I’m struggling to disconnect from work. I’ve been working on an interesting problem for the last couple of weeks (compacting change data capture events from sharded MySQL servers into BigQuery). It’s an interesting technical problem. There are lots of optimization opportunities and novel patterns I can introduce.
I’m on vacation for the next two weeks but since starting my trip my mind keeps returning to the problem. I’ve even solved a few issues and come up with new patterns to try while daydreaming as we travel. Obviously I haven’t implemented any changes, I deliberately didn’t bring my work laptop with me. I emailed those solutions to my work email address so they get out of my head but that hasn’t helped. I just visualized more optimizations while hiking today.
There is no expectations from my leadership to work while on vacation.
How do others disconnect from work when I enjoy the problem solving aspects of my work?
If you actually enjoy it, why bother? Every single person is different. People saying that you’ll suffer from burnout don’t realize that not everyone works the same.
If you enjoy what you’re doing, and have no pressure from management to work on your free time, continue doing it. You don’t need to give in to other people’s idea of a balanced life.