Don’t do as I do, or in other works, how to ask for burnout. As open source developers say: free things are gifts. You should be grateful for having access to opensource software and stop blaming the developers. tl;dr: Only do volunteer work you will enjoy.

Sleep better

Sleep is fundamental, paramount. If you don’t sleep properly, stop reading now and come back when you do.

Learn to detect things to say No to

I started my master’s degree in fall 2023, and I was looking for projects. In one and a half months, I found a remote job back in my home country, not paying a that much, and yet I was convinced that I was going to succeed there. In one month I was fired.

Later that month, I talked to a professor who was offering “remote volunteer positions” in his newly established lab. “This project will be easy for you, will take only a few months and you will have a publication out of it”. It’s been almost 2 years and no publication yet, because the requirements are changing and so on and so on. I felt I was being captured by that professor, and because.

Do focused projects

My guess is that in technology, the barrier to start stuff is super low. Often it starts with some command line to create an app template, then you have you super cool app template and super excited to start doing things. Then you recall the software development curve.

Do not overlook importance over time

The importance over time for a dealine follows an interesting curve, at least for me. You have 3 months to deliver something, then a week before the deadline you are super desperate trying to catch up all those months of work. What happened to me is that I was super focused on the volunteer lab stuff. I decided to track my time, and for many weeks, I was working just SO much for that, and had completely obliterated my other work, that was actually paying me.

Beware of volunteer stuff

Volunteer work is cool, but beware of people trying to capitalize on you. Remember to live also.