How do you keep up without burning out?

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mic2machine@reddit

Cultivate a trained forgettery.
I manage to forget all the details of the job when I'm off the clock. Passwords, project deadlines, phone numbers, all of it. No longer sysadminning, but apply the same idea.

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nhpcguy@reddit

I quit and found a career that i cannot take home with me. Since then my life has been so much better than it was before.

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enforce1@reddit

I actually love it so it’s not a burn out to me.

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Daphoid@reddit

Work is not who you are. North America has it backwards. Work is what you do to live, you might even enjoy it.

I don't ignore any of it, I just give some stuff less time. Then I give non-work time too. Hobbies, family, friends, I don't do work once I sign out for the day; and I don't start it when I first wake up (no looking at my work email/phone/etc).

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grandtheftzeppelin@reddit

I've said for a long time that I only get jobs to fund my art.

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masterz13@reddit

But then you have to study for certs to advance your career on your own time and dime.

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Daphoid@reddit

Sure, but my work also allows us to block out time at work for learning (it's encouraged). So I don't have to do all of it on my own time. Also if I work over time I just balance that out and leave early the next week, no management notice required.

And never dime. Every place I've worked if you pass the cert, you get reimbursed.

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TheThirdHippo@reddit

I had a midlife crisis and bought this last year. Sometimes my 15 minute commute home takes over an hour.

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ManWithoutUsername@reddit

I don't give a damn.

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TheThirdHippo@reddit

This is fast becoming the normal way

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justinDavidow@reddit

Between patches, cloud updates, security alerts, and now AI everywhere… it feels endless.

That's IT baby!

For many of us who are truly passionate about IT, constant change ends up feeling pretty damn awesome.

There's always new ways to do things, fun new approaches, past mistakes resurfacing: it slowly humbles you into realizing that nobody has all the answers but fortune favors the ones who put in the work and try.

At the end of the day, I work in this industry to help people. I'm not infallible and I don't know everything; but I'm always happy to put the work in to make things a little better than they were yesterday or last week.

If that's just "keeping up" that's still a pretty good feeling.

If you can get ahead; that's where this role really shines.

Between patches, cloud updates

Why not automate these things?

security alerts

There are all sorts of scanners that you can configure for your specific environment and run regularly, to give you a clear set of tasks that need doing as these things happen.

now AI everywhere

So leverage that to your advantage?

Wait until you end up working for a company one day who doesn't even know what they want, and they flounder and ask for shit they don't even understand what it does; then ask you to spend hundred of hours per year discussing that infrastructure with stakeholders and vendors only for everyone involved to silently sit and question why anyone is even there in the first place!

IT is NOT for everyone, if you truly get no joy from the industry, I strongly encourage you to speak with a therapist: they can help you (and anyone!) sort through shit and help you set goals and figure out what you DO want to work towards doing.

Best of luck!

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slippery_hemorrhoids@reddit

For many of us who are truly passionate about IT, constant change ends up feeling pretty damn awesome.

this shit gets old, passionate or not.

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Far-Bug8297@reddit

ignore vendor emails marked urgent unless ur actually on fire

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looney417@reddit

Write scripts

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Baselet@reddit

I don't keep up.

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skossan@reddit

Don't work on your free time
Workout and run. This keeps you free from brain fog.

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Away-Sea7790@reddit

Stop at the end of your day. Turn off notifs or better get another phone that is dedicated for work. Think of other things outside of work. Exercise, do something fun on weekends, drink, talk with friends or your love ones.

The more you don't care about work after your work hours. The more unlikely you are to burn out. Good luck!

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MickCollins@reddit

You make sure that number one, you put in your forty and that's it. When they push, say no. Worst you'll have to do is find another job and that's better for you if they want to play the "you're on salary" game anyway. That's a sign they don't see you as a person, but only as a resource they don't give a fuck about. As Sean Connery stated once: "Rule Number One - at the end of your shift, make sure you make it home alive."

Don't dwell on it off hours. This one is VERY hard sometimes, especially if you're in cybersecurity.

Have a hobby, even if it's computer games. If you still have children who are below 18, make sure to spend time with them doing shit that isn't work. Make sure you see people OTHER than your family and work people just for balance.

Get enough sleep. This is more a you question. The older you get, the harder it is to sleep. Try to get what you can.

Stay in your lane. If it's another department's responsibility...let them deal with it. If someone is trying to pull you in, decide whether you want to help or not. Obviously if your manager is telling you to do so, get involved. Even if you can solve it it doesn't mean you should. Remember: in most cases (rarely otherwise), your reward for being good at work is....more work.

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the_star_lord@reddit

For me it's not the work but the amount of it, plus meetings, projects (currently I am doing 20+ critical projects all with conflicting deadlines, priorities and technical knowledge) having to task switch at any moment, support other staff, maintain our itsm, react to constant defender alerts etc etc.

I'm failing at multiple tasks because I can't focus on anything properly

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manilove__frogs@reddit

Stop doing that. Document what you do and CYA.

Do you follow ITIL practices? Review your documented work, projects, change requests, break-fix tickets with your manager and ask them what needs to be dropped in order to accommodate something else.

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LadyPerditija@reddit

Same, it's the chaos that gets to me

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Eisenhowers-Ghost@reddit

Gallows humor. Worked in the Army, works today.

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Nerdlinger42@reddit

What am I ignoring?

Screen time after work. Instead I prioritize the gym and hobbies. Manage burnout, I think it's impossible to prevent. When you feel it coming, gotta use PTO.

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THE_GR8ST@reddit

What hobbies?

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uptimefordays@reddit

It's really helpful having nontechnical hobbies, skiing, hiking, or other outdoor activities are all solid. Exercise in general is both good for you and an excellent distraction from work and computers/tech.

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THE_GR8ST@reddit

What is good for after work?

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uptimefordays@reddit

Running, gym, meeting up with friends/loved ones.

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THE_GR8ST@reddit

Are these the only or best suggestions you have?

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uptimefordays@reddit

They’re all things that have worked well for me.

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THE_GR8ST@reddit

I guess I should start running and/going to the gym again.

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Nerdlinger42@reddit

3D printing, making hot sauce, drumming, concerts, home improvement, etc.

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Arudinne@reddit

I've been thinking about getting back into Nitro-powered RC cars again. Those were fun.

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progenyofeniac@reddit

I stop at the end of the day. I come in, I do a day’s work, I stop working and go home.

That’s how your job realizes they need to hire more people.

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Frisnfruitig@reddit

This is so simple and true, yet so many people can't do this. The amount of posts I've seen (mostly Americans) talking about how hard they work, taking on too many responsibilities, never taking a day off etc. Stop selling your soul to these fucking companies, they don't give a shit about you. Do the work you are paid to do, then get out.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

Stop selling your soul to these fucking companies, they don't give a shit about you

Agreed, but one of the issues is that we celebrate this too much, or it's just out of necessity:

The entire sector is shrinking; SaaS, the cloud and now AI are finally after 10 or 15 years translating over to the CIO saying "oh, I can just pay the computer bill every month and fire everyone." That constant fear leads to people unsuccessfully trying to learn everything so they can be hot-swappable into any job. It wasn't possible to learn everything 30 years ago when I started and things were simple...it's absolutely not possible now.
The job market is trash, there are 1000+ people applying to every open position, and you're competing with FAANG castoffs in some cases. You apply to hundreds of positions, get one or two callbacks, and now companies have ridiculous multi-day rounds of interviews, coding exams, and all sorts of hoops for even simple jobs. This leads to people desperately clinging by their fingernails to their existing jobs and panicked about losing them.
There's no standard education or professional organization, leading to do it yourself homelab stuff and the pressure to constantly learn learn learn even if you'll never use something. It's what leads companies to put up the impossible barriers above to try to "flush out scammers." No other profession makes their members build their own education and training plan...it's all laid out for them and employers aren't playing stump the chump in interviews for, say, a new medical residency slot.
The choice these days seems to be either extreme fear of being left behind in shrinking support roles, or extreme pushes to join the DevOps brigade and get clobbered by burnout and imposter syndrome. Once you get on that Agile/DevOps treadmill where your performance is up on the scoreboard for everyone to see and your peers are all trying to prove how much harder they work than you...yeah, you'll be trying to keep up with them.

I absolutely don't want another dotcom bubble pop (started my career as the first one was popping) but one thing it might do is let everyone slow TF down and take a breath.

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Likely_a_bot@reddit

But how will I show my boss that I'm a top performer so that I can get that promotion and climb the corporate ladder?

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Daphoid@reddit

I do, and have done this but work the same way as Frisnfruitig there. I just perform highly during the day. I have a pretty high bar for quality. Do I work zero overtime? No I probably do 42-45 a week. But, I don't look at work before / after work, I take a lunch and don't eat and work most days. I take vacation (4-5 weeks a year), etc. Yet I get great performance reviews.

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Frisnfruitig@reddit

That's not even the reason most of the time, it seems. Often it's because they feel they have to put in way more work than they are being paid for, because they want to keep everything afloat. They can't take a week of vacation because they are afraid the environment will burn down.

It's ridiculous, of course.

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ResponsibilityLast38@reddit

Im one of those sick, sad workaholics. I force myself to take my time off and I take on too much while im in office. But its not that Im afraid of anything burning down or feeling like I need to grind to a better salary or position. Dont get me wrong, more money is nice. I would not turn it down.

My motivation comes from my people. I cant leave at the end of the day and shut my mind off because on the other end of that email or work order was a coworker who needs something to make their work world work. And folks are emailing me and dming me before my workday even starts every day looking for help. I feel an obligation to them... Not to the company, or the bottom line, or my bank account. People need my help and I want to help them.

Im not saying this to say its healthy or asking anyone for advice or to set me straight. I know its probematic not just for me but other folks on my team who arent like this. I make myself walk away, I make myself take my vacation, I say 'no' to people when my dance card is full. if I didnt make a conscious effort to just STOP I wouldnt.

Just some insight into theind of a particular type of workaholic. There is no glory or riches in it for me, just a desire to fix problems and anxiety when I know there is something to fix that Im walking away from.

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flashx3005@reddit

Yup agreed. I think its this sense of "oh without me the company can't survive". I've been caught by it also. Corporate America wil never care about the individual especially us in IT.

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rootcurios@reddit

It's because in corporate America, owners and managers often understaff which also means people have multiple or all hats/roles and companies put employees in positions where they don't have cover, so then they have to be on call or work even on vacations/days off. They find weak "comps" to make up for it. "Worked for 20 hours on your vacation? You can come work remote tomorrow when you return, you've earned it! "

What American companies do is flaunt PTO and pay, but than hold it against employees or deny requests when you try using them, because it's really just incentive to hire you, but then act like its disrepect to use them and its either take it or find a new job in the worst job market (which they know, which is why they no longer care about people leaving). My soul was crushed when I came into this field and saw managers with 4+ weeks vacation, who didnt use it because they kept getting denied because of big projects during summers or other members missing important events with their families because they're a lead of something a manager promised a client.

Some owners and managers are great. In general, America is just an all around shit country to work in.

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Arudinne@reddit

They can't take a week of vacation because they are afraid the environment will burn down.

Let it. Lots of people seem to feel like they have a personal responsibility to keep the sinking ship afloat when they don't.

A company will fire you and have a job posting out before the door hits your ass on the way out and won't think twice about it.

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p8ntballnxj@reddit

One of my coworkers is slowly realizing this. He is young (27) with no kids or major responsibilities so he works constantly. His output is great and he is always learning. He is the SME with every one going to him for almost anything. Honestly, we would be in hell without him. Nice guy too.

Review time? Meeting expectations. Nothing extra because he made his 60+ hour weeks his average.

I keep my time around 40 hours or less and I wait until the next business day to respond to stuff. I don't know as much as him but I do alright. Sometimes I do after hours stuff but those are pre-planned.

My reviews? Meeting expectations

🤷

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Frisnfruitig@reddit

Honestly, just doing what is expected within your 40 hours is already better than what most are doing. Sometimes I feel like I don't really have to work hard, but when compared to my colleagues, I'm one of the best.

Doing 60+ hours is fine if that's what you want to be doing of course. Some people really do live to work, I know some of these tech gurus. Microsoft MVPs, writing blog posts Sunday evening at 9 PM.

It must be nice to be the best I suppose, but for me it's just not worth it. I like my job and wouldn't want to do a different job, but I don't have this obsession.

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reserved_seating@reddit

Climbing the corporate ladder isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, from my experience anyway.

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Grand-Height9907@reddit

What if your employer wants you to work in the weekend or after hours for critical work ?

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Frisnfruitig@reddit

I don't work weekends or after hours. I've done it in the past under special circumstances but nowadays I wouldn't consider it unless it's extremely well compensated.

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Grand-Height9907@reddit

Lol sure im sure if ur team or manager asks u will reject it

LoL

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Frisnfruitig@reddit

I don't take positions where I would be required to work weekends or after hours. It could happen in theory I suppose but it's complicated as a consultant. Usually it's internal employees doing this, but if I had to do it it wouldn't be for the regular rate.

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wabi-sabi411@reddit

The issue is a lot of people translate this into phoning it in. Balance is hard

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sinisterpancake@reddit

Ha selling their soul. No no plenty of people I know gift their soul. They don't get paid more they just work more, for free. Like unpaid internships I will never understand it outside of a critical emergency.

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Dear_Cartographer261@reddit

Yep, same boat. Education has a way of conditioning people to just absorb whatever the job demands, no questions asked. I opted out of that a while back. My time is my time, and when I'm off, I'm off. Occasionally, that rubs someone the wrong way, so I'll request the "what are my actual required hours?" conversation with the admin team, and they never really have an answer beyond some vague efficiency talking point. I've gotten the "you can be replaced" hints too, and my honest reaction is: try it. Anyone coming in fresh will get a very quick education in how much this role actually requires. I've got year twenty marked as my hard stop either way, so I'm a little curious how the whole thing shakes out.

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Trust_8067@reddit

Being burnt out is a mindset. You can simply not let things stress you out to that point.

That being said, it's 2026. Your patching and updates should all be automated. AI isn't everywhere, it's not going to do much of anything major anytime soon. Quit drinking sensationalist bullshit cool aid and just learn how to be great at your job / focus on gaining experience.

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uptimefordays@reddit

I spend time outside work doing things I enjoy, hobbies, spending time with loved ones, and not working more than 8hrs in a day.

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Real-Patriot-1128@reddit

I’m like a serial killer/sociopath… no emotion. Do my best, go home at end of day and focus on home. Don’t take work home and unless you’re trying to cure cancer or something… shit happens.

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Test-NetConnection@reddit

Drinking.

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ToastieCPU@reddit

I start everyday at 60% effort then mid day it goes to 85% and then the last hour i wind down to 50%.

Going 100% all day everyday is the issue, you are running a marathon not a dash pace yourself

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Inn0centSinner@reddit

Are you one of the last remaining survivors of a multiple rounds of layoffs now responsible for everything?

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LadyPerditija@reddit

I don't. I'm pregnant and I thought I could push through until maternity leave but I failed. 10 years of this crap, of always having too much to do and not enough time. Executive dysfunction hit me hard and now I'm on sick leave until the baby arrives. My doc says stress is poison for the baby and so I pulled the emergency brakes. Right now I'm relearning to do basic chores. I still have so much to do even without my job but I'm starting to actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. But being pregnant just makes it so much worse, right now I spend most of my time in my bed.

Sorry this was absolutely not what you asked but I guess I had to get that out

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gabacus_39@reddit

Treat your job like a job, not your life's whole meaning. Go to work on time, do your work on time, and most importantly, leave work on time. Work is paying me to work for 8 hours a day and that's what they're getting out of me.

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heavydrinker12@reddit

I'm gen-x. I've burned out multiple times. It's what we do.

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baw3000@reddit

I turn it off at the end of the day. I don't go home and work on my home lab, I don't have one anymore. Got rid of all of it. I don't take my work laptop out of my backpack unless the sky is falling and I barely use my personal laptop. I make time to be outside, fish on the weekends when I can, and enjoy some fresh air.

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AugieKS@reddit

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1996Primera@reddit

Printers

Havent touched one in 6 yrs and haven't cared about them for the last 10

Gtfo w that printing shit

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Hot_Direction7888@reddit

I do things, sometimes I have a lot of work to finish but I know work never finishes. So I study lol

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Fallingdamage@reddit

Develop your own working form of zen. Gotta take time to find the right headspace.

Also, try not to get yourself in a lot of debt. When you dont need the job, you stress about it less. Employers see a calm, confident person and hang onto them (somtimes.)

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anthonywayne1@reddit

Hustle culture is a sham. Do a days work in a day. Want a higher paying job or increase in responsibilities, your best bet is to apply for that at a different organization. 3-5 years at one place is respectable.

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DevOps_Lady@reddit

This is for me not only work thing but mental issues stuff. I need to force myself take time. Something like OK in half an hour I'm gonna turn my tv and watch a movie with some beer and food. There will always something to do. Schedule yourself time off for hobbies. If you need schedule it in your private calendar to remember to do so.

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AtarukA@reddit

When I am done for the day, I play the piano, I watch a series, I play fetch on my own, I bike.

My job is over, not my problem anymore, the world is not gonna end. Now come watch TV.

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BP8270@reddit

Pacing yourself is one of the most important skills that they don't teach.

Cut it off at 5PM - Go be with your family, go fishing, play with your dog. It will all be there the next day.

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jptechjunkie@reddit

Leave work at the door when you leave as it will be there for you tomorrow. Use your PTO.. have pto scheduled during a project milestone? Not your problem. Key man problem? Not your problem. Let the org figure it out. Document example when you need more help. Management won’t know unless you tell them.

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RumRogerz@reddit

Desk whiskey

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50KWVictaMower@reddit

Vyvanse with Dex top ups

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BemusedBengal@reddit

I feel like I'm the only one here that actually enjoys the majority of their job. There's definitely tasks I don't like, so I interleave them with the tasks I do like. Users don't need to know that the reason I "don't have time" to work on their issue right now is because I want to do something more fun first.

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natflingdull@reddit

I don’t. My life is hell

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0263111771@reddit

I guess you can break things down to smaller chunks? Just focus on one thing at a time. I have worked with techs who could learn docker on Monday and Tuesday and be proficient in AI by Friday. It would take me a month just to get docker and if I did not do it every day I would forget what I learned by the end of the week. It was intimidating. Do what you can at your speed or you will absolutely burn yourself out.

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spitecho@reddit

The trick is to just be burnt out until you're burnt out from being burnt out. Also, severe alcoholism seems to be working.

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AGenericUsername1004@reddit

I have a life and projects and missions outside of work. As soon as I log off thats me not thinking about work until I login again. Make use of your PTO.

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Low-Oil7883@reddit

I just ignore half the alerts now honestly. If it’s on fire someone will @ me eventually.

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technikaffin@reddit

The long term effects of smoking pot tbh.

At least it got legalized 2 years ago.

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Josepepowner@reddit

Start at clock in. End at clock out. Ignore everything during my lunch.

Respect your time. Your employer won't.

From day 1 I set my employer expectations to what I wanted. I was honest. I don't give more than 100. And I'm only here for the money. I like what I do but I wouldn't be doing it for them if it wasn't for the money. This is a completely transactional agreement and I'm not going to make friends with anyone in admin.

I'm currently the top performer in my HD role. I occasionally take on bigger tasks when I want to learn but I escalate anything and everything above my pay grade and don't care. My CSAT has been 100 for 3 years straight. Time to close is 30 minutes. I closed over 2800 tickets last year. I work hard but I set expectations accordingly. Yes I'm at an MSP and not a sysadmin but I felt like this was a general IT question.

This is how I keep sane. That and I fuck my wife.

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NossnahojC@reddit

Didn't got burnt out, trying to ignore work once home but I still need to get better at it.

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serverhorror@reddit

I just get paid for (one of) my hobb[y|ies].

Work does not define my life.

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Arseypoowank@reddit

Take up a hobby that requires no screen, and involves physical activity. I love spending my days off in my garden or riding my motorbike, or going for a walk somewhere picturesque.

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Iceman_B@reddit

Demands. At the end of the day, I do what I can and then fuck off home. Life's to short to slave away.

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Signal_Till_933@reddit

I’m ignoring everything after 5 o clock brother

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sir_mrej@reddit

Yeah it never ends. Gotta prioritize, automate, and let it go at 5p.

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doyouvoodoo@reddit

I love working in IT. Technology is awesome and always evolving, some off of it for better, some for worse.

Boundaries. I work 40 hours a week. I put in tremendous effort during those hours, and when there is more work than time I inform my supervisor and ask them (in writing) what they wish for me to prioritize. There are the occasional "oh shit" emergencies that actually need me for extra hours situationally or to come back in (IT be like that). I clearly document any additional hours in writing to my supervisor, and comp them shortly after (I'm exempt, so no OT).

I have a jobcard, and my annual performance reviews, if tasks convert to full time responsibilities under the infamous "other tasks as assigned" clause throughout the year, I request that my job card be modified to reflect the new responsibilities alongside the existing ones. I tabulate how much time out of my 40 hour workweek each responsibility consumes and present it to my supervisor as a cut sheet.

I've been with my employer for over 10 years now, and I consistently receive more complex responsibilities with greater potential impact to the organization. Document the hell out of the repetitive tasks you like the least and once you have instructions (that anyone with 5th grade reading comprehension can follow) that work/process can now be performed by someone who gets paid less to do exactly that level of work.

The combination of my enthusiasm for IT, my boundaries, and my consistent/open/honest communication with my supervisor has generally resulted in the repetitive, time-consuming tasking (that I hated) getting redistributed to junior IT folks (see documentation statement above) to free up more time for me to consistently design, test, validate, document, and then implement newer technologies and ideas.

Many of the most excruciatingly repetitive, time consuming responsibilities that I've been assigned at one point or another over the years still appear in my job card, but are listed as "Serves as the SME or top tier support for" instead of "responsible for performing".

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No_Ionger_interested@reddit

Infosec here. In the past few years, the number of bad vulnerabilities (log4j, react2shell etc) have seemingly increased a lot, alarmist news articles are a daily thing - last Microsoft's patch tuesday fixed some 164 vulnerabilities from which 8 were critical. Essentially fire fighting.

I will deal with most critical stuff, but daily life feels like I'm barely holding on and any unexpected interruption will cause everything to collapse. But ultimately it's not my issue to worry about as I've been hired to work for 8 hours per day and if that's insufficient, my employer should hire more people to cover for the ever-increasing work load. It's necessary to consciously remind that any failure is not mine, but the organization's.

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czek@reddit

It is the old postman problem. A postman delivers letters every day, but it never finishes. There are new letters every day. To stay sane, a postman won't take the work home - it won't matter. Whatever he does, it will never be enough, there will be new letters when he comes in in the morning. So, in the end he will deliver whatever letters there are to deliver in one days work, then he goes home and does something different.

It is the same pattern in IT, and in some other jobs. The only solution is, to stop working at the end of the day and do something you enjoy, as so many others already posted in here.

Personally, after close to 30 years in the industry, I accepted that I won't know everything, that I won't deal with everything, that some things won't be done in time, that some people won't be happy about it, and so on. It is what it is, everyday there are new things with priority - so I work my hours, doing my best. And then I enjoy family, fixing things in the house, doing sports in nature, reading a book, playing a game or when the weather is bad watching youtube on non-IT-topics. Whatever I feel up to. IT is work, not my life.

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Sandfish0783@reddit

Having a non technical hobby is a must. Gotta find a way to break away from it. For me that has been Magic: the Gathering.

I do love the tech work and I love labbing but there’s only so much you can take on at one time. That being said with AI being what it is, leveraging it as a learning tool to help automate things that burn more time than they build value can be really helpful.

For example, patching should be pretty automated and require minimal oversight/review.

Regular task for me are now in Ansible so that there’s less doing repeat work and I can kickoff jobs.

Also at work I’ve been taking opportunities to teach and show others how to do some of these things so again I can take on things that are more interesting.

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scoldog@reddit

After going through PTSD and burnout thanks to my job, I've learnt how not to give a shit.

I do volunteer fire fighting. It's actually less stressful than my job and teaches you the actual meaning of the word "urgent".

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MakSirra888@reddit

I've been in the industry long enough now to go through three major 'transformative' technologies that drove everyone mad, people lost shit loads of money and yet the technical tide rose and IT became responsible for the ongoing implementation and maintenance, and things DID actually improve.

The dot com bubble drove everyone into web apps, bubble popped, but now practically everything we do is web apps and APIs.

Virtualised hardware hit and the entire hardware sector lost their shit, but they pivoted and now everything runs on VMs or containers and compute is leased.

Now it's AI. This shit has been in discussion and design for over twenty years and it's finally becoming reality. It's not actual General Intelligence, everything it does it's been told to do by a human at some point (which proves to be more horrifying most of the time), but if you ignore the glazers and work through your own cognitive dissonance, you can see the end of the tunnel when the bubble bursts, the industry loses its shit again, but then we get to see how much of it is left after the tide settles.

My hope is that the work Quant is doing to shrink the processing requirements for quality models becomes to norm. That way we get to keep the good stuff, to use AI as an engine, but don't have to rely on ridiculous hardware and datacenter economics, and maybe I can buy some fucking RAM upgrades for my server room again.

IT is overwhelming and burn out is real, but if you can learn to watch the tide, you're less likely to drown.

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Flat-Photograph8483@reddit

I don’t ignore anything.To keep up without burnout I just listen to industry podcasts on the way into work, comedy or music on the way home.

Also if I can find drive and interest in anything computer related even if outside of my focus, I chase it. Always seems to somehow come up and help out in the future.

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a1155997@reddit

couldn't tell ya. If you find out please let me know

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Amomynou5@reddit

Actual answer: I only keep up with stuff I actually care about, and the stuff that I'm actually working with, at that particular period of time. Basically a very narrow focus on things.

Like right now, I'm (fortunately) not dealing with any cloud-stuff, so I'm completely ignoring all cloud-related news and learnings. Also (unfortunately) right now I'm not dealing with any enterprise Linux stuff, so I'm putting the enterprise Linux stuff aside even though that's on learning to-do list.

If anything else warrants my attention, I only give it time when I have enough spare time and mental energy.

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Onoitsu2@reddit

You guys have sanity... ?

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Thyg0d@reddit

It is endless.. It will never stop, best thing ever. The day it stops, I'm out of a job.

My aim has always been to learn at work, might be something big or might be a small thing.. Talk to colleagues who does other work to learn from them..

I dint have time off, vacations gets interrupted for a few hours here and there, weekends are good until someone clicks something they shouldn't have but all the rest of the time I try to forget work as much as possible.

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Any decent paying job is going to have some stressors.

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KillingTime1212@reddit

Gym. Vacations. Go gambling at casinos. Gotta have a life.