What is burnout?​

According to pyschologytoday, burnout is defined as a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. In today's world, almost everyone is experiencing burnout, however, a lot of us might not be aware of it. I didn't know anything about burnout until I had a series of breakdowns and meltdowns so frequently that I had to revisit a lot of my life choices. I promised myself that I would put myself as my priority and believe me, I never looked back after that decision.

Until last year, a burnout for me always lead to a breakdown or a meltdown. As I researched into my burnout situation, I realized certain unattended triggers eventually lead to burnout -> meltdown. My own burnout resrearch has tremendously helped me in understanding myself better and I hope this helps you as well.

I have three major burnout triggers:

1. Clutter
2. Sensory stimulation
3. Social exhaustion

Clutter​

Visual clutter is my biggest trigger. More the visual clutter, more anxious I get. I worked on reducing visual clutter by practicing minimalism. KonMari's method of organizing was tremendously helpful in declutting my things. Please know that this was a two year long journey. First step was to purge everything and then came the organizing part. Now, I go through declutter every few months to keep my stuff in check. I mindfully buy new things, rather, rarely buy new things. I buy things that provide high value in terms of usability and practicality.

Because there are less things, I spend way less time cleaning my house, which gives me more time to spend with family and my other hobbies.

Sensory Stimulation​

I have hightened olfacotry senses and they get even higher when I am burning out. I noticed that constant

So when ever I notice the above things getting out of hand, I take it slow and take a break. Sometimes even taking a half a day off on a Friday helps me alot to regulate my burn out.I am also able to figure out when I am sensorily overstimlated and take necessary measures before it gets too late.I am also learning to say no.All these things have helped me manage my burn out off late.

In the last week, I got myself a new learning journey and as you may have already guessed, its to learn API documentation.

I am an avid learner and yet again I am diving into another unknown landscape. This got me thinking as to why I keep tasking myself with such goals? It's not like I have tons of time in my life, so, why do I keep picking up these new learning journeys? Well, the answer is this pattern I noticed in myself. I find immense happiness achieving these unconsciously given goals.

So for my this journey, I am diligently following the "API Docs Course" from I'd Rather Be Writing blog. I spent about an hour early this week to get my perquisites installed and tested. Now, I am all ready to dive into learning API documentation.

I will keep posting my journey and learning updates, at least weekly. So, if you are interested, follow me on uncovering "What API documentation is anyway?". I am sure this is going to be a very fun full journey journey.

~ Until later 👋.

I have been busy advocating for the technical community at ForgeRock over the past several months. I would like to share some of the key traits that have helped me become a passionate developer commuity advocate.

1. Empathy​

When starting a new job, one of the first things I do is to experience the ‘First Hello World.’ As a self-taught developer, achieving my first ‘Hello World’ is always an exciting milestone. During this journey, I encountered various challenges that I initially thought were unique to me. However, I quickly realized that these challenges were shared by my community.

To gain insights, I conducted surveys and engaged with our technical consultants and sales engineers. This allowed me to understand the community’s journey better. I gathered data and information, which revealed commonalities between my experiences and those of the community. My ability to truly listen and empathize, having gone through the journey myself, helped me better understand and address the community’s challenges.

Tip: Always put yourself in their shoes to understand how it feels!

2. Asking Questions​

Asking questions is a powerful way to gain understanding. I consistently ask a variety of questions to collect valuable feedback. Here are some questions and considerations that have helped me uncover the pain points of the community:

• Understanding the community’s journey.
• Evaluating the current on boarding experience.
• Identifying the steps involved in implementing the product.
• Assessing resource requirements.
• Gauging the usefulness of available resources.
• Exploring the value of other resources.

I particularly appreciate open-ended questions, as they provide an opportunity to discover pain points that I may not have personally encountered but are prevalent within the community.

Tip : Always wear the shoes to understand how it feels!

3. Delivering and Gathering Feedback​

The final crucial step is to align deliverables with the leadership’s and company’s overarching goals. It is essential to ensure that what you decide to deliver effectively addresses the community’s challenges. Establish a clear roadmap for achieving your goals. While planning and executing initiatives, maintain consistent communication with your community to ensure that your deliverables are valuable.

Track relevant metrics to gauge the success of your initiatives. For instance, if improving engagement is the goal, monitor metrics such as event registrations, attendance, forum activity, survey response rates, and more.

Tip: Measure what matters!

These traits have been instrumental in helping me deliver successful initiatives for my developer community. I receive positive feedback from the community regarding the usefulness of current initiatives and valuable insights about their future needs, which helps inform my strategic roadmaps.

👋 Until next time!