Anyone else burnt out due to extended lockdown and work-from-home?

I spent 6 months in lock down in a 1 bedroom apartment in Australia. Working from home. 1hr outdoor/exercise a day. No more than 5km from home. We had pretty strict rules. I went for a walk around the block with my mate once a week and spoke to my family on zoom once a fortnight and that was about the extent of my social contact for a large part of 2020.

I managed pretty well. I'm a naturally introverted person, which is perhaps a good trait to have in this situation. I'm already used to spending a lot of time by myself and I have things I like to do. This is key, I think. I spent long hours making DJ mixes in Ableton and playing records on my hi-fi. That's a creative place for me and it was very satisfying to have the time to bury myself in it.

I wrote code, not heaps, but I played around with a few things.

I dug up some old/remake computer games (Half Life Black Mesa was by far the best)! I watched a bunch of old films I haven't seen in years, and a few bits and pieces on Netflix. I read books. I went for a 1hr walk every day and enjoyed the sight of trees and the sound of birds. I said a sincere thanks and smiled with my eyes at the people who staff the stores I shopped at once/twice a week. They have a hard job and I think it's important to convey gratitude to them.

I'd be lying if I said it was all fine, there were definitely days when I was bored stiff, depressed or otherwise not in a great place, but it was helpful to remember that everyone was in the same boat, and my sacrifice, along with everyone else's, are what is going to pull us through.

Keep your chins up. Especially you guys in the USA. What a mess you have to fix over there. I hope this year is productive.

Personally, I'm not burnt out.

To void burn out, I did a few things which I feel are extremely helpful.

1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office".

2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls.

3. Have a defined schedule - Awake at 6am, washed/dressed by 6:30am, Red Bull (or if you like food) and at my desk by 7am. I do work long hours, but I enjoy it because I'm accomplishing something.

4. Work on something that excites you or find joy in your work somehow.

5. Lastly, realize most of the mental stress can be managed with a little mindfulness, learning to accept that you still can grow and find joy even when at home and cut back on social media; or if you're like me, I cut out 99% of social media.

I hope everyone remains positive. Do something today, that makes you better tomorrow.

I had to leave California (been there 6 years). I was lucky because I had four other room mates to keep me company but even with that it was tough. I also wasn't really enjoying what I was working on at my previous company (adtech) and needed a change.

I ended up moving to Taiwan a few weeks ago. Zero COVID here, and was surprisingly easy to immigrate (coming from someone who was dealing with the US immigration system as a Canadian). Working at a fun startup back on the consumer product side instead. Went to a bar for the first time in a year last week and was able to just sit in a coffee shop with 10 other people this morning. I'm still teaching myself to read/speak Chinese but it's totally worth it.

Anyone with experience with TypeScript/React interested in tagging along to Taiwan, send me an email (my email is in my hacker news profile). I'm actively hiring engineers now. We're a distributed team across many different countries but a few of us hang out in Taipei together at a coworking space. It's the best of both worlds, I'm able to WFH when I feel like it but still go to a public space to be around people

I don't think it's work from home as much as it is the lack of socializing altogether. If we were able to go out and socialize outside of working from home, I'm sure many people would be faring and feeling much better than what our current situation is.

I have only been around family for the entirety of the last year, and as much as being close and connected with them is, not being able to go out to eat or do anything else does take it's toll.

I have been staying connected with friends and strangers online through things such as discord, etc. and I would have to say it has helped tremendously. Getting regular interaction with others even if it's just over audio or video goes a long way through all of this.

The work-from-home has been a massive stress-reliever for me. I don't like cities, but most tech jobs are in cities. I get to live in a nice quiet suburb now. I loathe commuting in any form, and now I don't have to do that. There used to be work-from-home jobs, but they were the exception, and it was hard to be treated as a normal, engaged team member. Now nearly everyone in tech works from home, and even after the pandemic, it's going to be more widely accepted. It's tragic that is took a pandemic to get to this point, but it's the best thing that ever happened to my career.

I'm burned out from the lack of social contact, though. I don't mean coworkers; I'm glad I don't have to interact with coworkers beyond Zoom. I mean the lack of family-and-friends get-togethers; the inability to pop down to the pub for a quick beer with friends; the lack of new friendships made because of the distancing; having to treat everyone and everything as though they're radioactive; the constant doomscrolling. Everything non-work-related is stressful and hollow.

Work from home would have made my life better under other circumstances. I'd have gained all the commute time back; I'd be living near family, friends, and activities that I enjoy; I'd be far from cities that I dislike. I have some of those things, but in this perverse alternate reality, I feel like I'm being teased and can't have it.

One of the biggest downsides to the past year is the lack of vacations. I took a week off for a break, but spent it at home doing nothing. There's no way I'm getting on a plane before I'm vaccinated, nor going to a restaurant or bar, and I'm not keen on staying in a hotel.

Mischief has saved my mental health. Think of some creative things that WFH uniquely enables and do them. Here are examples of things I've done:

1. Planned a 1-hour prank on a coworker over Zoom

2. Left work early to play golf all afternoon

3. Had a beer at noon once or twice

4. Worked on a side projects for about 2-hours during "lunch" one day

5. Worked from a lake house I rented for 3 weeks

6. Worked from the beach one day

7. Finished all my assignments in a 4-day work week and spent the entire day Friday reading books

8. Ate extremely lavish takeout for breakfast or lunch

When you look back on this time, you'll be glad you did these things you would never otherwise do in an office.

It ain’t WFH causing it given that I’ve been remote 100% for a few years and noticed a significant productivity dip in the pandemic. It’s that the little things that made life interesting are missing (occasional dinner at a restaurant, concerts, sports, going to my gym). So life has turned super monotonous and dull, so work and everything else suffers. It also doesn’t help that there’s just a level of constant ambient misery and sadness if you interact with anyone since everyone’s in a similar place.

Honestly, it’s annoying but I don’t worry too much. Everyone is in the weird place now, and it’s not forever, so I don’t beat myself up if my productivity is slightly down or if I don’t feel super perky.

Yes.

I wouldn't attribute it too strongly to WFH just that outside of work life is limited, cant travel, socialise (properly - not zoom).

Work tends to blend from day to evening, I definitely work later into the evening but I guess its my choice and partly because there's not much else to do (Netflixed out!)

Exercise helps. Reading. Eating well but allowing treats now and again (this is important).

I have booked some vacations for later in the year as something to look forward to (do this if you can, there will be a rush to the door when were in a better state and firms will not want everyone out at the same time).

I may be a rare case. I have the opposite observation from the OP.

My productivity is off the charts this past year. Between cutting out all forms of small talk, commuting, unplanned meetings, and constant bite size updates.. I'm now finally for the first time totally in control of how I spend my day.

I have more time for work and more time for play. I've realized just how much time we waste on things that doesn't matter.

People say the small interactions are important to build relationships, but I would like to challenge that.

Relationships aren't built on small talk. It's built on teamwork and common goals.

I actually think I'm now closer to the people I work with because we work together in a more streamlined way, update only on the most important things, and when we achieve fantastic results, everyone ends the day on an up note.

It's a bit hard to disentangle the "USA is on fire" events over the last year from the "working from home is the cause".

For me, it's been really challenging during weeks of BLM protests: the seeming insignificance of tasks at work as compared to the plight of people across our troubled nation. Similarly, during the elections, when it seemed like we could have end up with 4 more years of inaction during a time when every year matters in averting a global warming catastrophe.

It's a bit easier now that the government is better aligned with what I think is a good direction.

Yes, 100% this. When the virus isn't spiking in your area, I recommend meeting coworkers in coworking spaces. When it is spiking I've been going to parks to have beers with friends. A warm coat can help a lot.

I also found this video to be helpful https://youtu.be/snAhsXyO3Ck

[edit] Oh, and remote pairing over teamviewer turns a terrible isolated work day into a casual conversation with a friend about code. I find that 2 developers actually getting 1 job done is better than both being isolated and just scrolling reddit.

I don't know about anyone else, but the "working from home" part isn't what's been getting to me.

It's working from home while my kids are also doing school at home. I feel like I never have any extended time to myself to think or work. There are constant interruptions and there's nowhere to escape to for focused work of any kind.

On top of that, I also have no escape from my family. I love my family, but not getting a break from them from time to time is frankly exhausting.

Burnt out? A little. But not from WFH - I thoroughly prefer it. But the lockdown in general makes everything tougher. Being in one room/house all day inevitably collapses your world somewhat to just that space, I’m finding, and magnifies the smaller irritants to be much larger than they could or should be. So while I’m happy to continue to WFH forever now, it would be nice to be able to socialise in my leisure time. But it will end, and we’ll have that chance again. There’s always some light at the end of the tunnel, and I prefer not to think of it as the headlights of a train this time.

It's kind of like the same feeling you get after you graduate college and work for a year. You realize your whole social scene and life has completely changed and you feel weird / depressed about the lack of face to face interaction and making new connections.

A friend's Dr told him he has never written so many anti-anxiety prescriptions in his career until covid started. People are experiencing the same enmasse.

I feel this burnout. Finishing up college remotely and starting full-time work without meeting anyone in person has been an odd experience--not to mention political news, social injustice, and climate change looming over all our heads or affecting our lives directly.

Here are a few things that have helped me:

1) I try to remember that I don't have control over (most) external events, but I do control how I react to them.

2) Having a daily routine is good, but change up that daily routine--introduce some randomness--so the days don't feel like they're flying by.

3) Find something to commit to, like a mindfulness practice or workout routine. Walking or running daily can be a great way to bookend your work day and decompress. I know some folks who use walks as a "virtual commute" at the beginning and end of the work day.

It's not the work-from-home that's been the problem for me (I've been remote since 2012) but having a third-grade kid home during work hours plus all the election craziness. Kids that age need lots of attention and interaction. At least this one does--I was fine sitting by myself reading a book for hours at that age. It's really hard to maintain focus with that entropic agent running around.

That said, I'm in a fairly high-risk group so lack of focus is a whole lot better than death. As bad as lockdown is for my kid it's better than losing one or both parents to COVID.

I am in germany, so, a few things are different. But the stores, restaurants etc. are closed and until recently, the place where i live had an curfew after 21:00.

The first few weeks of the lockdown were good: After work i have written on a story i wanted to publish for a few years now, learned Rust, build an analog computer and worked on some side projects... but now my wife (who is lucky to work full time) and i are moving slowly to the funny farm. Dark and rainy weather, a complete lack of normal social interaction with people outside of work and not many distractions are taking its toll...

I was definitely feeling a burn-out by End of December, the main causes:

1. Kids at home including a 2yo who needed regular attention.

2. Working late nights to get un-disrupted time for work (see 1).

3. Fear of getting a bad performance review (it ended up being not so great anyways).

4. Lack of interactions with co-worker and working odd hours led me to waste quite a bit of time on re-inventing the wheel at work.

5. Seattle freeze/weather didn't help either and a big stretch without vacation.

I took a 2 week break at end of December which coincided with end of our perf review period. Though I didn't get the (perf) rewards I wanted, having it be over gave me a lot of clarity.

I felt we were lucky with flexible and stable jobs and good friends close-by. However, I always had a feeling/pressure that I should be able to do it all (exercise/work/manage kids), and it was hard to balance all the expectations I had of myself leading to stress and an eventual burn-out.

You’re not the only one.

I am personally taking a mental health day today. Yesterday I hit a brick wall where I am unable to produce.

Anxiety tendencies have been creeping up over the months because I’m in a sensory overloading environment, and I struggle to make the choice each day to kill 30 minutes for a fake commute to help keep my sanity. I gain energy collaborating with others, even if I’m the main or only person driving things.

I’m aware I need to monitor my own health more, and be ok to take breaks. Even take days off. It’s tough, the anxiety doesn’t seem to subside until I produce well. This creates a perverse incentive, a toxic spiral. Showing some vulnerability and asking for help or care is tough too. This whole quarantine thing is stretching in some ways, damaging in others.

And yet here we are.

edit: I want to clarify, because top comments seem to be talking about the USA in the news. I am not experiencing anxiety because of the news, or worry of safety for self or others because of the pandemic. For me it’s simply mental health issues because of isolation, loss of normal healthy coping patterns, and sensory exhaustion and sensory over sensitivity in my home converted to a home, school, and office all in one. Sucks.

I totally love it. Being an introvert and a digital-first person this is amazing for me. Even I miss some social interactions now and then, but productivity wise, mental health, feeling useful and happy this is insanely good for someone like me.

I dread the day the world returns to normal from THIS perspective, but of course longing for the sake of business owners, everyone who feels bad in this environment and so on.

At least for a moment my way and preferences has become the norm, and perhaps people who prefer the other normal will somewhat appreciate the constant struggles people like me have in the normal world instead. How they feel now in isolation, I feel every day of my life in regular society that they long for and that is the norm.

Video strips away the nourishing part of human interaction for me. We can exchange information and coordinate tasks, latency/interruption issues notwithstanding, but I just get nothing from socializing this way. I've let most of my friendships go. I'm putting in the work to sustain a couple at least at surface level, but emotionally they're long gone. I just can't bring myself to care about objects on screens.

Am I alone to feel work-from-home made things worse?

We don't know what the road not taken would look like. It's enormously hard to get perspective on just how bad things would be if we had done something else. This is a perennial human problem. We are really terrible at counting the disasters that should have happened but didn't.

The other thing is 2020 was enormously stressful. People under stress tend to look for something to blame. In the face of an event (like a pandemic) where they can't control the actual source of the stress, they often look for a scapegoat in the form of something they feel they have some kind of control over.

Blaming it on working from home so you can be mad about this policy will tend to make people feel like "This is someone's fault and we could have done something different." and helps mitigate feelings of helplessness. Humans have a tendency to be more comfortable with righteous anger and looking for someone in authority to hold responsible than accepting that "This just really sucks and was probably going to suck no matter what we did."

Am I happy with how things were handled? No, I'm not.

But I have long worked from home due to my medical situation, so I am disinclined to treat that aspect of this situation as the scapegoat I want to hang my angst and ire upon.

I feel this very acutely, though as a parent of a small child the reasons for my particular inefficiency might be different than others.

But there is something about the mental exhaustion all this causes. I do still have some free time here and there. In the "normal times" I'd be twiddling around with a side project, but all I do now is watch TV or play video games. I dislike it: I feel like I'm wasting time. But my brain is also utterly fried and the idea of engaging too deeply just feels impossible.

No, it's rough.

I don't particularly like being at home a lot. I constantly get distracted by things I need to do at home, or wanting to do hobbies, etc. and I don't have a good workspace like I did at work.

WFH and the ability now to work from anywhere is great in a way. At least half my team has no plan to return to office full time. I do think, though, that collaboration and the soft skills of our work area will suffer. There is a lot of collaboration, discussion, and coalition building done in person, in hallways and over lunch that doesn't happen nearly as well on Zoomslack.

Anyway, yeah, it sucks, and I miss the old world.

The past 9 months have been the best ones of my working life. No more long commutes, no more inane meetings, no more rude interruptions to talk about sports or GoT or whatever.

Online meetings have become very efficient as nobody tries to talk over each other. There are way fewer "immediate" deadlines as everybody accepts that e-mail replies will not be immediate.

I hope this becomes the norm for me for the rest of my career.

Burnout is easy to ignore when you're getting free food every day, and hard to ignore when sitting alone in a box.

When it's safe, I plan to flee California and find out what my family's been up to for the last 14 years.

I've been living like this for the last 16 years and longer actually.

You have to listen to yourself.

I came up with this way. Sometimes I work for 3 weeks even and especially weekends. I'm super productive there, then all of a sudden I lose interest. Then I start playing games. Anything that's fun. Until one day I'm bored of that and get back to work. In both cases I treat it like a game. The work game and the game game. However especially if income is low, I push myself to work. It's not a game then but a fight against my own will.

I had a bad relationship breakup. She cheated and I was very hurt. She made sure I lose all my friends. All those I cared about anyway. In that time coding was my way out of hurt and depression. Focusing every day on progress of one project and seeing it grow. That one project made me about 150k€ and gave me back the self-esteem she destroyed.

Compared to that COVID19 lockdowns are light fruit cakes.

I go outside and walk at least 45min a day. You can't sit at home all day. You need to go outside.

You at least are employed and in a safe situation earning your income and sure about that. I work and don't know if I'll ever see a single cent from the work I'm doing. The project I finish today may or may not take off in 3 years (earlier if I spend money on advertising)

I'm doing better, but I was burnt out this past summer/fall. It didn't help that I had just started with the office 2 months prior to the lockdowns and WFH situation. I was not properly integrated into the team yet, and they were not prepared to actually get anything done with remote work so the first 2 months of the lockdown were very idle times (a lot Pluralsight training because my C# was rusty and I couldn't access the codebase anyways).

It's gotten better with some structural changes at the office as they've adapted to the situation.

I live in Michigan and currently don't feel comfortable going to the gym, so recently my wife and I have been trying to force ourselves to take walks in the neighborhood after bundling up as necessary. The difference is night and day.

In addition, Vitamins C/D and Caffeine can also make a huge difference.

Edit: also (and this is advice for myself), don't spend too much time following political news/COVID numbers/etc. I still follow these, but I have to remind myself that spending 1-2 hours a day vs. 6-8 hours doesn't really help me solve any of the things that are wrong in the world, and I end up losing time to spend with family, on side projects, etc. and suffer more from anxiety/depression.

Edit 2: if you can, get a sitting/standing desk. Spending too much time in either position is harmful in different ways, so it's best to alternate between them throughout the day. An under-the-desk elliptical (for when sitting) and a comfortable mat (for when standing) are also helpful.

It's pretty bad. The fact that there's zero reason to go outside aside from groceries makes life really boring. I feel like I'm once again stuck in my small hometown where there was nothing to do. Every day feels the same. This started to negatively impact my work - I feel like I'm back to being a junior developer except without the drive and passion I had back then. I just feel apathetic about working in general and I do the bare minimum because there's nothing to look forward to after work.

As mentioned by some in the comments, the thing that drained me the most (probably more than the isolation itself) was that I could see the vast majority of people being so compliant and accepting drastic reduction in freedoms without raising a finger and even encouraging the government to be more drastic.

Because of this it has now become trivial to impose new lockdown measures. "We have a few cases there? ok, we just place this under strict lockdown". It's become so easy for them to cut through freedoms. Maybe some measures are needed, even strict ones, but the lack of serious discussion surrounding it is terrifying for me.

To give an example, where I live, they instated a nighttime curfew and mask wearing even outdoors. They did this when there were 10.000 cases a day. We now have around 2-3000 cases (majority of them in some areas only) and still have the same measures country-wide.

A right is easy to loose and hard to gain back I guess...

If you have vacation time to burn or unlimited PTO, take it. I was surprised how many people won't take time off because they can't go anywhere. As a big fan of staycations, I recommend them. Hide your work laptop for a week and just relax.

I think I only started feeling burned out in the past few months, despite doing a masters degree in parallel with full time work as a software engineer for the past 3 years. Now that I'm supposed to be working on my thesis in my "free time" when there's little diversity in the proper free time, it's been weighing on me. I can barely focus, the hours when I'm doing my job are actually the most pleasant because I don't have to worry about the pressure from the project. Lots of problems going to sleep as well because I keep worrying I'll fail the masters.

While there's no proper pain involved (maybe a bit of anxiety from time to time), my productivity has taken a huge dip and it's really frustrating.

I'm not burnt out from WFH (I was doing that beforehand) but I'm definitely burnt out on Covid and the state of the world. We're into a second much longer lockdown in Iceland and it's just a constant stress. Compared with many we've had it much easier though.

I also work for a US based company and have friends and family who live there so the whole political situation there has been a stress. Then I'm British so I also have the whole Brexit fuck up adding it's own unsubtle kicking to my ribs.

Burned out hard af this year around September. My wife loves WFH. I hate it. I wound up quitting my job at the start of November and taking a couple months off before starting the new gig. I think that time off helped. I'm still eager to get back into the office.

As others have mentioned, having a dedicated office space really does help. A plant on the desk is nice. There's soem light at the end of the tunnel, thankfully.. I think I can whiteknuckle my way through the end.

I'm ok working from home - I just wish the Ontario government would reopen schools so the kids weren't cooped in the house all day.

The biggest downside to WFH for me has been the significant increase in synchronous meetings. While my client was _technically_ able to switch seamlessly to 100% remote, they haven't changed _how_ they work so I spend 80-90% of my time in meetings leaving very little time for actual work which results in overtime.

Yes.

To avoid burn out, I'm being more disciplined with slowing down at the end of the day and exercises (even walking outside is good enough).

To slowdown, I'm trying to read at least 30 minutes at time. And try to go for a walk 2-3 times a week (not much, but makes a huge difference on my energy and humor).

Also, sleeping well everyday is a priority for me - I'm not willing to exchange sleep for work, reduces my productivity significantly and makes me unhappy.

I'm burnt from having to continue to go into work despite the pandemic (which I believe is the reason I ended up catching COVID), I'm burnt from having to listen to nutjob conspiracy theories all year, I'm burnt from watching the democratic process be systematically undermined by foaming-at-the-mouth entitled asshats and their gloriously corrupt cheeto-colored leader, and I'm burnt from those people getting a pass by party-before-country fuckheads.

I only got to work from home while I was quarantined because of the plague, so no, I don't think work-from-home is responsible for my burn out.

Yes. Working from home has really hurt my business and social life. There are some tasks and interactions that are just better in person.

Fwiw I was feeling very much this way until recently, and blamed it on WFH. I love working in an office and missed my commute, having clear boundaries to the day, having good touchpoints with colleagues. I just felt completely unproductive, highly distractible, and procrastinated everything.

Then I took two weeks off over Christmas/New Years and drove across the country to a new location where I'm working for a couple months, and it's been markedly better since then. I don't know how much was the change of scenery and how much was the vacation, but it made me realize at least part of the problem was general burn-out rather than WFH specifically.

If you're like me and many people I know, you probably haven't taken much vacation because there's not many places to go. I'd encourage you to use some of those days and go into nature, drive somewhere far, whatever you can that feels Covid-safe and mixes things up!

I work for several years from home now. It was hard for the first year. What helped me:

1) no elastic hours - work from 8 to 16. Otherwise my private stuff mixed with work, I was working to late hours and was never satisfied with progress.

2) Talking with people. Even if I am 100% sure what to do, I call sometimes someone or write to talk about it prior to code review. I bond with team and it is just beneficial for everyone, not only project.

3) Finding the right flow. It means at work you have to work because there is not much anything else to do. At home you have plenty of better things to do. So it is about finding a right mental spot, thinking about what I will do next, what I will do tomorrow, build enthusiasm about it.

4) Finding the place. It means the proper chair, desk, standing desk, to the wall or against it. Little changes can make a great difference. However I don't believe it is about spending too much money on stuff. I have bought a standing desk made of paper for 10 dollars. And it is great, does not take space.

5) Taking breaks. Sometimes I just have to take a break and do anything else. I have learned it is better to recognize it early on, and just go for a walk or do anything else. Taking care of mental health is one of the greatest skills human can learn. I am still learning it.

6) Taking vacations. Even if there is nothing to do, or nowhere to go. Taking some time off is essential.

7) A hobby. There are some things possible to do at home. For me it was designing fantasy programming card games - Summon The JSON.

8) Excercising - yoga, stretching, and even running in a place with treadmill videos on my TV. It helps a lots.

9) Going out. Even to the forrest, also helps to keep the spirit high.

Most of all I always think about others, that everyone has the same or worse than me. So maybe I am a little bit less productive, but I wake up every day, and do what I can.

Actually, for me it's turning out to be the opposite. Since I got used to working from home I feel like this is the perfect work environment for me. And I do not have a dedicated room for it. I work usually in my sleeping room. I have no children though.

I love how I can enforce no distractions by putting on my ANCs. No obnoxious colleagues who pathologically crave attention. No forcing of smiles and laughter when somebody tells a joke that isn't funny but obviously a subtle attempt to gauge power dynamics. I just put a smily in the chat if I feel like it and that's it. Every now and then I do 10 minutes of breathing exercises. I can talk while thinking - which is an important tool I never could use since university.

After work I switch to my personal laptop and just ignore my work phone. Done.

I can say with certainty I have never feeled so productive and relaxed at work.

I don't know if I'm impervious to burnout, or I'm just constantly in a state of depression and this is my "normal", but I don't suffer from the same issues as most who WFH.

I work where I play. My work computer is my gaming laptop (separate partitions). I use the same desk/streaming station. Sometimes I work from bed. And I never feel the urge to "work just one more hour".

I've never had an issue flipping between work and play mode, and I've never struggled to compartmentalize the two fully and switch context when 5PM hits.

As for going out, sure, I miss it. But I'm also a bit of a homebody, so I'm not missing TOO much. My VR headset has helped me feel safe in being able to explore our world and other worlds. As for isolation, I typically have a Twitch stream open for background.

I'm burnt out too. I've just set up a habit tracker for to keep me motivated.

I'm focusing on food, sleep, and exercise to get me through this.

If you're feeling down, look into what kind of food you're eating. I've cut down sugar just to avoid the highs and the lows.

Long ago when I was in College I ate poorly, stayed indoors, and didn't exercise but played plenty of games, watched tons of shows.

In 2019 I had completed a 100 Mile hike through the alps, regularly worked out, and enjoyed a modestly active social life with my spouse.

In 2020 I ended up buying a game console and playing a bunch of games, gained 20 pounds, and had a baby.

Overall I'd say 2020 felt like when I was in college in terms of my physical and emotional health (aka worse than 2019). However I would give credit to the pandemic for simplifying parts of having children. My wife and I are both able to dedicate many hours per day to our baby and avoided the headache of having to host extended family during a stressful period.

Not from work from home. My mother in law is in late stages cancer and we are not sure if she will make it more than a few weeks. The stress of not being sure if it is safe to fly out for one last visit has really added to our stress.

The kids need to go back to school as well.

I'm an extrovert. I love every second of lockdown and WFH. It's great - didn't get a cold once last year, felt great every day without a commute. So many wasted hours reclaimed. Sure, I do productive things while commuting, but there's a big difference between having those hours back fully. and making unproductive hours productive.

Best thing that ever happened in regards to work conditions. My only gripe is that so many people fail to understand that "working at home" is different to "working remotely". I wish people were more willing to jump into a meeting for a 15 minute brainstorming session rather than spend 5 hours working out a problem on Slack.

The opposite, I love WFH and as an introvert i'm revelling in lockdown. I miss having a dinner with some friends maybe once a month or once every two months but we keep up through various Whatsapp groups and for the most part i'm happy with it

I feel lucky that I haven’t been crammed into a small apartment with roommates or whatever. It’s so much easier to have a routine without having to bump into a bunch of other people. I don’t know if I could have survived without my outdoor spaces though... there’s nothing like being able to sit outside and work on my laptop for long hours. Really sorry for everyone else who has been locked indoors. Two months would have been rough, but this is beyond intolerable. At least we will always have the upper hand whenever our grandchildren complain about being bored or cooped up: “Let me tell you something about being stuck inside!”

Quite. There are unconscious social dynamics that take place in the office that I rely on to stay on track and productive. Because we're not fully aware of these interactions when they happen, it's next to impossible to deliberately schedule them in a remote work environment.

I am a person who wants to focus, and I've realized that I rely on work related background noise like conversations and other people's whiteboard sessions to pierce my cone of silence so I can come up for air and see which way the wind is blowing. Basically, I find myself working on the wrong thing more often now, and I'm quite sick of it!

No, not at all. I'm more productive at work than ever before, the whole team is. We love working from home, a few of us have already decided to never set foot in an office again. I'm leaning that way too, if I'm honest.

Working from home can be bad if the company you're at is not well set up for it. My work switched from everyone being in the office to fully remote as a result of COVID, and I've never met my coworkers. They're all pretty webcam-shy, they don't want to have social calls, it's very awkward. I think if we met in person a couple times it would break down some barriers but as it is I'm basically alone working on a one-man project with minimal communication. Most days it feels like if I just quit nobody would notice, and the work itself is not very interesting, so it's hard to stay motivated.

Well I started feeling burned out even before the pandemic

I decided that if I continue in this path it's not going to be healthy for my body and my life

So I decided to change the way I live and I don't see any drop in productivity before and after. The only thing is I'm happy with the current state of my life

The bliss is in life is not getting too attached to things (work, deadlines, startup stress) but letting things go

https://ruky.me/2021/01/19/too-much-hustling-can-kill-you/

I was.

Then i turned off my work station and went somewhere with really shitty cell phone service for two weeks with my family and a bicycle.

Then I wasn’t.

You're definitely not alone.

The sudden switch to WFH, combined with lockdowns etc, caused me to experience pretty severe stress/anxiety issues for the first time. I severely underestimated how vital seeing others every day was for my mental health (I live alone).

I didn't recognise what the symptoms were, because I've always been positive, optimistic and productive, and certainly never had any mental health challenges.

The last 5-6 months have been deeply unproductive as a result. However now I know what I'm dealing with it's getting easier/better, fingers crossed.

With you on that. I think having a workplace is a benefit of having a job. The cognitive load of pretending that you are at work, without any benefits of having a OSHA/legal workplace, is a cost that gets put on the worker. Companies should, at the fucking minimum, provide a stipend if they arent going to provide a workplace. Not to mention the skills that the employee loses by working at home, getting burnt out or over-worked, and then suffer and are paid less when they change jobs. But.... Burnout happens, since I was a child.

The only conditions I can see causing WFH burnout are:

* small children without other childcare (daycare)

* never experienced a long drive to the office before working from home

* social people who have never had children

Why WFH is great:

* I save 10+ hours per week by not driving. I am also saving tons on money from: gas, lunches, road tolls.

* Not spending a business day on the road each week dodging maniacs means I am less tired and distracted at work time.

* I can spend more time with my kids.

* My house is quiet during the day. I can focus on doing work. If there is no work assigned then work on a personal project or complete maintenance on the house.

Depends on how much physical stuff you need to work.

I'm writing a custom high performance capturing/compression software for a device connected to a tiny computer. The components that gets this barebones computer working have now been a permanent clutter that have displaced where I'm supposed to work on personal hobbies.

It is also a hassle every time we are required to sign paper documents as I don't have a printer (not that I can't afford it, but normally it would be a white elephant). What should take several minutes will now take at least 15 when doing stuff with PDFs and photographs of signs.

As I live alone and am quite picky on food, this also means I have to cook more often. So more kitchen tasks while making sure vegetables are consumed fresh. Not being able to do groceries "just-in-time" has also lead to some inefficiencies.

As work-personal boundaries are blurred, I also decided to pause my work inspired side project. Partly because of discipline (it helped me make work results, so it's very tempting to work on it during "work hours") and partly because it bothers me that my workplace can claim ownership on things they could not have come up by themselves and never knew they needed. Thankfully I was able to shift my mind on another interesting side project.

It’s not so much the working from home itself but the fact that my 2 kids are crawling over me while I’m coding, and jumping onto my video calls, since the schools are closed.

I'm thriving under lockdown - I get to sleep in three hours later, I don't have to take my son to school each morning, I don't waste three hours on the Subway, I get to eat lunch with my wife and son every day, I can lie down if I'm not feeling well, take a nap if I'm sleepy, watch TV while I'm waiting for jobs to finish, etc. Only downside is that I can't see the sunset and I had to use all my vacation time staying home last year.

My wife has been 100% WFH since the start of the pandemic and the biggest thing I can do for her is encourage her to get out of the house. It is so easy to stay inside the house and basically never leave. Going for a walk, driving around and seeing people out and about, sitting alone in the park for a bit... things like that really help get her back into a better headspace.

FWIW, I'm forced to work in the office and I'm also feeling incredibly burnt out and unproductive.

I have one suggestion for WFH syndrome: Be old!!

I am in my sixties. Been a programmer since the seventies (last century!). I do personal projects, freelance projects and job projects. I love programming.

And I would be perfectly happy for quarantine to last forever, at least as far as I am concerned.

The only thing I have done to adapt is that I bought an Oculus and play Beat Saber and Pistol Whip to pretend to get exercise. It does make me out of breath, so WIN!!

I will be sad when it ends.

After an intense period of work from november 2010 to mai 2011, I burned-out because staying at home, working all nighter, not seeing real people, having my desk twenty centimeters from bed, and everything. It was not even lockdown or curfews.

Lockdown is just yet another reason why you may burn out. Personally, I have social anxiety, so I didn't care much in the first time, but in fact, not seeing people is just awful.

We're about 60% as productive as we were pre-lockdown. In our case this is largely due to the lack of face to face whiteboard discussions, being unable to have two or three people look through a bunch of code or design together, the ad-hoc conversations and face time with colleagues. It now takes far longer to thrash out thorny technical and design issues than it did in 2019.

With revenues falling last year, my company decided to slash salaries and close several roles. This obviously led to a much greater workload for everyone else, and people getting increasingly burned out.

As the exodus continues, the senior management decided to pivot towards building and selling more features to increase revenues, instead of taking a look at how to stabilize the teams and stop the blood-letting, hence more pressure on the remaining engineers to deliver features, leading to much lower quality, more bugs and more pressure.

The situation can be salvaged, though, if we are able to get real about the situation with the engineering teams, scale back our commitments and hire for some key roles where people resigned last year.

"Am I alone to feel work-from-home made things worse?"

No you're definitely not. You're just part of the 50% that needs an official office with other co-workers there. And there is nothing wrong with it. Personally I am on the other 50% but I do it for over 13 years now - started freelancing from home in Dec 2007 and never looked back.

What is typically now is the wrong response all companies always had. Before whole covid situation companies wanted all boots on the ground at the office, even when 50% of the people were more productive at home. Now it's the reverse situation where the "office" style people are less productive.

The right response would be to let people that want to work from home, and are productive that way to do it, and the other ones to come to office if that's what they want. That would maximize the productivity, but until a big company would actually make this case it will not be the norm in our industry.

It's made things worse for our family where we have this overpacked shared common space. We just signed a lease to move into a bigger place to make things more tenable to keep up the schoolwork and office productivity with more separate spaces. We're hoping it'll pay off for us, it will at least monetarily with about $700 savings per month.

We found out the hard way too that renting a single detached house is a much more involved affair than an apartment. It's a multiday process involving a bunch of parties and things can go in limbo for like a week as applications are brought in and reviewed by the property management and the homeowner before giving the green light. We wound up signing a lease in the first week of this month for a move-in date in mid February. The property management companies have been saying that since Coronavirus lockdowns spread the demand for renting houses have really gone up.

On the contrary, I'm thriving. I don't think I would've made it through another year of in-office work in a city I don't have connection to. Meanwhile, thanks to pandemics, I'm back to my home town, where I have friends and family, I don't have to go to the office and spend time with people I'm at best indifferent to, I don't have to prepare clothes, worry about how I look etc., I can work in better conditions and thus am less tired at the end of the day. Frankly it's amazing! I can see myself continuing in this career for some more time, while previously I was close to ready to just dropping it altogether.

Oh and BTW I'm not from US, so the political situation in your country doesn't affect me (at least not directly). Although I do believe that the mess that US is in is small potatoes compared to the ecological disaster that is unfolding as we speak...

I have moved to Salt Lake City for the winter and start (nearly) every morning with three hours of skiing at Alta. I then drive back to my apartment here in the city and long on and work "hawaii hours". My teams are super understanding.

I think they all understood that the alternative was painting the walls of my apartment with my brains.

Nope, for one thing, the country I live in never implemented anything resembling strict lockdown measures (there were some restrictions on opening hours for businesses, types of businesses that could open and car traffic in city centers) and for another thing, at all times, even during the time least welcoming to going out, I made sure to simply go for solitary walks in parks, streets and public areas while avoiding any crowds. I know that in some countries (disgracefully in my view) even leaving home for a solitary walk or with family you live with anyhow was forbidden, but where it isn't anyone who's been feeling more than a bit claustrophobic should sincerely just go out and get some air on a regular basis. It is possible to do this without overly exposing yourself, and it can be done in the company of any people you in any case might share your home and intimate air with.

I have almost the opposite problem - without a bus to keep me scheduled, it's very easy for me to accidentally overcommit and do too much work one day and end up mentally exhausted for the evening. I have tried things like timers but the need to constantly set them just means I forget and stop after 1 or 2 rounds.

I'm a WFH veteran, 2 years at the current gig before quarantine and 4+ before the current gig.

Work is going even better as a WFH person now that I don't go out or have to take my kids anywhere.

My mood, appetite, sleep schedule, relationships, general zeal are mostly flatlined. It's a total loss. Reconstruction will be interesting.

You're definitely not alone. For myself, the physical separation between the workplace and home helped put me in work mode; without that cue, it's much harder to stay on task. And while it would be nice to have a separate home office to replace that cue, I don't have the space for it.

No, it's not just you. Our circle of friends, colleagues, etc have shrunk this past year and there's been little new to refill and recharge them. Most of the chance encounters (serendipity) that make life better are gone right now and it's impacting work, family, dating, and everything else.

I wrote on it here this past October: https://caseysoftware.com/blog/the-uncounted-casualty-of-202...

My advice: Introduce some variety. Go outside for a walk. Talk (not text) with friends more often. Reconnect with people you haven't seen in a while. Read books and watch movies outside your normal preferences. Turn off the technology for 30 or 60 minutes and meditate. STOP watching the news.

I got so burnt out between March and September that I resigned from my then job and I’m still struggling with lingering burnout enough that I still have not been able to begin looking for a new job. Unfortunately I’m eating into savings enough that I really need to start looking soon, even though I don’t feel entirely ready.

For me I don’t think it’s necessarily that WFH was the primary factor. I’ve worked remote most of my career. But I do think everyone being remote had a big impact, as it made communication more challenging for team members and management who don’t usually prefer remote. This heightened stress for all involved, and drove increased pressure to overwork.

That said, a few months off has definitely helped. If you can afford to take some time off, I highly recommend it.

Absolutely. I mean I love getting a good wfh job but in my plans I could leave the home part now and then haha

I've had two mental state crashes so far where I just end up completely cba getting out of bed levels of burned out for a week. It doesn't help I'm at a pretty small agency that feels it if I take surprise time off, so I feel guilty about that on top of it all haha -- incidentally I have had a chat with my doctor and we adjusted a few things. The citalopram has taken the edge off for now!

How're you doing mate? Sincerely hope you're able to get something from the comments as I'm about to try now! :)

e: just realised you're using a throwaway. Fuck it must be hard for you lot over in the US, at-will and medical bills etc. Best of luck all, truly.

Looking around at other replies it seems that pretty consistently the folks that are taking this the worst are the ones who live in small urban apartments, and the ones who are getting by better are those who chose to live far out in the burbs or rural areas with bigger homes and a dedicated office space. Im in the second group and am taking it pretty well—I certainly don’t miss my 4+ hour per day commute, and I am dreading going back to having to be in the office. But I can also see how this is pretty much prison for people who decided to live in the city.

I never thought I’d like remote work or could be productive that way, but now I’m convinced. But I definitely need the private space to do it. I could never do this from a 400 sqft apartment.

Absolutely. I'm so pissed off at how long the work week is that I'm building a website listing jobs with a 4 day work week:

https://www.28hrworkweek.com/

From reading other HN discussions, I get the impression that a person's home-office setup is a big factor. I.e., good home office --> probably same or better productivity; bad home office --> probably worse productivity.

I’m burnt out, but it’s more from the chaos than anything else. Unfortunately work is adding to the chaos due a decision to pull forward massive company changing plans by 3 years, meaning that we have to prepare to change everything during all of this externally generated chaos.

I’d probably have fallen apart if I still worked at an office. WFH has given me the ability to give up when I’m completely fried, or go and do other things to de stress rather than just break down at my desk. In an office I’d feel the pressure to stay at my desk and fake working, which would’ve probably been much too much for me.

I deal with burnout watching videos from george Carlin on germs and virus... 10y old what a wise man https://youtu.be/X29lF43mUlo

I was just chatting to a very smart, ambitious and hard working friend (startup founder) who had a nervous breakdown because his routine got complete destroyed by the persistent lockdown. You are definitely not alone.

Yes pretty burnt out. Main reason is having a spouse who is burnt out / depressed and a toddler with no childcare in a small appartment. Luckily I have a team and employer who understand and we make it work.

The lockdowns are causing a huge mental health crisis. You are far from alone.

Nope, love it, sorry. But ... I'm doing research and a full-time student. Essentially I'm like a grad student + 50% Dad. If I were working one of my old dev jobs, I'd probably hate the lack of work/life separation. Also synchronous schooling for the kids is much easier on me than the old asynchronous schooling. They just disappear into their room and pop out for recess and lunch, instead of me having to cut/paste/spend hours with them on BS make work.

EDIT> Kids are 7 and 12. If they were pre-schoolers ... shudder ... it's hell.

Yes. I took up running. Seems to have fixed it for me.

Also make sure there is clean separation between work and home. Different hardware, different location even if it's the other side of the same room.

I've worked from home for the past 5 years, so no, it hasn't made anything worse. I hate commuting, sitting in traffic for 2 hours a day doesn't improve your life.

I’m the opposite. I get much more done at home. I love having all this time with my family, access to my kitchen, and walking my dog. The lockdown has been great for me.

Not sure work from home made things worse. I do believe it would be way better if we could go outside for social interaction of any kind. I do like working from home, but the lockdown is harsh.

A while ago I coded https://quarantinenotes.com I would love to have your thoughts written down on the board.

I had the opposite reaction. I realized I was doing better mentally under COVID and this has caused me to re-evaluate some things about my life. I found it disturbing that a condition considered nightmarish by many was actually a boon for me. By that I don't mean to say that I have an insatiable need to conform to other people's lives but rather that I might have taken up some long-term unhealthy habits over the years.

I've been able to focus more on programing, even secured a big raise.

Been saving tons of money as well. My game is coming along nicely.

The only downside is I sorta broke it off with a girl right before this all started. Being single now is a bummer, but tons of people are in not so great relationships that they can't get out of right now.

As far as I'm concerned I've been exceptionally lucky. Something like 1/4 households with children are food insecure.

For me, it is that all the problematic elements of office work have returned to remote work.

We started not endlessly being in meetings as meetings were a pain over Zoom/Teams. Now that we are used to that, the meetings are back.

We started out overcommunicating as we were afraid things would be lost in WFH. We have stopped that so now there is lots of getting out of sync again as we are no longer conscious of making sure everyone gets the message.

I am 35, married with no kids... and I am having the time of my life! For the first time ever I am actually sleeping 8h a night... 9am: waking up 9h15: breakfast 9h30: working from home (as a software engineer) 12h30: lunch break of an hour 17h30: end of working day... video game time 20h: dinner with wife 20h30: Netflix and chill

Never been so happy, relaxed and being able do spend quality time with my significant other!

Yes, and I am so glad my company is not going full-WFH. Can’t wait to get back into the office and actually get things done.

So tired of getting blocked for days waiting on someone to do something. Having to sit through endless calls and meetings to talk about stuff, not being able to show someone how to do something in person. I’m sure just plugging away at tickets is great for some people but it’s not for me.

Still fine, but it has triggered some unpleasant introspection.

The whole omg I'm so old and behind my peers with acquiring white picket fence type thing.

I'm gonna be in the minority here and I feel a bit guilty...

but the last year was really good for me. Remote work became more accepted (I've been WFH for 20 years), which opened up stuff outside of SV to me. I got a new job with great people, better pay and cool tech. And I've had more time for hobbies.

I know I'm lucky, but I really can't complain...

I miss climbing, going out, meeting new people. That for me is what's weighing on my psyche much more than anything else.

I think for me WFH is not that different from normal since half of my team isn't in the same country anyway and our meetings were always in Skype. Actually I eat better, since I the canteen isn't my only option at home.

I'm not burnt out... but I'm ready to return to normal.

I had a super long commute... I now have no commute but no "contact" (face to face).

I'd personally love 3 days from home, 2 in the office.

I'd say I'm as productive... some times more, sometimes less. But the lack of face to face cooler chats, white board meetings, etc are sorely missed.

I was able to maintain about the same productivity for maybe 6 months, then it started deteriorating from there. At 8 months, started to feel like i couldn't take it anymore, and had to take a vacation. Now at 10 months, have been able to stabilize into a new normal, but it's not as productive as I was before.

I'm feeling pretty good these days. My FTTH ISP has finally had a couple of solidly profitable months in November and December after going through a death march of a project last summer / fall. It's amazing what happens when the stress of being so close yet so far from breakeven is finally relieved.

Yes. So much so. It's gotten worse ever since they closed outside dining in LA, I didn't know how much a weekly night out at a restaurant was doing to keep me sane. I'm even lucky that I have a fiance and dog living with me to keep me company but even then it's become challenging.

I spent more than 3 months on the lockdown. Working from home as a full time employee and also I was able to make a lot of progress on my side project. It really increased my productive since I don't waste 2 hours a day on commute and no distractions at all. So that's a good part.

I feel exactly the same. I'm literally at a point where I feel like I just don't even know how to do my job anymore. I've done all the bullshit people here are suggesting, it doesn't work for some people, including me. This situation is horrible and you're not alone.

I love that I have a lot more connection with the community around me (mostly of dog-walkers, but some just-walkers as well). In terms of work everything is mostly the same, except that I feel a lot more free and therefore better.

From what I hear of my colleagues, you're definitely not alone.

No it is really common

I don’t mind working from home and have been doing it predominantly for the last few years.

What I’m finding hard is the lack of social life due to lockdowns and social distancing and not being able to travel (most of my friends aren’t close enough to meet up with in the park or whatever)

Yes im the same I seem to have developed ADHD Its really hard to focus on something for a long time.

At the risk of being labeled a dangerous radical... you know you can go outside, have get-togethers, and live a normal life (realizing that any number of accidents or illnesses could bring it to an abrupt end), right? That’s what we’ve been doing, and it helps a ton.

I've been thriving in fact. The thing is, if you aren't happy with your job, working from home will be even worse, since you're isolated and can't cloud the fact that you're unhappy by messing around with your colleagues;

Yes. I was able to convince my full-time employer to switch to contract. If you work in the right company (size, team, projects, etc), maybe you can create enough leverage where you are valuable enough to convince them to keep you on as contract.

It's like going to college from high school. You need to learn how to manage your time and space better.

Make a timeslot and schedule for things that used to be automatic, like going outside for a quick walk and exercising and starting and ending your day.

Go to bed early. Upon waking near sunrise, take a small microdose. Then follow with lemon water, and a small amount of coffee or tea. Go for a run, bike, or walk as the day is starting. Follow with meditation and a cold shower.

You will feel amazing from this.

I have a young child and working from home has given me more time with him and allows me to give my wife breaks throughout the day.

This has been a massive improvement in my entire families quality of life. I can’t imagine going back to an office now.

I think I’m just bored. Everything feels stagnant. How would I know the difference?

Is there anyone who isn't burnt out due to extended lockdown etc.?

I like working from home but I don't like living at the office.

Be that as it may, it's still much more productive than any time spent in an infernal open plan office.

WFH made me and my coworkers work later since it bleeds easily into daily life. It feels harder to setup boundaries. I took a vacation to get work done. I needed to get out of meetings and not have to check slack so much.

I love working from home, but the pandemic has amplified the parts of my job I am frustrated with. I have never been closer to wanting to leave than now. I would still want to work remotely, but with more of a purpose.

My productivity went up by a lot once I got a remote office. I like commuting and having a place away from home to focus; the remote office provides both of those things.

We’ve also road-tripped to change locations and spice things up.

Rather the opposite. But having lived in Northern Canada where being confined to the house for months on end during the winter is normal has helped to prepare for this, compared to that this is fairly easy.

I find my work life to be mostly better, but feel stress from the social isolation and, especially, the political upheaval and US public health disaster. That, and worrying about loved ones who can’t wfh.

The worst part is the continuous news cycle feeding both the public and politicians with fear and the politicians implementing ever more draconian rules with less and less effect.

And all the excuses. Oh they took this freedom away. Well I don’t mind, because it doesn’t affect me. Or just do this for a little while. Just go without it for a few weeks. Months. Half a year. Rules with barely any effect, implemented on the flimsiest of pretexts that seem to have no end in sight. Statistical half truths to sell the rules.

And the solution, vaccination? Delay after delay and every day there’s a new dramatic story about how 1 guy got an allergic reaction, or how someone really isn’t all that sure it’ll help against the scary new mutations.

It is incredibly frustrating yet I want to keep track of the news at least for a bit so I can do whatever little I can to change it.

At least the finger pointing has gone away a bit. In this thread I only saw a few of the ‘if only other people had kept to the rules’ blame game comments.

I love working from home. The thing that drags me down is not seeing friends, not going to the gym, but working from home has been an improvement. No more wasted time commuting, more time for myself!

Best time of my life. Higher productivity. No time to travel to work. Eat food I prepare. Jogging in middle of day. Much more time with kids. Working non stop otherwise it's fun.

It definitely has had that effect for some, and I think that the promise of vaccines is probably exacerbating things since there's now the feeling of "I _could_ be out of this if only…".

What's helped me to stay in a positive space and productive during lockdown:

1. Daily exercise. I never worked out with weights before covid, but I bought a kettlebell and the book Simple & Sinister and started doing that routine along with cardio. Makes a huge difference.

2. Any kind of mindfulness. I've read a bunch of books on happiness during lockdown. Most all of them say the same things and suggest the same sorts of mindful practices, so I chose to do some practices based on stoicism and cognitive behavioral therapy. (Recommended reading: Why Buddhism is True, Everything is F*cked [starts good, gets bad], How to be a Stoic, A Handbook for New Stoics, Full Catastrophe Living. Choose any/all and see what you like.)

3. Not reading the news or doom scrolling. I get a covid newsletter each day (https://paulbart.substack.com) and don't read any other covid news. I also got off social media and don't read much about politics/the general shitshow. Basically, things that are beyond my control I pay limited attention to. When I violated this, obsessively seeking out streams & tweets from the storming of the capitol, I wound up having to take the next day off because I was so out of sorts.

4. Connecting directly with friends. I deleted my social media accts this year and started reaching out to old friends directly. First with a bulk email then zooms/phone calls with folks who wrote back. It's been great to reconnect and everyone is happy to chat!

5. Putting strict limits on work. I don't touch it outside of what I've determined to be "work hours". Period.

Good luck. Things can get better.

I'm less burnt out because I don't have a three fucking hour commute. Stop trying to get me back into an office that I absolutely do not ever need to step foot into again.

It really depends on your environment- are you way more distracted? Do you set clear goals for yourself day to day?

It’ll be helpful if we state our environment and expectations towards WFH.

I’m loving my work environment, but the nature of what I do is such that it has been a constant emergency since March 13, 2020.

Rewarding work, great team, but a break would be nice. Alas.

Move to Vietnam, China, Singapore or Taiwan. No more lockdowns.

No.

I work from home since 2014.

The only work related change is that I got more customers since the pandemic hit. I'm a technical writer and developer relations advocate, so this isn't surprising.

I started working from home a couple of years ago.

I can't wait to go back into the office. I wonder how many people enjoy working from home now but won't in another year or two.

Yep, had 3 weeks off over Christmas - came back and decided to quit my job. Nothing's easing up.

Now I gotta wait until actually have a new job lined up so I can really quit.

Already told my boss.

Not American.

I was very productive from home for about 3 months. Now I’m really burned out on the whole thing. I find myself wanting to go to the office every 3 days or so.

It’s a downer or maybe withdrawl symptoms (not working from office.) Related, wish I could have nail down the 20% stuff at work that got me the 80% high.

I been way more productive than I ever was in the office.

I've been working remote from home for almost a decade, and I've never felt this demotivated.

There could be a personal factor, but the lockdown is not helping.

This is normal, I think. I know many people who feel this way. I have been focusing on other things like exercise, stock trading, and side projects.

As an introvert, I wasn't as much bothered by lockdown but friends and family complaining about it was more draining than lockdown itself.

I have severe agoraphobia, but I still have empathy, so it still sucks. This should be my time to shine but my friends are sad.

work from home is not a problem, even before pandemic many of us had remote jobs and it was great (at least for me). the real issue here is after pandemic we lost every joy we had like seeing family and friends, going restaurant and cafes, doing sports together and etc. trust me you fix your bunt out even if you work from office.

Quite the opposite. I can work about 10x more and better than before. No interruptions, better good, cheaper, more time

If the first lockdowns worked why are we having more? If the first lockdowns didn't work why are we having more?

No it's been a total fucking nightmare. Take care of yourselves out there! Meditation helps me keep my lid on.

Yes, but not because of working from home. I was already doing that. Rather, my workload has ballooned.

Lockdown why?

Vote with your feet and move. Dakotas and Florida are open. I wore a mask while snorkeling and saw a shark!

Mostly because my kids are home too.

Come work at Notemeal. We have an office with a private gym in Boston and can get tested for COVID once per week as a perk. https://notemeal.io jokes aside (kind of), we were remote for the first year, and it wears on you pretty fast to eat, sleep and work in the same room.

Basically, just wanted to say there are _lots_ of other people who feel the same way.

Clubhouse is surprisingly helpful in feeling connected to the outside world right now

Yes to the point where I was let go. Crazy times we live in. Crazy times.

Yes. My productivity started out somewhat lower, but by now is much lower. Moreover, most of the time I just don't care about things that I used to care about. I'll realize, "this is something I would argue that we should do in a different, better way in the office," but will rarely put in the effort to do that now.

I live by myself in an apartment in a city, and while I do have a good work from home setup, it doubles as my gaming PC setup. I agree that living in the suburbs or a rural area would help, but it's not the only significant factor for me.

One is being on an established team versus a new team. The first couple months I was on the same team I'd worked with in the office, a fairly small team with good intra-team social connections. My productivity was lower, but only 20-30% lower. Then I switched companies as my previous employer was having major problems (which were unrelated to covid; the writing on the wall started to become clear in January). I've never met my team in real life, and while they seem like a team I'd enjoy working with in the office, I derive very little social satisfaction from my interactions with them. For most of the latter half of last year, the only thing keeping my productivity at about the 50% mark of 2019's levels were fairly frequent pair programming with a couple colleagues, one of whom has since left. I'd estimate my 2021 productivity levels so far to be 20% or less of my 2019 levels.

The other is non-work-related social interaction. Throughout the summer and fall I'd regularly meet up with friends at parks (and occasionally elsewhere after several months once it became apparent the containment strategy had failed), but that fell by the wayside starting around November, in part due to cold and in part due to the caseload hitting record levels at that time and being more cautious. Other than one friend who caught and recovered from the virus in March, I didn't see any friends or family for about two months. That definitely increased burnout as well. I've found that working remotely, I need at least two lengthy social interactions per week to maintain mental health, and that hasn't happened in too long.

I've already let my managers know that I plan to take a leave of absence once travel is feasible again. I've considered resigning as well, but at this point I'm not convinced having more free time would be a good thing, with so few ways to spend it. Work itself isn't the main problem, so much as the lack of social interaction, so I may well stay and keep earning some money at least until it warms up and I can spend the time on outdoor activities again.

I am thankful that the new job I started is local, so assuming I stay, eventually I'll be working from an office. There's no way I would stay at a position that was permanently remote.

It's been really great for me. Meetings are 1000% better.

Mentally, yes. Physically, I've never been more rested.

I hate work from home. Worst idea ever.

productive .. for whom? is it productivity for yourself or for your current corporate employer?

Vitamin D and Exercise sir.

You are not alone.

You are not alone

I definitely am

No, I love it.

Cabin fever.

Yes

I've worked remotely for five years before the lockdown started. That was mostly fine and I personally do feel that I was/am more productive working from home than I had been working in an office, but the lockdown has made things more difficult in a few ways.

First, I used to travel quite a bit. Conferences, visiting friends in different countries, etc. Since I can mostly work from wherever I am, it was always easy to do five or six trips a year. That obviously hasn't been happening since lockdown started. I live in kind of a grungy, uninteresting neighborhood in South London. I don't particularly like it (we're here out of convenience for my partner's job) but frequent travel really helped me be OK with it. Now, I haven't been more than two miles from my flat in the last year (we don't have a car and going any further would require getting on a train or bus or plane and I don't consider that to be a reasonable thing to do if it's not for an "essential" purpose; the only times I've gone anywhere further than walking distance have been for legally required immigration appointments). I used to occasionally even go and work in a cafe or pub for a few hours, or just hang out for a change of scenery and of course I can't do that either. So I'm really unhappy with my location now and really tired of seeing the same thing every day.

Second, my partner is a university lecturer. Normally, I'd work from home and she'd go to her office on campus. When they moved her classes online and she started working from home, we were in each others' way all the time. She had to pretty much turn our living room and kitchen area into a TV studio with lights, multiple cameras and a green screen setup. If she's having a class, I have to avoid passing through that space, making any noise, or using too much internet bandwidth (no pushing big docker images...) Meanwhile, I'm used to having quiet space to myself to code and that's hard to do when someone is giving a loud lecture right to you. Plus, since it's a lot more work and stress for her and no additional pay, she's been unhappy and when she's not happy, neither am I.

To make things worse, the UK has also been dealing with Brexit and over the last year a significant number of our friends, who happened to be European, left the country. So we were already feeling more isolated and down than usual before lockdown even started since most of our social network disappeared on us.

Still, I try to focus on how good we have it. Both of us are still employed, both in jobs that we can do from home. Our neighborhood is crappy, but our flat is pretty nice even if it's not huge. We live on a loud, busy, polluted street, but we do have a small deck so we could at least sit outside sometimes when the weather was nice (this is the UK though, so that's like three days a year). I remember living in apartments in NYC that were basically big enough for a twin size bed and a desk and nothing else. I know that there are still a lot of people living in places like that with no outside place to go during lockdown. I had one friend and former coworker who died, but otherwise neither of us have lost any family members or very close friends. So all in all, we could be doing much worse.

Yes.

I am just tired of all that shitshow in Germany. No masks at very beginning, then normal masks, then ffp2 in Bavaria. Vaccination goes really slow, I don’t believe, that as a young graybeard will be vaccinated earlier than mid 2022. Travel restrictions make real vacation impossible, I spend them basically in my home office. Home office was forbidden before pandemic, so I see positivity in it.

Work-from-home didn't make things worse. Constant threat of severe illness and avoiding social contact for a year did.

I've been remote for 5 years, this last year alone was the hard one.

I'm holding out hope that things will turn around soon with fixes to the vaccine rollout, but literally everyone has been on survival mode for way too long.