Update and rename maintaining-balance-for-open-source-maintainers.md to Maintaining Balance and Avoiding Burnout for Open Source Maintainers

# Maintaining Balance for Open Source Maintainers

**Summary:**  
This guide provides tips for self-care and avoiding burnout as a maintainer, based on experiences from the Maintainer Community.

---

## Key Concepts

1. **Personal Ecology** – maintaining balance, pacing, and efficiency to sustain energy over time.  
2. **Burnout Signs** – chronic stress, loss of motivation, inability to focus, reduced empathy.  
3. **Motivation Awareness** – understanding what energizes you to prioritize your work effectively.

---

## Common Causes of Burnout

<details>
<summary>Click to expand examples from maintainers</summary>

- **Lack of positive feedback:**  
  > "Sometimes it feels a bit like shouting into the void and I find that feedback really energizes me. We have lots of happy but quiet users."  
  — [@thisisnic](https://github.com/thisisnic), Apache Arrow maintainer

- **Taking on too much:**  
  > "I found I was taking on more than one should and having to do the job of multiple people, like commonly done in FOSS."  
  — [@agnostic-apollo](https://github.com/agnostic-apollo), Termux maintainer

- **Working alone / isolation:**  
  > "Especially since COVID and working from home it's harder to never see anybody or talk to anybody."  
  — [@gabek](https://github.com/gabek), Owncast maintainer

- **Insufficient time or resources:**  
  > "[I would like to have] more financial support, so that I can focus on the open source work without burning through my savings and knowing I'll have to do a lot of contracting to make up for it later."  
  — open source maintainer

- **Conflicting demands:**  
  > "With paid open source, conflict between employer's focus and what's best for the community."  
  — open source maintainer

</details>

---

## Tips for Self-Care and Avoiding Burnout

### 1. Identify Your Motivations
Reflect on what energizes you in open source work. Examples:
- Positive feedback from users
- Collaborating with community
- Enjoyment of coding and problem-solving

### 2. Reflect on Stress Triggers
Track what makes you feel burned out, such as lack of feedback, overcommitment, isolation, or conflicting demands.

### 3. Watch for Signs of Burnout
Ask yourself:
- Can I maintain this pace for 10 weeks? 10 months? 10 years?  
- Use tools like the [Burnout Checklist](https://governingopen.com/resources/signs-of-burnout-checklist.html) or wearables to track stress and sleep.

---

### 4. Sustain Yourself and Your Community

<details>
<summary>Click to expand maintainers’ tips and quotes</summary>

- **Lean on the community:**  
  > "Even a small number of people supporting my work on GitHub helped me make a quick decision not to sit in front of a game but instead to do one little thing with open source."  
  — [@mansona](https://github.com/mansona), EmberJS maintainer

- **Use tools:**  
  > "Use [Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot) for the boring stuff - do the fun stuff."  
  — open source maintainer

- **Rest and recharge:**  
  > "I'm finding more opportunity to sprinkle ‘moments of creativity' in the middle of the day rather than trying to switch off in evening."  
  — [@danielroe](https://github.com/danielroe), Nuxt maintainer

- **Set boundaries:**  
  > "To meaningfully trust others on these axes, you cannot be someone who says yes to every request. In doing so, you maintain no boundaries, professionally or personally, and will not be a reliable coworker."  
  — [@MikeMcQuaid](https://github.com/mikemcquaid), Homebrew maintainer

- **Protect your time:**  
  > "My software is gratis, but my time and attention is not."  
  — [@IvanSanchez](https://github.com/IvanSanchez), Leaflet maintainer

- **Handle toxic interactions:**  
  > "It's no secret that open source maintenance has its dark sides, and one of these is having to sometimes interact with quite ungrateful, entitled or outright toxic people."  
  — [@foosel](https://github.com/foosel), Octoprint maintainer

</details>

---

## Additional Resources

- [Maintainer Community](http://maintainers.github.com/)
- [The Social Contract of Open Source](https://snarky.ca/the-social-contract-of-open-source/)
- [Uncurled](https://daniel.haxx.se/uncurled/)
- [SustainOSS](https://sustainoss.org/)
- [Rockwood Art of Leadership](https://rockwoodleadership.org/art-of-leadership/)
- [Saying No](https://mikemcquaid.com/saying-no/)

---

## Contributors

Written by [@abbycabs](https://github.com/abbycabs) with contributions from:  
[@agnostic-apollo](https://github.com/agnostic-apollo), [@gabek](https://github.com/gabek), [@danielroe](https://github.com/danielroe), [@MikeMcQuaid](https://github.com/mikemcquaid), [@thisisnic](https://github.com/thisisnic), and many others.

---

**Labels (optional):** `guide`, `community`, `self-care`, `burnout`

Author: cshein45

_articles/Maintaining Balance and Avoiding Burnout for Open Source Maintainers

@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+# Maintaining Balance for Open Source Maintainers
+
+**Summary:**  
+This guide provides tips for self-care and avoiding burnout as a maintainer, based on experiences from the Maintainer Community.
+
+---
+
+## Key Concepts
+
+1. **Personal Ecology** – maintaining balance, pacing, and efficiency to sustain energy over time.  
+2. **Burnout Signs** – chronic stress, loss of motivation, inability to focus, reduced empathy.  
+3. **Motivation Awareness** – understanding what energizes you to prioritize your work effectively.
+
+---
+
+## Common Causes of Burnout
+
+- **Lack of positive feedback** – Users often only report issues, not successes.  
+- **Taking on too much** – Saying “yes” to every task leads to overwhelm.  
+- **Working alone** – Isolation can increase stress.  
+- **Insufficient time/resources** – Especially for volunteer maintainers.  
+- **Conflicting demands** – Between personal goals, employers, or community expectations.
+
+---
+
+## Tips for Self-Care and Avoiding Burnout
+
+### 1. Identify Your Motivations
+Reflect on what energizes you in open source work. Examples:
+- Positive feedback from users
+- Collaborating with community
+- Enjoyment of coding and problem-solving
+
+### 2. Reflect on Stress Triggers
+Track what makes you feel burned out, such as lack of feedback, overcommitment, isolation, or conflicting demands.
+
+### 3. Watch for Signs of Burnout
+Ask yourself:
+- Can I maintain this pace for 10 weeks? 10 months? 10 years?  
+- Use tools like the [Burnout Checklist](https://governingopen.com/resources/signs-of-burnout-checklist.html) or wearables to track stress and sleep.
+
+### 4. Sustain Yourself and Your Community
+- **Lean on the community** – delegate tasks, engage contributors, connect with peer groups like the [Maintainer Community](http://maintainers.github.com/).  
+- **Explore funding** – GitHub Sponsors, accelerators, grants.  
+- **Use tools** – GitHub Actions, Copilot for automating repetitive tasks.  
+- **Rest and recharge** – hobbies, sleep, time off, and setting GitHub status.  
+- **Set boundaries** – clearly communicate availability, priorities, and expectations.
+
+---
+
+## Additional Resources
+
+- [Maintainer Community](http://maintainers.github.com/)
+- [The Social Contract of Open Source](https://snarky.ca/the-social-contract-of-open-source/)
+- [Uncurled](https://daniel.haxx.se/uncurled/)
+- [SustainOSS](https://sustainoss.org/)
+- [Rockwood Art of Leadership](https://rockwoodleadership.org/art-of-leadership/)
+- [Saying No](https://mikemcquaid.com/saying-no/)
+
+---
+
+## Contributors
+
+Many thanks to all maintainers who shared their experiences and tips!  
+Written by [@abbycabs](https://github.com/abbycabs) with contributions from:  
+[@agnostic-apollo](https://github.com/agnostic-apollo), [@gabek](https://github.com/gabek), [@danielroe](https://github.com/danielroe), [@mikemcquaid](https://github.com/mikemcquaid), [@thisisnic](https://github.com/thisisnic), and many others.
+
+---
+
+**Labels (optional):** `guide`, `community`, `self-care`, `burnout`