I used to feel extremely exhausted everyday after work, which leaves me with barely any form of motivation to do anything. As a junior developer in the industry, I felt that I need to change the way I do things, so at least when I get home, I still have some energy left to practice my programming because I really do enjoy it.
I treat programming as my hobby and it makes me happy to be able to solve small challenges through code. However, it was obvious that the mental fatigue was not allowing me to spend time on my hobby. So I decided to change things a little.
Why I was mentally exhausted?
I was constantly indulging myself in worry at work and at home. It came to me subconsciously and I did not do anything about it other than thinking more about the worries.
What if I cannot finish this task?
What if there is an email request from work tonight?
What if? What if...?
There were lots of "what ifs" taking up my brain capacity to the point that it was in a constant loop of worry. After work, the work worries subsided a little, but not too much. It was on repeat over and over again.
I knew I needed some kind of help or advice.
Living in the NOW
I listened to some advices from the audiobook
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie which says that in order to stop worrying, you just have to be in the now. Not promoting this book, but I feel it may be of some value to others out there who might be in the same situation I was.
Worries do not help in any day activities at all, apart from wasting my time. So, each time a worry came to mind, I tell myself "Hey there Mr. Syuqri, do not worry about it NOW. Put it in your to-do list and think about it LATER". My worries slowly vanished and they appeared in the form of To-Dos. I schedule each To-Do for a designated time if need be, or leave them floating if they aren't important.
Although my schedule each day is filled now from day (work) to night (side projects), I feel a sense of ease at each point in time as I am only focused at the task at hand, and nothing else. This certainly helps in productivity and ultimately frees more time for myself - something that worry has never done for me.
TLDR
Think and live in the now. Worries should be transformed into To-Dos (scheduled or free floating) and be taken care of later.
What are you struggles in your busy schedule? How do you overcome them?
Top comments (9)
Thank you so much for sharing this. It happens to a lot of people. It increases stress, reduces confidence, and deminishes your overall happiness.
I’ve been in this situation a few times now the past year: and I fully agree with the fundamental statement: live more in the now than spending time on your worries. Putting that to practice is a lot more difficult and is different for every person. Of course, there is a lot of common advice that will probably help for most people!
For me, “getting organized” usually solves things: get that inbox cleared, take notes of everything spinning in your mind. Try to get a clear head to “refresh” yourself.
However, if this turns out to be difficult and you keep delaying it: take a break from work or something in your personal life.
I’ve noticed that taking a few days off, or delegating a lot of things to other people (eg: ask for help) is the golden nugget to get out of the hole you might be digging deeper every day.
Be honest to yourself, and to your teammates and boss, and just step out for a little bit. A little breathing room is probably the best solution to “get organized”.
Again, thanks for posting! We need more honesty about this :)
Glad you found this post useful! I feel we as a community should share more about how we overcome these situations because it is clear that developers are not void of these thoughts.
Definitely will take this into consideration.. Many a times I feel it to be a hassle for me to transfer knowledge in order for another person to do the task at hand.. But it is definitely beneficial to have more minds working on a particular problem than just my own!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!!
Yes, I still feel that. However, if you do this and you practice it well you will be able to scale yourself (so more benefit for your team) and it will create mental space for you to spend more energy in the things that you need to spend energy on!
This is the essence of Mindfulness - the continued intention to fully show up for this moment as it is.
Many of our fears are not actually present in the here-and-now. They are mind-constructed episodes that live in the past or the future. Your mind is a wonderfully constructed, but badly calibrated, "what-if" machine. It's job is to present you with things to worry about.
I have a practice similar to the above, which I call "Thank you, mind". Whenever I find myself worrying about something persistently, I imagine myself having a conversation with my mind. Sometimes I'm shaking it's hand (it looks like a little cloud with eyes), and I simply say, "thank you, mind".
For some reason, this has a similar effect to writing down my worries. My mind feels like it's done its job, and chills out for a bit. You should try it!
Thanks for the tip! Definitely will try to incorporate it into my eliminate-worry routing :D
Let me know how you go! And send me any questions
Great post !
I've found that organization & planning are the enemies of stress and anxiety.
Too much to do, and don't know where to start ?
Organize your workload and setup a plan. It will clear your brain RAM and get you back to feeling productive :)
Exactly! Great point there.. too many a times we know theres a lot to do but not sure which to do first.. Setting up a plan certainly helps :)
This is awesome! I feel like I always worry too much, and get caught up in the what if details...thanks for sharing this!