DEV Community

Discussion on: How do you work on projects you don't like? [Need mental support :(]

Collapse
 
chrisgreening profile image
Chris Greening

I've been facing a somewhat similar situation lately

For a while I was able to tell myself "sooner started, sooner done" to keep me moving through the projects/tasks but over weeks and months it started contributing to significant burnout and I wasn't getting my other work done. This was making me anxious and even more burned out thinking about the prospect of getting through the backlog that was steadily building up and it was this never ending cycle

Eventually I had to tell my boss that those particular tasks were not an effective use of my time and he immediately switched gears and found someone better suited to handle those tasks to take the load off my back and I was able to get back to the work I'm very effective at

I'm only now making steady gains through the backlog that built up and it'll take me about a month to get back on track but I feel more confident grinding through the next month of work I enjoy than I did about doing even a couple days of those other tasks

If possible maybe talk to your manager or lead and communicate your situation and see what they say - there's a good chance they don't realize that this is an ineffective use of your skills. I was able to silently build a lot of resentment, frustration, and burnout in my personal echo chamber and all I had to do to resolve it was have a 2 minute conversation with my boss

Best of luck my friend! You're not alone in these feelings - being a developer can be a rough gig sometimes