I've been fighting with burnout for 18 years
Burnout is a very broad term that only vaguely describes what actually happened and why you can’t—or just don’t want to—work. This subject has tormented me for a long time: it keeps me from working a lot, from working productively, from getting results, and from building a startup.
Over that time I’ve gotten tons of advice—from loved ones, doctors, ChatGPT, Gemini, articles and comments on the internet, and so on. I’ve tried a bunch of things: – a pomodoro timer; – nasal strips; – working strictly during set hours; – lots of walking and exercise; – B-vitamins, co-enzyme Q10, L-theanine, creatine, L-arginine, 5-HTP; – antidepressants; – going to bed at 9–10 p.m.; – completely changing my diet, cutting out sugar, or, conversely, upping my sugar intake.
So many variables… I can’t say I’ve found a solution: every time it’s different. I’m sick and tired of it.
Recently, thanks to AI—more precisely, an LLM—I discovered an interesting tool. One evening, while out walking, I pulled up Gemini and started complaining: once again I’m tired, unproductive, burned out. As usual it spat out a huge wall of advice. I was so fed up! I said, “Fuck, I’m already sick of these tips. I’ve tried everything, I don’t want any more. Can you stop advising? Just ask questions. Better yet—ask like a CBT therapist so I can dig down to the cause myself.”
And then the magic happened. It really did stop advising and started asking at most one or two questions. That’s when the work began, the insights started flowing. Some questions and answers brought tears to my eyes. It was incredible.
In the end I uncovered causes I’d never even considered. Turned out I have a fear of deploying. I’m afraid everything will break. That fear led to procrastination: I began preparing endlessly, laying down safety nets so the fall wouldn’t hurt. I’d get so caught up in prep that I kept adding more features; finishing became harder, and deploying even scarier. I slid into anxiety: deploying felt terrifying, deadlines slipped. To catch up, I’d work and think even more. My cognitive resources would hit zero—and that was it.
The root wasn’t that I go to bed late; it was fear. Once I realized that, I just decided to back up everything, take snapshots, and deploy to a test server instead of straight to prod, like I used to. After all, I’m a solo bootstrap founder.
No one else could have helped me dig this deep. It took me several hours answering Gemini’s questions, day after day. The things I uncovered are fucking awesome. No one has ever helped me like that.
LLMs don’t just help us write code—they help us discover our own problems. I’m absolutely thrilled and had to share.
Personally, I prefer to go on long walks and leave the phone at my desk. I can't decompress with a reminder about work in my pocket. Besides it would keep pinging, etc.
Bertrand Russell.
I consider myself to be "burned out" as in that isn't going to get better anymore. I accept that and build my workflow around that, that is what helped me most.
I spent considerable time into monitoring, safety procedures, fall back mechanisms, excessive backups, ... Everything that gives me peace to focus on other things.
Also using LLM for a third party view for anything you are stuck on can be a godsend.
Now I love dictating by voice instead of typing. It used to seem that typing was so easy—so “easy”—and thanks to ten-finger typing everything happened very quickly. But compared to what you can rattle off by voice, it’s like night and day.
And those dashes the transcription adds, of course—they look completely out of place.