investing. Mark Cuban did not, so I'd rather listen to Warren Buffett and others like him than an opinionated guy that got lucky.
Yes. Your value as a consultant is dependent upon being able to deliver value to clients. From the sounds of it, you are a reasonably skilled programmer, so the difficulty is not on the technical side but on explaining to business owners why your services will make them more money. Read anything you can find by Patrick Mckenzie, and just start putting your knowledge to work. You will quickly learn what skills you need that you dont yet have.
Online contact lens sellers (at least ones I've used) do verify your prescription. Is it up to FedEx to investigate whether their customers are required to and actually do verify prescriptions?
Wondering how to get your first client as a consultant for a non-technical role? Creating something as thorough as this is probably a good place to start.
When people talk about creating great content, they dont mean a weekly roundup post, or asking 17 industry leaders to answer a question, they mean something like this.
Will serious companies actually post the money to an escrow? I dont have any experience with this directly, but cant imagine any company with say >100 employees would respond favorably to this request
Those companies also usually pay part in advance. If you read a bit about other freelancers process (even here in HN there is a lot of advice) most will ask for some kind of advance.
