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Comment on Ask HN: How do you know if you're burnt out or just being lazy?parent

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This corroborate what I have seen happen in the CTO I had a few years ago. He worked 5 years without rest. Was called by big boss in Sunday mornings to fix things. Was a very sanguine type, shout on everyone for nothing, said no to everything. All lines of code were either quick fixes or copy paste. Absolutely not long-term view. Database tables had 300 columns, named like event1, event1time, event1who, event2, event2time, etc.

He had a team of 10 interns and only one regular, and no interns would stay. He also had a specific way to breathe, like when you suffocate after 25 meters under the water in the pool.

He was so overwhelmed he grabbed a few set of random rules as his life buoys. For instance, use of <div>s was forbidden because once a <div> did float badly when resized. So we had pages with over 20 nested <table> and not one had a raison d'être.

Then he got mad against the big boss, and I replaced him. Result: he was sick for 6 months. His body had to take a revenge.

I believe he is still looking for a job.

Maybe this could be a counter-point to the guy above saying that only work is important, and that all seconds spent not working or sleeping are lost. I think it is a dangerous way to dispose of your life.

Moreover, if the goal is to succeed, I think it is wrong that all "great achievers" are necessarily 100% focused on their one tasks. Many of them actually had hobbies, and a very wide and deep general knowledge of Humanities (which can only be gathered through extensive reading).

So I would say to the OP, just stop focusing, read books, try for example "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", feed your "gumption". (And go fishing!)

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