For working weekends, I've adopted a policy of roughly one weekend a year. That's how often I believe true emergencies happen (at least for most situations; Google SRE need not apply).

Look, if it's an isolated incident, take some breaks, find something to distract and relax you, get sleep. If it's a second or third attempt to get the team to crunch hard, quit.

On top of that, there seems to be a theme of employers trying to expect that lately, or "well, its IT, you're expected to work out of hours for free". Just refuse that and find a better employer, is my advice, if that happens too often.

Its also helpful to remember that you need to "manage up" and push back on clients or managers if you don't think deadlines are feasible given your resources.

I find it easiest to make sure people imposing deadlines understand that anything is possible given enough time and if they really need to have something done they will need narrow the scope.

IE

If someone says:

"We need X by Friday"

If its not possible, I always say:

"hats not really possible, but what I can give you is X-2 by Friday and we could build into full X in about 3 weeks assuming nothing comes up."

Then if some new project comes up I always tell the person how it is going to change "X".

ie:

If someone says:

"There is a big problem with Y we need fixed"

I say, "Ok we can fix that but its going to push back X 8 weeks".

I hope that makes sense.

I tried taking a vacation, that did little to help. What worked for me was changing jobs. Still, I didn't get better immediately, it took me a good year or so to feel "productive" again.

It was one of the worst periods of time in my life, and i'd recommend you get out as fast as possible.

So, "yes" to the job change, and a big "yes" to a real vacation (not just a week, but sometimes you need a month or more off). The best is if you can have some savings, and find a job that has a start date pushed out a bit (of course this is a bit risky depending on the job market and your ability to easily land a job).

Also as you give up coffee/sodas, don't give up fluids altogether.

Keep a bottle of water near you at all times. Enough people I know have ulcers or kidney stones from pushing through late shifts.

Firstly, the discipline to avoid getting exhausted in the first place. I don't knee-jerk "yes" when asked to work overtime, I make a deliberate decision despite how much pride I might have in the product or how much pressure I am put under by management. When I work overtime for a single night it's seen as a big deal and a big favor: as it should be.

Secondly, the discipline to push through if the first case of discipline somehow fell short. Then I demand leave, bonus leave, immediate leave: no questions asked. If I've had the discipline to push through, I can easily demand that my employer has the discipline to ensure that I am in top working order despite their mistake.

I've been there not too long ago with the goal being making a multi-million euro part of an even bigger project with 7 figure fines for delays get off the critical path in the midst of a corporate reorganization. In the end me coming up a tad short still was a resounding success for the company. The multi-year personal recovery period afterwards wasn't though.

The main thing that I've learnt is that every company is in its most optimal state when every individual in it consistently cycles between being pushed to grow AND completely relaxing. It's the same formula sporters use to get better: if you're not pushed frequently you stall and underperform; if you can't relax your dynamic range decreases and you'll slowly become less effective.

For any company to get there its employees need to internalize one very specific guideline: when you're under stress and don't see a way to fully relax and shake it off sufficiently soon it's time to reorganize the process so that your stress levels become manageable again; hard deadline or no hard deadline.

Try the "caf-nap". Drink a strong cup of coffee and immediately go to sleep (set an alarm for 45 mins or so). It can feel like a good 3-4 hour nap if it works.

In general, I'd say just make absolutely sure that that hard deadline is hard, and you can push yourself and recover afterward. Or if it's not really such a hard deadline, push it out long enough that you can recover.

If you are feeling foggy, work on the "grunt work" parts of the project (like lining up UI, or converting data or something that doesn't take much thinking), and when you are feeling more alert, work on the hard parts and firewall them off from sleepy you.

Don't take any drugs stronger than caffeine, even if your coworkers are.

Say to yourself, if I had to ship this literally four hours from now, what would I do? How could I fake it so that it appeared done? Do that. Then do it again. Then do it again until it's sort of really done.

Write down a priority list, not of importance but of implementation time. Cut the biggest item, no matter how important.

Look for parts that can be faked and retrofit later, with hardcoded data, textfiles, pure magic bullshit, whatever. Fake them.

Forget about quality. Once you're at this point, you've already missed your chance at that. Just get something done.

Make it a challenge, make it a war story. Don't let it happen again.

That is really good advice

1) Be ruthless about what you need to accomplish. This means choosing what to "do poorly" at. Sure everything is "important" but it's time to secretly throw a few things overboard.

2) Do whatever you can to optimize your wellbeing. Go to bed early and sleep enough. (1/3 dose of melatonin if you have trouble falling asleep.) Plan simple healthy meals that don't require much thinking or prep. A media fast is really good. Try to throw in a tiny bit of exercise (20 minutes) and 10 minutes of meditation here and there. (ex: when you arrive at the office)

3) Do the work in cycles so you get time to think between bursts. As we get older, the work wears us down so I treat screen time as "toxic exposure" and set a daily maximum. That doesn't mean you have to stop working...Just step away from the desk and visualize what you're going to do. Then get in there and work quickly and efficiently and get out and plan the next burst.

Bonus: In a real pinch, you need to work every day of the week. Though extra cycles and wellbeing make this pretty easy. If you're working too hard, the weekends are necessary to recover.

Exercise and eating are critical, something I personally fail at all too often when I get stressed. Supplements like others have said aren't going to fix the problem, but can help you control some of the symptoms (Vitamin B6, B12 & D are really good here). Just stay away from powerful drugs if at all possible, masking the symptom with a potent drug isn't worth the pain later. However, that said, sometimes in life it is necessary, so be your own judge.

Don't believe in the fallacy that you will take a week off when this deadline is met. Cause the reality is you will likely feel, I can't leave now because what if X happens, or Y etc. Instead, its likely time to renegotiate the deadline, likely was time 2+ weeks ago, but either way just do it.

Failure can be defined a lot of ways, missing a deadline is generally not one of them when the cost of missing it exceeds the value it offers. I have seen many deadlines set by a startup or small business because they feel they have to get to market by day X or they miss the boat, fail, go out of business, you name it. Guess what, Day X comes and nothing changes except the team is burnt and bitter at minimum for awhile. As usually even moderate success is Day X + Y. If the date has been long announced then yes meeting the date may be critical, but how you meet the date is still negotiable.

In this particular case, I think the problem was the choice to prioritize other people's needs over my own -- even my own work tasks. The combination of stress and constant interruption was causing fatigue beyond what would normally be warranted by the actual amount of time I've been spending working (a bit more than is sustainable, but only for a few days so far) and sleeping (as much as usual). After a day of being deliberately selfish, I'm in a slightly better place.

To answer some of the questions and concerns brought up:

We have a deadline based on a 3rd-party real-world event. The deadline is non-negotiable. To a certain degree, feature set/which bugs we fix are.

I'm the project manager as well as a developer, so I'm not free from blame for the tight deadline. That said, we were on track to complete the project weeks ahead of schedule until a couple of critical features were delayed by unavailability of a crucial resource (despite my protests) until way later in the schedule than should have been acceptable.

In part, I'm working so hard in order to shield the team as much as possible from the consequences of my mistakes and the above-mentioned resource allocation error, which are not their fault. I'm demanding this of myself far more than my employer is demanding it of me, because I don't want to let these people down. Including a very supportive and not-unreasonably-demanding manager. Not a firing or quitting situation!

Prioritize: Are there some to-dos which have blockers? You might need an image from a 3rd party, task interdependencies, some information from someone working on the project... get those things happening in parallel while you work (start them as early as possible).

Keep the feedback loop short: Is it possible some part of the deliverable is going to be rejected or changes may be required? Can you mock it up and save some development time? Try to have the highest possible confidence in what you're building and keep the feedback loop small. Not only does provide you a requirements guarantee, it can help prevent unrealistic expectations about progress since everyone is kept updated as a side effect of the feedback loop. Don't fall into the trap of thinking "it's only 3 days anyways, they don't need to be involved, I just need to get this done."

Stay balanced: Don't increase or decrease caffeine intake. Decreasing it drag you down, increase will make you have manic productivity swings with deep valleys. Don't skip sleep, meals or exercise. Even if you don't normally exercise you should start during this period to prevent your mind from racing and to help rest at night. Do it daily as vigorously as you can, figure out if AM or PM works best for you. If you have a friend or significant other you can involve, it can help get more out of your limited free time between now and the deadline.

If it is too short of a break, it won't work. If it is too long of a break, you'll be too far disconnected and still feel burnt out when you try to start again. For me, 2-3 hours is about right.

And everyone else is correct. Once this is over, and you have recovered, find new routines to avoid this in future. Also, do some real analysis of how you got here in the first place - burnout due to hard deadlines is almost always a flaw in your project management process (or lack thereof). Treat this burnout like a performance problem in software - dig deep, find the root cause, and fix it.

For me, progress is the solution to burnout. Stop whatever hard problem you're working on for a bit and work on something simple -- layout tweaks, small bug fixes, code cleanup, automated tests. This usually gives me the extra boost of dopamine I need to handle the larger task at hand.

Your mileage may vary of course but it's something that has worked wonders for me.

Natural stuff, take more breaks, and just have in the back of your mind that better days (specially nights are ahead).

Avoid burnouts, I was on some pills for a year to launch a product and then, first I got fired cause I couldn't do shit, then I slept for a month and couldn't get a job to save my life. That was 6 years ago, and is now that I feel better. Don't be STUPID is not worth it.

I still maintain that (possibly other than drugs), sleep is his best friend. He's largely unproductive at the moment, so a few hours "lost" to sleep is no real loss. What it will probably do is make his remaining wakeful hours more productive.

"If you have no answer, then don't post anything, and let others answer."

I don't see any answers in your post.

Go get a good long sleep. Rest. Get a hammock and sleep on parks. Enjoy life. Work is not life. Work is means to an end but not life.

Please understand, I think your advice is good whenever it is possible. We should all try to get a good night of sleep, whenever we can. But sometimes it is not possible, and this thread is about those situations.

I assume you are intelligent enough to know that sometimes sleep is impossible. If I doubted your intelligence, then I might list the many situations where you advice does not apply. I will offer just one anecdote from my experience: in 2003 myself and my business partner were going to meet with investors on a Wednesday, to ask for $250,000. We were out of money, so we had to impress the investors, or we were doomed. I started getting ready for the demo on Monday, and I kept running into bugs, more and more bugs, endless bugs. I ended up working for 20 hours, then getting 2 hours of sleep, then working for 20 more hours, so that we could give a demo on that Wednesday that was bug free.

Sometimes sleep is not an option. That is what this thread is about.

And how good was your bugbusting on Tuesday? If you'd gone home at 5, got a proper night's sleep, and done a 6 hour day on Tuesday with a clear head, do you think you'd've caught more, or fewer bugs?

(mildly fictionalized account) Last week I pulled my colleague away from trying to fix some data loss in our production system. He pointed out, quite correctly, that unless this was fixed by midnight then our client reports would be incorrect. They were; we've apologised; we may lose clients over this. I still maintain it was the correct decision, because if he'd continued to mess with the production system in that state, there's a non-negligible chance those incorrect reports could've turned into something much worse.

As for your sob story, why in the holy fuck did you put off the work until the week of the meeting?

I'll bet you 90% of these companies working ridiculous hours are run by programmers.

One of those professions is not like the others.

And the question being asked is clearly, how do you keep operating when you have to work extreme hours?

And the honest answer is that, beyond a certain point, you simply can't. No-one is super-human. And clearly from the description the OP has given us, they have reached this point.

When you're being pressured to do those hours and you're already burnt out, it can be difficult to see your situation objectively and to make rational decisions about how to proceed. You are severely mentally impaired. The first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that it exists, but in this sort of situation denial and misplaced faith that some sort of heroic effort will make everything better is all too common a response.

In reality, if taking enough time out to have a decent meal, a bit of exercise and a proper sleep before continuing will cause catastrophic failure of the project then the project was already in so much trouble that the OP should bear no responsibility for what happens next. Playing hero at the expense of their own health is most likely just delaying the inevitable.

Sure, there could be an exception here... But it's about as likely as winning the lottery every week for a year.

Which one of those things doesn't belong? 5 of those are responsible for the health and/or lives of other people. They aren't sitting at a desk.

Unless you're working on some critical infrastructure, which is probably a very small percentage of people, in what circumstances should computer programmers be working "extreme" hours? Very, very few.

2) Work your ass off for the next 3 days. You can do it. And for the next 3 days, have as many lunch and dinners with your team as you can -- meals with your team during a crunch time are a great morale booster. Also, don't pull all-nighters. Even if it's a crisis, you still need sleep.

3) On day 4, have the awkward conversation with your team lead, manager, etc... and quit.

4) Promise yourself you won't get into that kind of a situation ever again. And if you do find yourself in that kind of a situation again, promise yourself that you'll look for and deal with the warning signs sooner than three days before a deadline. (I know it's clichéd, but especially with burnout, prevention is much more effective than any cure.)

Yes, and they have obligations to you. Notably, not to kill you. That's the level of seriousness you're looking at - people who push through chronic fatigue (or adrenal fatigue) and carry on working extended hours without proper rest run quite a significant risk of death. Accept the fact that you are now totally unproductive and (possibly) actually having a negative impact on the project.

Best solution: Find a freelancer to step in for a few weeks to give you a break. Less good solution: cut your hours in half and hope the rest of the team can pick up the difference.

Got burned twice. Took me 3 years to recover from the Last time. Just finished cleaning my Appartement from 3 years worth of trash. I am so relived!

If You try to work through it you just Drive your self deeper. Scaling back to halve time may work, but its realy the responsibility that kills you.

Sports, Arts, Travel Are helpfull and Friends! Tell Your Friends You Are burned, Tell them You will try to kick em out Your Life, and Tell them they should insist - they should not stop calling you even if you push em back.

Good luck! And next time: Take an early vacation before your Brain is fucked.

A persistent lack of sleep can cause your body to shut-off non-essential processes e.g. hormone regulation. My testosterone (I'm a guy) was abnormally low (<5th percentile) and it was largely due to lack of sleep, poor eating and 0 exercise. Also I took a testosterone cream supplement for a couple months and literally within weeks of this + gym + healthy food, I put on 10% my weight of muscle and magically had twice the energy I had before. I literally feel like life was a dream before changing my daily routines to keep my testosterone up (cold shower, heavy weights 4x per week, eat protein rich big meals with veg, etc. ) and keep myself sane (20min mindfulness meditation first thing in the morning). That's the other thing: your body functions best while the sun was up (we have had electricity for ~0.001% of man's complete lifetime so our bodies didn't evolve to function at night and we've only had lights for like 100 years. Before that you made a fire and had to chill in one spot!

TLDR: no sleep + poor diet = messed up hormones = low energy ... get your blood tested at your GP!

To do it well, I focus on the extremities of the toes and fingers, and give them a really good stretch, then let them relax. Then work inwards. Eventually you'll feel like you're floating, and get a good night's sleep. But I also mean stretch your eyebrows, your jaw etc. Stretch everything possible and let it relax. Its amazing where you can hold tension.

I really do prefer weight training an hour or so before sleep, it just gets the blood flowing without increasing the heart rate too much.

Mental preparation. Always have conversations with yourself about your state of mind, be your own therapist, I tell myself that I'm blessed and working 24/7 is nothing. There are folks who have a much more physical and mentally demanding jobs.

There are people who are living in war zone and their job everyday is to survive, to avoid getting shot, blown to bits, find food within that chaos and still do whatever they have to do. There is no timeouts, no rest, the action could begin right while you are sleeping and you have to jump and get back at it. As a software developer, we have it easy. I imagine myself as a survivor in the midst of a war. I won't crack and I'm ready for whatever.

Cuss loud if you have to, laugh loud when you have to, have fun within the work, don't be 100% zoned in, while working, crack jokes, laugh, balance it out. You can do it. If you are mentally tough, you will not burnout. The physical toll on your body tho is a different matter, my biggest issue is that of eating right and weight gain. Best of luck.

Sometimes it's possible, and sometimes it's not.

To respond to your analogy, I would equate "checking in" with your mental state with brushing your teeth.

No, you can't perform a root canal on yourself, just like you can't bring yourself out of spiraling depression or a mental disorder -- you can, however, do some "preventive maintenance," and take care of your mental state. Seek a professional if/when you need one.

"Burnout" is a nebulous state. Some people are burned out when they've had a hard week, and others are in an intense state of panic/depression. I think these should be treated (or self-treated) accordingly.

It's unsustainable, on loan from your future, and soon you'll stop being able to even meet the payments on the interest. Burning out is nothing compared to the sudden stop at the end, and that elusive 'almost there' Is. Not. True.

Whatever consequences you imagine lie before you if you don't stop, simply ponder what a death in your immediate family would do to that prioritisation. It /is/ negotiable, and if it isn't then you're not working for/with the right people anyway. If that's the case you're being treated as a disposable commodity. If you're replaceable, fungible, then you're a cost to be minimised, like a printer cartridge they try squeeze the last out of.

Self isn't something you get back easily (or at all) once traded away. Just don't.

My strategy is sheer bloodymindedness, but I find I can only dredge that up so often. When I push through burnout when I know I shouldn't, I end up knackered for months.

It's an effort I can really only dredge up once a year or so. Make sure you talk to your boss about this.

As for just working through it, programming work is not factory work. Productivity can be negative when you're tired, and x10 when you're on a roll. You may find yourself more productive just by not doing anything for a day and coming back.

Cut everything else out until the task is done, provided the task holds that level of importance to you. Sleep will help your brain, exercise will energize you (even if it's just a brisk walk), and food will sustain you. Sometimes it's easy to overlook the basics—the foundation of quality effort.

My real suggestion? Take a step back and consider whether the environment around you will keep you healthy and happy long-term. Burnout charges interest, and if your environment doesn't afford you the opportunity to repay that interest, you'll spiral into psychological and physical bankruptcy.

So before finishing this project, take a physical step back, look at your environment objectively. Is it going to bankrupt you? If yes, seek to remedy the situation immediately and forcefully. If no, see my superficial suggestion and get to work.

So, chances are this round of stress may not go well, and if it does, it may not be the last.

Step away and analyze where it is that you fail ( in addition to the other factors ). That will be a valuable learning opportunity.

There is good information about supplements on examine.com

I agree though, no supplement is going to completely save the day here.

Watch the Southpark episode "Ginger Cow". You don't have to sacrifice your health and wellbeing for a project. You can always find an other "very important" project and work yourself to death. But - high probably - you don't have a second life.

There's also an adrenal support supplement which after a few days will help recycle hormones taking the load off your system. Essential oils supplements should also help with mental clarity.

If your digestion is currently poor, then after a few days of eating less toxic food you should have much more energy and less mental fatigue.

1. Take little walks during work. 2. You also need a sound board, a colleague whom you can trust to validate your work and thoughts, because the one thing you can't afford is to redo things. Just trust this random stranger from the internet on this one. 3. Try to get a fix on the date when you can take a time off.Knowing that takes of the edge off a bit.

Adderal, Ritalin or Captagon can be used to get you out of a bad situation. But you should be very careful not to use them for longer periods because you will regret it. Talk to your doctor and then go talk to your employer.

I know where I live at least you can take a permanent medical leave for burn-out, the first month of which is to be paid by your employer, so most corporations would rather find a solution.

Unlike what Nike's ad says, somethings are not possible, and most things are not worth it. Your family, sanity, health come first; more so than work, pride and money(beyond basics).

What you are experiencing is a sampling error, where you are surrounded by young people who have similar views as yourself. Get out, see more of the world, heck, work for a IT dept. You would be surprised by how much money they make for the work they do.

How did it come to this? Were the original time estimates way off? Was there significant scope creep? Were there blockers that were beyond your control (ie. tech problems with dev environments, specs were delivered late, etc.)

More than likely, the release date can be pushed.

You team will understand, the company cannot fairly* dismiss you for being overworked and stressed. You owe it to yourself to take a break and recharge.

* depends on your country's laws I guess, but if they value you they will give you time to recover.

That said, there is a lot of good advice here -- sleep well, exercise, disconnect when not on the clock, talk to those who set the deadline and explain the situation in an advantageous way.

You may find that the realisation that you are becoming more focused when you need it will help your relieve the stress that's causing your burnout.

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/01/you-are-...

This is very likely a project management problem and should be treated as such. If anyone tries to blame you, blame the project management process, unapologetically and unhesitatingly. Do not sacrifice your health/sanity to make up for shitty project management or ridiculous expectations. If the rest of the company refuses to see it your way and work toward fixing their probably-broken processes immediately, start sending our résumés.