Tips to overcome work-related overthinking?
I’ve been more and more stressed out about work during weekends; I tend to think a lot about the things I couldn’t finish this week and how to tackle them in the upcoming week. I’ve been getting obsessed to the point I really don’t enjoy weekends and I can’t relax.
It would be unfair to blame external pressures, it is just me overthinking.
What are your strategies to avoid this?
I used to be just like you, I worked for a small startup, I was in essence their only programmer. I considered the owners my friends. Then one day I got sick and send a message saying I wasn’t going to be able to go on that day, one of the owners came in that day and asked for me (just because he found it weird that I wasn’t there) and another one of the owners threw a tantrum at me over email saying I couldn’t just decide not to go, that I either took a dr note or the day would be discounted from my pay. That did it for me, in that moment I realised that the weekends and extra hours I had given them were worthless, I went back a few days later with the Dr note and my resignation. On my next job I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t take work home, they forced clock in and clock out times, so the moment I clocked out I forgot everything about the work, and if ever I started to think about it I would remind myself that they don’t care.
I work for a much better company now, and as a general rule as soon as the work is done I’m done with work, there are exceptions when things need to happen before a certain date, but I also get TOIL or something in exchange.
If the owners were your friends they would have recognized how pivotal you were and given you significant equity. I’m sure you already know, but it is possible to be friends with the owners of the company you work for, but friends value each other and wouldn’t let their friends work that hard without making sure they’re properly compensated with stock, so proper reward and friendship go hand in hand, and friendship is not a replacement for compensation no matter how good of friends you are.
Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet, but… If you’re trying to hold your unfinished work in your head, then it’ll hound you whenever you aren’t working. So get it out of your head. Write it down.
Just mind dump into a text file or email to yourself or calendar event (for Monday morning) or sticky note or whatever works for you. Get down everything you can think of that’ll need your attention the next time you’re working.
Then, forget about it. Now that you have it captured somewhere, you can stop thinking about it until Monday morning or whatever. If you didn’t capture it, your brain won’t let you stop thinking about it. But now, present you knows that past you has teed things up for future you, so there’s no need to remain preoccupied.
You’ll know right away if this approach is right for you. If you feel a sense of relief after getting your mind dump out, then you’re onto something.
I do this, I dump everything into notepad ++ files, and the forget it. Todos, meeting notes, SQL queries, reminders, contact info, you name it. Screw OneNote, np++ is king.
Yeah, it can be super simple. Better if it is, really.
This is absolutely the right approach. It creates a mental safety net so that your mind feels like it can let go, and as a result you do. After that it’s just a trickle of occasional new thoughts, as opposed to continuous storm. Wonderful approach, can’t recommend it enough
“Mental safety net” is a perfect way to put it. You don’t have to keep constantly resurfacing the same thoughts over and over so as to not forget them.
This may sound cliche, but practicing meditation and mindfulness. The key is to be able to acknowledge and accept that you’re having a thought about something, but then divert your mind to the present if it is not a “now” problem.
I’d add reading (or listening) two books:
The Art Of Mindful Living by Thich Nhat Hanh
• Easy to digest, relaxing listen, to practice mindfulness.Getting Things Done by David Allen
• Get all the things out of your head and into a trusted system.
This did it for me.
A phrase that helps me with this: “There’s always more work to do.”
It’s comforting in two ways. 1. Job security. 2. There’s no need to get everything done at work before the weekend.
Obviously, you want to be productive and leave work with a sense of accomplishment. However, it’s important to realize work is cyclical in nature, and it’s never truly finished.
You can finish a project, but there’s going to be ongoing maintenance of that project and/or a new project right behind that one. And this is a good thing!
Try to think of unfinished tasks as assets or resources for you. Because they are. They are not bad things holding you back. They are new challenges to be taken on next week. They are the reason you get paid.
Final thought: getting rest away from work is vitally important. It recharges your creative batteries. So even when you aren’t actively working, you are passively making yourself better and renewed for the next cycle.
When I started working (software developer) I thought I was like that, but at one point I saw that everyone is on an ejection seat, everyone can be fired or replaced in a company even if you think you are irreplaceable and here for 25 years.
So at one point in my life I started to switch my work brain at off at 5PM. No work emails/teams on my cellphone too. I started to don’t care and don’t give a shit.
I used to constantly be stressed out that I’d be fired. I was always a good worker, but that anxiety is brutal. Every small mistake I’d make I’d worry for days after that the hammer would fall any second.
One day I was so anxious that I made myself vomit. That was the day I had a pep talk to myself.
Chances are, you’re a hirable person. If, for some reason, you lose your job, chances are you’ll find a new one, even if it’s an interim job that you need to hold you over until something better comes along.
You need to think long and hard about the worst things that could happen if you don’t think about work until Monday. What’s rhe worst thing that could happen if you waited until Mondat to start thinking about how to tackle what you didn’t finish last week? How much time would that take out of your Monday? How far back would that push your tasks?
Most likely, it won’t push you back very much in terms of time. Or, maybe it pushes you back an hour. Is that extra hour worth replacing 48 hours of constant worry and anxiety? Probably.
You have to think about the fundamental base of what’s causing you to stress about this over the weekend. What are you worried will happen if you don’t think about it? Once you understand that, you can start reasoning with yourself as to why you don’t have to worry about that particular thing.
Distract yourself with hobbies and exercise.
Volunteering twice a week did wonders for me.
My problem was that I didn’t have enough other (pleasant) things to think about in my day-to-day so my brain would just default to thinking about work projects.
I will obsess some 30% of my time about something. I can’t change that, but I can make it be about something I like.
Gardening. You can’t think about work if you’re wrist deep in the soil.
Unless OP is a gardener :D But totally agree, if it’s an office job, doing some physical work can do wonders.
A healthy “fuck it, i don’t care” attitude goes a long way for me at least.
That, or “I don’t get paid enough to care, fuck em”
:-)
Yeah, same. I used to care about my job, but after lots of changes it appears that my opinion isn’t worth much any more, and whatever I do there’s one particular person who constantly complains that they had to fix something I did (yet doesn’t tell me at the time, I always find this out later during a rant/comment), or that I haven’t done something which is apparently vitally important simply because he decrees it so, and if I try to improve things that’s wrong too (despite that he seems to get away with “improving” things with no comeback and no fights - which has previously meant my responsibilities are no longer mine). Basically he’s the bane of my working life at the moment and he isn’t even management. So now I’m done with caring and just try to stick to stuff I do which either nobody else wants to do or nobody else knows much about, and if that doesn’t fill up much of my day so be it. At least that’s not going to be constantly questioned and it looks like I’m still valuable.
I do two things that might not be mentioned otherwise:
1. I have an end of workday regular, scheduled transition activity that occupies my mind - something stupid and simple (online multiplayer video game with tournaments that start at 5 and 7pm locally each day). I try to get work wrapped up enough to break away at 5pm and start a tournament most days. If it’s a particularly busy day, I try for the 7pm. It occupies my mind for 30 mins or so, and in combination I play YouTube videos in the background. It’s long enough to break the chains from the day’s activities and set me up for a good night most days.
2. Learn to use the sleep functionality on your computer. At the end of the day, I deliberately toggle it on and it feels like a tangible “end” to the day.
Not always successful, but works enough of the time. And most importantly… Know that your company DOES.NOT.GIVE.A.SHIT.ABOUT.YOU. and let that drive your courage to push that sleep button at the end of each day.
Milton handled it well I think.
Idk seems to me like getting your pina colada order messed up is worse
A couple of hours before the end of the work day and especially on Friday, set a goal for what you intend to accomplish for the day and set the deadline to 30 minutes before you log off. If you meet the deadline, you have 30 minutes to decompress and clear your mind of work before you log off. If not, then you have an extra 30 minutes to finish what you are doing. Keep an eye on the time and do not commit to starting something you know won’t be done by the time you log off, because then it stays in your mind over the weekend.
Buy and use a Muse 2 neurofeedback device.
Not affiliated
No disrespect, but paying $250 to meditate seems like the worst of capitalism to me.
It’s not meditation. It’s neurofeedback. They call it meditation because most people don’t know the other term.
Everything goes into my calendar or a ticket.
I block a 15 minute meeting for myself every morning, and 2-3 hours every afternoon.
I arrive Monday knowing that past “me” organized, assigned, and scheduled everything I need to do.
I leave Friday knowing that schmuck future “me” has a lot to do, and it’s not my problem now.
Fuck future me, past me is a dick, present me is absent.
