15 Strong Tips For Motivated Developers To Avoid Burnout And Thrive In The Remote Era

Ovidiu Stoica
2 min readApr 29, 2022

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Last year, 190B$ were spent on burnout healthcare costs. Here’s how to be the exception for this statistic:

#1 Don’t volunteer for every task to get recognition — It never pays off the way you expect and you’ll be disappointed.

#2 Go for walks everyday — Get outside, get some sun 🌞

#3 Avoid overtime more than 1 day / week — If you have to overtime, do it once / week. Otherwise, at 17:00 close your laptop. 🕓

#4 Set clear work expectations with your boss — Tell them your work schedule and what you won’t do.

#5 Mandatory: Exercise — Non-negotiable. Exercise or get the chair hump. You choose.🏋️‍♂️

#6 Have side-projects — Work on programming stuff outside of work. Helps to get your mind off the stress at work.

#7 Have a non-tech hobby — Churchill painted to relax from politics. What makes you think you can do better? 🎨

#8 Take breaks often — 5 minute breaks: Stretch, call a friend, play with your dog. Often, this will make you more productive than before. ⌛️

#9 Ask for help from colleagues — Being blocked on a task and not asking -> Working overtime to solve it -> burnout

#10 Admit to your team when you’re bored with a project — You can switch projects but many times admitting it to others will solve the issues

#11 Request domain training to revitalise your passion — Training in modern practices or attending a conference can revitalise you

#12 Solid sleep schedule — Programmers tend to sleep 5–6 hours. You’ll grow old faster. Sleep 8 hours. No tech one hour before bed.😴

#13 At the daily standup say “Yesterday I had a bad day and didn’t do much”. — Feeling behind -> Working overtime -> Burnout

#14 Social life — You need offline friends. 🙋‍♂️

#15 Talk to your boss about your future in the company — If you think there’s no future for you in the company, you’ll be disinterested. Discuss a promotion path and steps to achieve it. 📈

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog

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Ovidiu Stoica

Hi, I’m Ovi Stoica! I help people build quality software and I write about technology, startups and marketing for developers.