When even Stack Overflow couldn’t save me, a single sticky note did. It was Minimum Viable Effort → Consistency → Identity → Reconnection.
(details below 👇)

It didn’t happen all at once.

At first, I just started ignoring my side projects.
Then I stopped opening VS Code on weekends.
Then even reading about new tools made me feel exhausted.

I told myself I was “just busy.”
But the truth? I was quietly burning out.

The bug that broke me wasn’t hard.
It was just one more thing , after weeks of feeling like I was running in place, learning nothing new, and watching AI autocomplete code I didn’t even feel like I wrote.

When even Stack Overflow couldn’t save me, a single sticky note did. It was Minimum Viable Effort → Consistency → Identity → Reconnection.
(details below 👇)

It didn’t happen all at once.

At first, I just started ignoring my side projects.
Then I stopped opening VS Code on weekends.
Then even reading about new tools made me feel exhausted.

I told myself I was “just busy.”
But the truth? I was quietly burning out.

The bug that broke me wasn’t hard.
It was just one more thing , after weeks of feeling like I was running in place, learning nothing new, and watching AI autocomplete code I didn’t even feel like I wrote.

That day, I didn’t just want a break. I wanted out.

I was ready to quit coding, not in anger, but in surrender.
Because when the thing you used to love starts feeling like a chore, quitting feels like relief.

But instead of quitting… I tried something else.

One tiny habit. Five minutes a day. No expectations.
And somehow, that changed everything. Let me explain how.

“Developers are silently burning out in the comfort of their home setups.”
— Swyx or Cassidy Williams

What I’m sharing today in this story covers:

• How burnout sneaks up on developers
• What makes “quitting” feel easier than fixing
• The science behind micro-habits that stick
• The exact 5-minute practice that saved my coding rhythm
• Tips to bounce back without burnout
• Tools and resources if you’re feeling stuck

As a side note: writing helps me express and share my ideas more effectively, and I am also learning to improve my video-making skills. I have created one here on this topic; I’d love if you shared your feedback.

Burnout isn’t loud; it just numbs you

I didn’t rage-quit. There was no dramatic rm -rf moment. No “I’m switching to product management” tweet.

It was quieter than that.

First, I ghosted my side project. Then I stopped opening VS Code unless I had to. Then even a simple console.log() felt like too much effort. Sadly, in only a few months, I gained 10 kilos of extra body weight.

I told myself I was just busy. Or tired. But deep down, I knew something was off.

And I’m not alone.

According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, 32% of developers say they’re miserable at work, while another 47% are just barely surviving.

That’s nearly 80% of unhappy developers, not burned-out at first glance, but emotionally checked-out or compounding fatigue.

New frameworks would drop, and I wouldn’t even pretend to care.
Hot takes on Twitter? Muted.
Even AI tools couldn’t generate enough excitement to make me fake productivity.

And the worst part?

The code still ran. But I didn’t.

That’s the sneaky part of burnout, it doesn’t shout.
It just slowly replaces your curiosity with apathy.
You’re not frustrated, you’re just… blank.

You stare at the screen like it owes you something.
Like maybe if you just refresh your terminal one more time, your passion will magically recompile.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

And once that numbness sets in, the “logical” solution creeps in, too.

Just quit.

The easy way out was quitting, and I almost did

The thoughts didn't come at once.
They crept in between failed builds and unread notifications.

“Salaries aren’t even growing anymore.”
“Every job post wants five years of experience for a junior role.”
“AI is writing half my code, is there even a point to grind?”
“Did I miss the golden era of tech?”

Quitting wasn’t some dramatic moment.
It was a quiet backup plan, the kind you rehearse while waiting for npm install to finish.

And honestly, it felt like relief.

No more guilt for not pushing code at 2 a.m.
No more pretending to care about which framework is winning the imaginary war.
No more anxiety every time someone mentioned “technical debt” or “prompt engineering.”

I didn’t want to switch careers. I just didn’t want to feel exhausted all the time. But here’s the twist: quitting sounds easier than it is.

Because even when I was mentally checked out, some part of me still loved building things. I just didn’t know how to do it without burning myself again.

But quitting was hard too, so I tried something smaller

I didn’t fully quit. But I stopped trying. And deep down, I knew I couldn’t just “snap out of it” with a Pomodoro timer or a motivational podcast. Then I read Atomic Habits by James Clear and loved this sentence:

“When you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do.”

It clicked.

The goal wasn’t to build a new feature. Or commit code. Or write 100 lines.

The goal was just to show up.

So I grabbed a sticky note and wrote one line:

“Just open your code editor for 5 minutes.”

No expectations. No system. Just open it. Sit with it. Five minutes. That’s it.

Some days, I closed it in six.
Some days, I lost track of time and ended up coding for an hour.
Some days, I did nothing and still called it a win.

Here’s why it helped and no, it’s not magic. It’s behavioral science.

• Tiny habits work because they’re too small to fail. You don’t need motivation. Just momentum. (James Clear)
• Identity matters opening the editor told my brain, “I’m still a developer.” That’s powerful. (BJ Fogg)
• Your brain likes closure once you start something, the Zeigarnik Effect makes you want to continue. Just opening the editor primes you to engage.
• No friction = no guilt, I stopped over-planning, over-goaling, and over-Notioning. And suddenly, I was showing up again.

It wasn’t productivity. It was presence. And presence, over time, quietly became progress.

It wasn’t motivation I needed, just a way back in

The 5-minute habit wasn’t impressive. It didn’t make me faster, smarter, or more productive. But it did make me present.

And presence is what I’d been missing.

At first, it felt like nothing. I opened the editor, stared at a few lines of code, closed it, and walked away.

But something subtle was happening. I was rebuilding my identity, not as a “productive developer,” but as someone who still showed up.

Somewhere around the second week, I stopped counting minutes.
I caught myself tweaking UI, updating logic, renaming folders I once feared touching. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

There was no system.
No gamified dashboard.
Just small wins stacked on top of presence.

And here’s the truth I didn’t see coming:

I didn’t need motivation.
I needed a frictionless way to remember why I liked this in the first place.

That’s what the tiny habit gave me.

The spark didn’t return with fireworks. It showed up quietly five minutes at a time until one day I realized…I was back.

So if you’re on the edge, thinking of quitting or ghosting your craft try this:

Don’t set goals. Don’t chase momentum. Just open the editor.

Five minutes. No pressure. Just presence.

It might be all you need to begin again.

Tips to bounce back without burning out again

If you’re trying to find your way back into coding without falling into the same cycle, here are a few things that helped me, and might help you too:

• Lower the bar — then lower it again Start with a habit that feels almost too easy. If it takes more than a minute to begin, it’s too much.
• Don’t track output No “lines of code.” No commits. Just presence. You’re not building momentum you’re rebuilding trust in yourself.
• Quit the guilt Skipping a day? Fine. Don’t let one off-day restart the shame spiral. Burnout recovery is not a productivity sprint.
• Don’t goal-set too early Let curiosity lead for a while. Work on something weird, fun, broken, or entirely useless. That’s where joy hides.
• Celebrate small returns Opened your editor? That counts. Wrote one line? That’s momentum. The goal is to feel like a dev again not act like a machine.

I made a quick video on developer myths that waste your time and pile on unnecessary pressure give it a watch here.

Closing thoughts and an open thread

If you’ve ever felt like you were done with coding…If you’ve hovered over the idea of quitting and wondered if it was burnout, boredom, or both…

You’re not alone.

I didn’t write this to preach a method. I wrote it because I know what it’s like to stare at your editor and feel nothing. And I know the courage it takes just to try again.

If you’ve been there, or are there right now, drop a comment below.
What helped you come back? What tiny habit (or big change) made the difference?

If you’re still figuring it out, that’s okay too.

Share your story. Or just say “same.” Let’s build a thread that reminds devs:
You’re not broken. You’re not behind. You’re just human.

And sometimes, five quiet minutes are more powerful than all the productivity hacks combined.

Helpful reads & resources

If you’re feeling stuck, these helped me or at least made me feel less alone:

• Atomic Habits by James Clear on building systems, not goals
• Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg the science of small wins
• Zeigarnik Effect (Wikipedia)why starting helps you finish
• 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey dev burnout stats