Don’t work more than enough

Sometimes we push ourselves to the max. maybe because it is there are some deadlines when we are not going to be able to release the new version, maybe it is because our life outside work is not good enough or maybe because we are excited to be working in such a company/technology/team.

However, our mental health is going to be damaged by overworking. The question is not how much, but when we are going to get burned out by overworking.

Workers' day special

Today is the first of May. Worker’s day in most of the world. This day we remember those who gave their lives for their rights and we salute the ones that are fighting for them nowadays.

Doesn’t matter the reason you are overworking

Well, that is not 100% true. If you are overworking because you need to pay your bills the situation is going to be worse. What I mean for it doesn’t matter the reason is that the mental health baggage is a bag; each time you work in this profession you get some weight inside; each time you overwork, you place heavy weight objects inside. And don’t think the baggege is going to be away by its own after some months. It is going to be here until you take care of yourself.

You are not a robot, you are human

Sometimes our job is a chore. Upgrading packages/systems, refactoring code bases without any single tests, programming languages that were designed by a cousin of the devil… You get my point. While the feeling of empowerment we experience when sometimes work as desired is a bliss, it is sadly not enough to remove all the clutter that keeps growing in our brain because of the stress-inducing tasks.

We are not robots. We are humans and we are fallible. You can see it in the mistakes I make while I am writting this in the Shakespeare’s tongue. What I mean is that we get tired. I am not sure why but as biologically-based entities we get tired, mentally tired.

We would like to be robots, non-stop working, creating the systems of tomorrow with software… but that is simply not the truth.

We will start feeling cranky, then angry, then we will not be able to be in the zone and then we will need to get some PTO because we will be actually unable to do our work at all.

Solutions

Keep a health speed at work

Do not try to work as fast as possible. It doesn’t make sense to you or your employer. You are going to burn out yourself pretty quickly, like a candle in the dark. You are going to increase an amount of bad-designed code, bugs, and so much technical debt that your team is going to need to work on fixing the issues you have caused.

To sum up, you are going to become an agent of the enemy, the chaos, the entropy we (as software engineers) are always fighting tooth-and-nail.

That’s not helping you or anybody else, so working well also means to think about the work you need to do, and keeping a healthy speed that allows you to work well and creates well-engineered code.

Recharge your mental health

From time to time you will need some activies that disconeect you from your job. Your job is not your life, it is a very important part of your life, but you need to have time for your loved ones, hobbies, and other activies that you like.

You need some other activities that programming. Hobbies like reading, running, travelling, etc. activities that relax the logic part of your brain while stimulate the others. Find your own recharging activities.

Even better are activities that you do with others. Our profession can lead to issolation (will talk about this in other post), even more if you work from home. So by doing things with others, you are fighting against the tendency of feeling alone and all the perilous things associated with loneliness.

Conclusion

Software engineering is a taxing activity for the brain. You will need some different activities to rest your brain and preserve your mental health in good condition.